Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The Water-eater swims well and withstands cold; the Earth Eater has no heart yet possesses wisdom; the Wood-eater is strong and unruly; the Grass-eater runs well and is foolish; the Leaf-eater has silk and becomes a moth; the Meat-eater is brave and fierce; the Qi-eater is divine and long-lived; the Grain-eater is wise yet short-lived; the Non-eater does not die, and becomes divine.

-Huainanzi · Terrestrial Forms

“Our clan cultivates extremely quickly. To maintain balance, the Heavenly Dao placed a restriction on us: only after we come of age at the hairpin ceremony can we officially set foot on the Path of the Eater.”

Simiao bent over and rummaged through the food box, fishing out a meat-stuffed fried dough stick that had not fallen onto the floor. She ate as she spoke.

“When I entered the Central Plains to travel, I happened to encounter the Jiangnan Flood. I drank my fill and cultivated into a Water-eater.”

“Porcelain is the essence of earth, so I needed to eat a great many plates and bowls in order to become an Earth Eater.”

“I kept asking for plates and bowls without restraint and caused you trouble, Sister. I’m sorry.”

I stopped Simiao’s hand as she tried to pick up another fried dough stick from the floor. “That one’s dirty. I’ll make you fresh ones later.”

Then I sneered. “Fine. I’ll let that matter pass. But what about this little childhood friend lying on the floor? Go on. Try to argue your way out of that one too.”

Simiao turned to the painting on the floor and gave a light cough.

“This is a long story. Hongniang, why don’t you come out and explain it to Sister?”

At Simiao’s command, the painting on the floor stood upright.

Then the woman in the painting stepped out from the paper. “Hongniang obeys.”

“Once, there was a poor painter who was obsessed with The Story of the Western Wing. He spent ten years painting, and in the end, he painted Sister Yingying and me.”

“On the day the painting was completed, the painter’s life was at its end. He coughed a mouthful of blood onto the painting, and Sister Yingying and I gained a spark of spirit, becoming beings known as painting demon.”

“The paper that carried us changed hands for a hundred years before it came into the possession of Miss Si’s clansman, and later passed out of his hands again.”

“Sister Yingying and I ran into some trouble. With nowhere else to turn, we came to Miss Si for help. To make ourselves seem closer to her, we shamelessly called ourselves her childhood friends…”

Hongniang’s voice grew lower and lower, and her head drooped further and further.

“That clansman was an elder who taught the younger generation. He liked this painting, so he hung it in the room where he gave lessons,” Simiao said with a helpless smile. “If you truly want to be strict about it… then among the clansmen of my generation, anyone who ever attended that elder’s lessons could count as Hongniang and Cui Yingying’s childhood friend.”

I looked toward the blank space in the painting, then at Hongniang’s half-ruined face, and frowned. “You’re in some kind of trouble?”

Hongniang glanced at Simiao.

Simiao nodded, signaling for her to speak plainly.

Hongniang took a sheet of paper covered in ink writing from her robes and said softly, “Those monks smashed half my face apart. It hurts to the bone whenever I open my mouth, and this is another long story. Perhaps you should just read this instead.”

I reached out to take the written sheet from Hongniang’s hand, but Simiao suddenly gripped my wrist.

“Sister, think this through. Once you take this paper and get involved in these matters, you will be drifting further and further away from an ordinary mortal life.”

Slowly, I began pulling my hand free from Simiao’s grasp. “But I want to get involved.”

The rules of this world were set by mortals.

If I wanted to fight against this world, then I needed power that did not belong to mortals.

Simiao and Hongniang should never have let me see that power.

Once a woman’s greed was awakened, it was like the Yellow River bursting its banks-there was no stopping it.

When I had pulled free as far as the back of my hand, Simiao asked, “A noble daughter of a prestigious family?”

I did not pause. “Nothing more than a puppet manipulated by my father and brothers.”

When her grip slipped to the base of my fingers, Simiao asked, “The mistress of the Marquis Mansion?”

I did not pause. “Nothing more than a prisoner crushed beneath an aristocratic clan.”

When only my fingertips remained in her grasp, Simiao asked, “Fine clothes, fine food, and maids gathered around you?”

I did not pause. “Fine clothes and fine food are merely external things. As for the maids…”

“I rely on my status as a young lady and mistress of the household to stand above them, yet I myself am stood over by my father, brothers, husband, and mother-in-law. In essence, how am I any different from them? A bunch of worthless little objects circling around one slightly more valuable object-am I supposed to find that glorious?”

Just before I broke free of Simiao’s hand and touched the written sheet in Hongniang’s hand, she gave one final warning:

“Sister, once you entangle yourself with ghosts, monsters, and demons, you can hardly be counted as human anymore… There will be no turning back from this. Think carefully. Do not regret it.”

Human?

Did women even count as human?

I, Li Jin, knew far too well what consequences came from being a woman in this world.

My father and brothers treated me as a chess piece, using my marriage to pave their own road. My mother-in-law had never looked favorably upon me; even her occasional kindness was only because I occupied the position of Jiang Jiusi’s legal wife. My sisters-in-law, for the sake of the scraps left in the inner residence, wished I would suffer misfortune for three lifetimes. As for my husband, Jiang Jiusi, he was even less worth mentioning. Forget love and affection-if he could do even one thing a decent human being ought to do, I would count it as my prayers to the gods having worked…

Heaven watched coldly as I suffered humiliation in the mortal world and fled in panic, as if watching a pretty and amusing little sparrow.

How was I, Li Jin, anything like a human?

I had never once been treated like one.

Besides, when a woman was born into this world, who among us had a road back?

Eldest Sister did not. Second Sister did not. Fifth Miss Jiang did not either.

Through them, I saw with perfect clarity the future in which I myself would soon be devoured.

How could I not be afraid?

How could I not be horrified?

With my back to Simiao, my voice was firm and decisive. “I will not regret it.”

After all, what I coveted was not truly power. It was the freedom that power could bring me.

For the sake of freedom, let alone abandoning everything, even if mountains of blades and seas of fire lay before me, I, Li Jin, would gladly wade back and forth through them several times over!

My pale, slender hand closed without hesitation around the written sheet Hongniang handed me.

In the next instant, the ink characters swelled, drowning me whole.