Spells

Jiang She had been staying these past few days at the courtyard Li Bai had purchased. Yuan Danqiu lived there too.

He had meant to rent a small courtyard of his own for a month or two. He still had some silver on him, enough to get by, and at worst he could earn a little more. But Li Bai wouldn't hear of it.

If he kept refusing, Li Bai might well buy him a house.

So he had settled in here.

Xiangyang was a fine place too, unlike the Shu Region, where sunny days were few and far between. At noon, the sun nearly scorched the ground, drying the stone slabs beneath the mats until they turned pale. People had to seek the shade of trees to rest their feet, but by evening the air cooled again.

For a divine being was here.

A gentle breeze came of its own accord.

Divine light lay hidden within.

Jiang She sat beneath a tree, paper spread across the wooden table as he dipped his brush in ink and wrote.

As he wrote, he reflected on what he had seen these past few days.

He had spent ten years in seclusion, with little contact with other people. Now that he had come down from the mountain and started mingling with the world, the human dealings, ghosts and spirits, demons and Daoists, and colorful tales of the marketplace he had encountered these past few days had proved richer than the experiences of the preceding ten years.

Perhaps he should have come out for a walk sooner.

It was said that eight hundred years ago, a mortal had saved a white deer, and the Mountain God had made a pact with him. In Jiang She's mind, that age belonged to history.

To Tang people like Li Bai and Meng Haoran, it was ancient history too.

What lay ahead saw the present as we now see the past.

As Jiang She wrote, he made no sound.

A little bird came fluttering over the courtyard wall, shaking its feathers. It seemed to mistake him for part of the tree, or perhaps a wooden post, and settled on his shoulder.

Its pale-yellow head tilted, revealing two tiny, green-bean-sized eyes. It rubbed against his clothes, rolling about as it scratched an itch.

Jiang She's movements grew even lighter, his writing gentler and more unhurried.

He was afraid of disturbing it.

A cat watched from the wall, eyes fixed on the bird rubbing its shoulder. Its head was raised, its backside stuck high in the air, and its paws opened and closed.

These were a litter of cats kept by one of the neighboring households.

He didn't know which family they belonged to; they had probably been raised to catch mice. Jiang She had been sitting here writing all morning, and from time to time he would see a few small cat heads sneak over the wall. They were barely a month old, seemingly born in the same litter and very fond of one another, pouncing and wrestling, biting at each other's downy fur.

Today, they seemed to have come here to practice their skills.

They weren't even as big as mice yet. Jiang She worried the mice might bully them.

Fortunately, their mother was lying not far away, her tail swishing back and forth. With an elder of the household keeping an eye on them, they ought to be safe.

Dappled shadows rustled beneath the tree. The cat watched the bird for a while, then heard an insect chirping somewhere and immediately turned to look, eager to paw at the source of the sound. Its tail stood high, sweeping the leaves again and again.

The bird took the chance to flap its wings and fly away.

Jiang She studied the cat.

It was a tiny black cat.

Its whole coat was black, without a single stray-colored hair. It still walked a little unsteadily, and the blue film had yet to fade from its eyes. It was a very, very small kitten.

And quite fierce-tempered.

It seemed a bit feisty, and was larger than its littermates. Its head was round and fluffy, and it blocked its brothers and sisters from getting ahead and catching the insect first.

It would probably grow into a fine mouser. If anyone wanted to take it home, they might have to buy a few more dried fish and some salt as well.

After a while, the cat let go of the poor insect and stretched out its tiny paws.

Suddenly,

it bristled and arched its back, hopping about on the wall a few times as if waiting for the other cats to pounce on it.

After watching for a while, Jiang She went back to writing.

He was rather curious about the illusion Zhang Zhenmei had used to swindle people—or, more precisely, the Eye-Obscuring Technique.

Long ago, someone reading the Huainanzi had seen a mantis hiding among the leaves, concealing its form. He thought that if an ordinary person could obtain such a wondrous leaf, he too could make himself invisible. So he took two leaves from the village entrance where a mantis had nested and covered his eyes with them.

When he got home, he asked his wife,

"Can you see me?"

His wife said she could.

So the man took the leaves away and covered his eyes again and again, asking his wife each time. She grew so sick of it that one day, unable to bear the pestering any longer, she replied, "I can't see you."

The man was overjoyed.

He thought that one leaf had blinded her to Mount Tai.

So he went to the marketplace with both eyes covered by the leaves and began taking things. The constables seized him and brought him before the magistrate. When the magistrate learned what had happened, he laughed heartily, then let the man go home.

It was a farcical tale, but in Jiang She's eyes,

it wasn't entirely false.

Such illusions truly existed in the world. They could not only conceal one's form but also make other people see the phantoms one wanted them to see, hiding what was real.

With profound cultivation and mastery of the art,

one might truly be able to obscure Mount Tai.

Jiang She thought as he wrote. At last, he stopped his brush and read the whole thing through, then added three more characters.

"Eye-Obscuring Technique."

He set down his brush and looked up toward the courtyard wall again, but the little cat heads had vanished. He glanced at the spot hidden by the tree's leaves, but the mother cat was gone too.

They must have left.

The sun had risen high. It was noon, when yang energy gradually sank, though the sun was at its hottest for the day.

A few trees grew in the corner of the courtyard, casting a patch of cool shade. The fourth and fifth months were almost the loveliest time of the year. Greens in every shade shone beneath the light, stirred by the breeze until they seemed like rippling water, glimmering and sparkling.

A light breeze swept through, cool and refreshing.

A cool table stood in the courtyard, and two brooms made from bound branches leaned against the corner.

It was a small, one-courtyard residence arranged in a square. As it was the innermost house, it was somewhat larger than the others. The master's room lay to the north, while Jiang She and Yuan Danqiu occupied the east and west side rooms. Li Bai had wanted to give Jiang She the master's room, but Jiang She had refused.

He had already received so much. He shouldn't take advantage of someone.

The south side held odds and ends, and two young servants lived there as well.

There was also a small garden at the back. It should have been a vegetable patch, with a little plot of land, but Li Bai was generous with money and uninterested in farming. He was willing to spend, but knew nothing about planting crops, so he had it turned into a garden instead. People had planted peonies, roses, crabapples, azaleas, chrysanthemums, and wintersweet haphazardly, hoping flowers would bloom in every season, each with its own beauty.

There were pomegranates too, planted for the household to eat.

They had also planted two tea bushes, hoping to process the leaves themselves and brew them for drinking.

Some reclusive scholars of the time enjoyed coarse tea and wild delicacies,

savoring the simple pleasures they found in them.

When Meng Haoran came to visit, the three of them would either sit in the courtyard to escape the heat or go to the garden at the back. A little pavilion had been cleared there, where they could shelter from the rain and enjoy the scenery.

Jiang She thought for a while.

Zhang Zhenmei's Eye-Obscuring Technique was interesting enough.

But it was false, after all. Anyone with even a little cultivation could see through it. It could only fool country folk and commoners.

It wasn't the real thing.

With a few simple adjustments, though, it could prove useful.

He picked up a brush and examined its shape.

In the blink of an eye, the brush curled up and changed shape. Ink from its belly colored the wood, and in his hand it became a small wooden carving.

It seemed to be shaped like a cat, lifelike and haughty, somewhat like the one on the wall that had been reaching out to cause trouble, all swagger and bravado.

Jiang She couldn't help but smile.

He set it on the table, weighing down the paper he had just written on.

The ink strokes of "Eye-Obscuring Technique" stretched out, rearranged themselves, and rose from the surface of the paper.

This seemed to be another art.

Li Bai came in from outside carrying a wine flask. He pushed open the door and strode in.

Seeing the quiet atmosphere filling the room,

he couldn't help but pause.

A withered leaf spun across the ground. The courtyard was cool and tranquil, so quiet that for a moment, he couldn't even hear a bird calling.

Green shadows filled the courtyard, scattered with flecks of light.

A man in green sat beneath the tree, his body covered in dappled leaf shadows and scattered light. Paper and an inkstone lay before him. He looked as though he had just been writing.

Jiang She looked toward the newcomer and beckoned.

"Taibai."

"Come over."