Wu Aizhen’s birthday came a week later, and Yamaguchi Mingchuan remembered it clearly. He asked how she wanted to spend it. Wu Aizhen said the plainer the better—preferably just the two of them in the room drinking “Happiness Tea.” “We still have those two small packets we haven’t drunk, don’t we?” she added. Yamaguchi Mingchuan agreed. But he said this year they would do it her way, and next year he would make the arrangements: “Who knows, next year you might be my bride.” When he said this, Yamaguchi Mingchuan looked at her earnestly. “You’d better decide quickly. I could propose to you at any moment.” “Have you finally made up your mind to take a wife?” Wu Aizhen said. Yamaguchi Mingchuan smiled cryptically and said nothing.
From the moment they got up on her birthday, Yamaguchi Mingchuan didn’t set foot outside the room; he stayed with her on the tatami outside the bedroom drinking tea. Breakfast too was brought by room service, with a single rose added to the tray and much more abundant fare than the previous days.
They wore matching casual outfits they had bought together a few days earlier: Yamaguchi Mingchuan in black, she in white, both with lily patterns, the same brand as their pajamas. They gazed at each other with unending tenderness, like a pair of teenagers in first love, as if from that moment on the complicated world outside had been shut away.
A piano piece played on the CD player—Richard Clayderman’s “Romance.” The surging and falling romantic melody carried their affection through the room, wrapping around everything in it, filling all the space…
“I truly know what happiness is now,” Yamaguchi Mingchuan said, his voice drifting. Wu Aizhen sat quietly, gazing at his happy face; a quiet smile rippled across her features, but inside she suddenly felt uneasy, and she didn’t know why. These days, their thick, inseparable intimacy, sweetness, and mutual reliance had always been threaded with something faintly dark, like a shadowy sprite that flickered between them, unfathomable and ungraspable, leaving her heart unable to abide here. She recalled how she had once made her way through mountain paths, washed in streams, run and leaped through forests, contemplated and strolled under moonlight—she had been so at ease, so relaxed; she owned nothing yet felt she possessed everything, happy in complete self-forgetfulness. But back in the red dust of the world, after two failed loves, she seemed to see clearly how fickle and faithless human attachments could be; she thought she had rid herself of mortal feelings. Yet Yamaguchi Mingchuan and Keiko had given her a new opportunity to understand emotion. She was grateful to them; love had unexpectedly descended on her again, and she had not refused it. She had grown fond of this steady, calm man; she didn’t want to see too clearly what he did every day, didn’t even want to imagine it. But everything a person does leaves traces in time and space. Perhaps one day, those traces would become an insurmountable barrier between them. What exactly could it be? Infidelity, a wandering heart, betrayal? No, Yamaguchi Mingchuan was mature; his calmness and wisdom wouldn’t be easily seduced by anything in this world. Then what? Coldness? Cruelty? Jealousy? Anger and hatred? Greed? A person’s actions could influence and distort a heart, easily tarnish love, easily destroy the most sacred, purest feelings between people…
She shook her head lightly. Her own cultivation and realization were truly too poor, especially when it came to love. She couldn’t live in the present moment. A cultivator should remain unruffled even if Mount Tai collapsed before them—how could she be so full of anxiety? She recalled something her master had once said to her: “Go back, go back to the world of red dust. Take your heart with you; don’t leave it here to bother me.” Now she felt that her “heart” was too noisy, thinking about this and that, so noisy she couldn’t peacefully enjoy this moment of happiness and joy.
“What are you thinking?” Yamaguchi Mingchuan saw that Wu Aizhen’s gaze had once more gone hazy and distant, her face tight. “Aren’t you happy?” he asked tenderly.
Wu Aizhen let out a long breath. Yamaguchi Mingchuan’s concern and tenderness had defeated her once again. She immediately felt bright light pour into her heart, ripples of warmth and gentle love rising from its depths. Sunlight streamed through the window; everything in the room was so bright—even Yamaguchi Mingchuan’s prominent forehead and commanding bearing seemed radiant and sacred.
“I am happy, very happy!” As she said this, Wu Aizhen seemed on the verge of tears, her voice trembling slightly. She felt that all the disappointments and grievances of the past, all the anxieties and worries of the future, melted away in an instant in this man’s gentle words, his amorous gaze, in the arms that reached out to draw her close…
Around midday, while Wu Aizhen was listening to Yamaguchi Mingchuan tell the stories behind the swords he collected, a staff member delivered a gift box.
“Your birthday present has arrived,” Yamaguchi Mingchuan said. Wu Aizhen stared at the box with curiosity.
The box was wrapped in white gift paper patterned with lilies, a handcrafted rose of silk ribbon tied diagonally across it. Yamaguchi Mingchuan tore off the paper in a few quick motions. Inside was an exquisitely carved red sandalwood box, rectangular in shape. He placed it gently beside the tea table and slid open the lid. Lying inside was a Guanyin statue of mutton-fat white jade, about fifty centimeters tall, with a warm luster and a fine, silken sheen. Yamaguchi Mingchuan stared at it, spellbound, as if he had forgotten it was a gift; his eyes were utterly intoxicated. Wu Aizhen took the Gold Toad Crying to the Moon pendant that Yamaguchi Mingchuan had given her from her bag and held it up next to the jade Guanyin. To her surprise, the pendant in her hand seemed dim and slightly yellow by comparison. Without comparison, the pendant’s color would be considered top-quality. She too couldn’t help staring fixedly at the Bodhisattva in the box. The statue smiled with gentle serenity, her eyes seeming to meet the gaze of anyone who looked at her. From whatever angle you viewed her, the Bodhisattva seemed to be looking at you. Her left hand held a pure vase, her right hand held a willow branch, resting lightly at her chest, as if about to flick her wrist and sprinkle willow-branch water upon you. The robes drifted and the sashes streamed, light shimmered from the figure, the whole piece was translucent, pure white, and flawless, every inch carved with delicate vividness. Wu Aizhen was transfixed; the “Guanyin image” seemed wrapped in a soft, mysterious halo, so sacred, so pure. For the first time she deeply appreciated the beauty of spotless white jade, saw a purity beyond worldly dust, and she didn’t dare reach out to touch the statue. The gentle halo around the Buddha image seemed alive with spirit, flowing nimbly over the Bodhisattva’s form. Leaving aside the flawless jade itself, who had carved this statue? What mind, what devotion, what skill had allowed the carver’s blade to commune so intimately with the Bodhisattva? Otherwise, how could every detail come alive, every detail radiate holiness, every detail pour forth the Bodhisattva’s boundless love? … How could it not lift one’s spirit and intoxicate the senses?
Yamaguchi Mingchuan emerged from his reverie and said softly, “This statue was made during the Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty. I saw it at a friend’s place, a collector of ancient jades. He could not bear to part with it, but in the end, I got it.” As he spoke, his attention remained on the Buddha figure. But he quickly lifted his head, picked up the box, and presented it to Wu Aizhen who was sitting upright nearby. “Happy birthday!” Wu Aizhen flinched back slightly in sudden confusion and said, “You keep it. I’m fine with this piece of jade.” As she said this, she raised the round moon-jade in her hand.
“Why?” Yamaguchi Mingchuan’s voice unexpectedly trembled slightly. “Do you find it too valuable, or too sacred?”
Wu Aizhen was silent. “I’m not worthy,” she said, her voice self-abasing for the first time.
Yamaguchi Mingchuan said nothing. He walked back behind the tea table and gently set the Bodhisattva statue beside him. Suddenly, he roared, “If you are not worthy of her, then who would be! Why don’t you dare accept it!”
It struck Wu Aizhen like a thunderclap from above, booming in her ears. “Why don’t I dare accept it! Why don’t I dare accept it! …”
Crystal tears fell, silently streaming across her cheeks. In her hand she held the “Gold Toad Crying to the Moon.” Into that jade had seeped all her longing and sweetness; she no longer dared demand sacredness. In the face of sacredness, she was terrified—terrified of losing, terrified of having no flaw. Through her tear-blurred eyes she looked at the now-less-pure jade in her hand, at the lively toad carved on it. She didn’t want to seek anything more; she didn’t want her life to be spotlessly pure. So she could still cling to defilement after all. Facing that perfect Bodhisattva, she was powerless to accept it, she didn’t dare accept it.
“I’m sorry. That was wrong of me just now. I shouted a bit too loud. Do you know, this friend of mine refused to part with this piece no matter what. In all my life I’ve never begged anyone for anything, but I begged him. I begged him to yield it to me. I said that in my heart there is a woman, perfect and nearly otherworldly. Her birthday was coming, and I could find no gift worthy of her except this Guanyin Bodhisattva. This statue is no mere gift; it represents the respect I hold for her, the admiration, all my hopes and love. My friend was moved. He said he was willing to part with what he treasured to fulfill my wish. And you—you actually say you’re not worthy!” Yamaguchi Mingchuan lowered his head, his eyes glistening…
Wu Aizhen walked to his side and looked at the Bodhisattva lying in the sandalwood box, feeling that its sacredness was so cold. She lifted it from the box and cradled it in her hands, letting Guanyin Bodhisattva’s eyes meet hers. The Bodhisattva’s face brimmed with a smile. She felt the willow branch was about to sprinkle water upon her. She grew still, so utterly still that she forgot herself for a moment, connected with heaven and earth, and a crystalline lotus slowly opened in her heart…
She placed the Bodhisattva statue on the wine cabinet. She and Yamaguchi Mingchuan leaned against each other, sitting opposite the Bodhisattva, and passed the afternoon together. She told him stories from the sutras, including the tale of the Dragon Girl presenting her pearl. The Dragon Girl offered the dragon pearl from her own mouth as an offering to the Buddha. Shakyamuni Buddha immediately accepted the pearl, and in that very instant the Dragon Girl cast off her dragon form and realized Buddhahood. He asked several questions, and she explained according to her own understanding: “The Dragon Girl was renouncing, giving up her life-pearl and offering it to the Buddha. In her eyes, the Buddha was no longer an external image but the essence of life she had realized through complete enlightenment—her true self. Her offering was letting the life-pearl return to the true self. The Buddha’s immediate acceptance was merging with her in a single kshana, letting his merit and virtue that fills the Billion World System and the blessings of all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas fuse and imprint with her simultaneously. Receiving this blessing, the Dragon Girl instantly shed her dragon form and realized Buddhahood.” Yamaguchi Mingchuan listened attentively, thinking deeply…
That night, Wu Aizhen was suddenly woken by a roar from Mingchuan beside her. When she opened her eyes, she saw Yamaguchi Mingchuan bolt upright, his eyes staring ahead in terror. It took him a long while to surface from the nightmare. When he lay back down, she asked him what nightmare he’d had. Softly he said, “I dreamed Taro Harano, covered in blood, glaring at me, demanding his hands and feet…” He squeezed his eyes shut in pain. She reached out and gently wrapped her arms around him. For the first time she was astonished to feel the terrible fear and tension lurking inside him. Like a mother shielding her child, she held him in her arms. In the deep, dark night, she suddenly felt so strong, her heart so open and fearless.
Yamaguchi Mingchuan seized her hand and pressed himself tightly against her body. A stream of past scenes flashed through his mind—sinister, crafty, deceitful, game-like—and through them he had walked alone, with his own rules of the game and principles of conduct. He had always devised his strategies from the command tent, escaping danger by a hair; he had worried and fretted, but he had never feared. Yet now, having suddenly tasted the sweetness of love, his heart had softened for the first time, moved by love, concerned for another, and he found himself suddenly timid, afraid. Those days without love had held no happiness at all.
“What exactly happened during that time you went back to Japan? Can you tell me in detail? Maybe telling it will dissolve a lot of the unease in your heart,” Wu Aizhen said, stroking Yamaguchi Mingchuan’s chest. Yamaguchi Mingchuan was silent. “If it has to be kept secret, then don’t say anything.” “It’s nothing. I trust you.” He abruptly sat up, half leaning against the headboard. Wu Aizhen shifted up as well, resting her head on his shoulder. They leaned together like that, and Wu Aizhen waited for Yamaguchi Mingchuan to tell what was perhaps a blood-soaked story.
“Do you remember the guests I introduced to you last time?” “I remember. Wasn’t Taro Harano one of them? I said his eyes revealed killing intent, told you to be on guard against him, and you said you weren’t afraid.”
“Yes, that reception was a trap I set with Mayumi’s father. After Keisuke’s death, I suspected someone inside the organization wanted to eliminate him, colluded with outsiders, and then framed another gang for it. The underworld has its own rules. Keisuke did a few things wrong, but I’d met the other gang’s boss—a man whose word carries weight. He said he wouldn’t pursue the matter, so he wouldn’t have gone after Keisuke in secret. Even if he was dissatisfied with our compensation, he would have weighed his reputation on the street as more important than taking Keisuke’s life. I suspected Taro Harano, but I had no proof. So Mayumi’s father and I set the trap. Yokichiro and I put on a show for Taro Harano. The script was that we were preparing to take out a political enemy of Mayumi’s father, because we suspected Harano was that politician’s mole. Throughout the whole operation, every move Harano made was under our surveillance. Eventually he slipped up. We obtained a recording of a phone call and a video of him meeting the politician’s envoy. Confronted with the evidence, Taro Harano admitted he had killed Keisuke because, while I was in Tibet, Keisuke had discovered his secret. We disposed of him according to our rules.” As he spoke, Yamaguchi Mingchuan fell silent and ground his teeth. Before him rose the image of Taro’s eyes, bloodshot and crazed like a gambler’s, as he stared at Yamaguchi Mingchuan with contempt, a sneer on his face and blood from the punch Yamaguchi Mingchuan had thrown for Keisuke still dripping from the corner of his mouth. “You won’t die well either, Yamaguchi Mingchuan. I’ll be waiting for you in hell.” He burst out laughing, already entirely unhinged. Yamaguchi Mingchuan answered him with the fists of a boxer. He hit him wildly; blood spurted from his eyes and nose, splattering Yamaguchi Mingchuan’s face and arms. He had never beaten a subordinate like this—not even one who had made a mistake. Even when someone betrayed the organization’s secrets, he stayed calm and never personally meted out punishment with his own hands. But that day, he too lost control. For Keisuke, who had died so brutally, he struck again and again, until Taro Harano collapsed to the floor, twitching in silence. Even then his hatred was not sated. He ordered his men to follow the gang code: sever his hands and feet, bundle him into a sack, and throw him into the sea. Afterward, he never asked himself whether he had been too cruel. He had simply been avenging a friend, making the man who killed Keisuke pay with his life. Ever since he heard the news of Keisuke’s death, that was all he had wanted, with his whole being. But these last few days, steeped in love, talking with Wu Aizhen about the Dharma, the face of Taro Harano kept drifting before his eyes. His heart grew unsettled. He began to look back, bit by bit, at everything that had happened. He had always lived by his own principles; he still did not think he had done anything wrong. And yet, why was he so uneasy? Why did such terror come to him in his dreams?
“Go to a temple and arrange a liberation rite for Taro Harano too,” Wu Aizhen said quietly. Yamaguchi Mingchuan remained silent. “Can a liberation rite be effective for one’s enemy?” Yamaguchi Mingchuan asked. “He is no one’s enemy now. Do you still see him as your foe?” “No, he can’t really be called an enemy anymore. It’s settled.” Yamaguchi Mingchuan sounded weary. But why did this settled matter still cling to him, jolting him from sleep? Why did it trouble his heart? Could things between people ever truly be settled? Every wrong has its wrongdoer, every debt its creditor—could a life for a life ever bring it to an end? For the first time, he began to doubt the code he had lived by all his life.
“All right, help me arrange a liberation rite for him,” he said with great sincerity. “May he never get involved with the underworld in his next life. May he earn money in the open, and live in the open. What does poverty matter, as long as he is happy and has love?” When Yamaguchi said this, Wu Aizhen heard something in his voice and knew his eyes must have been moist.
“What happened after that?” Wu Aizhen asked. Though her heart was heavy, lying in the arms of love and listening to his story, even the brutal facts did not feel frightening. She had met Taro Harano once, but the phrase “disposed of” that fell so flat from Yamaguchi Mingchuan’s lips—those three syllables, as if handling an object—barely stirred a ripple in the ocean of her mind. She did not want to press him on how he had been disposed of, nor did she want to let her own conjectures conjure up the cruelty in vivid detail. She did not want to dwell on this. All she wished was to escape, and for Yamaguchi Mingchuan to escape with her. For her, perhaps all it took was a change of subject to get free.
“I never imagined, though, that Taro Harano had recorded some of the company’s secrets on a disc and left it with his lover. It turned out that lover was the very daughter of Mayumi’s father’s political enemy. Through people in my organization, the woman found out Taro Harano was dead, so she mailed the disc to the police department and used her father’s influence to pressure the investigation. Although we have our own people in the police, things got very dangerous for me. During that time, to avoid scrutiny, I hid out at Mayumi’s house. I couldn’t make any calls; everything at home was under surveillance. Mayumi and her father did everything they could to calm the situation. In the end, they managed to settle it, but the organization suffered heavy losses, both in manpower and finances.”
“Did you stay with Mayumi?” Wu Aizhen asked suddenly. She had no idea why the question escaped her lips.
“Do you doubt my faithfulness in love?” Yamaguchi Mingchuan asked. Wu Aizhen said nothing.
“Whatever may have happened during that time, there was not a single moment when I forgot you,” Yamaguchi Mingchuan said in a lingering tone.
Wu Aizhen believed those words. But what had happened? Had something happened between him and Mayumi? Yet Wu Aizhen suddenly felt that to press the question now was selfish. Mayumi had been the one helping him in his darkest hour. She herself should not reproach him over the stirrings of her own emotion. Even if something had happened, what could be done about it now? From the way Yamaguchi Mingchuan had treated Mayumi these last few days, she had seen nothing indecorous or ambiguous. She should not let herself suspect them.
“A life in the underworld is always turbulent, and the karmic consequences are bad. Can’t you leave it behind?” Wu Aizhen said.
Yamaguchi Mingchuan closed his eyes. Her words sounded to him like a child murmuring in its sleep. He said nothing more, only, “Sleep. Don’t think too much.”
Yamaguchi Mingchuan fell asleep again, but Wu Aizhen lay awake. She turned over all the possibilities of his leaving the underworld. But even if he quit, would the other gangs, the enemies he had made along the way, ever let him go? Could he ever live an ordinary life? It was so hard. She stared wide-eyed at the ceiling in the dim lamplight and had the sudden, almost visual sense that an eye in the air was watching her. Everything in this world leaves its mark. Everything falls under cause and effect. Once you take that first step, retreating is not easy, and erasing its traces is even harder. She wanted to counsel the world: never, ever take that first step into any wrongdoing. If you have already stepped forward, leave yourself room to turn back. Avoid every evil you can; cause and effect never err by a hair. If anyone could hear her lying there in the middle of the night thinking such things, they would surely find her naive, laughably innocent.
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