Chapter One: Brother and Sister

Mount Song lies in the heart of the Central Plains, stretching from east to west, facing the Yellow River and Luo River to the north, and bordered by the Ying River and Mount Ji to the south. To the east rises Mount Taishi, to the west Mount Shaoshi; its seventy-two peaks are all of exquisite beauty. Since King Ping moved the Zhou capital eastward, it has been known as the Central Peak. In the Tang Dynasty, when Empress Wu usurped the throne, she even decreed Mount Song as the Divine Peak, and for a time the mountain flourished with temples and palaces, truly deserving its fame as the most illustrious mountain within the imperial domain.

It is said that among the lofty heights of Song, none surpasses the Majestic Summit in grandeur or allure. It was now the third month, and though the world beyond the mountain was awakening to spring’s verdure, the paths here still held a lingering chill. Generations of nobles and high officials had made this place their playground, and footpaths once trodden by woodsmen had gradually been paved with flagstones, each slab worn smooth and rounded by countless feet, and after a night’s rain, the stones gleamed all the more treacherously slick.

Along this stone path, a girl of thirteen or fourteen, carrying a basket on her back, made her cautious way. Though clad in coarse robes and with only a simple hairpin, her slender figure was graceful, but her face, unadorned, was strikingly dark and shining—a rarity in these times when pale skin was prized. Only when she caught sight of a familiar side trail on her right did she finally raise her hand to wipe the sweat from her brow.

Deep along this side path, to the north of Songyang Monastery and at the foot of Majestic Summit, stood three thatched huts half-concealed in a bamboo grove. Though called thatched, their main structure was of bamboo, and the thatch atop had clearly been freshly replaced—the eaves still dripping with the last traces of rain. A low fence ringed the huts, and the bamboo gate stood slightly ajar. The girl pushed the gate open and slipped into the small courtyard, then hurried to the hut’s door, pausing to listen before stealthily entering.

The three rooms were divided on the east by a paper-paneled screen. In the other two rooms, aside from a low table, two bamboo couches, and a clothes rack, there were only a few book chests in the corner, lending the place an air of poverty. The girl set her basket before the chests, then skirted the screen and entered the eastern room, where she immediately spotted a young girl with hair in childish tufts, dozing as she leaned against a bamboo bed, one hand resting lightly before her.

“Madam!”

At this soft call, the child by the bed woke with a start and, casting a reproachful glance at her returning maid, whispered, “Quiet, don’t wake my brother!”

She took the maid’s hand and stood, turning back to gaze long at the figure on the bed. Seeing no movement, her face betrayed a sorrow she could not conceal. Only when the two had tiptoed around the screen to the outer room did she ask, “Zhuying, did you buy everything I asked for?”

“Miss, I bought it all. After last year’s locusts, both rice and flour are a third dearer than before. I’ve heard the locusts have appeared again in the fields. Eggs are costlier too—one coin for only one. I brought thirty coins, but after buying half a pound of salt and a few vegetables, there was barely enough left, so I bought just two eggs for two coins.”

“Let them cost what they may, as long as my brother recovers quickly.” Despite her tender years, the girl’s face bore a determination far beyond her age. Noticing Zhuying’s hesitation, she pressed on, “I’ve come all this way with you, bringing my brother to Mount Song, because I trust you. If you have something to say, speak openly.”

“Miss, though we scraped together twenty strings of cash before leaving, this can’t go on,” Zhuying replied, glancing anxiously at the screen that hid the eastern room. “You’ve lived here with the young master almost half a month now, but between travel costs, repairs to the hut, countless medicines, we’ve spent five or six strings already. Even if the Songyang priests agree to treat him, there’ll be more medicine, gifts of thanks, and the cost of hiring a cart home—we’ll have to be more frugal…”

“I understand.” The girl cut her off without hesitation. “From now on, I’ll eat and use less each day, but my brother must not go without. Don’t worry, Zhuying—when he recovers, I’ll ask him to grant you your manumission, so those with designs on you will never get their way!”

“Thank you, miss!” Zhuying’s gratitude was plain as she bent in a deep curtsey and withdrew quietly.

The three of them—mistress and maids—lived alone in this humble hut, with Zhuying handling all the chores and errands herself. Hard as it was, following her two young masters a thousand miles was better than facing the covetous eyes at home. For if the young master Du Shiyi came to harm, his sister Du Shisanniang would be left destitute or dependent on others—how could a mere maid hope to protect herself? Even here, to avoid trouble when going out, she had to smear her face, neck, and hands with soot.

Who could have foreseen that Du Shiyi, once famed in Fanchuan as a prodigy welcomed in the grandest Chang’an mansions, would, after a fire at home last year, fall so ill from fright that he could no longer compose poetry, his spirit dulled, and despite seeking countless physicians, deteriorate to utter silence, unable to move—a living corpse? His parents were long dead, and his only paternal uncle, Du Fu, served as county officer far away and had not returned in years.

Though Fanchuan’s Duqu was home to many branches of the Du clan, relations were distant, and family ties rarely extended beyond the fifth degree. The clans of Huan River, Jingzhao, Xiangyang, and Puyang all had members here, many tracing their lineage to Duling near Chang’an. At first, many kin offered help, but it was no match for the drain of fruitless treatments. Thus, his younger sister Du Shisanniang, left with only twenty strings of cash, resolved to risk everything.

Barely eleven herself, she borrowed a carriage and driver from an elder and journeyed with her brother from Jingzhao all the way to Mount Song, thankfully arriving safely. Yet though Songyang Monastery’s gates were open, the physician-priest Sun Taichong was elusive; almost every other day Du Shisanniang called, only to be told he was away traveling.

“Brother!”

When she returned to the bedside and saw Du Shiyi’s eyes open, she was startled with joy; but finding his gaze still distant, his silence unchanged from the day before, she could not help but feel deep disappointment.

Yet she quickly rallied, wringing out a cloth to gently wipe her brother’s face before speaking softly, “Don’t worry, brother. No matter what, I’ll keep seeking Master Sun at Songyang Monastery until you’re cured! And if he cannot help, I’ll carry you across a thousand mountains and rivers to find a healer as skilled as the old Medicine King! When Father and Mother passed, I promised them we siblings would be well!”

At her resolute words, the youth on the bed merely stared blankly, silent as ever. Seeing this, Du Shisanniang sighed, her small face clouded with a sorrow beyond telling.

After supper, Zhuying, exhausted from the day’s labors, soon fell into a deep sleep. Even Du Shisanniang, who often sat by her brother’s bed until he slept before retiring herself, surrendered early to fatigue, curling up on the couch by the east wall. Her even breathing was punctuated by fragments of murmured dreams, mingling with the distant chirring of insects, deepening the hush of the night.

But Du Shiyi, lying on his bed by the north wall, was wide awake.

He awoke as if from a dream a millennium long. In the hazy days before, he had drifted in and out of consciousness, fragments of memories whirling past like a lantern show, his mind mostly dizzy, his body immobile. The helplessness of those days—unable to speak or move—was seared into his soul. Worse, the scenes before his eyes and words in his ears each day were so strange as to be unbelievable. If not for his strong will, he might have gone mad!

At first, he thought it a cruel jest, or perhaps a dream. But everything was too real, and with Du Shisanniang and Zhuying ever at his side, he could finally discern dream from waking, accept that he was now Du Shiyi and no one else. Now, as he flexed his hands into fists and then relaxed them—a simple act, yet it made him exhale long and slow.

From moving a single finger to finally closing both hands into fists—it had taken, by his count, sixty-four days and nights.

He was no longer the man whose mother had died young, whose father—an expert in epigraphy—had forced him from childhood to copy inscriptions and texts, who had learned acupuncture from his father’s old friend, then rebelled as a youth, traveling half the world in pursuit of music scorned by his family, only to return just in time to see his father before he died. Now it was the fourth year of the Kaiyuan era; on the throne sat Emperor Xuanzong, creator and, ultimately, destroyer of the golden age. And he was Du Shiyi of Duling, Jingzhao, orphaned, whose only close kin was his younger sister Du Shisanniang.

“Sister…”

A low sound escaped his throat, and he could not help but smile wryly. In those days when he could not speak or move, watching his sister busy herself around him, reciting poetry and talking to him, had always calmed his restless heart. Now that he could finally move and speak, he was unsure how to face her. In his previous life, he had never even had a cousin.