A dirt-covered figure suddenly appeared before Yun Ye, mouth gaping wide, white teeth seemingly ready to devour him, both hands stretched straight out. Yun Ye felt as if a nerve in his brain had snapped. If not for intense curiosity compelling him to stay conscious, he would have already fainted with foam at his mouth.
“Marquis, Madam sent me to deliver things to you. The ground was too hard—it took forever to dig through. I’m out of practice with this skill.”
Hearing these words, Yun Ye’s seven souls and six spirits finally returned to their proper places. That damned Huang Shu had scared him to death! Yun Ye realized he was about to wet himself again and quickly went to the back to relieve himself once more before feeling reassured.
“Marquis, didn’t you just urinate earlier? Why again?” Yun Ye glared darkly at Huang Shu. Not giving this clueless bastard a beating would really be letting himself down.
“Squat down.”
“Why?” Huang Shu was puzzled but obediently squatted down. Yun Ye pounced on him with punches and kicks, afterward feeling warm all over with an indescribable satisfaction.
“What did Madam send?” Yun Ye took the bundle and spread it open on the table. He was quite pleased—this was what marriage should be. A woman who knew what her husband needed most at any given moment—if you met one, marry her without hesitation. Yun Ye was now filled with this sense of happiness. What a wonderful wife! Mushroom powder, spiked arm guards, soft armor, a hand crossbow, a saw that could be hidden in one’s hair, a pair of warm boots that could spring out blades—oh, excellent, excellent! Spring Breeze Powder was there too, along with Old Sun’s anesthetic. With these items, Yun Ye felt he could handle even ghosts.
“You should go back. It’s not good for you to stay long. Just tell me where the tunnel is.”
Huang Shu tilted his head, shaking much dirt from his ear, and pointed to the corner of the wall. He wanted to speak but was roughly pushed by Yun Ye toward the hole. Once he entered the pit, Yun Ye moved over a rain-catching urn to cover the opening, then returned to his room. After donning all his equipment hidden behind the mosquito net, he rubbed his hands together and continued reading his *Book of Rites*.
“The way of Heaven and Earth: when cold and heat come out of season, there is disease; when wind and rain lack proper measure, there is hunger. Teaching is to the people as cold and heat; when teaching is not timely, it harms the world. Affairs are to the people as wind and rain; when affairs lack proper measure, there is no success. Thus when the former kings made music, it was to govern with law, and when done well, it manifested virtue.”
This theoretical framework was truly marvelous. It divided people into different ranks from the start, assigning them positions: some were “farmers,” some were “crops”; some were cultivators, some were seedlings to be cultivated. Receiving the “farmer’s” care was considered fortune, and one should be grateful to the “farmer,” thanking them for the universal blessing of sunshine and rain. At the end of this passage, Yun Ye picked up his brush, dipped it heavily in thick ink, and annotated in the margin: “This is the Theory of Baseness.”
He worked so hard to support the Academy precisely to reduce the number of servile people in the world and increase the number of self-reliant individuals. It was better for fate to rest in one’s own hands. In the Great Tang, he himself was an anomaly. No matter how much he tried to align with Tang people, he inevitably revealed differences everywhere. Once he taught all the Academy students to be like him, when strange people and strange matters increased, he himself would no longer seem strange. In the end, perhaps not being strange in this way would be what was truly strange.
Books didn’t need extensive reading—as long as one understood them, one would naturally remember. Like the passage just now—using it to satirize others in the future would seem so erudite! “You are a crop, your whole family are crops”—and the person being insulted might even be delighted about it.
Outside the window, the cold wind was fierce. Snow particles drilled through cracks in the window frame and fell onto the desk. Looking back at the brazier, Yun Ye sighed, used fire tongs to stoke the charcoal fire, poured the remaining fish soup into the braised fish, and set it on the rack to simmer. “Simmer tofu a thousand times, simmer fish ten thousand times”—when the meat was tender and bones soft, that would be the perfect time to eat. He poured the remaining bit of diaohu rice into the fish soup. Watching the steam rise and fish fragrance overflow, Yun Ye nearly had the urge to burst into song.
A cold night, a solitary lamp, a haunted house—what a harmonious environment! The crows had stopped cawing, having gone somewhere to hide from the wind and snow. Even ghosts wouldn’t choose such weather to venture out, would they?
Thinking of singing made him think of Na Rimu. Those simple phrases would be performed by Na Rimu with distinctive charm. That melon girl was becoming more and more appealing. He wondered how she and their daughter were doing on the grasslands. The grasslands must be covered in snow now. Surely the melon girl wasn’t hugging a lamb for warmth anymore? Then again, perhaps she was—in her bones she was a grassland person. If he went to see her now and found her sleeping with their daughter and a lamb together, he definitely wouldn’t be surprised.
The older he got and the more wives he had, the more delicate his feelings became. He dared not think of sealed memories—when he did, the fish soup boiled dry. Eating the slightly burnt diaohu rice, Yun Ye knew Heaven was punishing him.
After his midnight snack, Yun Ye paced around the small room. After confirming the floor was solid throughout, he turned his attention to the walls. Emperor Li’s choice of this particular room for him must have significance. During the day, he’d observed the entire abandoned residence and reached a conclusion: the buildings here had been deliberately demolished. Many beams lying on the ground were still new, their lacquer not yet cracked. Apart from Emperor Li, Yun Ye couldn’t think of anyone else with the audacity to dismantle an imperial garden. He tapped the walls inch by inch with his knife handle but discovered no hidden doors or the like. Yun Ye suddenly remembered that Gongshu Mu had disappeared for a period when no one knew his whereabouts. His son Gongshu Jia had even come to the Academy demanding his return. The old fellow had come back on his own after half a month, but no matter who asked where he’d been, the old man maintained an inscrutable and stubborn silence. Could the old fellow have been brought to the haunted house too?
Tomorrow he’d find a ladder to thoroughly examine the high roof. Having made this plan, Yun Ye began stringing silk threads throughout the room, hanging a small bell by his pillow. He swallowed a white pill, then placed a bit of mushroom powder beside the brazier. As soon as the fire in the brazier died out and the kettle stopped steaming, the mushroom powder would be roasted dry. If anything passed by, the movement would stir it into the air. Yun Ye hadn’t used much—though he’d taken the antidote, he still didn’t dare take risks. He didn’t want to catch a ghost only to go mad for a day himself.
If there really were ghosts and demons, keeping them in the Enchanted Forest would be a good choice. According to Yun Ye’s current thinking, if he kept adding to it, no one would be able to enter the Enchanted Forest—not even Yun Ye himself.
The blanket had a musty smell. Tomorrow he must roast it thoroughly over the brazier. Sleeping like this was pure torture. Forcing himself to sleep was a skill Yun Ye had learned in the old forests of Nanzhao. One couldn’t let oneself be dragged down by one’s own body. Sleep was actually a very important element. There were still two months ahead—who knew what he might encounter?
After Yun Ye fell asleep, many things actually happened. For instance, a large-headed ghost paced back and forth outside the window. A red tongue descended from above, stopping just over a foot away from Yun Ye’s head. In the distance, a woman sang, and a child cried with utterly emotionless wailing. Unfortunately, Yun Ye heard none of it. He slept soundly with the blanket pulled over his head.
The heavy thunder gradually stopped, the dark clouds disappeared, and the sky washed clean by heavy snow looked like black curtain cloth studded with countless pearls. A ray of cold moonlight fell before Yun Ye’s bed. A black ribbon twisted on the ground like a living thing, looking even more terrifying than a snake.
A one-man show performed too long becomes boring to anyone. The ribbon finally tired of dancing and coiled around the bed leg, unmoving. In the far distance, a rooster crowed. The ribbon seemed to want to escape but was blocked by Yun Ye’s silk threads. It apparently couldn’t take detours, repeatedly trying to touch the threads but stopping. When the rooster crowed for the third time, it collapsed dejectedly to the ground, seemingly losing all life force, reverting to the appearance of an ordinary sash.
When sunlight hit the window, someone knocked on the door. Yun Ye pulled open the door to find Duan Hong standing outside. Yun Ye immediately threw a punch at the fellow’s nose. He didn’t expect to actually hit him—Yun Ye had tried this countless times before and never succeeded. But this time, Yun Ye’s fist solidly smashed into Duan Hong’s nose. Yun Ye could even hear the sound of the nose bone breaking. Even an expert’s nose was soft; taking a heavy punch would flatten it.
Blood streaming from his nose, Duan Hong ignored his injury and asked Yun Ye in astonishment: “You slept through the night? Nothing strange happened?”
“Who says nothing happened? Last night I cooked a pot of diaohu rice and stewed several fish, taking care of both dinner and a midnight snack together. A dignified marquis having to cook, wash pots, and boil water himself—isn’t that strange enough? Waking up this morning to see my nemesis and exploding his nose—life’s greatest pleasure is nothing more than this. Who wouldn’t love such a day?”
Only then did Duan Hong remember his nose. He grabbed a handful of snow and stuffed it into his nostrils. With a pinch and lift of his hand, his flattened nose was restored to its prominent state. Yun Ye watched with great envy.
Duan Hong entered the room and carefully inspected it. The small room truly showed no abnormalities. He stuck his hand into Yun Ye’s bedding—there was still a trace of residual warmth. It appeared Yun Ye had indeed slept through the night in this room.
“Duan Hong, today bring me some paint. I’m planning to do some painting when I have nothing to do. Just reading the *Book of Rites* will make me stupid. That thing is simply poison for the human heart. Don’t let me avoid being killed by ghosts only to be poisoned to death by the *Book of Rites*. Bring more miscellaneous books too. If you have erotic painting albums, bring a hundred or so to relieve my boredom—that would be good.”
Duan Hong’s nose stopped bleeding—he’d used some good method, though he needed to keep pinching it upward. No injury was visible on the surface.
“This servant will naturally comply with the Marquis’s instructions, but regarding food, the Marquis must be understanding. You only have dried cakes—these are your portion for today.” Duan Hong pulled two dried cakes from his bosom and handed them to Yun Ye.
Yun Ye took them and tapped the two cakes against each other, producing a wooden clacking sound. Sighing, he said: “Go back and tell Her Majesty that if she doesn’t know how to make flatbread properly, she needn’t bother. We don’t need to do this between us. This is the same principle as Liu Bei weaving straw sandals for Zhuge Liang. My curiosity about this matter grows heavier and heavier. I will find the answer to this mystery.”