At night, Chunyu Lin retrieved a new shark-silk garment for He Bang. Her right hand ached terribly, and her temper was foul. Chunyu Lin was careful and attentive, preparing many pastries she loved and telling her amusing and strange tales until he finally managed to coax her to sleep.
He had just stepped out of the room when he saw Liu Qinfang standing at the bottom of the steps by the door. Dewdrops were faintly visible in her hair; he could not tell how long she had been standing there. Chunyu Lin paused slightly, afraid of waking He Bang, and led her more than ten zhang away before asking, “Is something the matter?”
Liu Qinfang pulled a sachet from her bosom and bowed her head, not daring to look at him. “This… is for you.”
Something stirred quietly in Chunyu Lin’s heart. He slowly reached out and accepted it. The sachet was exquisitely crafted — the stitches were dense, the embroidered pattern beautiful, and within it was some fragrance he could not identify. Each time he inhaled, the scent was different — sometimes rich and heavy, sometimes fresh and clean — leaving the mind lucid and serene. Chunyu Lin had rarely received gifts from young women. He had spent his years at He Bang’s side, and the most he’d ever gotten were a few sea turtles or hairy crabs sent by the Dragon King when they went to the East Sea to buy seafood.
His Sun-Moon Wheel had been made from materials He Bang had found, but this creature had no idea how to give gifts. She had simply pointed at two pieces of cold essence iron, black as iron ingots, and said casually: “Here, go make weapons out of them.”
==
At this moment, Chunyu Lin held the sachet in his hand, moved more than a little. “Thank you.”
Liu Qinfang raised her head; two burning clouds blazed across her cheeks. “The Sea Emperor will be asleep for quite some time, won’t she?”
Chunyu Lin nodded. “Typically five full hours. Tonight it will probably be shorter — three or four hours. Whenever she’s injured, she doesn’t sleep well.”
A woman adorns herself for one who appreciates her. Liu Qinfang bloomed like a peony on a spring day, proud and resplendent, her eyes brimming with tender allure. “Would you… like to sit in my room for a while?”
Chunyu Lin paused. He understood perfectly what she meant. He knew he shouldn’t go — but a man always softens a little in front of a girl who deeply loves him. Not to mention that he had already tasted such pleasures; a man who had once sampled a young woman’s tenderness rarely had much resistance left. Seeing him silent, Liu Qinfang’s crimson blush deepened, and she seemed anxious to explain: “I’ve made some ginseng soup. It’s cold out, and you’ve just come back from the Sea Clan — it’ll warm you up.”
Chunyu Lin lowered his eyelids and after a long moment said, “Very well.”
The sweetness in Liu Qinfang’s eyes seemed ready to overflow.
He Bang woke at the third watch of the night. Chunyu Lin was nowhere to be seen. She had accidentally pressed down on her injured hand while sleeping and the pain was fierce. She pushed open the door. Frost and wind covered the ground — no snow had fallen, yet it was colder than snow. She wandered forward, following the flower-rack corridor. The flower racks were decorated with silk flowers of every color, vivid and bright, but utterly without life.
At the end of the corridor lay the garden where the women’s quarters were. A single courtyard gate stood before her, no barrier at all — yet she stopped at the entrance and refused to go further. “Chunyu Lin!”
She shouted his name standing right at the courtyard gate.
Chunyu Lin was with Liu Qinfang at a critical moment. Hearing the sound, he startled, then abruptly withdrew. “She’s calling me.”
The courtyard gate was actually some distance from Liu Qinfang’s embroidered tower. Liu Qinfang heard nothing. But Chunyu Lin heard it clearly. He quickly straightened his clothes. Liu Qinfang was still bewildered: “Who…?”
Before she even finished the word, she knew. Besides that river-clam spirit, who else could summon him out of her bed at this hour?
Chunyu Lin had left in such haste that the shark-silk garment — which He Bang had discarded — was still lying on Liu Qinfang’s bed. Liu Qinfang picked it up. The shark-silk had been washed spotlessly clean; it was soft and supple, its sheen dazzling. She clutched the shark-silk and chased after him, and saw that Chunyu Lin had already hurried in urgent strides to the main courtyard gate.
When he saw He Bang, the pain in his voice was impossible to conceal. “It’s freezing — didn’t I set out a fox-fur cloak for you? Why did you come out like this?” He stepped forward and embraced He Bang, warming her cheeks with his palms, the motion as fluid as if he had simply opened his eyes after waking.
He Bang’s eyes brimmed with tears. “My hand hurts — wuu, wuu, it hurts so much.”
Chunyu Lin held her in his arms, removed his outer coat to protect her from the cold, and then examined her hand. His voice was both doting and gentle. “You pressed on the wound. It’s all right — no bleeding. When we go back to the room, we’ll reapply the medicine.”
He wrapped an arm around He Bang and was about to lead her back when Liu Qinfang suddenly stepped forward from the courtyard gate, her clothes in disarray, peach blossoms blooming across her cheeks, the tide of spring still unspent in her eyes — the very picture of pleasures interrupted but not yet finished. “Priest,” she said, raising the shark-silk in her hand, her voice soft as the hum of a mosquito, “you left your things at my place.”
Chunyu Lin startled slightly, and couldn’t help stealing a glance at He Bang. He accepted the shark-silk from Liu Qinfang’s hand and said evenly: “Thank you.”
He took He Bang by the hand and started to walk back. He Bang was never one to willingly walk anywhere, and in the end Chunyu Lin had no choice but to carry her sideways in his arms. His voice was low, barely a murmur. “Are you hungry? Once I’ve dressed your wound I’ll make you something to eat.”
Liu Qinfang twisted a silk handkerchief in her hands, wringing it so tightly the color drained from her fingers. At first she had thought that as long as she could be with Chunyu Lin — even just once — she would have no regrets for the rest of her life. But a person’s desires always shift and grow with time.
That river clam had nothing but a pretty face. She did nothing, only took. What right did she have to receive Chunyu Lin’s boundless, all-encompassing devotion? What right did she have to make Chunyu Lin, at a moment like this, abandon her without a moment’s hesitation — all for a single call?
She even began to think that the river clam must have known Chunyu Lin was with her, and had deliberately come at this very moment. The first time she had come to the Liu Mansion, she had still been all tender love and tangled affection with that Rong Chen Zi. What right did she have to stop Chunyu Lin from being with her? This world was unfair — truly unfair.
She went to find that three-eyed snake again. The three-eyed snake was still floating on its back in the water, laughing with boundless delight. “I knew you’d come. How strange is human nature — hahahahaha.”
Liu Qinfang bit her lip. “I only want to know: how can I make him fall in love with me too?”
The three-eyed snake rolled around in the water. “He loves that river-clam spirit, and you second. If the river-clam spirit were gone, wouldn’t he only have you left to love?”
Liu Qinfang glared at it with fury. “But no matter what that clam spirit is, she and I have no enmity between us! While you are the murderer of my mother — and you have killed so many others!”
The three-eyed snake felt no shame; rather, it wore it as a point of pride. “Flattery, flattery — it’s not that many, truly. But none of this matters. Think about it: your birth mother could be said to have died for your sake. In the end, she surely hoped you would live well. If you could live happily alongside your beloved, she would have no regrets in the Yellow Springs. Besides, to speak plainly — yes, I am your mother’s killer, that is true. But does that river clam and those Daoists bear no responsibility whatsoever? I impersonated you to enter the Liu Mansion, and that Daoist clearly sensed something was wrong, yet was slow to act. And that river clam? She never placed the lives of your entire household in her eyes at all. The capable must redeem the world — she possesses the power of the Celestial Water Essence, yet in her eyes, a human life is worth no more than a turnip dumpling.” It carefully constructed justifications for Liu Qinfang: “So your mother’s killers number more than just me. And those who caused these deaths are not only me. At the moment, with your current strength, to say nothing of dealing with all of them — I could snap your waist with one swipe of my tail. Revenge is a hopeless enterprise for you now. But you must understand: that river clam and you are not without grievance.”
In the morning, Chunyu Lin rose early. He Bang needed to scrub her shell every day, otherwise her body would itch. He filled a wooden basin with water and encountered Liu Qinfang at the doorway of the room. Today she wore a white lined jacket embroidered with winter plum blossoms and a fiery red layered skirt beneath — a freshness shot through with heat, a warmth that kindled a flush of color even in Chunyu Lin’s eyes.
The two exchanged a glance. Then the door suddenly opened, and the great river clam poked her head out from inside. Today she was again dressed in watery-colored garments, but she had loosely wound the most delicate and tender plum branches around her head into a circlet — the winter plum seemed to bloom right in her hair, its fragrance drifting everywhere, its charm beyond words.
Liu Qinfang had only looked at her once before she couldn’t help looking at Chunyu Lin. The way Chunyu Lin looked at He Bang was the way one looks at a deity. It was He Bang who broke the stillness first. “Chunyu Lin.” Her voice was crisp as a freshly-fried golden potato chip; her fair and tender arms wound around Chunyu Lin’s neck like water snakes. “I want turnip dumplings for breakfast.”
Chunyu Lin’s brow furrowed very slightly. He only gave Liu Qinfang a brief nod and led He Bang back inside. His voice was light and gentle, like spring wind caressing willow branches: “I’ve never made turnip dumplings before. This morning let’s first have donkey-meat flatbread with lamb offal soup. Turnips are dispersive — eat less of them in winter.” He Bang leaned into his arms and murmured something he couldn’t quite catch. Chunyu Lin responded in a low, soothing voice: “Then let me check the recipe first and make them for you tonight.”
He Bang was still deliberating. Chunyu Lin adjusted the water to a slightly warmer temperature. “Here — time to scrub your shell first.”
He Bang loved getting her shell scrubbed, so she temporarily set aside the matter of turnip dumplings. She flipped over and transformed into a large gray-black river clam, and Chunyu Lin rolled up his sleeves and gently wiped her shell clean with a soft cotton cloth.
Liu Qinfang stood quietly at the doorway. Small snow had begun to fall from the sky. Winter plum petals drifted and fluttered. The bitter cold blurred her sight until all she could see was endless falling snow.
She finally understood: the river clam had never once regarded her as an enemy. Because she posed no threat whatsoever. The cruelest thing in the world is not to encounter a formidable rival — it is to have fought with everything you have, only to suddenly discover that you never even had the qualification to be regarded as an enemy.