I Want Your Eyes
The Wuchuan at night was not much like the one seen by day.
The lamps that had come on among the pavilions and towers not far off, however dazzling, could never be reflected in the thick darkness on the water.
The nearer they came to the bank the fewer people there were, and only a faintly white mist welled up without a sound, layering damp cold gauze all around them, gathering thin and indistinct.
Zheng Nanlou felt as though he had stepped into some invisible barrier; the noise and laughter of the city receded with every step he took, until nothing was left but a blurred echo.
The tangle of light and shadow blurred away into the water-laden air as well, and the white figure of Wangyu’s back ahead of him became the only clear thing left in his sight.
He had never wanted to admit it, but he knew how much that figure set his mind at ease.
The two of them walked to the water’s edge, and under Wangyu’s turned gaze Zheng Nanlou gave a small shake to the bronze bell he had taken from the incense shop.
A crisp “ding” spread slowly out across the silent Wuchuan.
Before the sound had died, a small boat appeared, rocking, on a river so dark that a hand could not be seen in front of the face.
There was no one at its oar, and yet as though it were being guided it came on down the current, breaking the darkness without a sound, drifting slowly toward them and stopping at the point nearest to them.
Wangyu said nothing, but boarded first; seeing nothing amiss, he turned back and held out a hand to Zheng Nanlou on the bank.
It was only stepping onto a boat, Zheng Nanlou thought; what need was there for anyone to steady him? He meant to refuse, and then at the sight of that offered hand his mind was thrown into disorder, and before he could reason his way to anything his fingers had already been laid in Wangyu’s palm.
That hand drew him steadily onto the boards, and almost the moment he was standing, the little boat, as though it had received some order, began of itself to rock its way slowly toward the thick night deeper along the Wuchuan.
The blind market was called the “blind market” for the obvious reason: once those who entered had ridden the boat into the last bank of heavy fog, their eyes ceased entirely to work, all light was cut off at once, and nothing remained before them but a blank blackness.
Like the eyeless people who kept the place, the guests who came in became “blind” too within that stretch of water.
And from the smell of the hair they had offered up as it burned, the eyeless people could know what they had come to buy.
It was said to be a gift peculiar to their people.
Losing the light took only an instant. It was as though he had merely blinked, and then he had slipped into a void where nothing but black could be seen.
After that, all Zheng Nanlou could sense was the shifting of smells at his nose.
The heavy smell of water dispersed as the boat went on, replaced by an indescribable faint fragrance that seemed to lead the way, carrying them toward somewhere unknown.
Zheng Nanlou was not at ease with the feeling; having his sight closed off was like losing all sense of what to aim at, and it made him tense and uneasy in a way he could not master.
But Wangyu held his hand steadily throughout, and did not let go for a moment.
The boat went on and the fragrance grew richer, and with no telling where they had come to, Zheng Nanlou heard Wangyu say beside him:
“We are here.”
The imposed blindness seemed to have no effect at all on someone of his cultivation.
The words had barely left him when a strange voice came from not far ahead, again with no joy or sorrow to be heard in it, its very sex impossible to make out, exactly like the one in the incense shop.
“You wish to buy ‘Formless’?”
Zheng Nanlou nodded and said that they did.
“‘Formless’ is a treasure my eyeless people exhausted themselves to create, able to subdue every gu under heaven. And what will the two of you offer in exchange?”
Zheng Nanlou had guessed before coming that such a thing could not be bought with ordinary gold and silver, so the question did not surprise him. He steadied himself and said, testing the ground:
“I have heard that ‘Formless’ has a market but no price. Say plainly what you want, and we shall see whether I can afford it.”
The voice fell silent, as though deliberately studying them, probably weighing what price would be fitting.
It was a long wait before the voice came again, and what it said was very brief:
“I want your eyes.”
It gave Zheng Nanlou a start. He had prepared himself for a round of bargaining, and had not expected the other to be so blunt, in a tone so decided that there seemed no room to turn.
At the same time he was relieved: since a price had been named at all, there was room to go on discussing it, which was better than a “price” he could not possibly pay.
Getting no immediate answer, the voice went on, as though adding to what it had said:
“The eyeless are born without eyes and are trapped in darkness all their lives. Light, to you, is a thing to be had for the taking; to us it is a treasure we spend everything we have pursuing, and never cease pursuing.”
“What I want is naturally what matters most to us. So I want your eyes.”
Unprepared as he was inwardly, Zheng Nanlou let nothing show at all, and even laughed low as he asked:
“Do you mean by that to dig these two eyeballs out of my head?”
“There is no need for anything so troublesome,” the voice answered. “My people crave light, but we have no taste for such bloody methods. It is only a matter of stripping the seeing-power out of those eyes. You may keep the eyeballs; in the end they will be no more than a pair of ornaments set into your hide.”
Zheng Nanlou laughed again, and this time the laugh was noticeably louder. He could see nothing whatsoever, and yet his gaze seemed to pierce the darkness and fix precisely on the source of that voice:
“Then, since this so-called ‘seeing-power’ of mine matters so much to you, how much ‘Formless’ can you give me for it?”
“Of the ‘Formless’ powder, even a piece the size of a grain of rice will burn for days. Your eyes are worth one qian of it.”
As he listened, Zheng Nanlou reckoned quickly. Trading a pair of eyes for one qian of powder was by any measure a poor bargain, and close to absurd.
But he could not help thinking: what if the stuff really could suppress the love gu for a long while, free him from the worm’s limits, let him take up the path again, and pull him clear of this quagmire for good?
He knew his own position better than anyone. He had nowhere left to retreat, and stood on ground where everything had to be staked at once.
For a man in such a position, was a pair of eyes really so important?
With cultivation high enough, seeing did not depend on them at all, as with the Wangyu standing beside him now.
He still had a chance.
Even a single qian seemed as though it might be enough……
He could not help telling himself: perhaps he could try.
But before he could speak, Wangyu squeezed his hand lightly and broke into his thoughts.
“Three days.” He spoke suddenly, his voice not loud but carrying something that allowed no dispute. “Three days is all we can give you.”
Zheng Nanlou was taken aback. So this “seeing-power” could be measured and traded by the day?
At that, the voice turned displeased at once:
“Three days for one qian of mine? At such a price you may as well rob me outright!”
Wangyu paid the anger no mind at all, his tone as even as ever, and carrying beneath it a discernment that seemed able to see through anything:
“The eyeless are born without eyes, and yet they can take another’s light for their own use. Seeing-power, for you, is something that can be sealed away and stored.”
“One qian of ‘Formless’ is precious, certainly. But a complete three days of seeing-power, refined by your people’s secret art, would sustain your people’s central rites for a hundred days, and the seeing-power stored up in the meantime would last them a good while longer.”
“Am I right?”
In a few sentences he laid bare facts that had been deliberately hidden, and the voice stopped short. It was a long while before it spoke again, and this time the fire in it was quite gone, leaving only the resentment of one who has been found out:
“Three days, then. But not an hour and not a moment less.”
Wangyu answered mildly, “Of course. Three days of seeing-power for one qian of ‘Formless’ powder.”
The rite for drawing out the seeing-power was performed, in the end, in the same incense shop they had visited by day.
The one who performed it was the same woman with the covered eyes, and the burner that had stood on the table in the inner room was set beside her; only this time the incense in it had gone out, and a single thread of leftover smoke circled faintly in the dim room.
The rite itself was not complicated.
The woman raised both hands toward Zheng Nanlou, but chanted nothing; she only made one strange seal after another in silence.
At first Zheng Nanlou could make no sense of it; then he felt a slight stinging deep in his eye sockets, as though something had been drawn forcibly out of them, leaving behind a hollowness that set his heart fluttering.
After that sensation, two extremely thin wisps of white vapor, too faint to be called “light,” were drawn slowly out of his eyes and fell thread by thread into the woman’s palms.
She cupped her hands a little, winding and pressing the two wisps together layer by layer, until they condensed into two clear, glittering glass beads no bigger than a fingertip.
This was the three days of “seeing-power” taken from Zheng Nanlou.
The pain and emptiness of the stripping gradually subsided, and Zheng Nanlou blinked and found that he had not fallen into darkness at all; everything before him was as clear as it had ever been.
“The transfer is complete,” the woman said flatly. “Only the hour has not yet come. At midnight tonight you will see nothing at all.”
With that she explained nothing further, and the two glass beads slid away into the depths of her loose robe and were gone.
When Zheng Nanlou walked out of that room he was still dazed, his steps unsteady, as though he were treading on clouds.
Outside the door was a small courtyard behind the incense shop, with an old tree of unknown age growing in the middle of it, its crown so wide that it covered most of the courtyard in shade.
Wangyu sat alone beneath that tree, waiting for him.
His plain satin robe looked colder and more solitary under the mottled tree shadows, and that shimmer of white in the night seemed to overpower every other light around it, leaving only the cool halo it gave off.
His ink-dark hair was not fully bound; a few strands fell beside his cheek, setting off skin that seemed to give out a light of its own, like a patch of moon spilled down through the branches.
Moonlight flowing, and never quite falling into the mortal world.
Only as Zheng Nanlou came closer did he see that a small food box sat squarely on Wangyu’s knees.
Inside it were several finely made cakes in the shape of lotuses, the very kind Zheng Nanlou had held up to his lips that day.
Wangyu heard him and turned, and the shifting light and shadow across his face gave the smile that opened there an oddly uncertain cast.
“Nanlou,” he said, calling his name as he always did.
“The ones I bought do not seem to be as good as the ones you bought.”