CH 15

Liu-shiye was stopped in his tracks by the arresting glare of the old woman. His body stiffened and his eyes widened –– he was so frightened that he forgot to breathe.

He who commits unforgivable sins [a] will have a day when he does not dare to face his mother. Liu-shiye looked miserable, but in comparison to Liu Chong next to him, wiping his tears, there was a tinge of irony to Liu-shiye’s expression.

Liu-lao-taitai wiped her tears and, her gaze on Liu-shiye, she gradually ceased to sob. Though she still held tears within her eyes, her calm demeanor gave her a sense of deep sorrow.

"Why are you trembling?" Liu-lao-taitai asked mournfully. "Are you afraid that your old mother is here to kill you?" 

Liu-shiye immediately shook his head. Pale-faced and with a trembling lip, he stammered, "This son is just... just..."

After only saying a few words, he began to choke and could not go on. He hung his head and sighed heavily. He hurriedly shifted his position so that he was now kneeling, and began to kowtow to Liu-lao-taitai. "This son was tricked by the geomancer’s [b] lies. In a moment of confusion, I committed a great sin. [a] This son is not filial."

Having said his part, with tears and snot continuing to flow down his face, Liu-shiye pressed his blood-stained forehead against the floor and continued to mumble incoherent gibberish.

“You're only apologising now?" Xue Xian squinted contemptuously at Liu-shiye’s contorted shape and was disgusted. Xue Xian had always had a straightforward personality, and he hated to watch people run around in circles making excuses. Being unfilial was being unfilial; being selfish and evil was being selfish and evil; to blame it all on the geomancer was just downright shameful. Such blatant lies were probably only enough to fool one’s mother and no one else.

Liu-lao-taitai looked silently back at Liu-shiye, pondering his words. Any mother would hate to see her son in such a pathetic state. She was quiet for a long time, then sighed, "A single palm cannot clap on its own.”

If it hadn’t been on his mind in the first place, he would never have fallen for anything the geomancer might’ve said.

Liu-shiye, still kneeling on the ground, froze when he heard Liu-lao-taitai. Carefully, he raised his head and looked at his mother, searching for some clue in her eyes. But she didn't look like a vengeful ghost or resentful soul.

Liu-lao-taitai sighed again, then gestured at her son. "Come here."

The old lady must've always had a patient nature. Though her tone was gentle, there was a sense of disappointment in her voice.

The sense of disappointment was not necessarily a grudge: it wasn’t necessarily wrapped up in resentful energy. Without hesitation, Liu-shiye shuffled closer to the old woman with a sense of expectation on his face. Indeed, a vengeful ghost would never speak so mildly. There was still the possibility that things could turn out well.

"Take a look at your mom," [c] Liu-lao-taitai said softly.

"I haven't taken a good look at Mom’s face in so long,” Liu-shiye added. If you gave Liu-shiye a cun, he would take a chi. [d]

Liu-lao-taitai glared at him, then slapped him across the face!

Pa!

Nobody in the room had expected her to do that. All stood around in shock.

Liu-shiye held his face, which was frozen with astonishment.

"Mom, you–––" He seemed no longer able to even speak.

"Ah..." Xue Xian said under his breath. "My hand itches too."

Xuanmin: “...”

Liu-shiye was in such a state of shock that he hadn’t even heard what Xue Xian had said. Still gripping his own face, Liu-shiye came back to his senses and said, "I... I had no choice. I really had no choice. I had hired the geomancer for you!" 

Suddenly, he seemed to figure out what excuse to go with: "I had initially hired the geomancer to help you! Your health was getting worse by the day, and half of your body was deformed. That quack doctor Jiang told me that you had too many different illnesses and that it was impossible to cure, so that's why I decided to find a geomancer. Mom, I'm not sure if you understand... That room in the northeast had an excellent position. The geomancer said that if I installed you there, then nothing bad could ever happen to you. I just wanted you to get better. But... Ah..."

"Doesn't the northeast room belong to your second son Liu Jin?" Xue Xian asked.

Although Liu-shiye had been mid-sigh, he had heard Xue Xian this time. Automatically, he explained: "Jin-er only moved in afterwards!"

"I know," the old lady said in a melancholy voice, finally breaking her own silence. Though she was looking at Liu-shiye, she seemed to be immersed in some memory: "Not only did you put me in the best room, but you visited every day to check on me and look after me. At the end, when I couldn't move at all, you would spend all your free time by my bed... Mom remembers it all."

Now this made things a bit more ambiguous. You couldn't say he'd been unfilial, for he had clearly taken great care of his mother. You also couldn't say he had been filial, because he'd followed some geomancer's recommendations and trapped his own mom’s soul underneath his home, making sure to extract everything he could from the old woman and to not waste a single drop.

"However..." Liu-lao-taitai said, "It was only after you trapped me here that I discovered how you had come to give me the best room in the compound. You wanted to swap Chong-er's life for mine."

"That slap was for Chong-er!" As Liu-lao-taitai said this, she raised her hand again.

Pa!

The second slap landed on Liu-shiye's other cheek.

"That slap was for the daifus [e] of the Jiang family!" Liu-lao-taitai said. "My medicine from those last days... You switched it out, didn't you? I may have been dying, but I could certainly tell when my medicine had been changed. You're my son. I know you too well..." 

She shook her head and sighed. "You saw that your mom wasn't getting any better, that there was no point in being so filial to someone who was already half-dead. As long as your reputation was already out there, that was enough, so you listened to the advice of that scammer geomancer and helped your mom along the way, didn't you?"

Liu-shiye knelt there. He had nothing to say.

"Having done all that, you then went and blamed it all on the Jiang family. Although I had already become so ill that I couldn't speak, I could still hear everything the servant girls were saying. You destroyed the Jiang daifus’ reputation and their livelihoods. Don't you feel terrible?"

The old woman shut her eyes. Her newly-released body probably wasn’t able to maintain itself for much longer: her silhouette was fading, and even her face was losing detail. "I'm your mom and Chong-er is your son. When it comes to debts within your family and outside your family, these get resolved differently. This mom pushed your millstone for three years, so let's say I repaid you for everything you did for me as my son. Chong-er has lived in this shack for so long, so let's say he repaid you for keeping him alive these past twenty years. But you still owe the Jiang family. You must repay that debt."

"Mom... Mom, what do you mean?" Liu-shiye lifted his head from the ground, confused. 

“You owe what you owe. You can't erase that. All debts must be repaid." Liu-lao-taitai took one last look at her son, then turned to Xuanmin. "Dashi, is it time for me to be on my way?" she asked softly.

She seemed to have taken Xuanmin for one of those Buddhist priests that could perform transcendence rituals. 

Xuanmin looked down at her, then pointed at the millstone.

There was no need for him to speak. The old woman nodded with comprehension. Next, she turned to Liu Chong, who [f] was still sobbing. He raised his head. Though he could not have understood what his grandmother had been saying, he suddenly seemed aware that she was departing. "Grandmother... A-Are you tired?" 

"Yes," the old woman replied tenderly. "Grandmother is so tired. I need to sleep for a while."

"When I burn paper money for you from now on, will I be able to see you?"

"Grandmother hears everything you say. Even though you can't see Grandmother, Grandmother is always... always watching over you." Liu-lao-taitai turned and disappeared into the millstone. 

Xuanmin bent down to pick up the millstone, as well as Jiang Shining, who had not moved from the ground ever since he’d turned back into his paper form. Xuanmin turned and made to leave.

"Dashi! Dashi! My face––" After a moment of shock, Liu-shiye stumbled after Xuanmin. As he pawed at his cheek, he asked, "Why is my face swollen?" 

Xuanmin glanced at him.

Indeed, both of Liu-shiye's cheeks had suddenly swelled to extreme proportions. There were two clear handprints on each side: they were crimson, and the top layer of skin had peeled away from them. The capillaries beneath the surface were now visible –– they reached across his skin like large spider webs. It was a shocking sight.

"Resentful ghosts cannot touch humans," Xuanmin said.

In the blink of an eye, Liu-shiye's face had already swollen to the point where he could barely speak. "But why do I..."

"Resentful ghosts with a grudge [g] have a single opportunity to obtain justice," Xuanmin said. "They can leave a mark on the one they resent."

Liu-shiye gasped. "And then? Can she come and kill me?"

Xuanmin said, "The mark she left was not for herself. It was on behalf of Liu Chong and the Jiangs. These two parties’ suffering were all caused by you."

Liu-lao-taitai had given him a taste of his own medicine. 

"Don't go, don't go! Help me! Dashi, help me, ah––" Liu-shiye threw himself toward Xuanmin and knelt down again, shuffling closer on his knees. Desperately, he grabbed onto the hem of Xuanmin's robes.

Xue Xian, perched on Xuanmin's shoulder, suddenly said, "Hey, Liu! Let me ask you something! High summer this year, did you go to Huameng County, Guangdong Province?" 

In his panic, Liu-shiye thought the question had come from Xuanmin. He shook his head vigorously, all the while saying, "No, no, I've never been that far in my life." 

Then he mumbled, "Help me, help me..."

"How could that be?" Xue Xian sneered. 

"It's the truth, I swear! Not a single word is false. How could I dare to lie to you?" Liu-shiye looked so pathetic with his head so close to the ground that he really did seem to be telling the truth.

But how could it be?! If Liu-shiye had never been to Huameng, then how did he come to have a blood stain? Xue Xian studied the mark by the man's ear that Xuanmin had pointed out earlier that day, feeling both irritated and confused.

"If I find out that anything you say is false in any way––"

"Never! How could I dare–– Right!" Liu-shiye was grasping at straws. He became enthusiastic, as though he would cut open his skull to show them what was inside if he could. "Right! Speaking of Huameng, I did meet someone from there once. He was a fisherman. But I had nothing to do with him! All I did was buy a fake gold marble––"

"Marble?! What did it look like?" Xue Xian interrupted. He suddenly remembered that familiar weng noise between the gusts of wind earlier. He had to ask: "Where is it now?"

Liu-shiye shrank away. He began to mumble, "It's..."

"What are you muttering for? Spit it out!" Xue Xian couldn’t believe that Liu-shiye was hedging at such an important moment. He wished he could fling Liu-shiye into the south sea.

"The geomancer said that the marble was full of spiritual energy, so he melted it into the millstone..." Liu-shiye seemed to recede into his collar.

Xue Xian: “...” How could you put a real dragon's body into a fucking millstone? Why don't you fucking shove yourself into it?

He was so incensed that he fainted on the spot, his hands falling limply to his sides.

Xuanmin saw that Xue Xian seemed to have no intention of asking more questions, so made to leave again.

"You can't go! You can't go, help me, help me, ah..." Liu-shiye grabbed the corners of Xuanmin’s robes and refused to let go. 

Xuanmin looked down at him for a bit, then crouched down. In a low voice, he muttered some words that Liu-shiye couldn't make out, like some archaic sutra.

Then, he knocked Liu-shiye on the forehead with the back of his hand. The shiye felt his entire head quake, as though ten thousand bells were ringing inside his brain.

Delighted, he asked, "D-Did you heal the mark?"

Calmly, Xuanmin replied, "It is merely insurance –– the debt must be paid."

Liu-shiye froze.

Xuanmin tore his robe out of the shiye's hands, then stood up to walk away.

Liu-shiye suddenly returned to his senses, and began screaming, "Buddhists... Buddhists must be merciful––"

Without so much as a look back, Xuanmin coolly replied, "This monk has no mercy."

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The author has something to say: 

Yesterday I wrote half, and then fell asleep and didn’t update. Today I lost my wallet. Really… I got what I deserved (x

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[a] Here, the Chinese phrasing is 作孽 (zuo4 nie4), meaning to do evil –– but ‘evil’ is the ‘nie’ in ‘niezhang’.

[b] Musuli uses the word 术士 (shu4 shi4), literally “technique professional”, where 术 means magic/mysticism. In my original translation, I translated this as “wizard” because it really is what 术士 means; but I’ve since become aware that “wizard” is a sensitive term in danmei fandom since it is associated with Westerners’ reductive and Orientalist readings of danmei fantasy. I am thus retiring the term “wizard” and choosing the much more novel-specific term “geomancer” for 术士.

[c] The Chinese word here is 娘 (niang2), a more informal/intimate term for “mother.” (See Chapter 7 footnotes.)

[d] This really is a chengyu in Chinese: 得寸进尺 (de2 cun4 jin4 chi3), literally “receive cun, want chi”. 

[e] Daifu: see glossary.

[f] Musuli uses 傻子 (sha3 zi), which means “idiot”. Sometimes when I use this footnote, she is using 傻 by itself, which is an adjective rather than a noun, meaning “idiotic”.

[g] The Chinese word here is 冤 (yuan1), meaning “injustice” or “grievance”.