Chapter 98: Lanterns (Part 2)

Chapter 98: Lanterns (Part 2)

After the sun sank beyond the western mountains, the lantern festival officially began.

Countless lanterns lit up the sky and the ground, like a second sun, illuminating the entire capital city as brightly as day.

Beautiful women struck bells and danced beneath the great lantern wheels.

Performers donned painted makeup and exotic costumes, with men and women swapping clothes, parading through the streets, dancing and performing, drawing laughter from the crowds lining the streets.

Friends and family walked together, hand in hand, admiring the lanterns.

Nobles and commoners mingled freely, with no regard for rank or status.

The veiled hood made it hard for him to take in the sights, yet strolling around bare-faced seemed a bit too flashy.

Fortunately, there were shops along the street selling animal masks. Le Wuya browsed the selection and finally bought a beautiful white fox mask to wear on his face.

With this mask as cover, he gained an extra layer of nerve.

He didn't even feel ashamed queuing up with a bunch of kids to buy jiao jiao candy.

Jiao jiao candy was made from a pot of thick, honey-colored syrup. While it was still bubbling and steaming hot, you'd use two little white bamboo sticks to scoop up a blob and twist it into golden-white candy threads. You could eat it and play with it at the same time—loads of fun.

Le Wuya mixed in with a bunch of half-grown kids, waiting for candy with the same eager eyes, not caring that passersby kept giving him weird looks.

Once he got the candy, he played with it to his heart's content, then lifted his mask just a bit, popped the candy in his mouth, with only the bamboo sticks sticking out from under the mask, planning to let it melt slowly in his mouth.

When he was a child, going out with his family to the Lantern Festival, he'd already had his eye on this fun jiao jiao candy.

But his mother wouldn't let the kids have too much sugar, afraid it would rot their teeth.

Back then, he was set on pleasing his mother, so he had to keep a straight face, pretending to walk past the eager candy vendors without a care, his face giving nothing away, but his eyes couldn't help drifting back to them again and again.

When his eyes were welling up with longing, his mother suddenly decided—no more lanterns—and ducked into a nearly empty silk shop.

His eldest brother followed dutifully behind her.

Once the two were out of sight, his second brother immediately shot him a wink: "Ali, want some jiao jiao candy?"

Six-year-old Le Wuya, thrilled, shouted: "Yes!!"

Once the candy hit his mouth, Le Wuya found it wasn't actually all that tasty.

But every year at the Lantern Festival, he'd always eat one jiao jiao candy, no exceptions.

The reason was simple.

The first year, he was fooled, happily hiding in a street corner with his second brother to eat the candy.

The second year, when the same scene played out again, he understood his mother's tolerance and love.

He pretended not to notice, and with his second brother, behind their mother's back, he secretly ate jiao jiao candy for ten straight Lantern Festivals.

Until he went off to the frontier.

When he came back, he was covered in blood and wounds, broken in body and spirit.

...

When he fell off his horse, riddled with arrows, both Dayu and the Jing tribe went berserk.

Helian Che ordered them to snatch this man back.

The Jing soldiers didn't know why, but they could tell from his clothes that this man was someone important—if they captured him, he'd be a major bargaining chip.

The person the Tianlang Camp revered most was Le Wuya. They'd eaten and slept together, shared joys and sorrows. Seeing Le Wuya struck down so badly, every one of them had red eyes.

The unconscious Le Wuya was snatched back by Jiang He and Qin Xingyue working together.

By all rights, with all those arrows in him, Le Wuya shouldn't have been moved at all—he should've stayed at the border to recover properly.

But he seemed to have no will to live, letting his body waste away day by day.

When he was delirious, he called for his brothers, called for his mother; when he was lucid, he clamped his mouth shut and refused even a single sip of medicine.

Le Qianzhang came to see him many times, holding his hand and telling him that the Little Phoenix had ridden off without rest, buying century-old ginseng along the way, sending it back by fast horse the moment he bought it—all to replenish the vitality draining from his body and keep his thread-thin life hanging on.

He said softly: "Ali, Father has wronged you. Once you're better, Father will let you hit him, let you scold him, alright?"

Le Wuya kept his eyes closed, giving no response.

He didn't want to hit anyone, didn't want to scold anyone—he just wanted to die.

Seeing him waste away to a single breath, Le Qianzhang couldn't think of anything else to do and put him on a carriage back to the capital.

...Go home.

If he lived, he could still see his mother and brothers, the ones he missed so much.

If he died halfway, he could still enter the Le family ancestral grave.

Through the bumpy ride, Le Wuya stubbornly refused to die.

Not only did he not die, he managed to survive—half-dead, half-raising hell—all the way to twenty-nine.

Even if he had really died, he'd now successfully come back from the dead, alive and kicking, running to the capital to check out the lantern festival.

Thinking about it this way, even Le Wuya himself found it somewhat surprising:

...He really could survive.

Le Wuya held the candy in his mouth, trying to melt the soft sugar with his body heat.

As he strolled and admired, he arrived before a massive lantern shaped like a human figure.

Those stopping to admire this lantern were mostly women and children.

Some clasped their hands in prayer, others murmured softly to the children beside them.

Le Wuya looked up and saw a woman with flowing robes, holding an infant in her arms, a young child by her left hand, with four or five more children trailing behind her.

What made this figure lantern exquisite was its spirit and expression—gentle and kind, compassionate and moving.

"...'Hariti, Mother of Demons,'" a little girl of four or five, holding the hand of the woman beside her, read the lantern's name from the wooden plaque, her childish voice full of confusion. "Grandmother, why is this lady so beautiful, yet her name so frightening?"

Le Wuya was drawn by this innocent question.

One look, and he could no longer look away.

The woman the child called “Grandmother” wore understated makeup, her bearing stately and serene.

She explained in a gentle tone: “She was originally a Buddhist devotee, heavy with child, following a group to a grand gathering in Rajagriha. She miscarried along the way, and none of the five hundred people offered help, leading to her tragic death. She harbored deep resentment and vowed to be reborn in Rajagriha in her next life, to eat every child in the city.”

Several women who had brought their children heard her recount such a terrifying story in such a soothing tone and hurriedly led their children away.

The little girl was not frightened at all, listening, utterly captivated: “And then?”

“She fulfilled her vow, becoming a malevolent deity, giving birth to five hundred children, and roaming all over Rajagriha, snatching children to eat. The Buddha Shakyamuni, wishing to subdue her, hid her youngest son. Frantic with worry, she begged the Buddha to help her find her lost child. The Buddha took this opportunity to enlighten her, urging her to empathize with others. From then on, Hariti thoroughly mended her ways, transforming from a malevolent deity into one of the Twenty Devas who protect the Dharma. Now, she is revered by the people as the Child-Sending Goddess.”

The child was a sharp one too: “I understand, Grandmother. This story teaches that to know one’s mistakes and be able to correct them is the greatest good!”

The woman raised her head, exchanging a distant look with the statue of Hariti, and said with a soft sigh: “Well said. But some mistakes must not be made. Once committed, turning back is incredibly hard.”

Le Wuya clenched the thin little bamboo stick between his teeth, his eyes dropping to her hand.

Her palm was firmly clasped together with the child’s small hand.

In the past, Le Wuya, just like this child, had entrusted his hand to hers with the adoring love of a child, letting her lead him around like a lamb, listening to her tell stories of the mortal world and the heavens.

Because she had been a vegetarian for years, her wrist was extremely slender, and the jade bracelet on it could be pushed almost up to her elbow.

Le Wuya remembered that she was born in autumn, and once White Dew passed, she would turn fifty-five.

That year, when Le Wuya returned to the capital severely wounded, he had this bracelet on him.

It was a treasure he had gotten his hands on while posing as a merchant, traveling between Dayu and the Jing tribe. Its color was like cold ice, and when worn, it seemed to be condensed from the purest, cleanest qi—very pleasing to the eye.

Le Wuya immediately decided to give this item to his dear mother as a birthday gift.

In the end, on the verge of death, he barely managed to grasp her hand and slip the bracelet onto her wrist.

It really wasn’t a pretty way to give a gift.

Even to this day, Le Wuya cannot help but lament: such a beautiful bracelet should have waited until he recovered to give.

But at that time, Le Wuya was certain he would die. If he did not give it away quickly, and he happened to keel over and die, his mother might bury it with him—that would be a real waste.

At that moment, Ye Tingnan grasped his hand, her warm, dry palm pressed against his cold, damp one.

Meanwhile, Le Hang and Le Jue, having rushed home upon hearing the devastating news, stood pale-faced before the bed, too shaken and breathless to speak, all of them alike.

Their younger brother, whom they had coddled and protected since childhood, had gone to the frontier and returned having had half his blood drained, his body buried in the snow-white blanket, as thin as a paper doll.

“Huai Jin, Wo Yu,” Ye Tingnan spoke. “Go outside and wait. I have something to say to Ali.”

Le Jue’s heart burned with anxiety, unwilling to leave: “Mother—”

Le Hang seized Le Jue’s hand firmly and said in a low voice: “Yes.”

The two elder brothers, worried sick, stood guard on either side of the door like a pair of door gods.

Le Jue, unwilling to give up, pressed his ear against the door to eavesdrop.

Le Hang stood with his hands behind his back, for once not stopping his brother’s outrageous behavior.

But the voices inside were too low—even if Le Jue had pricked up his ears like a rabbit, he would have heard nothing.

Inside the room, Le Wuya spoke in a strained breathy voice, word by word: “Mother, you know what I am, don’t you?”

Ye Tingnan thought it over carefully for a moment, then spoke the truth: “Yes.”

“Since... when?”

“Since the moment I knew you existed.”

Le Wuya opened his mouth, exhaling a cold breath tinged with blood: “...That early.”

Ye Tingnan smoothed the disheveled hair at his temples: “Your father didn’t tell me, but I know your father. He is not the kind of man to be so reckless.”

Le Qianzhang, forced into a corner, had lied to her, sending a carrier pigeon to say he had fathered an illegitimate child abroad.

But she had not believed it.

When she received her husband’s letter saying he would send the child back from the frontier, she had even written back, teasing and comforting him: “Thank goodness you wrote to me, or I would have thought that ‘Wu’ in ‘Sister Wu’ was the ‘Wu’ of ‘nothing at all.’”

Le Wuya’s eyes glistened with tears: “Since you knew... why... did you still treat me so well...”

Ye Tingnan clasped his hand in hers, gently rubbing his forehead with the pad of her other hand: “Ali, over the years I have made many guesses, and in the end, I could only deduce that you have Jing tribe blood and might one day have to return to the Jing tribe. But if the worst should happen...”

At this, her voice trembled slightly, catching in her throat: “...you must always have a home to return to.”

...

As Le Wuya was lost in thought, he suddenly heard a tentative call from behind: “...Lord Wenren?”

Le Wuya started abruptly, turning half his face, and was met with a cry of delight: “It really is Lord Wenren!”

Today, the Imperial Academy had matters to attend to, so Le Hang could not come to the lantern festival.

Le Jue, still unmarried and full of playful spirit, had taken his eldest nephew to sneak some twisted sugar candy.

After finishing their stolen treat, the two were sneaking back together when they saw a young man with curly hair ends standing a few steps behind his mother, staring at her in a daze.

Seeing this scene, Le Jue was stunned at first, almost feeling as if he had been transported back over a decade, emotions surging within him like a tide.

He stood frozen for a long while before he could guess who this person was.

After tentatively calling out his name, Le Jue hurried forward and, without a word, wrapped him in another overwhelming embrace.

Under Le Jue’s booming voice, Ye Tingnan turned around and unexpectedly met the gaze of Le Wuya behind his fox mask.

Her shoulders trembled violently, and her right hand tightened, eliciting a cry of pain from the little girl: “Grandmother, you’re hurting me!”

The twisted sugar candy in Le Wuya’s mouth had completely dissolved, leaving only two sugar sticks.

Taking advantage of the moment Ye Tingnan was soothing the little girl, he took the sticks from his mouth, clutched them in his hand, and made a gesture of greeting: “I heard you were slightly unwell some time ago, Madam. It seems you have fully recovered now.”

Ye Tingnan’s gaze fell upon the sugar sticks in his hand, covered in bite marks, and for a moment, her expression merged with the statue of Hariti behind her.

...Tender to the point of heartbreaking sorrow.

Ye Tingnan said softly: “Lord Wenren, I have heard from Le Hang and Le Jue that on that day on the long street, you spoke out boldly on principle, arguing earnestly on behalf of my son. Truly...”

She paused, her tone sounding both like a sigh and a choked sob: “...you have worked hard.”