In the silent world of a soul momentarily leaving its body, a faint hiss-hiss came from beside Xie Ying, like something slowly leaking air.
Xie Ying groaned in misery. “So this is how you treat the man who saved your life…”
Cold fingers trembled like shaking flower branches as Jiang Guan appeasingly fed him a soft, fully ripened wild fruit. The rich sweet-and-sour flavor eased the agony on Xie Ying’s face somewhat. He caught the offending hand and felt the wet sleeve. “You even went to wash yourself just so you could prank me?”
Jiang Guan placed a small handful of fruit into his palm and wrote on his free hand:
Ash. Dirty.
Xie Ying silently snorted. Young Master’s obsession with cleanliness is quite particular. Jiang Guan picked up another fruit and held it toward his mouth.
Having learned painfully from the previous experience, Xie Ying turned his head away. “I can’t see. My hands haven’t fallen off. You don’t need to keep feeding me.”
Jiang Guan stubbornly continued holding it there. He clearly expected Xie Ying to taste it. Xie Ying had no choice but to lean forward and take the fruit between his teeth. “What is it this ti—”
He stopped. His brows lifted slightly. A familiar flavor emerged from the tiny fruit. “Goji berry?”
“Isn’t it May? Where did you find goji berries?”
Goji generally flowered in summer and fruited in autumn. It was only the transition between spring and summer, and the mountains were colder than the plains. The bushes ought barely to have begun flowering, far from producing ripe berries.
Could there be another mountain fruit that merely resembled them? Xie Ying chewed another. No. The taste was unmistakable.
Jiang Guan held his hand and closed Xie Ying’s fingers around the small handful of precious fruit. For once, he wrote a long sentence:
Tree on shaded slope survived winter. Fruit remained. Great fortune.
Goji berries were said to brighten the eyes and nourish the liver. Whether they would help Xie Ying’s particular condition was impossible to know, but anything was better than nothing.
Tiny scratches from branches and leaves covered Jiang Guan’s hands. A pampered Young Master had never done this kind of gathering before, and after being soaked in cold water the cuts stung. But the happiness of finally being able to do something useful for Xie Ying was the best wound medicine.
He happily began planning to search for more goji berries the next day. His fingers flew through the strokes in Xie Ying’s palm as he asked what other mountain herbs might help the eyes. He could collect them and bring them back for Xie Ying to identify.
Xie Ying nearly failed to keep up. He closed his fingers and firmly caught Jiang Guan’s hand.
Jiang Guan had escaped death four times and never once written “great fortune.” Yet a handful of goji berries made him this happy. He showed no pride and sought no praise. He simply seemed genuinely grateful for the gift of nature. What a miserable thing, Xie Ying thought. What has this unpredictable fate done to a perfectly good Young Master?
“I just noticed that my vision is a little clearer than before. The blindness is probably temporary. Once it improves some more, we need to find a way down the mountain.” Xie Ying deliberately kept his tone gentle and patient. “Food only needs to keep us alive. The mountains are dangerous. Your own safety comes first. Don’t gamble unnecessarily.”
Everything he said made perfect sense. And Jiang Guan was exceptionally good at being “sensible.” His excessive enthusiasm vanished almost immediately. Even without seeing him, Xie Ying could practically feel an invisible tail droop. His throat moved as he considered whether to say something softer and console him. Jiang Guan had already consoled himself. He pulled Xie Ying’s hand toward the day’s hunting spoils.
Truthfully, after that murderous sour fruit, Xie Ying had very modest expectations. But he had only just dampened Jiang Guan’s enthusiasm and could hardly continue discouraging him. So he sat upright with the solemnity of an emperor waiting for dishes to be presented.
Jiang Guan guided his hand from one item to the next. First came a pile of the fruit that had nearly killed him. Xie Ying’s heart jumped. He forced himself to remain calm and gave an encouraging hum. “Very good. As long as it’s edible.”
Next came a handful of half-ripe mulberries. Xie Ying relaxed slightly. “Good. Did you climb a tree for these?”
Then Jiang Guan put several roots into his hands. Xie Ying lifted them and sniffed. His expression softened. “We call this sour tube where I’m from. You call it knotweed? Rather elegant… I read about it in a medical book.”
The next offering was several mushrooms. From Jiang Guan’s description they had bright red caps and white stems. Xie Ying carefully examined what he could by touch and smell. “I don’t recognize them either. Better not eat those.”
Then he encountered a fish the length of his forearm. He was beginning to run out of things to say. “You caught this barehanded? Did you study martial arts before? My respects.”
Finally, Jiang Guan presented a furry wild rabbit. Xie Ying’s fingers sank into soft fur. He remained silent for a long moment. Then he slowly withdrew his hand, faced Jiang Guan, brought his palms together in solemn respect, and said, “Great Mountain Spirit, I failed to recognize your greatness and offended you earlier. Please forgive my ignorance.”
Jiang Guan collapsed laughing against his shoulder. Xie Ying was suddenly crushed beneath Mount Tai. He absolutely did not dare push Jiang Guan away, so he braced one hand against the ground to prevent both of them from toppling over and continued with heartfelt emotion, “All my fault for being arrogant. I underestimated the Young Master. Even without someone as useless as me, Great Xiao Guan could survive alone in these mountains for a year or more—mmph!”
A handful of green fruit plugged his indiscreet mouth. Young Master’s method of expressing displeasure was increasing the pressure of his fingers. He wrote heavily into Xie Ying’s palm:
Without you, I would have died.
“…”
The fruit was so sour that tears nearly burst from Xie Ying’s eyes. Having successfully annoyed Jiang Guan, he was delighted. He chewed the fruit with gritted teeth while smiling without repentance. “Great Xiao Guan is right to reprimand me. I saved you, you repay me. One good turn deserves another… Why are you hitting me again?”
After crawling out of the dark, damp underground and finally feeling sunlight, both of them seemed to come alive again. Danger still waited ahead, but this brief moment of ease was too precious. For a little while they shed the composed shells they had used to protect themselves and fooled around like ordinary unruly teenagers. They laughed until breathing hurt and their chests ached. Finally, exhausted, they fell backward onto the stone floor, which remained rather uncomfortable despite being covered in grass.
Xie Ying remembered the thought that had briefly crossed his mind when he first saw Jiang Guan smile inside the secret passage. Now Jiang Guan could laugh freely beneath the sunlight. It was a shame Xie Ying could not see it. But no matter how many twists the road had taken, what he had wanted had ultimately happened. The effort had not been wasted.
After resting for a while, Jiang Guan was first to climb up. He pulled Xie Ying upright as well, brushed the dirt from him, helped him sit properly, and briefly wrote:
Gather firewood. Make fire.
Xie Ying waved him away. “Go.”
There was no need to go far. From the cave entrance, Xie Ying could hear Jiang Guan moving nearby. Not long afterward, Jiang Guan returned carrying a small bundle of wood, built a fire in the open space outside the cave, and brought over the day’s prey.
Then—
silence.
Xie Ying: ?
Jiang Guan crouched before the prey with the dagger in his hand and entered an extremely prolonged hesitation.
Xie Ying waited.
Nothing happened.
“What’s wrong?”
In his blurry vision, a dark shape slowly shuffled toward him. A helpless hand caught the edge of his sleeve.
Xie Ying could not help laughing. “If you need something, say it. What’s with all the tugging?”
Someone traced dot, rising stroke, horizontal, hook, and various other strokes across his palm for a painfully long time. Finally came several quick characters:
Can’t bring myself to do it.
“Hm?”
Xie Ying did not even understand at first. “Do what? They’re already dead, aren’t they? You were the one who caught them.”
Jiang Guan could not find the right words and truly could not face the task. He remained crouched there, lightly scratching Xie Ying’s palm over and over until realization finally dawned.
“Young Master… by ‘do it,’ you don’t mean preparing the food?”
Jiang Guan wrote blankly:
What is ‘preparing’?
“It means pulling fur, skinning, bleeding, scraping scales—things like that.” Xie Ying struggled not to laugh. “If you can’t do it, what are we eating? Grass?”
Jiang Guan lowered his head in shame and wrote:
Ashamed.
Xie Ying immediately became wicked. “You’ve just cut through three thousand strands of worldly attachment, and now you’ve given up meat too. Are you planning to recite the Great Compassion Mantra next?”
Hunting was one of the basic skills taught to children of noble families. Jiang Guan had no particular difficulty killing animals. Catching rabbits and fish was perfectly manageable. But possessing ingredients did not mean dinner was ready. The truly difficult part was cooking. The rabbit needed fur removed. The fish needed scaling. Both needed opening and cleaning. His tutors had never taught those lessons. For the first time, the Young Master whose fingers had never touched household labor revealed fear.
He hooked his fingers around Xie Ying’s and lightly swayed their joined hands without even knowing exactly what he wanted. Deep down, he understood that delaying solved nothing. He could hardly ask a blind man to wield the knife and butcher the rabbit and fish. Yet in only two or three days, Jiang Guan had accumulated an amount of blind trust in Xie Ying that even he found astonishing. He knew perfectly well Xie Ying was not omnipotent. Still, he instinctively wanted just a little reassurance.
Even a brief moment of weakness became easier when there was someone beside him to lean upon.
Jiang Guan gritted his teeth. No matter what, he could not force the man who saved his life to become a monk and eat grass beside him. He prepared to face the bloody reality.
Xie Ying held out his hand. “Give me the dagger. I’ll do it.”
Jiang Guan: ?
The shock in his gaze was so obvious that Xie Ying snorted and crooked his fingers. “Hand it over. Do you know what ‘the tool one eats with’ means? It means people in my profession learn to use a dagger like a spoon from childhood. I’m more practiced with my eyes closed than you are looking straight at it.”
Jiang Guan suspected he was inventing stories to placate a child. Xie Ying nevertheless rose with serene dignity. “Bring the prey. We’ll go to the river. Don’t cover the cave in blood.”
At the stony bank, Jiang Guan carried over a flat rock and arranged the rabbit and fish upon it. Xie Ying half knelt and felt their general shape. The dagger spun once in his hand before settling naturally into his grip. “Do you want to watch? If you can’t stand blood, step away. Once I divide everything, you can wash it.”
Jiang Guan thought, I can’t depend upon a blind man every time. That would make me completely useless. He gritted his teeth and sat beside Xie Ying, clearly intending to observe and learn.
Xie Ying cut through the fish’s gills with one precise stroke and lifted it by the tail. “Then this teacher will now instruct you in the essentials of dismemberment…”
Blood sprayed.
Jiang Guan fled.
Through the dust raised by his panicked escape, Xie Ying lowered his head, calmly returned to preparing dinner, and gave a quiet amused laugh.
“Young Master.”
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