A Walk in the Rain

Treading Snow

Autumn, raining nonstop. Day after day, no sign of stopping.

On the mountain path, the rain tore the red and yellow leaves from their branches to fall in the mud and be trampled on, returning to the earth.

A woman was walking along the path, her straw rain cape already soaked through, bamboo hat dripping water. She seemed to have been walking in the rain a long time already. She looked to be around twenty, thin pursed lips, hard eyes. She shouldered a cloth bundle, a pair of large bronze hammers slung beside it, ill-matched with her small frame.

The woman stepped on the fallen leaves in the mud. Her right leg seemed a bit lame as it took her some effort to go along, though for all her slowness she did not stop. She walked for a long time and crested the top of the mountain. It was getting dark as she scanned the long, winding mountain path far out in the quiet distance. She pulled on her rain cape, frowning. Looking ahead, she saw at the end of the path a corner of a ruined brick wall. Her eyes lit up and she plucked up her spirits and continued on toward the ruined wall.

When she reached the abandoned mountain god temple it was almost full dark. She could only dimly make out the dilapidated earthen wall mottled with red lacquer. In the past when there were villagers living here, there must have been a monk in charge of the temple here, but he must have moved with the villagers and so the temple fell to disrepair. The woman reached out and pushed open the half-closed temple door. The hinges creaked from long disuse. It seemed quite desolate in the gloomy, rainy night. The temple consisted of only the main hall, and it was pitch-dark. It was called the main hall, but actually it was just a little room with a shrine and some clay statue she couldn’t make out. At least the roof was still intact; aside from a hole in the wall from an open window, the floor was dry. It would make a fine place to settle down for the night.

The woman unshouldered her bronze hammers and cloth bundle and they hit the floor with a clank, then she took off her bamboo hat and straw rain cape and let out a huge sigh of relief. Her clothes underneath the rain cape were mostly wet, revealing her emaciated frame. A cold draft blew in from the open window hole and she was starting to shiver. She looked around and stopped at a pile of hay in the corner of the room. It was a good size pile of hay. Looked like someone had bedded down here before her. She took a hank of hay and lit a fire and the temple gradually warmed up. The woman shed her outer robe and hanged it on the altar table to air dry. The fire flickered, reflected its red glow onto her pallid face.

Suddenly the sound of hurried footsteps in the distance, getting closer. The woman was startled and grabbed her outer robe from the altar table and threw it on and turned around. Her robe was already half dry. The woman listened carefully. The footsteps were panicked, not imbued with any internal force at all, which was a relief. She sat back down by the fire. Probably just another night traveler looking for shelter from the rain.

The footsteps stopped before the doors. A moment of hesitation before a series of light knocks on the ramshackle wooden door.

“I’m just a passerby, come in,” the woman called out.

The doors creaked open and a girl stole inside. She was around eight or nine years old, her clothes drenched and slathered with mud, her eyes wide and darting in panic as she looked at the woman timidly, her eyes yet longing for that warm corner of the room on this rainy night.

“Come inside, it’s cold out.” The woman sighed to herself. Who knew whose child this was, running around out here in the middle of the night. Judging by the girl’s clothes, which were old and muddy, she seemed to be in dire straits, though she didn’t look like a beggar.

The child looked back outside, then sized up the woman sitting by the fire, her bundle and hammers on the floor, the woman’s calm face in the flickering light of the flames, then she finally stepped inside and closed the wooden doors and went before the fire and sat down.

Silence reigned for a time. The woman opened her bundle and took out a piece of flatbread and began eating slowly. The child looked across the fire at the cake in the woman’s hand and it was all she could do to suppress her hunger, though her stomach growled all the same. The woman rummaged around again in her bundle and pulled out another cake and handed it to the child, but she said nothing. The child looked on with enormous eyes and finally took the cake and began eating. No water, no other food, the two of them just eating their flatbread in silence, and they were soon finished.

“Are you from the jianghu?” the child asked, talking at last, a young, timid voice.

The woman nodded. She leaned against the wall, getting into a comfortable position, and closed her eyes.

The child glanced at the bronze hammers on the floor, the large heads glittering in the light of the flames. “Are you really good?”

The corners of the woman’s mouth curled up slightly and she shook her head. What was really good? What was not really good? Who among the jianghu could say if she was really good or not?

The child bit her lip, finally making up her mind to ask, “Can… Can I acknowledge you as my master?”

The woman’s eyes shot open and she looked at the child in surprise. The child was shy before the fire, but there was determination in her eyes. “You don’t know me, why would you want me to be your master?”

The child knelt, knees banging on the floor. “You’re a good person, I can see that. I… I ran away…” The child’s voice was choked, her eyes brimming with tears. “I really don’t want to go back…”

The woman stirred, but she didn’t help the child up. “Life in the jianghu isn’t as simple as you think, and once you enter the jianghu you can never go back.”

“I don’t want to ever go back…” The child was choked with sobs and could not continue, as if her emotions, bottled up for so long, were finally bursting out.

It was raining and the wind was blowing hard outside. Inside the dilapidated temple the flames flickered. Such a frail bit of warmth and tranquility. The woman looked at the suffering child by the fire and her gaze grew distant. Hadn’t she suffered like that once as well? Presently, the child calmed down, but she kept on sobbing. “So,” the woman said tenuously, “now that you escaped, what kind of life do you want to lead?”

The child took several deep breaths until she was a bit more calm. She thought about it. “I’m not sure. I just want to have enough to eat and warm clothes to wear, and no one forcing me to do things I don’t want to do.”

The woman laughed. “That’s not such a simple request. There’s a lot of people without enough food to eat or warm clothes to wear, and many people are forced to do things they don’t want to do.”

“I don’t understand,” the child said.

“You don’t understand, I don’t either.” The woman sighed. “What do you think life in the jianghu is like?”

The child was wide-eyed. “I heard a traveling storyteller tell a story about a xia1 called Soaring Sabre, said he was loyal, valued friendship, and robbed the rich to help the poor.”

The child’s eyes seemed to have something twinkling in there. The woman remembered that it was not long ago that her own eyes must have twinkled like that. It was hope, or maybe just a dream.

Soaring Sabre, master of sabreplay, incredible lightness skill. Had become famous decades ago, back when the woman was young. She too had heard that he had journeyed far to Snowy Mountain to rescue Snow Lotus, but didn’t know what became of him after that, and she had never heard of him again.

The woman pulled a wry smile and said, “Even a xia has to eat and needs clothes to wear. How can you help others if you can’t even take care of yourself?”

The child said nothing and silence fell over the temple. A short while later, the child, with that tone of voice of hers that belied her young age, said faintly, “Anyway, knowing martial arts is better than not knowing martial arts. At least you won’t be completely helpless when someone bullies you.”

The woman closed her eyes again and said nothing, thinking it best to take the child into town tomorrow on her way. The child had been away all night, her family must be very worried. The thought of family brought a sharp pain to the woman’s heart. When could she settle down and have a family?

Rain pelted down and wind whistled outside the window.

On this rainy night came the faint, distant barks of a dog, snapping the woman awake with a start where she had been nodding off. The child was even more afraid, bolting upright, panic-faced. She mumbled, “They’re coming, they’re coming…” She listened carefully, but there was no sound aside from the pattering of rain on the fallen leaves on the ground.

The woman was an internal arts master. She could tell by the sound that it was three men and a dog. Two of them didn’t know martial arts, their steps heavy, but the other one had a spry step, clearly a martial arts master. She didn’t know what the three of them with their dog were looking for out in the middle of the night in this storm. The woman looked at the child. She also didn’t know where the child had run away from and whether or not she ought to get involved.

More dog barks, this time much closer. The child sprang to her feet, trembling. She scurried to the door as if to flee, then came back and looked at the woman imploringly. Finally, she sank to her knees and pleaded, “Great Xia Sister, I beg you to help me. If they take me back I will die for sure…” She was so unnerved her words came out incoherently.

The woman knit her brows. The child’s pursuers were skilled martial artists and she was not in any condition to fight right now… “Just where did you run away from?”

Voice quavering, the child said, “I… am from Myriad Spring Mansion… They, they already beat to death Big Sister Little Bell… Sister Little Bell died in front of me, she made it so I had to escape, I can’t go on living at Myriad Spring Mansion…”

The woman understood now. Myriad Spring Mansion was a brothel in Zhouzhen. The child had run away from a brothel.

Outside, the barks were getting closer, the look in the child’s eyes growing desperate as her breathing became more and more panicked. She was on the verge of collapse when she sprang up and ran to the door. She pulled the temple door as hard as she could but it wouldn’t budge. She looked up and saw a hand reaching out above her holding the door closed. The child spun around and looked into the woman’s sparkling eyes.

“Go hide,” the woman said tersely.

The despair in the child’s eyes disappeared and was replaced by gratitude and an ever growing glimmer of hope.

The people outside were already at the temple doors, the dog barking like crazy to let the pursuers know their mark was inside. The child was curled up in a crack between the clay statue and the wall, feeling unusually calm. The woman added some wood to the fire and sat by it with her bronze hammers and bundle at her feet.

The doors opened with a bang and an enormous German shepherd scrambled inside, not expecting the cold gust of wind that greeted it. The dog reacted quick and leaped to the side as the bronze hammer came down on its back leg that had not gotten out of the way in time. The dog yelped and went limping on three legs back out the door with its tail between its legs. The people outside never imagined there would be someone else inside the temple. Surprised, they looked inside. It was only a thin woman sitting calmly alone by the fire. If not for the big gouge in the floor taken out by the big hammer you wouldn’t be able to tell anything had happened at all.

The three pursuers looked at each other warily. One of the men, a tall and lanky fellow, must have been the leader, for he looked the woman up and down. She was so thin, such a frail woman able to heft a big heavy hammer like that was terrifying, her martial arts ability must be quiet accomplished. So he stepped forward and cupped a hand over his fist. “Lady Xia, I am looking for a runaway servant and didn’t know you were staying here. Please forgive any offense given.”

The woman said nothing, only nodded.

The tall guy was not happy about her arrogant attitude. “I wonder, Lady Xia, if you’ve seen a girl, about eight or nine years old? She’s run away from home.”

The woman figured it was useless trying to deny it, what with that dog barking its head off like it had been. “What if I have? What if I haven’t?”

The tall guy understood. “The girl’s name is Zhou Jindian, a girl bought by Myriad Spring Mansion earlier. She’s really stubborn and wild, and this time she’s run off, making us have to spend half the night looking for her. Lady Xia, if you’ve seen her, please tell me so that I can go back and report it.”

The woman shook her head. “Haven’t seen her.”

The tall guy nearly choked he was so taken aback. With an icy tone he said, “Well… I’ve taken a commission and have a job to do. I have no choice but to come inside and search a bit. The girl might have hidden herself in some corner and you just didn’t see her.”

The woman didn’t even look up. “No need.”

The tall guy was getting mad. He thought, this woman is really full of herself, but he was afraid of that bronze hammer by her side. He made a furtive gesture and the two other men came up and rushed into the temple.

There was a loud clank and then a scream as the hammer slammed into one of the men, who crumpled to the floor unconscious. The other one came at the woman, right hand clenched in a fist, which came greeting her in the face without reservation. The woman dipped her head and shot her left hand out like lightning and caught the man under the armpit. The man grunted and froze in place and the woman pushed him over gently and he landed flat on his back.

The tall guy was stunned. The woman had not even stood up, yet had managed to rout two men and a dog. There must be something special about her. When he was her age he had roamed the jianghu. He knew not to underestimate her. He had to be careful. He placed his hand on the hilt of his sabre and walked slowly into the temple.

He took three steps inside. The woman sat by the fire as before, stoking the fire with a stick. She never looked up. She was quite vulnerable in that position, yet she was not at all on guard. The tall guy wasn’t about to take her lightly. He discreetly concentrated his force into his hand and drew his sabre and chopped down with it quick as lightning, trying to force the woman to get up. But to his surprise, the woman paid no attention at all to his sabre. She flicked the stick in her left hand up, the end of it on fire, and she drew it in an arc over to his right wrist, seemingly completely unconcerned that she was about to be chopped by his sabre. If the tall guy had chopped through ruthlessly than she would have been done for right then and there, but he was afraid for his own right hand. He had never before seen such a way of fighting, forfeiting one’s life like that. He was loath to part with his right hand as well. Without a right hand he had no sabreplay. Wouldn’t that make him the same as a cripple? Not much different than being dead in that case.

The tall guy changed his mind at the last second and turned his wrist, chopping at the stick instead. Using all his strength, his sabre was still fast even when turning, not losing any of its power. He was certainly a master of the sabre. The tall guy was showing his hand in the hope that the woman would know that he was no bum himself and that it was not worth risking one’s life over such a trifling matter. At the same time, he was mindful of the woman’s left hand. She would likely use her left hand, so he had to be extra careful of what it was going to do.

How could a stick resist a sabre? It was sliced cleanly in two and the end of it that was on fire spun in the air and fell. The stick in the woman’s left hand was half as long now, and her face sank at once to the delight of the tall guy. His sabre turned smoothly with his intention as he turned his wrist and his sabre greeted her once again, this time in a cross sweep at her neck. If the woman didn’t roll out of the way, she would go down without a fight. The tall guy saw the woman’s face sink and she subconsciously tried to block with her left hand, to his delight. He was planning to stop his sabre at the nape of her neck at the last second, but there was a sudden pain in his wrist and he lost his hold on the sabre. A flash of silver and then the sabre spun around and he felt a coldness on his neck. The woman was standing now, her left hand holding his sabre, which was right up against his neck now.

The severed stick with the flaming tip clattered to the floor. The tall guy’s right wrist was burning with pain. In that split second, the woman had shot her right hand out and grabbed the flaming stick and swung it down on his wrist. She hadn’t hit him hard, but the searing pain from being burned was unbearable. The tall guy was overcome with regret, though he had to admire the woman’s ingenuity. He didn’t know what she was going to do with him now as he marveled, wondering who this woman was.

She drew the sabre over his neck, but then withdrew it and sat down as before, where she fiddled with the sabre as if nothing had happened.

The tall guy was relieved, but what the woman said next made him break out in a cold sweat.

“Soaring Sabre’s sabre really is wonderful.” She said, “I’ll hang onto it.”

The tall guy had broken out in a cold sweat not because she was keeping the sabre, but because of the first part: Soaring Sabre’s sabre…

He sighed. “Soaring Sabre died ten years ago.”

“Oh?” The woman raised her head at last. “Did he die on Snowy Mountain? No wonder there’s been no news of him for so many years.”

“A Soaring Sabre whose lightness skill has been ruined cannot be called Soaring Sabre.” The tall guy sat down by the fire and watched the woman, lost in thought.

She laughed. “Looks like going up Snowy Mountain is easy, but getting down, not so much.”

“Yeah. Now it’s just finding a trade and making a living.” The tall guy lowered his head. “But that’s life, isn’t it. Eat well, wear warm clothes, drink a little. Get drunk every now and then, that’s enough.”

The smile on the woman’s face disappeared as she thought of what the girl had said: Enough to eat and warm clothes to wear, and no one forcing me to do things I don’t want to do…

“That child, I’m taking her with me,” the woman said, and her tone brooked no dissent.

“That… wil be a bit difficult.” The tall guy hesitated. “That would be kidnapping, the government would have to get involved.”

“What about buying her out?” the woman said.

“That would cost a fair amount.” The tall guy thought for a moment. “I remember it’s something like eight taels, or maybe ten.” He looked the woman up and down. She was commonly dressed, no valuable accessories. He hesitated but said nothing.

The woman looked at the sabre in her hand. She pulled her bundle over. “I’ll make a deal with you. I want to redeem the child. I’m not going to the madam. Give the buy-out money to her for me.”

“Huh? The tall guy started in surprise. That would be a heavy loss for him, but he had just lost to that woman, so he couldn’t really say anything.

The woman took a huge package wrapped in oilpaper. It was oddly shaped and seemed to take up half the space in her bundle.

“This is the head of Gold Dragon Stronghold’s leader, ‘Thunderclap Dragon’. The authorities have posted a bounty of twenty taels of silver. You can take this and collect the money. What’s left over you can consider payment for your sabre.”

“Huh? The tall guy was stunned. “Thunderclap Dragon? Thunderclap Dragon’s dead? When? You killed him?”

The woman nodded and regarded the sabre once again. “However, even though this sabre is nice, I could only get seven or eight taels for it, at the most. I’d be losing out… Do you have any money on you?”

The tall guy had still not gotten over his shock. Gold Dragon Stronghold was well-known throughout the Zhouzhen region. An outlaw stronghold for three years now, countless traveling merchants had been robbed, and three leaders had gathered there, all using dragon in their nicknames. There was “Thunderclap Dragon”, “Iceblade Dragon”, and “Bindlock Dragon”. Chief among them was Thunderclap Dragon, who wielded dual hammers and was known for his inexhaustible strength. The second was Iceblade Dragon, who wielded dual sabres that were tempered with poison. He was incredibly vicious. The third was Bindlock Dragon, who wielded a long whip and was quite cunning. Gold Dragon Stronghold was situated to the west of Zhouzhen on Gold Dragon Mountain. Aside from robbing merchants, they also harrassed the local villages and kidnapped the village women. They were a huge headache for the authorities, but Gold Dragon Stronghold had not yet gotten really big enough for the authorities to send troops to surround and attack them, so they put a price on Thunderclap Dragon’s head in the hope that some xia would come and eliminate him.

But the bounty had been posted for a year now and no xia had been able to kill him. To the contrary, it was said that those who tried ended up eliminated themselves. As time went on, the villagers around there began to move away… That’s why this temple had fallen to ruin.

What kind of person was this woman, to be able to take down Gold Dragon Stronghold… The tall guy was still lost in thought and forgot to respond to her.

“Soaring Sabre?” the woman said. “If you don’t have any money, I have these two bronze hammers here. Got them from Thunderclap Dragon.” She pointed at the two bronze hammers by the doorway. “You can probably get about a dozen taels for them, only in that case you would lose out a bit.”

“Huh?” The tall guy finally snapped out of it. “Okay okay… I was saying… I’ll give you four taels and take the head. It’s really Thunderclap Dragon’s head?”

“You can look for yourself if you don’t believe me,” she said. “And in that case, I will keep the hammers.”

The tall guy opened the oilpaper package and looked inside, then wrapped it back up. He fished around in his robe and took out a few bits of silver.

“Alright.” The woman took the bits of silver and weighed them in her hand, nodded. “The head is yours. Now we’re settled.”

The tall guy helped the two stupefied men on the floor get up and they stepped over the bronze hammers on their way out the door. He turned and looked inside. The woman was still sitting there calmly. His steel sabre glittered there next to her… Then it finally hit him. He cupped a hand over his fist. “We’ll meet again, Shadowless Sabre.”

The woman nodded, said softly, “Maybe so. Who knows?”

The child came out from behind the clay statue, her eyes big and excited. “Master! You were incredible!”

The woman got up and went to the doors and closed them. She was still limping, walking with some difficulty, as she stooped down and picked up the bronze hammers and went to the fire and sat down again. “I don’t want to take you as a disciple,” she said.

“Eh? But…” The girl didn’t understand.

“You’re free now,” the woman said as she packed up her things. “You can go back to your home if you want, or do whatever you like.”

“Master, I want to go with you,” she said with her head down. “My family… doesn’t want me.”

The woman took out a package wrapped in oilpaper and opened it carefully and spread it out on the floor. There were several strips of clean white cloth and several ceramic bottles of various colors. She slipped her right arm out of her sleeve. Her arm was bound tightly, bloodstains seeping through the cloth. She unwrapped her bloodied bindings and threw them in the fire. There was a blade wound on her arm, a long one, though it wasn’t deep enough to hit bone. It was already healing in some places, but was still bleeding in other places. She took up one of the ceramic bottles and sprinkled some of the powder from it onto the wound, then quickly took a fresh strip of cloth and wrapped it up. She deftly used her left hand and her teeth to tie it off. The girl watched her, dumbstruck.

She gingerly put her arm back in her sleeve, then rolled up her right pant leg, revealing her red and swollen ankle. She took a different bottle and poured some medicinal liquor on it and kneaded it into her ankle, wincing and sucking air between her teeth, clearly in a lot of pain.

When everything was finished, the woman packed it all up and looked outside to see it if it was light out.

“So, you really want to come with me?” the woman asked the girl.

“Yes,” the girl said, her mouth set, eyes firm. She looked up, eyes twinkling. “I want to be a great xia like Master!”

The woman looked at the girl. her eyes suddenly misting over. She seemed to see her younger self standing before her master, saying: I want to be a great xia like Master!

A wave of heat surged up from her heart. Was life really cyclical like that?

It had stopped raining some time ago and the sky was gradually getting lighter. The birds that had been holed up under clouds and rain for days were now beginning to sing. It was a new day.

A woman shouldering bronze hammers and a girl shouldering a bundle emerged from the mountain forest. In the distance, along the horizon, countless rays of morning light took on a multitude of colors as the red wheel of the sun leaped up out of the riotous profusion of color, giving the damp ground warmth and light. The autumn mornings were getting colder and colder, but the sun always rose. Though winter would come, winter would always pass, it never changed. It was a day by day cycle, like the cycle of life.

“Master, what do people in the jianghu call you?”

“Shadowless Sabre—Xie Xiaoting.”

“I want a good name too. Give me one, Master.”

“Don’t you have a name?”

“Only what the madam gave me, I don’t like it.”

“What did your family call you?”

“…Second Girl.”

“Then… Chenxi, then.”2

“Master, where are we going?”

“To the capital.”

“Why are we going to the capital?”

“To sell these hammers. I can get a higher price for them there.”

~*~

Originally published, along with other short stories on this site, such as Flickering Flame and Whirling Snow, in an issue of the Chinese wuxia magazine 《今古传奇·武侠版》 (Legends Old and New: Wuxia Edition). Also, check out my ongoing translation of Xiao Yi’s wuxia novel A Rain of Blood Stains Flowers Red.


Notes

  1. 俠, a person given to altruism, chivalry, good to his/her word, but who follows his or her own code of morality and serves no one unless he or she chooses to. Sometimes erroneously translated as “hero”, a xia is not necessarily deemed a hero by society. In fact, the xia is often seen as outside respectable society, more like a vigilante, sometimes an outlaw. The xia might be heroic, might not be. Who is a hero and who isn’t is a matter of whose frame of reference you’re looking through.
  2. 晨曦, the first rays of the morning sun
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