Encountering a Snake C9

Chapter 9: Family

For three days running the villa was lively again, only because Young Master Shen had once more circled back from the ghost gate.

Amid the noise Shen Qingxuan remained as he always was. In a moonlight-white robe he sat in his chair and smiled, gladly receiving the concern passed to him from every side, nodding as he listened, modest and courteous: the very picture of a refined and elegant scholar.

This drew another wave of sighs. Everyone said what a fine young man, and how fate had toyed with him.

He had long grown a hide of bronze and bones of iron against such pity. In his ears it neither hurt nor itched. It did, however, touch his mother’s heart. She shed tears several times, then, afraid he would see and grow sadder, turned away quickly to wipe them.

How could that motion escape his sharp eyes? Mother and son were of one heart. He knew what she was thinking, so he pretended not to see and turned his gaze to someone else.

When the banquet was laid he had a maid wheel him from the table. Everyone knew his body was frail and that he did not drink well, and after a grave illness he still less could stay to tire himself with guests. One after another they told him to rest well. Only after he left did they lift their cups and drink freely.

Back in his room he listened a while through the window lattice to the noise outside and smiled coldly to himself. He did not know how many such banquets had already been held, nor how many more there would be. Who could say?

Even if Yi Mo lent a hand and a year from now he was no different from an ordinary man, who knew what hardships would still come?

Fortune turns. The world is inconstant.

Only after he had been pulled from the ice cave and woken did he understand the eight characters his father so often recited.

Who would have thought that the gentle, shy girl from a modest family, married into the Shen house for three years—the Second Mother who in those days had cared for him so warmly—would send someone to take his life?

He had never even imagined it.

Even now, thinking of it again across so many years, there was still the pain of being fiercely betrayed by one’s closest kin.

While he was lost in thought, hurried footsteps suddenly sounded in the courtyard. The steps were light and quick, urgent, with the heavy note peculiar to official boots. The dark look in Shen Qingxuan’s eyes brightened a little. The smile that always hung on his face gained a few parts of real meaning.

“Elder Brother!” The door was shoved open hard, stirring a little dust. Sunlight poured in from outside. In the dancing motes a clear-browed face appeared. Because it was family, that vigorous face still held a child’s rashness.

Seeing his elder brother sitting in the chair, smiling at him with full eyes, the young man was briefly abashed. He pulled his hand back at once, recovered a little gravity, and only then saluted. “Elder Brother.”

Shen Qingxuan beckoned him close, took his hand, pulled that tall body down, and, out of habit, flicked him on the forehead. He formed the words without sound: I thought you had improved a little. Why are you still charging about like this?

Shen Zhen had been able to read his elder brother’s lip-speech since childhood. He rubbed the forehead that did not hurt and hummed, “I would like to be reserved. I was only afraid I would startle you into not recognizing this brother.”

Shen Qingxuan laughed at that, smoothed the neatly bound crown of hair, and asked: How do you have time to see me today?

“Elder Brother has only just recovered. How could I not come?” Shen Zhen crouched, one hand braced on his brother’s leg, and leaned in to act spoiled as he had in childhood. Between his brows was the trust and clinging that exist only between blood kin. Looking at that face so like Second Mother’s, Shen Qingxuan felt only calm. Toward the face that had stuck to him since he was small, he truly could not raise hatred.

Even knowing that he had fallen to his present state entirely because of this person.

That year, the second son of the Shen house had just turned one.

Shen-laoye had once held his eldest with one arm and, with the other, the second son still in swaddling, sucking his thumb in sleep, and said before the two wives, full of pride: In days to come this eldest will glorify the Shen gate, take office, be made marquis. When we are old, the duty of seeing us out will rest on this little one. In that way the Shen family will be complete.

All the expectation in the words fell on Shen Qingxuan, then only seven.

The father saw only that the eldest was clever and calculated the family’s honor. He did not see the smiles of the two wives before him, or how much unwillingness and grievance hid in one of those smiles.

Why, merely for being the second son, should he be kept at home like an animal and live a life of no name?

A woman’s thoughts were narrow. At the time she had not considered that each person has a fate. If her son truly proved himself, how would Shen-laoye ignore his future? It had only been high spirits, words tossed off. She took them as truth. She birthed a vicious heart and ruined Shen Qingxuan’s life.

By the time she understood, the great wrong was already done.

Shen Qingxuan patted the back of the youth lying across his knees and looked at him: Now that you have entered official life, you have put down spear and blade, I suppose?

Shen Zhen shook his head at once. “No such thing. If Elder Brother does not believe me, we can go into the courtyard. I will perform for you.”

Shen Qingxuan smiled and nodded. Shen Zhen rose quickly and wheeled him out. The brothers stopped in an open place in the courtyard.

Shen Zhen took a long staff, flourished a pattern, and held it. “Watch well, Elder Brother. Your younger brother will play with the staff for you.”

Shen Qingxuan still smiled, openly.

Seeing this, Shen Zhen grinned as well. The staff in his hand began to move like a living snake. When he whirled it the wind roared, dust flew, light and shadow tangled. When it struck the ground it gave a dull sound; pits showed in the yellow earth, the force like a thousand jun.

Shen Qingxuan watched, absorbed, until the set was finished, then clapped at once, hiding none of his praise.

Praised by his elder brother, Shen Zhen grew still more pleased. He threw aside the staff, took a long spear, and performed a spear set as well. It was a little weaker than the staff work, yet it still had a tiger’s force.

The two brothers stayed in the courtyard, one performing for the other, until the red sun sank. Only then did Shen Qingxuan signal a stop and have wet cloths and hot tea brought.

Shen Zhen gulped down a cup, wiped the sweat from his face, and leaned toward Shen Qingxuan again. “Elder Brother, have you any instruction?”

Shen Qingxuan gave him a look: What would I instruct you in?

Shen Zhen grinned. “Don’t play the fool, Elder Brother. Father said that when you were small you liked to play with spears and staves, and even secretly took the arms master’s long ji to poke a bird’s nest, and made the teacher furious. Do you dare deny it?”

Shen Qingxuan thought back. Some of it was faint in his memory. He could not recall the more precise course of it.

If Shen Zhen had not mentioned these old matters, Shen Qingxuan would not have remembered them. Even now, with them raised, he still could not.

Now and then a fragment flashed through his mind, yet he did not feel that it had happened to him.

Those past events seemed like a previous life, or something more distant still, soaked by yellowed time into a sheet of brittle paper that would crumble at a touch.

Incomplete.

His face sank a little.

Shen Zhen knew he had said the wrong thing and quickly changed the subject. He took the hand resting on Shen Qingxuan’s knee and said eagerly, “Elder Brother, I rarely come up the mountain, and you have tired me half the day. Play a game of chess with me.”

Shen Qingxuan lifted his spirits: And if you lose?

Shen Zhen rubbed his temple and leaned to his brother’s ear. “The old way?”

Shen Qingxuan brightened as well, nodded, and they went back inside.

Tea and sweets were sent in and set out. When all was ready Shen Zhen shut the doors and windows tight and checked again that they were fast, as if afraid someone would discover something, the very look of a thief with a guilty conscience. Shen Qingxuan laughed silently until he ached.

Soft mats were spread on the couch. They sat facing each other. Shen Qingxuan wiped the board again, took out the black and white stones, and asked: The old way?

Shen Zhen nodded at once, snatched the black stones as if afraid his brother would change his mind, and placed one, then another, then a third.

The game had barely opened. He had seized black and already placed three stones.

Shen Qingxuan raised a brow, looked at him a good while, and mouthed: Truly no improvement.

Shen Zhen protested at once. “You are the elder brother, seven years older. You ought to give me seven stones. Three is already a great improvement.”

Shen Qingxuan took white and placed a stone, ignoring him.

Shen Zhen settled as well, studied the board, and began to play in earnest.

Having taken the early advantage, in the time of one incense stick he made the game strange and unpredictable, peaks rising suddenly, and surrounded a patch of Shen Qingxuan’s white. He was rather pleased.

Shen Qingxuan did not lift his head. He only placed stones. By the time of two incense sticks he had cut away every sharp corner of Shen Zhen’s position. The white stones crouched on the heights like a coiled dragon, waiting only for the order to take the whole board in an instant.

“Elder Brother,” Shen Zhen wiped cold sweat from his brow and said quickly, “your openings and closings are measured, your methods fierce, your play grand. If you had entered official life, where would there be a place for your younger brother…”

Smiling in his eyes, Shen Qingxuan turned, took the brush set aside, dipped it full of ink, and only then said slowly: Spare the flattery. Lift your face.

Shen Zhen shut his mouth at once and offered his face with a bitter look.

A moment later that handsome face had gained a large crawling tortoise.

Shen Zhen jumped off the couch, took a mirror, and sighed. “The more I flatter, the more lifelike this tortoise becomes. Clearly flattery must still be applied—especially Elder Brother’s.”

Shen Qingxuan tapped the board impatiently: Again.

Shen Zhen had to sit back down, still checking the windows for cracks so that no outsider would see. That would be death by shame.

By the evening meal the two still had the doors and windows shut and would not come out. The servants waited outside. No food was allowed to be set within. At last Shen-laoye was alarmed.

Hearing that his sons would not eat, he hurried over and asked from outside the door, “What has happened with you two?”

After a moment Shen Zhen’s voice came from inside. “Father, I am playing chess with Elder Brother.”

Shen-laoye was briefly stunned. Then a strange look forced its way onto his face. He stood a moment, waved the servants off. “Go down first. Keep the food warm. Bring it again in an hour.”

After they were gone he leaned on the door and said in a low voice, “Xuan-er, let Father in to have a look.”

A burst of panicked fuss rose inside at once. Shen-laoye waited with the ease of age. Sure enough the younger could not win against the elder. Shen Qingxuan wheeled himself over and opened the door.

After a glance inside, Shen-laoye walked toward the screen, his voice still kind. “Come out and let Father see.”

Behind the screen, not a sound.

“Don’t act like a young lady. Come out and let Father see.” He kept coaxing.

Shen Zhen would not come out for anything.

Shen Qingxuan shut the door again, went over, and shoved the screen down in one push. Shen Zhen had not expected this from his brother. He could not dodge in time. By instinct he caught the falling screen and flashed out.

In that instant Shen-laoye saw what he had wanted to see. He let out a puff and quickly held it in, until his whiskers shook.

Shen Qingxuan also kept his face down, shoulders jerking without stop. Clearly he was holding it in hard.

Shen Zhen stood there, his face covered in tortoises crawling, standing, or rolling. Even the ears had not been spared: a tiny tortoise on each lobe, stretching its neck and kicking its legs.

Shen-laoye held his belly, pointed at Shen Qingxuan with a trembling finger, and could barely speak. “You—you… this elder brother of yours is truly—not—not proper.”

Shen Qingxuan lifted his head at once. Bright black eyes looked at his father without a blink.

Father and son stared at each other a moment, then suddenly each jerked his face away. One opened his mouth in a soundless laugh; the other laughed until he nearly lost his breath.

At first Shen Zhen still shouted angrily that they must stop. Then, seeing that neither could stop, bent double, clutching their chests, unable to draw air, he was so frightened he forgot his own disgrace and ran over to pound each on the back and help them breathe, terrified they would laugh themselves ill.

He did not know that his elder brother and father, twisting their heads and seeing that anxiously painted big-flower face, could not have stopped even if they had wanted to.

Shen Qingxuan several times nearly laughed aloud. He could only bite the tip of his tongue and swallow the sound that had rolled to his throat.

Even joy was extremely hard work.

In nearly twenty years, there had been no time that was not hard work.

—

Ghost gate : The gateway of death; to return from it is to survive against the odds.

Ji : A long halberd used in martial training.

One incense stick : Roughly the time one stick of incense burns, about half an hour or less.