"IT'S BEEN SO LONG! How can you remember?" someone asked.
But of course he remembered. In the upper cultivation realm, in Jiang Xi's memory, it had been an ordinary six months. In the lower cultivation realm, in Xue Zhengyong's recollection, it had been a year of sorrow.
But for Mo Ran, it'd been thirty-five days of sinking despair. Every morning had felt as long as a year; every day was torment, and every night was hell.
When the new prices were announced, everyone worried for themselves. No one would spare anything for Duan Yihan and her son on the street, so they had no choice but to dig through the trash for rotting vegetables and moldy bread. As more and more people went hungry, even the rotting vegetables grew scarce. Under these circumstances, Mo Ran couldn't help asking, "Mom, why don't we go to Rufeng Sect and ask him for food?"
But Duan Yihan mumbled, "Anyone but him."
Singing on the streetside, nodding her head and bending her back, hawking her wares and smiling—all this was work she did to survive. But begging before Nangong Yan was different. No matter how dire their straits, Duan Yihan couldn't bring herself to cross that final line.
Since she wouldn't bend, Mo Ran didn't bring it up again.
The little boy was unobtrusive and extraordinarily nimble. On the ninth day after the prices were raised, he managed to steal a white radish out from the dirt. Duan Yihan hid it very carefully. Every day, they'd boil a piece the length of a fist and share it. By the eighth meal of radish, the remainder was rotting, but there was still no food to be had. Duan Yihan cut it in half once more, in hopes of stretching it just a few days longer.
On the twenty-first day, they finished the last of the radish. Nothing edible was left.
On the twenty-fifth day, there was a great storm. Worms crawled out of the mud, and Mo Ran caught them and boiled them in a little rainwater to eat. Their sliminess was disgusting. Mo Ran apologized over and over to the tiny creatures, explaining that there was really nothing else. If he survived this, he promised, he'd honor the worms as his saviors. He prayed to the heavens, begging not to have to eat his saviors anymore… Begging for this nightmare to pass…
On the twenty-eighth day, Mo Ran fell sick with a fever. No child, no matter how quick or clever, or how strong their spiritual energy, could endure such privation.
Duan Yihan had no more strength left, her eyes two hollow pits. That day, as Mo Ran slept, she made up her mind. She rose and left the woodshed that was their home, turning her steps toward Rufeng Sect's lofty towers. She had her line in the sand; she'd rather die than beg Nangong Yan for food. But her child had done nothing wrong. He was so little—how could she bear to let him die with her?
Compassion shone on the faces of the listening crowd. Regardless of whether Mo Ran had sinned or not, these events of the past were all too tragic. Someone carefully asked, their voice a sigh, "Did she manage to get any food?"
"No," said Mo Ran. "Unfortunately, Nangong Yan was in the middle of a fight with his wife when she got there." He paused. "The madam had a fit the instant she saw my mother. Never mind showing her charity—she ordered her beaten and chased out of Rufeng Sect."
"What about Nangong Yan?"
"I don't know," said Mo Ran. "My mom never said."
He might've tried to stop them, or he might've stood there, helpless. Mo Ran would never know what happened that day, except that his mom returned covered in injuries. She lay curled up in the woodshed, holding him in silence—later, she began coughing, spitting out bloody foam and filling the room with the sour stench of copper and bile.
By the thirty-fourth day, Duan Yihan was close to death. She could barely speak, and she'd stopped crying. On that day, she woke from her stupor, having regained some measure of strength, and saw Mo Ran curled into her side, trying to use his body, all skin and bones, to keep her warm. Ever so softly, she whispered: "Little Ran-er, if you can, go back to Xiangtan."
"Mom…"
"Go to Xiangtan and find Xun-jiejie. Repay her." Duan Yihan patted Mo Ran's hair. "Go back to Xiangtan and repay her, don't stay in Linyi for revenge… Listen to Mom, be good. I owe your Xun-jiejie a lot of money… I can't pay it back… Go to her and stay with her, help her with her work and be sure to make her smile. When someone does you a kindness, you must remember it."
Holding back his tears, Mo Ran looked up into her emaciated face. Duan Yihan's eyes were so dark they seemed to gleam faintly purple. "And pay them back."
Such was the path Duan Yihan laid out for Mo Ran before she died. She feared her child would take a dark road after her death, so she gave him a thousand reminders to do otherwise. She exhorted him over and over again to leave this place of tragedy.
Someone with a firm purpose in mind wouldn't overthink; they wouldn't fall into the prison of hatred so easily. So she gave him that purpose: Go and repay her kindness. Do not seek revenge.
On the thirty-fifth day, that absurd price order was finally abolished in the wake of revolt. It had only lasted a month and five days. To the wealthy, it was as if a farce had ended. Smoke was rising from the ruins of Linyi, but they in their silken canopies only stretched lazily as day broke over the city, taking the fragrant dew offered by their handmaidens and rinsing their mouths. At news of the price order being abolished, they groused a bit, then yawned. None of it mattered overmuch.
But to Mo Ran, this was the best news of his life.
Now that they didn't have to worry about filling their own stomachs, kind people reappeared on the streets. Mo Ran was given a pancake and a battered bowl of pathetically thin gruel flavored with shreds of meat. He couldn't bear to take even a sip of it for himself. Cradling it with utmost care, he rushed back home to his sick mother.
Meat porridge is amazing—surely Mom will get better as soon as she has some?
He rushed to save his mom's life with that porridge, but he couldn't run. The bowl had a crack in its side; wouldn't it be a shame if any spilled as he ran? He burst into the woodshed with mingled delight and impatience. "Mom!"
Holding the broken bowl in his hands, he nudged open the shoddy door with his head like a particularly grubby dog. A smile spread over his face, his features creased with anticipation for the future. It was such a good day. They had meat porridge, his mom would get better; spring was finally here, and they'd go back to Xiangtan together. It would be peaceful there—they wouldn't go hungry, and there was someone named Xun-jiejie; they'd finally stop wandering and begging for food. What a wonderful thing it would be, to go home together.
The door creaked open.
"She was lying there," said Mo Ran, voice steady. Some of the onlookers were shocked at his calmness, others disturbed by his callousness. This man was serene even while describing his own mother's death. There was no warmth, emotion, nor even a glint of tears. No one gave any thought to how many years of haunted nightmares and agonized sorrow it took to smooth those scars into a peaceful mask.
"I called for her, but she didn't wake. She never would. She never had any of the porridge."
Silence settled over the hall.
"Then…afterward." It was Madam Wang, her voice quavering. "You returned to Xiangtan alone?"
Mo Ran shook his head. "I went to Rufeng Sect."
Someone exclaimed. "D-did you go to get revenge?"
"My mom told me to repay kindness, not to take revenge." Mo Ran was still unnervingly calm. "I didn't go for revenge. I just wanted to bury my mom properly. But I had no money, nor any time to raise it. I went to his manor to beg for some coin for a coffin."
"Did he give you any?"
Mo Ran almost smiled. "No."
"N-no? But you said Nangong Yan still felt something for your mom. Couldn't he at least spare something for the funeral…?"
"When I arrived, his wife had died by her own hand not long ago."
"What?!"
Jiang Xi narrowed his eyes. "Nangong Yan's wife did die young, and it was a suicide…"
"When that woman was pregnant, her husband was out getting bastards on other women. After she had their son, she and her husband fought constantly. Her life was a deeply unhappy one. When she caught my mom begging for food at the manor, she was furious—I heard she stabbed Nangong Yan with a knife, and he threatened to divorce her." Mo Ran paused. "She couldn't bear it. In the dead of night, she hung herself. Actually, she died just a few days before my mother did."
No one knew what to say. A dissolute young master's careless dalliance had left one woman in ruins and his own family destroyed. Perhaps it was karmic retribution.
"I showed up just as the sect leader was berating Nangong Yan. His wife's family was there too—all powerful merchants in Linyi. They'd already given Nangong Yan the sharp end of their tongue up and down, and all he felt was resentment. Of course he wasn't happy to see me."
Madam Wang had the softest heart of any in the room. Though she knew Mo Ran wasn't kin, she still wept and murmured, "Ran-er…"
These were not memories he wished to relive. The sight of Nangong Yan's face, the faces of all those there to pay their respects in Madam Nangong's memorial hall. That woman had everything—gilt paper, silver flowers, paper dolls and piles of spiritual tools, brocade soul flags and a gleaming casket of goldwood. Hundreds wept, kneeling in vigil for a woman who'd taken her own life. The everbright lamps were filled with scented whale oil, and those ninety-nine coils of incense burned in silence, scattering fragrant ash at the soft touch of the breeze. It was a busy scene of mourning.
But what of his own mother? Duan Yihan, the music goddess of Xiangtan, only had rags unfit to wear and a son who was skin and bones. She lacked even a straw mat to wrap her body in.
"Beggars can't be choosers"—these were the words Nangong Yan hurled at Mo Ran in his fury and his despair. Before the watching eyes of his sect leader and in-laws, he shoved his bastard son out the door and out of his life.
Of course Madam Nangong's funeral had a lacquered coffin, agates and fragrance pearls; there was frostcloth to preserve her body, silk to hide her face, and brocade to cover her eyes as she embarked on her final journey. Duan Yihan's death was marked by just one corpse and one mourner. It was an eternal farewell and nothing more. According to Nangong Yan, she didn't even deserve a casket of cheap board.
Who dared to say all were equal in the face of death? They were unequal from the very beginning. In the end, one was borne up like pristine jade, while the other sank into putrid mud.
"I dragged her to the burial mounds and buried her there." Mo Ran kept this part of the story brief, his voice carefully level. He didn't mention how he'd begged passersby to help him, or how he'd spent two weeks carrying that rotting corpse to the city outskirts. Nor did he describe how he dug through gravel and stone with his bare hands to cover his mother's wasted form.
Mo Ran wasn't used to giving voice to his suffering. He'd always been someone who buried his past deep inside; he never brought it up of his own will. In the first decade and more of his life, he'd experienced all there was of humiliation, malice, scorn, and slander. His heart was hard as iron; he cared nothing for what others thought of him, and wanted their compassion not at all.
"And then I went to Xiangtan."
After burying his mother, he couldn't bear to remain in Linyi. He hid in a basket stowed in the back of a Daoist's cart and snuck out of the city, planning to do as his mother bade him and go to Xiangtan.
It took him six months, from high summer to the beginning of winter. When his shoes fell apart, he went barefoot. Thick calluses covered the soles of his feet. He walked on and on, asking and asking for directions. Just outside Wubei Temple, hunger and cold finally defeated him. He collapsed into a heap of dried grass.
"Mom…" The little boy lay curled on the ground, eyes dull beneath scraggly hair. He looked up at the sky. It was snowing; the first snow of winter. "I'm coming to see you… I'm sorry… I can't do it anymore…"
Snowflakes fell, whisper-light, covering his eyes.
There came the sound of rustling footsteps, followed by a pair of hands reaching into the grass. He heard a boy's voice ring out. "Shizun, come take a look—what's wrong with him?"
After a moment, the rustle of straw sandals drew closer. A man said, "Don't worry, let me take a look at him. You go back first." This deeper voice was calm and indifferent.
Instinct made Mo Ran afraid. He liked the youth better; the man seemed cold as ice. He shouldn't have had the strength to do it, but his desire to live drove him to lift his hand and grab weakly at the young man's hem. Tears streamed down his little face before he could form the word: "Food…"
I'm so hungry. Please, I want some food.
The youth was precisely the young Chu Wanning, who'd come down from the mountain with Huaizui. Chu Wanning froze. "What?"
Mo Ran struggled to lift his filthy face, hands shaking as he mimed eating. Bitterness stung his throat, and darkness blotted his sight. His ears were ringing. Weeping, he begged the youth in front of him for mercy. If this xiao-gege abandoned him like so many lords and young masters had before, he'd die. He would die for sure. He finally fell apart. "Hungry…"
Chu Wanning fed him a flask of congee, and that congee saved a starving boy.
Mo Ran left Wubei Temple, nearly delirious. All he remembered of his savior-gege was that he had sharp phoenix eyes, swept up at the ends, and that his lashes were very long and thick. Nothing else. But every day on the trek from Wubei Temple to Xiangtan, he wore the cloak his savior-gege had given him.
He had been very small back then; a young man's cloak on his tiny body was conspicuously oversized. When he pulled up the hood, it more or less covered his whole face. Along the road, well-fed children snuggled against their parents would see him and laugh. "Mom, Dad, look at that little beggar boy! What the heck is he wearing? Ha ha ha!"
But Mo Ran wasn't angry. What was a stranger's mockery to him? He was merely thankful this ill-fitting cloak could shield him from the wind and rain, that it could give him some small share of warmth. Snowflakes wouldn't land on him when it snowed, and in the dark, the shadows wouldn't touch his heart.
Every day at nightfall he lit a fire and sat beside it, his arms tight around his knees. He put up his hood, tucking his entire body within the cloak and staring into the orange flames from beneath its fur trim.
The cloak was warm like his mom's embrace, or his savior-gege's gentle phoenix eyes. The little boy fell asleep like this, and in his dreams, he breathed in the light fragrance that lingered on the cloak and felt as if he was leaning against the trunk of a haitang tree in full bloom.
In hindsight, of course he found Chu Wanning's scent delicious. Of course he'd always sleep peacefully if he smelled it on his pillows. Of course he'd found those lowered phoenix eyes gentle when he first saw the Yuheng Elder beneath the Heaven-Piercing Tower. No wonder he felt as if he'd seen them before.
Perhaps everything was predestined. He and Chu Wanning had spoken long ago. Had touched, long ago—he'd even licked Chu Wanning's palm. It turned out he'd smelled the floral scent of Chu Wanning's clothes long ago. It turned out that savior-gege he'd always sought was right by his side, never leaving in life or in death.
Mo Ran looked down at the floor. In that freezing Loyalty Hall, he felt a small curl of warmth. But that was a secret between the two of them. Mo Ran allowed himself to dwell on it for a moment, lingering on its bittersweet ache. Then he hid that secret in his heart; he wouldn't tell another soul, let alone this staring crowd.
He took a breath. "Once I arrived in Xiangtan, I fulfilled my mom's dying wish and sought out Xun Fengruo."
Five-year-old Ran-er had stood there, wrapped in the thick cloak that once belonged to Chu Wanning. Its filthy hem dragged on the ground. The little boy's dark hair looked like a bird's nest poking out from beneath the fur trim, his thin and sallow face upturned. "May I ask…" he said quietly. "Is Xun Fengruo-jiejie here?"
"Xun Fengruo?" The girl he'd asked burst out laughing. "Our star? We ply our talents here, not our bodies, but which of Miss Xun's admirers are here for her singing and not her face? Xiao-didi, how old are you? How do you know her name?"
Mo Ran blinked, expression earnest. He hadn't understood a word of her chatter, but it was obvious she was making fun of him. Embarrassed, Mo Ran clutched the edges of his cloak and flushed. "Please, I want to find Xun-jiejie. M-my mom told me to…"
"Huh? Who's your mom?"
"Her surname's Duan, Duan Yihan…"
"Ah!" The girl paled, taking a step back and covering her mouth with a handkerchief. Those languid peach-blossom eyes had rounded in shock. "Y-you're the goddess's son?"
Even at the height of Duan Yihan's fame, she'd never put on airs and always shared extra coin and jewelry with aging sisters whose looks and voices had faded. The second the girl heard this little boy was Miss Duan's son, her attitude changed completely. She hustled him into the inner room to see Xun Fengruo.
The instant the door closed behind his guide, Mo Ran knelt before Xun Fengruo and told her everything. Xun Fengruo's tears soaked her silks. She summoned the madam at once and said she'd keep Mo Ran by her side. The madam was loath to do it, but she couldn't refuse her star performer's repeated entreaties. After looking Mo Ran up and down and deciding he was strong enough to work, she agreed with great reluctance. But a beggar moving in was thought to be bad luck—he was required to burn all his clothes and scrub every inch of his skin.
The bath was no problem, but Mo Ran burst into tears when she said they'd burn his clothes.
"What are you crying for? It's not like we won't buy you new ones!" The madam smacked him in the head with her pipe. "Smarten up! I'm giving you room and board—anyone else would be celebrating, but look at you whining instead!"
Mo Ran didn't want to make any trouble for Xun-jiejie. She'd already done all she could. He bit his lip and willed himself to silence, rubbing his scarlet eyes and standing beside the fire as his shoulders shook with soundless sobs.
Back then, he didn't understand why things had to be this way. He'd only wanted to keep his cloak, but because he was weak, because he was lowly, because he was a filthy beggar, because he didn't want to bring bad luck or cause trouble, he had to let them yank it off his shoulders. Why couldn't he fight back, why couldn't he say no, why did he not even have the right to cry? The cloak had been his source of warmth and safety; it'd been his shelter in so many storms. It was so dirty no one could tell what its original color had been. Now that he had somewhere to stay, he might not need it anymore. But even if he couldn't wear it again, he wanted to wash it clean and fold it neatly. He would be satisfied with simply storing it at the bottom of a chest. It was his friend, not some old rag.
But he wasn't given a choice.
That filthy cloak met the flames with a crackle. The servant doing the burning didn't care; he only thought the cloak dirty. But to Mo Ran, it was a cremation, a burial. He watched unblinking as the flames licked into the air and blurred the edges of the world with their heat.
Slow down…there's more…
Where did you come from…?
That young man's gentle voice seemed to echo in his ears, one of the pitifully few times someone ever showed him kindness in his lowly life. Now, it was ash.
Mo Ran took the madam of the House of Drunken Jade for his adopted mother and received her surname: Mo. From then on he worked in that house and finally enjoyed some peaceful days.
But the peace didn't last. Xun Fengruo was no longer young, and although the entertainment house wasn't billed as a brothel, women above a certain age were still required to earn enough to pay a dignity fee. If they came up short, their first night might be auctioned off by the madam.
Xun Fengruo wasn't worried; she'd already earned lavish sums for the House of Drunken Jade. "Only a hundred fifty thousand gold left," she said to Mo Ran with a smile. "Little Ran-er, once your jiejie earns enough, I'll be able to buy my freedom. Jiejie will take you somewhere nice."
Mo Ran had been sent to work in the kitchen and saw her very rarely. The madam was intent on keeping her workers from commiserating, so Xun Fengruo and Mo Ran always met covertly.
She reached out and pinched his cheek, then handed him a sweet. "Shh, take this. Too bad I can't give you any money. Mother's too sharp with that, heh."
Mo Ran gave her a gap-toothed grin. "Mn, thank you, Xun-jiejie."
But the madam knew just as well as Xun Fengruo did that her star was a mere hundred fifty thousand gold away from freedom. Though she looked unconcerned, deep down, she was terrified. If they lost Xun Fengruo, the House of Drunken Jade's profits would plummet. She was determined to get one last payout before Xun Fengruo left her.
There was no shortage of wealthy clients who wanted Xun Fengruo; any of their bids would be enough to keep the madam in luxury for the rest of her life. Thus the woman hatched a plan—she made an agreement with one of the richest merchants in the city. During the Lantern Festival, when Xun Fengruo was playing music in the hall, the madam served her a cup of drugged tea and brought her to her room.
That night, Mo Ran had carefully prepared a bowl of tangyuan, which he carried to the inner room for Xun-jiejie. The sound of coarse panting stopped him at the threshold. Stunned, Mo Ran pushed open the door and was hit in the face with the smell of resin incense, so thick it turned his stomach. In the darkness, he saw a greasy merchant with spit dangling from his mouth and his lapels hanging open, gasping atop a weakly struggling Xun Fengruo.
The bowl of tangyuan crashed to the ground as Mo Ran darted inside. With preternatural strength—he'd always been powerful—he knocked the merchant off her. Keeping the man pinned, he yelled at the stunned and sobbing Xun Fengruo, "Jiejie, run!"
"But—"
"Run! I can't go, I have to keep him down! If you stay, we're both doomed when the madam comes! Run! Run! Don't worry, I'll be right behind you!"
Xun Fengruo was his savior. Mo Ran wanted her to flee Xiangtan and never come back. That day, he finally got to play the hero.
Xun Fengruo made him a final tearful bow and ran, but Mo Ran was not so lucky. The madam came upstairs as soon as she heard the clamor, whereupon she found that Mo Ran had not only beat up an important client but also let their star performer escape. She nearly spat blood in anger, her features twisting in a mask of rage.
The madam had a son about Mo Ran's own age, a boy who was malicious by nature. Seeing his mother furious, he came up with an idea both naïve and cruel, in the way only children could be. Because Mo Ran had angered his mother, the boy punished a fellow child like an animal—he found a dog kennel and ordered someone to lock Mo Ran inside.
The kennel was narrow and cramped; Mo Ran could only crouch, unable to either lie down or stand up. They fed him table scraps like a dog and left him like that for seven days.
For seven days, Mo Ran was trapped in Xun Fengruo's old room. The haze of the incense and the stink of the man's sweat mingled in his nose, inescapable. He crouched, stooped over, breathing in that syrupy miasma. Wanting to puke, for seven whole days. After this incident, he developed an aversion to the scent of incense—a fear etched into his very bones.