A candle in the wind

The second year of the Dàlì era.

It was early summer, under the glow of a bright full moon.

Within a secluded courtyard of the Shangguan family estate in the imperial capital of the ancient Lixún Kingdom.

A barefoot young girl gracefully swayed on a swing, while behind her stood a boy clad in patched garments.

“My body is like frost on a leaf, and like a candle in the wind, Xiǎo Mù, what did you mean by that poem you recited earlier?”

Her ink-blue hair swayed with the breeze, flowing like a waterfall over the boy’s bare arm, occasionally scattering into the cool air to dance with the swirling, withered leaves.

The silver bells encircling her ankles chimed incessantly, breaking into a cascade of sounds with each graceful ascent of the girl.

Where the bell tones drifted, a nearly inaudible sigh escaped the frail boy behind the swing.

“Miss Qiūyuè, those were merely Yún Mù’s baseless laments; you needn’t trouble yourself over them.”

“But… you looked so sad when you said that, didn’t you?” Shangguan Qiūyuè leaned back, her entire body almost hanging upside down from the swing ropes. “Besides, can’t I want to know more about you?”

The girl gazed at Yún Mù’s face, her expression a boundless, innocent smile.

They exchanged an oddly inverted gaze; the girl’s peach blossom eyes seemed to pierce through the boy’s wild, unkempt hair and the invisible, flowing river of time itself.

As the swing continued its ascent, the boy’s quiet heart was abruptly seized by an unseen hand.

As if by some strange twist of fate, a sharp, profound agony originating from the depths of his soul suddenly pierced him.

His hands clenched, and the swing soared higher, propelled by an even more forceful push.

“Thud—!”

The sound of the girl hitting the ground echoed, but Yún Mù remained lost in a daze, his body trembling uncontrollably, until the faint, fragile sound of her sobs finally jolted him back to reality.

Shangguan Qiūyuè sat sprawled on the cold, hard bluestone ground, her small hand pressed against her throbbing forehead, tears cascading down her cheeks in a torrent.

“I’m sorry… Miss… it’s my fault.”

Though Yún Mù uttered apologies, his eyes held only their usual weariness, having lost even the last vestige of their former spark.

His right hand unconsciously gripped the still-swaying swing rope, while he bent slightly at the waist, his left hand instinctively curled against his bony chest, showing no inclination to offer help.

He simply stared blankly at the sobbing figure on the ground, his body rigid and unmoving.

The girl’s soft whimpers, ultimately unable to contend with her childish sorrow and instinctive fear of pain, erupted after a brief pause into a soul-rending wail that reverberated through the entire courtyard.

Moments later, the Shangguan family servants, guided by the distressed cries, anxiously swarmed into the courtyard.

“Qiūyuè! My dear young miss!”

“Oh, did you hurt yourself falling? Quickly, call for a doctor!”

Exclamations of alarm and concern erupted in a chaotic chorus.

One woman swiftly bent down, deftly scooping the ten-year-old girl into her arms, gently wiping away her tears and dust with her sleeve as she carried her away.

Meanwhile, a burly middle-aged male servant, after watching the girl depart, shed his earlier expression of concern, his face instantly twisting into a ferocious snarl; he raised his foot high and delivered a brutal kick to the waist of Yún Mù, who still stood rooted like a block of wood.

“Bastard! Get on your knees, now!”

The boy’s scrawny body was violently sent sprawling to the ground, kicking up a small cloud of dust, as a barrage of curses rained down upon him.

“You dog-bastard! You pig-headed fool! Just because you’re the young miss’s personal servant, do you truly think you’re someone important? Have you forgotten what stinking gutter you crawled out of, you lowly wretch?! You brought death to your parents and now even your own master—such ill fortune! Bah!”

As he cursed, a gob of thick phlegm was forcefully spat onto the boy’s pale, bloodless cheek.

“Beat him! Beat him hard! Make him remember his place!”

With that, the tung-oil-soaked leather whip descended with a whistling sound.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Beneath the continuous onslaught of blows, the faint sounds of flesh tearing repeatedly could be heard.

The old coarse cloth garment, riddled with patches of varying shades, ripped open in several places under yet another brutal assault, revealing the skin of his back, crisscrossed with old and new scars.

The boy, curled on the ground, buried his face deep in his dust-stained arm, his scrawny, bony body convulsing and twitching violently with each descending lash.

Yet, apart from the muffled groans and choked coughs forced from the depths of his throat by the pain, no other sound escaped him.

The whistling of the whip and the furious curses continued for an unknown duration.

It wasn’t until the male servant, exhausted from his brutal task, felt his arms ache and sweat bead on his brow that he finally, breathing heavily, slammed the whip onto the ground with a furious grunt.

“Bastard! Next time you’re not careful, it won’t be this easy!”

Before leaving, he delivered another vicious, disdainful kick, striking the boy’s unretracted knee joint squarely.

Following this, silence once again enveloped the courtyard.

The lingering afterglow of the setting sun painted the horizon a desolate, vivid orange-red.

The shadow of the solitary old peach tree, standing forlorn in the corner, stretched out immensely, enveloping the boy’s form.

Yún Mù gritted his teeth, his hands desperately clawing at the ground, the sharp edges of pebbles digging into his palms; after several attempts, he managed to push himself up onto one side.

Using his still-mobile right arm, he tremblingly wiped the spittle from his face, while his other hand clutched tightly at his excruciatingly painful lower abdomen; he stumbled, one arduous step at a time, toward the peach tree, eventually collapsing heavily beside its roots.

His frail body struck the hard tree trunk with little force, emitting only a faint sound, yet it caused a few unusually tender pink peach blossoms, long overdue to fall, to tremble slightly and flutter down.

‘Ugh… I don’t want to admit it… but it does hurt a bit… ah, hiss… luckily…’ He leaned against the rough bark, face turned skyward, forcing a twisted, convulsive smile onto his features. ‘…This time… my ribs… don’t seem to be broken…’

No sooner had he spoken than two plump, tender pink peach petals drifted gently down, as if guided by an unseen hand, lightly settling over his tightly closed eyes.

The boy no longer possessed the strength to brush away this ‘eyeshade,’ allowing them to remain.

The cool petals, adhering to his burning eyelids, brought an odd, soothing tranquility.

In his fading consciousness.

He seemed to catch a faint, warm scent from the depths of his memory, seemed to see that gentle, spring-breeze-like smile, and even seemed to…

…hear the soft parting words of his white-haired master from when he was six years old.

“Mù’er (TL Note: An affectionate diminutive for Yún Mù, often used by elders), I must also depart. I am sorry I could not care for you until you reached fourteen.”

From between the boy’s chapped, peeling lips, a few broken murmurs escaped.

“…Master… is that… you…?”

Vaguely, a few minuscule, milky-white specks of light, almost imperceptible to the naked eye, silently emerged from within the petals covering his eyes, like scattered sparks sinking beneath his furrowed brow and pale skin.

A warm current slowly enveloped his entire body, progressively dispelling the sharp pain and biting cold.

Just moments later, Yún Mù’s taut body gradually relaxed, his consciousness steadily sinking into darkness until, in the very end, he drifted into a gentle, dreamless sleep.

****

An indeterminate amount of time had passed.

The boy’s consciousness resurfaced, like driftwood rising to the water’s surface.

The pungent stench of horse manure, the decay of moldy hay, and the warm, musky odor of livestock rudely assaulted the boy’s nostrils.

Beside him, horses at a nearby feeding trough chewed their fodder with coarse, grinding sounds.

In a corner, a spider proudly perched on its newly spun web, while below it lay the remnants of tiny flies.

Yún Mù struggled to open his heavy eyelids; his gaze fell upon a few dim slivers of daylight filtering through a hole in the thatched roof, and beneath him was the familiar, musty hay pile in the corner of the stable.

He instinctively clenched his empty palm, finding only a few withered, brown remnants of peach blossoms curled within.

On either side of him, a white and a black steed alternately lowered their heads to graze on fodder and raised them to neigh loudly.

Exhausted, he closed his eyes, collapsing back into the animal-scented hay nest.

Confused thoughts churned in his mind, yet he couldn’t grasp a single coherent thread.

Beside the boy lay a coarse cotton handkerchief, its edges frayed but still meticulously clean.

On the muddy ground not far away, several small, hasty embroidered shoe prints remained, leading all the way to the low wattle gate of the dilapidated shed.

Yún Mù’s left hand gently clasped the handkerchief.

After a long while—

His Adam’s apple silently bobbed.

He knew.

He was still alive, clinging precariously to existence in this world.