Chapter 7: CH 6

The wall was actually a narrow door off to the side of the courtyard, behind which was an even narrower path that was not much more than a gap between two fire-sealing walls. Its location was awkward and hidden away; ordinarily, nobody paid any attention to it. 

Just as Xuanmin spoke, however, there came a gudu sound from beyond the narrow door, as though someone had tripped over an uneven stone tile. 

Liu-shiye's face twitched. Laughing nervously, he said, "That's just a spare room in my wing. No matter, no matter. Dashi, why don’t we –– Hey, what are you doing here?" 

He’d been trying to lead Xuanmin's gaze back toward the main wing, but had been interrupted by a silhouette emerging hesitantly from the narrow doorway.

It was a young man wearing a bluish-gray overcoat. He looked to be a little over twenty, around the same age as Xuanmin. But his demeanor was extremely odd for his age: he had his hands pressed against the wall sheepishly, and seemed full of curiosity, like an eavesdropping toddler. 

Scolded by Liu-shiye, he seemed unsure what to do with himself, and retreated instinctively back into the narrow door, but did not disappear completely. Half of his face still peeked back out at them. 

There were no lanterns in that part of the wing, so it was hard to see what the youth looked like.

Despite not being able to see his face, Xue Xian guessed that this young man's relationship to Liu-shiye was bound to be a peculiar one. He whispered over to Jiang Shining, "Who's this? Do you know him?" 

Sullen, Jiang Shining did not even bother to look in that man's general direction. "I've never been here before. How would I know?" 

Seeing that Liu-shiye was acting strange, Xuanmin frowned and began walking toward the narrow door. 

“Hey, hey, Dashi––" Liu-shiye had probably never met such an impolite monk. "He’s of no import, really. He's just my disappointment of an eldest son, Liu Chong. He's family, nothing suspicious about him."

He was probably worried that this odd [a] son of his would lose face in front of strangers, but, seeing that he could do nothing to stop Xuanmin, he began instead to gesticulate wildly at Liu Chong, both placating and stern: "Be good, Chong-er, go back to your room. Dad [b] is having a serious talk with Dashi." 

This earned him another glare from Xuanmin.

Xuanmin's voice was cool and collected as he said, "You hired someone to design a 'Winding Waters Enter the Hall' for your front hall. This design harnesses wind in the east-west direction, and gathers qi in the North-South direction, balancing out yin and yang along two axes. You have the wind departing from the west side."

Not only that, but the southwest side had a particularly cramped and gloomy air –– it was full of yin energy. Clearly, the design was not balanced on two axes as originally intended.

Xue Xian looked over at the dark narrow path and thought: Either the geomancer that Liu-shiye hired was an idiot, or, more probably... Liu-shiye had added this path himself, later on.

Xue Xian was right. Liu-shiye seemed greatly affected by Xuanmin's words. Hesitantly, he said, "I won't lie. That narrow path is a later addition." 

As he spoke, Xuanmin walked through the doorway and entered the path behind the narrow door.

Seeing that this guest was coming toward him, Liu Xu's eldest son Liu Chong began to back away, still hugging the wall. Then, shyly, he smiled.

Xue Xian saw that the youth’s legs did not move as adeptly as they should. He wasn't handicapped, but seemed not to be in full control of his movements, either. And he was not ugly: he clearly had the good fortune of looking more like his mother than his father, with pale skin and big round eyes –– anyone else with this face would surely have a highly charismatic smile. But his gaze held a certain naïveté to them, so that when he did smile, he looked a little foolish.

It was obvious: this Liu Chong was disabled. [c]

Earlier, Xuanmin had rudely ignored all of Liu-shiye's attempts to cajole him away from the narrow door. Now that he was face-to-face with the smiling dim-witted youth, [d] Xuanmin seemed to finally remember the meaning of ‘etiquette’: he greeted Liu Chong with a nod. Although he still had no expression on his face, at least he'd acknowledged the person in front of him. 

Seeing this, Liu-shiye turned green. Clearly, in Xuanmin's eyes, this county yamen official did not even match up to a village idiot. [c] 

They were beyond the narrow door now, and what lay behind the door was more than merely a narrow path.

Xue Xian looked out at his surroundings from his vantage point on the edge of the pouch. He saw that the path wasn't a dead end: instead, it led to an ugly shack. The shack had been built in the cheapest way possible, using scrap wood. But Xue Xian watched as Liu Chong continued to back away from Xuanmin –– straight toward the shack. 

Ignorant, naïve people, when forced to confront strangers for the first time, tend to immediately seek a safe place for comfort and reassurance. Some seek out their parents, others seek out their homes. After half a year in the human realm, this was an important thing that Xue Xian had observed about humans.

Liu Chong clearly belonged to the second group.

Xue Xian decided that Liu-shiye was surely a rare specimen. What kind of father would let his own son live in such a creepy place, where the sun’s rays barely landed during the daytime? Was this his son or a field mouse? 

Besides, there was something off about this shack. It sagged from the weight of yin energy. If Xue Xian didn't know for a fact that a living person dwelled here, he would have assumed this was a mausoleum. 

It had been clear from the conversation earlier that Liu-shiye was hiding something. He had probably been afraid that Xuanmin would see this shack. But now Xuanmin had seen it, and all Liu-shiye could do was thicken his face and own up to it. "My son's personality is a bit odd," he explained. "He doesn't like crowds, and always talks about wanting to live somewhere quiet." 

Xue Xian: “...” As if! Why don't you take him to live at the cemetery hill outside of town? It's quietest over there, yet the yin energy there isn’t anywhere near as bad as it is here.

Even Liu-shiye looked uncomfortable with himself after having uttered such a lie. He coughed, then said, "Dashi, you talked about the wind departing from the west side. Did you mean this narrow path?" 

Xuanmin said, "And this shack." 

"If I get the south-facing windows of the shack blocked up, then this west wind won't be able to escape anymore, right?" Liu-shiye asked.

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"Block?" Xuanmin repeated in a cold voice. Frowning, he pointed at Liu Chong. "Does he not need to breathe?"

"Ah... I hadn't thought of that, I hadn’t thought of that,” Liu-shiye said.

In just two sentences, Liu-shiye had managed to make Xue Xian's regard for him go even lower. There was nothing wrong with the eldest son –– he was just born a little dull. [e] But his own father did not even seem to care if he lived or died. 

What was even more ridiculous was that Liu-shiye, having been rebutted by Xuanmin, now had an air of simple resignation about him –– as though it had not occurred to him that he could simply move Liu Chong out of the shack, and then block the windows. 

As the sky above them brightened, the other parts of the compound seemed washed clean by water, and shone brilliantly in the morning light. All except for this shack, whose ancient door was still submerged in a murky darkness. 

Like Xue Xian, Xuanmin seemed to be detecting extraordinary amounts of yin energy. 

Southwest corners of family compounds always naturally attracted some extra yin energy, but it was never anywhere near this bad –– something was amiss. 

Without so much as a look at Liu-shiye, Xuanmin began to walk toward the shack.     

Liu Chong scratched his head, confused as to why the guest would want to enter his room of all places. He stood there for a while, unsure what to do. Suddenly, he seemed excited, as though he had gained a new playmate.  Still hugging the wall, he hurried over to join Xuanmin.

He was a young man over twenty, but he did not seem to have a steady train of thought. His walking steps were also irregular –– it was as though he wasn’t used to walking side by side with Xuanmin, so he would run ahead, and then fall behind after Xuanmin caught up. Liu Chong appeared very focused, too: throughout this, he was constantly staring at Xuanmin's waist, as though he had discovered some treasure from which he was unable to tear his eyes. 

The fool had fixated on Xuanmin’s pouch.

Xue Xian, perched on the pouch’s edge, felt so uncomfortable beneath Liu Chong’s gaze that he thought he might explode. He hadn't had the chance to hide, and now he couldn't go back inside the pouch without looking suspicious. Obviously he couldn’t start moving now that the fool was staring at him! Making the kid cry was the least of his worries: what if, in a fit of excitement, Liu Chong did something reckless? Then Xue Xian might really be in trouble.

Xuanmin's long legs and sweeping steps soon took them to the doors of the shack. 

From Xue Xian's point of view, he happened to be able to peek through the half-open door into the interior –– and what he saw shocked him. By the door, there was a mountainous pile of yellow objects, which at first seemed to be gold ingots. But upon closer inspection, it became clear that these items weren't made of real gold, but folded using paper. 

It was the yellow joss paper used to make paper money –– to burn for the dead! 

Xue Xian had the time to gasp with surprise when Liu Chong finally caught up to Xuanmin and suddenly spoke: "Um... Can I play with this?" 

He was pointing at Xuanmin's hip.

Xuanmin followed Liu Chong’s finger to his own hip, at first completely unsure what Liu Chong meant.

"Yellow paper." Liu Chong pointed again.

Now Xuanmin understood: Liu Chong was pointing at the little paper man whose upper body was currently sticking out of the edge of the pouch.

Xue Xian: “………” What in the world was going on?! The audacity of this fool! [c] Xue Xian was a real live dragon, and he wanted to play? Did he have a death wish? 

What could a fool know? If you let him handle something as fragile as a piece of paper, he would no doubt rip it in half, or in quarters, or in eighths! 

As Xue Xian imagined his imminent fate, he could almost feel an unspeakable kind of pain in an unspeakable area of his body. He had to protect himself. One of his hands slipped back into the pouch, and he pinched the donkey hard through the white hemp cloth. If you dare to give me to the kid, he thought, I'll never forgive you!

Xuanmin: “…” Was there no end to this niezhang’s antics?

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The author has something to say: 

Thank you for the nutrition, everyone =3=

[Acknowledgments to those who gave money on JJWXC]

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[a] Musuli uses the phrase, “eldest son who looks to have some issues/problems”.

[b] Musuli uses 爹 (die1), a more casual, intimate address for one’s father. 

[c] Musuli uses 傻子 (sha3 zi), which means “idiot”. 

[d] Musuli uses 痴儿 (chi1 er2), where 痴 means “foolish” or “crazy”, and 儿 is a diminutive that, in this case, helps indicate that it is a foolish/crazy child.

[e] Musuli uses 痴傻 (chi1 sha3), which combines “foolish”/”crazy” and “idiot”.

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