Meandering River, Ardent Flame

by Vivian Chak

  ***

  It was early morning, and Jiang was going through the motions of the tiger and crane forms. Hands sweeping from claws to wing and beak, Jiang whirled through each motion quickly, as if her thoughts could be similarly swirled away. Last night had been a trying ordeal, as Jiang explained the deal struck seven years ago with Magistrate Li.

  Her crane's wing swept clumsily into an attacking beak. It was too rushed. She thought back to her sister's reaction.

  “What do you mean Li dragged me out of the burning house?” Flame had been livid. “And if it's true, why didn't you tell me before?” Jiang had only recounted up to the point following Li's errant stroke to her sister's head, where the repentant magistrate had helped her carry Flame from the burning house. Flame had immediately interrupted then.

  “I won't believe it. What did he get out of sparing us both? Did you give him anything at all? Whatever it was, he's obviously not satisfied if he still wants us dead now.” Jiang had sighed at her sister's obstinacy in believing that Li wanted to kill them.

  “Allow me to start by explaining my silence. Magistrate Li promised to give us safe passage—”

  “—why would he do that?”

  “It was on the condition that we never involved ourselves in regaining the Lian family land.” Jiang had been hoping that Flame would understand. Likely if she had told her sister everything at a more opportune time, her sister would have been more receptive. Immediately, upon thinking this, regret had flared up strongly in her again, but she had suppressed it. She couldn't let her failings show if she was to demonstrate that her silence had been the most morally appealing choice, could she? Flame's failure to be appeased had suggested otherwise.

  “I don't care about land, but he's hunting us anyway. He broke his word. You can't trust Li, especially if you don't give him anything; he's a regular, lying bandit!”

  “Li asked for nothing, simply that we didn't interfere with his family.”

  “And then after getting nothing, and being dissatisfied with his pickings of our family belongings, he decided to hunt us down as well.”

  Trying to push the thoughts from her mind, Jiang moved three steps forwards to block and then blind a non-existent opponent with a crane's wing, and then beak. If an opponent my height had been attacking me, I would have failed entirely to redirect that blow. With that thought in mind, Jiang tried to imagine where she might have attacked herself, if she had been the attacker. She moved forwards, fists moving in opposing directions to block an imaginary leg and fist simultaneously. The movement felt weak. Her thoughts wandered again to last night's conversation.

  Her sister was becoming better at picking the weak points of her explanations. Maybe it was because Jiang's thoughts were showing on her face. Jiang knew she was prone to self-reflection, but had never thought, until now, that it showed. To understand others is to be knowledgeable; To understand yourself is to be wise.

  Jiang had thought that she had been living by this tenet, picked up from an old Taoist classic, Tao Te Cheng, her whole life. But her sister, and now Magistrate Li, were proving her wrong. Evidently Jiang understood nothing.

  “Allow me to ask you something,” Jiang had broke in. Flame had graciously fallen silent. “What does it mean, to you, that I've forgiven Li?”

  “That it was wrong to do so.”

  Well. At least Flame hadn't said outright that she was at fault, though Jiang had known that she was. She had tried to explain. No. She had explained. It was no good thinking of what she had failed to do, Jiang told herself. She had to move forwards. Particularly since Magistrate Li seemed to be failing to do so. Jiang lunged forwards at her shadow, tiger claw poised to clamp about the leg of her silhouette.

  “That's exactly true. I was wrong to forgive him based on what I knew.” Jiang had recognized from Flame's dark look that her sister was bracing herself for one of Jiang's moral directives, but she had forged ahead nonetheless.

  “If we're to break free of our mean cycles of rebirth, we need to learn to leave the past alone. It was wrong for me to forgive Li, having the knowledge that he had given me something. Forgiveness shouldn't be conditional. Now, I can't forget the positives that Li has done for me—”

  “—there aren't any,” Flame had hissed.

  “Please let me finish. You didn't know about how he helped you. Therefore, you could have done better than I, and forgiven him truly, as befits a Buddhist practitioner.”

  Jiang now winced at her own naivety. She had always assumed that Flame was a practising Buddhist, even though Jiang had silently understood that her sister was not going to be a nun. But Flame's reaction had astonished her in spite of it. Truly, she hadn't known her sister well at all. The familiar twinge of guilt shot through her. Her counterattack following the crane felt inadequate, and her stance was wrong. Sweat trickled down her face as she tried to concentrate on amending it, but her recollections continued to guilt her.

  “I'll never forgive that son of a dog,” Flame had said vehemently, face shining in the moonlight. “Especially after hearing what you've kept from me all these years.”

  “Why?” Jiang, at that point, had felt completely impotent against her sister's hatred, in part because Flame had struck a nerve in pointing out her well-intentioned, but evidently ill-resulting, silence. Her sister had honed her hate for years, much as a swordsman whetted his blade, and now it had become so familiar in her hand, Jiang was powerless to pry it from her. It made her sad to think that she had never succeeded over the years in emptying Flame of her abhorrence. She should have spent more time with her. Their current escapade was certainly providing that time, but it was a tardy effort. Sister An, even though Wong had exposed her falsity, was still correct in one respect—Jiang was always late.

  “Why won't I forgive him? Because then I'd be a hypocrite like you.”

  That had hurt. A lot. Jiang had bitten her lower lip in an effort to keep her face still. Maybe her sister was right, but at least she had learned. And now she wanted Flame to learn. Sloughing over her sister's sharp words, Jiang had summoned all her effort to pass on what she knew.

  “I'm no hypocrite, so long as my actions are consistent with my beliefs.” Jiang had waited for Flame's cynical expression to fade slightly before continuing. “Do you recall the wedding day?”

  Though she had felt slightly selfish for using Flame's need for closure as the medium of her own, Jiang had felt a sharper need to purge herself of what she had withheld for seven years.

  “The day Ma and Ba died,” Flame had breathed out slowly, some of her anger replaced with curiosity.

  “I didn't want it to happen. I didn't want to live in a strange household, with someone I didn't even know. I was selfish.”

  “I wouldn't have wanted to live with the Li family either,” Flame had seemed to want to console her, anger having focused once again on Li.

  “But I ran away. I was going to write exams, like Ba, disguised as man, and then bring the family honour that way. I thought that Ba would have liked the idea; even Ma.”

  “It wouldn't have worked,” Flame had said, ever practical. Jiang had allowed a rueful laugh to escape.

  “Not only did it not work, Ba got blamed for my disappearance. Magistrate Li was convinced that Ba had aligned himself with the Empire's enemies. And Ma and Ba died. All for my brief, wanton surrender to selfish impulse. My rebellion against authority. I have been trying for seven years to learn self-perfection, so as to serve as a better example to others.”

  Also so as to become a legitimate authority, something had whispered in the recesses of her mind. Jiang had immediately dismissed such a thought as sinful.

  She had forced herself to look straight at Flame. “I did it to be an example for you.”

  “Why did you come back?”

  Maybe her sister had missed part of the point, but at least she had been more curious than angry, if she asked such questions.

  “Because I realized that family honour means nothing, if o
ne has no family. Even if I had to marry a Li, at least I wouldn't have been dead to the family. When Magistrate Li ensured that I still had you, I swore to myself that I would renounce those idealistic notions of honour, which had, ironically, harmed our family—the very thing it was meant to uplift.”

  “Thank you for giving me the truth, Elder Sister.” Flame had said it calmly, without rancour.

  “What do you intend to do now?” Jiang had felt that she wouldn't be able to sleep if she didn't know what her sister wanted.

  “The same as ever. Remember the family by actions. I'm not going to be a hypocrite.”

  “You haven't changed your mind.”

  “I can't, Elder Sister. I've wanted to, for seven years, but the past won't let me go. You might have been there, but behind a screen. It's not the same. And, as you used to believe, honour can still help the family.”

  “In what way?”

  “I'll restore honour to the Lian name. Then we'll finally be able to live like normal people.”

  “That's constructive of you.” Flame had shrugged in response to Jiang's draw for more detail through praise.

  They'd gone to sleep after that. For once, Jiang had been in agreement with Flame's plans. Could it be possible that her efforts had finally put a dent in her sister's destructive hate?

  At the moment, Jiang would be content to consider her sister somewhat reformed. Wiping the sweat from her eyes, Jiang set herself to practise a sliding kick. The name was a bit of a misnomer. Knee unbending, she focused her chi on whirling a kick straight out, at an imaginary knee in the air, as she spun, from one partial side split to another.