Chapter 38: CH 37

The scarred man had a frightening face that looked very intimidating, but he was actually very kind. In fact, all of the people in his ragtag group were jovial, empathetic people. After a brief conversation with the scarred man, they did not seem to mind this addition to their group at all, and actually decided to offer Xue Xian and the others a whole carriage for themselves.

With the blizzard, it was difficult to navigate the winding mountain paths. In order to avoid anyone getting separated, the horses were all tied together by a long rope one after the other, with the mule at the very back. 

The scarred man bundled up his face from the cold and, carrying a flask of hot wine, settled into his seat at the front of the first carriage. He directed the rest of his group to take the wooden stoppers away from the carriage wheels.

"We're off! Sit tight," he called out, then set the horses going.

Xue Xian and the others sat in the third carriage. It was not so difficult to fit the five of them into a four-person carriage, especially because Jiang Shining was extremely thin and Lu Nianqi was still the size of a child, and therefore technically only half a person. There was a decent amount of room. 

Xuanmin did not like to chat, and, apart from Xue Xian, no one dared to disturb him. Inside the carriage, Xuanmin was given a wide berth. As for Xue Xian...

Stone Zhang feared Xue Xian as a rat feared a cat. Each time Xue Xian looked at him, he felt his whole scalp turn numb, as if a terrifying roll of lightning could strike down upon him from the heavens at any point.

So when they settled into the carriage, Stone Zhang, Lu Nianqi, and Jiang Shining all sat on one side, and left the other side for the two frightening zuzong.

Xue Xian took the black robe off of his face and sat down. He looked across from him, then looked back at where he sat. What he saw made him grin, and he said to them, "Thanks, guys."

Stone Zhang's face scrunched up in pain and he looked away. “...” There are three of us here. Why did he have to look straight at me?

The scarred man and his companions were definitely well-travelled, and the animals appeared used to life on the road, too –– the horses and mule only needed the scarred man at the head of the train to point them in the right direction, and each followed steadily. It was effortless.

The carriages were also well-decorated: the windows had thick, heavy curtains nailed over them, to block the wind.

In the middle of the carriage was a rectangular wooden table that was just the right height: tall enough for them to stretch out their legs with room to spare for them to place their belongings. A small shelf had been wedged into the corner of the carriage and held a lantern that they could light at any time, as well as folded stacks of blankets –– the kind that elderly people used to drape over their legs in the winter.

"They have everything here," Stone Zhang observed. "It seems that they travel a lot. They basically live on the road."

Before they'd gotten on, one of the kindly old ladies had even given them a small portable heater to help warm up the carriage, as well as another small bundle, saying, "There is some food in here, and the carriage has wine. If you're cold, have some –– it'll help. We're taking two mountain roads and the snow has made them slippery, so there's no guarantee we'll get to the next town before nightfall. Don't get too hungry."

Stone Zhang had said No, no, keep it, keep it, but had all the while taken the heater tightly into his arms, with no intention of letting it go again.

Although the carriage was better than being outside, it was still freezing cold.

As Stone Zhang warmed his stiff fingers with the heater, his eyes kept darting to the stack of blankets in the corner. But Jiang Shining and Lu Nianqi sat between him and the blankets, so he could not simply reach over and take them. He did not want to do anything that might cause the two zuzongs, Xue Xian and Xuanmin, to remember that he existed.

Stone Zhang's eyes swivelled around. He turned to Lu Nianqi and said, "Take one of those blankets. We can share it and put the heater between us, warm up our knees. What do you think?"

Lu Nianqi glanced back at him. Although disdain did not explicitly cross his face, it might as well have. "No. I'm not cold. Just use it yourself."

Stone Zhang still didn’t want to let go of the heater, so he pointed at Lu Nianqi's hands with his chin. "Look at how cold those hands are," he said. "Have you ever had an ulcer? In this kind of humid, cold weather, if you don't at least stick your hands into your sleeves, you'll get an ulcer –– and then you'll be sorry. They're swollen and itchy, and susceptible to frostbite as well. The worst is if you get one on a joint. Each time you move your finger, you crack the ulcer and the flesh squeezes out of it. You ––"

Lu Nianqi's scowled. He grabbed a thin blanket from the pile and dropped it over both their knees. "Sir, please stop talking." [a]

That tone was half Lu Nianqi and half Lu Shijiu –– as though his stubborn core were wrapped up in a skin of restraint.

But Stone Zhang didn't pay attention to that. Delighted, he made sure the blanket was well-arranged on their legs, then slipped the heater inside. In an instant, the heater had filled the blanket with a pleasant warmth. The heat seeped into their flesh and bones and climbed up their frozen knees –– so comfortable!

Even the angry-looking Lu Nianqi's pale face started to flush a little after a while. His finger twitched, then he gave in and reached his hands into the blanket too.

"Ai –– there you go," Stone Zhang said. "You're much too young to be behaving this way. There's nothing embarrassing about protecting yourself from the cold."

Lu Nianqi turned his face away and pretended that Stone Zhang’s voice was merely wind by his ears.

"At my age, if I don't protect my knees, when I'm old, I'll be unable to walk at all." Stone Zhang continued. He loved the sound of his own voice. Ever since they'd gotten into the carriage, he had chattered away non-stop –– now that was a talent, too.

But as soon as he said that, he felt that something was off. He lifted his head and instantly met eyes with Xue ‘unable to walk at all’ Xian. 

Stone Zhang's mouth dropped. He shrank his neck and tried to make himself as small as he could, then stammered, "I'll... I'll shut up. I’ll shut up."

Once Stone Zhang fell silent, Jiang Shining, who had not said a word, massaged his temple and began to speak. "Earlier, before we got onto the carriage, you held me back and told me not to ask anything. What did that mean? They..."

Jiang Shining instinctively looked beyond the gap in the thick curtains at the other carriages outside. He lowered his voice and said, "Is there something wrong with them? If so, why did we get on?"

Stone Zhang piped up again. "They aren't bandits, are they? But they gave us the heater and food. Could they really be evil?"

Then he slapped his own mouth. "That's my last sentence. I'll really shut up now."

Lu Nianqi rolled his eyes. He was sick to death of the man, but he had acquired some of Lu Shijiu’s calmness, and had learned to bite his tongue.

Xue Xian began to rifle through the carriage, looking for the wine that the old woman had mentioned. As he did so, he said, "There's a taboo here, [b] so I can't really talk about it. But I took a look earlier. The two bundles they brought into the mule carriage weren't wrapped that tightly, and some clothing fell out."

"Oh, I saw it too," Jiang Shining said. "All patterned and colorful. Have you been to the theatre before? They looked like theatre costumes to me."

Xue Xian found the wine flask and began to cradle it again, heating it quickly to a boil.

"This wine really does smell good," Xue Xian mumbled. Then he replied to Jiang Shining, "Why would I watch theatre? Is theatre more interesting than me?"

Jiang Shining: “...” True. You have more drama than any troupe.

"Can I say something?" Stone Zhang asked.

"No one blocked your mouth and pulled out your tongue," Xue Xian snapped. "Cut the crap and say what you have to say."

"When they were moving things into the carriage, I actually went and looked inside the mule carriage," Stone Zhang said. "This young xiansheng [c] guessed right. They had all sorts of props inside the carriage, and instruments like drums and gongs. They are performers, the travelling kind of troupe made up of all sorts of people, who travel everywhere and don’t have a fixed home. That man with the three scars on his face is probably the troupe leader. And I counted the rest of them. The young and old ones are the huadan, laodan, xiaosheng, and zhengsheng. And the others probably play the clown roles and the jing roles. [d] Put together, they can do quite a big performance."

There was no small number of theatre troupes in Anqing Prefecture. Some were performers at wine halls and were able to avoid trawling through rain and snow –– they did quite well for themselves. The famous ones among them even had celebrity actors. But other troupes had no fixed venue, and travelled far and wide setting up shows in small towns. Sometimes they'd be invited by local wine halls for a guest performance, or else they simply set up a stage on the street to busk.

"That da-ge told me that they were also going to Qingping County," Jiang Shining said. "But if there's a taboo, then let's not talk about it. Since you didn't stop us from getting on, then surely there's no issue in travelling together for a while. Right?"

"As long as we don't go on roads we're not meant to go on, then it's fine," Xue Xian said. 

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He put the rumbling flask onto the wooden table.

Surreptitiously, Stone Zhang reached for the wine. But Xuanmin, who sat directly across from him, suddenly twitched his finger, and Stone Zhang felt as though there was something invisible pressing his hands down. It struck a pressure point, and his wrists went limp. 

"This wine cannot be drunk," Xuanmin said coldly, without so much as a look at Stone Zhang.

"Ah?" Stunned, Stone Zhang's mind began to fill with questions as he awkwardly took his hands back. He thought for a while, then glanced at the bundle of food that the old woman had given them. "So the food --"

"Eat it. Then there'll only be four people in this carriage, and we'll all have more room," Xue Xian said.

Stone Zhang: “...”

Xue Xian flexed his wrists. He felt uncomfortable.

The hot feeling inside his body was still relentlessly churning within him. It wasn't as bad as when he'd been in his small dragon form, but it was still a bother. All he could do was direct all the heat into his hand, and then find some cold object to cool his hands off. Now that he had nowhere to transfer the heat anymore, he began to feel irritable.

Silently staring at the ceiling, he slipped his hand beneath the wooden table and pretended to casually rest it there. In reality, he was holding the table leg.

Soon, [e] the carriage train happened to cross a bumpy patch, jolting one side of the carriage. Jiang Shining and the others rocked forward and unconsciously shot out their hands to steady themselves against the table.

"Ow!" Jiang Shining hissed, tugging his hands back and blowing at them.

Stone Zhang cried out too.

Lu Nianqi only brusquely yanked his hand away and glared at Xue Xian. "If you keep touching the table, you're going to set it on fire."

The troublemaker Xue Xian pretended not to hear and averted his gaze to stare intently at the heavy curtain on the window. Then, he slowly removed his hand from the table and gripped the edge of his bench instead.

A short time later, [e] Xuanmin shook his head and pinched Xue Xian’s wrist, prying it away from their seat. "Enough. Find somewhere else."

If Xue Xian kept going, would this carriage even be fit for sitting anymore?

Xue Xian thought for a while, then put his hands on the carriage door.

Now the whole carriage warmed up, but the temperature was rising too quickly. The air became hotter and hotter.

Wordlessly, Lu Nianqi stiffened his neck and pushed the blanket off his knees, then shoved the heater back into Stone Zhang's lap.

As for Jiang Shining, he pushed open the curtain and discreetly let in a sliver of fresh air. To a rogue ghost used to the freezing cold, this temperature was absurd. He felt as though they were baozi in a bamboo steamer –– their skins were already cooked, and, in a short while, their filling would be ready too.

As the carriage became increasingly stuffy, finally, it was Xuanmin who spoke up. "If it gets any hotter, there will be three extra spaces in this carriage."

Those three baozi, almost ready to be picked out of the pot, all glared at Xue Xian.

This zuzong raised his eyelids. Then, in an exaggerated magnanimous gesture, he peeled his hands away from the carriage door. He was about to reach for the lantern in the corner when Xuanmin intercepted his wrist.

If he overheated that frail ceramic lantern, it would no doubt explode.

Now Xue Xian made for the metal hinges on the carriage door, but Xuanmin swatted his wrist away again.

He definitely couldn't touch the metal hinges. He'd melt them, and then they wouldn't be able to get out.

Xue Xian had been blocked over and over again, and each time by that nefarious bald donkey. Xue Xian's temper exploded. He glowered at Xuanmin from the corner of his eye, then suddenly took out his pair of claws and stuffed them into the neck part of Xuanmin’s collar. "If you block me again, I'll fucking boil you!”

Xuanmin: “………”

The three sitting across from them watched, stunned. None of them dared to speak –– they feared that if they made a sound, it would be their own necks at stake. Quickly, they all dropped their gazes and looked away.

How were they supposed to live like this? 

Suddenly, there came the sound of the horses ahead whinnying loudly. The scarred man made a long hu––– noise, then began to console the horses. "Shh... Shh... Don't be afraid," he said, coaxing.

As the train came to an emergency stop, the horses bumped into the carriages and all began to whine.

"Why did we stop?" Jiang Shining asked, anxious. "Are we in trouble?"

He looked at Xue Xian and said, "What was it you were saying before? We'd be fine as long as we didn't do... something... Do you really think we'd be that unlucky?"

Ever since Xue Xian had mysteriously warned him, Jiang Shining had been consumed by panic, terrified that something might happen. But it was as folk always said... whatever it is you're scared of, it will happen for sure.

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[Acknowledgments]

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[a] Here the former you, 您 (nin2) is used. Since that does not in English, I added “sir”. 

[b] 忌讳 (ji4 hui) literally means “taboo”, a word that cannot be said aloud. In this context, there is a tangible connotation to it: if something forbidden is said aloud, it might awaken something or engender other magical/mystical/ghostly consequences. 

[c] Xiansheng: see glossary.

[d] See this informative site on different Peking opera roles: https://www.chinaeducationaltours.com/guide/culture-peking-opera-performers-and-roles.htm 

[e] Here, Musuli uses the phrasing she likes but that is difficult to render into English: “In the time it took to drink a cup of tea.”

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