Chapter 9: Riverside Immortal (Part 3)
The candle was relit in the room. Ni Su, now changed into clean clothes, ground ink at the desk, her shadow cast on the window screen. Jiang’s young daughter, A-Yun, washed vegetables in the courtyard. Having finished her malt candy, she hoped the kind sister would give her more, but she was too shy to ask, only glancing at the side room from time to time.
Tilting her head, she saw a fluffy, shimmering light floating beside the sister’s shadow on the window screen.
“Huh?” she exclaimed, abandoning the vegetables and running to the window, curiously reaching out towards the shimmering light.
The door creaked open.
The little girl looked up and saw the malt candy sister.
“A-Yun, can you take this to Uncle Sun next door for me?” Ni Su crouched down, her moon-white skirt pooling around her. She patted the girl’s head and handed her a prescription.
A-Yun nodded, clutching the thin piece of paper in her small hand, and ran out of the courtyard.
Ni Su sighed in relief, then, noticing the shimmering light on the window screen, turned around. “I thought ghosts didn’t have shadows.”
And his shadow was strange.
“Besides you, only children under seven or eight can see it.”
The eyes of young children were different from those of adults, able to perceive things that ordinary people couldn’t.
“What should we do then? Should I extinguish the candle when she returns?” Ni Su stood up, closed the door, and walked over.
Xu He Xue, without looking up, gave a slight nod.
He still wore the fur-trimmed cloak, unsuitable for summer. Pale and thin, his eyes were clear, his eyelashes thick. Faint shadows beneath his eyes gave him a quiet, desolate air.
Like someone chronically ill, neither earthly fire nor the scorching sun could melt the chill in his bones.
“Miss Ni, come and eat!” Jiang’s voice called out.
Ni Su replied and blew out the candle. In the dim light from the doorway, she could just make out his figure. “Xu Zi Ling, I’ll be quick.”
Xu He Xue remained motionless and silent in the shadows.
Ni Su went out. Jiang had already set the food on the table. A-Yun returned from next door, holding a bowl of pickled vegetables. “Where did you go? Why did you bring back pickled vegetables?” Jiang asked.
“I asked A-Yun to deliver a prescription for me. The baby was born, and Yue Niang needs medicine to recover,” Ni Su explained.
“At least they sent a bowl of pickled vegetables. That Sun Da Lang, unlike his mother, still has some conscience,” Jiang said, taking the pickled vegetables from A-Yun. She had made mushroom noodles, and the pickled vegetables would be a good addition.
Jiang invited Ni Su to sit and eat, then went back inside to feed her mother-in-law half a bowl of noodles before returning to join Ni Su and A-Yun.
“Don’t mind the simple fare, Miss Ni. We only have seasonal vegetables to offer,” Jiang said with a smile.
“Sister Jiang, your cooking is excellent,” Ni Su said as she ate.
They chatted for a while, then Jiang, after some hesitation, asked, “If you don’t mind me saying, Miss, you don’t seem like an ordinary person. And you’re so young. Why…”
She paused, then, seeing Ni Su look up at her, changed her tack. “Don’t mind me, Miss, but what you do is thankless work.”
Unless driven by hardship, few women would work as medicine women. It was a disreputable profession, inviting scorn and disapproval.
The medicine women Jiang had met were all old, their lives nearing their end.
Ni Su smiled. “At least Sister Jiang, you didn’t turn me away and even offered me a meal.”
“You saved Yue Niang and her daughter’s lives. How could I look down on you?” Jiang sighed. “When I gave birth to A-Yun, my father-in-law was still alive. He was just like Yue Niang’s mother-in-law, making snide remarks about me being useless. But my mother-in-law was different. Other women had to work in the fields the day after giving birth, but my mother-in-law took care of me for over a month. She told me that she almost died giving birth to my husband, Chang Sheng. Only women understand women’s suffering.”
“But I think, not all women understand women’s suffering.” Jiang pointed her chopsticks towards the house next door. “Look at Sun Da Lang’s mother. There are more people like her in this world.”
“Miss Ni, what you do will make it difficult for you to marry.”
This wasn’t meant as an offense, but a simple truth that Ni Su had long been aware of. Men who practiced medicine were respected physicians, while women who did the same were seen as lowly medicine women.
There were many more people like Old Mrs. Sun in this world than like Jiang.
“I set my aspirations when I was young. Why should they change because of marriage?” Ni Su put down her bowl and met Jiang’s complex gaze, her expression calm and confident. “I don’t believe saving lives is wrong. If my future husband thinks it’s wrong, then it’s not me who’s wrong, but him.”
Jiang had never met such a strange young woman. Marriage was the most important event in a woman’s life, but clearly, it wasn’t the most important thing for this young woman with her plain clothes and dark hair.
Staying in a peasant’s home, daily baths weren’t possible. Ni Su had to forgo her usual habits and slept in her clothes, the light from the lantern outside casting shadows on her eyelids through the screen.
Ni Su woke up before dawn. She got up and walked around the screen. A single candle flickered on the table, but the man was gone.
The lantern outside had been extinguished. Ni Su went out with the candle. The summer night was still, but the locust tree in the courtyard rustled softly. Shielding the candle flame with her hand, she walked towards the tree.
Ni Su looked up. The hem of his cloak hung down from the thick branches. He leaned against the trunk, and, as if sensing the light, opened his eyes, a rare look of confusion in them.
“Between humans and ghosts, must there be such a clear distinction between men and women?” Ni Su asked, looking up at him.
She had lit the candle for him, yet he preferred to sit in the dark in the tree. It seemed that even as a ghost, he was a gentleman.
She held the candle, and its light illuminated her face.
Xu He Xue looked down at her, silent.
“Xu Zi Ling.” At this moment, Ni Su suddenly felt a sense of closeness to him, perhaps because of his politeness and propriety, or perhaps because he was playing with a cicada he held in his hand.
She suddenly wanted to talk to him. “Did you know that the cicada’s shell can also be used in medicine?”
“No,” Xu He Xue replied, his fingers silencing the cicada’s chirping.
“It’s called Chan Tui. It can dispel wind-heat, clear the lungs and throat, and calm convulsions.” Ni Su spoke effortlessly, the candlelight flickering on her face. “Last year, in July and August, I went to the mountains with the herbalists to collect them. Freshly shed cicada shells are translucent in the sunlight, like amber. They’re beautiful.”
Xu He Xue, perched in the tree, looked at her for a moment. “Your mother was a good person. Now that her soul has returned to Youdu, she will surely find peace.”
He easily discerned the reason for her waking in the middle of the night, the source of her sadness, and why she was standing beneath the tree, making small talk with him.
Ni Su was silent for a moment, then lowered her eyes and asked, “Don’t people reincarnate immediately after death?”
“Youdu is perpetually shrouded in a thick fog that can cleanse soul fire and alter appearances. But these things take time.”
Half a year in Youdu was equivalent to one month in the mortal realm.
Time was a powerful tool of forgetting. The fog of Youdu could wash away a soul’s memories and gradually change its appearance. Once the time was up and the soul reincarnated, it would be a completely different person.
Ni Su had heard many stories and read many books, but none were as vivid and real as what this spirit from Youdu was telling her tonight.
Ni Su looked at the shimmering light floating on the ground. “But you seem to remember.”
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have made a pact with her to go to Yun Jing to find an old friend.
“Although I reside in Youdu, I don’t belong there,” Xu He Xue replied simply.
So the fog of Youdu couldn’t erase his memories or change his appearance.
Ni Su didn’t fully understand but knew better than to pry further. She stared at the flickering candle flame for a moment, then looked up. “Xu Zi Ling, why don’t we set off now?”
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