Jin Se

Chapter 22

Valume II

The night was deathly silent. The half-moon was hidden in the black sky; the stars shined all the more brightly in its absence. A young man squatted in a courtyard.

The man had only just bathed. His half-dry hair hung about him loosely, concealing half his face. He was about twenty or so, rather pretty and delicate; skinny too, but not the kind of skinny that indicated weakness. Rather, he was tall and slender in the way youths were when they had a growth spurt and their bones grew faster than they could put meat on them.

His sleeves were rolled up over his forearms. There was a brazier and a pile of spirit money in front of him. He might've looked like he was mourning someone, if he hadn't been holding up a large bowl, slurping noodles, while he threw spirit money into the fire. Somehow, he managed to do both simultaneously. His cheeks bulged as he ate. The brazier burned merrily.

He squatted there for a long time. He was nearing the bottom of the bowl when, unexpectedly, his chopsticks poked into a poached egg.

The door of a small room in the courtyard creaked open as a beefy square-faced man draped in a coat came out, probably to take a leak. He was half-asleep and in the middle of a groggy yawn when he noticed the person squatting in the yard and was scared fully awake.

"Little.... Little Monkey, what're you doing over there?"

The man in the yard was indeed the teen who'd escaped from Jiulu Mountain all those years ago. He slowly turned his head; the glow of the fire reflected eerily off his fair face. He was still chewing on half a poached egg when he vaguely responded half a beat later, "Burning paper."

The large man walked over, massaged his forehead, and confirmed, "I don't have a fever...."

Shi Wuduan expressionlessly chewed his egg. The beefy man's stomach growled at the aroma of noodles. He sniffed around and noticed the coarse bowl in Shi Wuduan's hand. He yelled, "You little bastard! Why're you swiping food in the middle of the night? Goodness gracious, you've even got a poached egg."

"I didn't swipe this." Shi Wuduan swallowed the egg in one gulp as if he was worried it'd be stolen, then brought the bowl up to his mouth and shoveled all the rest in. He wiped his mouth and chewed as he leisurely explained, "Si-niang made this specially for me."

The burly man retorted, "Bullshit, why'd she make it specially for you? I'm hungry too!"

Shi Wuduan grabbed a fistful of spirit money and chucked it in the brazier and boasted shamelessly, "Cause I'm handsome, I suppose."

The large man grabbed him and gave him a noogie, then appraised his facial features, "Little pretty boy."

Shi Wuduan calmly straightened out his messed up hair, then looked over and sized him up, judging, "Big scaredy-cat."

"Fuck off!" He glared at him, then asked on second thought, "Is there any more?"

"Go get some from the stove."

The large man rubbed his belly and went his way. He'd just turned around when he looked back again. "Are there any eggs left?"

"Nope, I ate them all." Shi Wuduan, still squatting, glanced at him and stuck his bowl at him, ordering, "Fill another bowl for me, and make sure there's soup."