The Bridge to Everlasting Love

It was still quite dark, and Jīnniúzuò the old ox gazed longingly into the early morning sky, together with his friend Què, the ancient Magpie standing proudly on Jīnniúzuò’s head.

“You’ve been doing this a lot lately.” observed Què, “And always this patch of sky.”

The ox sighed, but said nothing. His bones creaked and his once strong muscles ached. And he longed once more for home. A home he would never see again.

As the last of the stars began to fade, the light of the sun peeking above the mountains to the east began to spread down into the lush, pasture filled valley.

“You had better get back to the herd.” croaked Què, gazing impatiently down the hill, “Or Niulang will worry about you.”

Jīnniúzuò grunted agreement, turned, and slowly ambled back to the bivouac where his master would soon be waking. Hopefully, the herd wouldn’t have to travel too far today.

The title of the latest Buckyball – Questing on Qixi– had us all intrigued! What kind of a race would this be? I waited excitedly until the race start was about to draw near, but no details of the race were revealed at all. Then the announcement came that it was to be delayed for half a week. Plus it let us know as to what sort of race we might expect. It was to be a kind of re-hash of the Seven Sisters Speedrun a race from the edge of the Bubble to the Pleiades, with various shenanigans at some of the Seven Sisters, and then back to the Bubble. It’s a rather fun if long winded race, with the threat of hyperdiction by Thargoids, albeit merely curious ones, ever present.

The delay turned out to be rather fortuitous as it happened because I was just coming to the end of the next leg of the Lovely Jubbly‘s voyage and I now had the whole weekend to write it all up. The race was again delayed until the following Friday but by then we now knew the starting system, premise, the course and the shenanigans we needed to perform. I immediately jumped The Garden to Altair and began plotting possible routes!

Yet my heart sank a little. As I have stated before, my gaming time is very poor and my uninterrupted gaming time poorer still. Thus, I went on a trail run to see the kind of time I would need to set aside and then pray that my privacy would remain intact. There are seven main stars in the Pleiades nebula and we only needed to visit four of them, but had the option of visiting the other three for extra time bonuses. I thought that just an initial trial run with only the required star stops would do for now and chose the small ship in the Rushfleet with the highest jump range in order to get to and from the Pleiades with as few jumps as possible.

My Diamondback Explorer – Xanadu!

Niulang was busy packing his lunch for the day ahead, he planned to move the herd further along the valley until they reached the large wooded area in the distance. It shouldn’t take too long, he thought, and then the herd would have some shelter from the sun that would soon be relentlessly beating down on them throughout the afternoon. Plus, where there were trees there was usually water too. They should be there by midday even if they took things gently. He looked over at the old ox, lying down in the morning sunshine and lazily chewing the cud. He loved that animal, had known it since it was young bull, confused and lowing desperately up at the sky. Niulang had taken the poor thing in, shown it rich pastures, taken it to clean refreshing streams to drink. Now wherever Niulang led the herd the old ox would be at his side, grunting with every footstep.

There was a familiar screech, and Niulang knew that the old magpie who was always following them around time had come for a snippet of breakfast. He smiled at the decrepit, scruffy mass of pied feathers and threw it some bread, which the magpie snapped down gleefully. He smiled as it flew off, apparently satiated. His brother and step sister were cruel and would have thrown stones at magpies, and also used to beat Niulang himself when he was younger. But Niulang was kind, and was wise enough to know that a kindness given now might well pay off later.

It was time to move on. Swinging his sack over his shoulder he strolled up to the old ox and tapped him with his staff on the shoulder. The great beast stood up, and with a grunt and great show of effort, joined the cowherd leading the others towards the woods.

It was the premise that intrigued me, however. The race sponsor was Clarissa, or Agent Chika, and it was rather vague. Something about a cowherd and a weaver girl who can only meet but once a year at a place called “Qixi” (chee-sshee). We had to partake of the tradition of “opening a pathway through the vast stars” to enable them to meet up. The authorities had been given the usual excuse of “exploring infrastructure” (always fools them, every time) to explain away some of the shenanigans and that was it.

Legends fascinate me. Especially oriental ones. I made a mental note to look into it further but for now I just wanted to do a non-shenanigan trial run just to see what were up against and if it was truly as gruelling a run as I remembered. So I chose four of the stars that looked like they would be the easiest to stop at, climbed aboard the Xanadu and off I went.

Despite flying terribly (you all knew this would be the case, admit it), I still managed to complete the bare minimum in under twenty eight minutes! So, not as gruelling as I thought! When it was time to race, I planned to stop at five of the stops and attempt all but one of the shenanigans, just to get a time on the board, and then go for a full seven stop run later if I had the time.

You see, the longest race of the season so far, just had to also fall on the hottest week of the year yet. When the weather is hot, my gaming time goes out the window. You all probably know I can only usually game in the early mornings before my family wakes up, and occasionally late evenings once they’ve all gone to bed. You also all probably know by now that I own a horse, but I also look after some of the other horses at the yard he’s kept at. The stable block he spends the night in is south facing on top of a hill. During a hot, sunny afternoon, the temperatures up there reach ten degrees celsius above the ambient local temperature. Mucking out in heat like that is pure hell, So when it’s hot, I go up there early mornings instead of flying around in the Black. It gives me next to nothing for gaming, but at least it’s lovely and cool in which to shovel away a dozen wheelbarrow loads of horse poo.

We could do the targets in any order, so I decided on a route that worked for me with my limited piloting skills and stuck to it. I didn’t bother with any of the bonuses, I just wanted to get a time on the board.

Niulang was right, there must have been a spring in the woods because out of the trees flowed a babbling stream of crystal clear, cool water. The sun was high overhead and the day was getting hot. The herd would be grateful for the shade and many of them were already drinking deeply. He sat down with his back against a tree – it was probably safe to doze off for a few minutes, but almost as soon as he had closed his eyes, he heard a scream.

He called the old ox and leapt up on his back, directing it to run as fast as it could in the direction of the scream. Belying its old age, the ox thundered off through the trees.

Again, the run was a mess. We had the option to perform a mailslot-flip-and-around-station manoeuvre, which I did to get its time bonus, but caught the rear end of the Xanadu as I flipped around. But I managed every single viable shenanigan, shields off, life support off, cargo hauled, picture of the nebula taken, thargoid interceptor targetted, listening post scanned, pretty cleanly.

Zhinü had forgotten when she had started weaving. It could have been a week ago, months, years even. She wove everything, just using the mist that rose from the spring. She wove all sorts of fabrics from the stuff. Beautiful rugs, tapestries, garments. All draped on low branches on the trees around her little cottage. She didn’t even know why she wove. All she knew was that she must weave. It was nearing that time as well, the time for the demons to come and destroy everything she had worked so hard to make. They would taunt her and beat her and when they had ruined all her work, would fly off, up through the trees and into the heavens, cackling cruelly as they went.

She heard a familiar flutter and barely concealed sniggering. They were here. They dropped from the trees and proceeded to tear up everything she had made. She screamed in horror and ran to protect what she could, but they just beat her mercilessly until she could fight no longer.

And then he came! Riding on the back of a great ox thundering through the woods. The most handsome young man Zhinü had ever laid eyes on. He leapt from the ox wielding a cowherd’s staff smashing one of the demons over its head and knocking the vile thing senseless. The others howled in rage and came at him, yet they were no match for the cowherd. They couldn’t even lay one claw upon him so skilled a fighter was he. And no longer than a minute after he had arrived, all the demons lay lifeless.

As you can see, last on the leaderboard again! Ah well. Hopefully I would have time for a run of a full seven stops later in the week. Only problem was, I would only have one attempt each time, make one mistake and the long journey back to the start would be too close to the end of my session.

The other problem was, just by doing that attempt meant I was a bit later up to the horses than usual and it was already getting too hot and, by the time I was done, it was sweltering! The following day looked like it might be even hotter so I gave up an early morning session entirely just to get the jobs done as early as possible.

The morning after that I made an attempt but forgot to load up with cargo from Altair for the hauling bonus, long way back to the start, not enough time for a second attempt. It was extremely frustrating because, despite it’s length, this race is an absolute corker! I was determined to get at least one full seven stop run in!

Niulang thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on. He helped her onto the back of the ox and it carried them both back to the herd. He jumped down, turned and helped her off, they gazed into each others’ eyes and instantly fell for each other.

Towards the end of the week, I actually had a chance! I was going to start at Altair, get all seven stops and all the shenanigans, and make it back to Vega! It didn’t start too well, As soon as I booted up the gaming rig my wireless mouse began acting strange. Its sensitivity appeared to have halved. I wasn’t sure if I’d have time to correct it, though so I just made do. Then a Thargoid interceptor hyperdicted me just before reaching Asterope and once I had rebuffed the shutdown field and flipped over to scan it, it was gone. One bonus down already! Well, at least this time it was me who was chasing them around to be scanned and not the other way around.

The rest of the run did go reasonably smoothly, although it was by no means fast and I was finding gravity breaking tough, especially with the mouse playing up. But I got around and back to Vega in more or less one piece. Just missing the Thargoid scan bonus. I didn’t have time to upload and timestamp the movie, I left that until the next morning. Instead I thought I’d research this Qixi (remember – pronounced “Chee-sshee“) and ended up falling into a very deep rabbit hole!

That night they made love under the stars. And their love making broke the curse that had been laid on them centuries ago. They had both been gods! And had fallen in love before! Yet their love had been forbidden by the Goddess of Heaven. She had cursed each of them, making them human, causing Niulang to be herding cows for eternity and for Zhinü to forever weave. They now recognised each other and shouted and danced for joy because their curse was no more and they were together again!

But their mirth was short lived. For one of the demons had revived and made it back to the Goddess of Heaven. And she came down from the heavens in a terrible rage. The couple cowered before her power and she snatched poor Zhinü away to live in the stars, cursing Niulang to remain forever in the valley with his herd. Niulang screamed in grief and great sorrow, for now he knew he would never see his beloved ever again.

It is all based around the love of a cowherd called Niulang and a weaver girl/fairy named Zhinü and how they can only meet via a bridge across the Milky Way once a year, every year for eternity. And this forms the basis of the oriental equivalent of St. Valentine’s Day. Now the versions of the legend are many, almost as many as there are tellers who relate it. And thereby came the idea of exactly what I could do with this post. As I’m sure you’ve all found out already! I took bits from various versions and have attempted to weave them together with little flourishes of my own devising. I hope I have done the legend justice! I must add that the Greek legend that surrounds the Pleiades themselves, why they are called the Seven Sisters, is just as fascinating, if a little dark (that’s the Greek legends for you) but I’ll leave that for another post, maybe.

I was really enjoying these runs. It was so annoying that I didn’t have time to do more of them. This was a first race for Clarissa. So there were a couple of the shenanigans that didn’t really work out. But I was especially enjoying the challenge of flying with life support off. The Xanadu has a class D which only gives me a little less than seven minutes of air before I blow up. It’s replenished every time I dock at a large starport but not when landing near the garrison, scanning the listening post or landing on the Tsat Tsz Mui. Plus, if I’m hyperdicted it throttles my air time even further. Of course I could have installed a class A life support but that may have added an extra jump or two, especially with cargo, and would have further increased my race time. I was making it to some starports with only seconds worth of air left. It was thrilling!

Niulang was distraught. What was he to do? He didn’t know how he could carry on now that his beloved Zhinü had been torn away for ever. He sank to his knees and sobbed.

“Niulang!”

His sobbing ceased and he looked around. There was no one else there but him, the herd and the old ox. But surely…

“Niulang! My dear friend! Listen to me!”

Niulang stared at the ox, “My friend! You can talk?”

Jīnniúzuò bowed to his master, introduced himself properly and explained that he too once lived amongst the stars and had been cursed by the Goddess of Heaven.

“I am too old now, but if you were to wear my hide you could fly up to heaven and meet with your beloved once more! Take up your knife, my old friend, and sacrifice me! Do it! I have not much life in me anyway. Skin me, take my pelt and use it to fly!”

Niulang shook his head. There was no way he could harm his dear friend, even to see his true love. Exhausted with sorrow, he returned to his bed and fell into a deep stupor.

Come the last morning of the race, I managed to awake early. And it was destined to be a much cooler day! I would have time for one more run! Would it be a successful one? I felt good! I was going to give it my best!

It started very well. Mouse was working fine after I had adjusted the settings and the Xanadu was flying well. I filled up her cargo rack with eight tons of whatever would make a profit at Artemis Lodge where I would need to drop them off to get that time bonus, set a course for Copernicus Laboratory orbiting Asterope, and left the Solo Orbiter station at Altair. During the jump to Asterope I was hyperdicted (it normally happens here, and only here). This time I chased down those cowardly campanulas and damn well targeted one before jumping back out to dock at Copernicus.

Niulang awoke. Something was screeching and flapping at him.

“Come quick! You must come! It’s Jīnniúzuò! Please! Follow me!” it was the old Magpie! And he was beside himself with worry.

The cowherd got up and the old magpie flew off. He followed the bird for most of the following day and eventually came to where the stream had grown into a river that cut sharply into the valley to make a ravine with high cliffs either side. And not to far along the ravine was the dead body of his dearest friend, Jīnniúzuò. He had thrown himself off the cliff.

Niulang howled in despair, for now he had nothing left, but the magpie flapped angrily at him.

“You fool! I tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t listen. His last message to me was to tell you to take his skin! Do not be a fool! Honour your dead friend’s wish, fly to the heavens!”

So Niulang did as he was bade. He skinned the old ox, wrapped himself up in the bloody pelt and flew into the sky. Before long he reached the lowest of the stars and could see the star Vega where his beloved Zhinü longed for him.

But the Goddess of Heaven had other ideas.

The approach and landing near Thunderhead Garrison was fast! Next it was Artemis Lodge at Celaeno for which I nailed the gravity breaking, so far so good! I found the carrier at Sterope II more quickly than I had ever done and then it was on to Maia to perform the mailslot flip and around the back of the station at Obsidian Orbital.

But I was hyperdicted again on my way there and this time, I mistimed the anti-shut down field. I hung there, helpless as I was scanned by an evil echinacea, my air time ticking down as I waited. It took an age for the ordeal to be over before I managed to jump back toward Maia.

The approach to Obsidian was perfect. Spot on gravity breaking! I entered the mailslot, flipped, shot back out and began the manoeuvre with only fifty seconds of air left. Made it to the back end of the station, desperately boosted back through the habitation ring to coast around to the front of the station with five seconds of air.

But it wasn’t quite enough time. Just before I was to enter the mailslot for the second time, I ran out of air and exploded.

Damn those Goids!

The Goddess of Heaven, with the last of her strength, drew a barrier across the sky, a great river of gas and mist that prevented Niulang from reaching the star Vega. Niulang yelled. Even after everything that had happened, would he still not be able to reach his dearest Zhinü?

But while he had been flying the magpie had been busy. He had summoned every magpie in the world to fly up to the stars and they created a bridge over the barrier along which Niulang could fly. The Goddess fell back, her power spent. There was no way she could prevent them coming together now.

Zhinü, rejoicing, raced to her lover’s arms and they embraced. Yet Niulang soon fell away, and began to cry.

“What is the matter, my love, why do tears fall from your eyes?”

“Beacuse my dear friend gave his life for us to be together, I will miss him terribly.”

“Oh my love! You do not need to worry about old Jīnniúzuò, look!”

And she pointed toward the sky. And Niulang saw. And his tears of sorrow became tears of joy, For, in the constellation of Taurus, a new, young star was shining brightly.

I want to thank Clarissa Au for putting on an excellent race! And for introducing us to the wonderful legend of Qixi! I wish the weather hadn’t been so damn hot here in muggy Hertfordshire otherwise I’d have had a lot more fun with it. For now, I’ll post the latest leaderboard as the final one hasn’t been posted on the forum yet. So as yet I don’t know the final results. I will update this post as soon as I do.

UPDATE:

Sigh, ok, my second seven stop run ended up being longer than the five stop as my landing at Thunderhead Garrison was judged against the rules. We were required to land within 500 metres of it whereas I thought we had to land within 500 miles! So the entire run didn’t count.

Still, 11th place….

Untill the next race, Buckyballers! o7