Chapter 61 — The Talisman Painter Who Guards the Village

Return Without Glory

Mrs. Chín Lài was sitting on the porch stripping tobacco leaves when she heard a dog barking loudly in the alley, a bark that was different from usual - not barking at a stranger, but a hum that was both happy and cautious, like an animal that wasn't sure if it should be happy or worried. She looked up, her hands still covered in leaf sap, and saw a figure standing at the entrance of the alley, much thinner than the last time she saw her, wearing faded civilian clothes instead of the disciple's outfit that made the whole village stir the day she left.

"Diệp Sương?" She stood up suddenly, the basket of tobacco leaves spilled onto the floor without her even paying attention.

The girl stood there, seventeen years old, her eyes sunken from many sleepless nights on the road, no longer the look of a thirteen-year-old child when she left the village, but she could only nod before Mrs. Chín Lài crossed the yard, embracing her with the trembling arms of an old person, squeezing tightly as if afraid that if she let go at a moment's notice, she would disappear again.

"You're home," she said, her voice choked, not asking why, not asking how, just repeating that one sentence over and over as if that was all that mattered right now. "I'm home."

*

Mr. Tám Mực heard the news from a child and ran to the paper workshop, immediately dropped the stack of papers that were being dried on the bamboo frame, and ran to Mrs. Chín Lài's house, his old legs trembling on the familiar dirt road. When he saw Diệp Sương sitting in the yard, he stood still for a moment at the gate, his hazy eyes looking her up and down before dropping to her hands - as if the first thing he needed to verify was not her face, but the hands that once held the pen under his guidance.

"Can you still hold the pen?" he asked, his voice hoarse.

Diệp Sương held out her hands, spreading them wide in front of him, unable to hide her first forced smile since the day she left Vân Tiêu Peak. "Still, sir," Mr. Tám Mực nodded and said nothing more. He simply sat down beside her, silent for a long time before speaking in a lighter voice. "That's enough. Any title is just something people attach to you and can take away. But these hands…" He took her hand and gently rubbed the old calluses on her index finger. "These are yours alone. No one can take them away."

*

News of Diệp Sương's return spread throughout Tùng Lĩnh Village in just one afternoon, no less quickly than the news of her banishment, which had reached the village a few weeks earlier through a passing salt merchant. Not everyone received the news with joy.

Chief Lý Đoài, whose hair was now more than half white, went to Mrs. Chín Lài's house that night, his face full of hesitation. He stood outside in the yard, not quite entering, but spoke into the room as if he was afraid of touching something that could spread.

"Mrs. Chín Lài," he said, his voice cautious, "I don't dare say she did anything wrong, but everyone in the village knows about the banishment. If the sect sends someone down to interrogate, our village cannot bear the crime of harboring someone accused of colluding with demons."

"What are you afraid of?" Mrs. Chín Lài stood blocking the door, her cold voice rarely used with anyone. "This girl grew up on the village's well water and rice, and saved the whole village with her own hands from a demon tide when she was thirteen years old. Have you forgotten, or do you only remember what is convenient for you to remember?"

Chief Lý Đoài was speechless for a moment, then finally just shook his head, turned and walked away, not daring to respond directly but also not promising to leave it alone.

*

Mộc, now a burly carpenter with broad shoulders inherited from his father, rushed to the house as soon as he heard the news, carrying a whole basket of ripe guavas hastily picked from the garden as if it was the only thing he could think of to prove that everything was still the same as before.

"You came back without warning," he said, his voice trying to sound reproachful but his eyes were red, "I almost thought you were a ghost coming to collect debt."

"Sorry for disappointing you," Diệp Sương replied, laughing for the first time in many days, a hoarse laugh because she hadn't used her voice for a long time.

Cái Mận arrived a little later, her hands still indigo from the loom. She stood looking at Diệp Sương for a long time before walking over, saying nothing, just reaching out to gently touch her cheek, like in the past when she noticed her friend's drawing was darker and more trembling when she was sad or scared.

"You still draw boldly like this," Cái Mận said softly, her finger brushing over a streak of dried ink still stuck to Diệp Sương's wrist. "What happened?"

Diệp Sương didn't answer right away, just grabbed her friend's hand and squeezed it gently, her eyes speaking for what she hadn't had the courage to fully recount that first night.

*

That night, after everyone had gone home, Diệp Sương lay on an old bamboo bed in Mrs. Chín Lài's small house, hearing the sounds of insects chirping in the garden, the sound of wind blowing through the thatched roof - sounds she thought she had forgotten, but now came back intact as if they had never left. She couldn't sleep, even though her body was so exhausted that every joint was weak.

She sat up, groped in the dark for an old inkstone, brought it out and sat on the doorstep, watching the moonlight scatter silver on the ground - right where, many years ago, an old hand had held her small hand, teaching her to draw the first line on a piece of tree bark.

She sharpened the remaining ink, dipped her pen, and drew that simple An Mien talisman leaf on an old piece of paper she found in her pocket, not because she needed to reassure anyone, but because her hand, in that moment, needed to do something familiar, something no one could take away.

*

The next morning, when the sun had not yet fully risen, Mrs. Chín Lài got up to cook rice, her back bent over the fire like thousands of mornings before. Diệp Sương sat next to her, helping her light the fire, smelling the familiar ash smoke that seeped into every fiber of her shirt.

"How long are you planning to stay?" she asked, without looking back, her voice calm as if she were asking about the crops.

"I don't know," Diệp Sương replied honestly. "I'm afraid... the longer I stay here, the more danger the village will be in because of me."

Mrs. Chín Lài was silent for a moment, her hands still quickly stirring the rice cooker. "There's no danger," she said at last, her voice slow. "But do you remember what my mother told me - if you draw a spell to save someone, save it well, don't draw it half-heartedly and leave it there to be tormented for the rest of your life. It's the same with you. If you haven't saved yourself yet, don't think about leaving yet."

Diệp Sương bowed her head, letting the flickering fire cast a shadow on her face. Her heart was both warm and heavy, knowing that those words, like every other time in her life, would follow her for a long time to come - but also knowing that, somewhere beyond those dim mountains in the distance, there were things she could not avoid forever by just sitting still next to the old fire.

*

That afternoon, when she went to the village well to carry water for Mrs. Chín Lài, Diệp Sương caught the searching eyes of a few villagers standing nearby. The whispering grew quieter as she approached, then louder as she moved away. Not everyone was like Mộc or Cái Mận. Some people avoided her completely; others looked at her with both curiosity and fear, as if she carried an invisible evil spirit that could infect anyone nearby.

She didn't blame them. She understood, more than anyone else, how the weight of rumors could distort a person, because she herself had heard her life story turned into a scary legend at a roadside inn just a few days earlier.

But as she stood beside the village well, carrying a heavy load of water on her shoulder and looking toward the distant peak of Vân Tiêu—a place from which she was now permanently barred until evidence could exonerate her—Diệp Sương realized one thing: she could not simply sit and wait for justice to find her. If the sect was no longer a place she could rely on, perhaps it was time to find another path and another foothold—not to escape, but to continue the fight she had never intended to abandon.

She tightened her grip on the shoulder strap and continued walking home, a new seed of determination sprouting in her heart - still fragile, but already beginning to take root.

*

Late in the afternoon, she stopped by Linh Căn temple, where she had followed Mrs. Chín Lài to burn incense every holiday season since childhood. The small temple was still the same—the mossy tiled roof and old incense bowl—though the rice tree beside it had grown significantly taller than she remembered. She knelt before the altar without asking for anything specific, simply lighting a stick of incense and letting the thin smoke curl upward, carrying with it the things she had not been able to say to anyone, even herself.

A middle-aged man, looking like a merchant, was resting nearby. Seeing him kneeling for a long time, he started a conversation to relieve his sadness. "Is the girl from far away? I just passed by the far western border region, I heard people there gossiping about the fog that had not cleared for many months in a deep forest. Some people said they saw strange lights at night, some people said they heard something that wasn't human or animal, calling to each other in the middle of the night. In the whole area around there, most of the people left, only a few small hamlets remained because there was nowhere else to go."

Diệp Sương looked up, a familiar feeling rising in her heart—not fear, but something like the feeling she had every time she heard Mrs. Chín Lài tell the story of the Vụ Ẩn clan by the fire, a folk legend half true and half false that always made her more curious than scared.

"What's the name of that area?" he asked, trying to keep his voice calm.

The merchant shrugged. "People around there just loosely call it the deep forest behind the rocky mountains. They've never heard anyone give it an official name. Why are you asking, are you planning to go there to do business? I really advise, the distance is dangerous and it's not worth the effort." She didn't answer, just nodded her thanks and sent him out of the temple. The story she had just heard lingered in her heart, like a thin thread that someone had quietly tied to her wrist, pulling her in a direction she had never thought of.