WJ Chapter 103

When the Rooster Crows (1)

It is fitting to drink wine and grow old together with you.

With the qin and se in harmony, all is peaceful and serene.

—

Time flows like water; the sun and moon shuttle on.

Through several turns of the four seasons, years have passed in the blink of an eye.

Once again, spring has come.

The peach blossoms of Mount Shenlie have burst into vivid bloom this season as they do every year.

That stretch of peach grove — the one Yun Guyan had given to Duanmu Lin eight years ago — had grown larger and more lush over time, the clusters of peach blossoms on its branches more brilliant than ever.

In an instant, a dark teal shadow flashed through the flowers, weaving between the riot of peach-red like a swimming dragon — now straight, now turning, now flipping and spinning — the outline of a slender figure.

Pleasant qin music drifted faintly from deep within the peach grove.

Its timbre was solitary as a mountain, clear and cold as water. The melody being played was not especially complex, yet it carried a faint otherworldly quality capable of cleansing away all worldly dust, easily enough to intoxicate a listener.

The dark teal shadow was also heading deeper into the grove. One could see blossoms trembling chaotically all along its path, yet the true face of this figure remained impossible to make out — even the birds in flight were left far behind.

Then, in one moment, the dark teal shadow broke through the canopy of blossoms.

— A young man appeared in the open light of the sky. Black hair swept lightly across fair skin; refined and sharp brows and eyes that still held a faint greenness of youth, yet were already strikingly handsome — one could still faintly trace in them the shadow of that little medicine boy from years past.

He cut a dashing figure: a crisp teal garment wrapped around a lean and slender frame, cuffs and waist cinched tight, while the looser hem of his robe rippled in the brisk wind. The young man in teal stood on one foot atop the highest peach branch, thin lips curved in a faint smile, head tilted as he listened to the cool, clear strains of the qin.

He even had a bundle slung over his shoulder, and he simply planted his foot casually on the branch — which only bent slightly without breaking — testament to how exquisitely refined his lightness technique had become.

If any figure from the jianghu had witnessed this scene, they would surely have been astonished that a boy so young had already cultivated his qinggong to such a transcendent degree.

But then, who could have imagined that a place so reminiscent of a peach-blossom paradise would lie within Mount Shenlie — a mountain spoken of in the jianghu with an air of uncanny mystery — squarely within the jurisdiction of the Zhuyin Sect of Xifeng City, a place no ordinary person could simply wander into?

The next moment, the young man in teal gathered force beneath his feet again, skimming across the flowering branches in a burst of speed, dissolving once more into a teal blur that the naked eye could not catch. He flew on toward the depths of the peach grove.

Only the peach branch he had stood upon was left behind, its blossoms still trembling and trembling long after he had gone.

……

Deep in the peach grove, that small wooden house still stood quietly as ever.

After all these years, aside from the tender green moss that had crept up along the rim of the stone well behind the house, the place seemed hardly changed at all.

The window of the wooden cabin was open wide.

The sunlight was just as brilliant as it had been on the day those two children first met each other.

Inside the bright and airy cabin, the Zhuyin Sect’s most exalted Young Sect Leader, Changliu, knelt before his qin in white robes that pooled on the floor, ink-black hair flowing loose over his shoulders like spilled ink. He sat in quiet stillness, eyes downcast as he drew his fingers across the strings — now brushing, now plucking — and the sound of nature itself flowed like water from that wooden instrument.

This Young Sect Leader had now grown to fifteen years of age. His temperament remained as cool and withdrawn as ever; there were few things in this world he could be said to truly cherish, but music and the qin — skills he had first taken up for his father’s sake — could, at a stretch, be counted as one of them.

The piece he was playing, Answer to My Lord’s Grace, had been composed for Yun Guyan by his mother Lan Ningcai, Lady Lan — a woman he had never met — and it was the piece Yun Changliu loved best. In its original form the melody was meandering and melodious, a soft and murmuring confession. But rendered by his hands, it took on a faint quality of detachment, as though he had seen through all the vanities of this mortal world.

The Young Sect Leader was wholly absorbed in the qin before him when, all of a sudden, there came a light tap at the wooden house’s window.

Yun Changliu lifted his eyes.

A flash of teal, and a handsome young man had already tumbled in through the window from outside.

Ah Ku landed in one smooth, elegant twist, his feet meeting the floor without the faintest sound. He was grinning at Yun Changliu with a little air of smugness, bright and clear as he called out, “Young Sect Leader.”

The Young Sect Leader’s expression did not change. He plucked two more notes on the qin strings below and said mildly, “Why do you keep climbing in through the window.”

From that winter night on Wolong Platform, amid wind and snow — years had already slipped past.

Both Yun Changliu and Ah Ku had grown into splendid, fine-looking young men. Over these years they had long grown accustomed to spending every day in each other’s company, and their bond had deepened considerably. Yun Changliu no longer cared much to stay in his Changsheng Pavilion; he had instead taken to living in this wooden house as though he were half its owner.

“Well, I could hear you playing,” said Ah Ku, tilting his head with a light raise of his brow and a warm smile. “If I’d knocked and made you come open the door, your song would have been interrupted.”

Ah Ku had come racing up the mountain from below on nothing but his qinggong, skimming through the branches — which had been swift and exhilarating — and now his breathing was inevitably a little unsteady. Yun Changliu shot him a glance, his eyes taking on a tinge of fond reproach, and said with displeasure, “You exhaust yourself like this right after a blood-drawing.”

“Right after?” Ah Ku put on an exaggerated look of astonishment, setting down the bundle he had carried all the way here. “It’s been more than half a month, Young Sect Leader!”

“Besides, every time before and after they draw my blood these days, you stand over me and force all those tonics down my throat… after half a month I’m completely fine, never mind the next day. You’re the only one who keeps fretting about it.”

The young man in teal lowered his head, muttering away as he took out the goods he had bought on his trip down the mountain one by one.

Although he wanted for nothing here — food, clothing, nearly anything he desired, Yun Guyan would mostly provide, so there was no real need for Ah Ku to run errands on his behalf. But as he was not the sort to sit idle, Ah Ku still descended the mountain every month or two to wander around and have a look, buy whatever caught his eye, and occasionally turn up some rare or curious find.

Now, having just returned from the market at the foot of the mountain, Ah Ku didn’t rush to put the newly purchased items away first. Instead he scooped up half a handful of plump, ripe mulberries and walked over to hold them to the Young Sect Leader’s lips, blinking brightly as he said, “Mulberries — very fresh, taste one.”

Yun Changliu cast them a disdainful glance. The qin notes beneath his fingers grew fittingly heavier. “They haven’t been washed. I won’t eat them.”

“……How fussy.”

Ah Ku rolled his eyes at him, then turned and ran outside to rinse them clean with water from the well. A moment later he was back at Yun Changliu’s side, full of cheer, feeding the washed mulberries to the Young Sect Leader one by one.

This time Yun Changliu was willing to eat, taking each purple-red fruit from between Ah Ku’s fingers with docile compliance. Ah Ku ate one himself, then passed another to the one beside him. The two young men sat there together, one for you and one for me, and the small handful of mulberries was soon shared and finished between them.

The qin piece was not yet done when they finished. Ah Ku washed his hands, returned to the inner room, and came back cradling a qin — one whose shape and style bore a faint resemblance to Yun Changliu’s own.

The young man in teal steadied the instrument and settled himself across from the Young Sect Leader, smiling. “Young Sect Leader, shall I play along with you until the piece is done?”

Yun Changliu let a trace of pleasure show on his face and gave a small nod.

Ah Ku tuned the strings with practiced ease and set his ten fingers upon the instrument. He closed his eyes and listened for a moment to Yun Changliu’s rhythm and tempo, then on the next beat brought in his own voice — landing precisely on Yun Changliu’s next note.

Though Yun Changliu was accomplished in music, his temperament was too cool, and when it fell onto the strings it always came out a touch too cold. Now, as Ah Ku’s notes began to rise, it was as if a spring breeze had swept over a snowbound mountain peak where no human had ever set foot — coaxing the winter snow to melt, and calling forth flowers to bloom.

In an instant, the two qins sounded together in harmony, blending as naturally as water and milk. Ah Ku and Yun Changliu had been learning the qin together for many years now, long since attuned to each other’s heart without need for words. When they played together like this, every note they drew out fit the other’s with flawless precision.

This pair of qins they played was itself a matter of some significance. Ah Ku’s instrument was named Yunshu — Cloud Dawn — while Yun Changliu’s was named Qingku — Feeling Bitter. They had been carved from the same wood by the same blade, a gift Yun Guyan had presented on Yun Changliu’s birthday the year before —

It should be said that in the earlier years, Yun Guyan had seemed bent on keeping the Young Sect Leader and Ah Ku at some distance from each other. But watching it prove entirely futile, he had more or less given up wasting the effort somewhere along the way.

And later, as the bond between Yun Changliu and Ah Ku only grew warmer and closer — with the Young Sect Leader being the one who kept coming back to this wooden house day after day, determined to stick close to Ah Ku — the Sect Leader found himself utterly without recourse, left with nothing to do but grumble privately to Wen Huan about it.

And by now… the Sect Leader had long since been worn down to a change of heart. He no longer targeted Ah Ku; instead he had learned the correct way to make his precious Liu’er happy — he need only include a matching gift for the little medicine boy in the peach-grove wooden house whenever he sent presents, and the Young Sect Leader would reward him with a smile.

So when Yun Guyan had presented this pair of qins, he had taken one character each from the two children’s names in an inspired touch to christen the instruments, and Yun Changliu had indeed been delighted.

By rights, Yunshu ought to have gone to Yun Changliu and Qingku to Ah Ku — but to everyone’s surprise, the Young Sect Leader simply gathered Qingku into his arms and refused to let go, leaving Ah Ku to accept Yunshu under Yun Guyan’s helpless, bemused gaze.

From that point on, this kind of duet had become yet another delight shared between the two young men, alongside their martial sparring and competitions.

When the piece came to an end, Yun Changliu rose with the qin and set Qingku upright against the wall, saying quietly, “I should head back to the city — Elder Guan is to administer his needles today. I’ll come again at noon.”

“All right, I’ll cook for you then.” Ah Ku smiled and nodded, resting Yunshu against Qingku along the wall as well. The two qins leaned with their scroll-heads touching, as if resting against each other.

Since the night on that wind-and-snow-swept Wolong Platform the year before, when he and the Young Sect Leader had sworn to share life and death, Ah Ku had never again set foot in Medicine Gate’s blood-drawing chamber. These days Elder Guan Muyan would simply come to his wooden house each time blood was required.

The Young Sect Leader Changliu, on the other hand, had paid a considerable price of his own — because he steadfastly refused to let Ah Ku give too much blood, he had endured over the years a great deal of suffering that could otherwise have been avoided. He now had to go to Medicine Gate for treatment every ten days; it wasn’t particularly agonizing, but it was exhausting and tiresome all the same.

Ah Ku watched Yun Changliu out the door, then began unhurriedly putting away the things he had brought back, settling each one carefully in its place inside the wooden house.

……These years. He had truly been living as if in a dream.

Yun Changliu genuinely protected him. The truth was… that night on Wolong Platform, when he had said those words — that he would not be the Zhuyin Sect’s medicine-slave — even in his own heart he had not quite believed them; and as for those things he had said about wanting the Young Sect Leader to dote on him, they had been more or less a shameless chance to say out loud what he wished for, and nothing more.

He had never expected Yun Changliu to take it seriously.

Yet Yun Changliu had. He truly found every means he could to dote on him, to accommodate him, to shield him from the contempt of others. And so it was that by now, Ah Ku not only had no need to enter Medicine Gate, bore no suffering from the blood-drawings, endured no one’s scorn — he could even descend the mountain for a stroll whenever he pleased, take whatever he wished from Xifeng City, and was beyond the reach of even an iron-blooded figure like Yun Guyan.

This life he was living — it went without saying that it was far better than his time at Wanci Manor, when he had been the unbeloved Young Master Lin. That was a certainty… indeed, Ah Ku had even privately thought that even if he had never suffered his birth father’s coldness back then, even if he had truly grown up as the young lord of a prominent martial arts family, it still could not have been better than this.

The purchased goods were all put away. Ah Ku set his customary blood-replenishing medicine to simmer over the fire, and after that found he had nothing pressing left to do.

But as his heart remained concerned about Yun Changliu’s needle treatment at Medicine Gate, he decided he would get a head start and prepare the midday meal.

The young man in teal rolled up his sleeves simply, lit the stove, and began to cook.

The Young Sect Leader came every day to eat at his table, and so Ah Ku’s culinary skill had naturally been honed day by day into something increasingly fine. In less than half a shichen, waves of fragrant cooking smells were already drifting outward.

Ah Ku dished the several stir-fried dishes and a soup into their bowls, then covered each with an inverted plate to keep them warm.

Then he sat himself down casually by the doorway, gauging the time as he waited for the Young Sect Leader to return.

He was just estimating that it must be about time, when a sudden sound came from outside the door — someone landing before the cabin on qinggong. Ah Ku assumed it was Yun Changliu back already, and turned to open the door with a quick step —

And froze.

Yun Changliu was holding a small child. The child looked several years younger than either of them, curled against the Young Sect Leader’s chest and shaking violently, face still impossible to make out.

But the clothing that child wore was unmistakably what Ah Ku himself had long since stopped wearing.

The pale blue garment of a medicine boy.

Ah Ku felt as though he had been struck without warning by a bolt of lightning out of a clear sky. He clutched the doorframe, standing there in a daze, utterly thunderstruck.