Chapter 8: The Storyteller

The girl in the plain white dress looked at Ding Songyan with a mixture of anticipation and concern.

"If you are unwell, perhaps you should go home and rest first. I... I am in no hurry."

Her voice was soft and sweet, very pleasant to hear.

Ding Songyan laughed.

"It’s nothing serious. I have already been wandering outside Dangkang Temple for over two hours. It is only that I’m a bit slow with some brain fog. If I stumble over my words or lose the thread later on, I hope you will forgive me."

He was laying the groundwork in advance. He had never told a story in public before and had no idea how it would go.

As he said it, a quiet wistfulness came over him.

Back in his school days, he had looked down on all of it: the social maneuvering, the careful networking of useful connections. He had believed that intelligence and a thorough grasp of things could solve any problem and earn any success on their own. Then reality had knocked him down, and he had put himself back together piece by piece, and now reading people, befriending the right ones, and keeping those relationships alive had become instinct.

In the last year or two, with his business successful and his ambitions provisionally satisfied, he had increasingly found himself tired in body and spirit. He was not cut out for business. He had sometimes thought he would rather go back to the quiet of an academic life, researching something he genuinely loved with no scheming involved, spending his free time drinking and talking nonsense and playing games with a handful of close friends. What a life that would be.

He also knew this was self-indulgence. Without a sizable fortune already behind him, research done for love rather than profit would have left him constantly anxious, unable to enjoy any of it.

In the middle of these thoughts, Ding Songyan arrived at the empty pitch that was his. No chair, no stool, no props of any kind.

He gathered his thoughts and began to consider which story to tell.

His gaze passed over the girl in the white dress and her maidservant in the green skirt, and an idea formed.

He smiled slightly.

"Dear listeners, the story I bring you today is The Legend of the White Snake."

Even as the words left his mouth, he was watching the girl, her maidservant, and the plaster-seller nearby for any flicker of recognition at the title, to judge whether a similar story already existed in this world.

Not that it mattered much either way. He had already laid the groundwork. This was a legend he had only recently learned, not one he had written himself.

If anyone claimed it resembled something else, that would simply be a matter of creative adaptation.

Beyond the inspiration he had drawn from the two women’s clothing colors, he had chosen The Legend of the White Snake for a practical reason: the television serial had been on constantly during his childhood, and he had sat through it many times with his family. As an adult, he had watched every adaptation. He knew the story’s skeleton well and could still recall the key turning points. Improvising the detailed scenes and dialogue on the spot was roughly the same level of difficulty as painting a grand vision in front of investors with PowerPoint slides in hand.

This was also one reason he was not particularly worried about anyone accusing him of "borrowing" someone else’s material. Apart from the key plot points, everything else would have to be invented on the spot. No two versions could come out the same.

Seeing the small audience around him register curious expressions, Ding Songyan exhaled quietly.

At the very least, The Legend of the White Snake did not exist in Dingjiang Prefecture.

When he had listened to romances and heroic sagas earlier, there had only been stories of celestial maidens descending to the mortal world and falling in love with men, not love and grievance between yao and humans.

The open ground here was relatively quiet. No gong-and-drum performers nearby, no martial demonstrators calling out for a crowd. This was by design. The market had arranged things so that the quieter, literary trade occupied one section, the loud and physical trade another, with a buffer of middle-ground sellers in between, so neither disturbed the other.

Standing in the open space, Ding Songyan felt very little of what might be called nerves. It felt, in a strange and disorienting way, exactly like bringing up a projector and opening his slides in front of investors.

The familiar composure settled over him, as though he were in another life—one that had been for some time now.

Having identified the girl with the upturned eyes and pointed chin as his most promising potential "investor," Ding Songyan began slowly.

"In ancient times, in the southwestern lands, at the foot of Qingcheng Mountain, there lived a small white snake..."

He set the tale in ancient times from the first line, to spare himself any awkward questions later about where Qingcheng Mountain or West Lake, or Jinshan Temple was.

I genuinely don’t know. It’s all from ancient times.

He opened with the story of Xu Xian’s first incarnation saving the little white snake’s life. To fill out the details, having long since forgotten how the television drama had handled it, he stitched in a scene of his own invention. The near-frozen snake had been tucked inside Xu Xian’s clothing and warmed with body heat.

From there, the white snake cultivated in her cave for a thousand years, finally achieved enlightenment, and took human form. Guided by a bodhisattva, she set out with Xiaoqing to find the reincarnated Xu Xian to repay the kindness, so that the karmic debt between them might be settled.

As he spoke, Ding Songyan kept an eye on the girl in the white dress. She was listening with absolute attention. Even her breathing had gone soft and quiet, her dark eyes bright and luminous without a hint of tears, yet somehow full of them.

Good reception so far... The potential "investor" is engaged... Ding Songyan grew more confident.

He felt that the shift from the Lady Bai seeking Xu Xian merely to repay a kindness to something deeper needed proper scenes to bridge it in order to outline the emotional shift. But he could not remember enough detail, so he quietly folded in a few episodes from his own romantic history. He reworked things he had done for an ex-girlfriend that had genuinely moved her and wove it into the story.

First, a chance meeting at West Lake where they sheltered from rain in the same boat. An umbrella was offered and a name exchanged in parting. Then, Lady Bai claimed she had come to Lin’an to copy Buddhist sutras at a temple in fulfillment of a vow, but, being afraid of actually going herself, she could only excuse herself as unwell. Xu Xian, pitying her "frailty," went to the temple himself and spent many days copying the sutras on her behalf. And then, after much had passed between them. The two of them, one human and one yao, both having developed feelings, went to pray at a great tree said to be powerful for matters of the heart. They found each other’s eyes at exactly the same moment they looked up.

At this point Ding Songyan decided to leave things there. If the goal was to build a connection with the girl over time, the worst thing he could do was finish too quickly. Why wrap it up in a day? A week would be the minimum, two weeks better still. Seeing each other every day until they became familiar faces to one another.

And then, if something came up and she had the means to help, she would be far more likely to help someone she knew than a stranger. The answer to that was obvious.

For the closing, Ding Songyan felt the day’s telling had gone a little too smoothly. The story had not offered enough twists and turns yet. He had already drawn several dozen listeners, but mostly through the novelty of his style and the freshness of the human-yao romance as a subject. If he let Xu Xian and Lady Bai sail into marriage without incident today, the audience would have no particular reason to return tomorrow.

With this in mind, and especially with the aim of giving the girl in the white dress a reason to return, Ding Songyan changed course. Before the wedding could take place, he brought Fahai into the fold, the monk pausing outside the inn where Lady Bai and Xiaoqing had once stayed, muttering to himself that he sensed yao energy.

He watched the concern spread simultaneously across the faces of his listeners and ended right there.

"As the saying goes, West Lake is lovely in March. Spring rain is like wine, the willows like smoke. Fated ones meet from afar. Unfated ones cannot hold hands even face to face1. If you wish to know what happens next, listen to the next instalment!"

The girl in the white dress opened her mouth, the picture of reluctance.

Of all the moments to stop.

Ding Songyan looked around with quiet satisfaction and brought his hands together.

"I brought no props today, so there is no need for tips. If you enjoyed it, come back tomorrow."

He had no intention of taking the girl’s silver today. He wanted to leave a particular impression. But he could not single her out for it. Doing someone a favor out of nowhere, with no apparent reason, tended to put people on their guard rather than winning them over. So he extended the same treatment to everyone, and collected nothing from anyone.

"Such modesty, Ding Songyan!" a listener called out approvingly.

The girl in the white dress, who had already been holding some money ready, had no choice but to let it go. She lingered as the crowd dispersed, then came forward with her maidservant when most of the others had gone.

"Ding Songyan, will that monk called Fahai find Lady Bai and Xiaoqing?"

He most certainly will not. If he discovers them this early, how am I supposed to keep making up the story, let Lady Bai and Xu Xian open a pharmacy in peace, love each other and have a child, or let Lady Bai and Xiaoqing use yao magic to manage their troubles—none of the satisfying moments I need to plant along the way. Tomorrow I’ll let the threat brush close and then pass, and save a proper crisis for the hook at the end... Ding Songyan smiled.

"Come back tomorrow and find out."

The girl in the white dress puffed her cheeks.

"All right."

She did not press further, but asked with genuine concern, "Are you still unwell? I know several skilled physicians."

You had better come back tomorrow...

"I am fine now." Ding Songyan’s thoughts turned. "The truth is, someone made an attempt on my life not long ago. I still do not know who, and the worry has been weighing on me. My mind has not been quite right since. That is why I did not dare come out to tell stories until today."

He said it casually, without asking for anything. He only wanted to plant the fact in her mind.

The girl’s bright eyes lit up at once. She turned and exchanged a glance with her maidservant.

Everything she was thinking was written plainly on her face.

Finally. A chance to do something heroic!

She cleared her throat and smiled at Ding Songyan.

"Well, I know a little about fighting. If there is anything I can do to help, you can find me at the Tianyang Hall. Ask for... ask for..."

She stumbled slightly, glanced at her maidservant in the green skirt, and recovered her bright smile.

"Ask for Xiaoqing!"

Ding Songyan could barely contain his delight.

"Many thanks, heroine. I am deeply grateful!"

The girl’s smile bloomed even wider. But not knowing quite what else to say, she waved it off, and as she turned to go her eye caught an old man selling candied hawthorn skewers nearby.

She fished out some copper coins at once, bought two, and held one out to Ding Songyan.

"You wouldn’t take silver today, but I can’t listen for nothing. Half this skewer is yours. It’s very sweet!"

She was already licking her own as she spoke, turning away with satisfaction before Ding Songyan could refuse.

She didn’t even ask if I like candied hawthorn... Ding Songyan thought, with some amusement.

He bit one off anyway and chewed.

It was close to midday now, and hunger was making itself felt in earnest.

He thought it over. Ever since the blotchy-nosed man fled, nothing had happened. The most likely reason was that the area outside Dangkang Temple was heavily trafficked and closely watched from the towers. Whoever was behind this would not risk moving openly here.

With this in mind, Ding Songyan left Dangkang Temple in the direction of the cheaper food stalls, making his intention obvious, and keeping to the quieter, less-traveled lanes. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

In less time than it took to drink a cup of tea, he turned into an alley with no one in it. Behind him, unmistakable footsteps sounded.

Ding Songyan spun around. The man in the cloth headscarf was there again—the blotchy-nosed man.

His face was a mixture of fury and fear. He glared at Ding Songyan.

"Ding Songyan. Why have you come back?"

Adapted from "Crossing Fate," the closing theme of The New Legend of Madam White Snake.