Chapter : 15
Do....nothing..???
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Qing Tian's lips parted for a moment, but no words came at first from the mouth.
His mind wrestled with Brother Lan's riddles, and his heart heavy with unanswered questions filling it.
Finally, after a long silence between them, his voice emerged with low and trembling confident.
"If sorrow is a teacher of the life… then what is love, what is the role of it?"
HAha...The moment, he heard, there was smile on his face.
Brother Lan's eyes sparkled with smile, as if he had been waiting for this question all along.
A smile tugged at his lips, and spoke with soft, mysterious, playful tone.
"Love, Qing Tian? Love is the song itself."
Qing Tian frowned, unable to understand the riddle again. "The song itself?"
"Yes," Brother Lan said, leaning back with both arms stretched behind him.
"Sorrow sharpens the ear of the living beings. It forces you to listen. But what you hear, when you finally listen deeply… is love. Every heartbeat of the cosmos/universe is woven with it."
"The child in the orphanage who shares half his bread, that is love. The mother who shields her son with her last breath, that is also a love. Even the tears you cry for what you lost, that too is love, for you only weep over what mattered is love too."
Qing Tian's chest tightened with the words of him.
His mind replayed flashes: his mother's touch, his father's cold silence, the laughter of the orphans, the endless emptiness in his own heart.
He whispered almost inaudibly, like it came directly came from his heart.
"But… love hurts."
Brother Lan chuckled softly while looking at the Qing Tian, and the sound like ripples over still water.
"Of course it does. Fire burns, yet it gives warmth to you. The ocean drowns, yet it carries ships to travels. Love wounds, but it also heals the people. Without its pain, how would you recognize its joy of the life? Without the ache of distance, how would reunion taste sweet, after it?"
Qing Tian's fists loosened, which was clenched tightly.
For a moment, his anger dimmed, and it was replaced by confusion mixed with yearning, then asked.
"But then why… why did the heavens make me lose it all? If love is the song, why was mine taken before it could begin?"
Brother Lan turned his gaze back to the moon hanging in the sky, his expression on his face was unreadable, however strangely compassionate.
His words came slowly, each one sinking like a pebble into deep water and creating the ripples around it, witht the vibrations.
"Because sometimes, Qing Tian, silence must come before the song. An empty stage before the dance. A blank page before the story. You see only loss, but I see space. Space for the greatest love yet to be written through you."
Qing Tian's breath caught in delima.
He looked at Brother Lan, almost afraid to believe in his words. "And if… if I never find it?"
This time Brother Lan laughed loudly, tilting his head back, the sound rolling like music across the courtyard. "You cannot escape it, Qing Tian. Even if you ran to the edge of the stars, love would find you. Because it is not outside....it is here."
He reached out and tapped Qing Tian's chest again.
Right on his heart.
"It was never stolen. It was only waiting."
Qing Tian's vision swam. He felt his throat tighten.
He turned his eyes quickly away, unwilling to let Brother Lan see the tears that were gathering behind them.
After a painful silence, he forced himself to speak again. This time he was quieter, almost childlike in his tone.
"Brother Lan… then tell me what I am to do now?"
Brother Lan smiled gently, his eyes playful and mysterious.
"Do nothing."
Qing Tian blinked in confusion. "Do… nothing?"
"Yes," Brother Lan said, laughing.
"The moon does not strive to shine, but the night is lit. The river does not struggle to flow, but it finds the sea."
"Live, Tian. Walk. Fall. Get back up. Laugh. Weep. And listen. The song will teach you more than I ever could with my words. And when the day comes…"
His voice trailed off, his smile deepened, his eyes glimmered with a light that felt older than eternity.
"…you will not only know why you suffered throughout the life. But you will bless the suffering itself."
"When you understand...!!"
Brother Lan remained silent after that.
He simply raised his hand, and a bare green bamboo flute appeared from his sleeve, smooth with no ornamentation, as though it were floating, with only the wind it contained weighing it down.
He brought it up to his lips.
Like the earth sighing after rain, the first note to emerge was soft. Then another accompanied by the quiet of the courtyard.
In a short while, with the dark silence, came the sounds of a distant river, a lullaby sung by unseen stars, and a lingering scent of jasmine too. Not just sound, but the music was like a wave from stretch to stretch of the universe, like time had stopped to listen.
Qing Tian sat still there, unmoved, stable, his own breath deepening.
He merely listened for a long time, his heart jumping to the various notes. It felt as if the sound, not the words, were working its magic of answers to his questions, around mourning, fate and love.
Then, without thinking, he reached for the flute beside him. It was far more coarse than Brother Lan's, which he had carved himself years earlier.
Something wonderful happened when he put it to his lips and began to play, even with the flat tone and faltering breath.
The two tunes blended together.
Like the sky and the sea, Brother Lan's song was vast and boundless, containing centuries of untold wisdom.
Like a young stream tumbling over rocks, unsure of its course.
Qing Tian's song was rough and unpolished.
However, they did not fought together.
The roughness of one and the fineness of the other fused to produce a beauty that seemed to echo in the sky.
They were treated in silver light while the moon waxed.
Not a breeze stirred, but the leaves on the old courtyard tree moved.
Even the night's silence seemed to saunter closer, listening.
Before long, the night moved softly beneath their songs.
The courtyard had transformed into a haven of sound and no longer belonged to silence.
Brother Lan's flute's gentle yet limitless notes blended with Qing Tian's raw yet sincere tones to create a tapestry of harmony that extended well beyond the walls.
The entire world appeared to stop and pay attention.
Like the sound had hypnotized them, the idle koi fish in the rock pool started moving around, circling back and forth.
There was no hint of wind, but an old tree by the courtyard gate, slightly bent, swayed its low branches, and its leaves danced upon the melody.
Among its low branches, birds sat, heads tucked under their wings, not sleeping, but merely rapt in the adoration of the song.
Next Day
The sunlight poured into the courtyard through its walls and was already strong in the morning.
After he washed and rehydrated, Qing Tian had just started to settle when he heard a loud bang-bang-bang on the gates from wood to the courtyard.
The calm peace of last night was broken by fast and panicked knocks.
Qing Tian frowned just a bit. He was not used to having company come to his little, secluded courtyard, much less in such haste.
Qing Tian cautiously walked across the stone path, but a weight was pressing his chest.
A quiet creaking of wood spoke that the door to the courtyard was now opened.
When finally Qing Tian opened the door, he saw the Qing clan member already in blue cloths and marks but his face looked rushed, and like he could barely catch his breath as though he had run the whole way.
The sweat dripped like a river flowing out from the mountains on the boy's forehead.
"Greetings... Junior Brother... Qing Tian!" The clan's disciple bowed first to Qing Tian, then lifted himself to speak.
"Junior Brother... your maid, Song Yan, has been harassed by Qing Zhan and his older brother, Qing Gu.
They have also framed her, claiming that she stole money from the clan and is using it for herself, living lavishly.
Not only that, but she has been taken to the Enforcement Hall for punishment, and most likely… she will be sentenced to death."
The disciple blurted out all of it in one breath, not wanting to spend a moment more than was necessary.
After hearing this, Qing Tian was immediately dumbfounded.
Before he could say anything, Qing Tian was already charging toward the Enforcement Hall, having thought of nothing more and nothing less to do.
And half an hour ago...
"Song Yan, as a maid of the clan, you dare to steal the resources of the clan? Not only that, but you even dared to brainwash the clan's Second Young Master."
In the center of the Enforcement Hall, a middle aged man sat atop the hall at his throne and looked contemptibly at Song Yan, whose delicate wrists, through which crimson flames emitted, were bound by searing hot chains.
Song Yan knelt in the middle of Hall, and finished covered in a few rags, scorched from the chains. After a few moments, it seemed like the chains would be sinking in her wrists as she went pale.
But she would not beg; she would not cry.
She met the man's eyes, who looked down at her with his contempt.
"I have never done those...!!!" She spoke with the pain.
"Then what is this....???"
"Explain it....???"
Suddenly a colorful stone was thrown in front of her.
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[End of the Chapter, 15]
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