When He Yongxing and Zeng Qianqian found He Yi’s house, the shock on their faces was indescribable. They stared at the white walls and dark roof tiles arranged in pleasing tiers, at the unusual layout and decorations. There was no way a house like this had been thrown together by casually asking villagers for help.
They scrutinized it from every angle until their eyes nearly bulged, but could find no flaw to pick at. Then He Yi came walking toward them, and they had no choice but to accept that this was indeed his home.
He Yongxing hated nothing more than being disregarded. In an instant he forgot their plan from yesterday: first win sympathy with a pitiful display, then invoke their seniority and blood ties to pressure He Yi. Instead, he launched straight into a scolding.
“You put your older cousin in prison, and you still have the leisure to sit here eating congee? Is that any way to greet your eldest uncle and aunt?!”
He Yi turned and beckoned Xue Ci to bring over his bowl. Xue Ci understood the gesture at once, came over, and put it in his hands.
Holding the bowl, He Yi slowly drank two mouthfuls of congee. His thoughts drifted to its flavor. Perhaps it was because the rice was freshly harvested, but with nothing more than a little salt and a drizzle of beaten egg, it tasted smoother and better than the congee he had made before.
Being ignored so thoroughly made He Yongxing’s eyelid twitch with rage. Only Zeng Qianqian’s grip on his arm stopped him from marching forward and knocking the bowl out of He Yi’s hands.
“You come into another person’s home and treat your host like that. Isn’t the fact that I haven’t thrown the two of you out already a concession to your being my eldest uncle and aunt?” He Yi smiled, although the smile did not reach his eyes.
“You!” He Yongxing jabbed a finger at him, almost thrusting it into his face.
He Yi did not so much as move an eyebrow. He spread his hands. “Well, you just said I personally sent He Jie to prison, didn’t you? Of course I’m in the mood to enjoy my breakfast. What else should I do, fret and fume like the two of you?”
“You beast!” He Yongxing raised a fist to strike him, but Zeng Qianqian was exceptionally composed today. She clung to her husband and shook her head desperately. He Yongxing was too enraged to care. With one violent sweep of his arm, he sent his own wife tumbling to the ground.
“Stop getting in my way!” he snapped. Furious and unwilling to swallow his pride and help her up, he turned scarlet and began cursing again to change the subject.
Zeng Qianqian staggered upright. Her pale clothing was stained with dirt, and her hair had come loose. She tried to straighten it, but it remained a mess.
He Yi regarded them sidelong, his gaze still as an ancient well. He did not want to risk another physical confrontation. To the villagers, someone who struck an elder was in the wrong, regardless of who started it or whether he had been driven to defend himself. Most people would refuse to take his side. He would be condemned endlessly and brought up as a cautionary example whenever anyone wanted something to gossip about.
So He Yi leaned close to Xue Ci’s ear and quietly asked him to fetch the big goose. At this hour it should have finished escorting the piglets back to their pen.
He Yongxing was infuriated to see them whispering together as though no one else were there. He was just about to let fly another spiteful remark when Zeng Qianqian spoke first. “Jie’er is foolish, but he isn’t bad at heart. We spoiled him, that’s all. He was so obedient when he was little. Blame the two of us if you must, all right? Jie’er is innocent, really! I’m certain he’s realized his mistake. Exile is too harsh a sentence, much too harsh…”
Xue Ci headed for the goose pen, listening with his ears pricked up. He was intensely curious.
He Yi folded his arms and leaned against the wall to watch the two of them perform.
Zeng Qianqian even gritted her teeth and knelt. “Whatever you feel toward us, you shouldn’t take it out on Jie’er! How about this? You can have the ancestral house. Life in town isn’t nearly as splendid as people imagine, but if we scrape together what we have, we should still be able to raise ten taels of silver. He Yi, please take it! Then don’t pursue the matter of Jie’er any further. Speak to the patrol inspector and ask him to be magnanimous and withdraw his judgment!”
He Yi had thought she might offer some actual words of remorse. Apparently he had expected too much. His eldest aunt was as adept as ever at the logic of a robber.
Leaving aside whether he could overturn a patrol inspector’s ruling, there was the matter of those ten taels…
He Yi glanced at He Yongxing’s knees. He Yongxing immediately averted his eyes and pretended not to notice.
It was almost funny. What made them think they could still compel him through their status as elders? At least Zeng Qianqian seemed prepared to swallow her pride. As for the man beside her, even if he knelt, He Yi would not think any better of him.
“If He Jie is such a wonderful son, why is he only worth ten taels? That’s barely enough to buy an ox.” He Yi seldom resorted to sarcasm, but facing these two, he could hardly help himself.
Zeng Qianqian had already gone so far, and He Yi remained unmoved. She began to realize that she was dealing with someone genuinely unyielding. Her confidence ebbed, replaced by a deep fear that the matter might prove impossible to resolve.
He Yongxing, on the other hand, took heart. He thought He Yi must simply be complaining that the offer was too small. That meant they had found the right approach! The household was nowhere near as poor as they claimed. They could produce seventy or eighty taels without difficulty, and with a little more scraping could even come up with one or two hundred.
But he had absolutely no intention of letting He Yi have so much. It would be practically the death of him.
Just then Xue Ci arrived with the goose. He set it down in front of He Yi, where it thrust out its chest, spread its long wings, and honked furiously at He Yongxing and Zeng Qianqian.
Zeng Qianqian was still kneeling, putting her face particularly close to the goose’s beak. She was so frightened that the tears she had been holding back burst out for real. She scrambled upright and hid behind He Yongxing.
Xue Ci exchanged a glance with He Yi, triumph sparkling in his glacier-blue eyes.
The irritation in He Yi’s heart seemed to smooth away. A faint smile escaped him, vanishing almost as soon as it appeared.
He Yongxing was afraid of the goose too. Having grown up in a village, he knew perfectly well how fierce geese could be. He retreated half a step but continued stubbornly. “Money is negotiable. Just tell us whether you can get He Jie out!”
“How difficult could that be? If I could have him put in prison, naturally I could have him brought out. I’d only need to say a word to the patrol inspector. Very easy.”
Hearing this, He Yongxing and Zeng Qianqian fixed on He Yi with the ravenous intensity of wolves and tigers. Hope and tears glimmered in their eyes, and their bodies shook uncontrollably.
But He Yi abruptly changed tack. “I can do it. I simply don’t want to.”
One sentence sent the couple plunging from heaven to earth. Their eyes widened with fury and disbelief.
“You! You beast! No, you’re worse than a beast! He Jie showed you mercy. Otherwise you wouldn’t be standing here! He was kind to you, and you repay him with such cruelty? Can you even call yourself human?” He Yongxing hurled such a rapid volley of coarse abuse that he nearly bit his tongue.
Zeng Qianqian’s legs went weak. Even clinging to He Yongxing, she could barely stand, and the two almost fell over together.
He Yongxing violently flung her hand aside. “Always getting in the way! You really can’t count on a woman to be useful!”
For all his contempt for Zeng Qianqian, he himself was nothing but bluster. He was arrogant, but the goose was more arrogant still. Each time He Yongxing insulted He Yi, it leaped up and savagely pecked the tender flesh beneath his ribs.
That was an excruciating place to be pecked. He Yongxing sprang into the air, hissing and yelping in pain.
He Yi could scarcely be bothered to refute He Yongxing’s twisted account of events. He drew a quiet breath and said in a low voice, “I haven’t even settled the score with you for killing my father and harming my mother. And now you expect me to save your precious son? You really are something. Do you honestly still think I’m easy to bully?”
He Yongxing and Zeng Qianqian stared at him in horror, struck speechless.
Xue Ci was shocked too. He Yi had never spoken to him about his parents, and Xue Ci had not known there was such a history. Sensing the sadness gathering around He Yi, he looked at him with concern. When he turned toward He Yongxing and Zeng Qianqian, his gaze held open hostility.
The couple would never admit it. Whether or not He Yi had evidence, they regarded themselves as no more than accomplices. Besides, what good would an admission do other than anger him? After this confrontation, any hope of changing He Jie’s fate would disappear.
Frantic, they could only insist that they had no idea what He Yi was talking about.
He Yi loathed them utterly. He had no desire to waste more words or have the circumstances of the original body’s parents become village gossip. Villagers had begun gathering nearby, watching furtively.
So he said, “Get out of my house, and never appear before me again. Otherwise I won’t mind sending someone to pay my dear cousin a visit in his cell. Perhaps then you won’t have to worry about his exile at all.”
His meaning could hardly have been clearer. After delivering that mild threat, He Yi turned toward the house. When he passed Xue Ci, he reined in his anger, touched Xue Ci’s earlobe, and signaled for him to follow.
Xue Ci glanced back at the two people blocked by the goose. He did not miss the hatred on their faces, but soon looked away and ran after He Yi.
Zeng Qianqian stood silent for a long time. It was not that she felt nothing. Tears were already running down her face. Despair, shame, helplessness, and all manner of conflicting emotions pressed so heavily on her that she could scarcely breathe.
All she could say was, “It’s retribution… In the end, retribution has caught up with us…”
He Yongxing was so frantic that he could barely catch his breath. His head swam with rage and distress.
It had not been long since He Yi’s ordeal, and the villagers remained keenly interested in what happened at his house. They recognized He Yongxing and Zeng Qianqian. The pair had had a dreadful reputation even before they moved away, constantly looking down on others. Everyone could guess why they had come.
“Your own son did something like that, and you still have the nerve to come here and shout at He Yi! You haven’t even apologized! What’s this? You dare do harm but won’t admit it? Your son is allowed to hurt people, but his victims aren’t allowed to fight back?”
“I’ve been sick of the sight of you for ages! Remember how you used to bully the neighbors? You plowed right over the boundary of our field. When we pointed it out, your precious He Jie trampled our seedlings in the middle of the night and refused to admit it! We wouldn’t do something so rotten as destroying another family’s grain, so we never retaliated. Hah! You want to know what they mean when they say heaven repays every deed? This is it!”
Once one person spoke up, more and more voiced their grievances. The couple could not withstand so many angry voices, especially when some villagers arrived carrying hoes and sickles. Terrified, they ran for the village entrance. One of them fell sprawling on the way but had to scramble up and continue fleeing toward the ox cart ahead.
Old Man Cen happened to turn around from the cart. Seeing who was running after him, with a crowd of villagers in pursuit, he faced forward again. Not only did he refuse to stop, he even cracked the whip to make his ox go faster.
The couple failed to catch the cart. With villagers still guarding the entrance, they could not even return to the ancestral home for refuge. There was no turning back. They had to trudge to town with their heads hanging, a walk of three shichen, or six hours.
He Yi knew nothing about any of this at the time. He only learned what had happened after he went inside when the Zheng family told him about it later. He could not help laughing at the story.
Returning to the present, He Yi sat down on a long wooden bench in the main hall and called Xue Ci over to sit as well.
“Let’s talk,” he said.