CSS By SXS – 3

 

Collection of Short Stories by Shui Xin Sha Chater 3 (Finale)

By

siofra

Collection of Short Stories by Shui Xin Sha

Chapter 3: The Jianghu Shrimplet Zhen Luhua Series — Part 2

How wonderful are the rivers and mountains of the south; when spring comes, the river water is as green as blue.

Yet spring is never quite as lovely as summer. Though ancient poets and scholars would never admit it, feelings are something you only need to validate for yourself. Even with the fierce heat of midsummer, if you are drifting in a covered boat beneath a cluster of willows, wearing light, thin garments and eating iced sweet melon, who would still miss that widely praised season of biting spring chill?

Zhen Luhua was sitting right inside such a covered boat, holding a fan in one hand and a piece of watermelon in the other. She wasn’t doing it out of sheer leisure, however; she had been suffering from a bout of internal heat lately. Whenever the heat flared up, her gums ached intensely, and the combination of the heat and the pain made her exceptionally miserable. Thus, she sighed repeatedly as she looked down at the two youths kneeling persistently before her, sighing so heavily that the onlookers behind her began to feel rather uneasy.

Naturally, when such sighs went on for over half an hour, with the sun blazing fiercely overhead and the pair of delicate youths kneeling on the deck, anyone watching for long would feel restless.

Yet Zhen Luhua just kept sighing at them, sighing once, taking a bite of watermelon, and then holding it in her mouth as she continued to sigh.

The two youths neither grew annoyed nor impatient. It was as if no matter how fiercely the sun overhead burned, it was scorching everyone else while they willingly knelt on the deck, keeping silent.

Not far from the boat, a phoenix-headed painted houseboat was anchored in the center of the lake. The boat was massive, its hull brushed with gold paint and its upper pavilion draped with multicolored silks, bobbing up and down with the waves like a resplendent phoenix resting on the water. At the bow of the boat stood two or three youths around the same age as the ones before Zhen Luhua, holding punting poles and standing as motionless and steady as statues, looking quite reliable and striking.

Sighing once more, Zhen Luhua covered her mouth and stood up: “Please tell Poison Sanniang that Luhua is feeling unwell and will not intrude today.”

“Our master gave orders: if we fail to invite Miss Luhua back, we are to bring our heads to see her,” the youth replied. His voice was similarly unhurried and calm, gentle enough to tug at one’s heartstrings.

Yet not everything that tugged at the heartstrings could be indulged with casual softness, especially not people belonging to Poison Sanniang. Zhen Luhua understood this very well. However, since they had tracked her down to her doorstep, continuing to stall would only invite embarrassment—especially when dealing with someone like Poison Sanniang. Therefore, she straightened her clothes, walked past the youths to the bow of the boat, and as if telepathically linked, the painted houseboat opposite her suddenly swung open its red-lacquered long window, and with a snap, a brilliantly bright strip of silk shot out from within.

It unrolled all the way to fall right at Zhen Luhua’s feet, with a pair of copper bells tied to its end chiming crisply, sounding like the master’s meaningful laughter.

Sighing again, Zhen Luhua lifted her foot and stepped onto the silk. The silk proved responsive; the moment she steadied her footing, it snapped back toward the long window with a sudden whoosh, the bells wrapping around her ankles, and she was sent spinning upside down into the air, swept into the cabin along with the silk ribbon.

A stool sat right by the window. If you landed steadily, you landed squarely on the stool’s soft silk cushion; if you landed unsteadily, what flashed brightly around the edges of that stool was usually not a floor full of silver, but a floor full of upward-pointing dagger tips.

Zhen Luhua straightened her hair while sitting on the stool. The bells were still tangled around her ankles; she moved her feet slightly, and the bells jingled. The rolled bamboo curtain opposite her flipped upward, revealing a table and a couch. On the table was a game of chess half-played; on the couch lay a woman.

In the height of dog-days summer, the woman was covered from head to toe in layers of multicolored silk, leaving only a single hand exposed to hold a chess piece. The chess piece was a slightly wriggling black armor beetle, known as a qu. It resembled a ladybug, with females being black and males white. Normally as still as a pebble, it would attack with venomous liquid the moment it felt a vibration. Its toxicity was extreme, capable of corrosive damage akin to mercury.

Across the entire world, perhaps only Poison Sanniang could conceive of using such a creature as a chess piece, and across the entire world, perhaps only Zhen Luhua was willing to accompany Poison Sanniang in playing with such pieces.

Out of sheer helplessness.

Poison Sanniang’s real name was Liu Yueying, the eldest daughter of master builder Liu, head of the Liu Manor in the eastern district of Luoyang.

Poison Sanniang was extremely ugly—just how ugly? It was said that while other girls underwent ten transformations as they grew up, each time becoming prettier, Miss Yueying grew stranger with every change. By the time she reached eighteen, she had become so repulsive that even her own parents wanted to cry upon seeing her.

Yet, frustratingly, Poison Sanniang was exceptionally talented.

Someone once used this comparison: intestines like delicate orchids, thoughts as fine as silk. When it came to composing poetry, matching couplets, playing the zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting, there was nothing she could not do and nothing she had not mastered. Twenty-eight years ago, at the Luoyang Peony Festival, a single “Peony Ode” accompanied by seven acrostic poems captivated countless dashing scholars and men of letters overnight. At the time, matchmakers practically trampled the threshold of the Liu Manor flat, yet upon catching a real glimpse of Miss Liu’s actual face, they all fled in panic without even daring to drink a sip of water.

Naturally, regardless of how things turned out, it had been a sensational spectacle back then—one that the people of Luoyang relished discussing over tea and after meals.

Zhen Luhua, of course, had no chance to witness that spectacle firsthand.

Twenty-eight years ago, she hadn’t even been born. Twenty-eight years later, a game of chess brought her and Poison Sanniang together; the method of play was chess, and the wager was each other’s lives. They had been playing for nearly four years, and to this day, a single game remained unfinished, meaning that neither had yet been able to take the other’s life. For gamblers, this was a headache-inducing ordeal; for an assassin trying every possible means to complete a mission, it was especially agonizing.

Thus, up until now, Zhen Luhua was the only woman who frequently appeared by Poison Sanniang’s side.

Sanniang generally did not associate with women; to her, every woman—no matter how ugly or foolish—carried thorns. Who would willingly keep thorns constantly in their line of sight?

Except for Zhen Luhua, this prey she could never manage to kill.

“Why did you come to Taihu Lake?”

“Taihu Lake is beautiful.”

“Is it more beautiful than the Blade Ghost on West Lake?”

“The Blade Ghost is already dead.”

“A pity. But a move played cannot be taken back; do you regret it?”

“The Youxian Qibu Zui (Tipsy Immortals Seven-Step Drunk) is something impossible to purchase with any amount of gold or silver. To trade a single lost piece for a flask of it—what is there to regret?”

“Heh heh…”

Poison Sanniang’s fingers were exceptionally slender and long, resembling a spider’s. The way she held her chess piece was remarkably graceful, faintly retaining the look of her maiden days.

Whenever this point was raised, she always dismissed it with disdain.

She claimed that back when she was a maiden, she was so plump her fingers couldn’t even bend, unlike now where they were as thin as skin-covered bones.

In truth, Sanniang was exaggerating somewhat. If she had been so fat her fingers couldn’t bend, how could those finely brushed paintings and delicate, slender calligraphy characters have crawled onto the paper by themselves? Therefore, when looking at women, the more narcissistic they were, the more reserved they tended to be; and the more reserved they were, the more they loved to deprecate themselves with harsh words, solely to exchange for a reassurance like: Actually, you aren’t really…

Could someone as ugly as Poison Sanniang truly be narcissistic?

Why not? If a woman does not possess narcissism, it inevitably means she has not yet begun to view herself as a woman.

That was why every time Zhen Luhua teased her—“Sanniang, looking like this, you still cling to me all day long. Aren’t you afraid that even the men outside your own door will run off with me?”—Sanniang could always reply without turning a hair or skipping a beat: “So what? The men Poison Sanniang fancies are never left waiting to follow; she simply takes them by force.”

The men Sanniang fancied could always be forcefully plundered by her; in matters of romance, Sanniang was far bolder than any man.

And the reason a woman becomes bold in that manner is likely because she has begun to feel a tiny sliver of despair toward herself.

Yet could a woman like Poison Sanniang truly feel despair toward herself? Perhaps so. If you were so ugly that even your own parents couldn’t bear to look at you, Zhen Luhua mused, there could hardly be anything more despair-inducing for a woman, no matter how indifferent she might pretend to be.

Yet it was said that back in her youth, Poison Sanniang hadn’t felt quite so despairing of her appearance. Otherwise, how could she have produced so many brilliant poems and paintings filled with delicate sentiment—painting willow-bending grace, writing of moonlit trysts—fully laying bare a young maiden’s innermost thoughts?

It was also said that there had once been someone who genuinely loved Poison Sanniang, back when Sanniang was still little Miss Yueying.

A youthful scholar riding on the spring breeze.

Passing by the grand Liu Manor, he had been captivated by the sound of zither music drifting out from behind the walls. The zither playing was exquisite, and the young lady’s voice was even more wondrous—melodious, gentle, and soft. From then on, he fell sick with lovesickness, running over every few days to listen to the music, eavesdropping from across the wall as the zither player spoke with her maid, thus discovering that the musician was none other than the eldest Miss Liu, Yueying.

After half a year of exchanging messages via paper kites, the youth successfully passed his imperial examinations and immediately traveled to the Liu Manor to propose marriage. Despite the Liu family’s repeated evasions and excuses, he was determined to marry her.

Had it not been for what happened afterward, the youth likely would have gone to his grave believing that the Liu family’s hesitation stemmed from snobbery over wealth and status. Having never seen Miss Yueying’s true face, how could he have ever imagined that it was merely a pitiful father trying to preserve the last shred of dignity for his beloved daughter?

Yet Yueying, too, had been blinded by that compounding love day after day, insisting stubbornly on the marriage, until they finally had no choice but to consent.

And Sanniang’s despair began at that exact moment.

The wedding took place, but the bride was not her—it was her younger sister.

On her wedding night, she fled.

Why flee?

Faced with a woman who had literally frightened her beloved paramour into fainting cold away, what else could she do besides run?

Thus, she finally understood one truth.

When it comes to a woman’s lifelong affairs, no matter how many revered sages across past and present refuse to admit it, an ironclad fact remains permanently rooted in people’s hearts: no matter what logic says, it will never truly change how things are. That truth is: no matter how high your talent, it can never rival physical beauty. Moreover, consider what kind of horrifyingly hideous countenance that was.

Later on, Sanniang met her master.

An elderly man whose mastery of poison had reached miraculous heights, an old man who had not taken a single disciple until he reached the age of one hundred and twenty-eight. The only reason he accepted her as a disciple was because she was already so ugly that there was nothing left on her face she cared about losing.

Later still, she heard that the youth had married the person he believed to be Yueying, living happily amidst flowers and moonlight.

“What are you thinking about?” With a single piece dropped into place, Zhen Luhua heard Poison Sanniang ask her.

She smiled: “Thinking of you.”

“Thinking of how to kill me?” Poison Sanniang smiled as well. The moment she smiled, the silk covering the sides of her face rustled, and she immediately smoothed it back down tightly—a habit of hers that had remained unchanged for years.

Therefore, Zhen Luhua thought, caring this much about her own ugliness, she surely never looked in a mirror. She likely wouldn’t even glance toward any body of water she passed; otherwise, she wouldn’t still look the way she did now, and she wouldn’t find it hard to realize why her master had chosen a disciple who didn’t care about what she lost on her face.

That was because practicing his art caused one’s facial features and limbs to gradually erode away amid daily poisonous mists. Yet they were not necessarily lost forever—otherwise, how could her master have lived to be one hundred and twenty-eight?

There was a substantial chance that alongside the loss, new skin and tissue would regenerate on their own during unnoticeable moments, provided one had enough luck. Only, the entire process was terrifying—so terrifying that if you were someone who looked in mirrors, you would eventually grow too despairing to go on living.

Fortunately, Poison Sanniang never looked in mirrors.

Thus, naturally, she had no way of knowing that the disappearance of flesh from her body did not mean she had truly turned into a skeleton; that losing her ears and nose did not mean they wouldn’t grow back; that the burning, fiery pain in her eyes for a period of time was simply them slowly transforming… And when all of this concluded, if she were to look in a mirror, she would see that Poison Sanniang was no longer the Liu Yueying who had once been too hideous for her parents to bear looking at.

She was beautiful—as breathtakingly beautiful as the blooming peonies in her own paintings, even though her current brushwork depicted only centipedes and scorpions.

Twenty-eight years had left virtually no trace upon her face because, owing to skin regeneration, those twenty-eight years of aging had essentially paused. At forty-six years of age, she retained the appearance of an eighteen-year-old, possessing a peony-like visage.

Therefore, every time Sanniang spoke of the men she had forcefully seized, Zhen Luhua never knew what expression to wear. Among those men plundered by force, who was actually taking more advantage of whom?

Yet all of this was something Sanniang would never know; she would never get to witness these changes upon her own body because she lacked the courage.

A person who lacked even the courage to face her own appearance naturally lacked the courage to face everything that had happened afterward to the person she once loved.

Consequently, she also remained unaware that after she fled, the youth had never married her younger sister; on their wedding night, he had instantly seen through that masquerade of substituting one person for another.

Who said that people who had never met couldn’t recognize a swapped substitute?

Who said that never having met meant leaving no recognizable trace in the other person’s heart?

Thus, she was even less aware that ever since that night, the youth had spent a full twenty-eight years searching for her.

Only, when he was finally found after all this hardship, he had been captured by her to serve as the bargaining chip that made Zhen Luhua willingly accompany her to finish this game of chess.

In this world, if you must owe anything, never owe human favors—and certainly never owe mistaken favors. Otherwise, navigating this game of chess truly became an arduous task…

“I was wondering… who on earth is the person capable of hiring you to assassinate me?” With these thoughts in mind, Zhen Luhua spoke.

“Take a guess.”

“The people wanting to kill me line up all the way from here to the capital; how could I ever guess?”

“Then I will naturally tell you once you are dead.”

Zhen Luhua sighed softly: “Actually, I was wondering how I might make up for that lost move in our chess game…”

“That is rather easy.”

“Easy?” She couldn’t help raising her head to glance at the woman.

Though tightly wrapped up, one could still faintly discern that pair of smiling eyes, as bewitching as the night she had begged for the Youxian Qibu Zui.

“Do you know the Murong family of Jiangnan?”

“The sword-casting family.”

“I’ve taken a fancy to a sword of theirs.”

“Murong’s swords? Better off without them.” The imperial sword-crafting workshops were not something commoners could ever aspire to demand.

“What I set my eyes upon will not let me sleep in peace until I get it.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Find a way to fetch me one of their swords, and I’ll concede a move to you in this game.”

“Really?”

“Naturally.”

“A move played, no taking it back?”

“Naturally, no taking it back.”

“What kind of sword?”

As the sun sank into dusk, the waterways of Taihu Lake grew increasingly crowded, filled everywhere with returning fishing boats. Along dozens of miles of water routes, fisherfolk songs echoed across the ripples. With the daytime summer heat gone, the tunes, though lacking in refined cadence, were refreshing enough to make one feel cool all over.

“Honorable guest, ahead is the Moon-Watching Tower. If you wish to taste authentic Taihu Nine-Fragrance Fish, this is the only place.”

“Boatman, are you trying to trick me just because I look like a newcomer from the north? Everyone knows that Taihu Nine-Fragrance Fish went extinct back during the founding Emperor’s reign; people just use it as a gimmick to put on airs.”

“What kind of talk is that, honorable guest? This old man is sixty-nine years old and has never cheated a traveler in his life. You can genuinely eat that Taihu Nine-Fragrance Fish inside that tower.”

“Oh?”

“Do you know who owns that tower? It belongs to Master Wang, the third son-in-law of the Murong family.”

“Ah… you mean Wang Chongxi, the richest man in Jiangnan?”

“Precisely, precisely. And their chefs all came straight from the imperial palace, you see.”

“I see. In that case, I certainly must go inside and take a look.”

“Ah, there you go. Watch your step on the slippery boards, honorable guest, walk well.”

(The End)