The Spirit of the Plum Blossom Tree (TSPBT) - 17. Chapter 17

The narrow alleyway was cold. The winter air added to the chill, but it was more than just the weather. It was the emptiness, the silence, and the hollow feeling that amplified the agony buried deep within my soul. The pain that woke me during the long, lonely nights, awakening from the bittersweet bliss of a wish made hopeless by reality.

A desire formed from the consequences of my life; a dream fate rendered impossible through death. Harrowing karma fit for a lifetime of mistakes, the gods would say.

The tree before me was haunting, its blackened bark seeming to mock me with memories of the past. The weeping branches stretched towards the ground in a final cry, skeletal tears caging the dead trunk within in an eternal desolation.

I could almost hear his soft laughter in the breeze that ghosted through the alley, followed by the tell-tale scent of plum blossoms, but I knew my mind was simply playing tricks in a feeble attempt to lessen the pain of my heart. An attempt that had been repeated many times over the course of several years, when my wandering feet dragged me back to the source of my damnation.

My knees hit the ground, sending a jarring sensation up my nerves that I could barely feel in the rush of emotion that threatened to drown me in its despair. I could feel my face twisting in a silent keen, turned towards the gray skies lightening as the sun rose further into the morning. The winter was always the worst, when the buds of the blossoms of his name began to bloom and flower in the late season, filling the air with cursed memories I can never forget.

Once, during a period I resorted to drinking to drown out my grief, I had come here to the tree, inebriated and filled with rage. After screaming and shouting myself hoarse to a broken mess upon the ground, I had crawled beneath the branches and considered bringing myself to the brink of death once again. If I resorted back to my old criminal ways and brought myself back to this tree half-dead, would the Hell Lords allow me another trial?

I wouldn’t have cared what the trial was, or even if I was no longer Guan Hongye, as long as I could live in his time for one more year and see him again, such was the extent of my desperation.

Of course, it was a foolish thought, though at the time my intoxicated mind clung onto it like a lifeline. I had smashed the liquor bottle I had brought with me against the ground, shattering it and taking a piece. But before I could proceed with my stupid plan, my sister had found me.

I will never forget the look on her face when I told her what I planned to do. It broke something inside me, and I finally realized just how terrible of an older brother I truly was. I was forced to watch as my precious little sister splintered before my eyes, her empathetic soul tearing as she sobbed and begged me to stop.

In the end, I had taken her to her home, where her husband was waiting anxiously at the door for her return. After he had tucked her exhausted body into bed, he returned to give me an ultimatum. Either I worked to forget my pain and stop burdening my sister with it, never mentioning any part of it again to her, or I never go to see her again while he remains her husband.

Perhaps it was crude and unfair of him to demand such a thing of his wife’s only family. Others may have reacted in anger at such words. But I knew him, and I did not doubt his love for my sister, nor its purity compared to mine.

And yet, how could I forget the past which had sunk its claws into my very being? What therapist or psychologist could help me with memories that should have never been? I’d be sent to a mental hospital to live out the rest of my days. So, being the selfish person I am, I abandoned my sister a second time in favor of drowning in my pain.

The day of his funeral was the first time I had seen my sister in five years. I had kept my promise to him as intended, and when my sister needed me more than she had ever needed me before, I was finally there.

But now, all these years later, I was telling the story to her children, the story that tore us apart. It is cruel of me, I know, but the past will never go away.

It is easier to face it in the form of a story, telling it as though it happened to someone else.

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I was invited back to my sister’s shikumen for dinner a week later, where she was making hotpot as a treat for the girls doing well in school. It had snowed heavily the night before, and my calves were long numb from my freezing and wet pants. I needed to replace my snow boots, but I had used my paycheck to get gifts for my sheng nu for Christmas, and seeing their smiles was more important to me than suffering for a bit in the weather.

As I stepped up to the door, it opened before I could even knock, and Lian grabbed my hand, tugging me inside quickly. “Hurry, hurry Jiujiu! Youya said she’s so hungry she’s gonna eat it all!”

Chuckling, I shut and locked the door, shrugging off my wet coat and shaking the snowflakes out of my hair. “Aiya, Lian, at least one of you is looking out for this old Jiujiu.”

Lian nodded seriously, running towards the kitchen. I could hear my sister scold her for running, and I could hear soft footsteps coming towards me as Youya came into view. “Jiujiu, hurry up and eat so you can tell more of your story.”

I opened my mouth to respond as I began heading towards the kitchen, but then made eye contact with my sister as she looked at me over her daughter’s head.

For once, her face was unreadable, and I felt a knife of pain in my heart as she held my gaze. After a beat of silence, there was a barely perceptible nod, and then she turned back to the table, greeting me as I came into the dining room. A wave of relief hit me, and I gave Youya a tiny smile. “Of course.” My sister was gradually accepting that I wanted- no, I needed to tell my story. For both of us.

Youya glanced between us, but said nothing, obediently sitting at the table next to Lian.

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The hotpot was delicious, but so was everything my sister made. Sometime during our childhood years apart, she had learned how to cook exceptionally well, and it brought a twinge of pride to my battered heart.

I sat on the couch in the living area, while the girls were on the floor with their mother, taking turns braiding her long hair. For once, my sister would be listening to me tell the story with her daughters, willing enough to sit in on it rather than distance herself.

“Go on, Jiujiu,” Lian urged, giggling as my sister flicked her on her forehead, murmuring something about patience.

Leaning back for a moment, I searched my mind for where I had left off.

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He couldn’t breathe.

Why couldn’t he breathe? He needed air, he needed air or he was going to suffocate to death-

Hong Shen jolted awake, arms flailing as he tried to get the pressure off his mouth and nose.

He couldn’t see in the darkness, not that it would have helped. Only physical strength could help him throw his attacker off, but his hands were not connecting with anything solid. They thrashed uselessly in the air, and his breathing continued to be obstructed somehow.

Was it Guan Shixin, changing his mind and choosing to finish the job Er-ge started? Or perhaps it was Zi Sheng Shou, deciding dying with Hong Shen was better than being made into a tool in a coming war?

His heartbeat throbbed in his head, echoing terror and panic as his attacker continued to somehow evade his touch, and the void threatened to close his eyes with an even deeper darkness.

This could not be the end. He had to succeed, he had to win, death was not an option.

The great Hong Shen could not die by failing a trial through suffocation.

It was impossible.

It was pathetic.

It was WEAK!

But the body cared little for the demands of the mind, and he blacked out with an internal roar of rage and fear.