Chapter 6 – Seven Story Buddhist Pagoda (1/2)
Part 1
The 1st day of the second month of the lunar calendar.
Li Village, the Temple of Maternal Grace.
Early morning.
It had started snowing in the middle of the night, and hadn’t stopped. The courtyard of the temple had just been swept clean, but it had already been covered with a layer of silvery white.
The morning bell had already been sounded. The cold wind carried with it the indistinct sound of Buddhist chants as it flowed into a meditation room on the right hand side of the courtyard.
Sima Chaoqun sat silently on a prayer mat, listening, quietly drinking from a cold bottle of alcohol that he’d brought last night.
It was as cold as ice, but as he drank the baijiu, it felt like a scorching fire.
Zhuo Donglai had entered the room, and was staring at him coldly.
Sima Chaoqun pretended not to notice.
Zhuo Donglai finally spoke. “Isn’t a too early to be drinking?” he asked coldly. “If you want to drink today, shouldn’t you wait until a little bit later?”
“Why?”
“Because you’re about to face a very formidable opponent. It’s very possible that he’s more powerful than either of us imagine.”
“Oh?”
“So if you want to drink, you should at least wait until after the duel.”
Sima Chaoqun suddenly laughed.
“Why should I wait until then? Have you forgotten that I am the forever invincible Sima Chaoqun?” An indescribable derision filled his laughter. “In any case, I won’t lose. Even if I drink a whole jug, I still won’t lose. Because you’ve definitely arranged everything ahead of time, arranged every detail.” Sima Chaoqun laughed loudly. “That kid Gao Jianfei can’t get away with losing, and can’t get away without dying.”
Zhuo Donglai didn’t laugh, but he didn’t admit to what Sima Chaoqun said. Neither did he deny it. His face was completely expressionless.
Sima Chaoqun looked at him. “This time can you tell me what you arranged?”
Zhuo Donglai was silent for a long time. “Some things just happen,” he said indifferently. “There’s no need to arrange anything.”
“So you let Gao Jianfei, by chance, encounter some things like that.”
“Every person will eventually encounter things like that. Whatever people encounter them, they will all be equally helpless.”
He suddenly walked over and grabbed the bottle of baijiu from the short table next to the prayer mat, and poured a bit into a glass of clear water.
The alcohol and the water mixed together instantly.
“This is a very natural thing, isn’t it?” asked Zhuo Donglai of Sima Chaoqun.
“Yes.”
“Some people are just like this,” said Zhuo Donglai. “When they meet, they will mix together like alcohol and water.”
“But after they mix together, the alcohol becomes diluted, and the quality of the water also changes.”
“People are the same. Exactly the same.”
“Oh?”
“Some people change after they meet. If they meet a certain person, they will become weaker.”
“Just like the alcohol mixed into the water.”
“Correct. Chance meetings. Chance partings. Anyone would be helpless.” His voice was still completely indifferent. “There are many situations like this in heaven and on earth.
Sima laughed again.
“Why do you treat me so well?” he asked. “Why do you arrange everything so carefully for me?”
“Because you are Sima Chaoqun.” Zhuo Donglai’s answer was simple. “And because Sima Chaoqun must never be defeated.”
Part 2
During the Tang Dynasty, Gao Zong had the Great Wild Goose Pagoda built for his late mother, the Empress Wende(1). The preeminent monk Xuan Zang translated Buddhist sutras there(2). It originally had five stories, and was a Buddhist place of worship for the western regions. Later it was built up to seven stories, and became a Seven Story Buddhist Pagoda.
**
Gao Jianfei stood at the bottom of the Great Wild Goose Pagoda.
The pagoda cast no shadow, because the sky was too cloudy, and no sunlight existed to cast a shadow.
No shadow existed in Little Gao’s heart either. His heart was a blank space, with nothing in it at all.
But in his hand was a sword. A sword wrapped in coarse cloth, a sword that few people had ever seen. There was only a sword, no box.
She had not taken the box with her. She shouldn’t have gone, and yet she left. She should have taken the box with her, and yet she didn’t.
Little Gao left the box in the small room.
What should have stayded behind didn’t, and what shouldn’t have been left behind was still there?
He didn’t know how long he had been there, and he didn’t know when he had arrived.
He only knew that he was there, because he had already caught sight of Zhuo Donglai and Sima Chaoqun.
**
He wore a set of sharply contrasting black and white clothes (3). His eye, too, were sharply contrasting black and white. Snow white, pitch black. Whenever Sima Chaoqun made an appearance, this was the impression he made on people.
—Open, powerful, knowing the difference between right and wrong.
At this moment, in this silvery white world, all of the radiant glory and honor belonged to this person. Zhuo Donglai was only a mere shadow cast by his brilliance.
Zhuo Donglai seemed to know this, and hence would always stand to the side, so as not to obstruct the brightness.
The first thing that Little Gao noticed at was Sima Chaoqun’s shining white eyes and black pupils.
If he walked a bit closer, and looked carefully, he might be able to see the traces of red in the whites of his eyes, strands of blood that seemed to be kindled by the burning fire of his heart.
But sadly, Gao Jianfei couldn’t see.
Other than Zhuo Donglai, no one accompanied Sima Chaoqun.
“You are Gao Jianfei?”
“I am.”
Sima Chaoqun looked at Little Gao. Looked at his eyes, his facial expression, his appearance. The Giant Wild Goose Pagoda did not cast a shadow, and yet it seemed as if his entire person were enveloped by darkness.
Sima Chaoqun looked at him quietly for a long time, then suddenly turned around and began to leave.
Zhuo Donglai didn’t obstruct his way, didn’t move, didn’t even blink.
Gao Jianfei rushed forward to bar his way.
“Why are you leaving?”
“Because I don’t want to kill you. Beneath my sword, defeat is death.” In his coldness, he did not seem at all as if he had been drinking. “Actually, you should know already that you have been defeated. Because you are an empty person, as empty as a rice sack without a grain of rice in it.”
Neither an empty person nor an empty rice sack can stand up. Without standing up how could one achieve victory?
Anyone could understand this truth.
Except for Gao Jianfei.
Because he was already empty, and how can an empty person understand truth?
And so he started to unwrap his cloth bundle. The cloth bundle was not empty.
The sword inside the cloth bundle could take a person’s life in an instant. And just the same, it could give another person justification to take his life in an instant.
Siima Chaoqun had stopped walking, and was looking off into the distance.
He wasn’t looking at Gao Jianfei, because he knew that the young man was drawing his sword, and that there was no way to stop him.
He also didn’t look at Zhuo Donglai, because he knew Zhuo Donglai would have no reaction to what was happening.
But in his eyes could be seen a faint look of sorrow.
—How could such a worthy life become so meaningless after encountering such circumstances?
His hand gripped his sword, because in a situation like this, he had no other choice.
**
A click sounded out as the sword was freed from the scabbard, but Sima Chaoqun did not draw it.
Because at that exact moment, the shadow of a person flitted down like a meteor from the top of the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda.
What dropped down from the top of the pagoda was not just a shadow, but a person. But the speed was incredible, so fast that Sima Chaoqun couldn’t see the person clearly. He could only see a murky gray shadow that grabbed Gao Jianfei.
Then Gao Jianfei flew up, not gradually, but as fast as a bird.(4) In an instant, he had already reached the third story of the pagoda.
In the blink of an eye, the shadows of both people had already reached the seventh story of the Buddhist pagoda.
And then they disappeared from sight completely.
Sima Chaoqun was about to pursue when then he heard Zhuo Donglai speak. “You didn’t want to kill him,” he said coolly. “Why are you going to chase him?”
Part 3
It had stopped snowing. An old monk had brought tea and then left.
Sometimes coming, sometimes going, sometimes falling, sometimes stopping. The pitiless snowflakes and the indifferent old monk were both like this.
And people?
Aren’t people this way too?
**
Sima Chaoqun again sat on the prayer mat, drinking from the same unfinished bottle of cold alcohol. A long time passed, then he suddenly asked Zhuo Donglai: “Who was that person?”
“Which person?”