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They strode into town dramatically, like the jianghu heroes they were, or had been: two fighters in silk and armor, wrist guards and pauldrons, openly carrying their swords, flanking a small man in green-gray linen, soft and mundane, carrying a hamper. All three were wearing masks -- a green taotie pattern, a bronze fox face, and silver leaves -- showing their intention to remain anonymous and incognito.
However, walking into the town of Suzhou on the fifth day of the fifth month, the effect fell a bit flat. Wave upon wave of impressive people walked through the same gates, proudly strode up the long flagstone streets, or sat down to drink in front one of the innumerable wine-houses. There were nobles with retinue, wizened old masters, merchants with their families, groups of trained fighters, grand ladies of dubious reputation, gaggles of sect disciples set free for the day: an ocean of silk and chatter, of swishing hair and fluttering fans, parasols and weaponry, pointy guans and jingling earrings.
“We could have saved ourselves the bother of wearing masks,” Di Feisheng grumbled as he shouldered his way through the throng. “Nobody even looks twice. Nobody gets out of our way. We’re just three people in a sea of people, all of them as important as ourselves.”
“I’m taking mine off at the first inn where we have a drink,” Fang Duobing said. “No need to get hot and itchy underneath.”
“Let’s go find someplace by a canal, under a willow tree,” Li Linhua said.
“Nope,” Di Feisheng immediately answered. It had been more than three years, and silly Xiangyi still didn’t remember that he was allergic again!
“No willows,” Fang Duobing agreed. “Canals are fine.”
“Don’t be silly,” Li Lianhua said. “It’s the catkins I’m allergic to, not willows as such. Catkin season is over.”
“Nope,” Di Feisheng said again, categorically. He was not having it. People could call him the ‘strict husband’ as much as they wanted, he would not let his Xiangyi walk into the myriad of dangers the world held for mundane people and their frail health.
On normal days, Li Lianhua had about five to eight percent of his inner power back; on very good days, when they had freshly cultivated, it might be as much as eleven, but never more. For all practical intents and purposes, he was an ordinary person.
“Not risking it,” Fang Duobing now said, taking Li Lianhua’s elbow and gently steering him away from the grinning stone lion with the human teeth that guarded the small bridge which connected to the busy thoroughfare at a right angle.
“You are going to boss me around, are you?” Li Lianhua sighed. “One of you is always worried, and the other one is single-mindedly protecting me, and together you think you can tell me what to do?”
“We did let you make zongzi this year,” Fang Duobing said, pointing at the hamper. “We even picked the bamboo leaves for you and helped you pre-soak the rice. A-Fei is so good at folding the leaves, and I passed on every single one to you, to fill with your secret fillings from your covered little jars. We took turns watching over the pot, and I set up the mechanism to regulate the heat of the brazier in time, so we all did get some sleep last night.”
“I know,” Li Lianhua shrugged. “I was there. What does that have to do with willows?”
“We indulged you,” Di Feisheng explained. Sometimes, Xiangyi was so dense! “So, indulge our wish to avoid you breaking out in allergies and spending the festival honking like a goose? Please?”
“Also, we are here to cheer on my mum’s apprentices as they paddle the boat they designed and built themselves. They have worked so hard all year, combining their engineering skills while sticking to the rules and specifications of the race as loosely as they would get away with,” Fang Duobing said. “Cheer on. Not sneeze on.”
There was a tavern to the right of the street, hung with many red lanterns, and sporting red signs that said WINE.
“We can have a drink here,” Di Feisheng allowed, “and for the next step, Xiaobao will go and find us a place by a canal that is willow-free.”
Fang Duobing nodded, but instead of sitting down at the available table, he ducked into the tavern, probably to order drinks.
Di Feisheng sat, and pulled out a low stool for Li Lianhua. This tavern had nicely carved barrel shaped seats, rather than simple stools made from rough-hewn wood, which made absolutely no difference to your bottom but a lot of difference to the price of the drinks.
Which didn’t matter because quite obviously, Fang Duobing meant to buy this round.
It took him quite a while, and when he came out, he had taken off his mask and was rather flustered.
“She’s going to bring us a jar of good wine,” he said.
Di Feisheng looked at Li Lianhua, who was fondly smiling to himself. Yep, Xiaobao still couldn’t flirt casually with women, the way Li Lianhua would. Di Feisheng wouldn’t, either; but women rarely tried to flirt with him. Any waitress or saleswoman who knew how to deal with people would immediately realize that Di Feisheng wasn’t interested, and would adjust her sales pitch.
Flailing, flustered Xiaobao always gave mixed signals, and the ladies who sold things usually doubled down because they thought it meant he was interested.
“She’s not going to eat you,” Di Feisheng said. Fang Duobing looked shifty.
“Give her a nice tip, and all will be well,” Li Lianhua chimed in.
She came out with a jar of wine and three cups; she was about Fang Duobing’s age, and very pretty. Even Di Feisheng could see it. She wore pink and teal, her dress was low-cut, and her hair ornaments jingled sweetly.
She was absolutely forgettable. Fang Duobing looked at her with deep distrust.
“Your friends are very handsome,” she said to him while pouring the wine for all of them. “You were right. Still, I think you are the most handsome among the three of you!”
Fang Duobing stuttered, and handed over some money. She smiled, flounced, and went back inside.
Fang Duobing looked unhappily at his wine for a while, and then stood up again. “I’ll go find a spot by the river without any willows nearby,” he announced. “We can take our drinks there.”
“He’s worse than usual,” Di Feisheng remarked when Xiaobao’s ponytail had vanished around the corner with the ridiculous stone lion. “What do you think she did?”
“Nothing,” Li Lianhua said. “Or what amounts to nothing in everyday encounters. It wasn’t nothing to him.”
The girl came out again, carrying some complementary nibbles.
“Oh,” she said, “where did your handsome young friend go?”
“He’s our cultivation partner, not just a friend,” Di Feisheng said, to Li Lianhua’s unlimited astonishment.
Wait, what, why??
“Your other friend doesn’t seem to think so,” the girl giggled, picking up on Li Lianhua’s confusion.
“Oh, we are cultivation partners all right,” Li Lianhua said -- the only way out of this A-Fei created major social awkwardness was through, now. “It’s just not something we usually throw into people’s faces. You made him majorly uncomfortable with your flirting, which is why A-Fei here resorted to about three times his usual bluntness.”
“No need to be rude!” the girl said, blushing horribly. “I did not pick up -- I would have…”
She looked at Di Feisheng.
“I would have if it had been this A-Fei of yours, not the young gentleman, talking to me,” she then said. “I am sorry. What can I do to apologize?”
Before Di Feisheng could grumble ‘Nothing!’ as he was very likely to do, Li Lianhua said, “Give us another round on the house, in jars that we can take with us to sit by the canals.”
“Where there are no willows!” Di Feisheng said, completely unnecessarily. She would not sell the wine with or without willows, anyway.
“Why no willows?” the waitress asked.
“HuaHua here is terribly allergic,” Di Feisheng said.
The girl laughed, and promised them a place without willows before she went back inside to fetch the jars.
“I’d have expected for her to protest more,” Di Feisheng said.
“It’s the Dragon Boat Festival,” Li Lianhua said. “They probably have a mark-up of a hundred percent already. And when she saw Xiaobao’s jade pendants, she most likely doubled that. Nah, giving us another round leaves her at the normal profit, at the very least.”
The girl came back out, carrying three small jars of alcohol; she put them down and then explained which canal had the least amount of willow trees. “You will get there when you turn right at the bridge with the stone lion,” she finished her description.
“The one with the human teeth?” Li Lianhua asked. “Yes, we saw that. It looks very silly.”
“The merchant who put it there didn’t want it to be scary so as not to deter customers,” the girl said.
Di Feisehng looked dubious, but Li Lianhua laughed.
Fang Duobing returned at that moment, but hesitated when he saw the waitress talking to his partners, so Li Lianhua turned, called to him and gestured for him to come closer.
“We have more drinks,” he said, “and directions to a willow free bit of canal.”
“Sorry for earlier,” the waitress said. “These are good men you have here.”
Fang Duobing looked nonplussed.
“Yeah,” he then managed to splutter. “Very good men; I love them a lot! But now, we will go and watch people in boats if you’ll excuse us.”
***
There was a low stone railing by the walled bank of the canal that doubled as benches; they sat on there to finish off the first round of drinks which they had brought with them, already open, and looked at the boats.
These weren’t dragon boats yet, of course; just ordinary boats carrying visitors, rowed by professional boatmen, their relatives, down-on-their-luck martial artists, scholars needing money, sturdy washerwomen, and really just anybody in the town of Suzhou who wanted to make a few coppers during the festival, when all these visitors were in town.
It was obvious that every last boat in the city was moving through the canals today, even boats that should not have been moving even on a puddle.
“We could take bets on which boat will sink first,” Li Lianhua commented.
“That’s too easy,” Fang Duobing mused. “We could take bets on which will capsize, which will collide with another boat, and which will just sink with an ominous gurgle because the bottom is rotten.”
“We could also take bets from which boat drunken guests will just fall into the water,” Di Feisheng added -- and then he gave an amused bark as just that happened. It was a good, bright red boat, too -- a guest had stood, declared something, waved his jar of alcohol, and then toppled backwards into the canal.
“I win,” A-Fei smirked.
“You didn’t place a bet yet,” Fang Duobing pointed out.
“I just said that this would happen,” Di Feisheng said. “He fell on cue.”
“Lao Di wins,” Li Lianhua declares. “However, I will only decide later on what his prize is to be.”
He knew that his men wouldn’t dispute his right to hand out prizes and assignments both; they ultimately enjoyed it when he bossed them about. By now, he knew their priorities and hard boundaries well enough to get away with absolutely everything else.
A-Fei tilted his head and looked at Li Lianhua through his beautiful dense eyelashes; Li Lianhua put a finger into the lovely cleft in his chin and drew him close, to whisper something quite spicy into his ear.
Fang Duobing laughed, and took another sip of his drink.
“He’s going to purr like a kitten soon,” he said.
“The secret,” Li Lianhua said to Fang Duobing, in the tone of someone lecturing sagely about bats, birds, or the color of the sunset, “is that our A-Fei is very tough and only interested in martial arts and competitions; but when we treat him gently and tenderly, he will melt immediately from the unexpected warmth and become very, very soft. That’s why he is such an amazing lover, as we both have often witnessed.”
A-Fei blushed at being called that.
“It’s true,” Xiaobao said. “You are. And you deserve all the treats because that guy fell into the water when you said so.”
“Stop!” somebody called up from the water as the next boat passed by, “stop, I know these guys!”
“We have been discovered,” Li Lianhua said mournfully, and Fang Duobing laughed, collecting their drinks again.
“It’s my Xiao-Yi!” he said. “We were going to meet you at the start of the race! What are you doing here?”
“We’re taking in the sights,” He Xiaofeng said. “And you should join us.”
“She was driving our team bonkers with her last-minute exhortations,” Zhan Yunfei said from beside her, “so I am taking her for a boat ride. But yes, you should join us. Especially as you seem to have unopened jars of drink.”
Li Lianhua stood, and stretched.
“We’ll meet you at the next set of stairs to the canal over there,” he said, pointing to a break in the railing, halfway to the next arched bridge. “But you better avoid the stretches of water with willows by it. I don’t mind, but my men here are both very paranoid that my allergies could act up and ruin the day.”
“Yeah, you’re a sorry sight when you’re being allergic,” He Xiaofeng said mercilessly. “We’ll take care.”
Not helpful!
“I’m not allergic to willows as such,” Li Lianhua protested. “Just to the catkins, and their season is long over. I’m just being extra compliant so these two won’t nix the excursion.”
“Come on,” Fang Duobing said. “Don’t speechify.”
He was already walking to the stairs.
The boats were built for the city, and the city was built for the boats. You just went down the stairs, and the boat, with a gentle nudge of its single oar, would come right up to the soot of the stairs, exactly the width of the boat’s straight, flat stern; it would linger for a moment while you seamlessly stepped on as if you were on an even piece of road, and then, when all three of them had boarded and gone down into the covered middle where the seats for the passenger were, it was off again just as smoothly.
Li Lianhua sat beside Zhan Yunfei and offered him his open jar of wine.
It took them forever to finish their drinks, even with help from He Xiaofeng and Zhan Yunfei: there was so much to see and so much to talk about. Li Lianhua knew an outrageous story about one large and well-frequented restaurant they were passing, then He Xiaofeng started to explain how Tianji Manor’s dragon boat was different and special, and then they took a wide detour to avoid a stretch of canal that was positively infested with willows.
After a while, they encountered more people on the banks whom He Xiaofeng knew and invited to join them, people they had never met before and who were addressed by cutesy nicknames, not introduced with proper names.
“My nephew and his cultivation partners,” He Xiaofeng said, in passing, as she described how her day had gone, and her friends looked at the three of them and smiled a bit awkwardly, the woman much more casual than the man. They had given Di Feisheng (of all people) their baby to hold while they first got in, and then showed their purchases to He Xiaofeng, and A-Fei acquitted himself bravely by not holding the little person like you’d hold one of He Xiaohui’s explosives, but more like a cat -- slightly unpredictable but ultimately safe. Li Lianhua made a mental note to praise him later; he had come a long way from the cagey fighter for whom children mostly unleashed bad memories.
While he and his men had no idea who these people were, Li Lianhua mused, they in turn didn’t know who they were sharing the boat with -- the legendary fighter Di Feisheng, and the iffy quack doctor Li Lianhua. Xiaobao was just the nephew of their friend -- no idea if they knew he worked for Baichuan Court. On the other hand, who would mind? The newcomers had brought a box of cakes which they offered to everybody, happily accepting cups of wine in return.
After a while, when they were getting close to the wide canal which would host the dragon boat race, Fang Duobing took the baby from Di Feisheng. He treated the little person quite differently -- pointing out sights to it, singing little songs, even kissing its fat little cheeks.
“You would make a great father,” He Xiaofeng said.
Oh heavens, hopefully nobody would mention the princess again!
“He might still?” the baby’s mother said, smiling.
“Not unless our HuaHua here turns so yin he spontaneously cultivates a baby in his dantian,” Fang Duobing said, matter-of-factly.
Di Feisheng gave a brief bellow, and Li Lianhua started protesting -- why him, what slander, he would have them know…
“I think the word is ‘pillow princess’,” Di Feisheng said, “so, yes.”
Everybody seemed to find that funny.
***
Of course Tianji Manor won the dragon ot race, and then there was a bit of a scuffle when the crew of the fourth-placed boat (of all people) came and wanted to throw hands because they hadn't thought of the special way of staggering the rowers on the benches that He Xiaohui’s apprentices had devised.
Xiaobao, who was just enthusiastic about the whole thing on principle, and A-Fei, who was openly proud that the boat had been captained by one of the Di orphans, did of course take sides and meddle, while Li Lianhua just sat back and drank more wine from the handy gourd somebody had given him during the race.
“Just look at them,” he said to the baby’s mother who had turned out to be a very patient listener who would laugh at just the right places, “two grown men ready to threaten a bunch of overheated apprentices!”
“Yeah,” she said, “tell me about it. I have a husband who will get into arguments about kites every autumn. At least you're not married to them and can disavow them if they get too bad.”
Pause.
“Or are you…”
“No,” Li Lianhua said. “I wore a wedding dress just for a case, and we drank the wedding wine just because there was nothing else when we were hiding.’
He regretted his words the moment they were out of his mouth; he blamed the wine for his indiscretion.
“But then you really are -- I heard the stories! I wasn't certain…”
“We really are,” he said, sighing. “Fang Duobing of Baichuan Court, the number one fighter Di Feisheng, and the doctor Li Lianhua. All reports of miraculous powers are purely rumors, though.”
“But then you really are sworn brothers; that's at least as valid as marriage!” she said.
“Who says that?”
“The peach garden oath is a very poetic and powerful tradition…”
“Who says we swore it?”
“Everyone,” she said, confused. “Is that not supposed to be public knowledge?”
“We never did that,” Li Lianhua said. “Sorry to destroy the legend. I'm sure these two would find the idea preposterous or terribly old-fashioned. What in all hells are they doing now?”
Di Feisheng had just upended a bucket of water over some drunken bricklayer (the fourth boat had been manned by bricklayers and carpenters from a temple that was being built, and it was easy to tell them apart), and the rest of the boat's crew surged at him in anger.
None of them realized that Di Feisheng was showing his usual remarkable restraint. He could have killed them by merely pointing his finger at them.
“I have to do something about this,” Li Lianhua said, and got up to stand between the builders and his men.
“What do you think you are doing?” he asked, languidly, and took another sip from his gourd.
“That guy!!” one of the carpenters said, angrily pointing past Li Lianhua*s ear at Di Feisheng.
“That guy,” Li Lianhua said, “is my cultivation partner, and you’d better not mess with him.”
Behind him, Di Feisheng snorted ungraciously and folded his arms.
“Or else what?” the carpenter said.
“Or our other cultivation partner is likely to throw the lot of you into the grand canal, your festival clothes will be ruined, you will be too wet to stay and enjoy dinner, an the monks will dock your pay,” Li Lianhua concluded with a smirk.
“You!!” the angry carpenter said, pointing at Li Lianhua. “You don’t get to…”
One of his crewmates pulled him back.
“Didn’t you hear him say ‘cultivation partners’?” he hissed.
“So what? They’re not just rude, they are cutsleeves?”
“They are martial artists!” the other guy said. “They cultivate magic qi! They can point at you and blast a hole in your skull!”
“I prefer to use strong liquor for that,” Di Feisheng said, evenly, from behind Li Lianhua, and the builders stepped back at once.
“Don’t you know who they are?” a third chimed in. “If the guy with the pony tail is the young master of Tianji Hall, then the others are his famous sworn brothers!”
“You can’t be sworn brothers and cultivation partners,” another chimed in. “You can’t have sex with your sworn brother!”
“Can, too,” the first bricklayer said, still dripping wet. “The famous swordsman…”
And then, the whole argument derailed into a shouting match about famous stories of the wulin heroes from the jianghu, who had bedded whom, why it was all right to have sex with a shizun but never a shifu, and which ancient hero had had what relations to sworn brothers and sect sisters.
Li Lianhua stepped aside from the increasingly geeky shouting match; instead of arguing the fairness of the boat race, people were now showing off their knowledge of factoids from the martial arts world.
Fang Duobing, jianghu nerd that he was, chimed in, all threats forgotten; even Di Feisheng contributed his formidable knowledge of fighting stats and scoffed at the mention of famous names and monikers by citing what was the highest rank that fighter had ever held, and who had bested them, maybe even killed them.
“... and he will never fight again because his kneecap was irrevocably shattered,” he concluded when Li Lianhua said beside the baby’s mother again.”
“They are actually having fun,” Li Lianhua sighed.
She handed him the baby.
“Here, hold the little tyke for a bit,” she said, getting up to hurry away.
Even matronly ladies had bladders, Li Lianhua mused, and everybody had had quite a lot to drink, either tea or alcohol. Di Feisheng had drunk an enormous amount of tea during the race. Li Lianhua would have to make him sleep on the outside of the bed tonight.
“These arguments are stupid,” Li Lianhua explained to the baby. “When you grow up, you should never argue about particulars at a festival while getting increasingly drunk. It never ends well.”
The baby giggled, and Li Liahua was secretly content that he could still amuse a small child, at least.
However, the small person had seen its mother come back, and squealed happily when she took it back, handing Li Lianhua a hamper. “You will need that.”
The hamper contained fruit and dishes, incense, candles, wine, and flowers -- “I am making an offering?” he said. “To which gods and ancestors?”
“To Heaven and Earth, to witness your oath?” the baby’s mother said.
“Our oath?”
“What is that?” Fang Duobing said, prying himself loose from the argument, which was now about the famous fight of some famous heroes a hundred and fifty years ago. Di Feisheng and one of the carpenters could quote the source material word for word, blow for blow.
“Oh, are we finally swearing brotherhood?” Fang Duobing said, peering into the hamper. “You know, a lot of people are really astonished when I tell them that we still haven’t.”
“But Lao-Di…” Li Lianhua said, and Di Feisheng turned his head to abandon his argument.
“Present!” A-Fei said with a grin.
“Oh, are you swearing brotherhood at last right now?” said the carpenter who had been arguing with him. “The storyteller in Zhejian last week had sworn you did that at the East Sea, back when you found Li -- your friend again.”
This place was full of people who knew their story better than themselves, apparently. Li Lianhua was getting annoyed and stood up.
“Come here!” Fang Duobing said, cheerfully. “We can swear right here, on the narrow keel of our upturned victorious dragon boat!”
“We could go to the temple compound,” Li Lianhua suggested, in a vain attempt to stall, and make less of a public spectacle of it.
“This is our boat,” Fang Duobing said, “and the place is perfect -- just look!”
The evening sun was painting the white-washed houses and mansions orange, the black roofs shimmered as if freshly washed, strings of red and yellow lanterns glimmered beside every door and gate in the dusk, and trees that were definitely not willows swayed in the soft breeze.
Boats were still gliding softly on the canal, all the former frenzy gone.
It was perfect, Li Lianhua had to admit.
“It is smaller than what we truly are,” Di Feisheng said quietly, stepping up beside Li Lianhua. “I understand your hesitation. But really -- however glorious the sturdy outer boots are, we can still use some soft, warm socks to wear inside them.”
“Your metaphor smells of unwashed feet,” Li Lianhua said, boxing his arm.
“We are doing this!” Fang Duobing said, giddy happiness in his slightly inebriated voice as he was setting up the offering on top of the dragon boat, helped by his aunt and her friend.
“And we are going to witness a historic moment,” the geekiest of the wuxia enamored bricklayers said in an alcohol-soaked voice. “I am going to tell my grand-children of this day, when I saw the greatest heroes of their generation…”
There were tables being set up by the riverbank, there were people coming with food and drink who stopped, staring at the offerings which were unexpected, at this particular celebration.
“Don’t we have to wear anything special?” Li Linhua said.
“Nah,” Fang Duobing explained, carefully stacking apples. “It’s strictly come-as-you-are. At the end of a battle, at the beginning of a new alliance, after the victory and before a peace.”
Li Lianhua took a long gulp from his gourd.
“Okay, we’re doing this,” he said.
They would swear to each other in front of everyone, and afterwards, his men would belong to him, officially, as they had done for years. And then, there would be a huge party that had nothing to do with them and everything to do with the festival and the peak of summer, but that they would be part of, this year.
Di Feisheng surreptitiously reached out to him and, shielded by Li Lianhua’s voluminous gray-green sleeves, squeezed his hand.