Spring weeds grow lush in a land now vanquished;
summer palace ruins lie buried beneath mounds of dirt.3
Ever since the Emperor of Liao4 broke through Shangzi during the southern expedition, the Han has retreated past Yubiguan. Territories reaching up to three hundred miles south of Yubiguan including Hebei prefecture are now part of the Liao empire. There is a city called Runan in Hebei; it has been a distribution hub between central plain and those who lived north of the great wall since ancient times, but now that it’s become part of Liao, the Han who can flee west have fled west, ones who can move south have moved south. What used to be the most prosperous city in Hebei is now in a state of disrepair — less than thirty-thousand families remain.
The Duan family resides in the city of Runan.
The Duans are an average-sized family — not too big and not too small. It does some trading business with travelling merchants, and they own a pawn shop and an oil press. The head of the family had contracted tuberculosis before he was even thirty-five and died. The whole family now relies on Lady Duan’s management to keep things running.
It’s the eighth day of the twelfth month5, and what’s left of the sunset glitters off the road, filling the alleys of Runan with stone waves as though the edges of the paving stones are made of liquid gold. A heart-rending scream is heard from the Duan’s courtyard.
“That’s what you get for stealing Lady Duan’s things!”
“Say something, you bastard! You little animal!”
A club beats down like rain drops onto a boy’s head and body, making dull, thudding sounds. The boy is dressed in rags, his face covered in mud, his head and face black and blue with bruises. One of his eyes are swollen, and purple-black scratches scrape his arms where someone’s scratched him with their nails. He keeps trying to run towards the back of the house to escape, but he accidentally runs right into a maid and knocks over the wooden tray in her hands, and it makes the housekeeper scream again.
Right then, he dashes forward without regard for his life and throws himself at the woman, knocking her over. He aims squarely at her face and starts punching.
The boy opens his mouth and bites. The housekeeper screeches, “Murder!”
This shriek catches the attention of the aggressive-looking, muscular stable lad who rushes over with a pitchfork. The boy takes a solid hit on the back of his head. All at once his vision goes dark and he faints, then he’s soundly beaten until he awakes from the pain, until his shoulder is bloodied, whereupon he’s picked up by the collar and thrown into the wood shed. They close the door on him, and lock it.
“Get your wontons here —”
He hears an old man calling from the alleyway, through the walls. Every evening at dusk Laoqian would pass through the streets and alleys with a carrying-pole across his shoulders.
“Duan Ling!” The voices of children come from outside the courtyard.
“Duan Ling!”
Their calls wake the boy. There’s a cut on Duan Ling’s shoulder from the pitchfork, and a rivet’s punched a hole into his palm. He tries to get up, limping.
“Are you okay?” A kid outside yells.
Taking deep breaths, Duan Ling’s features are all scrunched up. He doesn’t even have the strength to stand anymore. He answers, “Yeah …” and drops heavily to a sitting position. After hearing a reply, the children hurry away.
Slowly, he slips to the ground; he curls into a fetal position in the damp, dark wood shed. Through the skylight, he stares up at the grey sky. Powdery snow floats down to him. In the mist that covers the sky and the snow drifting through the air, he thinks maybe he spots a twinkle of starlight above him, in the centre of the sky.
It grows gradually darker, and quieter, until all is silent. All over Runan, families light their warm, yellow lamps. Their roofs lie covered in a soft blanket of snow. Save for Duan Ling, who is still shivering in the wood shed, hunger making him delirious. Scene after scene appear before his eyes in a mess of images.
Sometimes it’s his late mother’s hands, sometimes Lady Duan’s embroidered gown, sometimes the housekeeper’s contorted face.
“Come get — your wontons —”
I didn’t steal anything, Duan Ling thinks to himself. He squeezes the two coppers in his palms tighter, his vision filled with nothing but darkness.
Will I die? Duan Ling’s consciousness is blurring. Death has always seemed like such a far away concept to him.
Three days ago, he saw a dead beggar, frozen beneath the green bridge, and all around him was a crowd of people. They ended up putting him on a flatbed cart, rolling him outside the city, and burying him in a mass grave.
That day he joined the crowd and followed them out of the city next to some other children. He watched as they wrapped his body in a grass mat and buried the beggar in a hole. Next to the hole was another, smaller hole. Now that he thinks about it, maybe after he dies he will be buried next to a beggar he’s never even met …
The night grows deeper; Duan Ling is nearly frozen from head to toe. The last breath he breathes out becomes a white fog that rises before him; snowflakes drift to and fro through the fog. His mind wanders and he wonders when the snow is ever going to stop. The sun appears before his eyes, like countless summer mornings at the cusp of dawn when the sky starts to brighten.
The sun turns into a lamp, and as the door to the woodshed is pushed open with a long squeal, lamplight falls onto his face.
“Come out!” The stable lad says gruffly.
“Is he Duan Ling?” A man’s voice comes from the side.
Duan Ling lies on his side on the ground, twitching near imperceptibly, facing the door. His limbs and his body are frozen stiff. With difficulty, he tries to sit up. The man comes in, kneels before him, and carefully examines his features.
“Are you sick?” The man says.
Duan Ling’s head feels muddled, nothing but phantoms and hallucinations before his eyes.
The man has a pill between his fingers. He puts the pill in Duan Ling’s mouth, and picks Duan Ling up into his arms.
Half conscious, he can vaguely smell the scent on that man, and with each gentle jolt of his steps the path seems to warm up gradually.
There’s a hole in Duan Ling’s old coat. The reed catkins sewn into the lining clings to the man all over.
It’s a dark, desolate night; lamplight flickering.
With Duan Ling in his arms he passes through a hallway filled half with shadows and half with lamplight, a trail of fluttering reed flowers behind him.
On both sides of the corridor, the sound of girls’ unbridled laughter passes over them through walls of warm rooms, mixing with the powdery hush of snowfall and the high, drawn out pitches of someone singing an opera. The world starts getting warmer and warmer, and there’s light.
They walk from winter to spring, from night to day.
The world is an inn for all living, time is a traveller since time’s existence.6
Duan Ling slowly regains consciousness, his breathing becoming rough and heavy.
They’re in a brilliantly lit reception hall. Lady Duan has draped herself over the front of the daybed, and she stares at a piece of scenery-embroidered satin in her hand, seemingly lost in thought.
“Lady Duan,” the man’s voice says.
Lady Duan’s words have a hint of a smile to them. “You know this boy?”
“I do not,” the man is still holding Duan Ling.
Duan Ling can feel the medicine fed to him earlier melting away in his throat, warmth returning to his belly, and his strength appears to be coming back. He leans against the man’s chest facing Lady Duan but he’s too scared to look up at her. All he can see is a little corner of a resplendent, brocade covered bed.
“His birth certificate is right here,” Lady Duan speaks again.
The housekeeper brings forth the birth certificate and passes it to the man.
Duan Ling is short, underfed, sickly and jaundiced. From where he’s nestled against the man’s chest he struggles a bit fearfully, and so the man sets him down onto the floor. Duan Ling leans against him, finds his footing, and looks at the man. He’s dressed in a black gown; a patch of his fighter’s boots has gotten damp, and a jade ornament hangs from his belt.
The man says, “Please name your price.”
“Well, we weren’t ever going to take in this child to begin with.” Lady Duan says smilingly, “When his mother came home pregnant with him, it was so cold, and it’s not like she had anywhere else to go. Well, they do say providence cherishes life and all that, but once he started staying here there seemed no end to it.”
The man says nothing at all. He stares into Lady Duan’s eyes, waiting for her to continue.
“Let’s put it this way,” Lady Duan says, heaving a drawn out sigh, “at the very least, his mother was the one who entrusted him to me. I still have the letter. Here, my lord. Perhaps you’d like to take a look?”
The housekeeper hands him another sheet of paper. The man doesn’t even bother looking at it. He puts it away.
“But see now, I don’t even know what your name is. If I hand him over without knowing anything just like that, what am I supposed to tell Duan Xiaowan when I die? Don’t you think so?”
The man remains silent.
Lady Duan stretches out a hand, spreads out her sleeve, and charmingly she says to him, “The whole thing with Duan Xiaowan is a bit of a mess in the first place. Well, I thought since she’s gone, the past is simply written off. Now let’s say you collect the boy today — what if someday, someone else comes and says his dad sent them, what am I supposed to tell them? Don’t you think so?”
The man still doesn’t say anything.
Lady Duan smiles at him, then she turns her attention to Duan Ling’s face and waves at him. Duan Ling subconsciously takes a step backwards, hiding behind the man, gripping the corner of his gown tight between his fingers.
“Hey,” Lady Duan says, “my Lord, you ought to at least give me some kind of explanation.”
“I have no explanation.” The man finally opens his mouth. “Only money. Name your price.”
Lady Duan doesn’t know what to say.
The man sinks into silence once more. Judging by what she sees, Lady Duan realises this man clearly only has plans to give her a lump sum and settle the child-rearing debt. He’s not going to tell her who he is, and he doesn’t care what happens afterwards, leaving any consequences that come for the Duans to bear.
Some time passes. Lady Duan tries to figure out what the man’s thinking, but he’s already reaching into his lapel, producing a number of multicoloured banknotes.
“Four hundred taels.” Lady Duan finally names a price.
The man holds a single banknote between his fingers and hands it to Lady Duan.
Duan Ling can’t seem to breathe. He doesn’t know what this man wants, but he once heard from the maids that someone always comes down from the mountains on winter nights to buy children. They’d bring the children back up to the mountain and offer them to monsters to eat. Instinctively, a sense of fear grips him.
“I won’t go!” Duan Ling says, “Don’t! Don’t!”
Duan Ling turns and starts running. He only manages one step before a maid grabs him by the ear, and he’s dragged backwards in searing pain.
“Let him go.” The man says in a deep voice, then he presses a hand on Duan Ling’s shoulder.
That hand feels like it weighs more than three thousand catties.7 Right then, Duan Ling finds himself unable to move a smidgen.
The housekeeper takes the banknote and hands it to Lady Duan. There’s a slight furrow between her brows. The man says, “Keep the change. Let’s go.”
Duan Ling yells, “I won’t go! I won’t go!”
Lady Duan smiles. “It’s pitch dark outside. Where are you going to go? Why don’t you stay here for the night?”
Duan Ling screams himself hoarse, but the man merely looks down at him.
“What’s wrong?” He asks, his brows tightly knit.
“I don’t want to be fed to monsters! Don’t sell me! Don’t —” Duan Ling tries to hide under the table, but the man is faster. He grabs onto Duan Ling, curls a long finger towards his palm and flicks at a spot at Duan Ling’s waist, and Duan Ling falls right over.
He picks up Duan Ling, and carries him out the door under Lady Duan’s suspicious gaze.
“Don’t be afraid.” The man carries Duan Ling under one arm and his deep voice answers, “I won’t feed you to a monster.”
The moment they leave the estate, a blast of cold air whips at his face like a knife, sweeping up the snow. Duan Ling feels as though qi8 is running backwards in his throat, blocking it. He opens his mouth but no sound comes out.
“My name is Lang Junxia.” The man’s voice says, “Remember it now: Lang Junxia.”
“Get your wontons here — hey.” An old man says, steady and slow.
Duan Ling’s stomach grumbles. He stares at the wonton stand. The man named Lang Junxia halts, quietly thinks to himself for a moment, and sets Duan Ling down. He takes out a few coppers and throws them into a bamboo tube in front of the wonton stand. The coins make a metallic sound hitting the bottom.
Duan Ling calms down somewhat. He wonders, who is this man? Why did he take me out of that place?
A yellow lamp in front of the wonton stand casts its light through the falling snow. Lang Junxia presses a few spots on Duan Ling’s back, undoing the seal on his acupuncture points. Duan Ling’s about to call for help again when Lang Junxia says, “Shh,” and the old man brings Duan Ling a bowl of piping hot wontons.
“You eat,” Lang Junxia says.
Duan Ling can’t worry about anything else anymore. He takes the bowl and starts eating right away, not minding at all that it may scald his throat. They’re minced pork wontons, fat and full of filling, with a sprinkling of sesame and crushed peanuts. A small chunk of lard is melted into the soup; its fragrance assails the senses. There’s poached mustard greens sitting at the bottom of the bowl.
Duan Ling sets off to wolf down his food. Hunger is overcoming his fear, and as he eats and the soup gets all over his face, a fox fur coat is draped across his back, then it’s wrapped around him.
He pours the rest of the soup into his mouth, sets down the chopsticks, and breathes out. Only then does he turn to look at Lang Junxia.
Like someone out of a painting, he has fair skin, a tall nose, and deep set eyes. His pupils reflect the alley’s lamplight and the ever present snow.
His clothes set off his tall figure; there are fierce-looking monsters embroidered on his outer garment, and his fingers are long and beautiful. There’s even a sword hanging at his waist, a shiny thing that Duan Ling has only ever seen on a stage.
Sometimes when those who’ve made their fortune come home from the capital, they’d pass through the streets on big, tall horses, and Duan Ling would squeeze into the crowd to watch them. He’d see these young men flushed with success from court or business, dressed in satin and brocade.
But none of them are as good-looking as him. As for what is so good-looking about him, Duan Ling can’t rightly tell you.
He’s terribly afraid; he’s scared that this man named Lang Junxia is actually a monster in human form, and in the very next second he’s going to show his fangs and swallow Duan Ling down to fill his belly. But Lang Junxia just stares at him without looking away.
“Are you full?” Lang Junxia asks, “Anything else you’d like to eat?”
Duan Ling doesn’t dare answer. He’s scheming up ways to get away from him.
“If you’re full then let’s go.” Lang Junxia says, and holds out a hand for Duan Ling to hold. Duan Ling shrinks back from him, tossing pleading glances at Laoqian like a cry for help, but Lang Junxia simply turns his hand over and takes Duan Ling’s hand. Not daring to struggle, Duan Ling obediently leaves with Lang Junxia.
“Madam,” a servant returns to report. “That man is with the bastard in the alley eating wontons.”
Lady Duan pulls her coat around herself, blinking uneasily. She calls for the housekeeper. “Get someone to follow him. Find out where he’s taking the bastard.”
Light shines from every window in Runan. Duan Ling’s face is all red from the cold. Lang Junxia takes Duan Ling through the damp, snowy streets on bare feet. When they get to a restaurant in the city called the Jade Drop, he finally notices that Duan Ling doesn’t have shoes, and picks him up. He turns to the building, whistles, and as soon as he does, a horse trots out to them.
“Wait here for me. There’s something I have to do.” Lang Junxia wraps Duan Ling in a fur coat and helps him onto the back of the horse.
Duan Ling bows his head to look at him. Lang Junxia has handsome features, his eyes and eyebrows sharp and distinct like they’re carved out of jade; there’s reed flowers clinging to his hair. Lang Junxia tells him to wait before he turns and disappears into the night like a tercel spreading its wings.
Duan Ling’s imagination runs wild. Who is this person? Should he run now? But the back of a horse is too far off from the ground, and he daren’t jump down for fear of breaking a leg, and more so, for fear that the horse may kick him. He ponders this and ponders that; should he hand his fate to this stranger or should he leave it to himself? The key question is, where can he run? And just as he finally makes up his mind to leave the matter of his life and death to the heavens, a silhouette once again flashes into being at the mouth of the alley. Lang Junxia puts his foot in the stirrup and gets on the horse.
“Gup!”
The great big horse stamps onto the flagstone road, making a string of clip-clopping sounds. It gallops its way out of the alley, and in a night without a soul in sight, they leave the city of Runan behind.
Duan Ling sits in front of Lang Junxia. He sniffles and the scent of his damp clothes wafts up to his nose. What’s unexpected is how dry Lang Junxia’s clothes feel, as though they’ve just been dried in front of a fire. It smells good, like just-cooked shaobing9. His hands are holding the reins and there’s a burnt patch on his sleeve.
Duan Ling takes note that it wasn’t burnt before. What did he go to do earlier?
Duan Ling is reminded of a story — they say that in the Valley of Heishan10 outside the city, there are people from the underground societies killed during conflicts in previous dynasties. They’ve been buried in the mountains, rotting away for more than a century, waiting for children to come so they can steal their bodies. They would first turn into humans, each handsome beyond compare with outstanding martial arts skills, and once they find a child they’d bring them to the grave, show their rotting faces and take the child’s qi essence.
Those children whose bodies are stolen would lie in these graves ever after, but these ghouls would have their skin, and be able to strut their way into the mortal world and live a good life.
Duan Ling can’t stop trembling. He thinks about jumping off the horse and running many times, but the horse is too tall. He’ll probably break his legs if he jumps.
Is Lang Junxia a ghoul? Duan Ling’s imagination gets ahead of him. What if the ghoul wants to consume his qi? Should he maybe take the ghoul to someone else? No no … he mustn’t hurt anyone.
Someone is waiting under the city gates to open them for Lang Junxia. The horse keeps going south, galloping through the blizzard along the highway. They don’t go to the mass grave, and they don’t go into the Valley of Heishan either. Duan Ling starts to feel more at ease, and he grows sleepier and sleepier as they bump along the road. He slowly falls asleep surrounded by the clean dry scent on Lang Junxia.
In his dreams, two unending lines of mountains and valleys skim by like a picture on canvas in a shadow play.
Snow floats down like goose down gathering into a blanket; the pale green tops of the mountain peaks look ink-drawn, a single stroke on a white scroll. It is in the middle of this ink-brush painting that their horse speeds away.
I do not monetise my hobby translations, but if you’d like to support my work generally or support my light novel habit, you can either buy me a coffee or commission me. This is also to note that if you read this anywhere else other than tumblr, do come to my tumblr. It’s ad-free. ↩︎
The traditional Chinese version of this book has REALLY LONG chapters (11k) so I try to break them up based on wherever the jjwxc version breaks off chapters, which is a bit more manageable, but that means the parts will vary in length from 2-6k. ↩︎
Poem by Li Bai. ↩︎
This story uses historical names and places, but not in a historically accurate fashion. There was a Liao empire, also known as the Khitan empire. The Yuan was Mongolian, and Southern Chen (fictional, a stand-in for Southern Song) here is Han. ↩︎
All dates are lunar calendar dates, so instead of solar names for months they’re just numbered. Just remember that the Chinese new year usually falls between Jan 21st and Feb 20th. Twelfth month is usually the coldest month, also known as the ‘preservation’ month. ↩︎
Prose by Li Bai, original slightly paraphrased. ↩︎
A catty is a unit of weight, varying from dynasty to dynasty. ↩︎
Qi. If you’re not familiar with the concept you can think of it as the Force, like in Star Wars. ↩︎
Shaobing. ↩︎
黑山谷. Valley of Heishan, literally “black mountain valley”. ↩︎
Spring weeds grow lush in a land now vanquished;
summer palace ruins lie buried beneath mounds of dirt.3
Ever since the Emperor of Liao4 broke through Shangzi during the southern expedition, the Han has retreated past Yubiguan. Territories reaching up to three hundred miles south of Yubiguan including Hebei prefecture are now part of the Liao empire. There is a city called Runan in Hebei; it has been a distribution hub between central plain and those who lived north of the great wall since ancient times, but now that it’s become part of Liao, the Han who can flee west have fled west, ones who can move south have moved south. What used to be the most prosperous city in Hebei is now in a state of disrepair — less than thirty-thousand families remain.
The Duan family resides in the city of Runan.
The Duans are an average-sized family — not too big and not too small. It does some trading business with travelling merchants, and they own a pawn shop and an oil press. The head of the family had contracted tuberculosis before he was even thirty-five and died. The whole family now relies on Lady Duan’s management to keep things running.
It’s the eighth day of the twelfth month5, and what’s left of the sunset glitters off the road, filling the alleys of Runan with stone waves as though the edges of the paving stones are made of liquid gold. A heart-rending scream is heard from the Duan’s courtyard.
“That’s what you get for stealing Lady Duan’s things!”
“Say something, you bastard! You little animal!”
A club beats down like rain drops onto a boy’s head and body, making dull, thudding sounds. The boy is dressed in rags, his face covered in mud, his head and face black and blue with bruises. One of his eyes are swollen, and purple-black scratches scrape his arms where someone’s scratched him with their nails. He keeps trying to run towards the back of the house to escape, but he accidentally runs right into a maid and knocks over the wooden tray in her hands, and it makes the housekeeper scream again.
Right then, he dashes forward without regard for his life and throws himself at the woman, knocking her over. He aims squarely at her face and starts punching.
The boy opens his mouth and bites. The housekeeper screeches, “Murder!”
This shriek catches the attention of the aggressive-looking, muscular stable lad who rushes over with a pitchfork. The boy takes a solid hit on the back of his head. All at once his vision goes dark and he faints, then he’s soundly beaten until he awakes from the pain, until his shoulder is bloodied, whereupon he’s picked up by the collar and thrown into the wood shed. They close the door on him, and lock it.
“Get your wontons here —”
He hears an old man calling from the alleyway, through the walls. Every evening at dusk Laoqian would pass through the streets and alleys with a carrying-pole across his shoulders.
“Duan Ling!” The voices of children come from outside the courtyard.
“Duan Ling!”
Their calls wake the boy. There’s a cut on Duan Ling’s shoulder from the pitchfork, and a rivet’s punched a hole into his palm. He tries to get up, limping.
“Are you okay?” A kid outside yells.
Taking deep breaths, Duan Ling’s features are all scrunched up. He doesn’t even have the strength to stand anymore. He answers, “Yeah …” and drops heavily to a sitting position. After hearing a reply, the children hurry away.
Slowly, he slips to the ground; he curls into a fetal position in the damp, dark wood shed. Through the skylight, he stares up at the grey sky. Powdery snow floats down to him. In the mist that covers the sky and the snow drifting through the air, he thinks maybe he spots a twinkle of starlight above him, in the centre of the sky.
It grows gradually darker, and quieter, until all is silent. All over Runan, families light their warm, yellow lamps. Their roofs lie covered in a soft blanket of snow. Save for Duan Ling, who is still shivering in the wood shed, hunger making him delirious. Scene after scene appear before his eyes in a mess of images.
Sometimes it’s his late mother’s hands, sometimes Lady Duan’s embroidered gown, sometimes the housekeeper’s contorted face.
“Come get — your wontons —”
I didn’t steal anything, Duan Ling thinks to himself. He squeezes the two coppers in his palms tighter, his vision filled with nothing but darkness.
Will I die? Duan Ling’s consciousness is blurring. Death has always seemed like such a far away concept to him.
Three days ago, he saw a dead beggar, frozen beneath the green bridge, and all around him was a crowd of people. They ended up putting him on a flatbed cart, rolling him outside the city, and burying him in a mass grave.
That day he joined the crowd and followed them out of the city next to some other children. He watched as they wrapped his body in a grass mat and buried the beggar in a hole. Next to the hole was another, smaller hole. Now that he thinks about it, maybe after he dies he will be buried next to a beggar he’s never even met …
The night grows deeper; Duan Ling is nearly frozen from head to toe. The last breath he breathes out becomes a white fog that rises before him; snowflakes drift to and fro through the fog. His mind wanders and he wonders when the snow is ever going to stop. The sun appears before his eyes, like countless summer mornings at the cusp of dawn when the sky starts to brighten.
The sun turns into a lamp, and as the door to the woodshed is pushed open with a long squeal, lamplight falls onto his face.
“Come out!” The stable lad says gruffly.
“Is he Duan Ling?” A man’s voice comes from the side.
Duan Ling lies on his side on the ground, twitching near imperceptibly, facing the door. His limbs and his body are frozen stiff. With difficulty, he tries to sit up. The man comes in, kneels before him, and carefully examines his features.
“Are you sick?” The man says.
Duan Ling’s head feels muddled, nothing but phantoms and hallucinations before his eyes.
The man has a pill between his fingers. He puts the pill in Duan Ling’s mouth, and picks Duan Ling up into his arms.
Half conscious, he can vaguely smell the scent on that man, and with each gentle jolt of his steps the path seems to warm up gradually.
There’s a hole in Duan Ling’s old coat. The reed catkins sewn into the lining clings to the man all over.
It’s a dark, desolate night; lamplight flickering.
With Duan Ling in his arms he passes through a hallway filled half with shadows and half with lamplight, a trail of fluttering reed flowers behind him.
On both sides of the corridor, the sound of girls’ unbridled laughter passes over them through walls of warm rooms, mixing with the powdery hush of snowfall and the high, drawn out pitches of someone singing an opera. The world starts getting warmer and warmer, and there’s light.
They walk from winter to spring, from night to day.
The world is an inn for all living, time is a traveller since time’s existence.6
Duan Ling slowly regains consciousness, his breathing becoming rough and heavy.
They’re in a brilliantly lit reception hall. Lady Duan has draped herself over the front of the daybed, and she stares at a piece of scenery-embroidered satin in her hand, seemingly lost in thought.
“Lady Duan,” the man’s voice says.
Lady Duan’s words have a hint of a smile to them. “You know this boy?”
“I do not,” the man is still holding Duan Ling.
Duan Ling can feel the medicine fed to him earlier melting away in his throat, warmth returning to his belly, and his strength appears to be coming back. He leans against the man’s chest facing Lady Duan but he’s too scared to look up at her. All he can see is a little corner of a resplendent, brocade covered bed.
“His birth certificate is right here,” Lady Duan speaks again.
The housekeeper brings forth the birth certificate and passes it to the man.
Duan Ling is short, underfed, sickly and jaundiced. From where he’s nestled against the man’s chest he struggles a bit fearfully, and so the man sets him down onto the floor. Duan Ling leans against him, finds his footing, and looks at the man. He’s dressed in a black gown; a patch of his fighter’s boots has gotten damp, and a jade ornament hangs from his belt.
The man says, “Please name your price.”
“Well, we weren’t ever going to take in this child to begin with.” Lady Duan says smilingly, “When his mother came home pregnant with him, it was so cold, and it’s not like she had anywhere else to go. Well, they do say providence cherishes life and all that, but once he started staying here there seemed no end to it.”
The man says nothing at all. He stares into Lady Duan’s eyes, waiting for her to continue.
“Let’s put it this way,” Lady Duan says, heaving a drawn out sigh, “at the very least, his mother was the one who entrusted him to me. I still have the letter. Here, my lord. Perhaps you’d like to take a look?”
The housekeeper hands him another sheet of paper. The man doesn’t even bother looking at it. He puts it away.
“But see now, I don’t even know what your name is. If I hand him over without knowing anything just like that, what am I supposed to tell Duan Xiaowan when I die? Don’t you think so?”
The man remains silent.
Lady Duan stretches out a hand, spreads out her sleeve, and charmingly she says to him, “The whole thing with Duan Xiaowan is a bit of a mess in the first place. Well, I thought since she’s gone, the past is simply written off. Now let’s say you collect the boy today — what if someday, someone else comes and says his dad sent them, what am I supposed to tell them? Don’t you think so?”
The man still doesn’t say anything.
Lady Duan smiles at him, then she turns her attention to Duan Ling’s face and waves at him. Duan Ling subconsciously takes a step backwards, hiding behind the man, gripping the corner of his gown tight between his fingers.
“Hey,” Lady Duan says, “my Lord, you ought to at least give me some kind of explanation.”
“I have no explanation.” The man finally opens his mouth. “Only money. Name your price.”
Lady Duan doesn’t know what to say.
The man sinks into silence once more. Judging by what she sees, Lady Duan realises this man clearly only has plans to give her a lump sum and settle the child-rearing debt. He’s not going to tell her who he is, and he doesn’t care what happens afterwards, leaving any consequences that come for the Duans to bear.
Some time passes. Lady Duan tries to figure out what the man’s thinking, but he’s already reaching into his lapel, producing a number of multicoloured banknotes.
“Four hundred taels.” Lady Duan finally names a price.
The man holds a single banknote between his fingers and hands it to Lady Duan.
Duan Ling can’t seem to breathe. He doesn’t know what this man wants, but he once heard from the maids that someone always comes down from the mountains on winter nights to buy children. They’d bring the children back up to the mountain and offer them to monsters to eat. Instinctively, a sense of fear grips him.
“I won’t go!” Duan Ling says, “Don’t! Don’t!”
Duan Ling turns and starts running. He only manages one step before a maid grabs him by the ear, and he’s dragged backwards in searing pain.
“Let him go.” The man says in a deep voice, then he presses a hand on Duan Ling’s shoulder.
That hand feels like it weighs more than three thousand catties.7 Right then, Duan Ling finds himself unable to move a smidgen.
The housekeeper takes the banknote and hands it to Lady Duan. There’s a slight furrow between her brows. The man says, “Keep the change. Let’s go.”
Duan Ling yells, “I won’t go! I won’t go!”
Lady Duan smiles. “It’s pitch dark outside. Where are you going to go? Why don’t you stay here for the night?”
Duan Ling screams himself hoarse, but the man merely looks down at him.
“What’s wrong?” He asks, his brows tightly knit.
“I don’t want to be fed to monsters! Don’t sell me! Don’t —” Duan Ling tries to hide under the table, but the man is faster. He grabs onto Duan Ling, curls a long finger towards his palm and flicks at a spot at Duan Ling’s waist, and Duan Ling falls right over.
He picks up Duan Ling, and carries him out the door under Lady Duan’s suspicious gaze.
“Don’t be afraid.” The man carries Duan Ling under one arm and his deep voice answers, “I won’t feed you to a monster.”
The moment they leave the estate, a blast of cold air whips at his face like a knife, sweeping up the snow. Duan Ling feels as though qi8 is running backwards in his throat, blocking it. He opens his mouth but no sound comes out.
“My name is Lang Junxia.” The man’s voice says, “Remember it now: Lang Junxia.”
“Get your wontons here — hey.” An old man says, steady and slow.
Duan Ling’s stomach grumbles. He stares at the wonton stand. The man named Lang Junxia halts, quietly thinks to himself for a moment, and sets Duan Ling down. He takes out a few coppers and throws them into a bamboo tube in front of the wonton stand. The coins make a metallic sound hitting the bottom.
Duan Ling calms down somewhat. He wonders, who is this man? Why did he take me out of that place?
A yellow lamp in front of the wonton stand casts its light through the falling snow. Lang Junxia presses a few spots on Duan Ling’s back, undoing the seal on his acupuncture points. Duan Ling’s about to call for help again when Lang Junxia says, “Shh,” and the old man brings Duan Ling a bowl of piping hot wontons.
“You eat,” Lang Junxia says.
Duan Ling can’t worry about anything else anymore. He takes the bowl and starts eating right away, not minding at all that it may scald his throat. They’re minced pork wontons, fat and full of filling, with a sprinkling of sesame and crushed peanuts. A small chunk of lard is melted into the soup; its fragrance assails the senses. There’s poached mustard greens sitting at the bottom of the bowl.
Duan Ling sets off to wolf down his food. Hunger is overcoming his fear, and as he eats and the soup gets all over his face, a fox fur coat is draped across his back, then it’s wrapped around him.
He pours the rest of the soup into his mouth, sets down the chopsticks, and breathes out. Only then does he turn to look at Lang Junxia.
Like someone out of a painting, he has fair skin, a tall nose, and deep set eyes. His pupils reflect the alley’s lamplight and the ever present snow.
His clothes set off his tall figure; there are fierce-looking monsters embroidered on his outer garment, and his fingers are long and beautiful. There’s even a sword hanging at his waist, a shiny thing that Duan Ling has only ever seen on a stage.
Sometimes when those who’ve made their fortune come home from the capital, they’d pass through the streets on big, tall horses, and Duan Ling would squeeze into the crowd to watch them. He’d see these young men flushed with success from court or business, dressed in satin and brocade.
But none of them are as good-looking as him. As for what is so good-looking about him, Duan Ling can’t rightly tell you.
He’s terribly afraid; he’s scared that this man named Lang Junxia is actually a monster in human form, and in the very next second he’s going to show his fangs and swallow Duan Ling down to fill his belly. But Lang Junxia just stares at him without looking away.
“Are you full?” Lang Junxia asks, “Anything else you’d like to eat?”
Duan Ling doesn’t dare answer. He’s scheming up ways to get away from him.
“If you’re full then let’s go.” Lang Junxia says, and holds out a hand for Duan Ling to hold. Duan Ling shrinks back from him, tossing pleading glances at Laoqian like a cry for help, but Lang Junxia simply turns his hand over and takes Duan Ling’s hand. Not daring to struggle, Duan Ling obediently leaves with Lang Junxia.
“Madam,” a servant returns to report. “That man is with the bastard in the alley eating wontons.”
Lady Duan pulls her coat around herself, blinking uneasily. She calls for the housekeeper. “Get someone to follow him. Find out where he’s taking the bastard.”
Light shines from every window in Runan. Duan Ling’s face is all red from the cold. Lang Junxia takes Duan Ling through the damp, snowy streets on bare feet. When they get to a restaurant in the city called the Jade Drop, he finally notices that Duan Ling doesn’t have shoes, and picks him up. He turns to the building, whistles, and as soon as he does, a horse trots out to them.
“Wait here for me. There’s something I have to do.” Lang Junxia wraps Duan Ling in a fur coat and helps him onto the back of the horse.
Duan Ling bows his head to look at him. Lang Junxia has handsome features, his eyes and eyebrows sharp and distinct like they’re carved out of jade; there’s reed flowers clinging to his hair. Lang Junxia tells him to wait before he turns and disappears into the night like a tercel spreading its wings.
Duan Ling’s imagination runs wild. Who is this person? Should he run now? But the back of a horse is too far off from the ground, and he daren’t jump down for fear of breaking a leg, and more so, for fear that the horse may kick him. He ponders this and ponders that; should he hand his fate to this stranger or should he leave it to himself? The key question is, where can he run? And just as he finally makes up his mind to leave the matter of his life and death to the heavens, a silhouette once again flashes into being at the mouth of the alley. Lang Junxia puts his foot in the stirrup and gets on the horse.
“Gup!”
The great big horse stamps onto the flagstone road, making a string of clip-clopping sounds. It gallops its way out of the alley, and in a night without a soul in sight, they leave the city of Runan behind.
Duan Ling sits in front of Lang Junxia. He sniffles and the scent of his damp clothes wafts up to his nose. What’s unexpected is how dry Lang Junxia’s clothes feel, as though they’ve just been dried in front of a fire. It smells good, like just-cooked shaobing9. His hands are holding the reins and there’s a burnt patch on his sleeve.
Duan Ling takes note that it wasn’t burnt before. What did he go to do earlier?
Duan Ling is reminded of a story — they say that in the Valley of Heishan10 outside the city, there are people from the underground societies killed during conflicts in previous dynasties. They’ve been buried in the mountains, rotting away for more than a century, waiting for children to come so they can steal their bodies. They would first turn into humans, each handsome beyond compare with outstanding martial arts skills, and once they find a child they’d bring them to the grave, show their rotting faces and take the child’s qi essence.
Those children whose bodies are stolen would lie in these graves ever after, but these ghouls would have their skin, and be able to strut their way into the mortal world and live a good life.
Duan Ling can’t stop trembling. He thinks about jumping off the horse and running many times, but the horse is too tall. He’ll probably break his legs if he jumps.
Is Lang Junxia a ghoul? Duan Ling’s imagination gets ahead of him. What if the ghoul wants to consume his qi? Should he maybe take the ghoul to someone else? No no … he mustn’t hurt anyone.
Someone is waiting under the city gates to open them for Lang Junxia. The horse keeps going south, galloping through the blizzard along the highway. They don’t go to the mass grave, and they don’t go into the Valley of Heishan either. Duan Ling starts to feel more at ease, and he grows sleepier and sleepier as they bump along the road. He slowly falls asleep surrounded by the clean dry scent on Lang Junxia.
In his dreams, two unending lines of mountains and valleys skim by like a picture on canvas in a shadow play.
Snow floats down like goose down gathering into a blanket; the pale green tops of the mountain peaks look ink-drawn, a single stroke on a white scroll. It is in the middle of this ink-brush painting that their horse speeds away.
I do not monetise my hobby translations, but if you’d like to support my work generally or support my light novel habit, you can either buy me a coffee or commission me. This is also to note that if you read this anywhere else other than tumblr, do come to my tumblr. It’s ad-free. ↩︎
The traditional Chinese version of this book has REALLY LONG chapters (11k) so I try to break them up based on wherever the jjwxc version breaks off chapters, which is a bit more manageable, but that means the parts will vary in length from 2-6k. ↩︎
Poem by Li Bai. ↩︎
This story uses historical names and places, but not in a historically accurate fashion. There was a Liao empire, also known as the Khitan empire. The Yuan was Mongolian, and Southern Chen (fictional, a stand-in for Southern Song) here is Han. ↩︎
All dates are lunar calendar dates, so instead of solar names for months they’re just numbered. Just remember that the Chinese new year usually falls between Jan 21st and Feb 20th. Twelfth month is usually the coldest month, also known as the ‘preservation’ month. ↩︎
Prose by Li Bai, original slightly paraphrased. ↩︎
A catty is a unit of weight, varying from dynasty to dynasty. ↩︎
Qi. If you’re not familiar with the concept you can think of it as the Force, like in Star Wars. ↩︎
Shaobing. ↩︎
黑山谷. Valley of Heishan, literally “black mountain valley”. ↩︎
