COPPER COINS

Chapter 40: Restaurant Waiter (I)

On one end of the snowy mountain path lay the exhausted black dragon. On the other end was the scarred man sitting petrified at the front of a horse-drawn carriage train, wondering whether he was sleepwalking through life. And then there was the young monk, staring downhill, holding the tip of a certain dragon’s tail in his arms. Together, the figures made up the harmonious three points of a triangle, and, all frozen in place, they could be taken for a scenic, peaceful painting.
They stayed that way for a long time, no one making a move.
   
After about a hundred years, the scarred man was the first to move––
His eyeballs swivelled around. Then, he raised his face and stared up the jagged face of the mountain, confused –– but all he saw was the swell of white snow and a patch of dark sky. There was no creature flying above him. He recalled what he had just seen: something long and thin, with scales all across its body. But there was something else, too...
He could barely even remember anymore. Basically, something had been flying about in front of him, coming so close that it almost took his head off.
   
But how could such a massive thing suddenly vanish?
"Troupemaster, why have we stopped? Is the horse giving you trouble again?" someone asked from beyond a carriage curtain.
It was only then that the scarred man came back to his senses. He shook his head vigorously, trying to shake away what he had just thought he'd seen. He thought: I must be too tired from travelling. It's confusing me.   
   
He took up the flask of wine from beside him. This wine did not seem to have been manufactured in the Jiangnan area [b] –– it seemed to have come from north of the Great Wall. [c] Strong and stiff, the alcohol was the kind that went straight to the heart. The scarred man took a sip to shock himself back to life, and found that his hands began to feel much warmer too. He decided to continue on his way.
"Qu––" he said. The scarred man took one last mystified look at his surroundings, then cracked the whip. The carriage train rattled on.
As the rhythmic sound of hooves began to recede from this part of the path and the train turned another corner downhill, the black dragon hiding uphill rolled his eyes, and finally sighed.
Dragons naturally do not breathe as humans do, casually opening and closing our nostrils –– for dragons, there is always quite a large risk of summoning another mighty gust of killer wind every time they eject breath. In order to stay silent and make sure that the scarred man would move along as quickly as possible, Xue Xian had had to stop breathing altogether, and the effort of holding his breath had almost caused him to pass out.
Now that the danger had passed, the zuzong became lively again, as though he were not stuck half-paralysed in the middle of a mountain.
   
Xue Xian arched his body and glared down at Xuanmin, who was still holding his tail. "Would you look at that," he sneered. "I still had to come and clean up the crime scene for you. If not for my quick reflexes, that scarred man would have come face to face with his own dead body."
The audacity!
“...” Xuanmin had been in the middle of bending to gingerly put down the dragon's tail, but now he stiffened, and straightened his back again.
He said nothing, only continued to clutch the tip of Xue Xian's tail and glared back at him coldly, which meant: Try saying that one more time.
   
Xue Xian glanced at his own tail hatefully. He wished he could cut the stupid thing off. When he'd been small, Xuanmin had pinched it to control him, and now that he was big, he could still not escape that bald donkey’s evil clutches. What was the point? Mn?!
So he stared at Xuanmin, and Xuanmin stared back at him with his tail in his hand, neither haughty nor humble, clearly waiting for Xue Xian to take back what he'd said.
   
It would not do to have his tail in Xuanmin's hands like that. Not only was the tail a vulnerable part of Xue Xian's body, but it was also evidence of the humiliating moment he'd just experienced, which was yet another insult to his dignity.
So after a long time spent battling Xuanmin's gaze, Xue Xian reluctantly scoffed and decided to compromise. "Alright, alright, you're the best!" he grumbled.
Calmly, Xuanmin asked, "Who cleaned up the crime scene?"
“...” Xue Xian rolled his eyes. In an ironic singsong voice, he replied, "You did –– you cleaned up the crime scene, happy now? Okay, can you let go now?"
Hearing this, Xuanmin slowly bent and loosened his hands, putting that unruly niezhang’s tail onto the ground.
Xue Xian felt that if he spent any more time with this bald donkey, he would start to lose years off his life.
   
The two had wasted precious time quarrelling over this nonsense. By the time Xue Xian had slithered behind a curve of the mountain face to transform back into a human and put his clothes on, and then accompanied Xuanmin back to their carriage, the troupe's train had already cleared the treacherous mountain path and were beginning to approach the city ahead.
The sky became even darker –– evening had fallen.
"It's almost nighttime. When are we going to reach the city?" Stone Zhang had hooked the curtain back onto the window and was peering out from its parting. Despite all the commotion on the journey, nothing bad had actually ended up happening –– but Stone Zhang did not want to spend another moment in this ‘ghost train’. The sooner they could get into the city, the sooner they could part ways with the troupe.
   
"We’re almost there," Jiang Shining said. He pointed at the blanket of snow outside. "Ever since we got onto this road, you can see a lot more wheel tracks. It seems we aren't far from the city gates."
Stone Zhang's gaze fell on the bundle of food and his mouth began to water. As his stomach rumbled loudly, he complained, "Can we take a break once we get into town? Let's get something to eat. I'm starving."

Immediately, Lu Nianqi's stomach growled as well.
"Are you hungry too?" Jiang Shining asked.
Many aspects of Lu Nianqi's personality were still childish: he seemed to think that being hungry was a source of embarrassment. "No," he refuted. "That wasn't me." As always, his tone was stubborn and cold, but the tips of his ears turned bright red.
   
Xue Xian stretched his cramped shoulders and lazily said, "This snowstorm is still far from over. Just look at the sky for yourself. It could get worse before it gets better. Besides, the horses are slow as well. It doesn't really matter when we get there as long as we do."
The fussiest, hardest to please member of the group had spoken up –– it seemed that he was in agreement about the food.
And as for the other one...
Jiang Shining glanced at Xuanmin and saw that Xuanmin had no intention of saying anything –– which basically meant that he agreed too.
   
After about half a shichen, the train began to slow down, and the sound of voices drifted toward them.
"We're here!" Stone Zhang excitedly rubbed his hands together, like a big-bellied, round-headed grey fly.
   
The town in which they were stopping was the xian cheng [d] for Huazhi County. Although it was only a minor town in Anqing Prefecture, its proximity to the river –– it was the closest town to Guanyin Port –– made it a lively, busy place. But the city itself was unusually tiny: to walk every street within its walls would only take about one shichen at the most. Despite its size, Huazhi Xian Cheng still had strict rules for those entering and leaving.
Xue Xian had passed through this town before. If he remembered correctly, the city guards were highly strict when it came to searching and questioning visitors. They made everyone get off their horses and open the doors to their carriages. All those entering, whether they were passing through or spending a few nights — even those who had come from disparate regions — all had to give the guards their names.
   
Indeed, after answering some preliminary questions, the scarred man brought the carriage train to a halt outside the city gates. A guard came over, holding a book of names in his hand, and began to count the number of passengers in each carriage.
When the guard opened the door of the final carriage and looked inside to check, the expressions on the group’s face all went slack with fascination––
   
Half of the guard's face was painted with a huge patch of dark medicinal paste, as was the back of his hand. The paste emitted an unusual, indescribable smell.
The guard, too, seemed self-conscious about the stench of medicine on him, so he performed his check hurriedly –– though he did look at Xuanmin twice –– then slammed the carriage door and motioned for the train to carry on.
   
"Why was he looking at dashi?" Jiang Shining asked.
"Who knows. Maybe he just doesn't look like a good person," Xue Xian said. He seemed utterly absorbed by the scenery outside the carriage, and refused to tear his gaze away from the window.
Everyone: “...” The most reliable-looking member of the group was Xuanmin. This zuzong was shameless.
   
The scarred man and his troupe were inordinately kind. They brought Xue Xian and the others all the way to the doors of an inn, and only then did they bid farewell.
The theatre troupe seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere, and dared not delay. They themselves had no plan to remain in Huazhi Xian Cheng.
"If you want to hire a carriage, simply speak to the innkeeper. Huazhi County is tiny: if a roof fell and crushed five people, three of them would be related. The innkeeper will easily be able to find you a carriage. Just give him a tip." This was the scarred man's parting advice.

Naturally, Xue Xian and the others had never intended to ride the troupe's carriage for free, either.
But the troupe's performers all refused to accept Xuanmin's silver, claiming that they never took money for their theatre performances at the end of each year –– so they definitely could not accept money for this ride. Jiang Shining, the only member of the group who actually knew how to interact with others, bargained with them for an extended time, yet was unable to get them to take the silver. His face began to betray a sense of desperation.
Finally, Lu Nianqi was the one to speak. "It's okay. There'll be a way to pay them back some other time."
As he said this, his fingers gloomily tapped the bundle of sticks in his hand –– his mind seemed far away.
   
"Have... you divined something?"
Lu Nianqi said nothing except, "We won't owe them."
Not even Xue Xian would doubt the little soothsayer's words, so Jiang Shining let it be. The theatre troupe bid one last farewell and rattled away toward the city gate again, quickly disappearing into the night.

Later that evening, when they sat down at a table in the inn and got ready to order a meal, Xue Xian's attention remained completely focused on the street.
"What have you been looking at this whole time?" Jiang Shining asked.
"A lot of things. I've been here before. The streets aren't as busy as they used to be. There's far fewer people than normal. And... there are posters stuck all over the walls, did you see them?" Xue Xian replied.
“What posters? Let me see," Stone Zhang said. He hated being idle, so he crept out of the inn –– but soon returned, fidgeting awkwardly with his shirt. The group was sitting in a corner of the inn, behind a large red pillar, so that the rest of the customers could not easily see them.
   
"I don't know if you're allowed to take these down," Stone Zhang said. "I found this one on the ground." He took it out of his shirt and smoothed it out on the table. "Look––"
The street had not been well-lit, so Stone Zhang had not actually looked at what the posters had said. Now that it was laid out in front of them, everyone at the table froze, then stared in astonishment at Xuanmin.  
   
“Dashi, this..." Stone Zhang stammered. "How did you end up on a wanted poster? What did you do?"
Frowning, Xuanmin continued to study the drawing.
   
"Back in Ningyang County, didn't Liu-shiye mistake dashi for the man on the wanted poster?" Jiang Shining remarked. "But then he said it wasn't him."

Xue Xian reached out and tapped the poster. "I saw the Ningyang poster. Apart from the fact that the monk on that one also had a mole on his neck, he looked nothing like the bald donkey. He was much older."
But this poster...
"Didn't they say that the Ningyang posters had been up for almost a month?" Xue Xian added as he picked up the poster and shook it lightly. "This one feels like... it's only recently been put up."
And the image on this poster had been significantly updated. The man on it looked younger, and all of his features were drawn differently, so that now... it looked uncannily like Xuanmin.
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