Chapter 7
Trapped Again
The eleventh day of the eighth month. The weather was still hot and stuffy.
Only four days till the duel between Silver Sabre and Nangong Xue. The betting odds had actually jumped to 1-1.
Nangong Xue’s odds had gone up, and Silver Sabre’s anticipated superiority had vanished. People began to believe that it was going to be an evenly-matched duel.
X X X
The direct sunlight made the slabstone road so hot it was like a piece of hot iron.
Except for those who had to go out, everyone else stayed inside where it was cool. Even the stray dogs hid under the eaves, tongues out, panting.
Nangong Xue slept on a bed that was just a thin plan of wood over nine layers of adobe bricks. She didn’t move a muscle, because if she turned over it would make an earpiercing creak.
She wore only a peachcolored bandeau and a charming pair of shorts.
—If the room wasn’t so small and cramped and stuffy and hot as an oven with its thatched roof and earthen walls; if the owner weren’t just an old, ugly old woman, then she would never wear so few clothes to sleep.
She was a very conservative woman.
But she was also a pretty woman who made one’s heart pound. Any man who saw her sleeping like this now, saw her smooth, buxom and glossy white as snow skin, it would be enough to make them get lost in fantasizing.
Of course there wouldn’t be any man here. No one would think that she would be staying in a place like this.
The old woman was off to the market to buy food. She said this evening she was going to make braised lion’s head meatballs. She bragged about how her late husband’s favorite had been braised lion’s head meatballs.
She was like all old people: she liked talking about the past, liked using an admonishing tone to instruct young people, liked to talk on and on, liked to be overconcerned, liked to do this, do that…
Nangong Xue hoped she wouldn’t be back till evening so that she could have a peaceful afternoon and be able to take a nice afternoon nap to keep her strength up before the big duel.
She suddenly remembered that when the old woman went out she left a bowl of steaming sweet black sesame soup on the table. It ought to have cooled off by now.
Nangong Xue sat on the board bed and drank the sesame soup. When the sweet, smooth sesame paste slid down her throat, a feeling of gratitude welled up in her.
—The old woman may have been poor and hard-up, but she was not stingy.
Nangong Xue also figured that she ought to give this old woman, who had no one to rely on, a bit more money when she left this place.
X X X
Nangong Xue sure enough slept till the sun was slanting in the west.
The sound of chopping vegetables came from the kitchen, and Nangong Xue caught a whiff of stewed meat.
—The old woman was preparing her signature lion’s head meatballs.
Nangong Xue still lay in bed, head still feeling groggy.
She thought he had definitely overslept.
Oversleeping always made people feel sluggish.
The old woman’s meatballs really were tender and savory. Even though she kept adding more to Nangong Xue’s bowl, Nangong Xue still ate less than usual.
“Is my cooking not to your liking?”
The old woman mumbled when she talked, and her kind smile made her wrinkles crease deeper.
Nangong Xue didn’t want to go against her and forced herself to eat a bit more, then went to take a cold bath.
That evening, she went to sleep earlier than usual.
X X X
The twelfth. The sun was more intense than yesterday, the wind less so.
In the afternoon it was so hot that Nangong Xue almost couldn’t take it.
Her whole body was sluggish, and she didn’t feel like eating at all. At lunch she only drank a few mouthfuls of soup and then couldn’t eat any more.
The old woman went to the market again. She always went at this time because she said prices were cheaper at this time.
Nangong Xue kind of admired, at such an advanced age to still be able to go out in t his heat.
Same as yesterday, she wore a bandeau and shorts and slept on the wood plank bed.
On the table was still a bowl of steaming bowl of soup, but now it was mung bean soup.1
Nangong Xue was worried about the big duel in a few days. It was a very important battle for her, because had to win if she wanted to survive.
She had to survive. There were still a lot of things she hadn’t done.
She thought of Silver Sabre. He really was an intelligent guy.
—Though ostensibly he had challenged her, carrying himself like a modest gentleman, in secret he had sent people to probe her martial arts ability.
Nangong Xue’s impression of Silver Sabre was not a bad one. She’d never seen him before, but judging from the profile she had on him, he ought to be an advanced, hardworking person.
But now she had taken a certain amount of disliking to him. She felt that he shouldn’t have sent those two blackgarbed masked men and those four big men to ambush her. She felt that Silver Sabre had only done it to learn about her true strength.
—All’s fair in war, everyone agrees with that.
A smile emerged on Nangong Xue’s face. She felt that hiding here like a petty thief was undoubtedly the smartest move. No one would find her here to disturb her.
She suddenly heard the front door opening.
The wooden door should have bolted, but today when the old woman went out, Nangong Xue was lying in bed too lazy to get up and bolt the door. Actually yesterday she had forgotten to fasten the door as well. She found her concentration lacking these past two days, probably because of the heat.
“Granny, did you forget something?”
Nangong Xue raised her voice to be heard through the faded cloth partition curtain.
When talking to the old woman you not only had to speak loudly, you also had to say it a few times before she would hear. Nangong Xue once again said, “Granny, what are you looking for? Do you need me to help you look?”
She was not only hard of hearing, her memory was bad too. Older people are always this way. Nangong Xue turned out of bed and raised the curtain to find it wasn’t the old woman, but the mysterious “Lucky”!
Nangong looked at him in shock. “What are you doing here?”
Lucky was always smiling when he talked. “I came looking for you.”
“Looking for me?” Nangong Xue was clearly astounded. “Looking for me for what?”
Lucky’s gaze went a bit dazed and he coughed and turned away. “Before I tell you, can you put on some clothes? Just about every man in the world would get in trouble with you looking like that.”
Nangong Xue yelped and quickly pulled down the curtain.
This was the second time she’d exposed herself in front of this man. This time was worse than last time because she was only wearing a bandeau and shorts.
—So embarrassing!
Lucky though just sat in a rickety old chair and took in the old, shabby house.
After a long while without Nangong Xue coming out, he couldn’t help but call out, “Miss Nangong, are you done yet?”
There was no response.
Lucky asked again, same as before.
He couldn’t resist getting up and going in. Suddenly he heard Nangong Xue say from inside, “If you come in here I’ll gouge your eyes out.”
Nangong Xue’s voice was trembling.
Lucky couldn’t help but laugh. He never imagined Nangong Xue would be such a conservative woman. These days, jianghu women especially were more openminded and daring then men were.
Lucky didn’t enter. He didn’t want to be blinded.
“Speak, why did you come here?” Nangong Xue said icily. “If you can’t give me a good reason, I’ll gouge your eyes out just the same.”
Repeating that she would gouge his eyes out only reminded Lucky of the rapturous scene of a moment ago.
Lucky smiled wryly. “Actually I wasn’t wrong just then, I didn’t know you were wearing so little…”
“You’re still saying that!” Nangong Xue didn’t wait for him to finish but frantically called out, “If you say that again I’ll pull out your tongue!”
Lucky was speechless. He stood there dumbly a moment, then sighed. “In that case, I’ll leave.”
“You’re leaving?” Nangong Xue’s tone was full of surprise.
Lucky said, “Since you’re going to gouge my eyes out and pull my tongue out, if I don’t leave won’t I become a blind mute?”
With that, he really did get up and leave.
“Leaving won’t be so easy,” Nangong Xue said, coming out after him.
X X X
The sun was like a malevolent fireball from hell. There wasn’t so much as an ant out on the street.
Lucky really seemed to be afraid of Nangong Xue gouging out his eyes and pulling out his tongue. He used his lightness skill out on the street and a few leaps later he had run from one street to the next.
Nangong Xue clenched her teeth and gave chase. By the looks of her, she not only wanted to gouge out his eyes and pull his tongue out, she really was itching to chop him up into a thousand pieces!
Too bad she couldn’t catch up to him, always one or two strides behind.
One running for his life, the other desperately giving chase, they unknowingly ended up in the wilderness.
Lucky suddenly made a sharp turn into a dense forest with trees that towered in the sky. Nangong Xue slowed up, remembering the saying, “Never pursue a desperate enemy, if it goes to the woods, don’t enter.”
Her slowly up allowed Lucky to slip into the forest and was gone.
Nangong Xue hesitated, then started in after. She swore she would catch up to him.
Following a meandering path, Nangong Xue ran for the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, but she not only saw no sign of Lucky, she even lost herself—she was lost.
She found the forest to be frighteningly dense, the intense sun not able to penetrate it. She plunged this way and that but could not find her way, not even a way out!
Nangong Xue began to get anxious.
—Once again she had fallen into someone’s trap.
Notes
- It’s said that this reduced internal heat. It cools you off when the weather is hot.
Another cooling dish is grass jelly 仙草, lit. “immortal grass”. It’s used in “boba” teas at tea shops or as a standalone dish or as an ingredient in shaved ice. It’s made from Platostoma palustre, aka Chinese mesona, a species of mint. “Boba” tea 波霸 (a slang term which means “big breasts”) is actually just one flavor of drink sold at tea shops. Milk tea with large tapioca balls. The smaller tapioca balls are pearls, so that is pearl milk tea. Boba is specifically the larger balls. Anyway, though that is what is popular in the west, in Taiwan actually it’s just one of many flavors on tea shop menus. If you’re ever over here, or anywhere else with a similar tea shop, try a drink with grass jelly cubes. It really is refreshing.
My drink of choice at the tea shops is 多多紅, black tea with that Yakult yogurt drink added in. It’s called 多多 (duoduo) after a certain brand name of it in Taiwan. That mung bean soup is also cooling, and sometimes served as a small dessert after the main meal in some restaurants here.