When lamplight burned again in the room, Ni Su had changed into fresh clothing. She ground ink at the table, her shadow cast upon the window paper. Lady Jiang’s little daughter was washing vegetables in the courtyard. Her malt candy was finished, and she rather hoped that sister might give her another piece, but she felt too shy to ask. She could only occasionally turn her head to glance at the side room.
But as she tilted her head, she saw beside that sister’s shadow on the window paper a ball of fluffy luminescence floating.
She made a sound of surprise, stopped washing vegetables, and ran to the side room’s door and window, curiously reaching out toward that ball of light reflected on the window paper.
With a creak, the room door suddenly opened.
The little girl looked up to see the malt candy sister she had been thinking about.
“A’Yun, could you help me deliver this to Uncle Sun across the way?” Ni Su crouched down, her moon-white silk skirt hem pooling on the ground. She touched the girl’s head and handed her a prescription.
A’Yun nodded, her small hand grasping the thin slip of paper, then turned and ran toward the courtyard gate.
Ni Su breathed a sigh of relief and looked up at the luminescent light on the window paper, then turned her head. “I thought ghosts wouldn’t cast shadows.”
Moreover, his shadow was very strange.
“Besides you, only children under seven or eight years old can see it.”
Young children’s eyes differed from adults’—they could perceive things ordinary people could not.
“Then what should we do? When she comes back, should I extinguish the lamp?” Ni Su stood up, closed the door, and walked over.
Xu Hexue didn’t look up, lightly nodding in acknowledgment.
He still wore that beast-fur-collared winter cloak unsuited to summer, pale and thin, his eyes clear with thick lashes. Light shadows spread beneath his eyelids, pervaded by a quiet, deathly sense of withering.
Like someone long ill, for whom neither the world’s charcoal fires nor blazing sun could melt the profound cold sunk deep into his bones.
“Miss Ni, come out and eat!”
Lady Jiang’s voice carried over.
Ni Su responded, then blew out the candle. In the dim light falling from outside the eaves, she made out his silhouette. “Xu Ziling, I’ll eat very quickly.”
In the shadows, Xu Hexue didn’t move or speak.
Ni Su pushed open the door. Lady Jiang had already set out the meal. Just then her daughter A’Yun returned from across the way, holding a bowl of pickled vegetables. Lady Jiang asked: “What were you doing? Why did you bring back a bowl of pickles?”
“I had A’Yun help me deliver a prescription. The child was born with such difficulty, and Sister Yueliang needs medicine to recuperate.” Ni Su walked over to explain.
“At least they sent back a bowl of pickles. That Sun family’s eldest son isn’t like his mother—he still has some conscience.” Lady Jiang took the pickles from A’Yun. She had made fresh mushroom and vegetable noodles, perfect for adding some pickles.
Lady Jiang invited Ni Su to sit and eat noodles. She went back to her room to serve her mother-in-law half a bowl, then came out again to eat together with A’Yun and Ni Su.
“Miss Ni, please don’t mind. We only have seasonal vegetables to offer here.” Lady Jiang smiled at her.
“Sister Jiang’s cooking is excellent.”
Ni Su said as she ate.
The two chatted for a bit more. Lady Jiang hesitated, then couldn’t help asking: “In my opinion, Miss, you don’t look like you’re from an ordinary family, and you’re so young. How did you…”
She reconsidered her latter half-sentence before speaking, but seeing Ni Su look up at her, she changed the subject: “Miss, please don’t take offense. It’s just that doing these things is really thankless.”
If life weren’t hard, forcing one to desperation, few women would dare do the work of a medicine woman—improper and disreputable, inviting nothing but scorn.
Lady Jiang had seen medicine women before. They were all elderly women, one foot already in the grave.
Ni Su smiled. “Fortunately, Sister Jiang, you not only didn’t drive me away but treated me to a good meal.”
“You saved Yueliang’s and her daughter’s lives. How could I look down on you?” Lady Jiang sighed. “When I gave birth to A’Yun, my father-in-law was still alive. Like Yueliang’s mother-in-law, he would indirectly curse me for being worthless. But fortunately my mother-in-law wasn’t like that. While other people’s daughters-in-law had to work the fields the day after giving birth, my mother-in-law took care of me for over a month. Later she told me that when she gave birth to my husband Changsheng, she nearly died. Only women know women’s suffering.”
“But I see that women don’t necessarily understand women’s suffering.” Lady Jiang ate a bite of pickles, gesturing with her chopsticks across the way. “Look at that Sun family’s eldest son’s mother. In this world, there are still more people like her.”
“Miss Ni, doing these things, I’m afraid it won’t be easy for you to marry.”
These words weren’t meant to offend, but were a fact that had long been laid before Ni Su. Male doctors who practiced medicine were called physicians and respected by all. Women who practiced medicine were no different from medicine women and despised by all.
There were many in this world like Old Lady Sun, few like Lady Jiang.
“Shall I change the ambition I held as a child because of marriage?” Ni Su set her bowl on the table. Meeting Lady Jiang’s complicated gaze, she spoke calmly and easily: “I don’t believe saving people is wrong. If my future husband thinks it’s wrong, then the one at fault isn’t me, but him.”
Lady Jiang had rarely seen a girl as strange as Ni Su. Marriage was the most important matter in a woman’s life, yet clearly it wasn’t the most important matter in the heart of this plain-clothed, dark-haired girl before her eyes.
Bathing daily wasn’t possible in a farming household. Away from home, Ni Su had to suppress the habits she had at home. That night she slept in her clothes. Light and shadow filtered through the screen, falling across her eyelids.
Ni Su woke once from sleep before dawn broke. She rose and walked around the screen, seeing only a lamp burning like a bean on the table, but that person was nowhere to be seen.
The lantern outside had already gone out. Ni Su carried the lamp out. Though there was no wind on this summer night, the locust tree in the courtyard rustled softly. Shielding the candle flame with one hand, she walked beneath the tree’s shade.
Ni Su looked up. From deep within the foliage hung the hem of his robes. He leaned lightly against the tree trunk. Apparently sensing the light, he opened his eyes, a rare trace of confusion flowing through them.
“Must the distinction between man and ghost, male and female, be so clearly drawn?” Ni Su looked up at him.
She had lit lamps for him, yet he would rather feel his way in darkness to stay in this tree. It seemed that even as a ghost, he remained a gentleman ghost.
She held the lamp in her hands, its light falling on her face.
Xu Hexue looked down at her without speaking.
“Xu Ziling.”
Just at this moment, Ni Su suddenly felt he seemed a bit more approachable—perhaps because of his propriety and principles, or perhaps because he held a cicada in his hand and was playing with it.
Ni Su suddenly wanted to talk with him. “Do you know this cicada’s outer shell can also be used as medicine?”
“I don’t.”
The cicada held beneath Xu Hexue’s fingers couldn’t make a sound.
“It’s called cicada molt in medicine. It can disperse wind-heat, clear the lungs and throat, and stop convulsions.” Ni Su spoke readily, the candle flame’s shadow flickering gently on her cheek. “Last July or August, I even went to the mountains with herb farmers to collect them. Freshly molted cicada shells look translucent as amber in the sunlight—extremely beautiful.”
Xu Hexue in the tree watched her for a moment. “Your mother lived without evil. Now that her soul has returned to Youdu, she will surely have a good place there.”
He easily saw why she had awakened in the middle of the night—what pained her heart, why she stood beneath this tree’s shade speaking to him without real purpose.
Ni Su fell silent for a moment, then lowered her eyes and asked: “After people die, don’t they immediately reincarnate?”
“Youdu has dense fog that never disperses year-round. It can wash soul-fires and change appearances, but all this requires time.”
Half a year in Youdu equaled one month in the mortal realm.
Time had always been forgetfulness’s sharpest weapon. Youdu’s dense fog could wash away living souls’ memories and would slowly alter the souls’ appearances. Once the period expired and they entered reincarnation, they would be completely different people.
From childhood to now, Ni Su had heard many rumors and read many books, but none compared to this night—hearing everything directly from this living soul from Youdu made it more direct and real.
Ni Su looked again at the floating, flickering luminescent light on the ground. “But you seem not to have forgotten.”
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have agreed to go to Yunjing to find some old friend.
“Though I dwell in Youdu, I don’t belong to Youdu.”
Xu Hexue answered briefly.
So Youdu’s dense fog couldn’t wash away his memories, nor had it changed his appearance.
Ni Su didn’t quite understand but knew her limits and didn’t pursue further questions. She stared at the swaying candle flame for a moment, then suddenly looked up: “Xu Ziling, why don’t we set out on the road right now?”
—