Chapter 95
Chapter 95
The woman was thin, with sharply defined features. The voluminous mourning clothes draped over her only made her look more slight.
The fine lines that had quietly crept around her eyes showed that she was no longer young, but she made no attempt to hide it. Her hair was threaded with so much white that it caught the eye, yet she had never thought to dye it. Her face was bare as well, without a trace of makeup.
Perhaps because she was so gaunt, her prominent cheekbones gave her a somewhat severe look. Beneath half-lowered, delicate lids, the outer corners of her downcast eyes tilted slightly upward, forming a beautiful pair of phoenix eyes.
At the sound of Xie Qingling opening the door, the woman raised her gaze. The light in her eyes was gentle and calm.
“You are…” Xie Qingling began.
“I’m here to see Yu Wei,” the woman said softly.
Xie Qingling’s fingers twitched. At the sight of her mourning clothes, every word she might have said died in her throat.
All at once, she had no idea how to face this woman who had put on mourning clothes of her own accord.
“Did the Director ask you to come?” Xie Qingling asked.
“No.” She shook her head. “I came on my own. I’m here to collect his remains.”
Yu Wei’s ex-wife had come to lay his remains to rest, yet Xie Qingling had nothing she could give her.
Xie Qingling stepped aside and invited her in. “Please come inside first. It will take me a while to explain.”
The woman did not move. Instead, she asked cautiously, “Am I allowed in? Old Yu said he’d signed a confidentiality agreement. He never let me come looking for him.”
“The first floor is open to visitors. This is just an ordinary office.”
The woman froze upon hearing that. After a long moment, she said, “Old Yu never changed at all. He followed rules and orders like a machine and never knew how to bend them. He really was hopelessly rigid.”
They walked into the office one after the other. Xie Qingling poured her a cup of tea and asked, “How should I address you, ma’am?”
“My name is Zhou Huayi.” She smoothed a small crease that had formed in her clothes when she sat down. Her emotions remained steady as she said politely, “There’s no need to call me ma’am. Old Yu and I were already divorced.”
Before Xie Qingling could speak, Zhou Huayi explained, “Although we divorced, I promised him that I would collect his body when the time came. When I first met him, I told him that he was always getting himself injured, so he was bound to die young and would leave before I did. And now, here I am.”
As she spoke, she smoothed her mourning clothes again. Only then did Xie Qingling notice that they did not fit. They looked as though Zhou Huayi had borrowed them from somewhere in a hurry.
Seeming to notice Xie Qingling studying her, Zhou Huayi glanced down at herself. She straightened her thin back a little and smiled faintly. “These clothes are mine. I had them custom-made ten years ago. I thought that if anything happened without warning, I could see him off with dignity and composure instead of being thrown into chaos. I never expected that I would still overlook something. I’ve grown old, and my figure has changed. The clothes don’t fit anymore.”
Xie Qingling stared at her, momentarily at a loss.
“Huayi, how did you know…?”
“The light in his room hadn’t come on for three days,” Zhou Huayi said. “Before this, it had never stayed dark for more than two days. I called him, but couldn’t get through. That was how I knew.”
Xie Qingling was mildly shocked. “Did you and Brother Yu live in the same place?”
“No. I live in the building across from his,” Zhou Huayi said calmly.
Zhou Huayi lived directly across from Yu Wei.
Yet Yu Wei had never known.
Xie Qingling’s throat tightened again and again. What she had to say next felt almost impossible to force out. In a low voice, she said, “Huayi, I can’t give you Brother Yu’s remains just yet.”
Zhou Huayi went still and murmured, “That short-lived fool… Did he die without even leaving an intact body behind? Are there no remains at all?”
“No… It’s just inconvenient right now. You’ll have to wait a little longer.” Xie Qingling did not know how to explain.
“I understand. The fighting must have been too intense, right?” Zhou Huayi nodded. Then she asked, “Did Old Yu leave behind any personal effects or last words?”
Xie Qingling looked at her. After a moment, she shook her head. “No last words. He was afraid of disturbing you.”
Zhou Huayi could only fall silent.
Then Xie Qingling took out a piece of black velvet and held it out to her.
She said, “Brother Yu’s saber has to remain as a weapon for those who come after him. Logistics is still sorting through his other personal belongings. This is the only thing he left behind here at the Department.”
“It’s the cloth Brother Yu usually used to wipe his saber,” Xie Qingling explained when Zhou Huayi made no move to take it.
“I recognize it.” This time, Zhou Huayi did not smile. She lowered her eyes, lost in some private thought, and for a long time did not accept the cloth Xie Qingling held out.
After more than ten seconds, she suddenly gave a derisive laugh and refused it. “Forget it. He spent more time with this scrap of cloth than he did with Niuniu and me. Looking at it would only make me angry. You keep it.”
“I should go.” She wrote her contact information on a piece of paper and handed it to Xie Qingling. “This is how you can reach me.”
“When the time comes and I can collect his remains, contact me.”
“And if possible, have him cremated and just give me the ashes. I don’t want to see his body,” Zhou Huayi said. “I don’t want to know what he looked like before he died.”
Yu Wei had once said that his ex-wife had been a military doctor.
For a doctor, it was easy to infer from a person’s wounds what kinds of injuries they had suffered.
Xie Qingling nodded. “I understand, Huayi.”
Zhou Huayi left as though she had never come.
She had been as calm as a passing breeze, arriving quietly and leaving just as quietly, without shedding a tear or saying much. Yet after she left, Xie Qingling sank into melancholy.
Sometimes, facing the living was harder than facing the dead.
Xie Qingling quickly composed herself and contacted Ling Fang. After a moment of silence on the other end, he said, “All right.”
“The Daoist priest will arrive tomorrow. When he does, everyone in the Department should go see Old Yu off. Yang Liuqing will cover for us.”
“Understood.”
–
At noon the next day, when the sun shone at its fiercest.
A group had gathered in an abandoned warehouse near the outskirts of the city.
Logistics had placed the location under lockdown several days earlier, preventing ordinary people from approaching.
Only now did the warehouse doors finally open wide.
In the yard before the warehouse lay a body covered with a white cloth.
Brilliant sunlight struck the cloth and reflected in a dazzling glare, sharp and blinding. Though it was broad daylight beneath a clear blue sky, that piercing patch of white seemed to dim all the light around it.
The black-clad figures standing in silence became even less conspicuous beside it.
Ling Fang led the rest of the Department as they stood beneath the eaves, a short distance from the bier, silently watching the Daoist priest in the center of the yard.
The priest had arrived that morning.
He did not look very old. He wore an ocher Daoist robe and a square cap, with a bagua mirror strapped to his back and a peachwood sword in his hand.
His surname was Li, and people addressed him as Daoist Li. He had been ordered to descend from the mountain and perform the funeral rite for Yu Wei.
An altar table had already been set up beside the bier.
On it lay the instruments Daoist Li needed for the rite: glutinous rice, red cord, a Bell of the Three Pure Ones, and more. Daoist Li dipped his fingertips into a bowl of clear water, then grabbed a handful of rice and scattered it in a rhythmic pattern while murmuring an incantation.
The glutinous rice and red cord were meant to ward off evil and purge the corpse toxin from Yu Wei’s body.
The rite had been set for noon, when the sun was at its strongest, so they could borrow the power of its blazing yang energy and scour the corpse toxin away completely.
At last, Daoist Li finished drawing a seal-script talisman and affixed it to Yu Wei’s forehead. When the talisman burst into flame on its own, the rite entered its final stage. The zombie’s corpse toxin had been fully cleansed.
That meant they could begin preparing the funeral arrangements.
Yu Wei’s body was now that of an ordinary human once more.
Ling Fang and the others were about to step forward when a clear chime rang out. Daoist Li had picked up the Bell of the Three Pure Ones from the altar and begun to shake it gently.
Daoist Li bowed to Yu Wei’s body. “Layman Yu, allow this humble Daoist to see you on your way.”
His words faded.
The Bell of the Three Pure Ones chimed again. Daoist Li shook the bell and began to chant in a lilting cadence:
“No flower has bloomed forever since ancient days; never has the moon remained full.”
The bell chimed once more.
“Heap up gold and pile up jade as you please; they cannot buy you life without end.”
“Among birds, the thousand-year crane may live, but among men, few ever reach a hundred.”
“We toil through life and hurry through death.”
The Daoist priest’s voice was ethereal and far-reaching. Set to that strange melody, it seemed to empty the listeners’ minds, leaving their senses clear and expansive.
Ling Fang said quietly, “Daoist Li is guiding Old Yu’s soul onward.”
At those words, everyone stopped. They simply listened in silence and watched.
“…What use are rank and riches? Why boast of splendid prose?”
“Believe that all must end in illusion; when your allotted span is done, the golden millet dream will fade.”
“Where have the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors gone? Where are the ministers and nobles of every age?”
“Look upon the annals of history – who has ever escaped impermanence?”
When the chant ended, Daoist Li began to move. His feet traced a peculiar pattern, one step forward and one back, now high and now low, as though he were unfurling a picture beneath them.
[Three steps and nine traces, forming Li and Kan. Qian embodied the spirits of heaven, and Kun bore all things in motion. Kan took two, Gen one, their steps crossing Qian; above Zhen, both flew, and Dui was the same. Kun took one, Li one then two into Xun; returning through the Three Terraces, they faced heaven. Pacing the Dipper and treading its stars, the Daoist priest traced the seven stars of the Big Dipper beneath his feet. He performed the Yu Step passed down from ancient times, guiding the departed Spirit onward.]
Daoist Li bowed before the bier, poured a cup of wine, and began the ritual offerings as he sang:
“The first wine, the second wine, the first and second, then the third libation.”
“Du Kang brewed wine till the vat brimmed with fragrance, and Lü Dongbin, the Pure Yang Immortal, drank himself senseless.”
“The first dish, the second dish, the first and second, then the third offering.”
“At the Queen Mother of the West’s Peach Banquet, delicacies filled the table. May the departed rise swiftly to heaven.”
“The first silk, the second silk, the first and second, then the third offering of silk.”
“Paper burned in the mortal realm becomes money below; one sheet transforms into ten thousand strings of cash.”
Farewell, and may your journey be peaceful.
–
“Director, were Brother Yu’s ashes taken away?” Xie Qingling sat on the sofa, wiping Bloodsworn with a piece of black velvet.
“They were,” Ling Fang said. “They’ve been delivered to Old Yu’s ex-wife.”
“I wonder where Brother Yu will be buried. Beside Niuniu? Or in the cemetery the Department arranged for him?”
“We’ll find out when we visit his grave someday.”
“Mm. That’s true.”
Xie Qingling put away the black velvet and slid Bloodsworn back into place.
She had just started toward the door to begin her patrol when Ling Fang called from behind her, “Don’t rush off after work today.”
“Are we having a meeting?”
“A welcome party,” Ling Fang said. “The people headquarters sent have arrived.”