Ning Yi didn’t have much confidence in his current body, but having trained for a few months now, waking up with a slightly dizzy head felt normal enough; pushing open the door and letting the breeze hit him cleared his mind quickly.
It was still before dawn, the whole city of Jiangning shrouded under a dark sky, though daybreak was near—looking out from the second floor, the Su estate included, scattered points of light flickered here and there across the near and distant city. In the neighboring courtyards, early-rising servants were already moving about, their voices faintly audible. Farther off, beyond the courtyard walls, streets still sunk in shadowy outline showed the hazy glow of house lanterns.
In the small two-story building across the way, warm yellow lamplight spilled out through the lattice windows, casting a cozy glow over the courtyard. The three young maids were always early risers, while Su Tan’er’s own hours varied, but this morning she appeared to already be up—her silhouette visible through the upstairs window, sitting before a mirror doing her hair, with the maid’s shadow bustling back and forth in front of her. As Ning Yi came down the stairs, Juan’er happened to be crossing the corridor toward that other building; she gave a slight curtsy and a soft greeting. “Good morning, young master.”
“Morning, Juan’er.”
Just then, a window opened in a room downstairs, revealing Xiao Chan’s busy face inside. “Young master, don’t come down—I’ll bring the water up.”
“Ha, no need to trouble yourself, I can manage on my own.”
The Su household had a large central kitchen, so neither of these two small buildings had its own separate cooking kitchen, but the small room downstairs did have a spot for heating water and washing up, since anyone wanting a proper hot bath in winter would need a fire going under the tub, which made an upstairs bathroom impractical. Xiao Chan had by now grown used to Ning Yi’s habit of rising early to exercise, and had meant to carry the hot water up herself, but Ning Yi had already come downstairs. As a modern man, he didn’t mind small details like heating his own water. A few days earlier, having come down and found himself waiting idly for the water to heat, he’d crouched by the stove out of boredom, feeding it firewood, which had left Xiao Chan quite flustered. At the dinner table that day, Su Tan’er had even remarked, delicately, “Husband, you needn’t do such things.” Xiao Chan had stood off to the side with her head lowered as if she’d done something wrong, though Ning Yi had only laughed it off, saying it was no trouble.
There was no need to deliberately show off his eccentricities, and anything that truly ran against custom he wouldn’t do—but neither did he need to force himself into becoming some perfectly proper “ancient person” through and through. Otherwise, what would be the point of living out this life here at all?
If everyone truly was going to muddle along together for years to come—if there really was a chance of the two of them becoming a proper husband and wife—then on these small matters, rather than restraining himself, it made more sense to let the other person gradually adjust and come to understand him. So on the many little points that didn’t really matter, he’d let himself be, which was why he wouldn’t mind stepping into the kitchen now and then to stoke a fire. It was also why, in the classroom, he’d tell the students little stories and bits from his own life—that habit wasn’t going to change either. Occasionally slipping in a modern turn of phrase that others wouldn’t fully understand—no need to worry too much about that either.
In front of that old man Qin, he could even venture the occasional forward-thinking idea, even something faintly unorthodox—no harm in that. The old man had once been an official, was worldly and thoughtful, and didn’t sweat the small stuff. They were just chess companions with no stake in each other’s affairs; as the old man himself had implied, having married into a merchant family, Ning Yi’s own path to advancement in rank or reputation was practically closed off anyway. Perhaps this was exactly what it meant for a friendship between gentlemen to be as plain as water; over all this time playing chess, Old Qin had been sizing him up, and he’d been doing much the same in return.
Since a friendship like that was worth having, none of it mattered much. Occasionally dropping a slightly ahead-of-its-time idea and watching the other man fall into thought was, honestly, rather satisfying to his vanity—for him it was nothing more than idle chatter, since these ideas weren’t new to him at all, just phrased differently. Anything truly sensitive, of course, he wouldn’t touch.
He brushed his teeth and washed his face downstairs—toothbrushes and tooth powder already existed in this era, though the taste left much to be desired—then left the courtyard, taking the side path out through the side gate. Along the way roosters had already begun to crow, and a faint white light was showing in the east. He occasionally passed maids or stewards from other courtyards, who called him “young master” and exchanged a greeting.
Once outside the Su estate, he jogged along his usual route as before, mulling over what he might talk about in class that day, and thinking too of some Chinese-style songs he still remembered. He’d already forgotten some of them, and they might not fit the literary style of this era, but entertainment here was so scarce that it occurred to him it might be worth writing down the lyrics of the songs he still remembered before he forgot even more of them as time went on. After a while his thoughts drifted to classical poetry—he hadn’t been the best student back in school and hadn’t deliberately memorized much verse, but over the following decades he’d read widely and still recalled a fair number of famous lines. That was a valuable resource, one that would be a shame to lose to forgetfulness later on.
He hadn’t run far before he felt his body was genuinely off—yesterday’s dunking in the river had clearly left some ill effect after all—but since he was already moving, he figured a good run and a sweat might do him good, so he kept going.
The city was still wrapped in mist, much the same as the day before. As he neared the spot where he’d climbed out of the water yesterday, he heard some commotion coming from the river ahead—right around where he’d fallen in. Looking over, he could just make out a figure moving about, apparently punting a small boat.
He slowed his pace and approached, puzzled. The little boat was rocking violently on the water, a woman’s figure standing on it with a long bamboo pole, seeming unable to keep her balance. Ning Yi watched her sway back and forth for a good while before she toppled backward with a thud into the boat. He couldn’t tell if this was the same woman as yesterday morning; today she wore a pink cloak, tall and slender, quite lovely in fact—though the tumble and the clumsy scramble back up rather ruined the effect.
The little boat kept rocking hard. The woman carefully pulled herself up, one hand gently steadying herself against the gunwale, and when she raised her head her hair was slightly mussed. Catching sight of the man on the bank watching the show, her eyes went wide with sudden alarm. Only then did Ning Yi get a clear look at the long pole—one end had a net tied to it, still smeared with mud, and once the woman had carefully stood up, he saw she was also holding a kitchen cleaver.
Ah. Indeed the same one from yesterday…
The cloak was fine, though a bit worn. This woman clearly wasn’t much good on the water, though she seemed to have some skill with a punt pole—and here she was, waiting until the early morning when no one was around to come fish out that cleaver. Embarrassed, was she? He guessed she must be a girl who’d once lived rather comfortably, but whose current circumstances had grown rather less so. That was the conclusion Ning Yi drew after a few glances, though he wasn’t especially interested in other people’s business. Still, the woman looked increasingly flustered—pushing the pole to try to reach the shore, but perhaps out of nervousness the boat just kept spinning in circles, and she kept nearly losing her balance again. And then—
“Achoo—”
Just as Ning Yi was about to walk on, he let out a sneeze. The woman on the boat sneezed too, and toppled backward into the boat with another thud. Climbing back up, she shot him an embarrassed glare. Ning Yi, a little awkward himself, pursed his lips. “The chicken already drowned—what are you fishing for that cleaver for?”
A brief silence.
“The chicken came back…”
“Huh?”
Ning Yi had spoken idly—honestly, it really was a rather terrible joke—but he hadn’t expected the response he got. When her voice carried back across the water, he found himself blinking in mild surprise.
“…The chicken didn’t die. The auntie from the Chen family… the Chen family’s auntie found it and brought it back,” she explained.
“…Oh.”
Yesterday this woman had chased her chicken straight into the river, and then Ning Yi himself had been pulled in too, so he hadn’t seen what happened afterward. It seemed the chicken had turned out to be tougher than expected, flapping its way back up after all—and how wholesome, that someone would go to the trouble of returning it once they knew it was hers. Ning Yi found himself quietly impressed, and after a moment said, “Could you pass that pole over here?”
The boat was some distance from the shore. The long pole could technically reach, but holding it level and passing it across took more strength than the woman had, and the leverage made the boat dangerously unstable. After a few failed attempts, one end of the pole reached the bank but stayed submerged underwater, out of Ning Yi’s reach, so he walked farther up the riverbank until he found another bamboo pole lying by the road, and used it to reach across and pull the woman, boat and all, in to shore.
“Thank you, sir… and about yesterday too—this humble one had just woken up, and did some…”
The woman wasn’t without a sense of right and wrong; once ashore, she began apologizing—both for the current trouble and for yesterday’s incident, when she’d slapped the very man who’d just saved her. She seemed to feel the awkwardness of it keenly. Ning Yi wasn’t especially bothered and waved a hand. “It’s fine, it’s fine. I need to keep running—I’ll be off.”
He turned and let out another sneeze, ignoring the woman’s odd question behind him—”Sir, is someone chasing you?”—and jogged off into the distance. Repaying a debt of gratitude was just as much of a hassle as seeking revenge; setting aside the practicalities, he’d have to sit through a long speech of thanks and demur politely in return, and the etiquette between men and women only complicated things further—why bother? He’d caught a cold now anyway; better to keep running and work up a sweat, that was the practical thing to do.
He’d run this route many times before. Turning back at his usual spot, he finally noticed, partway along, where the woman lived—a two-story building right by the river, rather distinctive in style, with a small terrace jutting out over the water on the riverside, giving it a certain elegant, water-borne charm. But as an actual residence it seemed impractical, likely quite cold in winter. The woman was now standing beside a small vegetable patch outside the building, fenced in with a bamboo enclosure, the hen she’d chased yesterday penned inside. Cleaver in hand, she hesitated a long while before finally stepping in to try to grab the hen, which flapped about wildly in resistance, forcing her to retreat in embarrassment and quickly shut the fence again.
That settled it—the woman really had never done this sort of thing before, and her circumstances clearly weren’t good either. Living in a place like this small building, she was probably connected in some way to the famous entertainment trade along the Qin Huai River. Some renowned courtesans, after buying back their own freedom, chose to strike out on their own, settling into some distinctive little residence and claiming to have “reformed,” though patrons might still come calling from time to time—remaining a sought-after socialite, but now free of anyone else’s control, and in some ways living even more comfortably than before. Given her fine looks, it was hard to guess how she’d ended up having to slaughter her own chicken.
Ning Yi watched as he jogged past. The woman went in again, and this time managed to catch the hen—but the moment she turned, it struggled free, feathers flying everywhere. In the chaos, the hen flew clear out of the fence, and Ning Yi, unable to just watch, stepped over and caught it in one hand. This time, with both wings pinned tight, there was no chance of escape. Seeing it was Ning Yi again, the woman froze for a long moment, evidently about to launch into another round of thanks or apology, when Ning Yi held out his hand. “Give me the knife.”
“Er…”
Ning Yi had no patience for more hemming and hawing, and simply took the cleaver from her hand. A bowl had already been set out on the ground outside the fence; he walked over, crouched down, held the hen’s wings with one hand while pinning down its struggling head with the other to expose its neck, and gave the blade a light swing.
“S-sir… this… good sir…”
“Never mind the ‘good sir’—is the water heating up?”
“…It’s on.”
“Good.”
Without further ado, Ning Yi slit the hen’s throat in one stroke and let the blood drain into the bowl. Once it had bled out fully and stopped struggling, he tossed the hen down, set the cleaver on the bowl, and stood up.
“Take it to the kitchen, use the hot water to pluck it, then cut it open and rinse out the innards. And by the way, do you actually know how to cook it once it’s done?”
The woman hesitated.
“Never mind, just find someone who does know how to cook it to help you—that auntie who brought your chicken back, for instance. It’s no small thing to slaughter a chicken; don’t waste it. Also, go see a doctor—you’re probably coming down with something. I am too. I’ll be off, no need to thank me. I’m just your friendly neighborhood Lei Feng… achoo—”
He turned and jogged off without a backward glance, vanishing down the road. Behind him, the woman watched him go, then finally frowned in thought. “Living… Lei… Feng? Living? Or was it Hu? Huyan Lei Feng… how strange…” After all, there was no such surname as “Living” in this world—the closest thing was the surname Hu, and a slight variation of that would be Huyan, which would make it “Huyan Leifeng.” That name had a rather commanding ring to it—perhaps that was it. She murmured the name over to herself a few times, wondering if perhaps he belonged to some minority ethnic group with the surname Huyan.
She’d always considered herself fairly worldly, having met all sorts of people, but this man had only ever seen her at her most flustered, and his manner and speech were so odd that her usual practiced responses were of no use at all. After thinking it over for a while, since Ning Yi had long since run off, she had no choice but to sullenly carry the old hen and the bowl of chicken blood off toward the kitchen…
That morning, teaching at Yushan Academy, his discomfort grew markedly worse, and on the walk home after class he vomited once, confirming that his condition had taken a turn for the worse. This time Xiao Chan was right there with him, and once they got home he was treated like a seriously ill patient and packed off upstairs to bed, kept under careful watch.
It looked like he was in for another day or two of the sickbed life he’d experienced when he’d first arrived in this world…