Chapter 4: Rain Rings the Bell (Part 4)
The lantern’s flame stung Ni Su’s eyes. The dizziness from the ringing in her ears made her stumble. Her knees weakened, but a hand gripped her wrist.
An extreme coldness emanated from his fingertips, clinging to her wrist bones. It was a chill more biting than ice and snow. Ni Su shivered, barely managing to steady herself as she looked up. “Thank you…”
Her voice was tight from the cold. Her gaze met his. His eyes were clear as dew, reflecting the sunlight, but cold, as cold as the fingers he had just withdrawn.
Like the midsummer snow, there was a strange, desolate beauty to him.
The lantern light flickered on the gilded lotus pagoda, drawing his gaze. The mountain wind rustled the bronze bells, their chimes chaotic. He looked at the pagoda as if it stirred some distant memory. His cold eyes remained devoid of light as he turned to her and asked, “Is this… Da Zhong Temple?”
A strange feeling settled over Ni Su. She was about to speak when her pupils suddenly contracted.
Sparkling lights, like fireflies or stars, floated behind him. They coalesced, one after another, gradually forming a hazy figure.
“Brother!”
Ni Su cried out.
The shimmering light illuminated the man’s pale profile. He glanced silently behind him, and the phantom shattered, the glittering lights scattering into the wind and snow.
Large snowflakes drifted down, but just as they were about to land on him, the mountain wind blew them away. He remained untouched by the snow.
Ni Su’s gaze followed the falling snowflakes. The lamplight flickered, and she noticed the embroidered silver threads on his cloak, ethereal and cloud-like, as if wings about to take flight.
The characters on the cuff shimmered faintly.
Zi Ling.
“You…” The cold was intense, the snow heavy. Ni Su didn’t know where the bronze basin she had used had gone, but she could still smell the lingering scent of ashes in the mountain wind. The chill in her bones deepened. Afraid she had seen wrong, she instinctively reached out to touch his sleeve.
Her fingers met nothing.
The cold wind passed through her hand. She watched as the young man before her, who had been gazing at her calmly, dissolved into the cold mountain mist.
He vanished.
Ni Su’s hand froze in mid-air, numb with cold. The snow continued to fall, but the ink-black sky showed signs of lightening.
The chanting from the temple had stopped some time ago.
The old abbot and the monks gathered outside the main hall, marveling.
“Why is it suddenly snowing?”
A young novice looked up.
“This is not a good omen,” someone said.
The old abbot shook his head, chanting “Amitabha,” silencing their discussion. “Don’t speak such nonsense.”
The young novice on duty at the temple gate was extremely annoyed by the strange weather. His monk’s robes were thin and offered little protection against the winter-like chill. He was considering returning to his room to find a winter garment when he heard a rapid, panicked knocking at the gate.
Startled, the novice quickly opened the gate and peered out.
He recognized the female benefactor outside. She was the one who had come to retrieve the safety amulet not long ago. But now, her temples were damp with sweat, her clothes stained, her face pale.
“Benefactress, what happened to you?”
The novice was astonished.
“Little Master, I need to find the old master who gave me the safety amulet.” Ni Su was freezing, her voice trembling slightly.
Although he didn’t understand the reason, the novice invited her into the temple.
“Have the prayers ended?”
Ni Su didn’t hear any chanting as she entered the temple.
“They were supposed to continue for another cup of tea’s time, but this strange, sudden snowfall ended them early,” the novice replied as he led Ni Su forward.
A cup of tea’s time.
Ni Su stopped in her tracks.
She clearly remembered the old monk in the cypress grove telling her that the prayers would continue until dusk.
“Uncle Hui Jue, this female benefactor is looking for you.”
The novice’s voice rang out. Ni Su instinctively looked up.
Hui Jue, stout and benevolent-looking, with a dark beard, walked over with a smile, chanting “Amitabha.” He said, “Benefactress, you’ve returned. Is there something wrong with the safety amulet?”
“Are you Hui Jue?”
Ni Su was incredulous.
Hui Jue, puzzled, exchanged a glance with the novice, pressed his palms together, and said kindly, “I am Hui Jue.”
“Benefactress, didn’t you just see Uncle Hui Jue? Why don’t you recognize him?” The novice was confused.
Ni Su instinctively took a step back, then another.
Her face grew even paler.
The sky had cleared, and the ancient temple stood majestic, sunlight gilding the eaves.
Wrong. Everything was wrong.
The one who had given her the safety amulet in the temple was the old monk with the curly white beard. His figure, his face, his voice—none of it resembled this Hui Jue in the slightest.
The temple was filled with deities, yet they offered Ni Su no comfort. The snow, the temple, this person—they twisted into a bizarre, grotesque rope, tightening around her throat.
Seeing her distraught state, Hui Jue spoke with concern. “This strange snow has made it as cold as the depths of winter.”
He turned to the novice. “Quickly find a cloak for the benefactress.”
The novice was about to nod when the female benefactor suddenly turned and ran. He called after her several times, but it only made her run faster.
“Not only is the snow strange today, but the people are strange too…”
The novice muttered, rubbing his shaved head.
The heavy snow fell all day, covering Que County in a layer of white. In teahouses, taverns, and streets, people discussed the strange snowfall.
Upon returning home from Da Zhong Temple, Ni Su fell ill.
She had a high fever that wouldn’t break. Mama Qian had to attend to Cen Shi and constantly check on Ni Su. Every resident physician at the Ni family clinic examined Ni Su, but their prescribed remedies were largely the same.
Cen Shi, despite her own illness, visited Ni Su once. After listening to the physicians discuss fever-reducing formulas for a while, her pale, waxen face remained expressionless.
That night, hearing from Mama Qian that Ni Su’s fever had broken, Cen Shi said nothing but let out a soft sigh of relief before taking a spoonful of medicine from Mama Qian.
On the third day, Ni Su finally regained consciousness. Xing Zhu wept with joy, carefully wiping the sweat from Ni Su’s forehead with an embroidered handkerchief. “Miss, are you thirsty? Are you hungry?”
Ni Su’s reaction was slow. After a while, she shook her head. “How is Mother?”
Her voice was hoarse.
“Don’t worry, Miss. Madam is better,” Xing Zhu said, bringing a bowl of warm tea to feed her.
In reality, Xing Zhu hadn’t been to Cen Shi’s courtyard. She had only heard from the old housekeeper that Cen Shi was able to get out of bed today and assumed her illness had improved.
However, just as Ni Su began to recover, Cen Shi started coughing up blood.
If Ni Zong hadn’t arrived, alerted by the news, and Cen Shi hadn’t been too weak to get up, Mama Qian wouldn’t have come to Ni Su’s courtyard, and Ni Su would have remained in the dark.
“Your cold hasn’t fully recovered, and these past few days, you’ve had to deal with your Second Uncle and attend to me. You’ve suffered,” Cen Shi said, watching Mama Qian carry out the blood-stained basin. Her gaze fell on her daughter. Her throat was raw from coughing up blood.
“I haven’t suffered,” Ni Su held Cen Shi’s hand. “Mother is the one who has suffered.”
Cen Shi twitched her lips. It couldn’t quite be called a smile; she rarely smiled. “These past few days, while I was asleep, you must have secretly taken my pulse, haven’t you?”
Ni Su remained silent and started to rise, but Cen Shi tightened her grip.
“You don’t need to kneel.”
Cen Shi’s eyes were sunken, her face etched with exhaustion. “I’m not hiding my illness from you now. You’ve taken my pulse. You know how many days I have left.”
Ni Su met her gaze. “Mother…”
“In our family, women cannot have such aspirations.” Cen Shi leaned against her pillows, her chest rising and falling with each word. “Your father beat you, punished you, but you’re stubborn. You refused to yield even after enduring pain and suffering.”
“I know. It was all Lan’er’s teaching.”
Mentioning Ni Qinglan, Cen Shi’s pale lips softened slightly.
“…You knew?”
Ni Su murmured, stunned.
“If Lan’er hadn’t taught you everything he knew, how much could you have learned just by sneaking around the clinic? Your father guarded against you like a thief.” Cen Shi was weak, but mentioning these things seemed to revive her spirits. “Ever since he treated He Liu Shi at sixteen, and she drowned herself, your father forced him to study literature. He secretly taught you, keeping you by his side. Once, he was teaching you to recite medical formulas, and I was standing right outside the study door.”
Ni Su had thought she and her brother had kept their secret well. The family only knew she was constantly punished by her father for secretly studying medicine, but they didn’t know her brother had been teaching her all along.
She hadn’t expected that Cen Shi, who had always opposed her studying medicine, had discovered their secret long ago but hadn’t exposed them to her father.
She wasn’t Cen Shi’s biological daughter, yet Cen Shi had never mistreated her, taking her in and raising her as her own. But Cen Shi always wore a cold expression, rarely spoke, and had a natural aloofness that kept Ni Su at arm’s length. Therefore, while Ni Su respected and loved her, she couldn’t be as comfortable with her as Ni Mi Zhi was with Liu Shi.
In fact, Cen Shi wasn’t just like this with her. It was her nature, making her difficult to approach. Even with Ni Qinglan, their mother-son relationship was somewhat distant.
“Did your brother ever tell you why, as a young man, he delved into gynecology?”
“No.” Ni Su shook her head, her thoughts drifting uncontrollably to the cypress grove at Da Zhong Temple, to the thin young man in the black cloak.
She had briefly seen Ni Qinglan’s image in the strange light behind him.
Cen Shi sighed softly. “He… he’s a filial child. After I gave birth to him, I developed a hidden ailment. It wasn’t a big deal at first, but over time, it worsened. You know that most doctors in this world don’t understand or care about gynecology, and your father is no exception. I didn’t want to tell him about my condition.”
“But the pain became unbearable. Once, when I was suffering particularly badly, Lan’er saw me. He was still a child then, and I found it difficult to speak of such things even to my own son. But he’s stubborn. When I refused to tell him, he wanted to fetch his father to examine me. I had no choice but to tell him that his father couldn’t treat this illness, that it couldn’t be treated.”
“But he took it to heart and actually went out and secretly brought back a medicine woman to see me.”
In those times, medicine women were considered among the lowest class, often selling remedies to women with hidden ailments in the countryside. They had no proper reputation and were looked down upon.
Ni Qinglan, at such a young age, had gone to the village alone to find a medicine woman for Cen Shi.
“Your birth mother was a pitiful woman. She gave birth to you but couldn’t raise you.” Cen Shi’s expression softened as she spoke of the gentle and submissive woman. “She died giving birth to your brother, due to complications. The midwife couldn’t do anything. Your father couldn’t bear to lose both your birth mother and your brother, but he didn’t understand gynecology. Disregarding propriety, he entered the room, but he couldn’t save either of their lives.”
Cen Shi looked at Ni Su. “You were very young then, crying inconsolably. Even Lan’er couldn’t soothe you with malt candy.”
“A-Xi,”
Cen Shi said, “your brother defied medical convention for me and for you. He couldn’t bear to see me suffer from a hidden ailment, and he couldn’t bear to see you lose your mother. Because of us, he developed this rare compassion for women, and he naturally couldn’t stand to see other women suffer from similar ailments.”
Unfortunately, the first time Ni Qinglan truly treated a woman was also his last.
“He dedicated himself to this path, but it wasn’t tolerated by society.”
“A-Xi, I should actually thank you. He was caught up in rumors and gossip in his youth and forced by your father to abandon medicine for literature. You daring to continue his work is probably his only solace these past few years.”
Hearing Cen Shi’s words, Ni Su remembered the rainy night in the ancestral hall, the conversation she had with her brother.
“Mother, when you recover, I’ll go to the capital to find Brother,”
Ni Su said softly.
“Why wait? The people we sent to the capital haven’t sent any news. You might as well go now.”
“Mother?”
Ni Su looked up in astonishment, then shook her head. “How can I leave you and go to the capital now? How can I be at peace?”
“With your brother’s fate unknown, can either of us be at peace?” Cen Shi started coughing, and after a while, she pulled away from Ni Su’s hand, which was gently rubbing her back, and called for Mama Qian.
“A-Xi, I made you kneel in the ancestral hall because your father never wronged you. You are just as important to him as Lan’er. But he has his reasons. You defied him, defied the rules of the Ni family. You should kneel before him and our ancestors.”
Cen Shi stroked her face. “Don’t blame me.”
Ni Su’s eyes burned. She knelt down. “Mother, I’ve never blamed you. I know you treat me well.”
“Good child.”
At this point, Cen Shi could no longer hold back her tears. “You also know I only have a few days left. Instead of staying with me, you should go find your brother. Your father earned a good reputation before he died, and the county government’s plaque is in our home. These past few years, your Second Uncle, because of my status as a widow, hasn’t dared to shamelessly seize our family’s assets. But now, with your brother missing and my poor health known to them, once I’m gone, how can you, a lone young woman, defend against your Second Uncle’s wolfish ambitions?”
“Without a male heir, outsiders won’t care about these matters. Because you are a daughter, the Ni family has no reason to let you inherit the family estate. Even if you seek justice from the county magistrate, he’ll be on their side. He could easily marry you off to anyone.”
Cen Shi glanced at Mama Qian, who immediately understood and brought a small box from the cabinet, opening it before Ni Su.
The box was small, but it was filled with banknotes.
“The day you went to Da Zhong Temple to retrieve the amulet, I had Mama Qian sell our family’s fields and land. I also pawned my dowry and jewelry and exchanged them for this money for you to use in the capital.”
A cold smile flickered across Cen Shi’s haggard face. “We can’t let Ni Zong bully us in everything. If he wants to take over the Ni family clinic, let him. But these fields, this house, this property—he can dream.”
“Mother…”
“Listen to me.”
As soon as Ni Su spoke, Cen Shi interrupted her firmly. “If you truly care for me, leave now. Don’t let your Second Uncle scheme against you. Go find your brother and bring him back. Then you can rightfully reclaim our family clinic. No matter how unwilling Ni Zong is, he’ll have to handle my funeral arrangements properly. As for the servants in the household, Mama Qian will dismiss them after I’m gone.”
Mama Qian remained silent, wiping her tears with the edge of her sleeve.
Having said all this, Cen Shi seemed to have exhausted all her strength. She didn’t allow Ni Su to speak another word, closing her eyes and saying calmly, “Go. I’m tired.”
Ni Su held the box, fighting back the stinging in her nose. She stood up, supported by Xing Zhu, and walked to the doorway. The midsummer sunlight was bright and intense, spilling across the threshold.
“A-Xi.”
Suddenly, she heard Cen Shi’s voice behind her.
Ni Su turned. The bed curtains obscured her view, preventing her from seeing Cen Shi’s face. She only heard her say, “This path is arduous. There are many narrow-minded men in this world. Aren’t you afraid to be alone?”
Women who practiced gynecology were often considered no different from the low-class midwives.
The tears Ni Su had been holding back finally spilled over. Standing in the sunlight, her shadow cast long on the floor, she looked at the figure within the pale green bed curtains and answered clearly:
“Mother, I’m not afraid.”
