Chapter 227 — Kin
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 3 of 8
Song Dayi walked silently toward the Hall of Quiet Cultivation. After two steps he felt something amiss and looked back, and found Ming Li standing rooted where he was, staring at the hall, his feet not moving to follow.
"What is it?"
Ming Li's face looked very pale. Somehow, gazing at that hall with its drifting smoke and its sound of weeping, he felt a measure of dread in his heart—like a child who has done wrong and dares not face the parent he is about to grieve.
Song Dayi seemed to read something in him. He sighed and said: "Come." And with that he reached out and patted his shoulder. Ming Li stirred, glanced at Song Dayi, nodded silently, and stepped forward.
The nearer they came to the Hall of Quiet Cultivation, the stronger the smell of smoke and incense, and the clearer the sound of choked weeping—yet though among those sounds there were voices familiar to Ming Li's memory, there was no woman's weeping among them: not Su Wan's, and not that of the senior sister he had expected to find, Tian Lingsu, now married into another house.
At last, led by Song Dayi, he once again stood at the entrance of the Hall of Quiet Cultivation.
Several gazes turned in an instant and came to rest upon him. Ming Li's body was trembling faintly. One by one, his eyes moved from face to face.
Wu Dayi, Zheng Dali, He Dachuan, Lü Daxin, Du Biyan!
These familiar faces now appeared before Ming Li one after another. Many years ago they had been the dearest kin in all the world to him, the senior brothers he trusted most.
At their waists, just like Song Dayi, were bound strips of white hemp cloth worn in mourning, and sorrow was written on every face; some had wept until their eyes were red and swollen. In the Hall of Quiet Cultivation stood a great iron cauldron with a fire burning within, and the senior brothers standing beside it slowly fed paper money into the flames.
Smoke and sparks curled upward, and the haze spread through the hall.
Ming Li stared blankly. Beyond the smoke, Tian Buhui lay quietly upon a bier, his soiled garments changed for a clean set, neatly arrayed upon him, and his face seemed to have grown much more peaceful. Their master's wife, Su Wan, sat now beside the body, her hand reaching out to clasp Tian Buhui's hand, holding it tight.
Her expression was one of deep grief, yet she shed not a single tear. Tucked into the hair at her temple was a small white flower, a wild blossom still faintly beaded with dew from the morning, plain and lovely, touched with a measure of sorrow. She only held her husband's hand tightly and gazed upon Tian Buhui's face. But her daughter, Tian Lingsu, had not appeared in the Hall of Quiet Cultivation.
And the great yellow dog that Tian Buhui had raised from a pup lay now soundlessly on the ground beside the bier, its head drooping listlessly against the floor, utterly stripped of its usual frisking spirits.
Once Ming Li's gaze fell upon Tian Buhui, he could not move it away again. His steps were heavy, and slowly, one by one, he shuffled forward. Song Dayi walked over without a word, fetched a length of white hemp rope, and handed it to Ming Li. Ming Li looked at him, a trace of gratitude passing through his eyes, nodded, took the rope, and said in a low voice, "Thank you."
Song Dayi glanced toward Su Wan and said, "Go on over to our master's wife." With that, he walked silently back among his fellow disciples, knelt before Tian Buhui's remains, and knocked his head three times against the floor. When he lifted his head his eyes were rimmed with red again. Turning, he took a stack of paper money from Wu Dayi, who knelt beside him, and began slowly to drop it into the fire.
Ming Li looked at the hemp rope in his hand for a long while, then bound it about his waist. The ash-white cord wound around him, carrying with it a certain sorrow, and yet it seemed also to bind his heart once more to this place.