On the Jieshuo grassland there was a lake, and blue flowers grew all along its shore. While he was recovering from his wounds, Liu Chengfeng often sat beside it.
This was the far north, at the edge of the great desert. The snow-white peak of Tiangen Mountain lay reflected in the water, glittering under the sun. The lake was like a mirror, or a vast sheet of glazed jade, holding the blue sky and white clouds, and the endless pastures of the Jieshuo people.
Long pastoral songs drifted across the grass most days. They came from Jieshuo youths singing before the tents of the girls they loved, beginning at dusk and carrying on into the night.
When the new moon rose, bright stars flickered along the horizon. The Big Dipper stood out sharply, and so did the faint ridge of Tiangen Mountain, whose summit stayed heaped with snow even in summer.
Every time, he wondered what A-Ying was doing.
She must believe he was dead. He felt he had died long ago himself, and that what lived on was only a walking corpse.
He despised himself so much that when the Jieshuo shaman told him, "After you die, your soul will become a vengeful ghost," he laughed. A ghost was fine. He wouldn't haunt anyone. He would only follow A-Ying from far away. No, he couldn't follow her. It might frighten her. What then?
A-Ying didn't really believe in gods or spirits. All her life she had said that if there were gods and buddhas in the world, why were wicked people never punished? Why was life so hard for good people? Why did her mother have to die?
She didn't believe in ghosts either. She often said her conscience was clear, so she feared no vengeful spirit.
Even if she saw his ghost, she probably wouldn't be afraid. She would only be disgusted. Never mind A-Ying; even he deeply despised himself.
A son of the Cui family would never surrender to Jieshuo, yet he had not only surrendered but meant to betray everything.
If hell existed, let him go down there after death and suffer every torment. But for now, he only wanted to live.
The last time he left the Jieshuo grassland, he said to A-Shu, "If I die one day, scatter my ashes. I'm a man with no place to be buried."
A-Shu refused. "Young master, those words are unlucky."
"What's lucky or unlucky about it?" Liu Chengfeng brushed it aside. This time, when he went back to the Central Plains, he wanted only to take A-Ying away. He would bring her back to Jieshuo and live with her beside the lake of blue flowers. But if the plan failed and he died, he thought being ground to bone and scattered as ash would not be a bad end.
In truth he was not afraid of death. When he finally held A-Ying in his arms, he thought, what was there to fear in death? Wuyan had believed he would poison A-Ying in order to save himself. How stupid. How could he ever kill A-Ying?
The poison that killed at the touch of the lips had been rolled between his fingertips and was already hidden in his sleeve. What he fed A-Ying was only the Cui family's special false-death elixir.
But the searchers outside seemed about to leave. In desperation he threw himself at Wuyan and fought him, and at last crashed through the wall panel. At the very instant he broke through, the blade in Wuyan's hand slit his throat. Blood sprayed out. As he fell into the dark, he saw Li Yi on horseback.
It was Li Yi. He wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. Li Yi was leading the search for A-Ying in person. With all the gods and buddhas watching over him and taking pity, he had actually come to this very place.
He wanted to tell Li Yi that A-Ying was alive, that she wasn't dead, to save her quickly. But no sound came from his throat, only blood, countless gouts of warm blood. In agony he wanted to tell him. In all his life there had never been a moment when he wanted so badly to tell Li Yi where A-Ying was, that she was not dead, that she had to be saved, and that for the rest of his life, he must take good care of her.
But he could not say even half a word. Li Yi saw him fall in front of his horse and recognized him almost at once, and almost at once understood that A-Ying must be upstairs.
He is worthy of the man A-Ying chose, he thought with relief in that last moment. Li Yi was surely not foolish enough to believe A-Ying was really dead. To make the drug work at once, as swiftly as Jieshuo poison, he had been forced to give her a double dose of the false-death medicine. Still, he knew Li Yi would not easily accept that she was dead, and would never lay her in a coffin and bury her.
Li Yi loved her too much, just as A-Ying loved him too much. He truly could not drive a wedge into a love so fierce.
He had once hated him deeply, and envied him. But in this moment, this last moment, he felt relieved. Thank heaven Li Yi loved her so. He would surely wait until she woke.
His fingers dug deep into the earth. In fact he had no strength to move even one finger, not even to draw half a stroke. If only he could give Li Yi one more small hint.
As he sank into the deepest darkness, his only regret was this: when spring came, the lake would surely be covered in blue flowers again. A pity that A-Ying would never know, in all her life, that Jieshuo had such a lake, and that every day he sat beside it, he thought of her.
On summer nights he sat in the grass by the lake and watched the fireflies rise and scatter in points of light. They were like countless stars, or like the river of stars in the sky turned upside down and poured into the human world. They were lovely beyond words, like a dream.
When a Jieshuo girl saw him catching fireflies, she would ask what he wanted them for. He would answer patiently that if you caught a hundred fireflies, heaven would grant a mortal one wish.
The girl would seem to understand all at once and eagerly join him. "Do you have a wish?" she would ask.
He would laugh softly. What wish could he have? Only he knew that when they were small, whenever Father wanted A-Ying to agree to something, he would catch her a firefly. She would say, "One firefly is too few. Only if there are a hundred will I agree, Father."
Over the years he had caught not just hundreds but thousands of fireflies. But each time, he never asked anything of her and never showed them to her. When the night was deep and quiet, he would let them out of the window one by one.
How beautiful they were, these little spirits carrying lanterns, flickering and slowly scattering across the night sky.
A-Shu walked a very, very long way before he finally reached the lake. His clothes were in rags and his feet were covered in blisters. He had walked thousands of li to get here. It was the end of spring, the beginning of summer, and most of the flowers along the shore had already faded. Only one or two small blue blossoms still bloomed here and there.
A-Shu untied the jar of ashes from his body, opened the lid, and slowly poured Liu Chengfeng's ashes into the water.
The wind passed over. The snow-covered peak of Tiangen Mountain lay reflected in the lake, along with the deep blue sky and white clouds. Far off, herdsmen were singing long pastoral songs in Jieshuo. He understood most of the words. The tune was mournful and moving, and he had never heard it before.
"The snow on Tiangen Mountain is like a lover's heart, ten thousand years and it will not melt. The lake beneath the snow mountain is like a lover's eyes, one look and you could be lost for a thousand years... Young shepherd, waiting for the girl he loves... only to see her, to see her once... She is like the loveliest firefly of summer, like the little fairy who carries a lantern..."
The wind grew stronger, and the small blue flowers swayed in it. A-Shu stood for a very long time. Then he raised his hand, opened his palm, and let the wind take away the last handful of ashes.