Jin Se

Chapter 66

The eastern coast was not a rich land, the terrain was hilly, and the soil was barren.

As the sun set, it cast the shadows of those rolling hills onto the boundless seas. Once in a while, one could catch a glimpse of reefs or perhaps a small boat drifting on the waves. The lighthouse at Boshang emitted a cold light, pointing into the depths of the east sea, where strange creatures were rumored to dwell.

No one knew where its other shore was. No one had ever seen it. The small islands scattered in the eastern sea seemed to be the utmost border of the human realm. It was said that deities and demons lived there; ordinary people didn't dare approach.

Because of all the reefs, it was difficult to live off the mountains and seas. Every year, who knew how many young people would carry their humble belongings on their backs and leave in search of a better life, wandering for years in faraway lands before finally returning. Sometimes it'd be a year, sometimes several years, sometimes tens of years.

When they left, their rosy cheeks glowed with youth. When they returned, their hair was half grey. Even though their accents hadn't changed, and they were returning to their homeland, they were nearly unrecognizable.

Thus, this place had a custom. Twenty-five days after the winter solstice, when plum flowers were in full bloom, was the Eastwind Festival, which would later be known as the Small Reunion Festival. The men who'd left would return one by one to reunite with their wives and children, wearing their best clothes, returning in fortune as best they could.

The people living on the eastern coast were rather plucky. On the day of the Small Reunion Festival, the women would all dress up prettily and wait by the streets. Unmarried men would wear a small plum branch in their hats, and if they returned showily, if they looked handsome, then perhaps a young woman might promise herself to him.

As the years passed, the Small Reunions Festival eventually became like the Double Seven Festival, a beautiful, suggestive holiday wherein young men and women would express their inner feelings towards each other.

That day, a small fishing village by the eastern sea was decorated with colorful lanterns. Young men and women would sit round bonfires on the high hilltops, singing and dancing. Even the bitterly cold waves would seem peculiarly gentle. The old guards at Boshang Pass would sit atop the lighthouse and play a little ditty on their flutes. The music seemed to reach as far as the light of the lighthouse, traveling far along the waves.

Traveling to a far far away island.

Traveling to Bai Li's nearly deaf ears.

His limbs burned. He felt like he was being sliced apart and sewn back together by a little knife. He was enveloped in an ever thickening white mist. It seemed to him that the person holding the knife was looking at him with a pair of sorrowful yet silent eyes - he knew it was himself.

At that time, Bai Li thought he was already dead.

Dying in the sounds of joyous flute music and the vibrant song and dance of young women brought to him by the wind. As the sounds trailed off and went off-tune, they seemed indescribably bleak. The things in his shadow wanted to devour his flesh and drink his blood; they circled him, waiting and watching, ready to pounce.

It was the soft yet unyielding white mist that protected him as it tortured him.

Bai Li had never known that the bloodline he'd excised with his own two hands could be so strong.