Meandering River, Ardent Flame
Page 38
Chapter 15: Regret
Jiang awoke with a start. Was it morning or night? She felt somewhat disoriented. Above her, instead of the precisely fitted timber beams of the apartment, Jiang saw wooden wheels interlaced with bronze. Was she actually inside the clock tower?
The tea! Jiang scrambled to her feet, filled with a powerful dread. She had not felt this way since the night she cowered behind a screen and watched her mother die. Then, as now, she had let herself be exploited by a Li!
Her thoughts streamed quickly: Xiang had seemed kind enough, but she had made the mistake of sharing her weaknesses; her weakness for him—for fellow sufferers, she corrected—and he had used it to give her laced tea. It didn't matter. Jiang forced her thoughts to slow. She could still taste the bitter dregs of the drink.
“Nice to see you conscious,” growled a voice. Jiang sprang up abruptly, in anticipation of her attacker. The monk Wong appeared, bearing a lamp, and Jiang immediately masked her surprise. She wouldn't show vulnerability.
“I'm pleased to see you as well, Wong shifu.” Jiang forced her voice into normality. “Though I believe your sworn brother was sufficient enough to act in your stead.” She swallowed as she looked for the exit.
“A comrade from my martial days,” confirmed Wong. “I merely sent him to escort you from Bianjing. Clearly he failed.”
“Why? And why are you here?” The questions slipped before she could contain her ignorance.
“Let me ask you a question instead. What are you doing here?”
“I was under the impression that I was handling past family matters.” The monk sighed at her reply.
“You've been trying to do that ever since you reached Bianjing. Are you sure you actually want to?” When Jiang didn't reply, being occupied in questioning her motives for staying, Wong shifu added, “In any case, your sister's taking care of that.”
The bronze chain made a horrible rattle, and the monk's words were not comforting. It sounded as if her sister had killed someone. Bodhisattvas of mercy, I have failed again. It didn't matter who had died; Li and the entire city would be hunting her sister down. The lamp sputtered from stray drops of water. And it was all because Jiang had neglected her sister. Again. Remember the family, her mother had said, but she had forgotten her sister at Taihe, for Li's son. And her sister had killed. The guilt brought her physical nausea.
“Anyway, time to leave Bianjing,” interjected Wong. Jiang looked up from her self-rebuke.
“And my sister?” Jiang was afraid of what he would say, though he looked regretful.
“I should have never agreed to you two separating,” he muttered mostly to himself, “but it's a bit late for that now.” He looked back at Jiang. “Your sister seems quite determined to stay, though you might leave.”
This was an ironic change of roles. Jiang had stayed to die, but now it seemed that Flame was staying to kill.
“I'll leave when she does,” Jiang said decisively. The monk exhaled heavily, in obvious discomfort.
“Then you'll both die. Your sister's killed Li.”
“Which one?” Jiang felt the familiar waves of guilt swamping her in periods. There was now no questioning that her sister had killed.
“Which one do you think?” He sounded impatient. “She's probably tracking down the younger one right this moment, now that she likely knows his identity.”
“You knew.”
“I've always known.” Wong chuckled ruefully. “I've also known that you're prone to paralysing fits of guilt leading to indecision, that your sister is full of unhealthy hatred, and that neither of you could leave the past alone.”
“And why, Wong shifu, haven't you left us alone?” Jiang was curious to know.
“I've told you both before― the past belongs behind us. What did chasing my father's honour bring me? My desire to redeem myself by becoming a military paradigm, in killing the enemies of the Empire; ridding it of evil? Broken fingers.” Wong shifu looked at her intensely.
“Your sister believes that destroying evil is as simple as thrusting a blade into a man's heart, or maybe even a hundred of them. And that is what blaming another man for evil demands. You want to overcome it by appealing to the heart. That's for your shame of allowing yourself to be manipulated by evil. But it's never that simple. For evil lives not in man's heart, nor any other part of his body, but in ideology.”
“I can reach that,” said Jiang, adamant.
“Ideology belongs to no single man. Just look at how many scorn me for being part Jurchen.”
“I'm trying nonetheless.” Wong sighed at her insistence.
“If you give all to the one who gives you harm, there is nothing left to give the one who gives you kindness,” warned Wong, “and remember that 'all' includes one's life. You've only one for the present, no matter how many cycles of rebirth you might think to pass through.”
Jiang thought of how she had failed her sister, and of how Flame was probably going to kill again. That would make Xiang her fault too. Though he had taken advantage of her character, Jiang was beginning to develop the nagging thought that he had meant well. Why else would he leave her for Wong shifu to find and talk her out of town? That made her feel guilty as well. But motivations were nothing; what mattered was that Jiang prevented both her sister and Xiang from satisfying their misguided notions of family and self-honour.
“Wong shifu, I thank you for the concern, but I need to end the suffering I've caused by my neglect.”
“True to the end, aren't you?” The monk bent his hands into hu zhua, curled as a tiger's claws. “You may face death in the process. Is that what you want?”
Jiang thought that if she walked away from Bianjing, and the guilt didn't kill her, her regret certainly would. She nodded. Wong shifu jerked the claws at an imaginary throat.
“I won't impede you.” He pulled his hands back. “But know what you want.”
Jiang nodded in acquiescence to his words, as she bowed to Wong shifu with grave finality. And then she was running from the clock, hoping that she wouldn’t be too late to meet her sister, or Xiang. A meeting of them both promised to be fatal. She would have to stop one of them. Know what you want. But she didn’t.