Chapter 96

Chapter 96

Rong Feng took Bian Hong through several dark caves he'd found, finally settling on the last one.

The saltpeter soil here was good, and deep inside, there was a narrow underground stream trickling gently—there was no better place than this.

Since Bian Hong seemed a bit scared of the dark, Rong Feng poured lamp oil into little stone hollows, dropped in wicks, and lit them up. The cave brightened enough that they could actually see each other.

Rong Feng also took the lamp over to the stream to check it out, worried some weird underground creature might sneak up and hurt Bian Hong when he wasn't looking. Luckily, there were only blind fish—pink or see-through—and duck-billed golden-line fish.

These fish only lived in the clear, dark waters. Rong Feng had tried them before—they were tasty—so he figured he'd catch a few and make Bian Hong some fish soup. It wasn't that he didn't think about other ways to cook them, like braising or steaming, but soup was the only thing he could half pull off.

As long as he remembered the salt.

Rong Feng reached into the water to grab the fish. They couldn't see him coming—in the dark, their eyes had long since shriveled away. But the second his big hands hit the water, the tiniest ripple tipped them off, and they flicked their tails and shot off.

Rong Feng gave it a shot and came up empty. He automatically glanced back at Bian Hong. Back in the day, if Bian Hong caught him failing at something like this, he'd come running over all excited, eyes shining, rolling up his sleeves to give it a go himself. And if he pulled it off, he'd spin around, holding up his catch, showing off to Rong Feng.

But now, Bian Hong just sat under the brightest lamp, staring blankly at the flame. The splash of the fish getting away seemed to snap him out of it, and he finally moved.

Not to help Rong Feng with the fish, though—he just lowered his head and quietly started looking for saltpeter soil.

Rong Feng got up, wiped his hands on his pants, grabbed the lamp, and trailed after Bian Hong, helping him haul water and mix mud, while Bian Hong packed the mud into a saltpeter pit, handful by handful.

Narrow at the bottom, wide at the top. He lined the base with stones and piled on a thick layer of grass to keep the saltpeter soil from touching the bottom, so water could drain through. For drainage, Bian Hong rigged up a thin bamboo tube at the bottom.

They'd prepped all this outside—Rong Feng chopped down a bunch of bamboo, and Bian Hong picked out a few good sections.

Next came digging out the saltpeter soil. The gold prospectors' fancy shovels finally came in handy. As he swung the shovel, Rong Feng figured fortune and misfortune were tangled up together, and what goes around comes around.

Bian Hong only dug about three inches down with his shovel. Rong Feng didn't need to be told—that depth was all you needed—so he did the same, working fast.

Bian Hong looked up. In the flickering light, he saw he'd only gathered a little saltpeter soil, but Rong Feng had already stacked up a big pile. And it wasn't just scooped up any which way—he'd also only taken the top ten centimeters, where the saltpeter content was richest.

He put down his shovel and went to dump the soil, packing it down. He poured the saltpeter soil into the pit slowly and evenly, and once it got to a certain height, he tamped it down as he went.

He did it all on autopilot. Even Bian Hong didn't know he remembered all this so clearly—his body moved ahead of his brain, checking off one step after another.

But he didn't want to think about why. He just blanked his mind and let his body do the work.

Then came the water. They waited for the saltpeter water to drip through the bamboo tube and pool in the little pit underneath. After that, they built a separate stove to boil the saltpeter water down and get the crystals.

Rong Feng was handy as hell. Before they even went into the cave, Bian Hong had told him they'd need to build a stove and burn a ton of firewood.

They couldn't bring the iron pot from home, so after Rong Feng finished the mud stove, he headed out and found a thin, tough stone with a deep dip in it, shaped like a big pot. Good enough.

When he hauled the stone pot back and dragged in a huge dead tree for fuel, he found Bian Hong alone in the cave, quiet and zoned out, like one of those blind fish—everything else shut off, only the saltpeter-making instinct left. Head down, numb and mechanical, he packed the saltpeter soil and splashed stream water over it.

Rong Feng watched for a long time, then set down what he was carrying, walked over, and gently took Bian Hong's hand while he was still out of it.

Bian Hong flinched hard at the touch, but Rong Feng didn't let go—he just held on tighter.

In the end, they both crouched in front of the stove. Rong Feng snapped the wood, stuffed it in, lit it, and kept feeding the fire. The smoke, mingling with the steam from the stone pot, was drawn deeper into the cave.

There was a draft inside—likely another exit somewhere far beyond. Rong Feng had no interest in exploring it. All his attention was on Bian Hong, crouched beside him by the fire.

In the days that followed, it was endless repetition. During this time, Bian Hong never once left the cave.

He would only say, after weighing the saltpeter crystals, "Not enough yet."

Rong Feng would nod and continue the inexplicable process alongside him.

He didn't pressure Bian Hong. He didn't question him. He just stayed with him.

Before long, Bian Hong began asking for sulfur and charcoal. Charcoal was easy to come by in the mountains, but sulfur was hard to find. So Rong Feng rode at full speed, leaving Mount Miemeng in the shortest time possible, reaching the nearest town. In the dead of night, he knocked on the blacksmith's door and bought all their stored sulfur.

Blacksmiths used it frequently for forging blades and smelting iron, but the quantity still wasn't enough. So he rode through the night to the old doctor's house, climbed over the wall directly, dragged the old man out of bed, and demanded sulfur.

Sulfur could be used in medicine, so the old doctor did have some stock. Though dressed only in his underclothes, he looked at Rong Feng's grim expression and dust-covered body by lamplight, asked no questions, and simply went to the cabinet to fetch it. Still not enough, but the old man only asked how much more Rong Feng needed.

Rong Feng gave a rough number. Without a word, the old man dressed, disappeared into the night, and returned with a sufficient quantity of sulfur for Rong Feng.

Rong Feng was deeply grateful, but time was pressing—he didn't want to leave Bian Hong alone on the mountain for too long. Bian Hong never left the cave, and Rong Feng didn't press him. But in the fragments of Bian Hong's hazy nightmares, he caught a few whispered words.

Something about the cave entrance, about guns, about not being able to get out.

So that night, after covering the lightly sleeping Bian Hong with a fur blanket, Rong Feng meticulously inspected the entrance and the nearby tunnels, not even missing the smallest cracks in the stone—yet he found no "guns."

Now, having obtained the sulfur, he hurried back. Before leaving, he turned and started to speak to the old doctor, but the old man seemed to understand and waved his hand dismissively.

"I'll just say the court urgently needs sulfur for the pest-repelling medicine powder distributed to farms. It's handed out endlessly—no one will notice. Don't worry."

Rong Feng pressed his lips together, gave a deep bow with clasped hands, and swiftly turned to leave.

The old man watched Rong Feng's hurried retreating figure under the dim moonlight, stroked his white beard, and sighed.

The little medicine boy, waking groggily in the middle of the night to relieve himself, saw his grandfather standing at the door, fully dressed, with a worried expression. He quickly asked, "Grandfather, why aren't you sleeping?"

The old man turned, took the child's hand, and walked slowly back inside. "When one grows old, one sometimes feels powerless. Come, let's go back to sleep with Grandfather."

Only then did the little medicine boy snap back to reality and stomp his foot. "No, Grandfather! I'm about to pee my pants!"

He had been searching for a latrine all night in his dream, and just as he opened the door and unbuttoned his pants, he woke up—stuck at the final moment. That's what had woken him up so abruptly.

The old man watched the little medicine boy scurry off and shook his head with a smile.

The small, delicate joys of human life—he savored them all, treasured them deeply.

After all, some people, in places unknown to others, were carefully guarding all of this.