Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Pei Mu returned to the village just as the sun dipped below the horizon.

He had brought back a large haul of game that day, and the tavern he went to happened to have customers who bought everything at once, saving him the trouble of going elsewhere.

In his hand, he carried an empty bamboo basket containing a small bundle. When he reached the shallow bank of the river, he took out the still-wet clothes from the bundle and crouched down to wash them.

At this hour, every household was having dinner, and no one was by the river. The clothes he wore were clean ones he had changed into before coming down the mountain; they were only damp, not dirty. After a quick wash, he headed back, and the sky was just beginning to darken.

His home was at the easternmost edge of the village, right at the foot of the mountain. Coming back from the town, he had to cross the entire village.

The village children grew up wild. A few restless little rascals, having finished their meals, were huddled under a courtyard wall catching crickets. Zhang Goudan, quick-eyed, caught one and was about to raise it in triumph when he suddenly spotted Pei Mu approaching.

Zhang Goudan’s excited yell died in his throat. Clutching the cricket tightly, he quickly nudged his playmates: “Run, run! The Jinx is coming.”

Pei Mu hadn’t noticed them at first, but Zhang Goudan’s movements were too big, and his voice too shrill.

He frowned and looked over, his already grim expression darkening further. The children screamed and scattered frantically, racing back to their homes.

Soon, from a few nearby houses came the sound of parents scolding their kids, mixed with a few indistinct curses.

Pei Mu coldly averted his gaze and quickened his pace, leaving the noise behind.

His house was still some distance from the village’s edge. As he passed the easternmost home, a young man’s voice called out from the courtyard, stopping him.

Pei Mu halted and looked through the wicker fence at the man striding over. “Ping’an Ge,” he greeted.

Wang Ping’an stepped out of the yard and patted him on the shoulder.

“You’re finally back. What took you so long up the mountain this time?”

Wang Ping’an was the son of Hunter Wang. Barely a year older than Pei Mu, he had married just last year. Unlike his father’s large build, Ping’an was shorter, with regular features and a kind face, clearly easygoing.

Up close, Ping’an noticed Pei Mu’s expression. “Who’s been bothering you now? Was it the Pei family…”

“No,” Pei Mu replied curtly. “The weather’s been good lately, plenty of game, so I stayed longer.”

“I see.” Ping’an glanced at his empty basket and smiled. “So you’ve already sold your haul? You haven’t eaten yet, have you? Your sister-in-law made fish stew tonight. Let’s have a few drinks.”

From the courtyard, Ping’an’s husband, Chen Xiaorong, poked his head out of the main room and waved. “Come on, Pei Xiongdi, the food’s ready.”

This couple was almost the only family in the village that Pei Mu could claim any connection with. Since they sincerely invited him, he didn’t stand on ceremony. “You two start eating. I’ll go change and be right over.”

Hearing this, Ping’an noticed that Pei Mu’s clothes were dusty, with a few bloodstains here and there—clearly the ones he wore while hunting in the mountains.

Ping’an knew Pei Mu was fastidious. Usually, when he went up the mountain for several days, he would bring a change of clothes. Understandingly, he laughed. “No wonder you looked grumpy. Forgot to bring a change this time? Go on, hurry up and change. We’ll wait.”

Pei Mu quickened his pace back to his place. After changing into clean clothes, his mood visibly improved. He hung up the clothes he had washed by the river, then fished out a bottle of liquor he had bought earlier from the cupboard and headed out to Wang’s house.

Wang Ping’an and his husband had no children yet. Hunter Wang had lost his wife years ago, and he himself had died the previous year when he encountered a bear while hunting in the mountains. So the dinner table held only the couple and Pei Mu.

Most of the conversation came from the couple—talk of domestic affairs, of mountain game and delicacies, and of village gossip.

Ping’an had a low tolerance for alcohol. After just a few sips, his face was already flushed. Though he hadn’t become a hunter, he was endlessly fascinated by the beasts and birds of the mountains. After chatting for a while, he suddenly remembered something and tapped his wine bowl with his chopsticks.

“Oh! You don’t know yet, do you? The Zhong family has someone here!”

Pei Mu looked up. “Which Zhong family?”

“There’s only one Zhong family in this village.” Ping’an took a bite of food and didn’t beat around the bush. He quickly recounted the events of the past few days, finishing with a sigh. “Old Master Zhong was in his prime—what a way to go like that?”

Pei Mu paused, holding his wine bowl, a dazed look on his face.

Ping’an downed the rest of his wine. As the alcohol took hold, his emotions slipped out of control.

Staring dazedly at the bottom of his bowl, he thought of his own father, who had died young, and muttered with red-rimmed eyes, “If only I had been more useful… If only I had gone up the mountain with Dad that day…”

Pei Mu snapped back to reality but didn’t know how to comfort him. He silently put down his bowl and patted him on the shoulder.

“Why bring that up again…” Chen Xiaorong snatched the wine bowl from Ping’an’s hand, stopping him from drinking more. He wanted to scold him, but instead wiped his own tears with a pang of heartache.

Ping’an had been frail as a child, often falling ill, and only improved somewhat as he grew older.

After his wife’s death, Hunter Wang had raised Ping’an alone. His son wasn’t cut out to be a hunter, so Wang had early on started planning for him. He scrimped and saved, and by the time Ping’an was old enough to stand on his own, he had bought him land, arranged a marriage, and set him up for a peaceful life without danger.

All this had drained Hunter Wang’s savings. The land he bought wasn’t much—five mu of paddy fields and six mu of dry land—enough for the couple to manage. So he continued hunting to save more, lest they go hungry if they had more children.

But no one expected the accident to come so suddenly. When Hunter Wang was carried out of the mountains, he was barely alive. His chest had been torn open by a beast’s claws. If he hadn’t happened to fall off a cliff, he might not even have left a complete corpse.

Hunter Wang didn’t even make it until the doctor arrived. At that time, the Wang family had just finished the wedding, and the newly bought fields had only just been planted. They were in a tight spot—couldn’t even afford a proper coffin.

Ping’an gritted his teeth and was about to sell the land when, at the critical moment, Pei Mu, who had just returned to the village from the border, stepped in. He provided money and labor, helping Ping’an give Hunter Wang a dignified burial.

Because of this debt of gratitude, no matter how the village gossiped about Pei Mu, Wang Ping’an and his husband always treated him like a younger brother.

Chen Xiaorong had been married into Willow Mountain Village for over a year and knew something of the Pei family’s past. He saw Pei Mu silently down a bowl of wine, perhaps thinking of Hunter Wang or his own heartless father.

By the time the meal ended, it was completely dark.

Pei Mu left as Ping’an was already dead drunk. Chen Xiaorong saw him out and insisted on giving him a jar of pickled vegetables.

In the dim moonlight, Pei Mu gazed silently at the distant mountains before heading back to his place.

Many of his childhood memories were already blurry—after all, they were mostly endless scolding and beatings, nothing new.

But he still remembered a young man who had given him a piece of sweet osmanthus cake. He was four years old then, had never tasted sweetness. When he licked the first bite, he thought he had eaten an immortal’s elixir. After two bites, he couldn’t bear to eat more and carefully hid it, but he was found out.

A pregnant woman angrily accused him of stealing money to buy the cake, while a man beside her cursed him. But he took advantage of their distraction to rush over and shove all the osmanthus cake laid out on the table into his mouth.

They went berserk, beat him half to death, and starved him for three days. But from then on, he knew: he wasn’t born with a lowly fate. He could eat good things and not die.

That cake was given to him, specially for him.

His thoughts returned to the present. Pei Mu looked at the pitch-black yard in front of him, pushed open the gate, and walked in. He groped his way to the kitchen and put the pickled vegetables inside.

This was the house he had built after returning to the village last year. He had torn down the old thatched shack and built three rooms of earth: one for the main hall, one for the bedroom, and one for storage. The kitchen was a separate structure, forming a smallish yard. The back yard, intended for raising livestock, was slightly larger but now empty. The whole place was cold and lifeless.

Pei Mu drew two buckets of water from the water vat in the kitchen and carried them to the yard, where he washed himself with cold water.

When Ping’an had mentioned the Zhong family earlier, he had already guessed the identity of the young man he had saved that morning. He had thought the man was just a relative from some family in the village, but unexpectedly, there were so many threads tying them together.

A debt repaid—he had eaten Old Master Zhong’s cake, and now he had saved his son. That evened things out.

After several days in the mountains, he naturally hadn’t slept well. Since there were no neighbors around, Pei Mu didn’t bother with propriety. He walked naked into the bedroom, collapsed onto the bed, and fell asleep without even drying his hair.

…

Early the next morning, just after sunrise, Zhong Yizhu climbed out of bed.

He tied his hair back with a hairband as he walked into the kitchen.

It was still early, and Zhong Yizhu was a bit drowsy, so he tied the hairband carelessly. He didn't fully wake up until he'd splashed cold water on his face. He checked his reflection in the water vat, then took off the hairband and retied it properly.

The kitchen had a window facing the yard. As the daylight grew stronger, Zhong Yizhu rinsed the rice, put it in the pot, and struggled to get the fire going.

Once the porridge was ready, he ate a bowl with some pickled vegetables, then left the rest on the stove to keep warm for Sun Yunniang to have when she got up.

Sun Yunniang was still recovering, so Zhong Yizhu had been lighting soothing incense for her at night to help her rest, worried that too much worry would harm her health.

The water in the vat was almost empty. Zhong Yizhu picked up the bucket and headed out to the river to fetch water.

For Zhong Yizhu, this hour was early enough—in the past, he might have still been asleep at this time—but in Willow Mountain Village, many people started working at the first rooster crow, so the village was already bustling.

The villagers were heading to the fields and the mountains, while those staying home were busy feeding pigs and chickens, sweeping, and washing clothes.

Zhong Yizhu carried the bucket through the village. Over the past few days, he had come to know many people. Occasionally, someone would greet him from behind a low wall, and he was good at remembering faces, calling them "auntie" or "uncle" in return, truly looking like someone determined to make a life in the village.

A kind auntie, seeing his slender arms and only one bucket, called out to him, saying her son could come by later to help him fetch water, otherwise it would take forever fetching one bucket at a time.

Zhong Yizhu smiled and politely turned down her offer. Water was needed every day; he couldn't rely on others' help every time. If it took a while, he would just spend more time and effort—it wasn't that difficult.

Since that day he fell into the water, this was Zhong Yizhu's first time coming to the river. He stopped, looked around for a moment, then cautiously approached the water to fetch it.

The bucket he was carrying wasn't very big, but once full, it was heavier than he had imagined. He struggled to lift it and gritted his teeth as he headed back to the old house.

Because all his attention was on the bucket of water, he didn't notice that the path back passed by Li Siniu's house, and naturally, he had no spare attention for the people staring at him.

In Zhang Guihua's yard, Zhang Tieniu's eyes followed the figure passing by outside, so intently that he didn't even hear Zhang Guihua calling him.

Zhang Guihua came out of the main room cursing, and seeing Zhang Tieniu's distracted look, she followed his gaze and recognized the retreating figure. That made her even angrier, and she grabbed the winnowing basket and hit him a few times with it.

"You good-for-nothing! Did my words go in one ear and out the other? I told you to stay away from that menace from the Zhong family—are you deliberately going against me?"

Zhang Tieniu only reluctantly looked away after being hit. "Mom, he's so beautiful. I've never seen such a handsome young man, not even among the girls."

Zhang Guihua whacked him hard on the head, but mindful of the neighbors, she grabbed him by the ear and dragged him inside, lowering her voice:

"I know you want to get married. I've already asked Matchmaker Tian to help you look. As for that Zhong boy, don't even think about it. Even without the rumors from before, he can't even carry a bucket of water. Are you going to marry him and just put him on a pedestal?"

But Zhang Tieniu wasn't listening to a word Zhang Guihua said. He had only seen the young man from a distance before, and then he had gone to work in town with his older brother for a few days. How was he to know the young man was so beautiful? One look and he couldn't get him out of his mind.

"Mom, I just like him. He's new to the village; he'll learn to do these chores as he goes along..."

Seeing Zhang Guihua still resolute, he remembered something and said urgently, "Mom, didn't you say the Zhong family now has twenty mu of paddy fields? If he marries me, he'll surely bring a few mu as dowry, right? And when his mother passes, those fields will all be ours. That's twenty mu of paddy fields!"

"Oh—well..." At Zhang Tieniu's words, Zhang Guihua's expression showed some hesitation.

Earlier, she had only thought of Zhong Yizhu as a menace and didn't want to get involved, so she hadn't considered this angle.

But now, thinking about it, what mattered more than reputation and character was having actual land? Besides, once he married into the family, he would just be the Zhang family's son-in-law—how much trouble could he cause?

Though her heart was already leaning toward the idea, Zhang Guihua still put on a reluctant air and said, "I'll discuss it with your father first. Don't say anything for now."