Chapter Six: A Confession

The next morning, Wang Erlang walked into the cave with hurried steps, tools, pigments, and wooden bucket on his back, along with the water skin the young woman had left behind the day before. He greeted the others inside with a quick nod, then made straight for the scaffold, his eyes fixed only on the spot at the top where she always sat, hardly watching where he put his feet. The cave was dim, and he very nearly tripped over something, though he caught himself just in time — otherwise he could have kissed his climb goodbye.

He decided it must be because he'd already seen her sitting there that his luck had held, sparing him a proper faceplant.

Relieved, Wang Erlang scrambled up the scaffold almost at a trot, setting the whole structure swaying and creaking, and arrived at the top rather out of breath. Before he'd even caught it, her voice reached him, full of complaint. "Why run so fast? You've made the whole frame shake — my head's spinning."

"I was in too much of a hurry. I'm terribly sorry — I only wanted to return the water skin you left behind and forgot yesterday..." Wang Erlang told a lie that wasn't quite a lie. He'd clearly seen that she'd come again today, and his heart leapt with a joy he couldn't very well announce outright, so he seized on the water skin as an excuse instead. She had, after all, plainly left in a huff the day before — perhaps she'd only come back today because she'd forgotten it here?

"I told you you could drink it," the young woman said, her tone even, giving nothing away.

Even though her voice carried no particular feeling one way or the other, Wang Erlang was overjoyed all the same. In truth, he'd already drunk every last drop of it the day before, unable to help himself, but he still used it as his excuse, so she wouldn't see straight through to how eagerly he'd been hoping she would come.

"So, have you figured it out?" the young woman asked, following up at once with that same fatal question from before. But having learned from yesterday's experience, Wang Erlang resolved to turn over a new leaf and confess plainly.

"No... I only stared, entranced, watching you dance. My master once took us to see the Sogdian whirling dance and the court's musical dances, so we might absorb their grace and find inspiration for our brushwork. But you dance better than all of them — better than all of them put together, even. For a moment I could only stare, dumbstruck; they say a beauty can strike one speechless as though gazing upon a heavenly being, and it was no more than that. So I... couldn't understand what you meant by... what exactly?"

As he spoke, Wang Erlang's face flushed faintly with embarrassment. But his heart was uneasy — would this sound too forward, too disrespectful toward her? Might she stamp her foot in fury and storm off in a huff?

"I understand," the young woman said, her tone flat, without any hint of anger in it.

Wang Erlang let out a breath of relief.

The young woman swung her legs a while, thinking it over, then rose to her feet.

"I'll dance for you once more. This time, watch closely."

Hearing this, Wang Erlang was overjoyed beyond words. Not only was she not angry, she was even willing to give him a second chance to "become a new man" — it felt, once again, like a blessing straight from heaven.