CH 94

Chapter 94: Some sweetness (I)

The little room on the second floor of the bamboo building in the hollow of Dustpan Mountain was a simple room with simple furnishings, so bare-bones that it barely looked habitable. The only item in the room was a bamboo bed, and it did not seem to have been used very frequently at all.         

Indeed, it did not seem like anyone had ever really used the bedroom. Who knew what kind of life the previous owner had led here? Did they not eat, did they not sleep –– were they about to ascend into godhood? 

But no matter how the owner had lived when he'd previously resided here, today, he looked perfectly normal lying there on the bed––

Xuanmin's body was blanketed by a white robe. His face was pale and grey, with no hint of life. His arms were folded neatly across his chest, and were as cold as ice, unmoving and completely still.

The first couple of days, Xue Xian had bothered him a lot. Seeing that Xuanmin's body refused to warm up, remaining as stiff as ice, Xue Xian had surrounded him with a bubble of hot air to try and steam him back to life. But at the end of it, Xuanmin's skin had still seemed cold, so Xue Xian had wanted to find something to cover him up more.

He'd looked in every corner of the bamboo building but had not found a single blanket or blanket-like thing, so he'd had to go into the nearby county seat and spend some silver on some winter bedding and a thick cloak.

Xue Xian had thought of taking off the outer layer of his own robe to cover Xuanmin with, but his pitch-black clothing, which he'd always thought looked pretty good on him, gave Xuanmin an aura of death, making him look even more hopeless –– it was too unpleasant.

Xue Xian had never been superstitious, but now he suddenly wondered if black clothes were taboo.

For the next couple of days, Xue Xian had gone back and forth, racking his brains. First he'd put the blanket on Xuanmin, then he'd feel that such a thick item didn't match Xuanmin's personality, but if he gave Xuanmin the new cloak he'd bought, the cloak's color just felt wrong too...

After searching the house again, he'd finally found a pristine white robe, and had put that on Xuanmin instead.

Having arranged the robe on top of Xuanmin so that it covered him well, Xue Xian began to worry about how uncanny Xuanmin looked lying there with his hands laid out by his side like that –– even seeing Xuanmin actually lying down horizontally was extremely strange. In Xue Xian's memories, Xuanmin was always either meditating cross-legged, or busying away at something with a serious expression on his face.

Xue Xian had sat there for a while, then become restless again, getting up to help Xuanmin shift position, and had folded Xuanmin's arms so that they were now placed calmly across his chest. 

Once he'd made sure Xuanmin was comfortable, Xue Xian took a quick trip back to the Cave of a Hundred Insects. He barrelled straight through to the stone chamber at the end and made a rubbing out of all that complicated, archaic text on the wall. 

But he couldn't read the text, so the rubbing told him nothing new.

He found some time to go visit Old Qu in the village again, to see if the old man could recognise the script.

But Old Qu didn't know either. The villager only said that the script looked similar to that of his ancestor, he'd perhaps seen one or two elders write in that way a handful of times –– but no one had truly used the script for at least a few hundred years, and today, anyone who had known how to read it was probably long dead.

So the text on the wall was temporarily of no use to Xue Xian, and, frustrated, he had to put it away.

He found a great deal of meaningless small things for himself to do, and kept himself busy doing chores while Xuanmin slept, because he could did not dare to be idle. Every time things were calm, he would be able to sense that Xuanmin's body beside him was in fact completely emptied of its soul.

Xue Xian's eyesight was endowed with the divine: he could not only see things in the material world, but also ghosts and spirits. He had seen Jiang Shining, had seen old mistress Liu, had seen the wounded soldier trapped in the dog tag... he had seen many, many things, living people and dead ghosts, but the one thing he could not see was what had happened to Xuanmin's soul.

In the end, he ran out of tasks to complete. After three or four days of activity, he had no other choice but to sit down quietly.

With the onset of quiet, Xue Xian could spend all day just sitting by the window unmoving, staring at Xuanmin's lifeless body. Sometimes he was examining Xuanmin intently, trying to see if he could detect a hint of movement or change within the monk; other times, he was simply zoning out.

The mole left by the Spider of the Same Age on Xuanmin's neck was still faint and dark, like a long-dried brown bloodstain. Xue Xian did not know when it might turn into a vivid red color again, or perhaps it never would...

Xue Xian had lived thousands of years alone, and had long gotten used to the peace and quiet that came with solitude. But now, as he watched Xuanmin lie there with his eyes closed, unspeaking, unbreathing, Xue Xian felt a hopeless, overwhelming sense of loneliness...

Thankfully, he quickly found himself something else to do.

This was no longer something as meaningless and trite as changing Xuanmin's covers or position –– while rummaging through the bamboo building's library, Xue Xian had come across an old book.

That book looked completely hand-calligraphed and hand-bound, and who knew how long ago it had been put together. The pages inside were already weak and withered, as though a single touch might cause them to tear. It had been filed away in a drawer for too long without anyone checking up on it, and the mountain air was humid, so the pages had long begun to curl, and many of the words had faded.

But this did not dampen Xue Xian's mood at all –– in any case, half of the text in the book was completely illegible to him.

The book contained none other than the same archaic script that had been carved onto the wall at the Cave of a Hundred Insects. And the other half of the text was an annotation that translated that strange script.

The contents of the book were extremely thorough and detailed: clearly, the person writing it had had a a balanced and steady personality, with a great deal of patience.

Xue Xian hurriedly flipped through the pages to the final page, and, in the bottom corner, there it was –– the only two characters he'd been taught to read –– the author's signature, Tongdeng.

Back when he'd ru-mo on Mt. Jiangsong, the connection established by the copper coin pendant had meant that he'd seen some of the final batch of memories that had flooded back into Xuanmin's mind when the final coin's seal had been broken. When Xue Xian had regained control, he'd recalled the things he'd seen and more or less pieced together the story of the Great Priest Tongdeng's inherited identity.

Based on all that, it seemed that the Tongdeng who'd built the Cave of a Hundred Insects and the Tongdeng who'd written this book were the same person –– the first Tongdeng.

Xue Xian had never met that original Tongdeng, but from this book, he did not seem to be an evil person. He'd at least been a good teacher.

Having found this book, Xue Xian did not delay further. He took out the rubbing he'd made and, studying the contents of Tongdeng's book, he matched each character in the archaic script to its modern Chinese equivalent. He did not stop nor rest –– four days later, he was able to understand every word of the message on the wall.

And then he sat by the table in silence for an entire night...

Someone, without saying a single word, had chosen to bear the burden of all the misfortunes and disasters in Xue Xian's infinite life so that he would no longer need to feel pain; and had not asked for anything in return.

If Xue Xian hadn't happened to figure out what the wall text meant, perhaps he would have spent the rest of his life in the dark as to what Xuanmin had done for him...

How could he abandon someone like that? 

Even if Xuanmin had passed onto the next life, Xue Xian would be able to find him again. But Xuanmin hadn't even re-entered the wheel of life; couldn't. From the tallest point in heaven to the deepest sea, no matter where Xuanmin was, he was going to find him, and bring him back.

******

In the remote mountains, it suddenly began to snow again. This time, it wasn't the kind that froze one's heart over, but the kind that fell sheet by sheet, crystal clear and perfect, bringing with it a sense of relief and even a flush of warmth. 

"It's New Year's Eve," Tongdeng said, standing by the door with his hands clasped behind his back. As he looked up at the heavens and watched the eddies of snow fall onto the ground, he suddenly asked Xuanmin, "I think I've forgotten. What year is this?"

Xuanmin was still sitting inside the hall, meditating: the pain he'd gone through had been so extreme that it would take him quite some time to fully heal again. For the time being, he could not easily stride over somewhere and pick up a material object at will, as Tongdeng could.

Although Xuanmin looked to be sitting on the prayer mat, he was actually hovering slightly above it.

Even the lightest, thinnest needle, if placed in his palm, he would be unable to handle. The needle would fall through his ghostly hand and drop to the floor.

Hearing Tongdeng's question, Xuanmin kept his eyes closed and replied, "The twenty-third year of the Tianxi era. After today, it will be the twenty-fourth."

Tongdeng's black eyes reflected the shimmer of the pure white snow, and were deep as lakes; he felt as though hundreds of years were passing each time he blinked those eyes of his. After a long silence, Tongdeng said, "Oh, Tianxi..."

He sounded like he'd wanted to say more, but after having uttered those first words, he fell silent again. Xuanmin did not know what he was thinking –– perhaps he was simply going to sigh about how quickly the time was passing.

"The snowfall looks to last the whole night. Good omen," Tongdeng added. He turned, ready to return into the hall and continue to debate with his disciple, but before he could move, he suddenly heard a mighty sound of thunder ring out from the heavens.

The thunder came out of nowhere, with no warning. It was so out of the blue that it could not be a natural storm.

As soon as he heard thunder, Xuanmin suddenly opened the eyes that he had kept closed for weeks of meditation.

Whenever Xue Xian turned into his dragon form, it had always been accompanied by bolts of thunder, so that by now Xuanmin seemed to have acquired a habit –– hearing the sound of thunder automatically made him feel as though Xue Xian were about to appear.

But then he closed his eyes as resolutely as he'd opened them. He was somewhere between living and dead now, and no one could see him, let alone figure out where he was. Why would Xue Xian come here?

Suddenly, Tongdeng exclaimed, "This thunder..."

Before he could finish his sentence, a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, its stark white outline coming down from the sky like the zigzagging trail of an earthworm and landing exactly on Daze Temple.

Tongdeng watched as the strange lightning came straight toward the roof of the building in which they stood, but just as it was about to strike them, something interfered and stopped it in its tracks.

The lightning had arrived out of nowhere, and now had disappeared out of nowhere. As though it had come to scare them on purpose, or alternatively... 

Tongdeng did not know if it was just his paranoia, but the thunder seemed to be full of some immensely powerful magic. It could not have been summoned by a rain spell or any ordinary magic spell; instead it seemed like the kind of thunder that might appear during a catastrophe. But what kind of human experienced catastrophes?

So Tongdeng must have gotten it wrong.

He turned to Xuanmin. "Could it be that dragon of yours?"

Xuanmin was silent. 

What do you mean, 'that dragon of yours'? Xuanmin couldn't even be bothered to open his eyes. He wasn't one to harbor impossible fantasies.

But Tongdeng didn't need Xuanmin to reply; he already got his answer––

Because just as he'd finished asking his question, the sound of a dragon's roar came from the faraway skies. Within the blink of an eye, a black silhouette crash-landed into the doorway, accompanied by a dozen strikes of lightning.

The disturbance was chaotic, and all too familiar. Xuanmin could not remain indifferent; his eyelids suddenly fluttered open as he peered out of the door.

Xue Xian looked exactly as he'd looked before, his skin still pale, his face still handsome. But Xuanmin felt as though he had not seem him in many, many years; Xue Xian stood only two zhang away, yet it seemed as though they were separated by the veil between life and death. 

Xuanmin's gaze pressed upon Xue Xian with the weight of a mountain range, unrelenting.

Xue Xian looked quizzical. He stood by the doorway and stared into the hall, yet did not seem able to see the two monks inside. Frowning, his gaze swept the hall as he wore a complicated, deep-set expression on his face.

He couldn't see.

He really couldn't see.

Xuanmin's eyes dimmed and a rush of feeling welled into them, his anguish palpable.

But as Xue Xian's gaze scanned past him, it suddenly stopped. Xue Xian frowned again as he stared at that spot in the hall, as though sensing something there. Finally, he tentatively asked, "Bald donkey?"

Tongdeng clicked his tongue.

But Xue Xian did not seem to notice Tongdeng at all. His gaze rested on Xuanmin, searching.    

Xuanmin said, "Yes."

Tongdeng clicked his tongue again.

But Xue Xian could not hear Xuanmin's voice. All Xue Xian could do was stand there, staring at that spot, waiting until he could wait no longer. Then he took out a thin red string from his sleeve and wound one end of it loosely around his wrist. As he tied it into a knot, it seemed to glow with an inner light, as though suddenly alive.

"Since you're not responding, I've got no choice," Xue Xian muttered as he fidgeted with the string. Then, he pinched the other side of the string between his fingers, squinted and aimed in Xuanmin's direction, and let it fly.

As it soared through the air, the red string seemed to take on a life of its own, gliding straight toward Xuanmin. It hovered for a moment in front of the sitting monk, then, once sure, snaked its way toward his wrist and tied itself around him in a deadly knot.

As the string caught Xuanmin, Xue Xian's solemn face suddenly relaxed and bloomed into a grin. "Gotcha."