What happened also served as a warning to He Yi. Xue Ci was not the only one whose ability to remain here was precarious. He Yi himself still had enormous trouble waiting somewhere ahead. He Jie’s revenge was like a rope looped around his neck, liable to tighten without warning one day, which was why He Yi could never truly relax.
It seemed he would still have to set aside some free time in the next few days to go into town, ask around, and see whether there was any room to maneuver.
So annoying.
The afternoon sun blazed overhead and cicadas droned in the distance. As usual, Xue Ci roughly calculated how long it had been since He Yi returned from the fields and finished resting. Once he figured enough time had passed, he walked through the main gate of the Tang residence. He soon saw Madman Tang and He Yi sitting idly in the main hall, so he joined them and sat down on a stone stool beside the courtyard.
“Perfect timing. We were just talking about your identity papers.” Madman Tang lifted his chin at him, then abruptly slapped his own thigh. “Come to think of it, I don’t believe we’ve ever asked. Xue Ci, do you have identity papers?”
He Yi had thought Madman Tang was about to ask Xue Ci something sensible. Once he heard the actual question, he nearly choked on his own saliva and could only press a hand to his forehead and shake his head.
Sure enough, Xue Ci asked bluntly, “What are those?”
“…” Madman Tang squeezed his eyes shut. Only after taking a moment to recover did he explain where identity papers came from and what they were used for.
“Today, some busybody reported you to the authorities, and people came here to seize you. Luckily, you weren’t here at the time. But there’s no guarantee it won’t happen again. If we don’t get you identity papers, it’ll be very difficult for you to keep walking around the village as freely as before.” For once, Madman Tang put away his unserious expression and spoke calmly.
Xue Ci froze when he heard this and instinctively glanced toward He Yi.
He Yi had already been facing him, so he caught the look at once and gave him a reassuring smile.
The blankness on Xue Ci’s face eased a little, and he turned his gaze back toward Madman Tang.
Madman Tang, however, found explaining everything troublesome and had no intention of continuing. He Yi picked up where he left off, telling Xue Ci about the not-quite-a-solution of foreign-resident papers and giving him a rough explanation of the advantages, drawbacks, and relevant laws of the Qian Dynasty.
Neither of them could tell how much Xue Ci actually understood. He merely tilted his head and replied, “Then let’s do that.”
“…Huh?” He Yi abruptly froze, thinking perhaps he had not explained things clearly enough and that was why Xue Ci had agreed so readily. He patiently added, “Labor service, military service, and miscellaneous service. You could be assigned any of the three. I know you’re very strong, but strength alone isn’t enough to survive corvée labor. Endurance and persistence matter even more, and dealing with people isn’t easy either. Are you sure you want to choose this route?”
Madman Tang shot He Yi a look of mild disapproval. He did not think Xue Ci had any other path to choose from, yet He Yi spoke as though there were still alternatives. Nor did he understand why He Yi, who was usually gentle toward others yet never without a certain distance, acted every inch the protector around Xue Ci, breaking everything down into tiny pieces before feeding it to him. He Yi was the sort Madman Tang found difficult to deal with, and among all the people he knew, that was exceedingly rare.
He Yi genuinely did not believe this was Xue Ci’s only possible path, which was why he asked him so carefully.
Corvée labor was brutally hard. The original owner had been conscripted for labor service at sixteen and sent west to dig a canal for a full two years. Every day had pushed him to the edge of collapse. The assigned workload was impossible for many men to finish no matter how desperately they worked, and failing to complete it could earn them a whipping from the overseers, never mind that serious injuries only made them less efficient afterward. If they happened to run into some rabid-dog overseer, there was nothing to do but consider themselves unlucky. The original owner had been comparatively fortunate, perhaps because his build was sturdy enough that he was beaten less often, yet the experience still left him with lingering problems. On rainy days, his neck and back often ached as though needles were stabbing into them, and every so often his legs would lose strength. It did not interfere much with ordinary work, so He Yi had never paid it much mind.
But the moment He Yi imagined the same thing happening to Xue Ci, his heart sank. A shadow even settled over his brows and lingered there.
Xue Ci had already learned quite a bit of vocabulary for expressing himself, but he said nothing. Instead, he simply demonstrated with his body exactly what extraordinary endurance meant.
When the building materials arrived, Xue Ci helped unload them. After four hours of work, he was not even panting. His breathing remained steady, and his waist and legs were still full of strength.
He Yi had hauled sacks of gravel until his arms were nearly too heavy to lift, while Xue Ci, after unloading most of the building materials, could still reach up with both hands, grab a horizontal tree branch, lift both feet off the ground, swing there for a while, then use the momentum to pull himself into the tree and lie down on a branch to rest.
He Yi stood below staring at him in utter disbelief.
And with that, the matter of the foreign-resident papers was settled.
Madman Tang said he would be traveling out of town in the next few days and could obtain border-entry papers for Xue Ci while he was away. He estimated he would return in about ten days.
He Yi and Xue Ci would be responsible for watching the house.
Now that the earth and lumber had arrived, the miscellaneous tools had all been borrowed, and the house plans were finally finished, everything was ready. They could begin!
The first thing they built was the woodshed, which stood independently from the main house at the northwest corner. He Yi chose to build it first so they would have somewhere sheltered from wind and rain to temporarily store materials and tools, and once locked, it would also deter thieves. Since it was separate from the main structure, it was also the best place to test their methods. Even if they had to tear it down and rebuild it, nothing else would be affected.
The woodshed used a strip foundation. The foundation walls were rammed earth, while the internal load-bearing structure followed a post-and-beam frame, broadly similar to the design of the main house.
Without cranes, excavators, or any other large modern machinery, every post and beam had to return to the most primitive method and be handled and erected by human strength. The efficiency was naturally low. He Yi had never built a house under conditions this basic before, so he was somewhat worried.
Still, he had dragged Xue Ci in to help. He never imposed any strict requirement for how many hours Xue Ci had to work or how much he had to finish. Unexpectedly, however, Xue Ci spent almost as much time on the newly purchased land as He Yi did.
He Yi had originally thought that if progress was too slow, he could hire villagers to help later. But after teaching Xue Ci how to ram earth, he discovered one Xue Ci could do the work of four men. The two of them spent a full day ramming earth together, and their progress was not far behind what five people at the Zheng household had completed over most of a day.
Damn. He was Superman. He Yi was genuinely stunned.
So in the first three days, the two of them successfully finished the enormous woodshed. Before nightfall, they also moved the lumber and some of the earth materials that could not get wet into it.
After all that work, they ate a simple meal, and then it was time to light the lamp and read a storybook. No matter how tired He Yi was, he knew Xue Ci always looked forward to this, so he still forced himself to perk up and read aloud to him.
They had already finished the previous book. It had mainly been useful for practicing characters, and He Yi himself had barely understood much of what was written inside. The prose was simply too abstract and literary. It was called a storybook, but it read more like a poetry collection, with imagery and synesthesia flying everywhere. Even if He Yi wanted to explain it to Xue Ci, he hardly knew where to begin.
This time, they read the cheap little book He Yi had casually bought at the same time, a marvelous story whose flyleaf announced that it was about a night watchman falling in love with an arsonist.
A romance was at least easier to explain logically. But when Xue Ci asked what love was, He Yi immediately fell silent and sank into thought.
What a philosophical question: what was love? Judging from He Yi’s impoverished emotional experience, the closest things he knew were familial affection and the friendship he had shared with old friends for many years. As for romantic love tied to desire, he had genuinely never experienced it. What right did he have to offer Xue Ci any theory about it?
One of his friends used to say that loving someone meant giving things up for the sake of making that person happy, without asking for anything in return.
But all his other friends had criticized that friend for being a total simp, because the person he pursued was not happy because he was the one giving. She was happy because of the material value of what he gave her. The two sides were not equal at all.
But did a truly equal romantic relationship even exist? He Yi wondered.
Could someone really meet another person who, just like themselves, willingly gave to the other and felt happy doing so? Especially after learning the other person’s flaws, how many people could remain true to their original feelings? The odds were probably worse than winning the top lottery prize…
He Yi looked into Xue Ci’s bright, shining eyes and suddenly realized the other was like a blank sheet of paper, with no concept of romantic love written on it at all. Did He Yi truly have the right to guide Xue Ci’s understanding of it? Would that not be crossing a boundary, or even tainting something?
He Yi was as cautious as ever, so he shifted the topic away and merely said he did not really know what love was either.
Once romance was taken out of it, there was not actually much left to explain about the story.
He Yi propped his chin on one hand and watched Xue Ci practice writing. After a while, however, he noticed that Xue Ci had copied quite a few characters incorrectly.
“These ones don’t seem quite right.” He Yi tapped his knuckles against the table and pointed with a fingertip at several characters.
“These are wrong? But they’re written like this in the book too.” Xue Ci looked confused and passed the storybook to He Yi.
By now, He Yi’s literacy had reached a decent level. Writing every stroke of traditional characters correctly was still fairly difficult for him, but recognizing them was no problem. He could therefore be certain that the characters printed in the storybook were indeed wrong.
Then he remembered that this was a hand-copied book. A few incorrect characters were hardly surprising.
In the end, He Yi could only read ahead first, pick out the sections without errors, and let Xue Ci copy those.
“Don’t memorize those characters from just now. This was probably copied by some students, and they accidentally wrote one or two things wrong. Copy the section I marked for you, from here… to here.”
“These ones are correct?”
“Mm. These are safe to remember.”
“Okay!”
Next time he went into town, he should pick up a copy of the Thousand Character Classic while he was there. A primer for learning characters really should not be treated too casually. He Yi glanced at Xue Ci’s face, flushed by the firelight and full of earnest concentration, and the corner of his lips curved upward.
Elio’s Notes: The Thousand Character Classic (千字文) is a traditional Chinese primer composed of one thousand non-repeating characters, long used to teach children basic literacy and calligraphy.
After Xue Ci finished studying, He Yi went to wash up.
Perhaps because the room was stuffy and opening the windows let in too many mosquitoes, even burning mugwort could not stop them from returning in force later at night. These days, Xue Ci had been going back up the mountain to sleep. He Yi understood. The mountain was much cooler.
It was not fully summer yet, but the weather was already close to midsummer heat. If only he had air-conditioning or an electric fan. He had no idea how he was going to survive once July and August truly arrived.
But even with the room damp, stuffy, and hot, He Yi, exhausted from the day’s work, fell asleep almost as soon as he lay down. Ever since coming to this world, the quality of his sleep had become remarkably good.
*
Day Four.
He Yi had designed the structural frame of the house as an integrated whole rather than building one section first and then expanding outward bit by bit. Otherwise, later additions could easily conflict with parts already completed, and if he ever needed to alter something important, one change could affect the entire structure and create twice the work for half the result.
Independent features such as the pond, the chicken, duck, and goose pens, and the pigsty could be postponed for now. The outer perimeter, including the courtyard wall, was not urgent either.
“Xue Ci, if you’re tired, rest. Don’t wear yourself down.” He Yi admired Xue Ci’s seemingly endless energy, but he also worried the other simply did not know when he was tired. Overexertion could easily strain muscles and leave lasting injuries, so He Yi had no choice but to force him to rest sometimes.
But if He Yi himself did not stop, Xue Ci would not stop either. He had so much energy that he would rather run off somewhere to romp around, disappear for a while, then come back and ask one question after another. He had become increasingly talkative.
“I ran into a tiger last night.” Xue Ci abruptly flipped himself up onto the frame and crouched beside He Yi, speaking as calmly as though he were mentioning the weather.
“You what? You ran into one?” The rammer in He Yi’s hands nearly slipped.
“Mm.” Xue Ci, whose hair He Yi had tied into a little topknot, nodded up and down. Loose strands at his temples brushed over his soft, powder-pale cheeks.
“…You really aren’t afraid of anything.”
“It can’t find another tiger. It’s been very irritable lately,” Xue Ci said.
“It didn’t attack you?” Why would a tiger be looking for another tiger? He Yi could think of only one possibility. It was probably entering mating season.
“It can’t beat me.” Xue Ci had said something like that before.
“…” It had better not be able to. He Yi no longer bothered investigating whether the claim was true. Xue Ci appeared safely in front of him every single time, which had greatly dulled He Yi’s suspicion and vigilance.
Still, He Yi was used to thinking rationally. Seeming almost casual, he invited, “Once the house is finished, why don’t you live here? I’ll keep the second bedroom for you. You’re always going up the mountain. Even if you don’t think it’s dangerous, it isn’t exactly convenient. Think about it.”
Xue Ci blinked slowly and lifted his head. “How would that be different from now?”
He Yi replied with mild irritation, “Right now I’m staying as a guest in Brother Tang’s house. Once we finish this new house, this will be our territory. You’ll have your own room and can come and go however you like.”
“My own room!” Xue Ci’s sky-blue eyes instantly lit beneath the blazing sun, almost bright enough to outshine it. The brilliance was startling. He Yi blinked hard and shifted his downward gaze away.
Xue Ci agreed to live with him. Then He Yi thought that once they were under the same roof, Xue Ci and the snow leopard would eventually have to meet. He was not worried, though. His instincts told him the two of them would definitely get along.
Xue Ci knew nothing about He Yi’s thoughts. He stood, gave a huge stretch, then picked up the rammer and plunged straight back into the great enterprise of pounding earth.
*
Outside Wuting Prefecture.
Beneath a square pavilion roofed in dark tiles, a tall figure dressed in black robes embroidered with gold stood with his hands clasped behind his back. More than a dozen saber-bearing guards were stationed within several dozen meters around him, the atmosphere solemn and severe.
Before long, an old man in brocade hurried over with a cane. The guards stopped him. After quietly explaining something to one of them, the old man left.
The guard then stepped forward and reported to the man beneath the pavilion, “Master, Young Master Tang Huai asked Lord Zhang at Jinya Pass to create a set of border-entry papers.”
A low voice thick with displeasure immediately sounded. “For whom?”
“The name is unusual. His surname is Xue and his given name is Ci. That surname… he may be one of the Tianbai people, but this subordinate cannot be certain.”
After speaking, the guard received no order from his master.
“Master?”
“Then why are you still standing here? Go investigate!”
“Yes! At once!”
“…Wait.” The man turned sharply, the hem of his black robe rippling. Beneath his black gauze cap was a peerlessly handsome face carrying a trace of wickedness. He faced the guard kneeling on one knee and lowered his eyelids slightly before asking, “At the place where he’s living now, is that fox spirit who moved in along the way called by this name?”
Elio’s Notes: 狐狸精 (húlijīng), literally “fox spirit,” is also a loaded insult for someone seen as a seductive interloper or homewrecker. Here the speaker is using it jealously rather than making a literal supernatural claim.
“No. That person is called He Yi.”
“He’s still living there? How long has he been there?” The fist hidden inside the man’s wide sleeve clenched until it nearly creaked, and a faint murderous air gathered between his brows.
“According to the reports brought back by the covert guards, he is still staying in the residence. It has been a little over half a month,” the guard answered.
“…Very good. While Tang Huai is away, prepare the carriage. I’m going to meet this brat.”
“Yes!!”
At the same time, near Jinya Pass.
“Zhang Gui, your lord is far too hospitable.” Madman Tang had not come to this area in a long time and had originally wanted to wander around on his own, but Lord Zhang had sent several younger men to accompany him, and no matter what he did, he could not shake them. They had been following him for several hours already.
At first, it could still be called hospitality. Later, even he began to sense something was slightly off.
There was no need for this many people. They claimed they were accompanying him, but it looked much more like they were openly keeping watch over him.
“Aiya, aiya, you hardly ever come! There’s nothing much around here on ordinary days, and we’re bored stiff too. With you here, things are much more entertaining.” Zhang Gui hurriedly exchanged looks with the others beside him, and they immediately chimed in.
“Exactly, exactly.”
Once Madman Tang realized something was wrong, he could no longer be bothered pretending along with them. He insisted on stopping at a drinks stall for a cup of soy milk, then after finishing it, announced that he needed to relieve himself. Using that as his escape, he secretly found a carriage and ordered the driver to hurry toward Guluo Town.
Chongzi Village, Tang residence.
A shower had fallen that morning, so the night was finally somewhat cooler.
He Yi took out a bamboo rake he had made himself and used it to groom the snow leopard, which had suddenly appeared. As he scraped loose quite a bit of fur, he wondered how Xue Ci had managed to leave at exactly the right time, just barely missing the snow leopard again.
He had actually been looking forward to seeing how Xue Ci would react when he finally met the snow leopard.
The snow leopard sprawled on the stone paving in the courtyard, its long fluffy tail swaying from side to side. It lifted its head with a blissful expression, enjoying the sensation of having its back scratched.
He Yi had deliberately sanded down the tips of the bamboo strips on the rake so they were thin but not sharp and would not hurt flesh. The fine ridges dragged across the snow leopard’s plump body with a prickling, tingling sensation that felt wonderfully soothing.
A low ga-ao kept rumbling from the snow leopard’s throat, sounding a little like a duck and a little like a small child, deep yet oddly cute. Its thick paws unconsciously kneaded at the ground like a kitten making biscuits.
He Yi rolled the fur he had brushed out into a fairly large ball and thought that after a few more grooming sessions, he might gather enough to make himself an entire winter outfit.
The snow leopard spotted the fur ball and actually froze with its mouth half open. Then, as though embarrassed, it snatched the ball up in its jaws and dashed into the room.
He Yi had no choice but to lean the bamboo rake against the wall and follow it inside, casually closing the door behind him.
He found the snow leopard lying on the bed, its broad arched back trembling almost as though it were sobbing while it pitifully licked the fur ball.
He Yi suppressed his laughter and soothed it. “What’s wrong? Shedding is normal, isn’t it? The more fur you grow, the more you shed. I shed too. Long hair is such a pain. I miss having short hair before. It washed quickly, dried quickly, stayed neat without much effort, and barely shed at all.”
After hearing that, the snow leopard stopped trembling, though it still licked the huge fur ball with a somewhat blank expression.
The sight made He Yi nervous. He was afraid the snow leopard might actually swallow it, and he had no idea how to make hairball paste. He hurriedly sat beside it, pulled its big head into his arms, and rubbed, kneaded, and hugged it thoroughly. Then, while it was distracted, he swept the fur ball into a corner where it could no longer see it.
Suddenly, the snow leopard’s round ears pivoted toward a point outside the door. Its round head lifted from He Yi’s overly tight embrace, and it stared in the direction its ears had turned.
A moment later, He Yi heard it too. A dense cluster of footsteps had started inside the residence and seemed to be drawing steadily closer to the West Courtyard.
Who could possibly have come in at this hour? He distinctly remembered bolting and locking the gate.
Wait, the snow leopard was still here! He Yi looked at the snow leopard, then around the bedroom where everything was visible at a glance, and began to panic. The windows were inset with stone bars. There was nowhere to escape except through the door, and nowhere to hide. Judging by the approaching footsteps, if he opened the door now, he would probably run directly into whoever was coming.
If it were Madman Tang, that would be fine. The man was “crazy” enough that the snow leopard could probably be explained away somehow, and he likely would not care too much anyway. But anyone else was harder to predict. What if these were soldiers coming to seize Xue Ci? There was clearly more than one person outside…
This was genuinely difficult. At a loss for what to do, He Yi even began to sweat faintly at the forehead.
The snow leopard looked at him, not understanding why He Yi’s heartbeat had suddenly accelerated or why he looked so tense. Was it because the people outside were approaching aggressively?
Meeting the snow leopard’s puzzled expression, He Yi’s brain short-circuited. He actually placed his hopes on the magical creature having some way out of the situation. “If anyone sees you looking like this, there’ll be trouble! Is there… is there some way you can…” Shrink yourself, perhaps, or something…
Before He Yi could finish, a flash of white light suddenly burst in his arms.
The warm, furry snow leopard he had been holding was replaced by a completely naked young man with skin smooth as cream.
That dazzling white light seemed to invade He Yi’s mind as well. His brain went utterly blank, as though it had crashed. In an instant, everything around him seemed to recede far away. Something pale filled his vision, but his eyes would not focus. Everything remained blurred, as though he had seen something and yet had seen nothing at all. Then his sense of smell vanished, his hearing disappeared, and even the sensation in his hands became faint and uncertain. His entire body, down to his eyeballs, seemed frozen and beyond his control.
He Yi’s eyes remained wide and unfocused. Several breaths later, it was as though he could smell a fragrance again. The voices in the distance gradually grew clear, and the people and objects in front of him sharpened into focus again.
As his awareness returned, a tremendous storm surged through his mind, battering his senses and everything he thought he understood.
He kept blinking, yet the sight in front of him did not change. It was still Xue Ci’s strikingly beautiful face, those clear and innocent gray-blue eyes, that certain spot red as a cherry, that slender, taut waist…
This was not an illusion?! Why had the snow leopard turned into Xue Ci?!
By then, the argument outside had already reached the other side of the door.
“How can you just walk into someone else’s courtyard?”
“Someone else’s courtyard? Wasn’t this residence granted by me to you? Which inch of this place isn’t mine?”
“In my eyes, he’s nothing but a child! Why are you picking a fight with a child? Hey, don’t open that!”
But the other person ignored him completely. Both hands pressed against the door panels. With a long creak, the bedroom door suddenly swung open.