Meandering River, Ardent Flame
Page 36
Chapter 13: Family Li
It was too late, Xiang thought, as he looked mournfully between his father's sword and Lian Jiang.
The two of them had been closeted away, in some decrepit apartment dating from the Tang dynasty, for only several days, before Prefect Li had sent him summons. Xiang had been struggling until then to decide how best to deal with Jiang, and thereby confront his father without losing face.
The conundrum had been causing him to lose sleep, and that in turn had made him prone to dizziness. His thoughts were definitely causing him physical suffering. What was worse was that he hadn't quite pinpointed the rooted thought of his discomfort, though something told him that he knew. It definitely wasn't his sense of filial loyalty. He had already discarded that, when he declared quite directly to Jiang that he wasn't going to kill her, despite his father's orders.
He had received the summons late in the evening. Xiang had felt uneasy from the start. Prefect Li's black-robed messenger had borne a white robe folded over one arm, and the crimson chop had contrasted with it starkly when the man shook the scroll open.
“Your father wrote to ask why you continue in your dalliances with the elder, when the younger has returned in revenge.” The messenger had not even bothered with tact, in spite of Jiang's presence. Xiang had shown indignation on her behalf.
“I ask that you show more courtesy towards a member of the Buddhist clergy,” Xiang had replied, fighting the urge to grip a blade.
“There's no need.” The red chop was waved casually towards Jiang. “The prefect said you're to kill her.” Xiang had shook his head. The man's hand had then reached for his dao, but Xiang had been quicker, and gripped his moving wrist in a steel vise.
“I'll do no such thing.” In response to Xiang's defiance, Li's messenger had thrust a scroll into his hand. Then the man had tossed the white robe at Jiang with a scornful bow, and the words, “For you, Lian, from the prefect.” It was a funerary robe. Jiang had picked it up silently and folded it carefully, even as the man watched.
When Xiang opened the scroll, he had been greeted by his own writing. The stark letters of the Tao Te Ching stood black and clear against the white silk. So his father had kept his calligraphy after all. Xiang had wondered what it meant. Li's messenger had given him the answer.
“'To die but not be forgotten― that's true long life.' Isn't that what you wrote, young Li? How better to remember your father than to follow his last wishes?”
Gods and ancestral spirits, was Xiang's thought, I've murdered my own father. Or to be more precise, his mercy had somehow facilitated Lian Flame's murder of his father. Didn't matter. The silk scroll had clattered to the floor as he drew his sword.
And now he stood, blade bared at the elder Lian's face, his arm weighing heavily with regret. Jiang still regarded him calmly. It really was too late. Xiang's arm shook, even though he hadn't held the sword outstretched for long. Too late to withdraw the blade; besides how could he, when holding back had resulted in his father's death? His calligraphy seemed to accuse him from the ground. The black stood clearly against the white.
The messenger regarded the scene with a relaxed air, hands folded away in black robes.
“First you delay, now you act rashly,” the man said with a sneer. “The prefect wants you back tonight; he's decided not to give you any further wishes after that. And you're to come with Lian.” He turned again to Jiang. “Wear that robe. It's cotton. Won't do to dirty the floors when Li Xiaowen finally obeys Prefect Li.” With that, he left, robes flapping like a raven's wings.
Xiang still held his father's sword upright. Another character caught his eye from the ground. Folded in the scroll had been a paper with a single character. The strokes for sword, blood-stroke and all, were confidently rendered in crimson, assaulting his eyes. His sword trembled near Jiang's features. Prefect Li's calligraphy was quite painfully direct.
“I presume I'm to give your father my life.” How Jiang could still look at him directly was incomprehensible to him. Xiang couldn't lower his arm.
“You don't owe him anything,” he brought out shortly. “At any rate, it's too late.” Xiang's father had always stressed utmost punctuality, a habit he had learned well. Except when it came to making decisions. The messenger had been correct; he had been delaying in dalliances. Xiang didn't quite know why, though he had been utterly serious in his comparison of Jiang to the beauty Xi Shi. Jiang, however, had no pained look at the moment. It was more likely that he was the one wearing a pained expression, as Jiang broke in, equally short:
“What do you owe him?” Everything, was Xiang's response. It didn't matter how many times his father had reprimanded him for foolishness, nor the innumerable instances in which his mother had exhorted him to obey his father. Nor did Xiang resent the prefect for pressing him into literature and art, drilling him in preparations for exams. Xiang had his Imperial degrees now. And all those morning practices with the sword had been taken from his father's own time. The prefect had wanted him to be skilled in self-preservation, and in that, Xiang felt he did not disappoint.
Until now. He had held back his hand, and now the younger Lian was coming for the prefect, his father and family head. The sons of the renowned scholar Kong Rong had followed their father to death. No eggs could survive under that overturned nest. Xiang felt inexorably bound to Prefect Li. He was his father's only son― it was his filial duty to obey his father to the end, and to burn the ancestral incense afterward. Why else had his father spent so much time and energy in his upbringing? I owe him all, Xiang thought, and thus it is unthinkable that I disobey him.
“You owe him too much, I see,” Jiang said quietly. Her gaze went to the south window, where the red rays of evening still touched, towards Hubei and her sister. “Just as my sister believes that she owes our parents. It's too much.”
Xiang's wrist was aching, but he was unable to exert any energy into turning his wrist upwards and easing the strain. Jiang regarded him with a sad smile.
“You recognized it, didn't you? That burning loyalty to one's kin would push one even to kill.” Her gaze returned to the south. “You hoped that my sister would try to kill you when she discovered you were truly a Li. In that way, you might obey your father without denigrating into a dishonourable murderer of defenceless women.”
His father's sword shook slightly, and a slight scratch appeared below Jiang's lip. That made him feel as guilty as her words did. He felt the need to vindicate himself.
“That has not been my intention for a full week now.”
“Then what has your intention been?” Her emotionless countenance, which had been cracking all throughout her correct hypotheses of his motivations, was slipping. Xiang thought it looked somewhat hopeful.
“I intended to send Flame away for good.”
“And regarding myself?”
“You were to stay.” Xiang now felt very conflicted. He lowered the blade uncomfortably, and Jiang proceeded to wipe at her chin with a corner of the funeral robe.
“Whatever for? Surely not so I could displease your father by continuing to breathe.” Jiang looked at the cotton robe fixedly, the white cloth spotted by only a small streak of crimson.
“Please don't do that,” said Xiang, feeling thoroughly wretched. The sight of her nonchalantly wiping her chin, on the robe that his father wanted him to kill her in, discomfited him. He brushed the blood carefully away with his sleeve instead.
“What was the reason, Xiang?” Jiang was insistent, though she put up with his brushing. His discomfort heightened.
“I truly was hoping that you'd please my father alive,” Xiang confessed. “Unfortunately, Prefect Li is not much inclined to any further weddings with Family Lian.” He tried to withdraw his spotted sleeve, but Jiang's hand clamped his wrist with a stoic grip, as befitted a Shaolin nun.
“Did you know that your father wanted mine dead, over such a wedding, because my disappearance hurt his honour?” She was biting her bottom lip.
“And did you find that contract?” Jiang's face was as inscrutable as his father's, though her grip tightened.
“I believe I am too late; that my father destroyed it inadvertently in the fire seven years ago. Fear of Jurchen invasion provided acceptance for his autocracy. Until now, I suppose, with his renewed interest in finding you and your sister. All I have is Lian's ledger, given to me by my father.”
“Your father should have destroyed that too,” said Jiang, finally letting go. “Why do we have to cling to such mementos of hate?” Xiang sighed in response to her words.
“Too much time has passed, and it's more comforting to stay in our well-worn paths and think our well-worn thoughts. Though I can burn the ledger if that pleases you.” That was the best he could come up with, and he looked away in shame. He sheathed his father's sword and rubbed his wrist under Jiang's gaze.
“All that we are is the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.” Her hands stopped his. “From the Fajiu jing; I don't think anyone could expect me to come up with something so cheering,” she added, focusing intensely on their hands.
Xiang meditated on this gift. Here at last was the answer to his problem. In his struggles to obey his father, he had injured a leg, been attacked in several affrays, and now lost sleep. While Xiang usually didn't take such sayings to heart, this particular saying seemed to resonate with him. He certainly had been dogged by pain, though he was now so very close to doing what filial piety deemed right.
The bells rung from the Iron Pagoda, sounding through iron-grey brick and apartment wall. And although it was a bit ridiculous, memories came back. The sounds recalled to him how he had coaxed an unconscious smile out of Jiang with his promise to relieve her of self-sacrifice. It also made him think of Jiang eagerly admiring the pagoda, sharing his interest over its architectural features, and later, of thanking him for his company and putting up with her gloominess, though he had been equally glad of her company, before and after the guan dao had accosted them both.
“Thank you, Lian Jiang,” Xiang replied gravely. He let their hands linger a while longer, then withdrew. “I will confront Prefect Li tonight. A cup of tea?”
When Jiang hesitated, Xiang added, “It would alleviate my melancholy.” The sorrow on his face was impossible to mask, and Xiang knew that she could see. Jiang accepted a cup.
“If it comforts you,” said Jiang, sipping from the earthenware.
What would have comforted Xiang was for Jiang to have more certainty in her statements, though as it stood, the elder Lian was going to become a nun. Xiang's sadness increased at the thought, but he tried to push it away. That was what the elder Lian wanted to be happy. His sorrow grew at the thought that the younger was most likely going to demand satisfaction from him, as would his father.
But this predicament was entirely of his causation, and he would have to resolve it. Xiang picked up his calligraphy, and his father's, carefully. There would be no one else like his old teacher Lang to bear the brunt of his errors. He gripped the sword more tightly. Xiang would fix his mistake. Alone.