Encountering a Snake C10

Chapter 10: Different Paths

That night the Shen brothers lay on the bed, a candle burning at the head, talking face to face.

Most of the talk was Shen Zhen’s: strange tales from the official world, which new friends he had made, what their characters were like. His brows flew and his colors danced. There was no stopping him.

Shen Qingxuan listened a while and shook his head slightly. He knew his brother had only just entered official life and had not yet lived through the scheming. That was why his spirits were so high, his chest so full of hope. What would come later, no one could yet say.

He was his own younger brother. After a moment’s hesitation Shen Qingxuan still poured a basin of cold water on that blaze. He said: In all things be cautious. Before you have seen which camp a man belongs to, do not make friends at random. Even if you come to know him, keep a little distance. When the day comes that you can truly associate, it will not be too late to treat him with a whole heart.

Shen Zhen froze. When he came back to himself he said nothing, but the earlier high spirits were gone. He only nodded and agreed.

Shen Qingxuan knew he had spoken too plainly. These principles Shen Zhen might already know. To hear them said so frankly was simply hard to take in the feelings.

He sighed, put out a hand and smoothed his brother’s hair, and said again: Father’s wealth and power are great. I know you have no worry behind you. But think: the greater the Shen family’s wealth and power, the better a target it is for pulling and binding in official circles. You have only just entered this field. Your seniority is still shallow. You have no roots. If you are not careful and stand in the wrong camp, it will be very hard to rise again. Then the Shen family estate may not be able to help you—and it may even come to a broken house and dead people.

The last sentence he hesitated over, then said it anyway. Under the quilt Shen Zhen’s body gave a start.

“Elder Brother, I know.” After a long silence Shen Zhen said slowly, “I came up the mountain this time to say goodbye.”

Now it was Shen Qingxuan who froze. Shen Zhen looked at him, then lowered his lids and said in a low voice, “It is because I know these things that I asked to be transferred to the county office of Ningyuan in the south… The documents have already come down. At the end of the month I set out. This road is long, mountains high and waters far. I do not know when I can return…”

Shen Qingxuan’s brows drew together. He thought a long time before he recalled where Ningyuan County was: a small, extremely remote town in the far south, damp and hot, the people fierce, mountain bandits rampant. For that reason the folk there were all called southern barbarians.

Only after a long while did his brows loosen. He said: Going there is also good. With your temperament, if you stayed in the capital you would offend people without knowing it. Go there and be tempered. When you come back, Elder Brother will wash the dust from your journey.

Shen Zhen smiled, hooked an arm around his brother’s neck, buried his head there, and said low, “I knew you would say that.” He paused. “It is a little bitter there, but it is a good place to make a name and build a career. Elder Brother need not worry. A handful of bandits will not bring me down. And Father has trading posts there, so food and clothing need not be a concern… In ten years at most I will return.”

Shen Qingxuan was silent, then nodded.

It was their first parting, and they were brothers who had grown up at each other’s side. Years lay between them, and their circumstances were utterly different, yet the bond of blood could not be erased by anything. Both were sad.

He did not know how long it was before Shen Zhen said, “Elder Brother, I know your body is not well. But you must promise: at least wait until I come back.”

Shen Qingxuan froze again. When he understood, a sour ache rose he could not help. He nodded quickly: Of course I will wait for you. Set your mind at rest. I have not yet seen you marry and establish a household, or take up the duty of glorifying the Shen gate and continuing the incense line. How could I let go and leave?

Only then did Shen Zhen smile. “When I come back I will take a wife and have sons. Two children. I will put one in your arms.”

Shen Qingxuan still nodded. In his heart he thought he might not be unable to marry and have sons himself. The moment the thought appeared, Yi Mo’s face, of all things, sprang up with it. It startled him so that he crushed the restless notions down at once. He dared not think further.

The brothers talked warmly a good while more. Shen Qingxuan hesitated more than once over whether to tell him he could speak again—and, with that, about knowing the great snake—so that his brother would not worry, hanging in uncertainty while away, not knowing if he lived or died.

On second thought he gave it up.

Though he could make sound now, he did not know how long the state would last, or what accident would come later. He had already lived through the rises and falls in his fate. Before the final result was certain, why make his own kin anxious with him?

Besides, the future between him and Yi Mo was confusing and hard to see. Neither could give the other a promise.

And a promise itself was hollow and dull. Who would believe it?

In the latter half of the night Shen Zhen was already deeply asleep, his brows and eyes mild as he nestled at his side, as in childhood: well-behaved and sensible before his elder brother.

Shen Qingxuan touched those brows and looked at him, lost in thought. Since they were small people had said that what the brothers most resembled was this pair of eyes.

What they least resembled was also this pair of eyes.

While Shen Zhen was still full of vigor, his eyes all innocence, Shen Qingxuan already had a pair that were dark and tired.

He sighed without sound, tucked the quilt around them both, and gradually drifted into sleep.

Then came several days of bustle. Because Shen Zhen had to travel to take up his post, the whole household was in a knot. Even Shen Qingxuan could not refuse and went down the mountain.

Hands were short. He sent his own servant to help. He himself could not do much, so he sat quietly in a corner of shadow.

Shen Zhen was busy taking leave of friends, going in and out of wine houses and eating houses. Even when he came home he could not rest. Shen-laoye pulled him along to bid farewell, one by one, to elders and kin.

This made Shen Zhen snatch time to find Shen Qingxuan and complain that he had not thought leaving home would be so tiring. Shen Qingxuan comforted him, of course, then pushed him back into those banquets.

Soon everything was arranged, and Shen Zhen took the road.

Shen Qingxuan returned to the mountains and to his silent days. He counted sunrises and sunsets and listened to the wind in the leaves.

After the parting at the spring, Yi Mo did not appear again.

Shen Qingxuan did not know what he was busy with. Or perhaps he simply did not want to see him anymore. Whenever that thought came he could not help a cold laugh. So what if you hide? At latest you hide until next year’s tribulation. Will you not still have to come and see me?

Then he thought: what kind of person was Yi Mo, that he would need to hide from a cripple who could not bind a chicken? He had simply grown too lazy to come…

Sitting alone in the room, thoughts spinning fast, he reached no conclusion. The more chaotic his mind, the more stifled his chest.

Something seemed to block his breast. He wanted to scream like a madman, to smash something, before it would ease.

Perhaps after a stretch of noise, solitude was no longer so calm to keep.

Sensing that his temper was dangerous only made him more pent-up. With nowhere to vent it he picked up the stacks of fox-and-ghost miscellanies he had collected. He could not finish a page without wanting to tear it. He wished he could shred all these things that bewitched the heart into powder.

Fox girls repaying kindness and happily tying the knot; flower fools watering flower ghosts and winning a Qin-Jin match… all nonsense.

Did the people who wrote these books not know that man and yaoguai walk different paths?

—Man and yaoguai walk different paths.

He narrowed his eyes and chewed the four characters between his teeth, turning them over and over, mouthing them again and again without sound, swallowing them again and again. The anger had no clear object. The hate was lingering and tangled.

By chance the four characters “different paths, same destination” rose in his mind. He dared not think further.

They were one man and one yaoguai, and both were men. Even that “same destination” could not produce the romantic tales in the books.

At most it would put a handle in other people’s hands and give them more talk over meals.

Understanding this only made his anger rise for no reason, filling the sky.

“Did those books offend you?”

He jerked his head up. Yi Mo stood by the candle, half his face hidden in loose hair, the other half in the swaying shadow. Only those eyes, pale as water, looked steadily at him, extremely still.

Shen Qingxuan’s hand trembled. The white fragments, like snow, scattered and covered the floor.

He stared at the torn pages he himself had made, falling one after another. The chaotic thoughts in his mind seemed to sink with them. Sudden quiet.

Neither urgent nor panicked. Neither glad nor sad.

He only lifted his face slowly and looked at those still eyes, and dimly felt they had been like this for a thousand years, like a sealed place from ancient times that no one had ever visited.

“Yi Mo.”

He heard his own voice rise in that quiet world, asking, word by word, with complete seriousness:

“You and I—different paths, same destination. Will that do?”

Will that do?

—

Ningyuan : A remote southern county in this story; damp, fierce, full of bandits.

Qin-Jin match : An old phrase for a good marriage alliance.