—"Sorry, but..." Natsuki raised her hand. "I don't understand this conversation. Is this some sort of... subliminal messaging?"
Sima Rui and I both turned our gazes to Natsuki, who was sitting there with only a dumbfounded expression.
"It is a quite simple matter," Sima Rui answered slowly. "I will push these forms through the bureaucratic backlog of the Imperial Court, and in exchange, I would like the Bai family's properties in this city to be donated to the civilian administration of Kangtian."
And yet, even though I could not possibly weigh these chips against each other, I instinctively felt that she was asking for too much. But I was not well-experienced in negotiating, so I did not have much I could say to counter her words. I could only hope that Natsuki had something clever to say.
Natsuki put a hand to her chin. "I see. Xue'er, you will not be making use of this city in the foreseeable future. It seems fair to give it up if it will resolve... our other problems."
I nodded. If that was Natsuki's judgement, then I didn't need to agonize over it any further. "Okay. Let's do that, then. Magistrate, what forms should I fill out for this? Would a transfer of title form work? I've seen those before."
Sima Rui shook her head.
"Those are for transactions between private entities. Since the counterparty in this case is the government, you must instead write a memorandum, then bring it to the first floor along with the Bai family seal and have it notarized there. I will send it along to the Imperial Court, along with my own report on what happened to the Bai family. Of course, the rest of our discussion will remain... in words alone."
"Then..." I turned my words over under my tongue, trying to phrase them correctly. "Given the great scope of the Imperial Court, do you think they will take much interest in this... comparatively small matter?"
"As long as it is you, Bai Chunxue, who was responsible for the collapse of the Bai family, then the civilian government is not permitted to intervene. That is the first freedom that has been guaranteed to cultivators since the founding of the Xia dynasty."
She opened her eyes wide and stared into mine, leaving unsaid the point of her words. As long as it is me. In other words, as long as Natsuki's name is not spoken in the same breath as the story of these events. When the Magistrate was convinced that I understood, she continued,
"—There is also good precedent in the case of Li Yunxiao. The Bai family does not even have representatives in the Imperial Court, so I cannot imagine that the Court would even bother opening an investigation, as they did back then."
Somewhat reassured, I stood and bowed. "If that's everything, then I suppose we'll take our leave here."
Sima Rui tapped her fan on her desk, and the door behind us opened. "You probably already know this, but those who have karma with the Bai family will not let you go so easily. I can only hope that my dear guest with the archipelagan accent—" she turned her fan, ever so slightly, towards Natsuki— "can help you with that."
Natsuki pushed herself out of her chair with hands tightened into fists. "I will sever the Bai family's karma from this world altogether, be it necessary to protect Chunxue."
And thus, having made my farewells, I turned and began to leave. But just before I could cross the door's threshold—
"Bai Chunxue."
I turned back to face Sima Rui, whose gaze was locked on painting, hanging upon the far wall, that seemed to be of the Imperial Capital. I could only recognize it by the shape of the Imperial Palace, which I had seen in other paintings.
"It is said that a frog in a well cannot even dream of the ocean. I take no pride in saying this, but in its present state, Kangtian is little more than a dried-up well. When you go to the Imperial Capital and see the true scale of this world, make sure that you do not lose yourself in its reflection."
My brow furrowed. I understood the point of the proverb, but... as a frog in a well myself, I could not imagine the ocean that I could not dream of.
"Magistrate, let me offer you a more apt rendition of this proverb," Natsuki said with a dull grin. "To one who has lived seeing only shadows on cave-walls, there is nothing more beautiful, nor more painful, than the glory of the sun."
Smiling, Sima Rui jotted some scribbles down on a notepad. "It is a good proverb. Everyone, after all, understands both the power of the sun and the pain of looking into it. Bai Chunxue, does this help you understand my point any better?"
I nodded.
And thus I— feeling a bit more enlightened thanks to Natsuki's words— left the Magistrate's office. Natsuki walked alongside me, back down the hallway.
"Xue'er, what does an archipelagan accent sound like?"
"For a Huoshanlong accent... well, the most characteristic feature would be the way they switch around word-initial L and N, so lock might be pronounced as knock and night might be pronounced as light."
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Natsuki cusped her hand over her mouth.
"I... don't do that, do I?"
"No, you—"
I paused, then found myself utterly confused as to Sima Rui's words. In fact Natsuki did not have an accent reminiscent of the Huoshanlong archipelago. Perhaps her accent was characteristic of the other archipelago, the one on the far end of the world, but how could Sima Rui of all people possibly know that?
Lost within this confusion, I felt— if nothing else— a deep sense of relief that Sima Rui, endlessly enigmatic as she was, was not my enemy, though I could hardly be sure whether or not she was my ally.
----------------------------------------
When we returned to the Bai manor, I took some food with me to an office and got to work. Though I had promised to hand over the Bai properties, that would not happen immediately. Right now, I needed to salvage what I could. I went through the messages that the family had received, and responded to whatever was of monetary importance. Of course, for matters of monetary importance, I did not need any formal letter-writing skills. Thus I spent the day. Once again I had dinner with Natsuki, though she did not eat, and I slept not long after the sun set.
I woke up early the next morning, then immediately left to go find Natsuki. I was not sure when Bailian would arrive, or in fact if she would arrive at all, as I did not know enough about the procedures around formal letter-writing to know how replies were sent.
First I went to the courtyard. I do not know why I went to the courtyard, but I had some kind of sense that I would find Natsuki there. And I did. She was standing in the gazebo on the east side of the courtyard, dully lit by the rising sun. The gazebo where, ten years ago, there had been a statue of the Amitabha Buddha— though, honestly, I still did not know what was there right now, and at this point the curiosity was creeping far too far up my legs for me to ignore it.
I needed to know what it was that she was looking at. Was it really a statue of the Amitabha Buddha? Or had someone switched it out in the past decade? I was not sure. So rather than call out to her, I scampered over to the pagoda, and I saw there a Buddhist statue, but not the one of the Amitabha Buddha in my memories. The statue itself was completely foreign to me— even its style and material was strange. Yet something about the form of the face seemed vaguely familiar, preventing me from turning my gaze away.
"Is this... Guanyin? I'd have expected it to be in the royal-ease pose, but the face has to be Guanyin..."
"This is a statue of Avalokiteshvar," Natsuki answered. "A stone statue in the fashion of southeastern Nalandan architecture. It is my understanding that lalitasan is more common than padmasan in depictions of Avalokiteshvar east of Altyn-Tagh, but is associated perhaps most with Ganesh-ji in Nalantuo proper."
I turned my gaze to her.
"Xia-jie... who exactly is this Awalokuiteshrwar? You've mentioned the name before, too."
Natsuki frowned, though once again, her gaze was pinned on the statue.
"Avalokiteshvar. The one who bears infinite compassion, the one who hears the cries of sentient beings experiencing suffering. Xue'er, have you forgotten even the Heart Sutra?—
> The noble Avalokiteshvar-bodhisattva,
>
> passing deeply within the insight of Prajnaparamita,
>
> looked upon the five skhandas,
>
> and realizing that they bore no proper essence,
>
> said, "Listen, Shariputr,
>
> Form is emptiness, emptiness is form;
>
> emptiness differs not from form, form differs not from emptiness;
>
> whatever is form, so is it emptiness, whatever is emptiness, so is it form;
>
> thus is true as well of feelings, perceptions, impulse, and consciousness.
>
> All phenomena bear the mark of emptiness: they are
>
> neither produced nor destroyed,
>
> neither defiled nor purified,
>
> neither deficient nor complete.
—and so on. Xue'er, you must know of Avalokiteshvar. Or do you call him something else here? Kannon? Chenrézik? Karunamaya? In one particularly odd place, they even called him... Kʰəŋ-śrⁿziz̃aä, or something like that."
I sighed.
"That last one, Guanshizizai... more commonly we call her Guanyin, but yes. I know the Heart Sutra, though I think your version is a bit different."
Natsuki raised her eyebrows.
"Guanyin... I did not know of this name. How do you write it?"
"Guan as in observation, yin as in sound."
"So just like Kannon, then. The etymology must be the same."
Natsuki kneeled down and reached a hand towards the base of the statue, though she did not touch it.
"To be honest, I have always felt an affinity for Avalokiteshvar, though I cannot say why. Avalokiteshvar embodies the ideal of bearing compassion for all living beings, the fullest realization of the sesshoukai*, what is itself the most important of the core precepts of Buddhism. Yet I feel little compassion for even humans as a category. That is why I can yet enjoy the taste of their souls. Perhaps one day I will have embedded enough of humanity's truths within my soul that I will no longer be able to bear it. Perhaps not. Compassion is a truth that I do not yet understand."
"But don't you feel compassion for—"
for me, I wished to say, though I could not manage to.
"Compassion... is not the same as love. It is universal, and therefore impersonal. This much I do understand."
Perhaps my own sense of guilt, then, could be said to be a form of compassion. The overwhelming guilt I felt when hurting even those I hated the most... was so universal that it could be nothing less than compassion. Though if Guanyin's compassion is a product of strength, of her immortal will to bring salvation to all sentient beings, then the compassion of guilt cannot be anything more than a product of weakness, of a crippling inability to imagine a better world.
"—Xue'er, you said you wished to create a world where the powerless have the right to hold their heads high. This is compassion. It is compassion in the truest sense of Avalokiteshvar's ideals. Logically I know that it is a beautiful dream, a truth more valuable than perhaps any other, though to my eyes it is nothing more than a rainbow in black and white. I hope that you can show me its weight... and its beauty."
A tear ran down her cheek, though I was not sure if she was capable of noticing.
"I hope that you can show me what it means to be formed in the image of the gods, what it means to have the freedoms of both enlightenment and bedevilment... what it means to be human."
And, of course, I—
I kneeled down by her side, and laid my hand over hers.
"I will."