Xiahou Zuo had taken over Yan Qingzhi’s bed and was still smugly congratulating himself when he saw Yan Qingzhi and Li Diudiu return carrying food. So he stretched out his hand like some pampered noblewoman and said, “Help me up.”

Yan Qingzhi shot him a sideways glance. Xiahou Zuo said, “Show some humanity.”

Yan Qingzhi looked toward Li Chi. Li Chi said, “He didn’t call for me.”

Yan Qingzhi shot Li Chi a sideways glance as well.

Xiahou Zuo said, “Although this teacher isn’t my teacher per se, he is the Academy’s teacher, and I am the Academy’s disciple — once a teacher, a father for life. The teacher also helped me change my wound dressings, and a physician’s heart is a parent’s heart, so…”

He trailed off at that point, vaguely feeling he had gotten the worse end of the deal.

Li Diudiu held up a thumb and waggled it at him: “Impressive!”

Yan Qingzhi felt that if he didn’t go help him up now he’d be failing to live up to this doubly-paternal identity, so he went over to assist Xiahou Zuo. But Xiahou Zuo had already braced himself and was getting out of bed on his own, saying as he sat up, “No, no, no — I don’t need it.”

Li Diudiu arranged the food on the table. The plain rice they’d brought back, if divided into ten portions, would go two portions each to Xiahou Zuo and Yan Qingzhi, and six to himself — he sorted it out with complete self-awareness. Naturally, without any need for polite protests.

The three of them ate. When they were done, Yan Qingzhi stood and said, “Leave the dishes for now. Come with me for a bit.”

Xiahou Zuo: “Where?”

Yan Qingzhi: “I’m not telling you.”

Xiahou Zuo: “Tch…”

Yan Qingzhi took Li Diudiu and left the small courtyard. Xiahou Zuo watched the two of them go and somehow couldn’t shake the feeling they were up to no good. Sure enough, about half an hour later the two reappeared in his line of sight — carrying his disassembled bed back.

Xiahou Zuo recognized it at a glance as his own bed, because there was a tassel ornament hanging from the headboard. His expression shifted; ignoring the pain from his wounds, he strode quickly over and snatched the tassel in his fist, his manner conveying something precious.

It was an accessory, the kind meant to hang from a sash. It had one red bead of some unknown material, vivid red as if about to drip, with a light purple tassel that paired beautifully with the bead.

He returned without a word and lay down on Yan Qingzhi’s bed, facing the wall, the ornament still clenched in his hand.

“Are you upset?”

Yan Qingzhi walked to the bedside and, after a moment’s thought, decided he ought to explain.

“I strained my back practicing martial arts. If I sleep on the floor my back won’t straighten the next day, so…”

“It’s fine.”

Xiahou Zuo said, “It’s not about the bed.”

Yan Qingzhi glanced at the ornament clutched tightly in his hand, suddenly remembering something. He let out a soft sigh, said nothing more, and turned to leave — but his face was written with remorse.

Outside the courtyard, Yan Qingzhi stood there in a daze, expression somewhat troubled. Li Diudiu carried his clay teapot over and offered it to him: “Teacher — tea.”

Li Diudiu could see Yan Qingzhi’s face didn’t look right, so he asked, “Is Teacher upset with Xiahou Zuo?”

“No — I’m not that petty.”

Yan Qingzhi looked back at the room. Xiahou Zuo had just taken his medicine and fallen asleep. He spoke quietly to Li Diudiu: “That pendant — the red bead with the tassel, hanging at the head of Xiahou Zuo’s bed.”

Li Diudiu made a sound of acknowledgment. “I even said it was beautiful.”

“It probably belonged to his younger sister.”

Yan Qingzhi exhaled a long breath and said, “Xiahou Zuo’s situation… is actually very difficult. His mother and father have a complicated relationship as well. His mother refused to become a concubine in the Prince’s estate and suffer the cold eyes of others, so when she became pregnant she moved out and lived alone.”

“Later came Xiahou Zuo, and then after that came Xiahou Zuo’s younger sister — her name should be Xiahou Yili. Xiahou Zuo doted on her completely; no one was allowed to bully her. It was precisely to protect his sister that Xiahou Zuo started learning martial arts.”

“Then later, when his sister was seven or eight years old, she went missing… That pendant must be something she gave him.”

Yan Qingzhi said, “Both he and his sister — they’ve suffered so much.”

Li Diudiu’s expression changed as well. “Teacher, was his sister harmed by someone?”

Yan Qingzhi said, “I don’t know. I always feel it must have something to do with the people in the Prince’s estate. Xiahou Zuo has searched for years without a single lead. The reason he keeps such close company with people from the martial world is that he hopes by making more friends he can gather information about his sister’s whereabouts. Yet after all these years…”

Yan Qingzhi shook his head. “Just now I was careless.”

Li Diudiu’s heart grew heavy too.

The human heart — how could it become so sinister?

Li Diudiu was not that kind of person. Yan Qingzhi was not that kind of person. Xiahou Zuo had weathered every manner of cruelty and was not that kind of person either. So it was very hard for any of them to understand how a human heart could be corrupt enough to have no bottom.

“Let’s go back.”

Yan Qingzhi said, “In my life, what I despise most is someone who harms a child. A person who can bring themselves to harm a child is beneath even a beast.”

Li Diudiu committed those words to memory.

To be separated from one’s own flesh and blood — what anguish that must be.

Inside the room, Xiahou Zuo had not actually fallen asleep. He lay there with the tassel pendant clutched in his hand, his eyes full of tears that had already soaked into the pillow.

He hadn’t heard what Yan Qingzhi said outside. He was simply thinking of his sister.

Already so many years. He didn’t know whether she was still alive in this world.

—

The next morning, Changmei the Daoist emerged from the inn where he was staying, stretched out both arms toward the direction of the rising sun, and breathed it all in. He had spent his life wandering without fixed abode, so these recent peaceful, comfortable days felt all the more perfect to him — every single day felt complete.

He had never been a person of excess; otherwise he couldn’t have raised a child like Li Diudiu. He also knew how to be grateful, knew when to advance and when to hold back, and understood that this kind of life had not been easy to come by.

After walking a stretch he came across a stall selling tofu pudding. He went in and ordered a bowl. It was a small shop run only by a husband and wife. The proprietor casually asked, “Sweet or savory?”

Changmei felt this was a serious question, so he said, “Can sweet tofu pudding even be called tofu pudding?”

A customer eating nearby immediately couldn’t stay seated, glancing at Changmei: “Can savory tofu pudding even be called tofu pudding?”

Changmei looked at the man seriously and said, “What’s the point of eating something so saccharine?”

The customer shot back without backing down, “What’s the point of eating something so disgustingly salty?”

Changmei gave a snort: “Have you even tried it?”

The customer: “Have you?”

The two looked at each other, and Changmei said, “Then let’s swap and try, and see what we say after.”

The two men each ordered another bowl — the savory went to the customer, the sweet to Changmei. Each took a bite, and then each summarized in a single word.

“Ptui!”

“Ptui!”

The man gave Changmei a sideways look: “We simply don’t see eye to eye.”

Changmei: “It’s more that our mouths don’t.”

The two of them bantered back and forth, launching into an argument that seemed to come out of nowhere yet somehow felt inevitable, going on for quite a while. Fortunately both men had a good deal of composure and neither got truly angry. They went from tofu pudding to northern and southern cuisine, and from northern and southern cuisine to north-south regional differences.

The more they talked, the more they found to say, and the more they clicked — there was no longer any sense of not seeing eye to eye at all; they were actually enjoying themselves thoroughly.

“You must have traveled widely, going places all over, Teacher.”

The customer asked this question.

He appeared to be around forty years old, dressed in a moon-white long robe, looking like a scholar. His clothes were plain cloth, not fine silk, so presumably he held no official rank or title — and yet his speech was cultured and learned.

And for some reason Changmei kept feeling that this middle-aged man carried a few traces of noble bearing. Even dressed in plain cotton, he wore it as though it were brocade and jade — and where this bearing was most evident was in his brows and eyes.

Hearing the man’s question, Changmei shook his head and said, “I’ve only traveled the Jizhou and Youzhou areas. I’ve never been south. Everything I just said I either heard from others or read in their writings.”

The man nodded. “To know a thousand landscapes from reading — you have excellent learning, Teacher.”

Changmei felt that since the man had praised him, he ought to return the compliment, so he said, “You have excellent bearing, Teacher.”

The man smiled and shook his head. “What bearing? If anything it’s just pedantic stuffiness… I notice you have an Eight Trigrams medallion hanging from your sash. Are you from a Daoist order? Yet you’re not wearing Daoist robes, so I can’t be sure.”

Changmei smiled and said, “I am indeed a Daoist, though that’s more of a past distinction…”

The man smiled slightly and shifted how he addressed him, asking, “Can you read fortunes, Daoist?”

Changmei said, “I cannot. But if you want to hear nice things, I can speak for half a day; if you want to hear bad things, I can speak for a full day.”

The man asked, “Why can you speak nice things for only half a day but bad things for a whole day?”

Changmei answered, “Because when reading someone’s fortune, saying nice things earns you a reward — more or less, depending — but saying bad things might land you a small windfall. It all depends on whether the listener believes you.”

The man laughed heartily, finding Changmei to be a most amusing character. He looked toward the proprietor and said, “Put his bill on mine — my treat.”

Changmei considered this for a moment and said, “Since you’re treating me to a meal, I’ll read your fortune for free…”

The man said, “But Teacher, didn’t you just say you couldn’t read fortunes?”

Changmei said seriously, “That was before you mentioned money.”

The man: “…”

Although Changmei and the man had been sitting across from each other, there had been no reason to stare at someone’s face — but now he looked carefully and found something rather out of the ordinary. As they say, reading a fortune is half about appearance and half about bearing, and in some cases making judgments from bearing proves more accurate than from appearance.

“A man of great stature.”

Changmei paused in surprise: “And yet it doesn’t seem right.”

The man asked, “Why doesn’t it seem right? Not right in what way?”

Changmei said, “Looking at your features, yours is the bearing of great wealth and high position. Yet how would I encounter a person of great wealth and high position in a small shop like this, and moreover you are dressed in plain cloth with no rank or title apparent — so I find myself uncertain.”

The man laughed and said, “If you can read great wealth and high position, that already shows some skill…”

He extended his hand: “Read my palm, then?”

Changmei nodded. He studied the man’s open palm, drawing on everything he had learned in his life. The more he looked, the more outlandish it seemed; the more he looked, the more his heart stirred.

The man asked, “What have you found?”

Changmei shook his head and said, “To be honest with you, fortune-reading — whether of face or palm — is largely a trick. It’s nothing more than keen observation of the person before you. As for the lines of the palm, people say all manner of things about them, and none of it is reliable… But your hands — at your age, they’re still as smooth as a woman’s. Not a single callus, not even a patch of roughened skin…”

The man paused, then smiled and said, “So that is how fortunes are read. I suppose I’ve always been taken in by charlatans.”

He rose, took out his money pouch, withdrew two silver pieces, placed one on the table, and offered the other to Changmei.

“Your reading fee.”

Changmei quickly shook his head. “I haven’t said anything yet — I can’t accept this.”

The man said, “Then say something, anything.”

Changmei opened his mouth, exhaled, and finally said, “Recently… I sense you may be nearing a calamity of bloodshed.”

—