24 What Happened to Ying Yue 2 (1/2)
Sam didn't know for how long she had been running or where exactly her feet where taking her. Through her hazy mind, she barely remembered opening a back gate and leaving to a wide grassed hill, running up and on as the grass turned higher and than smaller once again...
At one point, the ground made a curve, slowly forming what would eventually become a cliff, surrounded by space trees and small bushes.
Eventually, as her hands and feet became numb, she started slowing down, her blank mind trying to take in the darkening sky as the evening approached from the east, painting the sky in tones of blue, red, orange and pink.
Walking on a sedated pace, she went on with barely conscious steps, her eyes lost on the departing sub and the few clouds drawing castles on the sky.
Suddenly, the soft strokes on a GuQin strings reached her ears, the song mingling with the scenery on a mesmerizing way, guiding her steps farther away from the word of the cliff and up the hill without her noticing.
At some point, a beautiful, almost ethereal voice joined the instrument.
”A cup of wine, under the flowering trees;
I drink alone, for no friend is near.
Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,
For he, with my shadow, will make three men.
The moon, alas, is no drinker of wine;
Listless, my shadow creeps about at my side.
Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave
I must make merry before the Spring is spent.”
Sam sighed, breathing deeply as the sweet smell of flowers mixed with the strong perfume of night dew, a light breeze brushing at her clothes as the lone figura of a tall, beautiful man finally came into view.
He was sat under a large tree, his legs crossed under a GuQin as he played, the last rays of light coronating his dark hair, making him look like a man form the fairy people.
”To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams;
In the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks.
While we were sober, three shared the fun;
Now we are drunk, each goes his way.
May we long share our odd, inanimate feast,
And meet at last on the Cloudy River of the sky.”
With that last word, he pulled a single string of the instrument, letting those last fragments of sound slowly merge with the cool air, its echo rising onto the night sky, whispering over the tree leafs and whistling on the wind, until the only thing left was the memory of a beautiful moment that ended too soon.
Just like a dream.
”Why did you stop?” Sam asked mesmerized, wiping away the last trace of tears as she came closer to him with unintentional steps, her eyes moving at their own volition to watch his long fingers still resting over the strings ”It was very beautiful.”
Just then, the last rays of the evening sun shone over then, making his pearly white clothes shine in different hues of red, purple and yellow. Sam felt like she had just stepped into a painting, the bucolic scenary making her heartrate slow and her confused feelings subside.
The peace, the parnasian poetry of that moment, sipped inside her bones, until she sighed deeply, letting all that nervous energy flow off of her with that single breath.
”Jiang Ying Yue” he finally said, looking up at her with his kind, bluish eyes ”Our fate is indeed strong in this life... It is good seeing you again”
”Hum?” Sam frowned, blinking away the haziness from the song as she tried to remember where on Earth could she have seen someone like him and forget.
She could only blame it on the stress of everything that had happened on that morning... But Sam was definitely not going there if not strictly necessary. And definitely not after such a beautiful song and that calmness she had somehow achieved with his presence. Calm was a rare thing on her life, and she would not give that up if not entirely necessary.
”Oh, right!” she exclaimed all of a sudden ”You were the one fighting with the Crown Prince on the street yesterday, wasn't you?”
”Yes” he agreed, his laugh twinkling like wind-bells as he put the Gu Qin aside and rose to his feet ”That was me. But I am also an old friend to your brother. You've changed a lot on these couple of years, Ying Yue”
”Oh.” She exclaimed, another piece finally coming in place. So he had been the person she saw talking to Fei Hong on the day of the Tea House incident - the one her brother had so easily brushed off as her imagination. Interesting.
'So, that was also him, then.'
The Great Daoist Master.
And, apparently, an old family friend. Suddenly, all that peace and calm and ”yoga like” atmospheare around her shattered like fine glass, her head working faster and faster trying to find a way to deal with yet another person she was supposed to know.
”Oh! Right! Right, right, I remember now…” Sam forced a smile, trying to look ashamed ”You see, eh, my memory is not as it used to be anymore. I'm really sorry.”
The silence that met her statement, and his apparent refusal to say anything back, made her fidgety. It was strangely unnerving to be near someone that seemed to be contented with only watching you with amused eyes. The slow turn of his beautifully sculptured lips also didn't help her in the least.
”Ah…” she cleaned her throat, finally unable to stand that atmosphere anymore ”This is a very beautiful place... I don't remember seeing anything so peaceful before” she babbled, turning to the gently falling slopes and the line of grass a few feet away that dropped on a precipice.
”It is” he agreed, serenely walking closer to the edge of the cliff ”And it is quite appropriate for us to meet right on this hill, don't you think?”
”Eh... Is it?” she laughed uncomfortably, watching as he seemed to be looking for something on the grass before scrunching down, his hands touching tentatively the greenish blades and the dark brown soil.
”Hum... Did you find something?” Sam asked, walking forward to join him just as the Great Daoist Master got up once more, turning to show her what looked like a small pendant hanging between his fingers.
”Oh...” she mumbled, her eyes suddenly unable to leave the necklace.
”Did you like it?” his voice sounded mater-of-factly as he walked closer to her ”This was a present Ying Yue's mother gave her when she was very small... I don't remember ever seeing her without it.”
”Ah?” Sam said, suddenly curious at that piece of news ”It is beautiful... No-one never speaks about her mother, though...” her words came to a halt, the Daoist Master's meaning finally filtering into her mind...
The way he had talked about her as if they were referring to another person.
'A present Ying Yue's mother gave her...'.
”What-what did you say?” she stuttered, stumbling a few steps back as her wide, panic filled eyes closed in into the man's, as if looking for something inside his deep, mysterious irises ”I... I think I should go...T-thank you for finding m-my necklace...” Sam extended a hand, ready to grab the jewelry and run back.
But before her fingers could even graze the metallic surface, though, he had already turned once more, his gaze lost on the cliff and the dark, night sky beyond.
”This place…” he eventually said, his voice lost ”It was here that Tong Zhi Ruo's people pushed the real Jiang Ying Yue down.”