The next day, there were still two days left before quarantine ended.
He Yi had been idling in the room for a long while when Wu Yundi finally came to see him. He had no idea Wu Yundi was inwardly wondering how He Yi could be so patient. For two whole days, He Yi had not gone looking for him even once, not even to chat and build rapport.
The day before, Wu Yundi had received the information his runners gathered and learned that He Yi was actually a native of Chongzi Village. Although Chongzi Village was a mixed-surname village, the He family had migrated there during He Yi’s grandfather’s generation. Only his grandfather had come from elsewhere. The rest of the He family either came from neighboring villages or were native to Chongzi Village.
The most noteworthy piece of information, unexpectedly, concerned He Jie, that troublesome subordinate of Wu Yundi’s. He Jie was actually He Yi’s younger paternal cousin. Wu Yundi had also heard that the two did not get along. Before the household split, He Yi had pinned He Jie down and beaten him. The villagers had spread the story so dramatically that quite a few people were afraid of He Yi, reasoning that if he could beat He Jie, he had to be even more ferocious than He Jie.
Wu Yundi, however, found himself appreciating He Yi somewhat after hearing this. Looking at He Yi’s gentle, refined bearing, he had never imagined the man might actually be a better fighter than He Jie. If the story had not simply grown in the telling, Wu Yundi genuinely felt the urge to recruit him.
He had also figured something else out: why He Yi had helped him in the first place. He Yi did not seem like the warmhearted sort, yet he had stepped forward at the time and sided with Wu Yundi despite apparently never having eaten camel meat. He had probably wanted to make Wu Yundi’s acquaintance so that he would have some leverage against He Jie.
He Yi watched Wu Yundi fall silent the moment he entered. His gaze appeared to rest on He Yi, but it was clearly focused on thoughts somewhere beyond him. He Yi was not vain enough to imagine Wu Yundi had developed any particular interest in him, but he still felt somewhat uncomfortable.
He therefore intended to break the silence himself. Before he could speak, however, Wu Yundi suddenly asked, “A few days ago, did you hear any strange noises coming from the roof?”
He Yi froze for a moment. “Which night?”
“The night you first arrived at this teahouse.”
He Yi immediately lowered his eyes and thought over why Wu Yundi might be probing him. It seemed the Patrol Inspector had probably heard the commotion he and Xue Ci made that night. He had no idea how much of what happened in the room Wu Yundi had overheard afterward.
He tapped his fingertips casually against the table and decided to play dumb. “I think so? I thought I was imagining it.”
Wu Yundi’s searching gaze moved over He Yi. “What do you think the sound was?”
“I couldn’t hear it clearly. Does someone in town keep cats? Maybe somebody’s cat made the noise while crossing the roof.”
Wu Yundi immediately felt the question was difficult to pursue. This had not been a very good opening. His probe was not sharp enough, and He Yi had deflected it with hardly any effort.
In the end, Wu Yundi got nothing useful out of him and left.
Finally, the day the quarantine ended arrived…
He Yi learned that anyone in good health could leave Qingfeng Teahouse. Of everyone who had been quarantined, only one person was still bedridden with abdominal pain. Everyone else was free to go home.
Since everything was fine, He Yi planned to find Wu Yundi, thank him, and say goodbye. But before Wu Yundi finished with his work, Xue Ci arrived first.
He Yi spotted that olive-green figure at a glance. By now, it could not have been more familiar to him, so he strode toward Xue Ci, who was waiting outside the entrance.
“What brings you here? Are you picking up your foreign-resident papers today?”
Xue Ci nodded and took the papers from his carrying bag to show him, expectation plain on his face.
He Yi gave them a quick glance, then helped Xue Ci put the papers back into the bag. When he looked up and found Xue Ci visibly disappointed, he could not help asking, “Why that expression? Did you want me to teach you how to read the papers?”
“Yes. I can’t understand them by myself.”
“There are too many people watching here. Papers this important shouldn’t be taken out in a place like this. I’ll go over them with you once we’re home. By the way, Brother Tang didn’t come with you?” He Yi looked around but saw no sign of Tang Huai.
“He had someone bring me here by ox cart. The cart is still waiting by the town archway.”
“Then let me say goodbye to the Patrol Inspector and I’ll go home with you. Wait here for me a moment.” He Yi turned around to go find Wu Yundi.
But the instant he turned, he saw Wu Yundi walking toward them from not far away.
When Wu Yundi saw He Yi and Xue Ci standing together, a memory surfaced. The sight felt familiar, as though he had seen the two of them together somewhere before. Then he remembered. On the day he first arrived in Guluo Town, he had looked out through the carriage window and seen them walking together.
But now, as he drew closer, Xue Ci’s unusual gray-blue eyes caught his attention. Wu Yundi froze for a good while inwardly, though nothing showed on his face. He merely exchanged the usual pleasantries. “And this is…?”
“Patrol Inspector, this is Xue Ci. Xue Ci, this is the town’s Patrol Inspector.”
Xue Ci did not know that he was supposed to bow with clasped hands when meeting the Patrol Inspector. Afraid he might cause offense, He Yi could only explain for him. “Xue Ci only recently obtained his foreign-resident papers. He isn’t familiar with our customs or etiquette. If he causes any offense, please forgive him, Patrol Inspector.”
“It’s fine.” Wu Yundi waved a hand.
Wu Yundi looked calm on the outside, but his thoughts were anything but. So there really was a foreigner. It simply was not He Yi, but the person He Yi had called “family,” the handsome but taciturn young man beside him. The silence made sense too. Perhaps Xue Ci simply did not speak the local language well. Then that night, had the two of them really been talking in a foreign language?
He Yi had also mentioned foreign-resident papers. Was Xue Ci planning to settle here? If he were a spy, he probably would not bother with something so unnecessary. Foreigners faced too many restrictions and attracted too much suspicion. It would be difficult for one to accomplish much of anything.
He Yi was wary even of his own cousin, who worked as an official runner. A foreigner seeking protection would hardly choose an ordinary commoner like He Yi, who had neither status nor influence and could offer little help. Seen that way, perhaps the reason the two had met secretly at night was not nearly as complicated as Wu Yundi had imagined…
As He Yi thanked him once more and prepared to leave with Xue Ci, Wu Yundi gave He Yi a meaningful sidelong look, patted him on the shoulder, and said, “If you run into trouble, come find me at the Patrol Inspector’s Office. If it’s something I can help with, I’ll help.”
He Yi was immediately delighted. He bowed with clasped hands. “Thank you, Patrol Inspector. To receive such words from you, I, He Yi, am truly fortunate.”
Wu Yundi waved a hand and went back into the teahouse first.
The smile on He Yi’s face would not fade for quite a while. He glanced at Xue Ci, draped an arm over his shoulder, and said, “Come on. Let’s go home.”
Xue Ci did not know why He Yi was so happy, but the mood infected him too. The corners of his lips curved slightly as they headed together toward the town archway.
*
Back in Chongzi Village, the days were peaceful and busy.
He Yi did not feel tired, though. He had to build the house, tend the fields, and supervise Xue Ci’s studies, but with the great weight finally lifted from his heart, he was full of energy. Even the nearby uncles and aunties would ask whether something good had happened whenever they saw him.
He Yi could only say no, the weather had simply been good, and both the cotton and rice were growing well.
“Well, for people like us who rely on the weather for our living, that really is good news! Plenty of sunshine, with a little rain now and then. If only we could have more days like this.”
“Exactly.”
Pest outbreaks would become common in the sixth and seventh months. It was now late in the fifth month, and most villagers had begun preparing “pest-control solution” to spray over their fields, hoping to prevent the crops from being overrun by insects and disease later on.
He Yi learned the formulas from the villagers. To prepare a scallion-and-garlic solution for aphids and root rot, he went to the peddler and bought quite a lot of garlic and scallions. His savings had already been meager, and now he could practically see the bottom of them.
That forced He Yi to make earning money his top priority once pest control was dealt with.
Besides the scallion-and-garlic solution, he took Xue Ci up the mountain to gather mugwort. They spent more than half a day pulling it and only managed to fill four or five baskets, leaving He Yi with the impression they had practically stripped the lower slopes and mountainside of Yaluo Mountain bare.
Mugwort solution could help control cotton aphids, caterpillars, and similar pests. The preparation was simple: chop fresh mugwort into pieces, add more than ten times as much water, and boil it for about half an hour. Once it cooled, it could be sprayed over the cotton plants with a clay sprayer.
The scallion-and-garlic solution was sprayed over both the cotton fields and the rice paddies. Finally, He Yi prepared the most commonly used plant-ash water and sprayed it over the tillering rice seedlings.
The village had only limited ways to deal with pests. He Yi could do little beyond following the methods everyone had used in the past. Once he had done everything he could, the rest was up to the weather.
His household had eight mu of land, with only him and Xue Ci to manage it. Most of the time, He Yi handled the majority of the work himself. Only when he truly could not keep up, or needed another pair of hands, would he pull Xue Ci in to help.
The rest of the time, he tried to leave Xue Ci to his studies. Xue Ci, however, did not like keeping his head down and writing on his own. He had too many questions, so he often followed He Yi into the fields carrying books, paper, and writing brush so he could ask for explanations. With no other choice, He Yi built a small shelter in a corner of the field where Xue Ci could sit and write. Xue Ci would save his questions until He Yi took a break. The less convenient part was that there was no table or chair, so Xue Ci could only bend over a bench to write, which looked terribly uncomfortable.
Even that could not dampen Xue Ci’s enthusiasm for learning, and He Yi could only admire him. He even considered that if a private school would accept someone with foreign-resident status, then letting Xue Ci attend proper lessons and study systematically would be the right path.
Preparing and spraying the herbal solutions took more than five days altogether. Once all that work was finally finished, He Yi rested for two days before immediately starting on the bamboo fence around the vegetable garden. He also transplanted Boston ivy onto the fence. Not only would they make it look better, they could help block some of the dust, sand, and gravel kicked up while the house was being built.
Xue Ci’s yao herb was growing safely in the vegetable garden. He Yi kept worrying whether it was wise to plant something so miraculous and valuable right out in the open. Xue Ci said it was fine, but He Yi still rigged up an “alarm” by tying a whole string of pottery shards to hemp cord and hanging it up at night.
The idea was sound enough, but whenever the wind picked up at night, the shards clinked and clattered. He Yi kept getting tricked into rushing outside only to find nobody there at all. It was always just the wind. Eventually, he tore the useless contraption down and replaced it by setting sharpened stone flakes into the ground at the vegetable garden entrance as a crude deterrent.
“I can hear what’s happening outside, and I can smell people too,” Xue Ci said seriously again when he saw that He Yi still could not put his mind at ease.
“You still have to sleep.” The yao herb was bound to Xue Ci. How could He Yi possibly treat its safety casually when he did not even know whether something happening to it might affect Xue Ci? Even setting that aside, the yao herb’s dew itself was a miraculous substance capable of curing all illnesses. It was extraordinarily precious. If it truly disappeared, He Yi knew he would never sleep peacefully again.
Unfortunately, He Yi had relied too heavily on modern technology in his previous life. When it came to such finicky, primitive designs, his mind was completely blank. He could not think of a solution and could not even make a simple “alarm.”
“I can sense the yao herb. I can feel what condition it’s in. If someone pulls it up and takes it away, I’ll risk my life to get it back.” Xue Ci grew unusually serious, and the murderous look in his eyes was actually rather handsome.
For some reason, He Yi finally felt reassured. After that, he stopped fussing with all these pointless contraptions.
He Yi had originally planned to get back to tamping work on the house, but then he remembered he needed to bring in some money first. He had considered improving the oil mill’s vertical oil press, but to persuade the owners to adopt his design, he first needed to build a model. That brought up the cost of making the model, so the idea would have to wait.
After thinking it over, He Yi looked at Xue Ci, who could turn into a snow leopard and was formidably strong, and decided that a trip into the mountains to hunt some medium-sized game should not be too difficult. The Zheng family had helped manage his fields for so many days. If they caught a few smaller animals as well, he could use them to return the favor.
“I’m counting on you, Xue Ci.”
“No problem!”
“If we make money, I’ll buy you new books.”
“!!”
So He Yi simply asked Uncle Zheng to keep an eye on his fields for another two or three days, then took Xue Ci deep into the mountains.