Chapter 8: Green Beads

4TH NOV 2021~ VERALUCTL

Mo Yannan stood rooted to the ground. An Jie silently cursed the old bookworm who couldn’t even eat shit while it was hot1; but still, running over, something in him made him pull him along. Large pieces of rock and colorful snakes fell from the collapsing palace, pushing the four apart. An Jie didn’t dare stop and dragged Mo Yannan, who seemed to have forgotten how to move, towards the door of the palace. 

A giant stone pillar crumbled with a roar and smashed into the floor. Mo Yannan tripped over something and brought An Jie down with him as he stumbled. He looked down: the thing that tripped him was Lao Ma’s corpse! In an instant, goosebumps covered his skin; wasn’t the corpse behind them? When did it get here? 

A boulder fell from the top of the palace, aiming straight at Mo Yannan’s head. He wanted to dodge but it was as if his legs were tied together. It was finally his time, he thought, and adamantly closed his eyes- but at the supposed moment of pain, he was pushed aside.

The old professor widened his mostly useless eyes: he was being protected by An Jie, hugged in between his arms, the man’s shoulders ripped apart by the boulder. Dust and blood swum together and it was impossible to tell the difference between the good flesh and the wounds on those exposed shoulders.

It was only when the shaking beneath their feet stopped temporarily that An Jie collapsed on top of him, his handsome face pale and dripping with cold sweat. He clenched his teeth tightly but small grunts of pain still came out of his mouth.

“An- An Jie!” Mo Yannan scrambled to hold him up and with courage that came out of nowhere, kicked the bizarre and obstructive corpse to the side. He helped An Jie to sit down next to a fallen pillar. “Where are you hurt? Are you alright?”

An Jie clenched his teeth and shook his head in silence. He knew that if he opened his mouth, he would burst out swearing. He didn’t know what was wrong with his head today, but when he saw the boulder fall down, the first thing that flashed through his mind was the old bookworm looking after him during the journey; the way he handed over the bottle of water that he himself couldn’t afford to drink out of, the way he emphasized that the desert was a dangerous place, and that he would surely bring him out, the way he so seriously asked him to leave him behind… Almost unconsciously, he jumped to the old man’s rescue. It must have been the worst trade in history.

An Jie took a few ragged breaths. “Lao Mo, do you still remember what was written on the wall?”

Mo Yannan blinked and nodded.

An Jie ripped off a strip of cloth with his teeth, roughly dipped it in salt water and treated his wound. After that, he let out a long sigh. “You saw that ‘generation’s beauty in dreams falls low from a crumbling tower’? The moment we got out, this place collapsed. Don’t you think it’s trying to tell us something?”

Mo Yannan frowned. Now that they were on this topic, he seemed to have recovered his composure. “It was written in the ‘Taiping Guangji2’ that under Bobai Mountain sat the Luzhu well. There was a girl of exceptional beauty from there in the Liang sect of Anding3 whose brows were green in freshness, long when relaxed, and round as a bead when furrowed4, hence giving her the name ‘Luzhu’. She was bought by the Jin country’s Shi Cong, and according to the book of Jin, when the Lord Zhao, Sima Lun, rebelled against the dynasty, his aide Sun Xiu was rejected after asking Shi Cong for Lu Zhu. Sun Xiu was angered and sent orders to capture Shi Cong, and in order to pay for Shi Cong’s life, Lu Zhu leaped down from a tall tower. That’s why the last line of Qiao Zhizhi’s ‘Green Beads’ is ‘A hundred years of partings and hatred up high, a generation’s beauty ended for thee’.”

“I’ve heard of this line.” Since he was in front of an old professor, An Jie didn’t mind revealing his lack of knowledge. He thought a little and said, “‘A generation’s beauty in dreams falls low from a crumbling tower, a hundred years of hate will leave no trace in time’. Are they all hinting at that final line?”

“I’m quite surprised.” Mo Yannan hugged his knees and sat by his side, his speech slow, as if every word had to be considered carefully. “Even though Shi Cong was known to be extremely wealthy and he had such a story with Lu Zhu, neither of them could have been thought of as important figures in history, Lu Zhu the least of all. So why were those two minor characters the main focus of that… ah… monster’s song? And that poem as well.”

“I can understand the moon of Qinghuai and the snow of Balin; they’re probably talking about the strange architectural style here; but what followed it was more like a love poem. Apart from hinting at Lu Zhu’s story, I can’t see anything special about it.”

“Maybe the answer lies in the ‘green bead’,” An Jie suddenly said, and as if recalling something, furrowed his brow and showed his wrist to Mo Yannan. For some time, the white half of the jade taiji with the inlaid black pearl was glowing faintly, the light reflecting clearly through the different-sized green beads around it. “Lao Mo, just where did you get this thing?”

The beads were now biting into An Jie’s flesh, and even Mo Yannan could tell that it was an extremely tight fit, like the beads were trying to bury themselves down to An Jie’s bones. He was stunned. “This… how did this happen? It really wasn’t meant to be anything strange- did you go to the little town next to the desert? It was a tourist area of sorts with a few small markets selling some handmade souvenirs. I… I bought the bracelet from there- it was only about a hundred yuan; the material was quite nice so I bought it…”

“Did you buy anything else?”

“No, we were on a tight schedule and I only had about half a day to tour the town. When I saw the bracelet, for some reason, I felt that it was incredibly pretty and that I had to buy it. Plus, the price was reasonable…”

“You bought one for two daughters?”

“No.” Mo Yannan reached out to touch the white jade piece between the beads and frowned. “I thought that it would come in a pair. Taiji is split into yin and yang, the two of which cannot be separated. I thought that the items they sold in tourist areas were all basically the same, so if I couldn’t find it in this stall, then it should be in the next that I find something to pair it up with. Who would have known that I would never manage to find its other half.”

An Jie held his chin in silence.

Mo Yannan thought for a moment. “You; what you’re trying to say is that this bracelet is related to this city? Isn’t that too much of a coincidence?”

“It is too much of a coincidence,” An Jie narrowed his eyes and replied without answering. “Green beads, green beads…”

Mo Yannan looked around and saw that they were surrounded by fallen boulders and pillars. He let out a tired breath and stretched out his legs, only to touch Lao Ma’s corpse. Now, he seemed to finally feel fear; he shivered and scooted to the sides, trying to gain some distance from the corpse.

“Professor Mo, I’m not from this area of expertise and there’s a lot I don’t understand. Can I ask you a question?”

“Mhm?”

“What era do you think this city belongs to? Who built it?”

This question stumped Mo Yannan. His professional ethics told him to say what he knew and not discuss what he didn’t. He hesitated for a while, then took off his glasses and wiped them carefully. “To be honest, I’m not sure.”

He pointed at the half-collapsed hall which had trapped the two. “There are many things here that have the architectural features of the Ming and Qing dynasty, but the streets were designed based on the Zhou Dynasty’s capital. As Zhixiao said before, some things in the outer palace are obviously from the Yin and Shang Dynasty but…” He shook his head and swallowed. “And the pavilions and terraces have the features of the Suzhou gardens. It is truly the moon of Qinghuai shining on the snow of Balin. It’s weird no matter what way you think about it.”

“Time, and space,” An Jie summarized. 

“Both the time and the space are incorrect,” Mo Yannan said. “If not for this being the great desert, I would have thought that this was built by modern day humans with reference to ancient architecture styles.”

Saying that, the old professor rubbed his brow and sighed. “Maybe it’s aliens, or as you said, something from a parallel universe… It’s not that I don’t believe in science, but that there are many things that even science can’t explain. If I didn’t see it for myself, I… I would never have believed that there could be a snake with a human’s head that could recite poems, or packs of spider-like monsters in the desert.”

An Jie was silent.

Mo Yannan stopped talking as well, silently sorting through his thoughts. He knew that he didn’t have the physique and that he could do nothing but be a burden. His only advantage was that he was somewhat well-read and knowledgeable, and that he could still talk about things he had read without needing any documentation; it could prove to be useful in this chaotic place.

An ear-splitting scream disrupted the rare moment of tranquility. Mo Yannan’s pupils contracted sharply as he grabbed onto An Jie’s arm. “It’s- it’s Zhixiao! Li Zhixiao!”

An Jie carefully identified the source of the sound and stood up with his back bent, pushing against a giant stone slab above their heads. “Lao Mo, give me a hand!”

Mo Yannan rubbed his hands and used every ounce of strength in his body to help An Jie push against the slab. His palms were cut open and pain flared up like a flame. After a long while, the slab loosened slightly and An Jie said in a low voice, “Get out of the way!”

Just as Mo Yannan moved away, the stone slab was pushed out with a rumble. Loose stone fell down around them as large amounts of air rushed in. Mo Yannan noticed that there was a faint scent of blood in the air.

An Jie pushed himself up, slung the light machine gun over his back, and reached out with his unwounded arm. “Hurry up, I’ll pull you out.”

Mo Yannan was a fool at all things sports related. If not for his scrawny body, An Jie would have thought that he was a bear trying to climb a tree and muttered silently that even a bug would climb a wall with more agility. It took all of his strength to overcome gravity and pull the old bookworm up.

Mo Yannan saw that he was sweating from the pain in the wound and from exerting himself and wanted to apologize in embarrassment.

An Jie didn’t give him the chance to. He tossed the handgun slung on his chest to him and waved him over. “Follow me.”

Mo Yannan held the Desert Eagle carefully like a hot potato in case it would go off accidentally and stumbled after An Jie.

The two searched for Li San’er through the rubbles. Mo Yannan’s heart was filled with anxiety but he was afraid of attracting other things by shouting and could only follow An Jie in his careful and thorough search. After a while, An Jie knelt down by a corner, his expression serious.

“Lao Mo…”

Mo Yannan felt that An Jie’s voice was a little dark and looked over his shoulder. That one look almost rendered him to tears.

Li San’er leaned against a pile of gravel, blood soaking through his entire body. His neck was sliced open by sharp stones, exactly where the artery was.

An Jie silently shook his head

Throughout the entire journey, this noisy young man was livelier than everyone, more energetic than everyone, and more kind hearted than everyone… He was someone who could make jokes in the face of monsters, and yet it was such a person that was now collapsed in this eerie place like a torn rag, the lower half of his body crushed under a boulder.

“Zhixiao… Zhixiao! Zhixiao!” Mo Yannan lunged across, his voice cracking as he shook him violently. “Zhixiao! You can’t! You can’t!”

But there was nothing in this world that couldn’t happen. Life, death, sickness, death; such was fate.

Li San’er seemed to be fighting with the last of his strength, opening his eyes as wide as he could, like he was trying to take a good look at this tearful old professor. He could no longer speak but still tried to open his lips. Mo Yannan stopped him. “You, what do you want to say?”

With strength from nowhere, Li San’er grabbed onto Mo Yannan’s clothes.

An Jie saw him say, “Be careful… be careful.. of.. careful…”

Then his neck rolled off to one side and he was completely still. He never managed to say what to be careful of and even in death, he was still not at peace.

Author’s Notes: Pat pat to the ones that got scared; we’re not your stereotypical reincarnation story, so our deaths needs to be special as well ^^

1He’s calling Mo Yannan slow.

2The ‘Taiping Guangji’, sometimes translated as ‘The Extensive Records of the Taiping Era’, was a collection of stories compiled in the early Song dynasty under 2imperial direction by Li Fang.

3The Liang sect of Anding was a family that controlled the areas near modern day Ningxia during the Song Dynasty.

4A general olden description for prettiness.

Vera’s Notes:

I am late, I am late, I am very late. This past fortnight has melted my concept of time, and it might only get worse from there, but I can at least try to manage something…