Chapter Eighty-Seven: Two Scenic Views

The night mist gradually closed in, and the whole village sank into a hazy blur, the moonlight blurred, the night mist blurred.

Ye Qianran had not gone far. She was only hiding, only she did not know how to face this sudden turn of events.

The mountain night was very cold, and very beautiful. The village stood high in the mountains; on one side lay a broad stretch of dwellings, while on the other yawned an abyssal ravine. All around, the slopes were thick with dark green trees whose names could not be known, and the entire settlement was tucked away behind blue peaks and verdant woods, like the fabled utopia of the Peach Blossom Spring—only here there were few peach trees. There was only one wild peach blossom, blooming recklessly beside a cliff, and A Chun’s home stood there.

Ye Qianran walked along the mountain path. The night was deep and the road wound and twisted; she did not know where she should go. In truth, she could leave. Her bundle was in A Chun’s wooden hut, but there was nothing important in it anyway. If she wanted to go, no one could stop her. So why had she not left?

Even if the reunion today had been terribly awful, even if she did not know what would happen next, she did not want to go.

But in this situation, she felt superfluous. Three years had passed; others had built new lives, and she had become a stranger standing at the margins. At the thought of it, her heart constricted painfully. No one needed her. She was only an unnecessary person.

An unnecessary person...

She could not help bending over and retching, though nothing came up. Only then did she realize she had not eaten all day.

But why did she not feel hungry?

Wind moved through the mountains, and the wind was cold. Ye Qianran kept retching as though she meant to bring up her stomach, as though she meant to vomit out her heart, liver, guts, and lungs. If she could throw them all up, would she feel a little better? That face once had been splendid and radiant, a riot of blossoms and splendor, like an old dream; now it was decayed and ruined, not even as good as falling petals. The one she needed did not need her.

Suddenly, she began to regret it. Regret why she had crossed mountains and rivers to come searching. She had found him, and yet she had once thought herself eternal to him, still had hope; but now that she had found him, she had lost everything. Hope was gone, and faith was gone too.

The mountains were silent as death. Looking up, she could faintly see, far away on the high ridge, tiny glimmers of firelight appearing beneath the shelter of the trees. But that firelight did not belong to her.

Loneliness, desolation, grievance, sorrow, pain—these emotions surged up all at once. She suddenly wanted very much to cry. Though she had never said it aloud, in her heart she had always thought of finding Liu Yun, of finding him, because he was the only thing she had that remained unbroken. Yet there would be no chance. She would never again have the chance to shed tears before him; he would never again hold her and say that he missed her.

Her heart ached in wave after wave. It was as though something in her life had come crashing down. She had once believed that three years of wandering would make her serene, but standing alone in the silent darkness, she suddenly realized she was still the same stubborn woman from three years ago.

Only now she had learned to hide it, so that others would not discover it, so that she herself would not discover it.

Deep in her heart, there was faint resentment.

And still there remained a little hope—hope that things were not as they seemed, hope that she was not in the way after all.

The night mist thickened and thickened; the mountain wind grew colder and colder, until she suddenly felt a bone-deep chill.

Ye Qianran was still wandering in the hills. She had walked this road countless times, and yet she would keep walking it forever, because she had nowhere else to go.

Out of the darkness, a man came down from the mountain. She had not noticed him at all. As they passed, Ye Qianran did not lift her head, but a pair of strong hands caught and pulled her back. Before she could even think, she heard his voice.

“Do you intend to walk this road until dawn?”

His voice was low and dark. Hearing that one sentence, Ye Qianran knew at once that, compared with three years ago, he had become far steadier and more restrained.

The night was very black. Ye Qianran could not make out his expression, but she could hear the suppressed anger in his tone. He must hate her. Clearly he was the one who should be angry, and she the one who should feel guilty. And yet, facing him, a trace of irritation rose in Ye Qianran’s heart. She did not know whether she was angry with him, or with herself. She shoved him away at once.

“You don’t need to meddle.”

Wei Zhuang did not speak again this time. He seized her wrist and dragged her all the way up the mountain. No matter how she struggled, he remained as steady as a mountain.

His grip was so strong it hurt her wrist, but he seemed not to hear it, allowing her to flail behind him. In the end, he simply slung her over his shoulder. She still struggled, but Wei Zhuang said only one sentence, and that sentence was enough to quiet her.

“If you want attention, if you want Zhuge Liu Yun to see you now, then go ahead and struggle all you like. His home is the first house up on the mountain.”

The riotous peach blossoms blooming from the cliffside were not clearly visible in the dark night. She only remembered Wei Zhuang carrying her forward and then turning into another narrow lane.

They entered a courtyard. There was an apricot tree inside, along with a small wooden house of three rooms. Ye Qianran was tossed onto a bed by Wei Zhuang, and a woman in violet hurried in after them.

“Sir, what is going on?”

Wei Zhuang lowered his head to smooth the slightly wrinkled sleeves at his wrists and said indifferently, “Yanzi, this young lady is hungry. Go prepare something she can eat.”

Yanzi looked at him in confusion. He kept his head bowed, his face showing no expression, and understanding came to her at once. She asked no more, but turned and went out.

He liked her, liked her for being understanding, so she could not ask.

Wei Zhuang looked at her. There was none of the anger or hatred she had imagined. His indifference was like looking at a stranger. “If you want to leave, you’d best think carefully about your situation first.”

Seeing that she did not respond, he turned and prepared to go out.

“Why?” Ye Qianran saw that he was leaving and sprang down from the bed. “You ought to hate me.”

Wei Zhuang turned and looked at her, his gaze still faint and cool, cool as water, cool with deliberate restraint. “Why should I hate you? Because you betrayed me? What does that matter? In any case, you do not care, and neither do I. Your betrayal may have wounded my pride, but because of it I gained a better life. So why should I hate you? Hatred is painful; I do not wish to make myself suffer.” After a pause, he added, “You need not thank me. I am willing to take care of you now solely because of Old Master Ye’s request. I am not good at much, but I do know how to distinguish gratitude from grudges. Old Master Ye showed me kindness; you are his daughter. That is all.”

He said it so naturally, so carelessly. His words were cold as needlepoints, stabbing deeply into her, so cold that she wanted to flee—flee far away, never to see him again, never to hear him say such things.

Ye Qianran’s hands clenched so tightly that her whole body trembled faintly.

Wei Zhuang smiled and turned to leave.

With a sharp slap, Ye Qianran struck her own face.

Wei Zhuang, having shut the door, heard the sound and his body stiffened.

Only then did Ye Qianran feel the right side of her face burning with pain. Pain made a person suffer, but it also made a person calm.

At last, she calmed down.

She could not break down in front of him. It had been she who betrayed him in the past. If he could not care, why should she care? Why should she collapse? If she went mad and fell apart, not only would Wei Zhuang look down on her, she would look down on herself as well. She did not want such a self. She was Ye Qianran. Three years ago, she had personally destroyed her own child and betrayed her husband. She had done those things. What was this compared to them?

She did not care. She cared about nothing. And the people who did not care for her—she cared nothing for them either.

Ye Qianran steadied herself with the table and sat down. She poured herself a cup of cold water and drank it down. Three years of wandering had long since tempered her into something steadier, more detached. Now she only needed to quiet her heart. If her heart was in disarray, she would not be able to face the situation before her.

If there was no avoiding it, then she would solve it. Avoidance had never been a way to settle matters.

Wei Zhuang stood beneath the apricot tree in the courtyard. It was already deep night. The wooden door still stood open, candlelight flickering within. The shadows of the apricot blossoms dappled across his body. In the pitch-black heavens there was no moonlight flowing like water, no glittering Milky Way. He stood there in silence, the night mist dampening his clothes, and stood thus for a very long time.

Yanzi came out of the wooden house and walked to his side. Wei Zhuang moved his lips. “How is she?”

Yanzi narrowed her eyes toward the distance. “Miss Ye ate something and has already lain down.”

Wei Zhuang reached up and tucked an apricot blossom into his hair. His voice revealed nothing of his mood. “Yanzi, thank you.”

Yanzi smiled. “What is there to thank me for? Since she is Sir’s friend, it is only natural that I look after her.”

Wei Zhuang drew her into his arms. In his dark eyes there was no change at all.

Ye Qianran stood by the window. Outside, beneath the apricot tree, a handsome man and a beautiful woman stood together like jade and blossom. She turned and went back to the bed.

When A Chun woke, it was still dark. She reached out, but the space beside her was empty. Alarm flickered in her heart. She sat up, lit the lamp, put on her outer robe, and went out.

The little courtyard was divided into front, middle, and rear rows, with three rooms in each row. A Chun and Liu Yun lived in the back row, the grandfather and A Luo in the middle row, and the front row housed their medical clinic. Before each row of rooms stood an apricot tree, and whenever the apricot blossoms were in bloom, petals filled the courtyard in wild profusion—beautiful, enchanting, lovely beyond measure.

A Chun stepped over the threshold and saw Liu Yun standing motionless beneath the apricot tree.

He looked back. Apricot blossoms rustled down upon his shoulders. His figure was slender and long, refined yet touched with a hint of desolation. Suddenly A Chun remembered how, during those days when he had been recovering from his injuries, he also often liked to stand in a daze beneath the apricot tree in front of the clinic each night. At the time, she did not know him, only found him handsome and elegant, with a faint melancholy between his brows. One night, she had brought him an outer robe to add to his clothing. At the sound of her approach, he had looked back. Those eyes, so cool and indifferent, had made her heart fall instantly silent.

Back then, she had not understood the faint melancholy between his brows. Now that she thought of it, it must have been for that woman—the woman named Qianran. Every glance and smile of hers was lovely. The first time A Chun saw her, she thought of the line Wei Zhuang had once used to describe a woman’s beauty: a faint sorrow cradled at the heart. She was that Xi Shi washing silk by the stream.

A Chun stood quietly beside him. Liu Yun smiled at her, his brows and eyes still gentle. “Why are you awake?”

A Chun secretly took his hand. In her dark eyes, light flickered. “Husband couldn’t sleep, so A Chun couldn’t sleep either.”

Liu Yun’s gaze fell upon A Chun’s clean, honest face. The light in her eyes bloomed only for him, and he could not help but frown slightly.

Without a trace, he withdrew his hand from hers and adjusted the garment draped over her shoulders. “The night air is cold and damp outside, and you are with child. I’ll accompany you back inside.”

A Chun nodded, and Liu Yun helped her back into the room.

A gust of wind passed through, scattering apricot blossoms in rustling showers. The night mist coiled about them, hazy and lovely, lovely and hazy. The candlelight within the room went out, and all heaven and earth fell silent.