“Young Master, please have mercy! We truly cannot spare any food nor wine – not now!”
“Young Master, Young Miss, please just wait a few days – just a few more!”
The voices that struck An Fei’s ears when she stepped close to the nearly finished shelter were filled with agony and helplessness. A few women had stepped before a small group of young men and women adorned in luxurious clothing, their countenances stretched taut with exhaustion and more than mild irritation. The stronger laborers took a short glance at the collection of intruders and at the falling skies, then resumed their heavy work with a hardened grunt.
“Peasants believe they can deal with us, the masters of this land, easily because of a few days of hard rain?”
A young man sporting a luxurious jade pendant stroked his fingers across the blade of his sword, and displayed a sardonic sneer towards the fatigued women and children. The jade socket larger than An Fei’s fist swayed from left to right as the youth lightly inspected the formerly delicate hands of young maidens now torn apart with unsightly callouses from the rain’s aftereffects, and his disdainful laughter struck eerie chords.
“Young Master Song, we regrettably cannot offer you supplies at this moment,” an older, wizened woman stepped forward in an attempt to mediate.
“Our husbands and our sons are risking their lives to save us all from the accursed rain. The Young Masters and Young Misses are certainly important to this city, but surely a bit of concern and sympathy can be spared for the hard laborers of the earth?”
The youth immediately stepped forward with his body bristling with anger, but was quickly pulled to the rear by his compatriots. A few breaths of intense and swift bickering followed, then a young girl appearing slightly older than An Fei approached the elderly woman. When she had taken three steps forward, the sword sheathed at her waist had extended a few centimeters to reveal a dazzling, sharp blade.
“The stones and wood you use to build this shelter was provided by my Father,” the young girl retorted in a soft, understanding voice dripping with mellow sympathy.
“Father also ensured that the businessmen and merchants would secure additional supplies that, during the winter rain, you all may continue your desperate struggle for survival. Do you wish to be ungrateful?”
The women suppressed their emotions at the Young Miss’ gentle words, and bent their necks in resignation. The children opened their mouths to complain in distaste, but were quietly suppressed by their elder siblings and parents.
“We thank Young Miss Han for her grace!”
The women and children bent their knees into a deep bow, accompanied by the dull thrashing of the men as they pounded the stone blocks and formed wooden beams to construct a makeshift roof. The young girl surnamed Han clapped her hands in appreciation and delight, and strode directly into the walled shelter without hesitation in her steps.
The Young Masters and Young Misses followed her steps as they directly surveyed and criticized the rushed but reliable handiwork of the men, hardly forgetting to instruct the relatively idle young maidens and children with brisk voices.
“There’s a crack in the seams here. What are you going to do if it rains a bit harder tonight, and the water seeps through and enters the shelter?”
A Young Master cajoled and jabbed his finger at a small construction flaw near the middle regions of the wall. The youth’s lips curled into a dense smile suffused with sheer contempt and schadenfreude as a young boy rushed to plug the cracks with the sealing agent, yet fell onto the ground as his feet slipped on the rudimentary scaffolding.
“Ah, Brother Kim, you mustn’t be so harsh on the child. Look, he fell again – that’s going to bruise rather badly, no?”
“Brother Kim, don’t be a spoilsport and help the child, ah!”
The fellow aristocratic youths softly jeered and cackled at the struggling child, and some lightly cajoled the youth surnamed Kim into graciously lending a hand. They reclined around the simple and blocky chairs as they observed and made use of the children’s hard labor as entertainment.
An Fei stood near the doorway of the shelter as she witnessed the parasitical antics of the Young Masters and Young Misses. The evening passed into night, and amidst the rain, the young girl and elderly man stood in silence as faithful observers.
To her surprise, she felt completely detached from the need or desire to sleep. Should she will it, An Fei noticed that her body would either exude with strength or suffuse itself with fatigue, as though she could control the minute fluctuations of her physique. Moreover, the accursed nighttime rain presently hardly any harm to her being.
The young girl watched in wonder and confusion as the raindrops pierced through her hands without resistance and splattered onto the ground. She wasn’t immune to the effects of the curse, but was unable to be harmed as the rain and the nighttime breeze simply passed through her body.
“Is this a dream? Or an illusion?”
An Fei tossed a glance towards the elderly man standing to her right. She placed her palm against the stone walls of the shelter to confirm the cold and now somewhat slimy texture, and observed the falling rain once more.
The unearthly combination of two opposite phenomena brought additional confusion. She could feel the raindrops splattered across the stone surface and be affected by its curse, but the raindrops falling from the skies could not touch her body.
“A dream, or an illusion? Do you will it to be a dream, or perhaps you recognize this as an illusion?” the elderly man quipped with a light smile.
“Reality, dream, or perhaps illusion. Three different states of perception that can be experienced. If you are confused by your surroundings, why not try changing your perception?”
Try changing her perception? Was this to recognize her surroundings as either reality or illusion, or perhaps a combination of the two?
An Fei didn’t bother attempting to probe the elderly man any further, and returned to preoccupying her mind with her surroundings. She stared at the rain scattering from the skies in a chaotic manner, the men desperately laboring to finish the construction of the shelter before daybreak, and the Young Masters and Young Misses huddled in a corner with large paper umbrellas sheltering their body.
The teal, yellowed paper oiled with a special mixture adorned with crimson ink reflected the incoming drops of rain towards a radial direction away from the thin wooden frame.
The aristocratic youths slept soundly unaffected much by the rain save for the accumulating puddles on the ground, but their umbrellas directed the majority of their share of suffering onto the women and children attempting to fall asleep amidst the terrifying onslaught.
The young girl returned her gaze to the countless deluge of rain passing through her body, and recalled the elderly man’s words prior. An Fei accustomed her ears to the constant battering of the heavens, and gradually lapsed into thought.
Illusion, dream, reality.
She could feel and experience the ruined city with her senses, but couldn’t leave lasting interactions with the people or objects within. Her senses and experience dearly informed her though everything around her seemed real, neither she nor the world could influence the other. And yet, she had no recollection falling asleep or being subjected to an illusion.
What she experienced, what she saw – all of which certainly qualified for the three states of perception. Then… what was she currently experiencing?
Death?
It was rather convenient how her body whimsically chose to become corporeal or intangible depending on the circumstance, and the impossibility of interaction made An Fei relate her circumstances to the myths and legends of her time. The more she gave thought to the matter, the more the young girl became convinced that her current situation more or less resembled that of spiritual beings.
Spiritual beings – though their existence itself was questionable – couldn’t be noticed by the perception of ordinary humans. Neither did their actions affect humans and their surroundings, and vice versa.
The West called them deities or holy messengers, and the Eastern people preferred to refer to these beings as spirits.
However… if she did perish and transform into a spirit, when did that happen? Did she die after passing out in the rain following her encounter with the young girl?
Then how did she wake up in the Sanctum, talk with the rather creepy but seemingly reliable Xu Shen, and return back to Bei Tang?
An Fei stood as she continued to ponder over the matter to no avail. As the young girl lost herself over her thoughts, the laborers heaved with all of their strength to smash the completed roof onto the notched walls, their weary brows touched by the compassionate rays of daybreak.
