Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 1129: The Timescape is an Old Guest

In the minor world in the shrine hall in Li City was a wooden building. It had a utilitarian interior. There was a desk, a chair, and a wooden cot. In addition, there was some calligraphy hanging on the wall.

“Like a pious guest, he searched for a temple that might not exist.”

***

Fire still burned outside. The scroll painting in the pill cauldron was being assimilated by the sea of flames, causing it to glitter with mysterious light. It sounded like there was a voice coming from inside the scroll. It was very faint.

“What… did I forget? Was it worth it? That same saying again? Maybe I should have someone to help me send a message out of here.”

The voice faded away into the crackling of the fire.

***

The fire burned hotter and brighter. As a result, the roof above the clay pot was bright red. The medicinal liquid was getting hotter and more viscous. Occasionally bubbles would rise to the surface and pop, causing a medicinal aroma to fill the simple wooden room. The room wasn’t very large, but it did have several cabinets full of medicinal ingredients.

In the middle of the room were two people. One was an old man. One was younger.

The old man wore a navy blue robe and had long white hair. The passage of time had left his face numb, and he currently sat in a rocking chair looking out at the setting sun. It was hard to tell what he was thinking about.

The young man looked at the old man for a while. Eventually, he couldn’t hold back from speaking.

“Master, what’s next?”

“What do you mean, what’s next?” the old man responded.

“In the story, sir! You just said you forgot something, and wondered if you regretted something. And then you said ‘that same saying again?’ What saying are you talking about? If you need to send a message out, I can do it!”

The old man looked at the medicine in the clay pot. “The medicine has been decocting for long enough. Split it up and make the deliveries.”[1]

The young man quickly got a ladle and started scooping the medicine out of the clay pot and into a nearby medicine box. Then he ran toward the door. Just before he stepped out of the medicine shop, he paused and looked over his shoulder.

“Master, once I’ve delivered the medicine, you have to tell me about that saying, alright? I’m so curious! And I can definitely relay the message. If you tell me that saying, then I’ll tell you a secret!”

The old man nodded.

Brimming with anticipation, the young man ran out into the city with the medicine box.

As the old man watched the young man disappear in the distance, his gaze went slack. “What was that saying…. I can’t remember.”

The night had passed. The young man never came back. Some people said that he ran into an immortal who took him away. Others said that he was devoured by the night. In fact, for the rest of that old man’s life, he was never seen again. It almost seemed that it had all been in the old man’s imagination.

For the ten years that went by until he passed away, the old man would occasionally think back to that little apprentice he had, and his impression of him seemed to fade each time. That was because his life was mostly focused on trying to remember that saying. It was as if the saying existed in his memories, yet was buried so deep he couldn’t find it.

But then, on the day he died, when his memories turned into ashes that drifted out into the mortal world, he remembered.

The world… is a tavern for living beings…. But what’s the next part?

The old man never got an answer. Time had taken his life. It had taken his spirit. And the only thing left behind in the world was a corpse that ended up buried in the ground.

Within the flowing of the timescape, the corpse and the ground merged until they were the same.

Outside, time passed. The world changed. What had once been a little city turned into ruins. And the ruins became a wilderness. It was hard to say how much time passed….

One day, a hoe rose up into the air, wielded by a person. It plunged down into the dirt of the wilderness. The wild areas were being cleared for cultivation. Crops were sown, and a village sprang up.

The person tending the land led a boring life. He started young, but eventually grew up and then became an old man. Just before dying, he told his family that he had once been an important government official, a rich businessman, a bandit in the mountains, and a doctor. And he had always been buried in this area. He explained that, in this life, he wanted to again be buried in the same spot. That way, he could buy some extra time for his future self, and also ensure that his spirit lingered longer before dissipating. His final words seemed very fanciful, to the point where no one believed that he was telling the truth.

But in the end, it didn’t matter, as he was indeed buried in the ground there. He was such an ordinary person that he was like a drop of water in a sea. And when that sea dried up years later, no one would ever remember that one drop of water.

Springs came. Autumns went. The village turned into a walled city.

A few years later on a winter evening, a middle-aged cultivator arrived on the wind. He was a rogue cultivator who belonged to no sect or clan. But he had taken advantage of an opportunity to enter a hidden dimension and acquire a legacy.

That legacy was a discarnate soul. In order to acquire the full legacy, he needed to fulfill the desires of the discarnate soul. And the discarnate soul had led him to this place.

Upon reaching a certain patch of ground, the discarnate soul flew out of the cultivator and turned into a young man. The young man looked at the surrounding lands. He looked at the walled city.

Things had changed. The little city from before was much bigger now. What had once been a medicine shop was now a school.

The young man looked at everything and thought back to a night years ago when his very first Master had told him a story. That had been a very long time ago, and he had wondered if he would be able to recall all the details.

He had been taken away into the cultivation world. He had grown up and lived his own life. He had experienced sorrow, joy, love, and hatred. He had reached the highest heights, but he had ultimately perished, becoming a discarnate soul. Years passed, yet he eventually realized that there was one thing that seemed forever fixed in his memories. And it was the scene from that night.

He still wanted to know about that saying his Master had mentioned. It was because… back then, there had been no time for him to explain to his Master that before coming to study at the medicine shop, he had heard that saying in a dream.

He wasn’t sure why, and now… he had come back to find out. It seemed that the saying his Master had mentioned was very important.

My spirit has mostly dissipated. And this discarnate soul won’t last for much longer…. I’m quite convinced that if I don’t get an answer before I’m gone… then I’ll be gone for good.

He found himself looking at the school. There was a single teacher and seven young students. Evening had fallen, and the students were bowing farewell to the teacher. The teacher smoothed out his robes and prepared to leave. But before he could, one of the students returned and stood in the doorway.

The teacher stopped in place and looked over at him.

The student bowed. “Teacher, I have a question, and I don’t have time to find the answer myself. Since you happen to be here, sir, I was hoping you could clear things up for me.”

The teacher took a moment before answering. “Go ahead.”

The student looked up with pitch-black eyes and said, “Teacher, do you know what reincarnation is?”

The teacher frowned slightly. “An extraordinary person like you is asking ordinary old me about reincarnation? Really?”

The student shook his head, and the darkness in his eyes faded a bit. He looked confused. “I used to think that reincarnation is about recurring lives. When one life ends, another begins. But then I started getting the sense that reincarnation isn’t about that. Is it possible… that I’ve met people who are actually reincarnations of myself? It’s all very confusing. Teacher, I really hope you can help me understand. I guess… I guess any explanation would help.”

The teacher closed his eyes and said nothing for a very long time. In fact, about an hour passed. Evening had turned into night, and the darkness in the student’s eyes was mostly gone. At that point, the teacher opened his eyes.

“I don’t really know what reincarnation is,” the teacher said. “But if I had to, I would describe it in two ways…. It’s like a boat crossing a deep ocean. Or the process of searching for radiance and light in the midst of darkness and gloom. It’s something you do that comes with a price. In other words, going through repeated reincarnations is like slowly erasing yourself.

“Now, as far as the situation you just mentioned, that of encountering people who are actually reincarnations of yourself, well, it seems to me that it might be your own way of trying to save yourself.

“Give up on being erased slowly but surely, and choose instead to live one blazing life. Maybe that’s how to find the radiance and light. But if you don’t find that radiance and light, then in the end, your spirit crumbles into ashes.”

The student stood there blankly for a long moment. But then his eyes glittered with understanding. He thought back to his past, and all of a sudden, he heard his Master’s words in the moment before they parted.

Bowing his head, he quietly said, “Many thanks. I understand now. So, it turns out my purpose is to tie the timescape to reincarnation. I need to deliver that saying to you, sir. The world… is a tavern for living beings…. Please, sir… you need to say the next part. This is our last chance. Thankfully… you still have plenty of life left to live.”

After the words left his mouth, the darkness in the student’s eyes disappeared. The discarnate soul was gone.

The student woke up looking confused. Then he saw his teacher in front of him and he started to get nervous. Quickly bowing, he turned and ran off.

The teacher stood there looking somewhat dazed. It was as if scenes from his past reincarnations were suddenly being unsealed within him.

What had the prime minister of the Great Tranquility dynasty forgotten just before he died? Philanthropist Xu had died full of regrets. What he regretted wasn’t how his life turned out, but rather, that he had failed to recall that forgotten memory. That regret turned into pain, a pain that remained in the head of the bandit Xu Shan. That pain cleared right before Xu Shan died, because he had remembered the saying. Sadly, he didn’t have time to think about it. All he could do was pass it to the doctor. The doctor searched for his entire life, but sadly, some power was interfering with him. As a result, he only recalled the saying right before he died. Thankfully, he had made preparations. That young man became the thread linking timescape and reincarnation. The person who tended the land was willing to turn himself into the nutrients necessary to buy time for his future self.

Then the young man came. Before dying, the young man understood everything. He accomplished his mission. He delivered the saying. He gave them to the teacher.

The teacher was thirty-seven years old that year. He still had plenty of life left to live. Time slipped by. Thirty years went by in a flash.

The teacher was old. He still lived in the walled city, but he already had one foot in the grave. His students had long since gone their separate ways. Death neared, but no one came to visit him. The teacher didn’t care. As he lay on his wooden cot looking out the window at the evening sky, he recalled many things.

“Government official. Businessman. Ruffian. Doctor. Commoner. Cultivator…. Different reincarnations and different experiences. Different lives. I guess…. The world is a tavern for living beings. And the timescape is an old guest. Here I am in the timescape, still nothing but a guest. But my eyes aren’t closed any longer.”

A stream of violet light emerged from the teacher’s chest. It spread out to cover him. It filled the world. His scattered spirit blossomed.

The teacher closed his eyes.

Xu Qing woke up.

The cycle of reincarnation did not end. However… he was no longer a boat drifting aimlessly across a deep ocean. He had his hand on the rudder. He had become a ferry pilot. He was now heading in the direction of order. Time was his oar as he proceeded forward through the timescape.[2]

He proceeded forward to the origin of the scroll painting.

1. The clay pot is obviously a medicinal decocting pot. To decoct is to ‘extract the essence from something by boiling it.’ A lot of traditional Chinese medicines are made this way, and the traditional decocting pots are often designed to be able to both boil the medicine and then pour it out. Some other kinds of traditional pots don’t have a pouring spout, though. Here are a few pics of what they look like. ☜

2. Way, way back in chapter 2, I mentioned that the word in the title of the novel was a poetic word that generally means “time,” but that I was rendering it “timescape” for specific, unmentioned reasons. Well there were a handful of reasons. They included: information from the author; my experience translating this author’s work; educated guesses; hints in the chapters that had been written at the time; a hunch. Well here we are over 1000 chapters later, and lo and behold there is a passage in which the common word for “time” is used in the exact same sentence as the term I’m rendering “timescape,” and they are obviously referring to different things. Granted, this chapter had not been written when I made “timescape” my translation choice. But among the reasons for not using “time” as the translation choice was that I was convinced that there would come a chapter just like this, in which both terms are used in the same sentence to refer to different things. If you rendered the term in the title as simply “time”, then the above passage would read “time was his oar as he proceeded forward through time.” Of course, we still do not have a fleshed out definition or description of what the “timescape” is. What’s more, they are seemingly being used as synonyms, near-synonyms, or at least similar. The author loves to do this, in other words, take two synonymous or near-synonymous Chinese characters or words and use them together contrastingly. Anyway, couldn’t resist pointing out that my instincts were right, and the word in the title of the novel, which I am rendering “timescape” is indeed something unique and different from the common word for “time.” This will happen more in later chapters. And now, it’s time for me to stop talking about this. ☜