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The silence itches. Ling Wen does nothing but dreaming of peace and quiet whenever she has to endure the insufferable, shallow chatter that the heavens proudly call conferences and debates. The situation only becomes worse whenever she goes down to the mortal realm, where the life goal of scholars seems to be to push the limits of mediocrity. Yet here, in Bai Jin’s cabin at the outskirts of Xuli’s imperial city, where the absence of noise is real and immutable, she can’t stand it.
Bai Jin is at fault. The little grove where he built the house feels like a thick jungle that devours even the most intellectual feelings and pursuits in its all-encompassing mundanity. It’s just like the man’s mind, dense to the point that nothing can go through it. Perhaps he’s so formidable in battle because nothing sharp, literally or figuratively, can cut his dumb skull.
What a way to be lucky.
The itch is asking her to say all that out loud, directly to Bai Jin’s blank and handsome face. It’s not worth it. Her wits are wasted on this lamb dressed in a tiger’s skin. Not even her malice is recognised. Bai Jin insists that his dear “Wen-di” can only do good, is kind and gentle, with a heart like a white lotus. For him, the fact that she spends most of the time they’re alone badmouthing every mortal and immortal she knows, venting her frustration by spewing venom and being petty, is completely inconsequential and no proof of any fault in her character. If she yells at the kids he cares so much for, “surely it’s for their own good.” If she eats his food and drinks his wine without permission, it’s alright because “everything I own, Wen-di also owns.”
It’s worth pondering whether his attitude would remain the same if, instead of a mortal male scholar by the name of Wen, she presented herself to him as the bitter female scholar she actually is, with her real name and status of minor heavenly official. It probably would, and she doesn’t know if that’s relieving or infuriating.
That’s the thing: there’s no way to offend Bai Jin, to disturb him or shake him. That’s what makes him fearsome. It’s also the reason Ling Wen is still at his cabin, perched in the windowsill like an ill-mannered teenager, despite the fact that the kids she teaches are gone, and there’s nothing for her to do.
The rustling of the broom stops. After a moment, Ling Wen tears her sight away from the cloudless, orange sunset, and finds Bai Jin looking at her.
“Something on your mind?” she asks, with a measure of faux incredulity that shouldn’t make her feel as mean as it does.
“Something on yours?”
The dying sunlight makes him glow. He has a low, strong voice that resounds with the nobility of the guzheng. The mere thought makes Ling Wen feel ridiculous. She has no time to spare appreciating the attractiveness of people, and she’s never felt inclined to wax poetic about the beauty of nobles, warriors and immortals. What could she say about Bai Jin, anyway, that’s not already evident to the eyes?
“I was wondering what weapon you favour in battle,” she lies. “You don’t keep any in here, as far as I’ve seen.”
“Whatever is left in the armoury works,” he replies with a little shrug.
“And if the four noble weapons are available, which one will you choose?”
Bai Jin considers the question, making the stick of the broom shift between his hands. Ling Wen waits, dreading that the man can’t answer because he doesn’t know what the four noble weapons are.
“The ji has a long reach,” he says after a while, illustrating his point by holding the broom like a halberd. His stance is solid and powerful, enough to stop an avalanche. “It’s handy against riders.”
Ling Wen can’t help but sigh. “So is the zhanmadao.”
“The zhanmadao is effective against mounts more than riders,” he argues, changing his position to a light crouch and holding the broom at a height that looks just right to sever the legs of a horse.
Ling Wen crosses her arms. “And do you capture horses from the enemy armies?”
“Yes, when I can.” Bai Jin resumes his sweeping, methodically pushing the dirt towards the door. “They’re good and sturdy beasts, especially the ones brought from the northwest.”
“Have you kept one of them for yourself?”
“No.”
Of course not.
“Does Wen-di favour any weapon?”
Ling Wen scoffs. “I’m a scholar.”
“These are dangerous times. It’s best if you know your way around daggers and knives, for self-defence.”
Ling Wen gets off the windowsill. She won’t entertain the idea. Although she’s not a small and dainty flower, she knows better than carrying a weapon that an eventual attacker could easily seize and use against her during a scuffle. She’s seen enough such cases, both as a mortal shoe seller and a heavenly scroll carrier.
“I draw no joy from the arts of war,” she declares, poised like a queen as she strolls outside the cabin. She’s tempted to kick the pile of dirt that Bai Jin has painstakingly put together, but takes pity of him. “We’re different.”
“I don’t enjoy it either,” Bai Jin says as a matter of fact, collecting the dirt into a dustpan. “I’m just good at it, and I want to protect the country.”
The sunset paints the grove around the cabin in shades of gold and copper. The breeze isn’t cold nor warm. If it weren’t for its people, Xuli would be better than heaven.
“What do you feel in battle, then?” she asks, following him when he goes towards the back to deposit the dirt in a hole near the little field where the kids are learning how to plant medicinal herbs.
“I don’t know.” Bai Jin hangs the dustpan from a nail in the wall. “Nothing.”
Ling Wen observes him while he dusts his hands off, the ones he has used to end the lives of countless people. The same that cannot write a single character right, no matter how many times he tries. The ones that clean his cabin, mend his clothes and cook his meals, for he’s the only high rank soldier without a woman to take care of such things.
“Perhaps you feel nothing because of how ordinary it is,” Ling Wen muses. “If you didn’t fight puny mortal enemies to defend this equally puny city, but instead protected the human realm from mighty yaos and ghosts, you’d feel like a martial god.”
“And how does that feel?”
Ling Wen rolls her eyes. “How would I know?”
It kills her, the banality of it all. Bai Jin’s peerless talent deserves a noble cause, a real challenge, or at least, the pleasure of satiated bloodlust. All he gets is a corrupted little kingdom to defend while they spit in his face, human enemies vastly beneath him, and a mind so simple that he can’t even relish in the destruction of what threatens his bubble of mindless quiet.
He’s destined to ascend, but what will it take for his heavenly tribulation to finally arrive? Ling Wen squints at the pristine sky. She doesn’t have much time left to waste, and while she has already planned an alternative route, she doesn’t want to take it.
“Do you want to stay for dinner?” Bai Jin asks, a little hopeful smile in his face that makes Ling Wen feel like dying along with the hiding sun. The gold and copper light is quickly turning silver. There’s a chance Jing Wen or one of his minions is looking for her in the heavenly realm.
“Alright, but I’m not helping you cook.”
He has the audacity to laugh.
Ling Wen vowed to herself that she wouldn’t do anything for Bai Jin that a woman would do, not even if it was something that a man would also do. Even so, seeing that his arms are suddenly full of logs, she opens the door for him. She lights the candles around the cabin while he takes care of the stove, and chooses the cabbage he’s going to cook from the basket that one of the children’s aunt brought in the morning.
If Bai Jin wasn’t supposed to become a martial god, he wouldn’t be half bad as a minor god employed in Ling Wen’s palace, when she finally gets one. A deputy unable to gossip or conspire, but able to wield every weapon better than anyone else, wouldn’t that be something?
He starts chopping and slicing. She sits again on the windowsill, hugging one knee and kicking the other leg idly. Silence falls back into place, and the darkness outside is absolute. No lighting, no thunder. The storm is imminent, but there are no heavenly tribulations coming for either of them.