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Collection of Short Stories by Shui Xin Sha Chapter 2 Part 1

By

siofra

Chapter 2: The Jianghu Shrimplet Zhen Luhua Series — Part 1

Master Yique said that when walking the jianghu, one must be extremely cautious and steer clear of two types of people: the first kind are the lackeys of the Eastern Depot, and the second kind are those whose names contain the character for “ghost.”

Lackeys are not terrifying; what is terrifying is provoking one, as they will drag an endless swarm of others down upon you. Thus, beating the grass to alert the snake before striking is a major taboo in conducting business.

Those whose names contain “ghost” are not actual ghosts, yet they are no different from real ones—and are even more headache-inducing than real ghosts. For instance, wine ghosts, lust ghosts, and… the Blade Ghost.

Back when Zhen Luhua was still little Luhua, her older sister loved to threaten her with this: “You love acting mischievous, don’t you? Keep acting up like this and I’ll marry you off to the Blade Ghost later, and we’ll see if you still have the gall to be so unruly.”

For a long time, whenever those words came out, little Luhua would instantly behave.

No girl wanted to become the Blade Ghost’s woman, because no girl wanted to become a ghost.

The Blade Ghost’s real name was Luo Zhan.

Luo Zhan was a man, but he was always mistaken for a woman—a man as beautiful as a woman, who carried a silver-willow scimitar strapped across his back day in and day out.

Because of this, his blade lacked a murderous aura and instead carried an extra hint of a seductive charm that made people salivate, whether they were women or men. Consequently, he had an exceptional need for women—for their obedience, for their groans, for their bodies, for everything they had…

Yet it was never because he loved them.

The Blade Ghost did not love women, nor did he love men; no one knew what on earth he actually loved. Perhaps his only love was the blade on his back, because after venting his boredom and energy upon a woman, he could usually be seen doing only one thing: endlessly wiping his blade.

Wiping it meticulously, wiping it earnestly, just as he would stroke the soft bodies of those women.

Only, once the blade was wiped clean, he would buckle it back onto his person. And once he was done touching the women, he would take their lives.

Why take their lives? One day, when Zhen Luhua woke up beside him, she suddenly thought to ask him.

He answered that it was because they had looked upon his body.

Casually said.

That was when Zhen Luhua remembered the poetry-like tattoos winding across his body. From below his throat down to above his thighs, buried beneath layers of black garments, they sprang into a person’s eyes once parted. Mountains were not mountains, waters were not waters, flowers were not flowers, mist was not mist; rendered in deep and shallow strokes with fine brushes, they were striking to behold.

She had no idea whose hand had painted them.

So she asked again: “Then why is my life still here?”

This time he did not answer her; he simply reached out and plucked a hairpin from her hair. The hairpin was shaped like a willow leaf, ink-blue and so thin it was nearly transparent; with a flick of his finger, it sank into a stone pillar and vanished without a trace.

“Fine blade,” he then said softly.

“Fine hairpin,” Luhua replied, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.

The first time she saw the Blade Ghost was beyond the Great Wall.

During a brief rest at an inn, she happened to witness a large troop of Embroidered Uniform Guards escorting the Minister of War, Li Yannian, passing through the Gulang Trail. And he was right amongst them, clad in black, looking somewhat jarringly heavy amidst a procession of bright garments and spirited horses. His horse was pitch-black as well, so dark not a single stray hair of another color could be found. Only a scarlet military banner streamed across his back, setting off that willow scimitar so that it reflected a snow-like silver glare under the scorching desert sun.

That same day, the inn—which had previously been so quiet it made one sleepy—suddenly erupted into chaos. Over a hundred people burst forth from the inn and the surrounding wilderness, rushing toward the prisoner carriage with battle cries and flashing blades.

Yet, after a blur of yellowish sandstorm, everything instantly fell dead silent—so fast it felt like a mere illusion.

Casting one’s gaze outward, the horses were still those same horses, the soldiers still those same soldiers, and the prisoner carriage still that same carriage. Only trails of blackish-red, bloody gore stained the dry, yellow earth, crushed to pulp beneath the horses’ hooves until they sank into the dust and sand.

Following the charge of the iron cavalry, the red-bannered man on the black horse casually flipped his hand back and slotted the curved scimitar back into its scabbard on his spine. A moment later, a trace of blood could be seen slowly oozing down the groove, shaken off into the dirt by a hoof-stomp, where it vanished instantly.

All of that happened in the time it took Zhen Luhua to bite off half a steamed bun.

The second time she saw the Blade Ghost was in the pleasure quarters by West Lake in Hangzhou.

A fine place with fine scenery, yet back then, the only thing noticeable in the highest corridor of the Xizi Tower was his pitch-black attire, almost melting into the neon-lit nightlife.

The night was soft, his robes fluttered gracefully, and amidst the sound of silk and bamboo strings, he unhurriedly polished his blade. At his feet sat a massive jar of wine, sending forth a rich fragrance of osmanthus from afar—sweet enough as if it deliberately intended to intoxicate people.

She intentionally walked past his field of vision; he did not look at her.

She intentionally sat down opposite him; still, he did not look at her.

It was only when a few drunken men brushed past her, trying to violently yank her toward the inner rooms of the building, that he finally raised his head and glanced at her.

His gaze remained unhurried; then he kicked open the wine seal and poured a bowl of wine into his hand.

“Hey, you man there, watching a little wife get humiliated and refusing to lift a finger to help? What a waste of such martial prowess,” she finally couldn’t help speaking up first.

The man smiled, still lowering his head to drink his osmanthus wine: “A little wife wouldn’t run out here in the middle of the night, much less grab a dagger to use as a hair ribbon.”

Luhua laughed at that, too—though the few men who had grabbed her couldn’t laugh anymore. Naturally, if they were still capable of laughing, they wouldn’t have died in such an obscure and baffling manner.

Shrugging off their hands and standing up, Zhen Luhua straightened her clothes and walked over to his side: “My name is Luhua. What’s yours?”

The man turned his head toward the corridor railing: “They call me the Blade Ghost.”

“I’ve heard that every woman who has ever kept you company becomes a ghost beneath your blade.”

The man made no reply.

Zhen Luhua then sat down right beside him: “I don’t believe in superstitions.”

The Blade Ghost’s martial arts were formidable, and his desires were directly proportional to his martial arts. Therefore, there were many women the Blade Ghost wanted, and although the tragic ends of those women after being claimed by him were always gruesome, they experienced immense pleasure beforehand.

Obsessed with killing, obsessed with lust, obsessed with wine.

They said desire was fundamentally all the same: the desire to kill, the desire for the flesh, the desire to consume.

And humans were desire itself.

Thus, Zhen Luhua had desires as well; sometimes, to attain certain desires, she could even cast aside her life.

Yet this time, the man did not take her life.

Even Zhen Luhua found this strange herself.

She enjoyed the blade-like hardness of the man’s body, and she enjoyed the sharpness of the blade upon his body—only that sharpness ultimately failed to cut into her flesh as expected, which actually made Zhen Luhua feel a bit uneasy. She stroked the scabbard on his back while he bit down onto her shoulder.

“What is tattooed on your back?” she asked then.

“Your life,” he replied.

“So you’re here to take it?” she asked again.

“Not yet.”

Not yet.

Just how long was “not yet”?

Anyone who asked such a question must be quite foolish; Zhen Luhua considered herself a fraction smarter than a fool, so she decided not to ask.

His next bite landed on her waist; it stung a little, but it hurt much more.

She liked this kind of pain. Hence, arching her waist, she poured even more of her focus into the blade-edge of another kind of weapon on his body.

On the day the Blade Ghost died, Zhen Luhua was standing in the corridor of the Xizi Tower, sniffing the fragrance of osmanthus.

At her feet sat a jar of wine—a very large jar of wine, because every year around this time, someone would always come here to drink it dry.

Today, she assumed he wouldn’t come, as he was much later than in previous years.

Yet in the end, he came after all, draped in black robes, resembling a moving ink-wash painting against the pale, fish-belly-white dawn sky.

She still remembered what he said back then, along with the expression on his face. His face was extremely pale, which made his expression look exceptionally sharp. He stood beside her, looking down at her with a very serene demeanor. The wind chimes under the eaves clinked in the breeze, carrying a rusted, metallic tang alongside the faint sweetness of osmanthus—a scent that kept one from staying clear-headed and felt somewhat dreamlike.

A feeling Zhen Luhua didn’t particularly care for.

“That man is called Xiaotie,” she then heard him say, word by word: “Deliver this to Lord Han for me.”

With that, he sat down right beside her, as if falling asleep. The side of his clothes pressed against her skin was icy cold and soaked through, drenched entirely in his blood.

Clutching the letter he had shoved into her hand, Zhen Luhua felt as though she were still dreaming.

Dreaming that the assassin capable of severing a hundred heads in the time it took to bite off half a steamed bun had died—killed by someone named Xiaotie. Dreaming that right before his death, this assassin had uttered a name he should never have spoken, and handed the item of utmost importance to that person over to her…

Truly, it was like a dream.

Afterwards, as for what she did next, she wasn’t sure if the Blade Ghost would let her off now that he had become a ghost.

She did not deliver that letter to the “Lord Han” the Blade Ghost had mentioned.

Because dead men have no need to read letters.

Lord Han was dead; less than half an hour after the Blade Ghost’s death, he died by Zhen Luhua’s hands. For this day, she had waited three years.

Luo Zhan was a blade wielded under Han Xinian of the Embroidered Uniform Guards’ Northern Judicial Division.

To get close to Han Xinian, one had to first get close to his blade. As the saying went: the blade never leaves the hand, and the hand never leaves the blade; wherever Han Xinian’s mount was seen, the Blade Ghost’s shadow was bound to follow. By the same token, the reverse was also true, just like a form and its shadow.

To take Han Xinian’s life, one inevitably had to clear the hurdle of the Blade Ghost.

Zhen Luhua wasn’t sure if she was a match for the Blade Ghost; if one wasn’t sure of being a match, an assassin should never strike lightly—this was what her elder sister had repeatedly drilled into her. Better to wait; the disciples of the Thirteen Gates would never stomach failure.

Thus, three years were spent solely on understanding the man that was the Blade Ghost.

To understand the Blade Ghost’s blade.

To understand the hand with which the Blade Ghost drew his blade.

She only never expected that in the final year, he would die at someone else’s hands—at the hands of a complete nobody.

That person’s name was Xiaotie.

After severing Han Xinian’s head and fulfilling her mission, Zhen Luhua ultimately never opened that letter. She didn’t even know where she had丢 (thrown) that letter, because it had nothing to do with her assignment, and anything unrelated to her assignment had nothing to do with her at all.

As for wine.

Whether the Blade Ghost would spare her now that he had turned into a ghost—that, too, was a matter completely unrelated to her assignment.

Yet for some reason, every year when the osmanthus flowers blossomed, she would still go to sit in the corridor of the Xizi Tower, bringing a jar of wine.

Because someone might just come to drink it all up.

On the night she killed Han Xinian and returned to the Xizi Tower, Zhen Luhua did not find the Blade Ghost’s corpse.

Whether it had been quickly cleaned away by the tavern staff or taken away by someone with intentions, she did not know.

It had only been half an hour.

The air still lingered with the man’s scent and the stench of blood, yet the bench where his corpse had lain was spotless.

So clean that not a single trace of blood could be seen.

Atop half a jar of wine drifted fallen petals of osmanthus; she remembered very clearly that she had not drunk a single drop of that wine.

Because there was medicine in the wine—a drug colorless and odorless, yet capable of paralyzing human senses within a designated span of time.

The wind rose once more, the flowers grew fragrant again, and the wind chimes rang crisp and clear.

Jingle, jingle.

Every year this season always stirred up a tiny shred of desire in people.