Chapter 65: Eternal Encounter Song (Part 4)-2
During the Qingming Festival, the rain was frequent. After paying respects to Zhang Jing’s tomb with Han Qing, Zhou Ting rode into the city, packed his belongings, and departed for Zezhou with Chao Yi Song and the others.
Riding past Nan Huai Street, Zhou Ting pulled on the reins, paused for a moment, then dismounted and walked towards the clinic.
“Huh? Miss Ni doesn’t seem to be here?”
Chao Yi Song knocked on the door several times, but heard no response.
Zhou Ting glanced at the closed clinic door, said nothing, and walked across the street to the herbal medicine shop. A-Fang was dozing off. Hearing footsteps, she turned around and saw the cold, dark eyes, jolting awake. “Who are you looking for?”
She felt like she had seen this man before.
“Miss Ni from the clinic across the street. Do you know where she went?” Zhou Ting asked.
The similar situation jogged A-Fang’s memory. Seeing the sword at his waist, she was slightly afraid and answered honestly, “She only said she was going on a long journey. I don’t know where she went.”
“Perhaps she’s returned to her hometown in Que County? And won’t be coming back?”
Chao Yi Song said from behind.
“I don’t think so…”
A-Fang said timidly. “I heard her say she would be back.”
“When did she leave?”
Zhou Ting asked after a moment of silence.
“A few days ago.”
“Thank you.”
Zhou Ting turned and left the shop. Chao Yi Song approached him. “Young Master Zhou…”
“Let’s go, to Zezhou.”
Zhou Ting mounted his horse, interrupting him.
The journey from Yun Jing to Yongzhou was long. Ni Su and Qing Qiong travelled together. After a few days, they were forced to stop at an inn in Cang County due to heavy rain.
Ni Su asked the waiter to buy a basket of incense and candles. Before it was completely dark, she lit several lamps and candles in the room, then sat down at the table to eat.
She had little appetite and ate very little, but Qing Qiong had a good appetite and devoured the food.
After bathing and washing up at night, Ni Su lay down on the bed, holding the medicine basket, and pulled the quilt over herself. The lamplight flickered in the room. She rested her cheek on the soft pillow, looking at the shimmering white light in the medicine basket. It had a fluffy tail. Whenever she reached out, it would nuzzle against her fingertip, its tail wagging.
She covered the medicine basket with the quilt, watching the light flicker inside.
The rain outside the lattice window was loud and chaotic. Ni Su hugged the medicine basket and closed her eyes. Occasionally, she would hear the faint shimmer of the dust motes. She had grown accustomed to this sound in the past few days.
And with this sound, she had a dream.
In the dream, she saw a figure from behind, wearing the clothes she had made for him, vermillion robes, a frost-white outer robe, the scarlet sash at his waist swaying in the wind.
Ni Su wanted to call out to him, but she couldn’t open her mouth.
She saw the clothes fall to the ground and dissipate. He transformed into a swirling mist of blood, floating alone amidst a lush field of silvergrass.
He seemed to be frantically searching through the silvergrass, soul fires flickering within, scattered by the light rain. They transformed into translucent human forms, each a stranger’s face as they drifted past him.
Only he remained a mist of blood, never taking shape.
“Don’t bother searching.”
Ni Su heard a voice. A figure stood in the silvergrass, his face that of a beast, but with a white, curly beard.
He stood before the blood mist, tilting his chin slightly, looking up at the dark, stormy sky. “Your teacher isn’t in Youdu. He’s gone to the place you refused to go.”
A clap of thunder jolted Ni Su awake.
She sat up abruptly, drenched in cold sweat. The details of the dream were blurry, but she remembered the blood mist, the old man with the beastly face.
Remembering that beastly face, Ni Su immediately took out the carved wooden bead from her robes. In the lamplight, the carved bead overlapped with the beastly face in her dream.
She looked to her side and realized there was no light beneath the corner of the quilt. She lifted the quilt. The medicine basket lay quietly beside her, but the shimmering white light was gone.
“Xu Zi Ling…”
Ni Su picked up the medicine basket, got out of bed barefoot, and frantically searched the room. “Xu Zi Ling, where are you?”
Her cries startled Qing Qiong in the next room. He immediately pushed the door open and saw Ni Su in her thin sleeping gown, her hair loose, searching for something in the room, calling out a name.
“Miss Ni, what’s wrong?”
Qing Qiong closed the door and saw Ni Su turn around, her eyes red-rimmed, clutching the small medicine basket. “Qing Qiong, he’s gone…”
“What?”
Qing Qiong approached and saw that the medicine basket was indeed empty. He was stunned for a moment, then touched his cloth-wrapped head. “How could this be? Did you do something? Or…”
“I didn’t do anything.”
Ni Su shook her head. “I just had a dream, and he was gone when I woke up.”
“A dream? What dream?”
Qing Qiong keenly grasped this point.
“I dreamt of a place with a vast field of silvergrass. I dreamt that he turned into a mist of blood, and an old man with a beastly face told him that his teacher had gone to the place he refused to go.”
Qing Qiong’s expression changed when he heard about the silvergrass. Then, hearing about the old man with the beastly face, he immediately said, “The place you dreamt of is the banks of the River of Resentment in Youdu.”
The River of Resentment in Youdu.
Ni Su was startled. She remembered Xu He Xue mentioning it.
The silvergrass field by the River of Resentment was where the souls of the deceased received paper money and winter clothes from their living relatives.
“I’m different from ordinary people. I often dreamt of a place when I was young, and that place was Youdu. The old man with the beastly face is the Earth Lord of Youdu. I guess General Xu has returned to Youdu to find his teacher, Minister Zhang.”
Qing Qiong carefully considered her words. The questions he had been pondering were finally answered. He looked at Ni Su and said seriously, “The souls of the deceased only have soul fire. That’s how my mother is. I couldn’t understand why General Xu’s soul fire was a shimmering white ball, like a formless mountain spirit. But based on what the Earth Lord said in your dream… Miss Ni, I guess General Xu is no longer a soul of Youdu.”
“What… what does that mean?”
Ni Su looked up at him.
“Didn’t I tell you? My father can sometimes hear my mother speak. I remember one day he heard my mother say that not all souls go to Youdu after death.” Qing Qiong walked to the window and pushed open the lattice. The lanterns outside had been extinguished by the rain. He pointed at the dark sky. “Some souls go there after death.”
Ni Su walked to the window and followed Qing Qiong’s finger.
“I knew it. Even if everyone in this world considers General Xu a traitor, Heaven sees his innocence. Such a good general, after death, should become a star in the sky,” Qing Qiong said.
“A star?”
Ni Su murmured.
“My mother said there are no deities in the sky. Nine pacts govern the Earth Lord below, and nine passes guard the tiger and leopard above. See how many stars there are on a clear night? They are all transformed from souls of great merit. The souls of Youdu reincarnate every hundred years, while the stars in the sky change every three hundred years. My mother said they possess power that the souls of Youdu don’t have.”
The sound of rain fell softly on Ni Su’s ears.
“I was just wondering why, when you become a ghost, you gain these supernatural abilities, yet Youdu punishes you for using them.”
“Because these abilities aren’t meant to be used here.”
On the night of the Lantern Festival, in the alley behind the entertainment district, Xu He Xue had answered her this way.
The waters of the mortal world couldn’t wash away his dust.
Besides the willow leaf water she boiled, only the bright moonlight could cleanse the dust and grime clinging to him. He wasn’t a ghost of Youdu; he was truly a star in the sky.
“Miss Ni? Miss Ni, what are you thinking about?” Qing Qiong called her several times before she blinked, finally reacting.
The night wind brushed her face, stirring the hair by her ear. She stood by the window, clutching the empty medicine basket, looking at the deep, rainy night. Youdu in her dream was also raining:
“I hope this rain stops soon.”
Otherwise, what would the fastidious Xu Zi Ling do?
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