Han Shouliang

A man in a blue robe sat alone in the corner of a tavern. It lacked Revelry Hall's gilded grandeur, but it made up for that in bustle. Beyond a folding screen, the next table erupted in loud drinking games; his own table, by contrast, felt as if it belonged to another world. He ordered a few simple Jiangnan dishes: clear-broth fish balls and duck tongues cured in wine lees. A native of the Central Plains, he'd lain low in the misty Jiangnan long enough for his palate to change. Now he craved only the light and the plain. Not that he truly preferred blandness; his tongue had simply gone numb. Spying had left him taut-hearted and tongue-locked. A string stretched too tight will never yield a sweet note, and naturally, one can taste no flavor in their food. The Kaifeng cook's fish balls were, in truth, not quite authentic. Jiangnan values "fish as white as snow, broth as clear as water," but here the fish balls carried a floury texture, and the soup held a restless hint of scallion and ginger. It was almost comic that those most ordinary Jiangnan ways of cooking simply cannot be replicated once they leave that specific climate and soil. It turns out that what is most rare in this world is often just a touch of the "ordinary." Now that his string had snapped and he no longer needed to engage in the dirty work of eavesdropping, his ears had retained their old afflictions. Even through the screen, the neighboring table's idle chatter still bored straight into his ears: a schoolboy getting his palms caned by the teacher for skipping class, a courtesan trying a new tune, an out-of-towner duped by a chamber pot passed off as an antique at the gates of the Grand Imperial Temple... Petty, gossipy, utterly trivial, yet he listened with great relish. Accompanied by this mundane street gossip, that bowl of unauthentic fish balls actually yielded a hint of flavor. Perhaps this is what it means to be human: to repeat what has been said before, to busy oneself with small, pointless tasks. And yet those are life, steaming and alive with the warmth of the commonplace. "Alright, no more drinking! My little one's out of school, and my wife will scold me if I'm late." The neighboring table erupted in laughter; the man tossed down a few copper coins and hurried away. As the laughter faded, he turned toward the window, looking out at the bustling street. Such ordinary days had long since blurred in his memory, as if belonging to another life. He could not even remember whether anyone in his own family had once rushed to pick him up from school like that. By all rights, he should have been killed long ago. Killed by that cup of poisoned wine at Velvet Shade. Killed beneath the heap of corpses the night the Han family was massacred. Killed by a casual slash of an imperial guard's blade when he stormed the palace. To still be alive today, sitting here feasting on fish balls, was in itself a highly extraordinary thing. Since he was a ghost who should have died long ago, he had no business lingering alone in this world of the ordinary. The food on his plate was gone, the wine in his cup drained dry; it was time to be on his way. He had been plotting a scheme for a long time; it might be of little use, but at least it would do justice to the Han family. He rose, smoothed his robes, and softly hummed the tune he had composed himself, "Spring in the Capital." The melody was melodious, lost amidst the clamorous cries of street vendors, heard by no one. And so, humming the tune, he strolled out the door, stepping into a long-awaited reunion with death.