Otherworldly Merchant

After getting pulled out of that beautiful dream, Li Mazi and I were still stunned. Old Cai’s sudden change left us frightened.

I walked forward to pull him up. Since Old Cai was unconscious, I put him on my back and brought him upstairs. At the same time, I asked Li Mazi to stay and watch the zither.

Since the resentful soul inside the zither was now angry, I was worried that it would do something bad. That’s why I had asked Li Mazi to watch it.

I carried Old Cai upstairs and splashed some cold water on his face, which woke him up.

However, he was still very emotional. He cried a lot.

“Old Cai, are you all right?” I asked him.

“Sigh! What’s good about my life? People order me around like a dog every day. The director even insulted me! I’ve been living with grievance!”

It seemed that Old Cai’s negative emotions had been amplified by the sound of the zither.

The reason was that his worldview was different than mine.

From Old Cai’s viewpoint, the entire world had let him down, wronging him. That was why he was so lost in his grievance after getting mesmerized by the sound.

Since I was positive toward life, I saw that beautiful scene instead.

I was worried that Old Cai would kill himself so I decided to stay in the villa and watch him for the rest of the night.

After Old Cai broke that zither, things were quiet. Nothing strange occurred during the night.

At the break of dawn, Li Mazi was exhausted as he walked to me. With a serious face, he asked, “Why did the soul living inside the otherworldly item want to break the zither? Wasn’t that the same as destroying its own home?”

I sighed and indicated that I couldn’t understand its behavior, either.

I went downstairs to collect the zither. It was broken in the middle and most of the strings were likewise broken. I pinched a string that was still intact, but the sound it made was low and really unpleasant to the ears.

I guessed it was the spirit of the zither that had created the beautiful sound we heard last night.

Li Mazi asked me, “Will we be able to summon the resentful soul in this zither tonight? If we can’t, how do we get the Night Dragon Bait?”

In theory, since the zither was now badly damaged, the soul living inside would be hurt, too. I wondered if it could get out.

While I had a headache thinking about how to deal with this situation, Chuyi called. He was truly a life-saver.

“I know where the Night Dragon Bait is,” he said.

What?! Li Mazi and I were so excited. “Where is it? Where is it?”

He didn’t tell us directly but asked, “How is it going with the zither?”

I immediately told him the details of the events that happened last night. Then, I added, “The urgent thing to do now is to find the Night Dragon Bait! Regarding this zither, I will bring it along with us so we can deal with it!”

Chuyi said, “Bring it with you. There shouldn’t be any danger along the way.”

Since Chuyi confirmed that the zither wouldn’t have any problems, Li Mazi and I were relieved. I immediately wrapped it up and drove to the place Chuyi told me.

We were going to Wuhan. Since we were in a hurry, we wanted to take a flight. But after considering things carefully, we decided to drive our car.

We didn’t know if we could check the zither on the plane. If the zither suddenly affected the other passengers midair, including the pilots, that would be terrible. The entire plane could possibly crash!

Li Mazi and I didn’t stop to rest as we took turns driving the car. However, we couldn’t rest well as we had to keep an eye on the zither as well.

Luckily, the zither didn’t cause problems during the drive.

When we reached Wuhan, we hired a taxi and headed to Yuba Village to find Chuyi.

Chuyi brought us to a house. The place felt very cold, and a rough-looking man was living there.

Li Mazi didn’t beat around the bush and asked directly, “Where’s the Night Dragon Bait?”

Chuyi blinked and signaled at us not to talk. I knew it wasn’t easy to get the Night Dragon Bait. I nudged Li Mazi to make him shut his mouth. We had to find a chance to talk to Chuyi in private.

Chuyi wrote a note to the man and asked him to prepare some items we could use tonight.

The sound that came out from the rough-looking man’s throat was really hoarse and hard to recognize. “Okay.”

At this moment, I finally had a good look at him.

He had gray hair and looked unkempt. He wore shabby clothes and had a horrible smell. I wondered how long it was since he had his last bath.

After he had left, Li Mazi couldn’t wait to ask Chuyi, “Where’s the Night Dragon Bait?”

Chuyi didn’t answer directly but asked us to show him the zither.

I did as he asked. I took the zither and unwrapped it. Chuyi took an ax that was hung on the wall of the house. He placed it next to the zither and took a step back and admired the two items. “Did you know there are some otherworldly items that were born to be paired with each other? If they are together, they will protect the people. However, if they are separated, they will become evil items and start to harm people.”

I seemed to understand what Chuyi was talking about. He was saying that this zither and this ax were a pair.

For me, when I started my career, I had bumped into that pair of embroidered shoes. The shoes were one pair. There was one left shoe and one right shoe, and neither of them could be missing.

However, what was the relationship between the zither and the ax? One was something great scholars admired, an elegant musical instrument, while the other was a tool of low-class, manual labor…

I asked Chuyi, “What’s their story?”

Chuyi asked us to sit down. He observed the zither and gently pinched the strings. The zither made a clear sound.

“The story of Yu Boya and Zhong Ziqi, have you ever heard of it?” asked Chuyi.

When Chuyi mentioned the two names, I was enlightened. How did I not think about it earlier?

Boya had broken his zither to honor his soul mate. It was a famous story in Chinese history!

The word ‘soul mate’ became famous ever since!

Back then, Boya’s zither-playing skills were superb. It amazed the whole nation. His music was like the water that flowed in the high mountain, or wind that blew through the meadow. Each note of his soothed people’s minds. Many praised his skills.

However, he wasn’t happy because he felt that no one really understood his music.

One day, he went to a small stream inside a mountain and got in the mood to perform “High Mountain - Running Water.” Soon after, he saw a woodman who was listening to him. The man was enthralled by his music.

After seeing Boya spot him, the woodman was embarrassed. “Sir, your skills are marvelous. I couldn’t help but be mesmerized by the sound, sorry.”

Boya despised the woodman inwardly and wondered how a peddler like him could understand his music.

Zhong Ziqi decided to describe Boya’s music as a picture. He described it like a surging river and also a slow stream, as high as a mountain and also as low as a hole in the ground.

Boya was startled by this, and the two started to chat. They became friends from that day on and called each other ‘brother.’ They also promised each other that they would meet again on the day of next year’s full moon!

On the day of the Middle-Autumn Festival, Boya went back to the mountain, looking forward to meeting Zhong Ziqi again.

However, he later learned that Zhong Ziqi had died due to severe sickness. His body was buried near the stream where they had first met, as he wished to hear Boya’s beautiful music once again the next year even though he was dead.

Boya’s heart was in great pain. He played a piece of music in front of Zhong Ziqi’s grave. It was a low and depressing melody that made people’s hearts ache. All those who heard the music were heartbroken.

After he finished his performance, Boya felt great regret as his friend wasn’t there anymore to appreciate his music. He broke his zither. “Without Zhong Ziqi, who am I even playing for?

From that day on, Boya didn’t play the musical instrument anymore.

He was heartbroken that his friend was gone, so he buried his zither in Zhong Ziqi’s grave and promised that he would have his body buried beside him so that he could reunite with his friend in the afterlife and drink wine with him.

At the time, Boya was the High Officer of the State of Jin and had the Night Dragon Bait that was bestowed to him by Emperor Jin. Since he knew that the Night Dragon Bait could connect Yin and Yang, he had it buried into Zhong Ziqi’s grave in hopes that his friend could wait for him and head to the afterworld together.

It was the last time the Night Dragon Bait appeared in history. Chuyi happened to know this from the information he accidentally got from an old senior.