chapter four: on festivals and sect leader candidates
“You’re not focusing!”
A young Ren Liufang stumbles across the dark practice grounds, Honglei shaking in her hand. The shizun lunges again with her own sword, and Ren Liufang blocks the strike weakly, knees almost giving out under the force.
“Yes, Shizun!” the younger girl manages, gritting her teeth. Her sweat pools in a sheen on the wooden floor, and her feet scramble across the slippery flooring. The woman across from her thrusts her blade at Ren Liufang again without missing a beat, eyes sharp and merciless. This time, Ren Liufang is not ready.
She slams into the ground, robes split where the shizun’s blade cut through. That same blade now faces her down, the point aimed directly at Ren Liufang’s throat. She swallows.
“You’re weak,” the woman says, expressionless. “It’s no wonder you never stood out at all during practices. Even that street rat had more impression than you did.”
Ren Liufang’s grip on her sword tightens, and she suddenly leaps at the older woman, face furious. However, the shizun predicts this, and she smashes the hilt of her sword into Ren Liufang’s wrist, making Honglei fly out of her hand. Ren Liufang lets out a small gasp, crashing back onto the floor.
It is silent for a few moments.
“Wrist,” the woman says, extending her hand. When Ren Liufang looks confused, she repeats, “Give me your wrist. The one I just hit,”
Ren Liufang bites her bottom lip, and she slowly raises her wrist towards the shizun. The woman seizes it, and she tugs the sleeve down roughly.
Across her arm, a long black mark crawls across the expanse of her pale skin, shifting and whispering faintly. Ren Liufang looks away in shame. The woman’s features sharpen, and she throws the tainted hand back onto the ground.
“You should’ve gotten rid of it already,” she says icily. Ren Liufang doesn’t respond, but her facial features tighten. “You know what will happen if you don’t do it yourself, right?”
Ren Liufang opens her mouth, but she closes it without saying anything. Her chest heaves, and there’s nothing hiding the large black mark pulsing through her body. The woman looks down at her in disgust.
“I’ll tell the elders about this. You, get out of my sight and get that off.”
With that, she shakes her smoothed robes and strodes out, leaving Ren Liufang on the ground and struggling to breathe.
❀ ❀ ❀
Ren Liufang hates how the Cheng sect speaks.
The Cheng sect territories were right next to the Ren sect, so it was no surprise that they spoke in mildly similar dialects. However, she found the dialect to be needlessly crude, almost like peasant talk in the Ren sect. Every syllable was spat out like a curse, so much so that if a traveller came from a foreign land, he might’ve thought the Cheng sect was incredibly hostile.
She repeats this in her head as she listens to the disciples chatter in front of her, looking tense but still running their mouths. Ren Liufang resists the urge to look behind her, where she knows Xiu Lihua is walking. The woman’s footsteps reverbrate too louds. Ren Liufang scratches the inside of her palm.
She remembers the pale expression on Xiu Lihua’s face as they walked out of the tavern. Her features had turned blank as a canvas, alarmingly so. Her body had shook, as if she was itching to run away.
Ren Liufang knew why. She had watched as Xiu Lihua stumbled and excused herself. She had watched as the woman rushed away without another thought.
Ren Liufang’s chest hurts over and over again, like a body of poison creeping through her veins.
Sect leader candidate.
Ren Liufang keeps walking, forcing those thoughts out of her head.
Xiu Lihua would never understand.
///
Admittedly, Ren Liufang had almost forgotten about the Mid-Autumn festival until now, only a few steps from entering the Cheng inner city threshold. The scents of sweet mooncake and osmanthus wine drift from the other sides of the gate tantalizingly, and the sounds of the festivities will no doubt keep the neighboring rice farmers up far past their own celebrations.
The Cheng disciples talk a bit with the guard at the door, pointing towards Ren Liufang and Xiu Lihua behind her. She can see them cower a little bit at the sight of Xiu Lihua, but she supposes her own presence eases them enough to let both of them in. Sure enough, they nod at them after a few minutes and push open the gates wide enough for both of them to enter at the same time. Ren Liufang walks forward, but Xiu Lihua darts in front of her, eyes wide and gleaming with a childlike curiosity.
Ren Liufang almost pauses in her tracks as she sees the older woman’s silhouette bounce around, gaping at the various games and snacks being passed around and sold. Street vendors shout, hanging bright yellow lanterns on their carts and painting on them for the children.
Above, the moon is full in the black sky.
“Ah, there’s a festival tonight, and we’re out here escorting guests? Sect Leader really is too cruel!” Ren Liufang hears one of the disciples complain, probably the eighth time in that period. The other disciples are inclined to agree with her, before Ren Liufang stops them with a tap on their shoulders. They jolt, eyes open in fear.
“Ah, Xiong Jinli, ah, it isn’t what it looks like!” One stutters. The others are too scared to speak. Ren Liufang sighs, as if they weren’t speaking loud enough for everyone to hear already.
“You are dismissed. I know my way well enough the city to get around on my own,” she says curtly. The disciples open their mouths in protest, but she cuts them off, “I’ll inform the sect leader. It is Zhongqiu-jie, go enjoy yourselves. It is fine,”
“But, ah, Xiong Jinli, is there anything us humble disciples could do to afford this favor?”
Ren Liufang doesn’t have to think much, “Please stop calling me by that title. It is distasteful.”
With that, she sweeps her robes along herself, walking away to collect Xiu Lihua and head towards the Cheng compound.
❀ ❀ ❀
The night is younger but Ren Liufang feels younger, clutching a stale torch in her thin fist, following those familiar steps if only by memory. Blackness swallows her like a beast, trailing its fingers down her paper white knuckles.
Darkness burns in her gut, and it whispers into ear like a personal demon. She shivers as a tendril of the curse cuffs at her ear leeringly.
“Walking this path again? How long has it been? Ooh, could it be?”
She squeezes her eyes shut, freezing toes scrabbling over her thin shoes. The torch fire trembles; Ren Liufang bites her lip hard enough to draw blood. Her chest splits open at the cusp, and she breaks into a run.
“So you’re really going to do it, huh? Haha, isn’t this a little too low, even for you? C’mon, are you really that scared? Even to this point?”
Ren Liufang takes an agonized breath, bearing it only because she cannot do anything else but accept the truth in those whispered words. Her destination soon comes into view, and even she can’t keep fooling herself anymore.
The temple greets her like a friend, and Ren Liufang stumbles, disoriented by the bright lights and memories. The candles flicker around the set of offerings, all arranged around the center.
The two caskets elevated underneath the blinding lights. The names written above on the stone tablets. She breathes in a dry tear, the first sound she’s made since she snuck out of her quarters earlier in the night.
Her chest seizes with a terrible glee as she approaches, and Ren Liufang almost falls from a sudden twinge slicing brutally down her chest. She gasps and clutches at her robes, disoriented by the bright lights. She bites her sleeve and rolls it down.
Across her arm, the black mark convulses. Ren Liufang quickly covers it back up, unable to look at it too long. With shaking legs, she collapses forward and into the hard cushion in front of the two caskets, limbs folding under each other.
The torch flame roars. She bows three times.
“Those wretched cultivators. Think they can try to take everything away from me and not suffer consequences? An absolute joke.”
Ren Liufang presses her palms together, shutting her red-rimmed eyes and whispering a prayer into them. The brightness numbs her to what she does next. She stands up, and she almost falls back down again.
“Do it. Do it!”
She lets out a pained sob. She clutches the torch in her hand and digs her nails into the rotten wood.
The flame grins. Ren Liufang screams into the silence, and she hurls the torch forward into the brightness, the candles and the fruit offerings, the carved names and the gold ornaments specially crafted to offer a home to the homeless.
The two spirits, forever together even in their second death, forever looking upon their child.
It goes up in flames.
The next day, the shizun asks her to pull down her sleeve. Ren Liufang pulls it down, face blank and emotionless.
The black mark is gone.
And the woman’s eyes crease. Her nose twitches at the smell of burnt flesh and ceremonial wood. The shizun nods knowingly in approval.
Ren Liufang’s hands no longer tremble when they grip Honglei. Her eyes are red from the tears she shed and her mouth is empty from the apologies torn out of her throat. Now, all she has is a tiny voice at the back of her head and a miniscule but persisting pain in her chest.
She surrenders herself to the devil.
❀ ❀ ❀
Ren Liufang has to physically restrain Xiu Lihua from surrendering the rest of her paltry sum of coins for some second rate lantern.
“We have to go,” she says firmly, grabbing the older woman’s arm. Xiu Lihua jumps, whirling around with her eyes wide open in indignation. Her hands are halfway into her coin purse.
She looks afraid. Ren Liufang releases her out of shock and steps backwards.
“We have to go,” she repeats, more politely. Xiu Lihua snaps out of her daze, eyes sharpening to a point. Her hands tighten on her pouch, and she shoves it back into her robes. Spitting on the ground in front of Ren Liufang, Xiu Lihua points her gaze elsewhere and pushes past her, stomping in the opposite direction.
Ren Liufang touches her chest and squeezes.
She follows, ducking in front of the woman as to lead them towards the main building. With every footstep Xiu Lihua takes behind her, extra loud, Ren Liufang grimaces.
She hopes that it will not take long for them to get to the main compound.
///
The main compound is like this, stout, simple, and unshielded from the shouts of a crowd passing by. Glowing wildflowers and grass curl around the sides.
They pass the threshold and into a small square clearing. Ren Liufang was always a little skeptical of the modest decorations, but that was the difference between the Cheng and the Ren after all. A small shrine greets them at the entrance of the picturesque courtyard, the goddess Guanyin standing tall with fruit offerings placed on brass plates below her, incense lit emitting a smoky fragrance. Ren Liufang beckons Xiu Lihua towards her. The other woman doesn’t look at her, but nonetheless, they kneel side to side and clasp their hands together.
“May Guanyin find her peace,” Ren Liufang says, eyes closed. Xiu Lihua glances hesitantly at her but repeats, “May Guanyin find her peace,”
It is silent for the moments afterwards. Ren Liufang tries to not lose herself in it.
“May Guanyin find her peace,” someone echoes behind them, and the two woman jolt. Xiu Lihua snaps her head backwards, and Ren Liufang internally heaves a sigh.
She had hoped they wouldn’t meet.
“I thought it was against clan instructions to interrupt a prayer before it has completed,” she says dryly, standing up and dusting herself off. She turns around to meet a young man, burly and curled in the places boyhood hadn’t rubbed off yet. He grins a little mischievously. From the corner of Ren Liufang’s eye, she sees Xiu Lihua look between the two of them incredulously.
“Nice to see you here, Xiong Jinli,” he says in reply. Ren Liufang looks at him coldly.
“Use that name again and I will slay you,”
“As if you would risk angering your sect leader or mine for that matter,” he snips back. Ren Liufang huffs and turns away. From her side, Xiu Lihua finally pipes up, eyes narrowed.
“Who are you?” She asks, suspicious. Ren Liufang opens her mouth to explain but closes it before any words can escape. The boy looks at her curiously before his eyes track over to Xiu Lihua’s frame, raking her up and down. Xiu Lihua snarls a little, hand on her sword. Still, he doesn’t stop, the glint in his eye growing more and more inquisitive.
“Aren’t you that... Don’t I know you?” He asks, eyebrows furrowed. Xiu Lihua looks taken aback, and Ren Liufang can see her fiddle with the seams of her robes.
“I’m surprised you don’t. I’m quite famous around these parts, destroying sect property and all. Wouldn’t you know? Cheng disciples come running to me every weekend and run away every weekday,” she snarks, slipping carefully into her persona. The man tilts his head, deep in thought. He turns his head, and his eyes meet Ren Liufang’s. She looks away.
“Every weekend? You mean...” Suddenly the man doubles over in laughter. Xiu Lihua looks visibly confused and maybe a little offended. Ren Liufang pinches the bridge of her nose. “You’re sword thrower girl! Zaihuanü!”
“Sword thrower? Excuse me?” Xiu Lihua exclaims, but Ren Liufang can tell she’s strangely happy with the nickname. The boy nods, cackling at the same time.
“Every once and awhile, our disciples come back with large tears in their clothing and bruises in places they shouldn’t be,” he guffaws. “So that was you? It’s an honor!”
“Ahahaha... Well I have to say that the nickname is well earned. After all, sword throwing is a very good way to relieve stress and—” Xiu Lihua scratches the back of her head, and as much as Ren Liufang wants to keep looking at her, this can’t go on forever. She clears her throat, saying, “Just introduce yourself and do your greetings properly like they should have been a few minutes ago.”
“I was going to before you interrupted,” he snips back, suddenly standing up straighter. “I’m Cheng Bowen,” he recites, bowing. “Sect Leader Candidate of the Cheng Clan and pseudo-apprentice to Xiong Jinli,” a sly smile on his face, he turns to Ren Liufang, bowing deeper, “Shizun.” Ren Liufang feels disgusted, but she bows back, muttering another greeting.
Xiu Lihua bows too, but her smile drops a little. “Xiu Lihua, property wrecker, sword throwing extrodinare,” she offers, grin wicked but not nearly as wide as before. Ren Liufang suddenly wants to slap Cheng Bowen even though he did everything correctly. She shoots him a hard glance, and he seems to get the message, his lips parts silently with the transferred message.
“Here for information again?” He asks, placatingly.
“Of course. Where can I find Sect Leader Cheng?” Ren Liufang says, tone slightly reprimanding for no good reason.
“Is it not enough to have me?” Cheng Bowen wiggles his eyebrows. Ren Liufang scoffs.
“As if you’re ready,” she says.
Almost immediately, someone says from behind, “She’s right, Bo-er.”
Immediately, the two of them stiffen and immediately turn, bowing lowly, “Sect leader!” Xiu Lihua takes the hint and bows with them. The sect leader dips her head, smiling smally. She looks at Cheng Bowen, who looks now more like a puppy than a muscle man. “You still aren’t quite ready yet.”
“It’s been a year,” he points out, almost petulantly. Ren Liufang coughs. Sect Leader Cheng twinkles.
“It took more than that for even the revered Ren Liufang to be accepted completely,” she says. Ren Liufang wants to reply that even now, she is not, but she holds her tongue. “What are you doing here now of all times? You should be enjoying the festival,”
“The hours simply added up, Cheng-zongzhu,” she replies. She neglects to mention that had she not waited for Xiu Lihua to return for a few hours, they would have already been on their way. Sect Leader Cheng frowns a little at that.
“Stay the night here then. Enjoy it. I’m sure Ren-zongzhu will allow you this one day,” she says. Her eyes turn towards Xiu Lihua, who has discreetly moved so that she’s behind Ren Liufang. “And this is?”
“Xiu Lihua, rogue cultivator. Y’know I do a lot of work around here, rarely ever see sect cultivators around,” Xiu Lihua says brashly, raising her shoulders. Ren Liufang shoots her a reprimending glance, but the other woman ignores it.
“Rogue cultivator, huh?” Sect Leader Cheng says in an unreadable tone. She glances at Ren Liufang, and a chill suddenly runs up her spine. “I suppose you also have information to share then. Come with me. Bo-er, go enjoy the festival,”
Cheng Bowen looks like he’s about to protest, but he decides against it. Looking between the bright festival lights and the rather dark courtyard, he shoots Ren Liufang a meaningful glance and bows again, “Happy Mid-Autumn Festival. May Chang’e rest well tonight,” he adds knowingly. Ren Liufang bows back, the years falling back to her.
“May Chang’e rest well tonight,” she says back, painfully. He grins and them leaves, tossing out a last “Have fun with Sword thrower!” behind him before he zips away. Xiu Lihua almost sticks her tongue out at him, but with a single glance from Ren Liufang, she doesn’t. Sect Leader Cheng nods and leads them forward, past the Guanyin statue and finally into the compound.
❀ ❀ ❀
Ren Liufang is not highly religious, but she prays often. That’s why as she pads through the Cheng Sect holdings, she feels a little more at ease, not only in the familiar footsteps but also tangible spirituality. Her own sect leader would laugh at her for sure, as even though the Cheng and Ren sect were close allies, they couldn’t be any more different. The sweet fragrance of lit incense followed the pair and sect leader as they traveled through the dim hallways, feet echoing hollowly on the wooden ground.
Xiu Lihua keeps her hand on her sword as they walk through, eyes darting through every hallway. If Ren Liufang were more foolish, she would ask the other woman to stop, but even if she lacks the will to speak to Xiu Lihua, she also lacks the stupidity to start speaking to her with those words.
The Cheng Sect leader is shorter than them both, but she exudes an aura only an old sect leader could have. Ren Liufang used to be wary of her, in her teenage years, but now, she can place trust in at least the elder’s surface level. She doesn’t expect Xiu Lihua to know that though, who she’s grateful keeps her mouth shut when they reach the private office of the sect leader. There are no guards standing at the entrance like usual. Sect Leader Cheng ushers them in with a smile. Ren Liufang smiles tersely back, while Xiu Lihua frowns. The door shuts behind them.
“I assume you’re here to exchange information about Zhoucheng?” Sect Leader Cheng starts smoothly, gesturing them towards the center of the room, where a low table was. Ren Liufang sits down politely. Xiu Lihua looks between the two of them suspiciously before following, taking the seat beside her. Sect Leader Cheng sits down last, hands on her lap.
“We are,” Ren Liufang replies. “The Cheng Sect always has information that we do not possess, to which this humble one is most grateful.” Xiu Lihua looks a little disgruntled at the obvious flattery, but she is the one that speaks next.
“Have you two been exchanging information for long? How do we know we can trust you?” Xiu Lihua asks, eyes narrowed. The Cheng Sect Leader blinks at her slowly, expression still unreadable. Ren Liufang wishes there were some tea to drink to at least ease the pressure a bit.
“We have been trading information for a very long time,” The Sect Leader says oddly. “As you know, we’re very close allies.”
“I know crap about politics. What I want to know if I can trust you,” Xiu Lihua iterates more forcefully. Ren Liufang frowns. The Sect Leader is silent for a second before she barks out a harsh laugh, startling Xiu Lihua.
“Xiu-guniang, what you should know is that you should never trust anyone,” her eyes seem to be all knowing, and her gaze extends towards Ren Liufang as well, who stiffens. “Even someone you have known for your entire life.”
Xiu Lihua looks about ready to march out of there. Coughing slightly, Ren Liufang interrupts her swiftly, “A group of corpses attacked us outside of Henan.”
The Sect Leader seems to return to her previous unbothered stance, smile coming back almost eerily. “And I presume they were the same as we previously discussed?”
“Yes,” Ren Liufang nods. “It is still unclear what caused this or how this ties to the mass murders. I am preparing to head to Zhoucheng after this to investigate.” She doesn’t mention “we”, which has been a question in her mind since the very beginning. Xiu Lihua turns her head away angrily and directs her attention to the sect leader instead. She slams her hand on the table.
“Alright, you two have your own thing going, but entertain me, for if I had been travelling on my own and skipped this little visit, I’d be three-quarters the way to Zhoucheng right now, which is where I’d far rather be, given the current circumstances plus the well being of both myself and the villagers there. So, what is all of this about black marks?”
Ren Liufang resists the urge to strike Xiu Lihua upside the head. The sect leader looks at the sect leader candidate in slight surprise and questioning, before she says, “Why, they’re curse marks of course.”
Xiu Lihua scoffs. Ren Liufang tightens her fists in her lap. “I know that of course, but who were they caused by? Or do you great sect cultivators not even have that type of information?
“And of course, how is this related to events from twenty years ago?”
Ren Liufang grits her teeth. Xiu Lihua looks firm, almost smug as she lays down her questions one by one. The Cheng Sect Leader’s expression fades, replaced by a careful serenity. The question was vague, definitely uncarefully worded. Still, all of them knew what Xiu Lihua was referring to. Ren Liufang almost leaves the room. Instead, she clutches the gut of her robes.
“You are aware of Xiu Bingwen, are you not?” Sect Leader Cheng says cautiously.
“I’ve heard much about him, but I’ve not a clue why this guy still appears around all the time. Where I’m from, he’s simply a nursery tale told to children who leave their beds at night,” Xiu Lihua replies, almost carelessly.
Ren Liufang looks away in shame. Sect Leader Cheng glances at her before standing up abruptly, unfolding some of her robes off her shoulders. Xiu Lihua’s eyes widen. Ren Liufang gets to her feet in shock, “Cheng-gongzi—”
“It will be alright,” the woman says calmly, “I am simply doing what you have failed to do.”
Ren Liufang doesn’t miss how Xiu Lihua’s eyes dart confusedly from the sect leader to the sect leader candidate. “What are you doing—”
Sect Leader Cheng turns her back to them and drapes the robes lower, exposing her back. Xiu Lihua stops talking, mouth hanging open. Ren Liufang stares at it head on, and it is not the first time.
In front of their eyes, an deep and jarring scar, splayed across the snow-white expanse skin. Unblinkingly, the sect leader readjusts her robes after a second, retying them and returning to her original kneeling position with no hiccups.
“That was the work of Xiu Bingwen,” she explains unconcernedly. “And I am not the only one that bears it,”
Xiu Lihua turns white, “So all of that... the sects uniting... it wasn’t a joke?”
“I do not think even you are foolish enough to think it is a joke, even before now,” Sect Leader Cheng laughs humorlessly. “And I’d have you know that out of the scars inflicted by Xiu Bingwen, about a quarter are curse marks. You do know what that means, don’t you?”
“They’d be dead by now! Unless...” Xiu Lihua trails off. Ren Liufang averts her eyes. “Unless he left them to die as slowly as possible...”
“The corpses and the mass murders follow the curse marks,” The sect leader says gravely, “We do not know how or why. All that we know is that the next predicted city is most likely Zhoucheng, a conclusion made by vigorous investigation. Now I have something to ask you, Xiu Lihua, will you be there?”
In her eyes, a glint that everybody except for Xiu Lihua catches. Ren Liufang locks gazes with the older woman, eyes smoldering. All she gets in response is a thin smile and a silent message before she directs all her attention on Xiu Lihua.
Xiu Lihua thinks for a few moments. Then firmly, she says, “I will be,”
Sect Leader Cheng looks satisfied. She looks at Ren Liufang one last time, and the younger woman feels her blood freeze in her veins. The sect leader glances between the two of them and stands, presence domineering and great, “Then I suppose our discussion is over,”
Xiu Lihua and Ren Liufang stand up at the same time, and out of some foolish impulse, she immediately pulls Xiu Lihua aside. The other woman stares at her with blazing eyes, and Ren Liufang swallows grimly.
“I will go to Zhoucheng as well,” she says. Xiu Lihua scoffs.
“I don’t see how that concerns me.” And she rips her sleeve from Ren Liufang’s grip, storming up and out of the private office. Ren Liufang lets her go, mixed emotions welling up in her. Sect Leader Cheng coughs, and Ren Liufang turns around to greet her once again.
“Cheng-gongzi,” she says, almost shortly. The sect leader laughs.
“Forgive me, Ren-er. I was too forward, wasn’t I?”
Ren Liufang doesn’t respond. The older cultivator’s eyes track themselves to her chest, and she walks forward until they stand almost chin to chin. Without warning, the sect leader reaches forward to jab Ren Liufang in the chest. She intercepts her smoothly, without missing a bling. The Cheng Sect Leader smiles and withdraws her hand.
“It’s gotten worse, hasn’t it?”
Ren Liufang swallows. The sect leader’s eyes seem to pierce all the way through her, scraping back the paint to reveal the ugly inner workings.
“Can you hear it now?”
She almost can. The constant nagging: “take what you want, kill all you want, protect them at all costs, there is no right or wrong as long as you will it that way,” still lives in the back of her head. Ren Liufang closes her eyes and tries to steady her breathing. Sect Leader Cheng steps away, pleased.
“Now, was there something you wanted from me?” She asks, tone different from before. The lines of her frame sharpen, and her smile thins to a colder point. Ren Liufang opens her eyes and tries not to step back from the sheer intensity.
“There was,” she says simply. The doors close behind them.
❀ ❀ ❀
Ren Liufang emerges from the Cheng compound with a name etched in her mind and a goal.
But for now, she watches the festival lights compete with the moon for brightness. The energy of the celebrating villagers is almost contagious, and she steps into the fray without thinking.
“Have you ever heard the Legend of Chang’e?”
The street vendor beams at her when she appears at his stand, recognizing her easily. “Ah, Ren-daren! It’s been quite awhile since we’ve seen you around. Here to have mooncakes?”
“I have never had mooncakes from your stand before, but I’m sure the quality is still the same as all the rest of your food,” Ren Liufang replies honestly, already reaching for her coin purse. The man grins even wider.
“What kind of filling?”
“Lotus paste and duck yolk please,”
“Just one?” He asks, wiggling his eyebrows. Ren Liufang lets herself smile, before her eyes suddenly wander into the crowds, all in their own separate groups, chatting vivaciously.
“Two please,” she says, much to the man’s surprise. He gives her two, and a delicious savory-sweet scent wafts from them.
“Two of my best,” he winks.
“There was no need,”
“It isn’t often that we see you, so take them! The others can have my best some other day,” The man looks happy with his reply. Ren Liufang concedes, delicately taking the two cakes and paying him. He bids her goodbye jovially. She bows and turns away, the pastries hot in her hands.
“You shouldn’t spend the Mid-Autumn Festival yearning or even alone for that matter. The parallels are bad karma.”
Ren Liufang wanders the streets of the Cheng city, the mooncakes growing cold in her hands. Halfway on the way, she buys a lantern from a fair seller. The only one left was of a koi fish. Ren Liufang turns her nose up at it, and the seller apologizes. She buys it anyways, toting it through the bustling streets. The fragrances of various foods drift through the air: duck, osmanthus wine, and pumpkin. Still, she doesn’t stop even though hungry greets her like a story. She searches every stall but does not stop at a single one.
Then, she hears it.
“This stupid lantern! Burned up my clothes! That old man, selling me this second-rate junk! How dare he! The audacity to—”
Ren Liufang turns the corner to a grassy clearing and there she is, Xiu Lihua in all her glory, wresting with a lit paper lantern. An ineffable emotion materializes in her chest, and although she can name it, she does not want to.
But before that, a pest.
“What are you doing here?” Ren Liufang asks flatly, unearthing Cheng Bowen from one of the nearby bushes. He emerges, a few twigs in his hair and scratches his head sheepishly.
“Following you?” He offers. She scoffs, drawing her gaze back to the Xiu Lihua, who looks like she’s about to murder an element of nature. Cheng Bowen’s eyes follow hers, and he blinks.
“That girl. From the conference all those years ago?” He asks. Ren Liufang purses her lips and nods, hand tightening around the mooncakes in her grasp. Cheng Bowen glances between the two of them.
“Have you ever heard the story of Chang’e?” He asks. Ren Liufang flashes him a dead look, before he amends, “I mean obviously you have haha... But like...” He looks back at Xiu Lihua, gaze turning weirdly thoughtful for him. “How you look at her is how I had always imagined Hou Yi looking at the moon after Chang’e ascended,”
Ren Liufang’s eyes widen a little bit. She averts her eyes, turning around. “It was nothing of the sorts.”
“You’re always so cold!” Cheng Bowen chortles, “But still, I’m pretty damn sure you didn’t buy that extra mooncake for me.”
Ren Liufang hides the pastries behind her sleeves, glaring at him. He guffaws again. “It’s your first Mid-Autumn festival in Cheng city, right? You shouldn’t have to spend it with me,” he sombers up a bit, “I mean, no one should have to spend it alone.”
“Surely, someone as popular as you should have someone to spend it with, right?” She asks, a tinge of worry creeping into her sarcastic tone. Cheng Bowen moves his arm to clap her on the shoulder, but Ren Liufang dodges the movement.
“Haha, don’t be worried about me! Even I got a stick in the mud like you to hang out last year, right?” He chuckles again, albeit a little more awkwardly. “I’ll be fine. You two should spend it together, although I’ve no idea why you keep looking at her like that. Friendship, right?”
“Are you really that daft—” Ren Liufang opens her mouth, but Cheng Bowen is already gone with the floating wind. She huffs again, but not before Xiu Lihua lets out a shout.
“Damn lantern! Don’t you know how much this cost?! I swear I’ll curse you to high heavens and—” Suddenly, the woman’s ears prick in alert, and she whirls around with the strength of a storm, quickly picking up on Ren Liufang’s presence. Her lips part, shocked, and she steps back, “You—” She jabs a finger in her direction,” What are you doing here?”
Ren Liufang’s heart twists itself as she notices Xiu Lihua’s eyes taking on a colder version of her past rage, her hand curling around Mengdie on her wrist and her features, curled in disgust. She wants to run away and forget all of it, forget Xiu Lihua and this entire damn city.
But Ren Liufang is not sixteen years old anymore, and so she doesn’t. “I was searching for you,” and holds up the bag of mooncakes.
“You were what? What gives you the right—” Xiu Lihua’s gaze suddenly changes as it lands on Ren Liufang’s pastries. “Mooncakes?” She exclaims incredulously.
“Yes,” Ren Liufang says, holding them up higher. Xiu Lihua seems to go through the five stages of grief right before her eyes, and she eventually turns away, motioning Ren Liufang to come closer.
“Come,” she says defeatedly. Ren Liufang waddles towards her and places the cold mooncake in her hand. Xiu Lihua snatches it from her and chomps down on it, exhaling in delight as it enters her mouth. Ren Liufang sits down on the grass, setting her koi fish lantern beside her and bites down as well, letting her hunger seep away with every sweet mouthful.
“Why are you sitting down?” Xiu Lihua asks in disbelief. Ren Liufang doesn’t respond, simply staring up at the full-bodied moon, which glitters above. Seemingly debating herself in her head, Xiu Lihua eventually sits down as well, angrily eating her mooncake. Ren Liufang wonders if she should’ve gotten more food.
“What do you want?” Xiu Lihua asks again, after a moment of silence. Ren Liufang sears the moon into her eyes before tearing herself away from it, forcing herself to acknowledge the current situation.
“I wanted to find you,” she repeats. Xiu Lihua snorts.
“Well you’ve found. Just run along now to your—” she takes a second to screw up her nose—“That... guy.”
Ren Liufang frowns. She does not want to talk about Cheng Bowen, “He is a pest.” She can almost hear his annoying voice calling out to her like a mosquito now. Xiu Lihua looks dumbstruck.
“A... pest. A pest? A pest?!” She repeats. Ren Liufang nods again, more firmly, a wedge firmly in between her eyebrows. Xiu Lihua blinks again, taking an unconscious bite from her mooncake.
And she laughs.
Ren Liufang is half afraid that the other woman’s about to choke on the bite she just took, but it looks like Xiu Lihua has experience with that, and she just keeps laughing and laughing and laughing.
It feels like a fresh wind blew through her hair and swept her off her feet. Ren Liufang watches as Xiu Lihua practically vibrates with bombastic laughter, it shaking out of her in almost songlike waves.
Ren Liufang is starstruck. She grips her own mooncake, and it feels like the universe has shifted somehow, that the dust has been blown again and that the throbbing in her chest is not black but so so red.
And it is so so wrong.
Xiu Lihua wipes tears from her eyes, hiccuping still. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I found that so funny. It’s just that—you really develop a certain fondness for pests, don’t you?” There’s a wistful note in her voice that Ren Liufang doesn’t dare pick out. She clenches her jaw and exhales as her heartbeat speeds up.
“Nothing of the sort,” she says stubbornly. Xiu Lihua looks at her strangely for one second before huffing again, finishing the rest of her cake and licking the lotus paste off her fingers.
“Of course not. I don’t even know you after all,” she says, and Ren Liufang narrows her eyes. She takes a few more small bites from the mooncake, less than half eaten. She sees Xiu Lihua unsubtly eyeing it though, so she suspects she might have to turn it over.
The crickets sing around them. It feels like the noise of the festival has faded into a gentle lull. Ren Liufang returns her eyes to the moon, trying to ignore that unmistakable aching pulsing through her. It’s far too familiar to be safe, not when she’s spent so many years trying to move on and to become stronger. Ren Liufang was no loveless fool, but she knows that it is weaker to be one.
Yet, with the moon shining full above their quiet little grassy clearing, the little lantern flickering dimly beside them, and Xiu Lihua humming softly beside her, she finds she doesn’t mind it much.
“Do you ever think Chang’e got lonely up there?” Xiu Lihua asks, voice small. Ren Liufang swallows.
“I only know that Hou Yi must’ve missed her more than she’d ever imagined,” she murmurs. Xiu Lihua glances at her and then back up at the sky, sighing.
“I suppose so,” she says oddly.
Ren Liufang can feel the layers peeling away little by little, the layers of cold water slowly giving away to warmth, and the strikes of the bamboo stick becoming mere echoes now. Ren Liufang is no longer sixteen, she is twenty-three, and she has killed her past self in order to become stronger. All her past, buried and left to rot in the corners of her mind where her sins lie, each sin burying it in further. Her hate is her battlefield frenzy, her tears are her sword. Her grief is the white she wears, and her strength is the coldness she can endure.
But right now, she feels so unbearably warm.
And slowly, Ren Liufang comes undone.
“The moon is beautiful, isn’t it?” She says suddenly, turning her eyes to the other woman, a warm glint shining through. Xiu Lihua looks a little startled, but she answers nonetheless.
“Of course.”
❀ ❀ ❀
Footnotes:
co-written with @sunnyv. links below:
past chapter: https://theprose.com/post/385866/chapter-three-on-curse-marks-and-splintered-promises
next chapter: https://theprose.com/post/393493/chapter-five-on-reconsidered-paths-and-hidden-schemes
beginning: https://theprose.com/post/383820/chapter-one-on-rogue-cultivators-and-old-blood
Shizun (师尊): master, teacher
-Er (儿): suffix used for young person
-daren (大人): the suffix used to denote a position of power
-guniang (姑娘): suffix meaning “miss”.
-zongzhu ( 宗主): suffix used to refer to a sect leader.
Chang’e (嫦娥) and Hou Yi (后羿): an ancient Chinese fable telling the origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival. Read up at https://mythopedia.com/chinese-mythology/gods/chang-e/
Mid-Autumn Festival: festival held on the 8th month and 15th day of the Chinese Lunar calender, when the moon is believed to be the most full. More recognizable are its lanterns, festivals, and of course, mooncakes.
Names: Xiu Lihua and Ren Liufang from the past chapters and our newest character Cheng Bowen (澄博文). Cheng (澄) means “clear”, and Bowen (博文) means “scholar.
Cultivator: people possessing spiritual power that refine their body to the point of possessing magic-like abilities and longevity.
Sect: an organized group of cultivators that control a certain patch of territory.
Resentful spirits/energy: malevolent energy from those who have died, reanimated.
Lastly: https://www.italki.com/article/909/confessing-your-love-in-japanese?hl=en