The Man in the Veil - Part 2

The masked man propped himself up. This stranger can summon the wind, he thought. Who knows what else he’s capable of? He quickly mounted his horse. “Retreat!” he shouted to the other bandits. With a fluttering of long black robes, the horde withdrew, galloping horses kicking up a cloud of sand in their wake.

The young man watched as the bandit horde retreated toward the horizon. Another gust of hot wind tore through, and his hair danced across his face. He closed his eyes to keep out the sharp sand grains and reached for the weimao that lay at his back. Before he was able to place it back on his head, he heard voices behind him.

“Good sir!” one of the merchants called out in Sargeshi. The young man turned towards the caravan. The merchants all wore top knots in their raven hair and were clad in dark blue linen robes. As they approached him, they dropped to their knees and prostrated in a deep kowtow.

“Good sir,” the merchant said while facing downward. “Please accept our deepest thanks for saving our humble lives.”

The young man nodded in acknowledgment. “It is no trouble at all.”

“We owe you a debt of gratitude,” the merchant continued. “How can we repay you?”

The young man looked upon the prostrating merchants and thought for a moment. To save the lives of those in need was already a reward in itself. However, he also knew that social custom dictated that a good deed could not be left unpaid. These merchants would probably keep hounding him until they could return the favor. He finally asked, “Where are you headed?”

The merchant looked up at him. “The Kingdom of Ishkhandar in the Western Region. We are delivering a shipment of silk and porcelain to their royal palace.”

The young man’s eyebrows perked up. Royal palace? That sounded exciting. Perhaps this was a good opportunity. He replied, “Then allow me to accompany you and protect your caravan from other bandits. I am headed westward myself, so your guiding me there will be payment enough.”

The merchant bowed his head again. “Thank you, good sir, for your generosity. Those bandits slayed all our guards, so we definitely need the protection.” He rose to his feet. “May I know your honored name?”

“Leiyu,” the young man replied.

The merchant raised his eyebrows. “Leiyu? An interesting name. Are you from the Eastern Region?”

“I am,” Leiyu said.

The merchant switched to Dongyu, the native language of the Eastern Region. “Which ‘lei’ and which ‘yu’?”

Leiyu smiled. This was a common thing to ask in the Eastern Region. Dongyu was a monosyllabic language where words were made of separate characters, and characters that sounded the same could have very different meanings. The only way to distinguish them was by tone and context. Some characters had a rising tone, like a bird taking flight into the air. Others had a falling tone, like a hawk swooping down to catch its prey. There were also characters with tones that fell and rose, like a traveler traversing the slopes of a valley. Still other characters with tones flat as paper or staccato like the sound of a mallet striking a woodblock. People from other regions often thought that Dongyu had a musical quality.

Dongyu also had no alphabet. Each character was built from components that looked like stylized pictures. Some components imbued the character with a certain sound, while other components gave the character its meaning. A person needed to memorize thousands of characters to be literate, and thus, most people were not. Leiyu, at least, knew enough characters to get by. He held out his finger as if drawing in the air.

“‘Lei’ as in thunder,” he said in Dongyu. “‘Yu’ as in rain.”

“Thunderstorm?” the merchant remarked. He turned to his fellow travel companions and they shared puzzled looks. Although there were no set names in Dongyu, and parents could name their children however they wanted, within reason, ‘thunderstorm’ was not a common moniker. Nor was it particularly auspicious. The naming of a newborn was not something to be taken lightly, and fortune tellers were generally consulted to give the child the best start in life. The merchant was curious about his background. “May I also know your family name?”

Leiyu paused. Then he responded, “I have no family name.”

The merchant gasped. In the Eastern Region, family was everything. Even if a person was adopted, they would take the family name of their caretakers. To have no family name meant that you were either cast out or that you willingly cut ties with the people who raised you. Both were considered shameful.

To have no family name meant that you would not be recorded in any ancestral scrolls. You would not have a spirit tablet at a family altar and no one would give you offerings of incense and fruit to nourish you in the afterlife. It meant that you would be alone in the world during life and thereafter, adrift like a leaf that had been blown away from the tall and mighty tree. It was not something to be proud of, at least for most people from the Eastern Region. The merchant wondered what circumstances Leiyu came from that would cause him to forsake his family name. Perhaps he could give him the benefit of the doubt since Leiyu had just saved them.

”I see,” the merchant replied cautiously. “My name is Chen Yun.” Leiyu looked at him with a blank expression. “‘Chen’ as in morning, ‘Yun’ as in cloud.” Leiyu’s expression did not change. Perhaps he did not care. They were far from home and just went through a near death experience. “I can introduce you to the others.” He stepped toward his companions and motioned to them. “This is Liang Fusheng and Wang Yihui.” Leiyu nodded politely in quiet acknowledgement.

“So,” Liang Fusheng said. “How shall we handle the dead?” The slain guards and bandits were already half buried in the sand since the winds were so relentless.

“For the guards, we can offer blessings to ease their passing into the next life,” Chen Yun said. “For the bandits, let them rot.”

Chen Yun went into one of the caravan wagons. There were white linen sheets covering the porcelain vases in the cargo area. He pulled a few sheets off and returned to the group. “We don’t have much, but this will do for funeral rites.”

Chen Yun walked over to the slain guards and draped a sheet over each body. He then walked to the side, dropped to his knees, and clasped his hands together.

“Goddess of Water, please watch over these men who gave their lives to protect us. Guide their spirits back to their families so they do not become wandering ghosts seeking eternal vengeance for their untimely deaths.”

The merchants bowed their heads in respect and had a moment of silence. The wind continued to whistle. Leiyu watched them from the periphery. His gaze went from the shrouded guards to the slain bandits with arrows protruding from their chests. He closed his eyes and murmured to himself.

Once the wind died down, Chen Yun turned towards the others. “Let us depart.”

Leiyu walked back to his horse and mounted it. He placed his weimao back on his head and tightened the chin cord. Pulling the reins, he rode up to the caravan wagon where Chen Yun sat.

Chen Yun turned to Leiyu. “If you don’t mind my asking, what is your reason for journeying out here by yourself? The desert is vast, and it is hard to survive alone.”

Leiyu looked at the horizon. “I am on a soul journey.”

The merchant’s eyebrows perked up. “Oh? I’ve heard of those before. That’s where you leave everything you know behind and make a solo trek to discover your true self, right?”

Leiyu nodded. “My late shifu embarked on one himself when he was young.”

“Ah, so you are following in the footsteps of your shifu?” Chen Yun felt some relief, like a taut string finally loosening. If this Leiyu had a shifu, then maybe he wasn’t half bad. Having a shifu meant that he was a disciple of a sect. It meant that he was raised with morals and standards, and wasn’t just some vagabond with magic powers that came from nowhere.

Leiyu smiled. “To some extent. But even before I knew that he went on one, I wanted to see more of the world. Also, I’ve always had this strange restless feeling.” He took a deep breath. “It’s like something out there…or someone…is calling to me and I have to find out why…”