Chapter 10: The Wei, Jin, and Southern and Northern Dynasties

A man in his middle years, seated in the lobby of the neighborhood office and waiting, looked up at the sound of footsteps. He hurried to his feet and extended a hand.

“You must be Zhou Qing. A pleasure to meet you.”

The man shook his hand with considerable solemnity. “My name is Wu Shi’an, Wu Jianguo’s son. My father keeps calling me to talk about you, saying you have been keeping him company over chess and taking good care of him. So I thought I had to come and see you in person and thank you properly.”

He wore an ordinary set of casual clothes, nothing remarkable at first glance. Yet the steady way he spoke and the poise of his handshake carried the unmistakable air of a man used to success.

“No need to be so polite,” Zhou Qing said with a smile. “Your father and I simply share a taste for the same pastime. I was only helping him pass the time; I can hardly claim to have taken special care of him.”

One should not accept gifts without merit. He had indeed played chess with Old Wu merely to while away the hours. If there had been any care involved, it was only that he had treated the old man’s low blood pressure.

“You’re too modest, young man. You’ve helped me out tremendously this time.”

Wu Shi’an said, “To tell the truth, I’m usually tied up with business and rarely make it home. A few years ago it was still manageable, but now my father is getting on in years, and I can’t feel at ease relying solely on a caregiver. Thanks to the people here at the neighborhood office looking in on him, I was thinking of bringing you some cigarettes, liquor, rice, or flour. Or if you need anything else...”

“You showing up here is already thanks enough. There’s no need for anything extra,” Zhou Qing said, releasing his hand. “By the way, this bone thumb ring is of fine quality.”

Wu Shi’an paused slightly and instinctively glanced at his hand. On the thumb of his right hand was a light-brown ring-shaped guard. Seen from the side, it was trapezoidal in form, low in front and higher in back, with faint animal motifs traced across its surface.

To most people, it was merely an oddly shaped ring. Very few could tell it was a thumb ring, and fewer still could identify it by its precise old name, the shou.

“You can tell something of its origin?” Wu Shi’an’s brows rose a little, and his tone became more formal.

“From the style, it looks like a Han-dynasty ivory thumb guard with beast patterns, though the carving differs somewhat from the period,” Zhou Qing said, glancing at the piece. “So this should be a later work, after the Wei and Jin eras.”

“You have a keen eye, young man. It really is from the Southern and Northern Dynasties,” Wu Shi’an said. “Just a little trinket I picked up. Do you like things like this?”

“I do have some interest,” Zhou Qing said with a nod. He continued the idle conversation, but his gaze toward the thumb ring deepened ever so slightly.

In the early centuries after he entered the path, he had roamed the mortal world as a solitary cultivator. In his memory, it had merely been a somewhat long period of chaos; only later did he learn that those centuries were called the Wei, Jin, and Southern and Northern Dynasties.

It was an age in which the common people could scarcely survive, and prodigies and mighty experts fought like wild beasts. Mortal dynasties often changed hands within a few months, and the sects and schools behind them were as brittle as dry gunpowder, ready to explode at the slightest spark.

As a lone cultivator without master or sect, he naturally could not avoid being caught in a few of those explosions. Once, by chance, he touched a spirit treasure, and within days more than a dozen sects came after him. Some were greedy for the treasure, some were rivals met on a narrow road, and some were bullies trying to overwhelm him with sheer force.

In the end, all of them died.

To avoid being killed, one had to kill first. That was the only law in those centuries. It was so among the starving masses fighting over food, so among princes and nobles struggling for power, and so among cultivators fighting to survive.

During that time he fell for a while into the whirlpool of slaughter and could not extricate himself. His methods grew increasingly ruthless, and he even directly or indirectly brought about the destruction of several sects and dynasties. The karmic burden he amassed took him hundreds of years to fully erase.

Many years later, when he read histories written by later generations, he finally learned that those centuries were not only rivers of blood and devastation, but also the age of Wang Xizhi and Xie Lingyun. Even those demonic cultivators he had once fought were later witnessed by others; a recluse named Tao Yuanming wrote, because of them, a masterpiece that would endure for a thousand years, a tale called The Peach Blossom Spring.

What stirred bloody upheaval in the cultivation world became, in the hands of mortal literati, a paradise on earth. Such was the wonder of history.

“I never would have guessed,” Wu Shi’an said after their conversation wound down. “You look so young, yet you know so much about historical materials and antiques. One really can’t judge a book by its cover.”

After a brief pause, he went on, “Since that’s the case, do you have any interest in an antique market?”

“An antique market?”

“Yes. It’s a small market specializing in all sorts of unusual antiques, over on the western market side. It holds events from time to time, mainly for appraising antiques from different eras, and of course for some legally permitted buying and selling as well. This ring of mine was picked up through that market.”

Wu Shi’an said, “I happen to know one of the organizers. If you’re interested, I can introduce you. Think of it as a gathering among people with the same hobby. I only hope that in the future you can keep looking after my father here. I’m away most of the year, and sometimes even a far-off stream cannot quench a near thirst.”

He tucked the true purpose of his visit into the end of his words.

Though the man before him was only a minor employee at the neighborhood office, Zhou Qing was close with his father. As a seasoned businessman, his habit was to miss no possible connection that might be developed.

“So, young man, what do you think?”

Wu Shi’an wore an expression of just the right degree of sincerity, watching for Zhou Qing’s reaction. The young man on the other side seemed to consider it for a moment before finally nodding.

“That does sound rather interesting,” Zhou Qing said. “When I have time, I’ll go take a look.”

“No problem.” Wu Shi’an broke into a genuinely warm smile. “Then let’s add each other on chat first. As soon as there’s an event on that side, I’ll let you know right away...”

A few minutes later.

A luxury car drove out along the small road in front of the neighborhood office and soon vanished at the end of the street.

Inside the lobby, Zhou Qing looked at the new contact on his phone screen, lost in thought.

For mortals whose lives do not even reach a hundred years, the dynasties of the past are only history in books. But for him, they were like the cities he had crossed in a lifetime.

Take the Wei, Jin, and Southern and Northern Dynasties, for instance. They were like the old hometown of his youth: poor, dilapidated, rife with theft and vice, hardly a pleasant place. Yet years later, if he happened to catch sight of a shabby old pack of chewing gum, he would still pause to look at it a second time, and then remember the dust-scented supermarket of that hometown in his memory, and recall that the shelves there had once held a candy just like it.

The thumb ring on Wu Shi’an’s hand had been much the same as that piece of gum.

Compared with the bloody and storm-tossed first half of his life, he preferred the peaceful mortal existence he had now. Still, sampling a sweet from the past now and then was not a bad thing.

He put his phone back in his pocket and prepared to return to the office to gather his things. Halfway there, the slumbering depths of his spiritual sense suddenly stirred. He lifted his head and glanced toward the horizon, where clouds were rolling and churning.

It seemed the weather was turning.