Half a Cup of Wine - Chapter 7
Part Seven: The Arena
Shi Qiufeng issued a challenge, as the disciple of an old friend, to the head of the Huai family, Huai Wuya. He spent all the copper coins he had on fifty carrier pigeons, sending the challenge to every prominent martial arts family. The entire Jianghu knew, and Huai Wuya couldn't avoid it.
Three days later, Huai Wuya accepted.
The location chosen was the first arena inside the Xinglong Escort Agency, the largest escort agency in Chang'an. The arena was vast, offering a clear view from all sides.
All the inns and restaurants around the arena were fully booked ten days before the appointed date. Temporary stands were erected everywhere, packed with people, every seat taken. Dozens of gambling dens sent their people to set up stalls, the odds starkly different. Many Jianghu people bet their entire fortunes. By the day of the duel, one hundred and seventy thousand taels of silver were bet on Huai Wuya’s victory, while only five thousand, three hundred and twenty-one taels and eight copper coins were bet on Shi Qiufeng.
Twenty-one taels were from Dr. Shen. He said that he amputated Shi Qiufeng’s arm on the fourteenth day of the seventh lunar month,1 so he bet twenty-one taels.
A group of Jianghu people in the next row over, all betting on Huai Wuya, overheard him. One of them, emboldened, approached Dr. Shen and advised, “Why bet on him, Divine Doctor? You’re bound to lose!”
Dr. Shen said, "I like the look in the kid's eyes."
The man stared. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
After walking a few steps, Dr. Shen turned back and added, “And the Shi kid might not necessarily lose.”
Dr. Shen’s fame in Chang’an attracted five thousand three hundred taels worth of bets.
The eight copper coins were from a pregnant young woman. She was a refugee who had escaped from Baicheng,2 a city in the north that had fallen to the Xiongnu3 several months ago. Her husband had starved to death on the way to Chang'an, sacrificing himself so she and their unborn child could survive. She was only in her twenties, the delicate features of her face still visible despite her gauntness and sallow complexion. She was constantly harassed by local thugs in Chang'an. Once, she was nearly harmed, and Shi Qiufeng saved her, crippling the thugs in the process.
This happened during Shi Qiufeng's previous visit to Chang'an.
Out of curiosity, he went to look at the gambling stalls and was recognized by the young woman. Seven months pregnant, she bet her three days' worth of food money.
The minimum bet was one tael of silver. The bookmaker refused to accept her bet.
Shi Qiufeng, narrow-bladed saber in hand, forced him to take it.
On the way back, Shi Qiufeng said to me with a smile that even if he lost to Huai Wuya and failed to avenge his master, it wouldn't have been in vain.
I dangled the money pouch in front of him. "Want me to help you out again?"
Shi Qiufeng laughed.
"A cup of wine from you is enough," he said, his eyes shining like stars.
The appointed day arrived. The fourteenth day of the twelfth lunar month,4 the day before the Lantern Festival. The almanac said it was an auspicious day for going out, but inauspicious for burials. The spring winds thawed the ice, bringing good fortune to the south. The blind fortune teller downstairs, who usually earned ten silver coins a day with his fortune-telling stall, had closed up shop for the day to watch the duel. He said it was the most auspicious day in a decade.
The heavy snow that had fallen for over a month had finally stopped.
People in the Jianghu said it was a sign from Heaven in Shi Qiufeng's favor.
Using Dr. Shen's name, I managed to get two seats in a restaurant near the arena. The location was excellent, right by the window, offering an unobstructed view.
Before leaving, I asked Shi Qiufeng what kind of wine he wanted.
“I heard from Xue Wuyi that you brew your own plum wine?”
“Yes.”
“From those two plum trees in front of your house?”
“That’s right.”
“You don't drink. Why did you learn to brew wine?”
I smiled. "A swordsmith doesn't necessarily use swords, a seller of brushes, ink, and paints doesn’t necessarily paint. Who says a winemaker has to drink?"
He tilted his head and thought for a moment, then smiled. “That makes sense.”
Carrying a jar of plum wine in one hand and Stone, who was busy licking its paws, in the other, I went up to the restaurant. I broke the seal on the jar and poured Shi Qiufeng a cup. He took it, drank half, reached out to tease Stone, and then turned and left.
Ripples still disturbed the surface of the wine in the white porcelain cup, while the crowd below the arena was a sea of faces.
A shadow suddenly fell over me.
I looked up. The man was dressed in white, elegant and upright, a long sword on his back.
He smiled faintly. “Miss, is this seat taken?”
I recognized him. He was the old friend of Master's whom we had encountered on that rainy night years ago. Master had lost his temper that night, become drunk after just three bowls of wine, and stared blankly at the raindrops falling from the eaves all night. I remembered it clearly.
I picked up Stone, who was trying to climb up my arm. "Please, be my guest.”
He sat down opposite me, his white clothes spotless. He was older now, his face more weathered than when I last saw him. A faint line appeared at the corner of his mouth when he smiled. "Is Shi Qiufeng a friend of yours?"
Shi Qiufeng hadn't concealed his movements when he left. Many people had seen him.
I nodded. “Yes.”
"Who do you think will win?"
I countered, "Who do you think will win?"
The man in white smiled. After a pause, he said, “Huai Wuya won’t lose.”
Huai Wuya couldn't lose. He had spent most of his life striving for this day, the day he could dominate the Jianghu. His wife had died tragically at the hands of his enemies, and his only daughter was a trapped bird in the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda. If he lost this fight, he would never reach the pinnacle of the martial arts world. Huai Wuya had sacrificed too much. Even if he couldn't win, he absolutely couldn't lose. He would do everything in his power to maintain his position—he couldn't afford to lose.
Shi Qiufeng had said that perhaps his only advantage was that he could afford to lose.
Those who could afford to lose would risk everything. Those who couldn’t would be cautious. The more cautious one was, the more likely they were to make mistakes. Extremes beget reversal.
The man in white tapped the wine jar. "May I?"
I poured him a cup.
He took a small sip, his eyes widening in surprise. "This plum wine is very similar to the one brewed by an old friend of mine."
"An old friend?"
"Yes," the man in white set down his cup, the clink echoing. "A very talented woman. The plum wine she brewed was priceless. Unfortunately, she died young, around your age. It’s a pity—"
"A pity what?"
"After her death, her lover was devastated. He had a bright future ahead of him, but he destroyed it all, abandoning everything and leaving. The last time I saw him was over ten years ago. He had become a good-for-nothing drunkard, wasting his days away in dissipation, though he was only a few years older than me, he looked like an old man in his fifties or sixties. I don’t know where he’s wandering now. I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again.”
The man in white picked up his cup and drained it in one gulp.
Master had taught me how to brew plum wine. He had drunk every kind of wine imaginable in taverns all over the world, but he could never find a plum wine he liked. He would grab the waiter, wave his hands, and lecture—
“It needs to be both sweet and sour, like swallowing a crystal grape.”
The waiter would look at him in bewilderment, as would the other patrons. Master would carry on his one-man show, his face flushed, ignored by everyone.
Later, he stopped arguing with tavern owners about what plum wine should taste like. In a rare moment of sobriety, he patiently taught me how to brew it. I didn’t drink, so after learning to brew wine, I only knew how to brew plum wine. Xue Wuyi mocked me for it, saying I was as stubborn as a mule, completely inflexible.
When he was very drunk, Master would stop drinking strong liquor and ask me to pour him plum wine instead. He liked to gulp down strong liquor, but he would sip plum wine slowly, staring into space, his eyes vacant, his gaze as desolate as a wasteland.
No matter how many times I brewed it, he would always say, “Almost there, almost there.”
What was missing, I didn't know, and neither did Master.
Once, I asked him, “Master, what’s the loneliest way to die?”
Master thought for a long time, then said, “Perhaps dying alone and forgotten, your body not discovered until years later, reduced to bones.”
In the end, he died alone in a tavern, slumped over a table for a whole hour, unnoticed. Even the waiter thought he was just passed out drunk again. In broad daylight, amidst the bustling crowd, no one noticed that the old drunkard was dead.
What a lonely way to die.
Master must have foreseen this day. I found a letter he had written years ago in his worn-out bag—he always knew drinking was harming him, but he couldn’t stop, and he didn’t want to stop.
Master asked me to cremate his body and scatter his ashes in Jiangdu.5 Not a single grain was to remain. Jiangdu was Master's hometown. He should have had friends and family there, but he didn't want me to tell anyone about his death.
He died just like that, silently, with only the tavern waiter asking, “Where’s that old drunkard who always came here?”
The sound of drums rose from below.
“Dong! Dong! Dong!”
The duel had begun. Shi Qiufeng was in the south, Huai Wuya in the north.
Huai Wuya was impeccably dressed, a long sword on his back, his figure lean and wiry.
“Shi Qiufeng,” he suddenly said before drawing his sword, “Are you doing all this just to avenge your master’s defeat at my hands all those years ago?”
Shi Qiufeng said, “I used to think so, but standing here now, I’ve suddenly realized I'm not.”
He stood in the arena, carrying his father's sanxian on his back, holding his master's narrow-bladed saber, his back straight. "I'm not here to avenge my master. That was your grudge, not mine. But if I don't avenge him, I can't move forward—only by defeating you can I let go of the past and continue on my own path without any burdens.”
Huai Wuya was silent for a long time.
Finally, he waved his hand. “Begin.”
Blades clashed, the clanging like wind chimes on the eaves.
For the first five hundred exchanges, they were evenly matched.
The two were locked in a stalemate for too long, unable to determine a victor. Huai Wuya's eldest disciple, watching anxiously from the side, suddenly launched a hidden weapon at Shi Qiufeng. Xue Wuyi, watching from a nearby stand, drew his saber and blocked the attack. The two fought for hundreds of rounds, and Xue Wuyi was gravely wounded by Huai Wuya's disciple's sword.
Xue Wuyi collapsed unconscious. Distracted, Shi Qiufeng was caught off guard and lost to Huai Wuya by a hair's breadth, dying on the spot.
Huai Wuya hadn’t intended to kill Shi Qiufeng. He only wanted to defeat him to restore his reputation. Stunned by the accidental kill, he froze. At that moment, Fang Hanhua, disguised as a physician among Huai Wuya's servants, rushed forward and stabbed him with a dagger. Huai Wuya, caught off guard, narrowly avoided a fatal blow, but was seriously wounded.
Everything happened too fast. I sat by the small window on the fifth floor of the restaurant, watching the clash of blades in the distant arena, each strike and parry stirring the currents of the Jianghu. Looking back, what I saw and heard that day seemed like a dream.
An uproar erupted around the arena.
I rushed downstairs, holding Stone.
The man in white seemed to call out to me, or perhaps not.
When I found Xue Wuyi, he was soaking in a wooden tub filled with medicinal herbs in Dr. Shen's house, covered in wounds, unconscious. His saber, the one Su Qiuchi had given him, the one that had been with him for ten years, lay on the table, broken in two.
Dr. Shen only said one word: Wait.
By the time I left the house, the Jianghu had been turned upside down.
Huai Wuya was gravely injured and unconscious, his eldest disciple also seriously wounded by Xue Wuyi. There was no one to control the situation. Several Jianghu figures who hated Huai Wuya seized the opportunity to expose all his past misdeeds, including his grudges with Xue Wuyi and Shi Qiufeng.
Because of Huai Wuya’s fame and the turmoil Shi Qiufeng had caused six months earlier, almost everyone of note in the Jianghu had come to Chang'an to watch the duel. News of Huai Wuya’s scandals spread like wildfire. In just one day, his reputation plummeted. He became a pariah, hunted by all.
The next day, Huai Yu, Huai Wuya’s only daughter, jumped from the top floor of the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda.
I was in the West Market, buying medicine for Xue Wuyi, when I looked up and saw a figure in white falling from the tall, dark pagoda. Like a bird with broken wings, unable to fly, she chose to embrace death in one final, desperate descent.
She finally went to the top floor of the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda, but she never became the lone hawk soaring freely across the desert.
It was the Lantern Festival. There was no curfew. The streets were bustling, decorated with lanterns and fireworks. Rows of plump lanterns hung in the West Market. Toddlers, learning to walk, stumbled around, holding their parents’ hands. Long queues formed in front of the riddle-guessing stalls. Young men and women, their faces glowing, filled the air with laughter.
The apothecary wrapped the herbs in mulberry paper and handed them to me.
I hadn’t taken more than a few steps when I heard the creak of a closing door behind me.
I turned around. The apothecary had already pulled down the shutters. He held several bulging paper packages and smiled at me. “I can’t do much business today anyway. Might as well close up early. My children are waiting for me at home.”
He lifted the paper packages. “Look, date and red bean cakes from Mrs. Wang’s pastry shop next door. My youngest has been clamoring for them for days.”
I returned to my house. The room was cold and empty.
A few nights ago, on a very dark night, two men had sat here, drinking and talking until they were thoroughly drunk, their words slurred.
One man had sneered, “You coward! You spineless wretch!”
The other man had roared with laughter. “What about you, dreamer? In the end, you'll either be buried six feet under or become another grieving widow.”
I had stood beside them, pouring them wine, listening to their drunken ramblings, watching them pass out. I felt like I understood these two men, and yet I didn’t understand them at all. But what did it matter? I was merely a cold, unfeeling bystander, someone who had somehow lost her own capacity for joy and sorrow, left only to observe the joys and sorrows of others, a passerby in their lives.
Outside the window, countless lanterns flickered, like a river of stars.
1 七月十四 (qī yuè shí sì): The fourteenth day of the seventh lunar month, often associated with the Ghost Festival in Chinese culture.
2 白城 (Báichéng): White City. A fictional city in this context, used to establish the character's backstory as a refugee.
3 Xiongnu (匈奴): An ancient nomadic group that lived north of China. Often in conflict with the Han Dynasty.
4 腊月十四 (làyuè shí sì): The fourteenth day of the twelfth lunar month, the last month of the lunar year, falls just before the Lunar New Year celebrations.
5 江都 (Jiāngdū): Jiangdu, a historical city in China.
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