Bab 27: 第27章: An answer from within
Feiyu knew it much better, as though she has been here for years and spend countless times walking down the same path. It was as large as she anticipated and even thought of. It was the largest place she has ever been in, enough to hide a hundred people here if they wanted. From the front, it was huge. Made of find wood, with trees and
As they entered the garden first, they came face to face with a young man. Dressed in mostly green, with his hair worn loose. It was a little unusual but not fully so. He had his back turned to them, as though he didn't even know they were here. He held a small birdcage, even as she was wondering just how was it utilized. Other than trapping birds. Feiyu did catch her expression as odd. "Well, he traps some energy in there before releasing it."
It was a fairly odd choice, even as she wondered just how an umbrella could be used. But it wasn't nearly as baffling as say a birdcage. "So, found anyone with a stranger object?"
"My apprentice comes somewhat close." But nowhere neat that, she doubted it was anywhere closer at all. Since a birdcage something that did not have many uses other than to cage in a bird. Which was the name thus making a lot of sense. An umbrella was something that was used to shelter people, which did make it similar to him in some way at the very least.
"What is hers?" He focused his eye onto her. It was easy enough because Feiyu did not know anyone else in the first place.
"An umbrella."
He grinned. Before standing up from his "Now that is a little strange. What's your name?"
"Dianyu." She stood forward, deciding to do a curtsy for the moment. It will do,
"You may call me Zhixun." He closed the birdcage, and stood up.
He stepped forward without another word as Feiyu followed. This was incredibly silent. With nothing to really give her a little more clue just what was going on here. It was just kept between each other. She could guess that both didn't speak or knew each other well enough they didn't need so many words to do anything.
But she assumed she could ask once she stopped. Feiyu was never the type to say much, which she found more frustrating than anything. She had plenty of questions, but no answers. And as much as she pushed, there were certain things that Feiyu kept a tight lid on. And refused to tell her much.
Perhaps it will be better in person, or to know just where this was. But since Feiyu had made up her mind, Dianyu wasn't holding it against her either. "We're heading to the main hall, Feiyu entered through the back entrance."
Then where was the front entrance. Somewhere deep within herself she had the feeling that the main entrance was a lot more flashy, and entering through the back was a better, more discreet option. She preferred the chance to her own secrets more than being the center of attention. She liked to be noticed, but not admired or pestered.
But most importantly, she disliked being kept in the dark. Her mother never lied to her about her own identity, but the fact that her own father was around did hurt her. That she was thought as delicate, so delicate that she could not handle the real truth. That she could not know who her father was. That people made decisions based on perceptions of her, not because they asked her. She did not like that, she wanted to make her own. The consequences were something she gladly took, to at least have a chance to make her own.
Feiyu did catch that, but hinted that she will explain more deeply later on. It will do her no good to inquire no. Which she only had a reluctant agreement to, but willing to to accommodate her. This place was mysterious, mystical even. As though she was no longer in the bustling former capital that was Chang'an, but rather to the smaller towns she was in.
But it was nowhere like home. Walking into the main hall, she found herself looking at just three of them. "Stay here, Dianyu." She nodded although Zhixun had not moved either. The two of them looked at each other.
"How did you come here?"
"Dragged here against my will. Well, my previous association was running a place where people went and have animals race."
"It's gambling, isn't it?"
He shrugged. She'll take that as a yes.
"I ran away from a wedding."
"On the wedding day itself?" He didn't seem all that surprised. She doubted that was easy, but she was not kept under tight watch and was with her mother who will have supported any decision she made. As long as she showed enough conviction and it wasn't against any rules. She broke a norm, and she wasn't bound to her husband until the wedding took place and they had paid their respects to the heavens as a couple.
So, she doubted that was breaking any law.
"No, before it."
"Is anyone after you?" Since there still was an engagement which will have bound her to him, although these were rather fluid in the first place. Engagements were easily broken, made in the whims of the family more than the reputation. She knew that sometimes they were treated as convenient alliances, if it broke than both families will go their separate ways.
Mostly because very few wished to be in a bad familial alliance, and only when it was an absolute necessity. Marriage was to bind them together, and to bring their names into close associated with each other. The same was for her marriage, it was a deal between families who never asked what the actual bride and groom thought.
"My fiance agreed to the whole deal."
"Again, you're fairly odd." Because most of the men that she knew will not have even taken this lightly. He wasn't facing her, perhaps this was a fairly common story by all means.
"Says the guy who is using a birdcage."
"Well, I didn't think that there was a guy who will do that. And Feiyu did encounter something similar." It did make a little more sense why she had stretched her hand out to her, was it pity or understanding at the end of the day. It didn't need anything more to make any sense. Perhaps Feiyu saw something of herself in Dianyu, but it was acceptable. She was out and choosing her own choices.
People have their own secrets, she understood that. She knew that there were things she didn't want others to know.
"He wasn't all that older than me either." Which was a little fair, given that even he didn't think that the marriage was such a good thing. They were barely more than kids, not enough to think that marriage was easy. Marriage was duty, a woman expected to obey her husband and put herself to the family. While a man was expected to focus on his careers.
She found it irony, that joining two people together often meant that they were going to have different interests and to be helping each other. Not completing them in their own way, but the right way. The only way that it was to be. And yet every person was different, every one of them had their own interests. She wondered what was the point of having people be unique if they were expected to all become the same thing. To reinforce the tradition that governed their world.
"Well, people are all different."
"That I agree. But what draws you here?"
He turned to look at her,
"Freedom and choice. I made my choice, thus for better or worse I will stay with it."
"You know, you have the right mind. You make your own choice, then you can't regret, you can't blame."
"And I don't want to. I like my life, I like being able to choose."
"No wonder Fate hates you." It wasn't with any dislike, more like a simple fun fact. She had the feeling that fate had the same thing in it for him too.
"What about you?"
"Fate hates me because I simply refuse to give in." He gave a grimace. Even as he didn't say more, not that she wanted to know a little more. "I simply hope to become rich one day."
"Do you know about Feiyu?"
The man turned around in surprise, perhaps she has crossed something that she was better left alone. She didn't want to push too much. "Actually, it is not bad in any form at all."
There was a glint of amusement in his eyes, a little strange to have been seen at the very least. Perhaps he did like talking about such things. But she didn't speak, preferring not to say much until she was absolutely certain.
"Do you want to know more?"
She held back for a moment. But she couldn't deny herself the knowledge, not when she also happened to be curious. And as much as she didn't want to admit, she knew almost nothing about Feiyu. Able to brush it all off later, but for now there was just a lot of things she wanted to know. She didn't want to be forced into anything, and more information always helped to make a decision clearer.
"From what I know, she was meant for a life of great wealth but a tragedy." It was simple, nothing much. "You know that the previous dynasties blamed women for all their problems, suggesting that they were the cause of all evil. It is something like that."
To be a woman was to have sinned in their past lives, the words of many elders came to her. That a woman suffered many humiliations from young to old because of her gender. And her gender was a mark of her wrongdoings in her past life. A man had it much better.
"So, fate hates her…"
"Because she wanted a different end. She didn't want to have it repeat, she didn't want to have to see it."
Feiyu stepped out once again giving her a slight glare. The one time she didn't see a blank expression on her face. "Don't talk to her too much, Zhixun."
It was a silent warning, perhaps he did have a tendency to gossip. He merely glanced back without thinking twice. He walked past her. Feiyu turned back, and Dianyu knew that it was better to keep her own curiosity to herself. She might not like it.
"Tonight, she wants to see your fate. It is the best when the days are dark. The night often allows more things to be revealed than the day."
"Did you also run away from a wedding?"
She looked to her. It was an understanding that it was real. And whatever Zhixun told her was the same. "Sometimes I want to smack him, and I was planning on explaining it to you."
"Do people reveal their stories here?"
"Think of it as trust. We trust each other with our secrets, mainly the reason why we came together. It is to remind us that fate doesn't play fairly and fate does not care what we think. We can always go through his gate again and again, giving us good lives when he feels like it and miserable ones when he don't."
"And to begin is to accept the past and the past of everyone."
"And that the past does not define someone. It never does, people change and people can learn from their mistakes." And that it is the first towards not being like fate, fate that reincarnated many letting their future lives pay for the sins of the past. In so many ways, she knew it was wrong. It was unfair to the souls who spent lifetime after lifetime like this.
And most importantly, it was a step to make for change.
"We do this to be able to work for a better future and not to step into the mistakes of the past."
"You'll fit in here just fine, Dianyu." Turning to the back, a rather old woman made her appearance. With a cane supporting her, her hair a head full of gray hair. But there was a vitality about her, she remained standing and unsupported. Dress in a dark brown with some red. Zhixun was standing behind the wall. "And yes we do."
"Was this all a test?"
"Think of it as more like But the next is an initiation, as I trust Feiyu's judgment. And to see your real future and say whether you want to change it. You want to break and fully have your life in your hands. That is what it means to fight fate." The woman turned around, Dianyu got the idea that it was for her to follow.
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Bab 28: 第28章: A Future That She Does Not Want
Heading into a room where she was free to discuss her past. Feiyu assured that it was something that it was normal. Perhaps most of them knew her story and will tell her them in time. To begin a new chapter, one must be willing to let go of what their past was. And be willing to talk about it to some extent.
Sitting down on a table, as a servant came inside offering them tea. She figured that it will have taken quite a lot to do anything. It seemed rather obvious that it will be taking some time before they could leave. Along with some food, perhaps knowing that they just came from a long journey.
But it had to be done. She was curious enough to keep herself awake, and she wasn't really tired from the traveling either. She could hear stories, and she doubts that she will have been exhausted. She felt that this was something that she could not leave for another day. And Zhixun's words were still with her, which gave her an idea just what sort of fate Feiyu had been meant for.
"I grew up in Kaifeng, the heart of the capital. My family was a powerful noble family with a rising influence in the court. And from a young age, I had my fate rolled out for me, I will be an imperial concubine the moment I was old enough." It was one thing to find out a marriage just a month before it happened, and another to know all your life who you were going to marry.
"You could say that I was more than happy with the situation as it was. I knew my place, my role, and my future. Until of course a fortune teller told my parents of the fate that I will have if I were to enter." She stopped for a moment. As Dianyu looked at her, perhaps curious as to what is on her mind.
"Did you have to tell me everything now?"
"Yes, I do. I'm your master, as such, it is my job first to tell you my tale."
She nodded, before waiting for Feiyu to continue speaking with her. "My parents thought that it could have been avoided, a considerable donation, rebuilding temples, charity. But nothing did, I was meant to be their retribution. For their sins, they committed in the past, and also the retribution on the royal family."
"The royal family who broke with fate." And hence, why she was here. This was too much, to be the downfall of so many when she had nothing. She simply was ill-fated enough to be born with the family. "When it was, I told them that I will leave. I will never return, not as their daughter. But as a courtesan. Fate always had made my life difficult, and no matter the path it will never be easy."
She guessed that the reason was the fear of losing their standing, their influence. To not gamble with fate, when it often told quite a bit of the truth. It is rarely accurate, but it always ends the same way. Or even how it ended at the end of the day.
It made sense why she left.
"They didn't give up, they did one more thing. They tried to ask what was the way in which I could avoid bringing their family down. Send me to the palace, unrelated to them, a nameless girl. I will be the dynasty's doom, and my parents planned for that." Now that she was here, it was almost horrifying to hear. It resonated deep within her.
As much as the day had begun to wane. Almost nighttime now. She didn't need every detail of her past. But she knew enough to know what all of it meant at the end of the day. She didn't need any more detail o give herself a good picture and a good idea. She knew enough to know all of it herself.
"You should eat something, you're in for a long night." As much as the day could not get any longer. Dianyu ate something because she was indeed hungry. She rarely ate more than two meals a day, often in the morning as she worked. With some snacks in between before evening. And before sleep, she usually ate something extra as well.
She was used to working when she was hungry, hence why she never complained. The cook was far far worse in such punishments, often leaving her nothing more than two slices of bread in the morning and night. It was far worse in her other assistants, with the food being nothing more than a single slice of bread, or even a bowl of porridge the entire day.
But whatever was before she was a lot more than that. She was effectively spoiled for choice, and by choice, she meant a lot, a lot of choices. She doubted she could finish all of it, much more than what she had. Often they are leftovers from the afternoon or cooked separately. They were good because her mother was a good cook after all.
It was just that they were all in the same kind. And after nearly fifteen years, it didn't even taste good anymore. But this was fresh, the taste refreshing and different. She didn't miss the food per say, just that she wasn't removed from it enough to truly appreciate it. Now, she was merely liking all that was before her.
When she was done, she got up. Still wearing the dress here, she doubted she needed to be clean to watch whatever fate intended for her. She knew that it was far from pretty, remembering the words that she seemed meant to battle with fate. That she was meant for such a life. That she knew the world couldn't fully control her the moment she was a small child.
As such, she stepped onto the main hall. Where there was a garden in the front courtyard, filled with flowers in full bloom. The top of the sky revealed a full moon, which she thought was the best time for something like this. In the middle of the garden, the woman was there. Alone, and no one else. She doubted anyone was too interested in something like this. At least not before it was certain that she was a part of them.
Entering deep inside, was where she was able to look at where the woman was. Stepping forward without any fear. And there was a mirror, the same thing that hell shows to those who refuse to admit their sins. Here, it was a gate to knowing and understanding her own future.
"Step before it, and look at the mirror." As simple as that, without the need for anything else. She looked into the mirror of her own, looking at her own future. A future that she had no idea what it means or the future that she has left.
The mirror changed.
The first thing she saw in her own future, was the look of a perfect life. The perfect life that many thought it was. Perfection, even to her. A son that she loved, a daughter that she treasured. A husband who knew her and cherished her. Even as she didn't feel any sadness, she knew what she chose to leave behind. The way that he looked at her, gratitude but not life. A contentment, an agreement that they reached.
But she knew deep within herself that she didn't want this. She wanted to be able to go around the place, and if she was to settle she will not have completely given up her dream. She will have wanted to go no matter where he went, no matter how tired it was. She will not have not gave it all up. Not without any resentment, later on, she saw it. She saw the slight resentment, the way that she looked at the sky. Wondering whether she had a chance to leave. Or even a reason to truly see the sights she wanted to see.
The woman turned around and left. It was a perfect dream for many, but for her, it was a prison in its own way. A prison which she knew the very day she got the offer. That her own intuition told her before she even saw this. She went forward and never looked back.
A possibility, but not something that convinced her was enough to make her choice then. She didn't feel that it was something that was right for her, something that she should have thrown into them. It was perfect, but she wanted to know more. Where was her mother in this? Where were the people that she knew?
The placed changed according to her mind, as though it was meant to show her whatever she willed it to. But only within her own future. There, she saw that it was a closed business. Her mother, now an old woman living mostly alone. A stable life. It was perfect. But she knew that it was too wrong, remembering the words she told her.
I'll always be working with my hands, no matter when or where. There is nothing in the world which I will stop for. Not even old age seemed to stop her, she worked as hard as she used to as a child. Never growing particularly tired or even exhausted of her work. She simply worked because she liked the job and the fact that she was earning money helped.
She doubted that she could ask anything. Here she was only allowed to view at any point. Next, she looked at her friend, Er'ying. Holding a laden spoon and serving the next customer. She was wearing simple clothes, for the most part, nothing seemed out of place. With her child running all around. She never found another man and not even another friend.
Feiyu was the only one strange enough to befriend her, and she guessed that it was her own status as a wife which prevented. The wife of an esteemed scholar could not associate so readily with what many deemed a harlot. It will draw attention, as much as it will not help her. Reputation was all a woman had, the only reason why anyone will marry her. That and her family's wealth. But it was always reputation, as it was the only way to assure that when she married into the family any child by her will be theirs. No question on their paternity.
Before she went back again, looking at Zhao'en. Now a woman who appeared much older than she thought. Wearing only black, the color of mourning and suggesting her position. Even as she looked out of place in this small happy house. Taken back here by her brother as she was childless. Expected to mourn for the next three years of her life, and probably never remarry.
Even as Dianyu saw that in the future, she will envy Zhao'en. Zhao'en who had lost her own place. Zhao'en who was reduced to living on the charity of others. Free, but unable to make a choice. Free but without even as many choices as she had now. No one will marry a woman her age, and chances were she will end up either serving the palace or opening her own shop.
Why was she envious of such a woman? A woman who didn't have the freedom to choose her path. Merely an unfortunate widow. A woman who could not strike it out in her own way, not without great cost. Not without relying on nothing.
It was the dream of many, but for her, it seemed nothing more than a nightmare. Only that she could say it now because it never happened to her because she chose to trust that it will have done little to nothing for herself. That it will not have been worth the time. That it will have brought her nothing more than misery.
That was fate's intention for her, to have all her needs fulfilled, to be seen as having a perfect life. But in reality, none of her true dreams was fulfilled. And that she never got what was her perfect life. To have lived a life, but in reality, she never truly lived. Not in the way that she wanted to.
In a way, it was something that she truly feared.
And it was then, she returned to reality once more. Seeing Feiyu, who had seen things.
"So, what is the true life fate had for you?"
"To have lived but never the way that I wanted to." And a way of denying her the wishes that she had.
"Do you want that?"
"No, I will have been unhappy. To anyone else, this was perfection. I guess that is what fate wants for me, a gilded cage that I can never fly out of."
"Precisely what he wants. Some he makes for them horrifying futures but gives them the small, blissful moments where they truly experience happiness. And for others, grant them happiness in the eyes of others, but deep down is nothing more than misery."
"Do you understand why we must do this?"
"To give us a chance to break from this, to give us a shot at the fates we want not what was intended for us."
"Exactly. Feiyu, you have done well to find her." Feiyu said nothing.
She looked to the night sky. Knowing that the only way she will ever be satisfied in life was only if she was to live it the way she wants and live with the consequences. No matter how hard it was, and even though those difficult moments she doubted she will regret her own actions.
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA
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