Chapter 60 — The Talisman Painter Who Guards the Village

Close Behind

Three days of walking alone down the mountains around Vân Tiêu, Diệp Sương learned many things she had never had to worry about when she was a sect disciple - how to calculate the small food rations to make it to the next rest stop, how to find a safe shelter for the night when there were no walls or soldiers to protect her, how to walk when her legs were tired but there was no one waiting ahead to try.

She avoided major roads and guard posts where someone might recognize her face because the rumors had spread further than she thought - a few times, when stopping by a small roadside inn, she vaguely heard the story of "a disciple of the Tông Vân Các who was expelled for colluding with demons" told with all sorts of embellished versions; each time she heard it, her heart ached a little more.

Once, at a small inn where she stopped to rest, an old peddler sitting next to the table told the story to a group of passersby, adding that "she heard that she even kept a demon beast in her own room, and at night she could hear it whispering and talking to something that wasn't human." Diệp Sương sat quietly at the far corner of the table, bowed her head, trying to swallow the choking feeling of hearing her own life story distorted into a scary legend to entertain strange guests, none of whom knew her face, none of whom knew the truth behind those rumors.

She left the inn right after that, without finishing the meal she had ordered, stepped out into the cold night air, telling herself to get used to this - get used to the fact that her own story no longer belonged to her, but had become the common property of mouths that didn't need to know the truth, just needed a story thrilling enough to tell over a cup of tea.

*

On the third night, while looking for shelter under an abandoned porch on the edge of a small, unnamed village, Diệp Sương took out an old inkstone, placed it in front of her, and sat quietly looking at it under the cold moonlight.

"This inkstone is not precious, but it remembers my hand from the first stroke," she muttered, repeating Mr. Tám Mực's words from years ago, her voice hoarse because she had not spoken to anyone for several days in a row. "Wherever you paint, don't forget how your hand started."

She took out a small piece of paper left in her pocket, rubbed the remaining ink, drew a simple An Mien talisman - not to suppress anything, just to reassure herself, a habit she had kept since the sleepless nights of her childhood. Soft light radiated from the drawing, and in that moment, amid the desolation of an abandoned porch in a foreign land, she felt a fragile but real peace, like an invisible string connecting her with the six-year-old child who trembled and held a pen for the first time next to the fire in Tùng Lĩnh Village.

*

The next morning, on the way to continue her journey, Diệp Sương stopped by a small stream to wash her face, and while bending down, she caught a glimpse of a figure reflected in the water - not her own image, but a small, nimble shadow gliding between the dense bushes on the other side of the stream.

She suddenly looked up, her hand already instinctively holding a protective talisman, but only in time to see a pale gray streak disappear into the forest, too fast to clearly determine its shape. There was something in that appearance that made her heart skip a beat - a vague familiarity, almost like the small creature she had once rescued and released into the wild at Tiêu Sa Pass, although reason told her that the distance between the two places was too far for that to be true.

*

She stood silently for a long time by the stream, wondering if it was just an illusion created by an exhausted and lonely mind, or some sign she didn't know enough to explain - as if this wild land itself, even though strange, was silently following the footsteps of someone who had learned to treat it with compassion instead of fear.

She recalled the story Mrs. Chín Lài once told about the Vụ Ẩn tribe, about the peaceful creatures living in seclusion in the deep forest, watching people from afar, sometimes helping those who did not harbor malice in their hearts, even though no one had ever actually met them to confirm whether the legend was true or not. She didn't know if this was such a sign, but that thought, although vague, was enough to spark a small ray of hope in her heart amid the darkest days.

She sat down on the bank of the stream for a long time, looking down at the clear water reflecting the morning sky, wondering how many things about this world she still did not understand, even though she had gone through many dangers and learned many lessons from both the sect and from the simple people on the border. Perhaps, the journey ahead, even without the name of a disciple of Tông Vân Các leading the way, would also be a new journey of learning, in a completely different way - not learning from books or education, but learning from what she would encounter and experience, when there was no longer anything to protect her other than her own bravery.

*

In the afternoon, when the familiar roofs of Tùng Lĩnh Village began to appear in the distance under the sunset, Diệp Sương stopped at the top of a small slope, looking down at the village where she was born and raised, where Mrs. Chín Lài and Mr. Tám Mực were still waiting, unaware that the child they had sent off with so much hope was now returning not in glory, but as an expelled person, carrying an unjust sentence.

She took a deep breath, feeling the familiar smell of earth, the faint smell of kitchen smoke from afar, and a feeling of warmth and sadness rising at the same time. This was not the return she had dreamed of all those years away from home - not returning in the glory of a famous disciple, but returning in defeat, in injustice, with a big question about whether justice would ever find people like her.

*

But as she stood there, looking down at the small village amid the sunset that dyed the entire sky yellow, Diệp Sương suddenly realized that even though she had lost everything the sect had given her - status, reputation, and even the trust of many people - she still retained the most important thing: herself, and what she truly believed was right.

She thought of Thanh Việt, of the promise to find the truth from within the sect. She thought of Tạ Vân Khê, of the promise to personally welcome her back when that day came. She thought of Âu Bội Nhi, of Chung Nhã Trúc, of the strange faces that silently expressed their beliefs in their own way - the small piece of paper stuffed through the door crack, the eyes of Wei Bá Tuân in the late night of confession, the guilty silence of Nhiêu Bá Tường.

She thought of the light gray shadow that passed by the stream that morning, a vague sign but enough to remind her that the world out there, although vast and full of uncertainties, still contained allies she had never known, waiting somewhere ahead.

*

Diệp Sương tightened the strap of her luggage bag and took the last steps down the slope, heading straight toward the small village gradually appearing in the sunset. Behind her, Vân Tiêu Peak still stood tall on the distant horizon, silent and distant, as if it had never been her home for nearly four years.

In the distance, she saw the familiar figure of a child running and playing in the fields, crisp laughter echoing in the late afternoon air, reminding her of herself and Mộc, that Mận of yesteryear, and those carefree afternoons that never knew the concept of betrayal or injustice. She wondered if that child, when he grew up, would have to face difficult choices as she had, or if fate would smile on him more gently than it had on her in the past few weeks.

But ahead, a new path, although its shape was unclear, was opening up - a path no longer drawn in advance by the name of the sect, but one she would draw herself, with hands that had learned how to mix ink from kitchen ash and tree sap, and a heart that had learned to love even what the world called scary. She would draw each line herself, like the first ink strokes she had once drawn while trembling on a piece of tree bark under the guiding hand of an old man making paper quietly in Tùng Lĩnh Village. Many years had passed, and now that same hand would have to learn how to start all over again.