Chapter 1201: Stir the Firmament in Mourning

Fu Junlan and the maid waiting outside likewise rushed into the room without thinking, anxious to see what had happened.

The female cultivator who had burst in found nothing amiss. She quickly sat beside the bed, took Shang Shuqing's pulse, and sent spiritual power through her to examine her condition. Then she asked doubtfully, "Commandery Princess, did you have a nightmare?"

Shang Shuqing nodded. "I'm fine." She looked up and noticed that Fu Junlan had come in as well, and froze for a moment. This was her private bedchamber. Her gaze instinctively dropped to her bare feet, then to the stretch of her lower legs showing beneath her trouser cuffs. Startled, she hurriedly drew both feet under the quilt. "Young Master Fu, you're here."

Fu Junlan's gaze had followed hers. Her bare feet were fair and lustrous, undeniably lovely, but the way she hid them made him abruptly realize how improper the situation was. This was a woman's bedchamber. He immediately turned his back. "I heard a scream just now and barged in without thinking. It was discourteous of me. Please forgive me, Commandery Princess." With that, he practically fled the room, his face flushed red.

Since she had a guest, Shang Shuqing could hardly remain in bed. She quickly summoned servants to help her wash and change. Only after everything was in order did she step outside. Seeing the morning sun already high in the sky, she realized the wine from the night before had made her oversleep. Such conduct was hardly proper for a respectable woman, and she felt a little embarrassed.

A servant invited her to eat, but she declined. For one thing, she had no appetite. For another, she was too embarrassed to keep Fu Junlan waiting any longer.

She went straight to the pavilion, exchanged greetings with him, and asked, "Young Master Fu, did you need something?"

In fact, the way she had spoken yesterday had already hinted that she wanted some peace and quiet. She had not expected him to come of his own accord without any prior arrangement.

What could Fu Junlan say? He could hardly tell her Feng Ruonan had ordered him to come. Instead, he found an excuse. "When I went back last night, I happened to meet General Wang's son. He mentioned the calligraphy and painting the Commandery Princess promised him. I wonder if you still remember?"

Shang Shuqing paused. There was indeed such a thing, but she had never promised a specific time. Why such urgency?

Still, since Fu Junlan had already come on Young Master Wang's behalf, she could not very well send him back empty-handed and make him lose face. After a brief silence, she nodded. "Young Master Fu, please come with me."

The two went directly to the study. Without troubling the servants, Shang Shuqing personally spread painting paper across the spotless desk, while Fu Junlan stood beside her and ground the ink. He was rather looking forward to seeing what she would produce, for he knew her brushwork was exceptional.

In truth, Young Master Wang had never pressed him for anything. Fu Junlan's first purpose was simply to find an excuse to see Shang Shuqing; his second was to cheer her up. He did not know exactly what had happened, so he had no idea where to begin. When dealing with a talented woman, this was the best he could think of. Concentrating on calligraphy or painting might distract her, and once the work was finished they could discuss and critique it, perhaps shifting her mood.

Yet once Shang Shuqing raised her brush, she was at a loss. Her eyes were empty, her heart was empty, and there was nothing within her that she wished to paint.

Where else could her thoughts go now? Her blankness slowly turned to desolation. The brush descended to the bottom edge of the paper, and a slender shoot emerged beneath the varying pressure of her strokes. A few more strokes formed a lifelike plant.

Watching from the side, Fu Junlan recognized it as a blade of grass. Then another appeared beneath her brush.

As the painting went on, he began to sense something was wrong. Shang Shuqing's strokes came faster and faster. The spreading grassland lost all elegance and gradually became a waste of wild grass. Dense ink brought the near ground close; pale washes sent the distance receding. A bleak grassland stretched away into emptiness.

Above it lay a vast expanse of blank paper. Dots of ink fell along the upper edge, blooms of ink were rubbed and softened, then touched again with finer strokes until one bird after another appeared in flight, receding farther and farther into the distance.

There was no vitality in them. They were cold crows flying home, and set against the desolate grassland below, they filled the scene with boundless sorrow.

Shang Shuqing dipped her brush into the ink once more. This time, line after line of slightly hurried characters swept across the great blank space of the painting, the brush racing in wild, flowing strokes.

Fu Junlan stared at her. Her face was full of grief, as though an inexhaustible sorrow and indignation had burst through at once. When she had finished the piece in a single breath, she slowly lowered the brush and stood there in silence, looking as though her soul had left her.

Fu Junlan swallowed dryly. It seemed he had chosen precisely the wrong way to cheer her up.

He lowered his eyes to the hurried calligraphy and slowly read it aloud as he deciphered the characters:

"Once more, withered wormwood rustles in the bleak wind;
A mound of yellow earth, a hurried end.
A thousand sheets of yellow joss paper drift in tatters,
Scattered away, stirring the whole firmament in mourning!
Who chokes back sobs? A cup of wine in offering;
Drunken eyes weep, slowly growing dim;
Riding through the jianghu..."

He paused and looked at the woman beside him.

Shang Shuqing murmured to herself, completing the final line. "Riding through the jianghu, you come into my dreams..."

Silence filled the study. Fu Junlan gazed at her for a long while before finally reaching out and lifting the still-wet painting from the desk to examine it more closely.

The scroll was steeped in endless desolation. Together with those lines of equally desolate verse, the entire work seemed filled with a sorrow that could break the heart.

Yet he had to admit it was an excellent work, superb in both verse and painting. The conception of the painting alone made that impossible to deny. It was simply too sorrowful. Give this to Young Master Wang? The man would probably have his mood ruined the moment he saw it. Was such a thing really fit to be given away?

In truth, Fu Junlan's original participation in the garden gathering, where he had been put forward as one of the princely household's marriage candidates, had not been his own idea. His own circumstances were not poor, and he had no difficulty finding a beautiful woman to marry. Everyone knew the Commandery Princess of the Prince's residence was ugly. What son of a respectable family with decent prospects would willingly marry such an ugly woman?

But he had had no choice. Under pressure from his family, he could only comply.

As he came to know her, however, he increasingly understood what kind of woman existed beneath that face. She was gentle and kindhearted, refined and intelligent, without the slightest airs of a Commandery Princess. She was a woman who thought of others in everything she did.

And beneath that ugly appearance lay talents outsiders knew nothing about. Qin, chess, calligraphy, painting, poetry, and song: she was accomplished in all of them. The work before him had flowed from her brush almost without effort.

His initial reluctance had gradually become genuine willingness. One truly could not judge a person by appearance. Only now did he realize how thoroughly Shang Shuqing's talent had won him over. He felt as though he had stumbled upon a treasure.

But after seeing this painting, something he had only been privately guessing at before now seemed to have been laid bare in ink.

"Stir the firmament in mourning... stir the firmament in mourning..." Holding the painting, Fu Junlan murmured the line over and over. He remembered the scene at the grave yesterday: a gust of wind arriving, paper flying everywhere and churning through the sky. The line in the painting fit it perfectly.

But what depth of grief did it take to write such a line? That hasty burial had seemed calm and uneventful. Even the dead man's name had not been written on the grave marker, and this woman had not shed a single tear. Yet hidden in her heart was a sorrow so immense she wished she could stir the whole firmament itself in mourning.

And she was powerless to do anything. A choked sob, a cup of wine in offering, drunken eyes weeping; she could only meet him in dreams.

"Commandery Princess." Fu Junlan sighed softly.

Shang Shuqing suddenly came back to herself. Only then did she realize she had been lost in thought. She had not even noticed the painting being taken from the desk, nor did she know how long she had stood there blankly. Flustered, she set down her brush and apologized. "I lost myself for a moment. I've made a spectacle of myself before you."

Fu Junlan gave a strained smile and shook his head. Then he ventured, "Commandery Princess, was the Peach Blossom Immortal you buried Master Dao? He... he died?"

That one sentence, and that sentence alone, seemed to pierce straight through everything Shang Shuqing had been holding back. Her tears burst forth without warning.

She had endured it before, refusing to cry, refusing to weep in front of anyone else. Now she suddenly broke down completely. Both hands clamped over her mouth as she shook her head helplessly, still seemingly unwilling to let anyone see. Forgetting all decorum, she crouched beneath the table and sobbed into her hands, the muffled cries tearing from her heart as all control deserted her.

Fu Junlan was thrown into a panic. He hurriedly laid the painting back on the desk and reached down to help her up.

Shang Shuqing shook her head and refused to rise. Afraid someone else might see her, she kept both hands over her mouth as she sobbed, "I killed him. I should never have asked him to come down from the mountain. I shouldn't have kept pestering him into exhausting himself for my brother and me. I killed him. I killed him, and they couldn't even find his body. He must have suffered terribly before he died. How desperate must he have been? Was anyone there to save him? Maybe there wasn't even one person beside him who could help him..."

Fu Junlan had no idea what she was talking about. Between her sobbing and the hands covering her mouth, he could barely make out her words.

But he simply remained there as though listening. He crouched in front of her and waited, a trace of melancholy in his own expression.

A long time passed before Shang Shuqing, having finally vented what she had been holding in, lowered her hands. She wiped away her tears with her sleeve and apologized again and again. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Young Master Fu, I... I..." She rose to her feet, seeming to realize something belatedly. Flustered again, she did not know how to explain herself.

Fu Junlan stood as well. Smiling, he shook his head. "It's all right. The death of someone you knew well is indeed a painful thing. I've experienced the death of family members too."

Under his reassurance, and with Shang Shuqing's own considerable self-control, her emotions soon settled.

Once she had wiped the tears from her face, Fu Junlan cautiously asked, "Commandery Princess, are you in love with Master Dao?"

Shang Shuqing immediately panicked again and waved her hands. "Young Master Fu, there was never anything improper between Master Dao and me. It was absolutely not what you think."

Fu Junlan smiled. Now he seemed to have come to terms with something, and his whole manner had grown far more natural. He soothed her, "Don't be anxious, Commandery Princess. I believe there was nothing improper between you. That isn't what I meant. I'm simply curious. With your talent, I doubt just any man could win your regard. A man who could make you feel so deeply must have been extraordinary, no?"

Shang Shuqing fell silent, unsure how to answer.

Fu Junlan tried again. "Was he handsome and dashing? Suave and charming? Or was it because Master Dao's spiritual power was so great that ordinary men like us could never compare?"

At this point, there seemed little reason to conceal anything further. Since he had asked, Shang Shuqing did not hide it from him. "I don't know how to describe him to you. Let me ask you one thing instead. Would you die for me?"

Fu Junlan was silent for a moment, then smiled bitterly. "I don't dare lie to you. As things stand now, perhaps I would, perhaps I wouldn't. If I were truly fortunate enough to be with you, I believe I would have the courage to shoulder that responsibility."

Shang Shuqing said, "He would. There was never anything between us that crossed the bounds of propriety. At most, I was merely one of his friends. During the Battle of Jiao Lake, the armies of Yan and Zhao faced each other. Zhao used an unexpected stratagem to seize me and threaten the Yan army into retreating. Two states were at war. How could the campaign be lost for my sake? Even my elder brother had resolved to abandon me."

"It was Master Dao. He knew full well how dangerous it was, yet he still took the risk to save me. I was rescued, but Master Dao was alone and was gravely wounded as his pursuers hunted him down. By the time they found him, he was already at death's door. If the rescue had come even a little later, Master Dao would have died at Jiao Lake for me. Among thousands upon thousands of soldiers, not one would save me. He alone was willing to stake his life for mine!"

[End of Chapter 1201]