I remember when my brother was renovating, my sister-in-law was already over three months pregnant. Since my brother was too busy with work to spare any time, the renovation was entirely entrusted to my mom and dad. My dad loved Ming and Qing Chinese vintage style, while my mom preferred a fusion of Mediterranean and Nordic. These two worked together for a full six months, and in the end, it even triggered my dad’s high blood pressure.
But the result was… well, hard to describe.
At any rate, when my sister-in-law finished her postpartum confinement and went to inspect it, she nearly broke down crying in front of my brother.
So renovation is truly a science, and also physical labor.
Therefore, I decided that now that both Deng Ying and I had almost recovered from our injuries before we started the major project of renovation, we should first organize some wellness sessions.
In modern times, I was quite incompetent in daily life.
Cooking relied entirely on semi-prepared foods, and laundry on washing machines.
But when it came to punk wellness, I could practically give several lectures in the Great Ming. Goji berries and dates, and foot soaking were nothing special. During my PhD years, the sisterhood in our department was particularly enthusiastic about wellness treatments. Although we grimaced in pain during massages, afterward, with shoulders loosened and back relaxed, it felt incredibly refreshing.
The massage industry in the Great Ming Dynasty was integrated with the bathing and barbering businesses in and around the capital and was already quite developed.
However, most practitioners were eunuchs like Deng Ying who had no official registration. Unable to enter the palace or household registries, they could only wander outside, making a living by giving back scrubs and massages.
In several wild temples outside South Lake, many eunuchs were running this business.
I felt that if I wanted to go, Deng Ying probably wouldn’t say anything, but I didn’t want to take him there.
So I could only have Yun Qing find me a copy of Wang Tingxiang’s “Essential Principles of Health Preservation” from Qingbo House. It had a chapter on “Massage” that, besides discussing self-wellness massage, also recorded a set of full-body health massage techniques—”Da Du Guan.”
Da Du Guan.
The name always sounded a bit strange, like some kind of mysterious martial art technique.
I sat on the bed studying it for three consecutive nights and finally gained some insights.
Perhaps because I was reading so seriously, Deng Ying thought I was reading some formal article, and was very restrained when turning pages while sitting beside me.
Our habit was to always sit on the bed before sleep and read a few pages.
To manage Qingbo House, I would read books about “bibliography studies,” while Deng Ying read very widely, sometimes engineering and construction methods, sometimes poetry and prose. When I got bored with my reading, I would use my foot to kick the blanket at his feet, exposing his feet too, and he wouldn’t scold me, just smile and put down his book, straighten up to tuck my feet back into the blanket.
But this time after I kicked off the blanket, I didn’t let him sit up.
Instead, I crawled out from under the blanket and sat at the foot of the bed.
Deng Ying leaned against the headboard, no longer reading his book, looking at me somewhat uneasily.
“Wan-wan, sitting like that you’ll get cold.”
With one hand holding my research notes and the other straightening Deng Ying’s toes, I carefully studied the soles of his feet against the acupoint diagram in my notes.
Deng Ying hurriedly propped himself up on the bed.
“Wan-wan… don’t look. Don’t look at my feet.”
As he spoke, he tried to pull his legs back.
I grabbed his pant leg and raised my voice: “Don’t run…”
Before I could finish speaking, I was pulled face-down by the force of his leg withdrawal.
Deng Ying quickly reached out to help me up, “Wan-wan, I’m sorry, are you hurt?”
I sat up with his help, tidied my messy hair, and asked him with crossed arms: “Why won’t you let me look?”
He lowered his head in silence for a while before finally saying: “I…”
“Are you embarrassed?”
Deng Ying didn’t deny it, looking at me and nodding: “They’re all scars, so I’m embarrassed to let you see.”
I sat cross-legged again and pointed to my knee, “Stretch it out.”
“Wan-wan.”
“Calling me won’t help, stretch it out.”
One particularly good thing about Deng Ying was that if I repeated something once, he would do it.
But although he moved his foot out from under the blanket, he didn’t dare place it on my knee. I didn’t want to waste more words, so I held his ankle, lifted his foot, grabbed half a blanket to cushion it, and slowly placed his leg on my knee.
Then I picked up my notes, “This is called home wellness treatment. Home therapist Xiao Wan’s first business, might be a bit nervous, if anything’s not quite right, just tell me directly, don’t endure it.”
Deng Ying looked at me in bewilderment, “What… sword, where is there a sword?”
He seemed afraid his foot’s weight would hurt me, constantly supporting his thigh with his hand.
His words made me laugh. While shaking my hands to relax my fingers, I said: “It’s what you call ‘tui na.’ Deng Ying, relax, otherwise, we’ll both easily get hurt.”
“Oh…”
He hesitantly released his hand, though his foot remained stiff.
By the lamplight, I matched my notes with the diagram and found the Yongquan acupoint on the sole of Deng Ying’s foot, pressing down hard.
Deng Ying’s body noticeably shuddered.
“Does it hurt?”
“Somewhat…”
“It should hurt!”
I suddenly recalled the tone of therapists giving wellness treatments back then and naturally imitated it.
“This acupoint, the Yongquan point of the foot, when pressed and it hurts, means you often have symptoms of headaches, insomnia, dry throat, tinnitus, and heart palpitations. It needs to hurt a bit.”
After speaking, I pressed hard again, but unexpectedly, Deng Ying burst out laughing.
“Wan-wan… it’s not pain, I just feel like laughing.”
“What?”
I instantly lost confidence in my technique, “You just feel like laughing?”
“Yes.”
Deng Ying still couldn’t stop laughing, his chest rising and falling gently as he spoke.
I suddenly felt dazed. Having known Deng Ying for so many years, through life and death, skin to skin, I don’t think I’d ever heard him laugh out loud so freely.
“Deng Ying, if I’d known this would make you laugh, why did I bother with everything else before? Direct wellness treatment would have been much better.”
As I spoke, I pressed his Yongquan point again.
Deng Ying quickly pressed my wrist, laughing: “Stop pressing, Wan-wan.”
How could I listen to him, “I’ve only pressed one acupoint, lie down properly, the next point will definitely hurt.”
Deng Ying said: “Doesn’t your hand hurt?”
“No.”
After speaking, I persistently went to find Deng Ying’s Dadu point.
Deng Ying didn’t insist anymore and propped himself up to lean back against the headboard, letting me roll up his underwear leg.
Obediently lying on the bed, desperately trying to hold back his laughter, letting me mess around with his feet while I force-fed him my flawed “wellness knowledge.”
Then we switched positions, I rolled up my pants and leaned against the pillow, stretching my feet out to completely relax.
Deng Ying wore his clothes loosely sitting at the foot of the bed, head down reading the few pages of foot wellness notes I’d written. He always did things much more carefully than me—even for foot massage, he wouldn’t act rashly.
He looked beautiful when seriously doing anything.
But what I loved most was seeing him sitting steadily beside me, not feeling anxious even in simple clothing.
“Wan-wan.”
“Yes?”
After he’d studied enough, he lifted my ankle, “I’ll try to find your Du Yin point, see if it’s correct.”
“Okay.”
I have to say, that Deng Ying’s technique was much better than mine. He found the acupoints precisely—one press nearly sent me to heaven.
I covered my mouth to avoid crying out, afraid of scaring him from continuing, but tears still streamed down uncontrollably. Deng Ying was single-mindedly dealing with my Du Yin point, and when he looked up again, I was already in tears.
He quickly released his hand, “Wan-wan… I…”
“It’s fine.”
I wiped away tears, crying and laughing: “Master Deng, you’re amazing.”
These wellness sessions, under our joint research, later became more and more refined, gradually developing into shoulder and neck relaxation and limb stretching.
On Deng Ying’s somewhat hard plank bed, we finally began living life happily.
I couldn’t teach Deng Ying to view his body through postmodern deconstructionist theory, to dissolve the unnecessary shame in his heart.
But through acupoints, meridians, muscles, bones… these tangible things, I could accompany him in getting to know his body anew.
I’m very grateful that although I’m a historical research worker, I never gave up exploring other disciplines within the humanities.
I admit I have a superficial humanity, but my theoretical level hasn’t reached the point where I can discuss “concepts.” However, for Deng Ying, this was the most suitable and harmless approach.
Of course, these wellness sessions didn’t end there.
Later, I imitated some creative ideas from modern Taobao and embroidered a pair of socks with acupoint markers for Deng Ying to wear.
This kind of earthy wellness method had been scorned many times by my brother in the twenty-first century, but Deng Ying was really funny—not only did he wear them, but he very seriously corrected the positions of the acupoints on the socks, helping me improve them. Later I embroidered another pair to give to Yang Lun.
When Yang Lun saw those socks at the Yang residence, his mouth visibly twitched.
“What is this thing?”
“Foot wellness socks.”
“What?”
“Just a little creation, wearing them helps you locate the acupoints for foot massage accurately.”
Yang Lun waved his hand in disgust, “Looks too strange, Yang Wan, take them back yourself.”
When Yang Lun said this, he looked at the socks with complete disdain, his expression almost identical to my real brother’s.
I had to take the socks back and tell Deng Ying that Yang Lun wouldn’t wear them.
Deng Ying took them back and stored them very carefully, telling me that when one pair wore out, he would wear the other pair.
Isn’t it amazing?
My peculiar taste from the twenty-first century could still be retrieved by Deng Ying in the Great Ming Dynasty six hundred years ago, and he helped me preserve it.
The first four years, writing observation notes, participating in palace struggles, witnessing human suffering—it was a bit too awful. I was also bent over, endured torture, and many joys temporarily disappeared.
However, now everything has passed, and Deng Ying survived.
Gently staying by my side, so it seems I can find my happiness again.