Meandering River, Ardent Flame

by Vivian Chak

  ***

  Her sister held the old sword in hand, one trouser leg bloody from where she had wiped the blade. Jiang was surprised at how normal she felt. True, she was slick with sweat and perhaps something else, but she had felt eerily calm during the encounter, and even now she was still at ease.

  The constables had come at Flame, short blades drawn, but Jiang had grabbed the first by the wrist, twisting his entire arm upwards, as her arms flowed with the momentum of her centre, to bring him down, blade and all. The others had been somewhat impeded by their fallen leader, but they had stepped over him quickly.

  They had spread out to trap her, along with her sister, against the edge of the Canal. Jiang had lunged at the foremost man– preemptively, she told herself –before they could enclose her sister as they had done seven years ago. Dropping to a crouch, she had avoided a man's pommel aimed at her head, and pivoted to sweep his legs out. The following man had advanced with blade poised to cut. Jiang had moved back, to provoke a thrust; when it happened, she dropped him as she had done with the first.

  Her sister's present movements took her from her recall. Flame was attempting to wipe down the blade, but there really was no room in the alley where Wong had led them. The sword disturbed her. Jiang grew cold when she thought of Flame killing with it. She hadn't killed anyone during their encounter, but her sister could hardly be expected to follow Jiang's example when she held a sword, could she?

  Out of the corner of her eye, she had noticed one of the fallen men lunge at Flame's leg. It had been a mistake to merely leave them grounded, Jiang realized. Flame had rectified that mistake for her, but it still bothered her—the mistake and the method of correction. At least she hadn't repeated it. The next man was blinded with a crane's beak move after Jiang had winged his clumsy stab aside. She had then immediately cracked her fist into the side of his skull when he grabbed for her. The following man Jiang had sent flying into the water by kicking him with a horse kick, heel driven powerfully with a twist of the hip. Another man, unfortunate enough to be behind him, had been brought down simultaneously.

  It had been a grave mistake, Jiang now considered, to leave the fallen men without incapacitating them fully. Perhaps if she hadn't erred so, it wouldn't have been necessary for Flame to shed so much blood. Jiang did not wish to estimate how many of them had been fatally cut, but numbers danced doggedly in the back of her mind. At least four. Jiang wondered what her parents would have to say on the subject of her allowing her sister to run amok—bodhisattvas of mercy forgive her—armed with a killer's blade. A different kind of regret now replaced the one she'd just tried to assuage by helping her sister. This one was over spiritual neglect.

  Brother Wong returned from assessing their surroundings.

  “No chance of leaving now,” the monk told them, “they've got the guard on every gate, and along the Canal as well.”

  “Who put the guard on every gate?” asked Flame. Jiang sincerely hoped that Flame wasn't thinking of cutting that person down.

  “Li ling, your former Magistrate Li, who do you think?”

  “He owns the city now?” Flame had to admit that those girls who'd teased her had been correct. Li had indeed risen up. Jiang was equally startled by this piece of news.

  “His influence runs across Henan, ever since he acquired that large collection of rice paddies seven years ago.”

  “What's that man doing with the Lian family lands? He should've been satisfied enough with murdering my family, with his ruthless order of lianzuo.” Flame looked up from her attempts at oiling the sword with dirty grease.

  “He killed for those lands,” replied the monk.

  "No. He killed because he hated us." Flame scraped at the sword furiously.

  "You take this tone because you hate him enough to kill him," growled Wong shifu, "but who can truly tell the reasons behind murder? A soldier kills on instinct, as he hates the enemy, but a murderer who plans his crime is a different sort of man. He cultivates intent, and it takes more than mere dislike to grow something like that.” He flexed his fingers as he spoke.

  “I disagree. Li hated and blamed my family for everything, and I'm going to reciprocate.” Flame was trying to whet the blade, but stopped after realizing the noise it made.

  "Don't play the hero," growled the monk, "it'll just prove to Li that he should've killed you both."

  “What do you know about this?” Flame shot back.

  "Wong shifu, are you are acquainted with Magistrate Li?" Jiang asked him this in order to defuse her sister, and also because she had been bothered by the notion that Wong shifu was not all that he appeared. The monk made a noise in his throat.

  “There'll be time for it later. I'm getting provisions,” Wong brushed off, returning to his usual reticent self. He waved his arm at Flame's sharpening efforts. “Keep it down.” Jiang wondered what else the monk knew, as he left.

  Surely not about her agreement? Jiang subverted the freshly retrieved memory, and tried to return her mind to Chan state. But she had trouble emptying her mind. To distract herself, Jiang began to exercise her stance, grinding her feet tightly into the ground. The strengthening exercise had served her well, Jiang reflected, as she thought of her foot work during the altercation. She stared at the building wall.

  “Elder Sister?” Jiang started guiltily. She was neglecting Flame again. “If Li were dead-”

  “I don't think you should be attempting that,” Jiang broke in hurriedly. She abandoned her stance and turned to Flame.

  “Oh, I don't mean to,” Flame said. “It's not practical. Not with my skill.”

  Maybe her sister meant to reassure her, but Jiang was not reassured. Flame would most likely attempt it when it became practical.

  “If Li was gone, we would be able to leave, wouldn't we?”

  “Perhaps not. The city governor under his influence might tighten security even more, for fear of being the one to let us escape.”

  “Then we're staying here a while.”

  “We may adjust in a few days.” It might take longer for herself, though, Jiang admitted privately. The crush of people discomforted her, and their seeming amorality, as illustrated by the nobleman at the noodle stand, appeared to be too much for her to influence. Perhaps she'd have to be fully ordained first. And to stop thinking so much about her discomfort. That was self-centred.

  “How does he even know to look for us?” Flame asked, perplexed.

  “I believe whoever found us at Yongtai may have gone ahead of us and informed Magistrate Li.”

  “I told you he wouldn't forget us.” Flame continued oiling the blade.

  “You might not want to carry that around,” Jiang told her, attempting to change the topic.

  “Why not? It's practical.”

  It's also double-edged, Jiang thought, but Flame disliked metaphor, so instead she said, “I don't need one.” Her sister appraised her with a look.

  “Well, I'm not you. I can't kill barehanded,” Flame said, ever blunt, “the way you did with that constable.”

  Constable? Jiang suddenly recalled the hook she had dealt the blinded man. She hadn't really thought of how hard she had hooked him, but the scene came back to her with accusing clarity. She had thrown her full upper weight into the side of his head, once angled far enough into his guard to render his dao useless.

  “That's what Wong said anyway. You cracked that man's skull.”

  Did she really? Jiang felt uneasy. She had always known that martial arts could be fatal when applied, and that her training originated from the need to defend the monastery from bandits, but she had never thought that she would ever kill. That was for the unenlightened, wasn't it?

  “Where was Brother Wong the whole time, to make such an observation?” Jiang couldn't really recall anything else about their affray with the law. Her sister took on an impressed look.

  “Oh, he was clearing out the spearmen. He took one spear from them and sent them all into the Canal.”

  At th
is point, Jiang was certain that Wong was not a monk. She would have to confront him about that. The idea of having travelled with a false monk for nearly a week made her worry about how well-received that would make her when they finally reached Longhua.

  “Spears are handy. But a sword has a longer blade; a sharper cut,” her sister commented. Then she frowned in thought. “Like Li.”

  This was the first time Jiang had ever heard her sister make metaphysical comparisons. It slightly bothered her. “Whatever do you mean by that?”

  Flame held up the blade.

  “Ma died from one of these. Pa most likely did too. And he won't leave us alone. He wants to cut Family Lian clean off the earth.”

  Jiang sighed.

  “Why do you always think he's after us?”

  “He is after us,” Flame insisted.

  “I meant to ask why you think he's so motivated to kill us.”

  “Because of his hatred for our family, and the fact that if he kills us, Ma and Pa will get deprived in the afterlife as well.”

  “Maybe it's because he allows his human avarice and hatred to hold him.”

  “He's not human.”

  “Avarice and hatred are. If we let go of such things—”

  “—we become inhuman. Really, jia, is that what nirvana will mean?”

  “It means coming to the realization that Buddha's nature is in all. Everything is one and the same thing.” Jiang believed that she had read this somewhere. “Letting go of human weaknesses brings us closer to this nature.” Flame huffed her disapproval.

  “It's no use if the majority thinks differently,” Flame pointed out. “What good is being enlightened and treating everyone nicely, if everyone else refuses to return the favour?”

  “That's not the point.”

  “Then what is? You say, 'forgive and forget Li,' but that's just pointless, because he evidently hasn't done the same for us.”

  Jiang would have liked to say that in a standoff between two conflicting parties, one had to cede first before negotiations could begin. Also, if she had just admitted it, perhaps she might have also said that the point of enlightenment for herself was to be able to influence others to the same end, by example. But there were many things that Jiang buried within herself. And besides, her sister was evidently intent on polemics.

  “Leaving him alone has evidently done us no good,” Flame cut into her thoughts.

  “What are you proposing?” Jiang's voice came calmly, but inside she tensed. Flame tapped the hilt of the old sword.

  “Didn't you say yourself that it wasn't practical?” Her sister was usually pragmatic, but when she was upset, most of her common sense seemed to leave her.

  “I'll learn.”

  “Truly, mei, Ma and Pa wouldn't wish for you to do this,” said Jiang, trying for a final sally.

  “If they wished otherwise, Ma wouldn't tell me to remember the family,” Flame said morosely, while idly wiping the sword on her foot. Jiang recognized it as a sign that Flame had been dreaming again. Her sister consistently began such recalls in depressed distraction; next she would inevitably ignore everything else in her recalling of the dream. Jiang grasped her sister's hand, and with a start, Flame seemed to notice the bloody streak on her trouser leg for the first time.

  “Ma and Pa meant the living ones,” Jiang said softly. Her sister jerked her head up.

  “The dead want remembering too.”

  “But not to the point that we become like them, prematurely,” Jiang was beginning to grasp for words as her sister similarly petered off her angry outburst. After a while, Flame eyed her squarely.

  “All I want is to live without Li's spectre looming over me. I can't hold my head up and live normally while his condemnation of our family still holds. That's what Ma wants me to remember. The family name. That's why I need a sword. To undo his hold over me.”

  He wouldn't have a hold if I'd just listened, Jiang thought, reverting to regret. She wondered if Flame would have developed her irrational hatred for Li if she had known the truth of the circumstances that had brought them to Yongtai. More troublesome was the idea of how her sister might react if she found out now. It was possible that Flame would find out soon. Wong might divulge the facts. Jiang wondered if Flame's loathing for the judge could abate, if she knew, among other things, that it had been Magistrate Li who had helped Jiang drag her from their burning house.

  She looked at her sister. Flame was whetting the old sword intensely.

  Probably not.