White Horse Neighing in the West Wind - Chapter 4

Old Man Ji frowned, studying Ding Tong’s corpse. He turned the matter over in his mind: “This man had no quarrel with me. Why did he strike without warning?”

Li Wenxiu, anxious, asked in a small voice, “Grandfather, is the wound on your back any better?”

Old Man Ji had changed into a fresh robe, and there was no telling how the injury fared beneath it.

At the mention of it, his face darkened, as though that knife thrust were a humiliation he could not stomach. “Stop fussing,” he grunted.

Outside, the white horse let out a long “Xu-liu-liu” whinny. The old man paused in thought, then went out to the woodshed behind the house and brought back a bucket of yellow dye. It was the kind shepherds used to mark their livestock so that one family’s herd would not mingle with another’s, a dye that withstood wind and weather without fading.

He led the white horse over and brushed the yellow paint from head to tail. Then he walked to a Kazakh tent, begged an old set of Kazakh boy’s clothing, and told Li Wenxiu to change into it.

Li Wenxiu was clever. “Grandfather,” she said, “you want those bad men not to recognise me, don’t you?”

Old Man Ji nodded and sighed. “Grandfather is old. Ai, that he should have put a knife in me just now.” This time he had raised the subject himself, and Li Wenxiu did not dare answer.

Old Man Ji buried Ding Tong’s body. He slaughtered the horse the dead man had ridden, and buried the horsehide together with the saddle, stirrups, and horseshoes, leaving not a single trace behind. Then he sat down at the gate, a long dao in his hand, drawing it back and forth across the whetstone without rest.

***

His labour was not in vain. That very evening, the band of fighters led by Huo Yuanlong¹ and Chen Dahai² swept into the oasis and unleashed a great plundering.

These lands had never known bandits. The Kazakhs were brave and fierce in battle, but they had not been on guard, and the able-bodied men of the tribe had ridden north in force to hunt the wolf packs that were ravaging their herds. Only the old, the weak, the women, and the children remained in the camp, and these Han fighters from the Central Plains caught them utterly unprepared.³

Seven Kazakh men were killed. Five women were carried off.

The raiders broke into Old Man Ji’s thatched hut, but no one grew suspicious of an old man and a Kazakh child. Li Wenxiu, her face smeared with mud, crouched in the corner of the room. No one noticed the light of hatred and grief burning in her eyes.

But she saw everything with perfect clarity. Her father’s dao hung at Huo Yuanlong’s waist. Her mother’s gold and silver little jian were thrust through Chen Dahai’s belt.⁴ These were the weapons her parents had never parted with in life. Young as she was, she guessed that some misfortune must have befallen her father and mother.

On the fourth day, the Kazakh men returned from the north, dragging a train of wolf carcasses behind them. They gathered a war party at once and rode out to find the Han bandits and take revenge. But in the vast, trackless desert all trace of the raiders was lost. They found only the five abducted women.

They were five corpses, stripped of every garment, dead in misery upon the open sand.

They also found the bodies of White Horse Li San and Gold and Silver Little Swords Third Lady, and brought them all home together.

Li Wenxiu threw herself upon her parents’ bodies and wept without cease. A rough Kazakh man lifted his leather-booted foot and kicked her hard. “You Han bandit under Allah’s curse!” he swore at her.⁵

Old Man Ji gathered Li Wenxiu in his arms and carried her home. He did not stop to argue with the Kazakh.

Li Wenxiu’s small heart was filled with a single thought, “Why are there so many evil people? Why does everyone bully me?”

***

In the middle of the night, Li Wenxiu again woke weeping from her sleep. She opened her eyes and saw a figure sitting on the edge of the bed.

She gave a little cry and sat up, but it was only Old Man Ji. He gazed at her, his eyes overflowing with tenderness, his expression gentle. He stroked her hair. “Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. It’s only Grandfather.”

Li Wenxiu’s tears fell like pearls snapping from a broken string.⁶ She buried herself against him and sobbed until his whole lapel was soaked.

Old Man Ji said, “Child, you have lost your father and mother. Think of me as your own grandfather. Live here with me. Grandfather will take good care of you.”

Li Wenxiu nodded through her tears. She thought of the evil men who had killed her parents, and then of the fierce Kazakh who had kicked her. The kick had landed hard, and a great bruise was already swelling at her waist. She could not help asking again, “Why does everyone bully me? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Old Man Ji sighed. “In this world, it is always those who have done nothing wrong who are bullied.”

He poured her a bowl of hot milk tea from an earthen pot and watched her drink it down. Then he tucked the blankets around her and said, “Xiu’er, the man who kicked you is called Su Luke. He is a good and honest man.”

Li Wenxiu’s round eyes went wide. “He… he is a good man?”

Old Man Ji nodded. “Yes. A good man. He is the same as you, and in a single day he lost two of the people dearest to him. One was his wife, the other his eldest son. Both were killed by those bandits. He thinks all Han people are evil. He cursed you in Kazakh, and called you a ‘Han bandit under Allah’s curse.’ Don’t hate him. The grief in his heart is exactly the same as yours. No. He is older. The grief in his heart is greater and deeper than yours by far.”

Li Wenxiu listened, transfixed. She had never truly hated the bearded Kazakh. She had only been frightened by his fierce face. Now she remembered suddenly: the big man’s eyes had been brimming with tears, only they had not quite fallen.

She did not understand what Old Man Ji meant, why a grown man’s grief should be deeper and greater than a child’s. But an unbidden compassion for the bearded man rose in her heart. He seemed pitiable.

From outside the window came a wondrous, winding birdsong, distant yet perfectly clear. It was sweet and sorrowful at once, like a young girl singing a song clear and soft.

Li Wenxiu listened, tilting her head. The song drifted farther and farther away, and at last grew too faint to hear. In her stricken heart it left a thread of comfort. She sat lost in thought for a moment, then whispered, “Grandfather, that bird sings so beautifully.”

“Yes,” said Old Man Ji. “It sings so beautifully! That is the Tianling Bird.⁷ Its song is like silver bells from heaven. The bird sings only at night and sleeps through the day. Some say it is a star that fell from the sky and was transformed. Other Kazakhs say it is the spirit of the most beautiful girl on the steppe, the girl who could sing better than anyone, who died and was transformed. Her beloved no longer loved her, and she grieved herself to death.”

Li Wenxiu asked, bewildered, “She was the most beautiful, and she sang the best, why didn’t he love her anymore?”

Old Man Ji sat quiet for a while. Then he breathed a long sigh. “There are many things in this world that a child cannot understand.”

And then, far away on the steppe, the Tianling Bird began to sing again.

Its singing made the heart both sweet and desolate.

***

And so Li Wenxiu lived on in Old Man Ji’s home, tending the sheep and cooking the meals, and the two of them were like a real grandfather and granddaughter.

At night, Li Wenxiu sometimes woke from dreams and heard the Tianling Bird singing, and in its song she drifted back to sleep. Her dreams held the willow trees and peach blossoms of Jiangnan, her father’s embrace, her mother’s smiling face…

Autumn passed, and winter passed. Li Wenxiu lived quietly, day by day. She learned the Kazakh tongue and learned a hundred things about the steppe.

Old Man Ji could brew a wine both fragrant and fierce, and the Kazakh men loved nothing more than wine both fragrant and fierce. Old Man Ji could cure the ailments of cattle, sheep, and horses. The Kazakhs’ crippled and sickened beasts, beyond all help by their own hands, Old Man Ji would often set right. Cattle, sheep, and horses were the life of the Kazakh people. Though they did not care for Han folk, they could not do without him. They traded him cattle and sheep in exchange for his fragrant, fierce wine, and invited him out to treat their animals’ wounds and illnesses.

The Kazakhs’ tents migrated across the steppe, north, south, east and west. Old Man Ji did not usually follow. More often he stayed behind in his thatched hut at the oasis, waiting for them to return. He kept only a few cattle and a dozen-odd sheep, which did not require constant roaming in search of grass and water.

One evening, Li Wenxiu heard the Tianling Bird singing again. But its song grew ever more distant, faint and fainter, carried in gusts upon the wind, then lost.

Li Wenxiu quietly put on her clothes and got up, then went outside to where the white horse stood. Fearing she might wake Old Man Ji, she led the horse far from the hut before mounting, and followed the song.

On the steppe at night, the sky was high and deep and blue, the stars blazed bright, and the grass and wild flowers breathed their fragrance into the air.

The song was very clear now, winding and charming. Li Wenxiu’s spirit soared with the melody. She slipped softly from the saddle and let the white horse graze at its ease. She lay on her back upon the grass, gazing up at the sky, and surrendered herself to the song.

Footnotes

1. 霍元龙 – Huò Yuánlóng. Martial artist from the Central Plains who leads the band of fighters that raids the Kazakh camp. He carries Li San’s dao as a trophy. ↩

2. 陈达海 – Chén Dáhǎi. Fighter in Huo Yuanlong’s band. He takes the Third Lady’s Gold and Silver Little Swords as spoils. ↩

3. 哈萨克 – Hāsàkè. Kazakh people, a Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia and northwestern Xinjiang, traditionally nomadic herders. ↩

4. 金银小剑 – jīnyín xiǎo jiàn. Paired short jian, one gold-hilted and one silver-hilted, the signature weapons of the Third Lady (上官虹, Shangguan Hong). ↩

5. 苏鲁克 – Sūlǔkè. Kazakh herder. The curse he hurls, “You Han bandit under Allah’s curse”, renders 真主降罚的强盗汉人. ↩

6. 泪水如珍珠断线 – lèishuǐ rú zhēnzhū duàn xiàn. Classical Chinese simile for tears falling freely, like pearls whose string has snapped. ↩

7. 天铃鸟 – tiānlíng niǎo. “Heavenly Bell Bird” or “Tianling Bird.” A bird of the Kazakh steppe, named for its bell-like song. In legend it is the transformed spirit of a maiden who died of heartbreak. ↩