Elio’s Notes: The chapter title, 风切夜窗声, is the closing line of Li Yu’s Santai Ling: Weary Through the Long Watch, Unable to Sleep (《三台令·不寐倦长更》): “The moon is cold, the autumn bamboo chilled; the wind cuts against the night window.” The poem’s sleepless, desolate night imagery resonates closely with Jiang Zheng’s memories in this chapter.
And afterward?
Now he lived under that child’s name. The present Zhao Guangyi still lay motionless on the couch, pretending to be asleep. The man behind him breathed steadily, yet he knew that at the slightest sign of anything amiss, that sword could immediately take a man’s life.
Was someone like this truly worth your refusing, even until death, to relinquish that hope?
In his memory of that year, at the very end, when he finally caught the sweet metallic scent in the air, the child had already collapsed weakly to the ground. When Jiang Zheng rose and went over to pull him up, all that filled his eyes was the boy’s warm smile. Just as when he quietly swept the courtyard on ordinary days, Zhao Guangyi’s smile remained clean and pure.
Rain poured down in torrents, and lightning tore open the sky.
The two children, both still so young, clung tightly to each other. Jiang Zheng gripped him. “You really are an idiot! Why didn’t you say anything when you were hurt?”
Neither of their bodies held any warmth in the rain, yet Jiang Zheng struggled to prop him up, and looking at his smiling face, he inexplicably felt warm. It was like March in the southern kingdom, when apricot blossoms covered the hills and fields. One glance was enough to make a person feel content.
In a daze, he remembered the tree where he had hidden during the flood. His mother had lifted him into it and told him to cling tightly to the thick branch. “No matter what happens, Zheng’er, remember to hold tightly to this tree. Don’t worry about anyone else. You must remember. Live.”
So he truly had not worried about anyone else. Nor could he have saved them. He had watched helplessly as the water swept them away, yet he had not cried. At that moment, it had been nowhere near as unbearably tragic as he had imagined. Jiang Zheng had simply understood all at once that if a person wanted to live, there had to be a price.
The enormous golden statue of the Tathagata in the Buddha hall gazed down with eyes full of compassion, yet it could not save everyone. Jiang Zheng glared fiercely at it, then turned and saw the blood of the person beside him. His hand stretched out trembling. Nothing could be seen in the pitch-black night, while the wild shadows of the trees thrashed beneath the rain with an eerie, howling sound.
“Where are you hurt? Say something. Zhao Guangyi, say something!”
The child’s lips moved, but all he managed was a shiver. It was so bitterly cold that he could no longer even see the candlelight inside the Buddha hall. Was the glow of the ever-burning lamp still there? Had the young monk on night duty slacked off again tonight?
For us to live, there must always be a price. The Buddha forgives all beings, but he cannot shelter the human heart.
Then Zhao Guangyi, what is your price?
In the rainy night, Jiang Zheng finally dragged him back. Every child fell silent. Blood gushed from Zhao Guangyi’s abdomen and ran onto the floor, a horrifying sight.
Only later, when the master cut open his clothing to treat the wound, did they discover that a long wooden splinter had pierced Zhao Guangyi’s abdomen. The exposed portion had probably broken off under external force, making the injury difficult to notice, but the splinter had penetrated about one cun into Zhao Guangyi’s body.
Elio’s Notes: A cun (寸) is a traditional Chinese unit of length whose exact measurement varied by period. Here, the point is that the splinter had penetrated several centimeters into his body.
Jiang Zheng stared at the cold sweat covering his forehead.
He suddenly remembered the scene that afternoon. When he had turned around to look for him, Zhao Guangyi had been sprawled over the high threshold. He had probably been shoved and fallen against it, scraping the skin of his forehead until tiny beads of blood appeared. The wooden splinter must have come from the threshold, weathered and unrepaired for years. Amid all the pushing, shoving, and falling, Zhao Guangyi had been knocked down without anyone realizing how hard they had pushed him, and the splinter had stabbed into him. When he rose, part of the exposed wood had snapped off.
Jiang Zheng suddenly remembered that at first, Zhao Guangyi’s eyes had been full of tears.
But Jiang Zheng had asked him, “Didn’t your Big Brother ever tell you that a real man shouldn’t cry so easily?” And the child had bitten his lip and truly forced every trace of tears back. Hiding the agony of a splinter buried so deeply in his body, he had instead asked anxiously, with his very first words, “Does… does it hurt?”
He should have noticed. Zhao Guangyi’s hand had still been pressed over his abdomen then.
The child’s pale lips held no trace of blood, and after being soaked by the rain all night, he developed a high fever.
The masters said nothing, but they all understood. The child’s body had never been as sturdy as Jiang Zheng’s and the others’. Although his life was not in immediate danger, this injury would probably leave behind a chronic weakness.
So Master Jinghui remained beside him for an entire day, caring for him and quietly reciting prayers in a low voice. Compassion was the heart of monastic life, and besides, this was a child he himself had brought here.
Jiang Zheng curled up outside the door, hugging his knees as he sat beneath the shadow of the eaves. He remained there for the entire day.
The rain passed and the sky cleared. The sunlight was painfully bright.
A Buddhist verse on cause and effect says: Wealth and honor are governed by fate, their causes cultivated in former lives. Those who uphold such causes enjoy deep fortune through generation after generation. If you wish to know the causes of a former life, look at what you receive in this one; if you wish to know the fruits of the next life, look at what you do in this one.
Elio’s Notes: This is a traditional Buddhist-style verse on karmic cause and effect. Its central idea is that present circumstances are the “fruit” of earlier causes, while present actions become causes whose “fruit” will ripen later.
Where beneath all heaven could one be closer to universal salvation than a quiet place devoted wholeheartedly to cultivating the Buddha’s path? Yet these children had been in the world for only a handful of years. Why should they have to endure punishment beneath such a merciless rain?
Was it merely because of a prank, some small quarrel between children? Then what unforgivable crime could they possibly have committed in a previous life?
What Jiang Zheng felt then was obscure and difficult to put into words. He had not yet truly experienced the rises and falls of human joy and sorrow, yet he had already begun to grow weary of them. The blood covering the ground frightened him, while the tragedy of his parents awakened in him the desire to resist.
He simply refused to believe in fate. He would rather fight it to the bitter end. Wherever there was sunlight, there would be shadow. Jiang Zheng stared at the vast clear sky while his heart turned colder than bone, even harder to endure than the rain. The tragedy of life was that no matter how much suffering people endured, heaven and earth continued revolving without end. No one stopped to pity the lives of ants.
The Buddha was compassionate, yet even the Buddha could not personally reach out a hand.
By evening the following day, the child finally woke. He swallowed utterly tasteless white-rice porridge, yet his smile remained. “Jiang Zheng?” His breathing was so faint it was barely there, but his mood was still cheerful. This only made Jiang Zheng angrier. He slammed a fist into the bed beside him. “Zhao Guangyi, what exactly is inside that head of yours? Don’t you feel pain when you’re hurt? Don’t you know how to tell anyone?”
“I… I used to hurt myself all the time because I was clumsy. Big Brother would say I was making a fuss over nothing, that a little injury wasn’t worth shouting about everywhere. Besides…” The movement pulled at his wound and he frowned slightly. “Besides… even if I told someone here… what could they do about it?”
Both fell silent in dejection. Yes. What could anyone do?
“Lie down. Master says this may leave you with a chronic illness.” The moment Jiang Zheng said it, he regretted it. It seemed cruel to say something like that to an injured person. He himself was still only a child then, always feeling that he should comfort someone who was hurt yet having no idea how. After losing his parents, Jiang Zheng had long ago learned to live strongly by himself and not care about the touch of anything outside him. Yet in that moment, he rediscovered the frustration of helplessness buried inside his heart. He desperately wanted to comfort the weakened person on the bed, but could not find anything else to say.
Fortunately, Zhao Guangyi was openhearted and clear-minded. He still managed a faint smile, his expression as clean as ever. “It’s all right. You don’t have to look so sad. I’m not dead yet. Big Brother still has to come and take me away.”
Zhao Guangyi shifted his wrist on the couch. The bracelet had been pressed beneath him, leaving only the thin bones of his wrist loosely moving inside it. That tiny sight made Jiang Zheng feel even worse. He went over and sat beside him, slowly reaching out to touch the fine red sandalwood. “When you feel a little better, why don’t you tell me the story of this bracelet?”
Zhao Guangyi smiled. “All right. I wanted to tell you before, but I was afraid you’d think I was too long-winded.”
Jiang Zheng handed him some water and listened as his soft voice slowly spoke. They were nothing more than old childhood memories. Jiang Zheng too had once had parents and family, and were it not for that natural disaster, perhaps his feelings would have been much the same. Dependence upon an elder brother. The hope of following a hero. The mischievous childhood of two boys beneath a tree. Zhao Guangyi spoke of his feelings and of his childhood dreams. In truth, they were very simple. He wanted only to follow in his Big Brother’s footsteps.
Zhao Guangyi merely wanted to become someone like you.
Everyone had once been young and reckless, believing themselves unparalleled beneath heaven. The two brothers had once been punished on their knees in the courtyard for stealing their father’s fine wood, stubbornly swearing that each would treasure one of the pair of bracelets. They were only red sandalwood. Once the day came when their ambitions were fulfilled and they stood proudly beneath the Nine Heavens, what could they not obtain? What could possibly count as precious then?
Zhao Kuangyin had once declared his great ambition to his younger brother. What he wanted was the realm beneath heaven. He would never be satisfied with remaining merely a military officer in one small state during an age of chaos.
Zhao Guangyi had nodded. Whatever he wanted to accomplish, Guangyi would help him accomplish it.
That was all. Everyone had their own legend.
At this moment, he lived in this world under that child’s identity. The present Zhao Guangyi turned over gently and stared with burning eyes at the person before him. Big Brother. He tried sincerely to call him that within his heart, imagining the child’s tone.
Boundless night surrounded them.
There was still much to think about. Gradually, drowsiness took him. Amid endless clouds and mist tugging at his consciousness, the child’s outline remained, soft and gentle, nothing like his Big Brother’s temperament. The boy was still smiling, yet when he spoke, Jiang Zheng nearly lost his breath. At the very end, fourteen-year-old Jiang Zheng held his hand as he gasped in pain. Zhao Guangyi’s organs had gradually begun to fail. The torrential rain that night and the prolonged fever caused by infection had left him surviving on medicine for the years that followed. Conditions in the monastery hardly needed mentioning. Besides, he was merely a young novice someone had picked up. To have struggled on for so many years already seemed an act of mercy from the Buddha.
Should I have regretted it? Jiang Zheng often wondered.
The day the child left was also a summer afternoon. Somehow, every childhood memory of their time together seemed filled with endless cicada song.
The story inside the dream was long. Layered tree shadows and human voices babbled without end like some immortal at a fortune-teller’s stall. The only difference was that fortune-tellers filled their mouths with prophecies of wealth and honor, while memory tended to preserve only the sorrow buried within the folds of passing years.
That afternoon, Jiang Zheng saw him bend over in pain, bracing himself against the Buddhist shrine with his teeth clenched. He wanted to go over and support him, yet the gesture suddenly seemed like some form of charity. Growing older had not made Jiang Zheng obedient or sensible like ordinary children. Instead, it only deepened his disgust toward this incense-filled monastery. He wanted more and more desperately to leave, but knew his opportunity had not yet arrived. His temperament also became increasingly withdrawn in ways difficult to describe.
Just like then. He stood behind Zhao Guangyi and watched him endure the pain, watched that hunched back struggling to resist it, and desperately wanted to stretch out his hand.
Jiang Zheng watched him and several times nearly raised both hands, only to let them fall helplessly again. To live was to be alone. Everyone arrived in this world alone, then left it alone. The scenery encountered along the road was only a gift. It could never become anyone’s salvation. Not even the Bodhisattva could do that.
Jiang Zheng felt his own calmness was unbearably cruel, yet then he saw the wooden bracelet on Zhao Guangyi’s wrist. Zhao Guangyi still had blood relatives somewhere in the world. He still had something to anticipate. But what about Jiang Zheng? Across ten thousand li of rivers, mountains, sun, and moon, there was somehow no room for even one small hope belonging to Jiang Zheng. So there is nothing I can do, Zhao Guangyi.
That year, fourteen-year-old Jiang Zheng stood before the Buddhist shrine and watched the suffering person ahead of him with cold eyes. His heart was filled with regret, yet ultimately he never reached out.
You too must learn to endure things alone. If your Big Brother never comes to find you in this life, you must still learn to bear everything yourself and live.
Jiang Zheng said coldly to the person before him, his voice unnaturally calm, “Zhao Guangyi, we’re both pitiful wretches.”
Even while convulsing from pain, he still managed to smile. “My… Big Brother…”
Before he could finish, Jiang Zheng slammed the door and left.
Ignoring the attempts of his fellow disciples to stop him, he rushed straight up the back mountain. He ran to a large rock and screamed toward heaven and earth. There were no coherent words. He had simply been suffocating for too long and desperately needed release. He shouted until utterly exhausted, then collapsed onto the muddy slope and rolled around without restraint, allowing himself for once to act however he pleased.
He was simply too helpless, yet he could not show that helplessness before anyone. Even if he did, no one would care.
He lay on his back staring at the sky until his awareness gradually blurred. Exhausted from shouting, he began to feel sleepy. Just as he was about to drift off, he heard hurried birdsong beside him. Perhaps returning birds were coming home, and there was more than one. Jiang Zheng sat up. These small birds were the kind of meat he had loved secretly catching to satisfy his cravings when he was in his teens. It was a serious breach of monastic rules, so he usually dared catch birds only when he came out alone, afraid one of his fellow disciples might accidentally reveal it.
Yet looking at the birds now, he suddenly wanted to take them back. Zhao Guangyi’s health was worsening by the day. If he continued drinking nothing but rice porridge as bland as water without so much as a grain of salt, he would weaken even faster.
So Jiang Zheng did not bother thinking much. He rose and caught two birds just as he usually did in secret, found a secluded corner, built a fire, and roasted them. He stole some salt to scatter over the meat, leaned closer to smell it, and found that it was indeed wonderfully fragrant.
Satisfied, he hid them away and carried them back.
Zhao Guangyi’s body could no longer tolerate much exertion, so he had been assigned to the innermost meditation room to perform his daily devotions. Jiang Zheng slowly walked over to find him and suddenly felt as though he had returned to the day they first met.
That day, he had tricked Zhao Guangyi into striking the wooden fish in his place while he himself escaped to play for most of the afternoon. When he returned, it had been just like now, with the quiet but steady sound of the wooden fish echoing from inside as he slowly walked back.
Everything was the same. Jiang Zheng felt slightly reassured. Somehow, the sound of the wooden fish seemed far more peaceful than usual.
When he pushed open the door, Zhao Guangyi was devoutly chanting Buddhist scripture, his hand continuing to strike the wooden fish.
The innocent, harmless child from those years had now grown up. His bones had lengthened, though the injury of childhood had left him somewhat frail. He was almost as tall as Jiang Zheng. Both still wore old monastic robes without having been tonsured. They lived in the same quarters, and even their masters sometimes forgot to distinguish them clearly. There had never been much reason to compare their appearances. Years of plain monastery life and the unending incense smoke had worn their temperaments down until they seemed much alike. Any vague resemblance between their brows and eyes hardly seemed worth remarking upon. Everyone wore the same expression anyway, reciting sutras without joy or sorrow. How different could they really be?
Jiang Zheng went over, looked at him, and pressed a hand over the wooden fish. “Rest for a while.”
Zhao Guangyi caught the scent of roasted meat inside the enclosed room and frowned. “Why did you bring those back here? If Master discovers them, you’ve committed a major violation this time.” Usually, whenever Jiang Zheng secretly ate something, he did it on the back mountain. Today, however, he had grown bold enough to smuggle it inside.
“For you.” Jiang Zheng could not be bothered explaining. Without even raising his head, he pulled the still-steaming meat from inside his clothes and held it out.
Zhao Guangyi looked at him strangely. “I don’t eat things like this. Why did you suddenly insist on giving it to me today?”
Jiang Zheng did not want to explain. Naturally, he could hardly say that he was worried about Guangyi’s weak body. Yet he also knew that without some reason, Zhao Guangyi would never casually break the rules and eat meat. For a moment, the words stuck in Jiang Zheng’s throat, and he had no idea how to say it properly.
In the end, he simply shoved it into his hands. “Just eat it.”
Zhao Guangyi smiled again. “Did you somehow know today is my birthday?”
“Huh?” This time Jiang Zheng froze. “I… ah, right. This is my birthday gift to you, so you have to eat it.” Though his words came from concern, he insisted on saying them stiffly. Zhao Guangyi obediently accepted the food.
Jiang Zheng became annoyed with himself. He had actually forgotten that today was Guangyi’s birthday. Still, this worked out well. He could simply count it as his gift.
Jiang Zheng carefully tore off a narrow strip of meat, so thin that he almost wondered whether the idiot had forgotten how to eat meat at all. Zhao Guangyi tasted it very seriously, froze, then opened his mouth as though to say something. “I can’t…” Before he could finish, Jiang Zheng already knew without thinking what he was about to say. “What do you mean, can or can’t eat it? To hell with those rules. We haven’t even formally taken the precepts. If I say you can eat it, then eat it.” His tone was unusually forceful because of the expectation beneath it. Perhaps Jiang Zheng rarely cared about anyone in those days, and that only made him more eager for the other person to accept his concern.
Zhao Guangyi looked at the thoroughly roasted bird meat and smiled with extraordinary contentment. Jiang Zheng always thought he loved to smile. No matter the circumstances, whether exhausted, in pain, uncomfortable, or feverish, he could still smile peacefully. Yet afterward, whenever Jiang Zheng remembered the smile Zhao Guangyi gave that piece of bird meat, it became unbearably shocking.
The present-day “Guangyi,” lying beside Zhao Kuangyin, suddenly jolted awake.
He still could not bear to look back upon that smile.
There was the unmistakable sound of someone drawing a sword. Zhao Kuangyin asked in a low voice, “What happened?”
Zhao Guangyi lay back down behind him. “Nothing. I suddenly woke from sleep. Perhaps I haven’t traveled far in many years, so I couldn’t sleep peacefully tonight. I disturbed Big Brother.”
The sword’s gleam disappeared. “It isn’t dawn yet. Sleep a little longer. We’ll have to set out once the sun rises.” Having said that, Zhao Kuangyin went back to sleep.
Long ago, a teenage boy accepted the salted bird meat and ate it in large bites with a smile. When he finished, he earnestly asked Jiang Zheng, “You were actually worried that eating vegetarian food all the time would make me weak, weren’t you?”
Jiang Zheng denied it immediately without the slightest hesitation. “Idiot.”
The idiot smiled even more happily, his fingers creeping toward his abdomen. “Hurry and throw away the remains. It’ll be bad if Master sees them.”
Jiang Zheng grunted in acknowledgment. He knew Guangyi was probably hurting again, so he gathered the remains into a rag, wrapped them up, and ran out to throw them into the woods behind the mountain.
With nothing else to do afterward, he wandered over to the bell tower and fiddled around there for quite a while. Only when the senior disciple responsible for ringing the evening bell hurried over did Jiang Zheng quickly run back.
Once more, he followed the same path toward the meditation room to see Zhao Guangyi. Yet this time, for some reason, his state of mind was unlike usual. An inexplicable uneasiness lingered inside him, almost like an omen.
There was no sound of the wooden fish.
Jiang Zheng unconsciously quickened his steps. At this hour, Zhao Guangyi should already have resumed quietly striking the wooden fish.
Yet everything around him was unnaturally silent.
He began to run toward the small door at the end of the path.
Jiang Zheng pushed the door open in panic, only to see Zhao Guangyi seated cross-legged on the meditation cushion with his back to the doorway, exactly as usual. Nothing appeared different. His posture was precisely the same as when Jiang Zheng had left. Jiang Zheng released a long breath, walked over, and said, “Hey, idiot, why did you stop striking it?” As always, he reached out and patted his shoulder.
Before Jiang Zheng’s hand had even left his body, Zhao Guangyi went completely limp.
Jiang Zheng stood rigid beside him and watched as Guangyi began falling from the couch. He reached out to catch him, but it was too late. Just as when Jiang Zheng had been a child clinging desperately to that tree in the flood, his mother had said, Zheng’er, don’t worry about anyone else. Remember, live.
And he really had never worried about anyone else. He truly had spent all those years clinging desperately to that tree.
He had watched his parents swallowed by the raging flood before his eyes. Jiang Zheng had finally screamed and reached out for them, yet he could hold on to neither.
That day, he reached out to Zhao Guangyi once again. But once again, it was too late.
Suddenly, he hated himself a little. Reaching out one step earlier or one step later would both have been better than stopping halfway.
The person on the floor had curled into a trembling ball. Jiang Zheng dragged him desperately back onto the couch. “Idiot. Idiot? Zhao Guangyi?” He called his name. This attack was far more severe than any before it. For the first time, unprecedented fear surged through Jiang Zheng. He seized his hand. “Zhao Guangyi, listen to me. Hold on. I’m going to get someone now. You’re not allowed to fall asleep, do you hear me?” He was terrified that once Guangyi closed his eyes, he would never wake again.
Zhao Guangyi was already in so much pain that he could barely breathe, yet he refused to release Jiang Zheng’s hand. He clung to him as though holding the last remaining hope. Jiang Zheng kept thinking he wanted to say something, so he forced himself to calm down and listen. Cold sweat streamed down Zhao Guangyi’s forehead. His mouth opened, but no sound emerged.
After struggling for a long time, he finally slipped the wooden bracelet from his wrist.
Jiang Zheng stared blankly at him. “Zhao Guangyi?”
He could no longer speak. Still smiling at Jiang Zheng, he forced the bracelet onto Jiang Zheng’s wrist.
Jiang Zheng grabbed his collar almost frantically and forced his upper body upright, telling the idiot that he had to live. But Zhao Guangyi’s gaze was already losing focus. Jiang Zheng wanted to run outside and call for help, yet Guangyi refused to release him no matter what. His lips moved. Jiang Zheng bent close to listen. The voice was already so faint it was almost impossible to hear, yet it contained three syllables.
The dying person’s final words to him were three syllables. Or perhaps he was calling Jiang Zheng by a name.
He called Jiang Zheng, “Zhao Guangyi.”
Afterward, he died.
That child died. The cause of death, unexpectedly, was that he had eaten food containing a large amount of salt.
Elio’s Notes: This causal explanation is explicit in the source. The novel connects the high-salt food to Zhao Guangyi’s already failing organs; the translation preserves that explanation as written rather than medically expanding or correcting it.
Jiang Zheng felt nothing when he heard. He had not known that Zhao Guangyi’s organs were failing and that he could not eat salt. Nor had he known that the completely flavorless vegetarian meals Zhao Guangyi ate every day were necessary.
He had merely been afraid the boy’s body was not receiving enough nourishment and had thought of the food as a birthday gift.
In the end, the one who died was that child. And from that moment onward, there was no longer anyone in the world named Jiang Zheng.
He wore the child’s bracelet, and he became Zhao Guangyi.