He Yi had spent half the day climbing the mountain and exhausted himself nearly to death, yet that night he lay on the bed tossing and turning, unable to sleep, his mind fixed on one thing: tomorrow, he was going to wash himself from head to toe.
So the next day, once the sun had grown strong, He Yi fetched a basin of water from the stream, carried it back near the hunter’s hut, and wiped himself down beneath the blazing sunlight.
The wooden basin had a broad mouth. He Yi lowered his head and saw a face reflected in the still water, a very dark face.
…Who was that?
He had visited the stream several times already, but the current was too swift for him to see his reflection clearly. This was the first time he had been able to take a proper look at the original body’s face.
In his previous life, his work often took him outdoors for long stretches. A single project could keep him outside for two or three months at minimum, but even then he had never tanned as dark as this body.
His hands did not look nearly this dark… It had never occurred to him that his face would be.
What surprised him even more was that this face resembled his own from his previous life by seventy or eighty percent… Was that merely a coincidence?
The original owner had just turned twenty, yet he looked almost the same as He Yi had at twenty-nine, perhaps even a little more mature. The stubble already coming in probably had something to do with it.
His eyebrows were better-looking than He Yi’s old ones, at least. They had never been groomed yet were unexpectedly tidy, straight and sharp as they swept toward his temples, giving him a handsome, spirited look. He felt the bridge of his nose next. Quite high. Then he checked his teeth. Perhaps his face was simply so dark that they looked especially white, but then again, he had not brushed his teeth once since transmigrating…
The more He Yi thought about it, the worse he felt. He could not help offering the snow leopard two seconds of silent sympathy.
Searching the original owner’s memories, He Yi found that toothbrushes made from horsehair or pig bristles already existed in this dynasty, though most villagers cleaned their teeth with cheaper willow twigs and plant ash. There happened to be willow trees planted at the foot of Yaluo Mountain. Once Hunter Xu returned, he could make another trip down there.
After finishing his inspection of his face, He Yi picked up the piece of sackcloth draped over the rim of the basin, dipped it in the water, and began wiping his face.
By the time he had finished scrubbing his face and neck, the water had turned black with grime. Left with no choice, He Yi went to the stream for another basin. This time he simply removed his upper clothes and trousers, keeping on only an undergarment shaped much like briefs. After looking around and making sure no one was nearby, he continued washing.
The body’s frame was broad and well built, but there was little flesh on it, probably because meat had been scarce and all that farm labor still had not earned him many full meals. Thin as he was, there was still some muscle on his upper arms and abdomen, firm to the touch, likely built through farmwork.
He wiped down his upper body and then his lower body. By the end, the water was filthy enough to smell, so He Yi simply put his feet into the basin and scrubbed them directly.
He changed the water twice more. He had originally worried that washing his hair might worsen his fever, but once the rest of him was clean, leaving only his head dirty became unbearable. He Yi could not stand it another moment and washed his hair anyway.
A full hour passed before he was finally clean from head to toe.
The moment he finished, He Yi could not help sighing. It had been far too long. Finally, he felt clean again.
There were no soap pods, but even washing with plain water had removed much of the sticky feeling from his skin. The miserable sensation of being so filthy he did not want to touch himself had finally faded.
In a rare good mood, He Yi sat quietly in the sunlight and waited for his hair to dry.
The sun grew fiercer. Judging by its position, He Yi estimated that it was nearly noon, yet Hunter Xu still had not returned. He had gone to the stream several times while washing, and the stream lay close to the uphill path. Logically, the two of them should not have missed each other.
Right then, his stomach growled. He had eaten nothing since the previous night. He had been too exhausted when he returned to the hut yesterday, and with darkness making everything inconvenient, he had not cooked.
Worrying about washing was not the only reason he had been unable to sleep all night. Hunger had played a part too. Still, getting clean had felt more urgent than eating, so he had dealt with that first. Now that he was free, it was time to solve the problem of food.
He Yi slowly made his way toward the cattle shed.
There was still plenty of the brown indica rice A’ma had hidden, but pitifully little white flour.
In the original owner’s memories, white flour was mostly used for flatbreads, steamed buns, or stuffed buns, and only rarely for noodles. It seemed longevity noodles were made only on birthdays. Perhaps because few households in Chongzi Village grew wheat, white flour was considered precious here. Flour-based foods were not simple to make either. The original owner knew how to make a few, but had done so so rarely that the memories were faint and He Yi could not recall the exact steps. Besides, he had no suitable cookware at hand, only one kitchen knife and two clay pots.
He gave up on making anything with flour.
Brown rice, like polished rice, could be made into rice noodles, rice sheets, and all sorts of rice cakes, though the texture would be much worse. More commonly, people simply used it for staple foods such as cakes, rice, and congee.
He decided on congee. A’ma had also left some dried preserved mustard greens, and adding a little would make a decent preserved-greens congee.
He Yi had never cooked congee himself. Rice in an electric rice cooker, yes, that he could handle. Relying on the original owner’s memories, he finally decided to try making congee for the first time.
First he lit the fire, set a clay pot on the earthen stove A’ma had built, and poured in two bamboo tubes of water, bringing the water level to about three-quarters of the pot’s depth.
While waiting for the water to boil, He Yi grabbed a large handful of rice from the earthenware jar, put it into the spare clay pot, and rinsed it twice with water.
The earthen stove could hold only a limited amount of firewood, so the flame was not strong. It took quite a while for the water to boil. He Yi began adding the rice, but had poured in only half when he realized the water was about to overflow.
Half the brown rice remained. But it had already been washed, and he had no idea whether leaving it sitting around would make it spoil. Rather than waste it, He Yi used a spoon to ladle out some of the water until he could finally put all the rice into the pot.
Then came the stirring. He moved the spoon in one direction and watched the clear water gradually turn cloudy and milky with rice starch. He had no idea how long he kept stirring. There was no clock here to measure the time. All he knew was that stirring became steadily more difficult, and then he noticed that the grains had only swollen a little without breaking down into porridge, while hardly any water remained.
What was in the pot looked less like congee and more like wet rice. Sticky and thick, it was naturally difficult to stir.
…This could still work.
He Yi covered the pot. Going by experience, it ought to simmer over low heat for about an hour now without any more stirring.
As it cooked, the lid began clattering violently. Seeing that it might actually knock itself to pieces, He Yi hurriedly wedged the spoon into the pot, propping one side of the lid open so steam could escape through the gap.
About an hour passed, perhaps longer. He Yi was not certain. In any case, before his patience ran out entirely, he lifted the lid.
Inside the clay pot lay plump grains of yellow-brown rice, glossy with moisture and giving off the clean fragrance unique to rice. The congee liquid that should have been there had vanished without a trace. At a glance, this was nothing more than a pot of brown rice cooked with slightly too much water.
He Yi was already starving and had no intention of being picky. He picked up the spoon and started eating.
The surface of each grain was smooth and soft against his tongue. The instant he chewed through it, he found it completely different from yesterday’s brown rice, unexpectedly as tender as polished white rice and not hard at all. He Yi found it astonishing. Could it simply be because he had added more water than yesterday?
Although he had failed to make congee, he seemed to have discovered how to cook soft brown rice. He felt rather pleased with himself.
The awkward part was that halfway through eating, he finally realized he had forgotten to add the dried preserved mustard greens. No wonder he had kept feeling as though something were missing. It was too late to make preserved-greens congee now, though the greens could at least accompany his “congee.” But there was hardly any brown rice left in the bowl and he could finish it in a few bites, so he decided to save the mustard greens for next time.
…
A sunshower swept through that afternoon. The rain came down hard, but stopped before an incense stick had even burned down. He Yi took a nap and still did not see Hunter Xu return, so he carried the little stool from the hut to the doorway, sat down, picked up a thick piece of wood he had found while gathering firewood, and began shaving it with the sickle.
A sickle was terrible for carving, but the kitchen knife was far too dull, so He Yi had to settle for the lesser evil. After working slowly for a while, a shape did begin to emerge.
What He Yi was carving was a handheld game console. The cylindrical piece of wood gradually became a thin oval slab less than a finger joint thick. He used a stone to smooth the splinters along the edges until it no longer pricked his hand when he held it. Only then was it finished.
He Yi looked at the featureless wooden piece, little more than a blank board, and nostalgia surfaced on his face.
He had carved it for no reason other than a sudden craving to play games. In truth, during the final few years of his previous life, he had lost all interest in gaming. Before that, however, games had ranked first among his very few hobbies.
When he had worked on infrastructure projects in Third World countries, he had often found himself without a signal, and power or internet outages were ordinary occurrences. None of that stopped him from using a handheld console to play single-player games, which kept life from becoming too dull.
Perhaps the lack of electricity and internet here resembled those days closely enough to make him miss them.
He wondered whether any of the games he liked had received sequels. Even if they had, he would never get to play them. His only consolation was that he had ignored his friends’ advice to adopt a cat for company. Otherwise, now that he was dead, he would be worrying himself sick over what would happen to the cat he had left behind.
One after another, everyone in his family was already gone… At least none of them had to grieve over his death… As for his friends, they all had lives of their own. Surely they would not mourn him for too long.
He Yi stared blankly at the wooden slab, lost in thought. He did not even notice the huge head that suddenly leaned in to inspect what he was holding until a beat too late.
“?!” He Yi turned his head and found the snow leopard there, its fluffy face set in a stern expression as its round ears twitched. Apparently unable to make sense of the wooden object in He Yi’s hand, it instead leaned over and sniffed him in greeting, then sat down.
This time the snow leopard did not dry-heave. A faint sense of having avenged his earlier humiliation swept through He Yi. Carried away by his triumph, he looked at the snow leopard’s head so close to him and thought it ought to feel as nice as the big golden retriever belonging to one of his friends. So he reached out and stroked it.
The fur really was remarkably soft, though it felt denser and more substantial beneath his palm. The thick coat almost seemed to draw his hand into it.
The snow leopard did not resist at all. When He Yi finished petting it, however, it suddenly turned its head. Its eyes seemed to sparkle with stars as it stared directly at him.
Only then did He Yi realize how bold a thing he had just done. He tried to pull his hand back, but the snow leopard raised one huge paw and pressed his half-withdrawn hand down.
He Yi assumed it was displeased, so he could only say gently, “If you don’t like it, I won’t pet you anymore. Sorry.” Then he pulled his hand completely away.
The snow leopard’s gaze followed his hand. After staring for a while and seeing that He Yi truly was not going to do anything else, it bit down on its own fluffy tail, walked a good distance away, and lay down.
He Yi could not tell whether the snow leopard had become even angrier or simply wanted to be left alone. Unable to puzzle it out, he picked up his bamboo tube, took a sip of warm water, and sat on the stool gazing at the distant scenery.
The instant He Yi lifted the bamboo tube, the snow leopard looked over. A moment later its hind legs quietly straightened and it stepped in place several times, but in the next instant it lay down again and began chewing its tail with even greater enthusiasm.
He Yi appeared to be looking at the scenery, but in reality he was secretly watching.
After all, there was an enormous wild beast sitting this close to him. Ignoring it was impossible.
And so, one man and one leopard settled into a scene of “peaceful, quiet days.”
Eventually, the snow leopard was the first to break the silence. It opened its mouth in a huge yawn and simultaneously let out a long Awooo—! The pitch of the cry rose and fell with the yawn itself, making the whole thing quite comical.
It was He Yi’s first time seeing something howl while yawning. He could not hold back a snort of laughter.
The snow leopard’s round ears swiveled toward He Yi, and it shot him an alert look.
He Yi wondered, Was it simply bored sitting here? Maybe he could make a ball for it to play with. He had a fair amount of energy today, and making a little trinket would not take much out of him.
Earlier, he had moved several bundles of rice straw from the cattle shed and stored them inside the hut, thinking they might come in handy and save him from constantly walking back and forth. Unexpectedly, they really were useful already.
The straw in his hands consisted of dried rice stalks, thin, long, and soft. He tried rolling a bundle directly into a ball, but that did not work; it came apart too easily. Even using a few strands as ties could not keep the whole thing in a proper sphere.
He Yi had a feeling the original owner must have made straw figures before, or woven things such as mats and straw hats. Farming families were poor and reluctant to spend money on houses, furniture, quilts, clothes, or anything else they could make themselves. The original He Yi had been no exception, so he probably knew these kinds of handicrafts.
He Yi racked his brains. After a while, he really did find a memory close to what he needed: making palm-leaf fans. That involved a seven-strand braid, and the idea immediately inspired him. He had once watched his younger sister braid her hair in three strands. It had looked rather cute.
So He Yi separated the rice straw into several small bundles and braided them three strands at a time. He had never done this before and his technique was clumsy, but after undoing and retying them repeatedly, he finally managed to make one braid.
Next, he rolled some loose straw into a core, then laid several thicker straw braids across it horizontally and vertically to form the surface of the ball. He tucked the extra lengths at each end into the gaps beneath the braids and secured them. Repeating the process again and again, he eventually produced a crude little ball of rice straw.
The snow leopard had been watching from the side for a long time. The instant the straw ball took shape, its gray-blue eyes suddenly went perfectly round, and they even seemed to shimmer with moisture.
He Yi stood and weighed the ball in his hand. It was firm and did not come apart, so he kicked it into the open ground in front of the hut.
The snow leopard’s huge tail shot straight upward. It was already poised to give chase.
Sure enough, cats were born loving to chase anything that moved. The rest of the cat family was no exception.
The corner of He Yi’s mouth lifted as he waited for the snow leopard to charge after the ball.
The snow leopard launched itself toward the straw ball like a cannonball. Just before it could pounce, a mountain breeze swept past and sent the ball rolling away.
One rolled and the other chased. The snow leopard bounded after it with tremendous enthusiasm.
Mountain winds changed direction without warning. The straw ball rolled and rolled until it came trundling back toward He Yi, and the snow leopard sprang after it.
At that moment, a rough male voice rang out from not far away, urgent and fierce. “Get inside!! Get down and don’t move!!!”
Before the words had even faded, an arrow tore through the air, flying straight toward the back of the snow leopard’s head—