Half a Cup of Wine - Chapter 2
Part Two: Lone Hawk
I only discovered I was short of stone when I started carving the tombstone.
As I went to buy more, the blind fortune teller downstairs stopped me. “Miss Yan, misfortune will befall you soon.”
The blind fortune teller had a booming business, his stall always crowded. It was surprising he’d leave a paying customer mid-reading to stop me. Perhaps he was disgruntled that despite his fame and fortune, he’d never earned a penny from me, his upstairs neighbor.
I asked, "Can I pay to avoid this misfortune?"
“No need,” the blind fortune teller said. “A calm heart is all that’s required.”
With that, he turned back to his business, not even asking for a single copper.
The bluestone in the West Market was still the same price, three taels of silver a piece.
On my way back, I saw Butcher Fang chopping meat at his stall. Mrs. Fang stood a short distance behind him, dressed in simple hemp clothes, holding their four or five-year-old daughter in her arms, her gaze fixed on him.
A torrential downpour started at nightfall.
Just moments ago, it had been a light drizzle. Now, the wind howled, dark clouds gathered, and the sky threatened to fall.
I folded my battered oil-paper umbrella and ducked into a small tavern by the roadside to escape the rain.
There were few patrons inside. Behind me sat a young man in black, carrying a sanxian.1 He was bowed, meticulously wiping a narrow-bladed saber. The light dimmed, and the glint of the blade shimmered. The young man sat ramrod straight. Faint bloodstains were visible on his clothes. The sanxian on his back resembled a sword, pointing straight at the sky.
The young man called to the trembling waiter, who hesitated to approach, and softly said, "One liang of strong liquor."2
One liang was barely a cupful, quickly filling the white porcelain cup before him.
Suddenly, dozens of masked figures in black, armed with swords and blades, appeared on the otherwise empty street outside the tavern, slowly advancing.
The three patrons who had been sitting near the young man abruptly drew their swords and slowly walked toward him.
It seemed I’d have to pay the blind fortune teller after all. I'd truly encountered misfortune.
The young man stood up, placed the sanxian on the table, and took a sip of the liquor, but didn't finish it, leaving half a cup remaining. He set down the cup, picked up his saber, and walked straight into the downpour.
In an instant, blades flashed. Everyone moved.
The three patrons behind the young man were the first to attack, aiming for his back. In a blink, their swords were disarmed by the narrow blade, each receiving a cut to the chest before collapsing.
After a momentary pause, the young man was surrounded by dozens of figures in black, the glint of his saber quickly lost amidst the flurry of swords.
Although the attackers were masked and dressed in black, they used the sword techniques of several major righteous sects. The narrow blade tore through the black robes of a few, revealing the white garments beneath.
The young man’s saber was incredibly fast and precise, the light of the blade like a swift darting through the rain—I had previously thought Xue Wuyi’s blade was the fastest I had ever seen.
Many years later, his face would blur in my memory, but I would still remember his blade. Sharp, yet not cold. Fast, yet not flashy. It reminded me of a crane flying alone across a cold pond in early autumn.
I too had been fascinated by the dance of blades in the past. Master, however, forbade me from touching weapons. He wouldn’t even let me watch when swordsmen crossed paths, only teaching me lightness techniques and basic fistfighting.
“Yan Jiu, if you were an assassin, you’d be an exceptional one," he said. "You're indifferent to everyone and everything else, yet you have an almost fanatical obsession with cold steel. But a good assassin is never a good person, Yan Jiu. I don't want you to become like that.”
I didn't understand. “I just admire martial arts. I don’t want to be an assassin.”
“Once you lay your hands on a blade, you will choose to become an assassin." Master looked into my eyes. "Look in the mirror and see how bright your eyes are. You don't even know how much you crave danger in your bones.”
Perhaps he was right.
That's why I got along with Xue Wuyi. Why I could discuss the chaos in the Jianghu with him with such relish. Why I could stand in that tavern, mesmerized by the clash of blades in the pouring rain, without a shred of fear.
In less than half an hour, the street in front of the tavern was empty again.
The last man standing stared at the bodies of his fellow disciples strewn across the ground, blood flowing freely. He raised his sword and angrily denounced the young man: "Shi Qiufeng! You betrayed your sect, showed no gratitude, slandered the righteous path, not only refused to repent, but also killed your fellow disciples—you are truly heartless and unforgivable!"
Shi Qiufeng… so he was the "Green-Eyed" Shi Qiufeng.
Shi Qiufeng seemed stunned for a moment. Then, three more figures in black suddenly jumped down from the second floor of the tavern, three short swords aimed directly at his back. Ignoring the righteous disciple who deeply wounded his left arm, Shi Qiufeng dodged the fatal blows from behind, kicked the disciple away, and ducked to avoid a thrown knife.
These three figures in black were different from the previous group of righteous disciples. Their movements were cunning and ruthless, their hidden weapons relentless. They were assassins, those who walked the edge of a blade.
Shi Qiufeng abandoned his saber and fought with his fists. Within the time it takes to brew a cup of tea, he had crushed the throats of all three assassins. As one of them collapsed, his mask slipped, revealing the honest and simple face of Butcher Fang, whom I had seen just moments ago.
The lowest level of hermits hide in the wilderness, mid-level hermits hide in the marketplace, and the highest level hide in the imperial court.3 The marketplace concealed countless assassins living as ordinary people, hiding killing intent within the shouts of commerce. No one could be trusted. Even a seemingly frail pregnant woman could make you disappear without a trace in the bustling streets.
Covered in blood, Shi Qiufeng retrieved his saber, slowly walked back into the tavern, and drained the remaining half-cup of liquor. He slung his sanxian over his shoulder and turned to leave. Then, as if suddenly remembering something, he saw the trembling waiter huddled by a table and took a piece of broken silver from his pocket and handed it to him.
The waiter, his face filled with terror, took the silver with trembling hands. “S…Sir, p…please, t…take your time…”
The moment Shi Qiufeng turned, a flash of cold light shot out from the waiter’s sleeve.
At that moment, Shi Qiufeng was in the critical juncture between spent force and new strength. Even with his exceptional lightness skills, he couldn't avoid this blow. I snatched up a pair of chopsticks from the table and deflected the hidden weapon. The chopsticks pierced the waiter’s chest, pinning him to the table leg.
Shi Qiufeng turned and stared at me.
I smiled. “I made a bet with someone. That person bet you wouldn’t live past tonight.”
“And you?”
“I bet you wouldn’t live past tomorrow night.”
He smiled. “You’ll lose.”
“…You’ll?”
Shi Qiufeng sheathed his saber and tore a strip of cloth from his clothes to bandage his wound. “How about another bet? If I survive tomorrow night, you protect me for three days.”
He was clever, different from what I expected—I had imagined a reckless hothead or a cynical scholar.
I looked at his bleeding wounds. "Your left arm is useless, your right arm is badly injured, and you’ve broken two ribs.”
"I know." He picked up the sanxian, turned, and stared at me. “Do you accept the bet?”
His eyes were dark, bright, and lonely, reminding me of Xue Wuyi when I first met him over ten years ago. Back then, he was a naive young man in rough clothes who swaggered into Chang'an with his ancestral saber, claiming he wanted to uphold justice.
“Alright," I replied.
Life in Chang'an was too dull. I needed some amusement.
Before he left, I asked the question that had been puzzling me. “Why did you kill those three assassins, but only injure the righteous disciples?”
"It's not them who deserve to die, but their sect leaders and masters."
He said.
The sanxian on his back was like a sword, pointed at the sky.
As I stepped out of the tavern, I realized the rain had stopped.
When I delivered the tombstone to the Fang family’s home, the house was in a state of panic. Mrs. Fang frantically asked me if I’d seen her husband, who’d gone out last night and hadn’t returned.
Her face was streaked with tears. “He said he was going to buy some tofu to make silken tofu for our A’Nuan. Why hasn’t he come back?”
Every day, people died in Chang'an for various reasons. Among them, the deaths of assassins loyal to various factions were the quickest and most traceless—blooming in the darkest corners, withering in the darkest corners. No one cared about the lives of assassins, they weren’t even allowed to be mourned after death.
As I was leaving, Butcher Fang’s eldest daughter stopped me.
“You know something happened to my father, don’t you?” She wasn’t crying. She stared at me with wide, bright eyes like a deer. “My father should have been the one to collect my brother's tombstone from you, but you came personally.”
I didn't answer.
“What happened to my father? Where is he?” she asked again.
Slowly, the light faded from her eyes.
She didn’t ask me anything more. She turned and picked up her younger sister, who had been left crying inconsolably, and softly comforted her despairing mother.
After Xue Wuyi learned about my bet with Shi Qiufeng, he was silent for a long time. Then he said, “This is a burden you picked up yourself. Don’t come to me when trouble arises.”
“Do you think he can win?”
“Perhaps,” he said. “There are always exceptions.”
As he left, Xue Wuyi tossed me a small brocade pouch. "The sickly young mistress of the Huai family has requested your presence."
Inside the pouch was a short note written in elegant plum blossom seal script:4 A quarter past three, ninth floor of the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda.5
The Giant Wild Goose Pagoda was tall, ten stories high. It was said that from the top, you could see the clouds. It was originally an abandoned Buddhist pagoda, bought several years ago by the head of the Huai family, Huai Wuya, for his only daughter, Huai Yu, to recuperate in.
Huai Wuya rose from humble beginnings and became famous at a young age. In his early years, he showed promise of leading the Jianghu, and now he held immense power, able to manipulate the entire Jianghu with ease. Unfortunately, he only had one daughter, Huai Yu, who was seventeen and frail from birth, far too weak to inherit the Huai family legacy, let alone practice martial arts. Yet, Huai Wuya stubbornly refused to name his most capable disciple as his heir.
When I met Huai Yu at the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda, she was sitting in a wheelchair by the window, quietly gazing outside. Her long hair reached her waist. She wore a flowing white robe. Her thin and frail body resembled a fading white flower, swaying in the breeze.
Seeing that I had come alone, she looked disappointed. “Didn’t Hero Xue come?”
Three months ago, Xue Wuyi had accidentally saved Huai Yu when she was kidnapped by her family’s enemies. He didn't want to get involved with the Huai family, so he agreed to fulfill three of her requests in exchange for her silence. With Xue Wuyi’s abilities, killing her and silencing her would have been easy. Unexpectedly, Huai Yu’s first two requests were for him to find people to carve tombstones for Huai family disciples who had died and been left unclaimed in the wilderness.
This was the last request Xue Wuyi had agreed to fulfill for Huai Yu.
I assumed she would ask Xue Wuyi to do something for her, or perhaps, ask him to marry her—the light that flickered in her eyes when she looked at Xue Wuyi, so direct and bright, blooming like a flower on her pale, sickly face, even made my heart flutter.
Yet, unexpectedly, it was another request for a tombstone.
Three coffins were arranged in a row on the white stone floor.
Huai Yu didn’t mention Xue Wuyi again. She gave me a faint smile. “Miss Yan, these three were disciples sent out by my father last night. I don’t know what their mission was. After they died, no one claimed their bodies, and they were thrown into a desolate graveyard. I had their bodies brought back. I would be grateful if you could carve their tombstones.”
I opened the coffin lids. One of the bodies was Butcher Fang, who had vanished after being killed by Shi Qiufeng last night.
The righteous and the unorthodox, born from the same root, flesh and blood inseparable. I wondered how Huai Yu would feel if she knew these three weren't Huai family disciples, but assassins hired by her father to deal with Shi Qiufeng.
I looked at her. “Miss Huai, I’ll waive the fee for this one.”
“Why?” she asked.
Perhaps it was because of Butcher Fang’s honest and simple face when he came to request the tombstone yesterday, or perhaps it was because I suddenly recalled the light fading from his eldest daughter’s eyes.
“Just admiring your kindness,” I said.
Huai Yu smiled, a pale, translucent smile.
I pushed her wheelchair to the window.
I suddenly remembered that this was the last time Xue Wuyi would help her. From now on, we would have nothing more to do with the young mistress of the Huai family. If we met again, we would either be polite strangers or enemies with drawn blades.
I looked down at her thin, frail shoulders. “Miss Huai, do you know that Xue Wuyi is just an assassin, not some hero?”
“I know.” Huai Yu didn’t turn around. Her voice was quiet, like shattering ice. “But who says an assassin can’t be a hero? Or a hero can’t be an assassin?”
I blurted out, “What about your father?”
“My father?” She smiled. “My father is the best person in the world.”
“Better than Xue Wuyi?”
“Yes.” Her eyes lit up.
Huai Yu’s suddenly bright eyes and radiant, transparent smile always made my heart flutter. She reminded me of the exquisite glass jade carefully treasured and handled by the wealthy, fragile, yet breathtakingly beautiful.
I suddenly felt a pang of envy. I couldn’t remember ever trusting anyone so implicitly. Perhaps I had once felt that way about Master, or perhaps never. Huai Wuya manipulated the Jianghu, disrupting countless lives, yet he used this secluded Giant Wild Goose Pagoda to carefully protect his daughter’s pure, glass-like world.
On a nearby table lay a half-finished painting and two calligraphic works. Brushes and inkstones were arranged on the table, the ink in the inkstone still wet.
I remembered the beautiful plum blossom seal script on the note in the brocade pouch. Not many young women these days had the leisure to practice such time-consuming and difficult calligraphy. A broken guqin6 lay in the corner, snapped in two, its strings scattered on the floor.
Huai Yu wheeled herself to the corner and gently touched the broken guqin.
“Father said that as Huai Wuya’s daughter, I shouldn’t waste my time on such useless, superficial things that only pampered young ladies like.”
I looked at her pale face. “Did your father break this guqin?”
“No,” she smiled. “I did.”
She placed the broken guqin back in the corner without another glance.
“Father told me to observe the Jianghu more. He said it didn't matter that I couldn’t practice martial arts, as long as I could control the Jianghu. He would take care of the rest.” Huai Yu pushed open the window, looking down from the ninth floor of the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda at the bustling crowds below.
The wind picked up, her long hair billowing around her.
“But Miss Yan, what is the Jianghu really like?” she asked, her eyes finally brightening again. “Is it really as free and unrestrained as they say in stories? I asked Hero Xue, but he didn’t answer. Seeing how freely he comes and goes, leaping across rooftops, he must be very happy and carefree, right?”
Actually, Huai Yu understood the Jianghu.
I knew she understood when she said, “Who says an assassin can’t be a hero? Or a hero can’t be an assassin?”
Besides, there was no single definition of the Jianghu. How people of the Jianghu perceived it, that was what the Jianghu was.
The bronze bells on the eaves chimed in the wind. Standing at such a height, the sky above seemed even vaster and more distant than on the ground.
“I like the lone hawks of the desert,” she said, her gaze bright and clear.
I remembered the unfinished painting on the table: a soaring hawk.
"Why?" I asked.
"Free, happy."
"Wrong. Hawks are not free, and they are not happy."
"…Why?"
"A hawk cannot fly beyond the sky, escape the falconer's arrows, or avoid hunger and cold."
"Is that so?" Huai Yu smiled faintly, gazing at the clear blue sky outside the window. "But I really want to fly like a lone hawk, even just once. It must be very happy and carefree."
“Miss Yan, do you know why I’ve never gone up to the top floor of the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda?” She turned and smiled at me, the sunlight outside the window filtering through her smile, pale and translucent. “I’m afraid that if I really saw the clouds, I wouldn’t be able to resist flying up and never returning.”
We both knew she wouldn't do that. Because she was Huai Wuya’s daughter.
“Yesterday, my father finally named my eldest martial brother as his heir. He might finally let me go out and see the world.” Huai Yu said this to me as I was leaving. There was no resentment or anger in her eyes, only relief.
She softly asked, "Will we meet again?"
Before I could answer, she said, “Take care.”
1 Sanxian (三弦): A three-stringed Chinese lute.
2 燒刀子 (shāodāozi): A type of strong Chinese liquor, similar to vodka.
3 小隐隐于野，中隐隐于市，大隐隐于朝 (xiǎo yǐn yǐn yú yě, zhōng yǐn yǐn yú shì, dà yǐn yǐn yú cháo): A proverb that describes three levels of seclusion or "hiding oneself from the world." The lowest level involves retreating to the wilderness, the middle level involves hiding in plain sight within society, and the highest level involves hiding within the complexities of government or court life.
4 梅花小篆 (méihuā xiǎozhuàn): A specific style of seal script calligraphy, known for its elegant and intricate strokes, often associated with scholarly or artistic pursuits.
5 大雁塔 (Dàyàn Tǎ): Giant Wild Goose Pagoda, a famous Buddhist pagoda located in Xi'an, China.
6 Guqin (古琴): A seven-stringed zither, a classical Chinese musical instrument with a long history and cultural significance.
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