Chapter 23 — The Talisman Painter Who Guards the Village

Back to Tùng Lĩnh

The old pine grove at the top of the slope leading to Tùng Lĩnh Village still stood there, taller than in Diệp Sương's memory. The rustling branches and leaves made a sound so familiar that it made her pause, her heart pounding before she even saw the first roof.

"Are you okay?" Âu Bội Nhi asked, noticing the strange look on her friend's face.

"It's okay," Diệp Sương replied, her voice a bit choked. "It's just… it's been so long."

The dirt road leading to the village appeared before their eyes. Familiar fields stretched out on both sides, although most had already been harvested, their dry yellow stubble lying under the pale afternoon sunlight. But something was different—the air was quieter than she remembered. There were no children playing, no chickens calling one another back to their coops; only a heavy silence covered the whole village.

Nhiêu Bá Tường led the group into the communal house yard, where Chief Lý Đoài, now visibly old with mostly white hair, was waiting with several men in the village, everyone's faces tense.

"The sect is here," Chief Lý Đoài said, his voice trembling due to both age and anxiety, then his eyes suddenly stopped at Diệp Sương, stunned for a moment before realizing. "Little Sương? Is that really you?"

"Yes, it's me," Diệp Sương replied, bowing according to the etiquette she had learned, but her voice still contained a bit of the excitement of a returning child.

*

News of Diệp Sương's return spread faster than news of the Vân Các disciples' descent into the village. Before Nhiêu Bá Tường could ask about the official situation, an excited figure ran from the far end of the communal-house yard.

"Sương! Is it really you!"

Mộc—now much taller, with broader shoulders and calloused hands from carpentry, but still wearing the same grin as before—rushed forward and almost hugged her before stopping and settling for a friendly pat on the shoulder, somewhat embarrassed by the Tông Vân Các robes on his old friend.

"You look... so different," he said, his eyes scanning Diệp Sương from head to toe with a look that was both proud and a bit strange. "I heard that you saved people on the mountain, everyone in the village is talking about it."

"You're also a lot different," Diệp Sương replied, laughing at the rare clumsiness of her usually straightforward friend. "Remember when you said when you grew up you would build me a big table to draw spells?"

"Remember?" Mộc scratched his head and smiled shyly. "Now I've made tables and chairs for the whole town of Lam Thủy. One day I'll make one for you, properly."

Behind him, another figure also hurried forward, more slowly, holding a half-dyed cloth as if she had dropped it the moment she heard the news. Cái Mận, now a young woman with her hair neatly tied in a bun, stood silently looking at Diệp Sương for a long time before tears welled up in her eyes.

"I'm afraid," Cái Mận said, her voice choked, "afraid you'll go to the mountains and forget all of us, forget this whole village."

"How could I forget," Diệp Sương replied, holding her friend's hand tightly, feeling the familiar warmth even though her hand was now more calloused from the work of dyeing fabric. "I've been carrying the inkstone that Mr. Tám Mực gave me all the time since that day. I've never dared to let it cool in the corner of my bag."

*

Mrs. Chín Lài did not come to the communal house to welcome her. Diệp Sương found the small house at the edge of the village as soon as she could separate from the group, walking through the familiar yard where there used to be an old star fruit tree, now only a bare root because of a storm it had not witnessed some year.

She was sitting on the porch, her hands still quickly wrapping handfuls of dried tobacco leaves, her hair completely white compared to the salt and pepper she remembered. When she heard footsteps, she looked up, her age-dimmed eyes narrowed for a moment before she realized.

"You're home," she said, her voice so calm that Diệp Sương almost burst into tears — not because she was cold, but because that was the way she always showed her love, restrained, simple, never noisy.

"I'm home, Grandma," she replied, kneeling on the porch and holding her grandmother's wrinkled hands, which trembled slightly—not from fear, but from carefully hidden emotions.

"I heard you saved people on the mountain," Mrs. Chín Lài said, reaching out to gently stroke her hair, a rare gesture she had never made when Diệp Sương was still at home, as if, after many years of separation, she had finally relaxed some of her familiar strictness. "Good. If you draw a spell to save anyone, you will save them. I told you already, do you remember?"

"I remember," Diệp Sương replied, her voice hoarse. "I remember every word you told me."

*

In the evening, the group was scheduled to rest at the village guest house, but Diệp Sương asked permission to stay at Mrs. Chín Lài's house for one night. After a moment's hesitation, Nhiêu Bá Tường agreed and sent another disciple with her for safety.

In the familiar, smoky kitchen, Mr. Tám Mực also stopped by. His back was more hunched than before, but his eyes were still sharp when he saw Diệp Sương sitting beside the fire, helping Mrs. Chín Lài gather firewood as she had in childhood.

"Do you still keep the way I taught you to hold a pen?" he asked, sitting down opposite, his voice somewhat questioning.

"I keep it," Diệp Sương replied, then told him about Đá Trắng village, about the night the Vân Tiêu battlefield shook, and about how she had combined orthodox methods with the self-taught drawing style he had taught her. Mr. Tám Mực listened quietly, occasionally nodding, his eyes shining with undisguised pride.

"I was afraid," he said at last, his voice low, "that when you reach the sect, you will be molded into the same mold as the other disciples, losing the roots I tried to pass on. Now that I hear you tell me, I feel somewhat reassured."

"I will never forget, grandfather," Diệp Sương said, looking towards the old inkstone placed on the small altar in the corner of the kitchen, where Mrs. Chín Lài kept it like a sacred object during the two years she was away from home. "But I'm worried too. The signs here — the muddy water, the panic of the animals — I saw exactly like that, right before the night the village gate tore open." Mr. Tám Mực and Mrs. Chín Lài exchanged a heavy look, and no one said anything for a moment. Outside, the night wind suddenly whistled through the crack in the door, bringing an unusual chill even though it was only mid-season, when the weather was not usually this cold.

"There have been a lot of strange things these past few days," Mrs. Chín Lài finally spoke, her voice quieter. "Linh Căn Temple, the sacred well next to the temple, the water suddenly drained by half in just one night. The whole village is talking, but Chief Lý Đoài is still waiting for opinions from the town."

Diệp Sương clenched her hands, a cold feeling running down her spine. She remembered the piece of jade pendant in her pocket and Thanh Việt's advice—to sense sooner if there was anything unusual—and wondered if the premonition rising in her heart right now was the first sign of what she feared most.

*

It was late at night, but Diệp Sương still couldn't sleep. She quietly put on a coat, walked out of the house, and walked towards Linh Căn temple located not far from Mrs. Chín Lài's house, where the trail through a bamboo grove had turned dark under the waning moonlight.

The small temple was still standing there, its tiled roof covered with moss, and the incense burner in front still held a few sticks burned down from the most recent worship. But the sacred well next to the temple, once filled with clear water reflecting the moonlight on every full-moon night according to Mrs. Chín Lài's story, was now only a murky puddle at the bottom, its water level far lower than she remembered.

Diệp Sương knelt down next to the well, raised her hand to touch the cold stone wall, and closed her eyes, trying to feel the way she always did before putting down her pen—listening to the heartbeat hidden deep underground. She did not have as sharp an intuition as Thanh Việt, but many years of living on Vân Tiêu Peak had taught her enough to realize one thing: that heartbeat, although very gentle, was slower and weaker than she remembered, like the breathing of a person who had just recovered from illness.

"Can't you sleep too?"

She was startled and turned around to see Mr. Tám Mực standing behind her, holding a bamboo stick in his hand; perhaps he had been following her without her knowing.

"I just want to take a look," Diệp Sương replied, standing up and brushing the dust from her robe. "The pulse under the temple is much weaker than I remember." Mr. Tám Mực nodded slowly and looked toward the dry well, his voice lowered as if he were talking to himself rather than to her. "I've lived in this village for nearly sixty years, my child. I've seen the well dry up a few times because of drought, but I've never seen it dry up this way—not from a lack of rain, but as if someone, somewhere far away, were silently draining it from the roots."

Those words sent a chill down Diệp Sương's spine, not because she feared any specific monster, but because of a much vaguer insecurity—the same feeling she had seen in the eyes of the elders standing before the cracked Vân Tiêu battlefield, now appearing again, smaller but no less cold, right in her hometown village.