COPPER COINS

Chapter 41: Restaurant Waiter (II)

But the poster was highly peculiar. Apart from a likeness of the suspect and a brief description of his age and appearance, there was no other information -- not even what his crimes were, and why the imperial government was searching for him so widely. There was only a vague note about him being dangerous, and not to approach him if one saw him but to immediately alert the local authorities.
Jiang Shining was still dumbstruck by the drawing's similarities to Xuanmin. He stared off into the distance pondering this for a long time, then went back to studying the picture––
"The eyes are smaller than dashi’s," Stone Zhang finally said, without lifting his eyes from the poster. Then, with a gasp, as though he'd suddenly discovered land while at sea, he pointed at the drawn brow and said, "If you look closely, there's a small mole here, which dashi doesn't have. And the bridge of the nose is also flatter than dashi’s."
   
Xue Xian looked at the mole in the picture. To be honest, that might well have been a splash of ink from the artist, and not actually part of the sketch.
Now Jiang Shining pointed at the text below the picture. "Don't just look at the likeness. Read the text. It emphasises here that the monk has high cheekbones and an aquiline nose."
   
As he spoke, four pairs of eyes turned to inspect Xuanmin's cheeks and nose.
Xuanmin: “...”

He was not used to being stared at in this way. With a slight frown and that blank, cold expression, he emanated an aura of intimidation toward the others.
Awkwardly, Jiang Shining and the others averted their gaze again. But Xue Xian, the only one unafraid of Xuanmin, went ahead and pushed the monk's face to the side so as to observe his profile. "There's no hook to the nose," he commented.

Xuanmin knocked Xue Xian’s lawless claw away and continued to frown at the picture.
"Ignore everything else for a second and just look at dashi’s expression. He clearly isn't the man in the poster. If he really was a criminal, would he look this clueless right now? No one is that good at acting!" Stone Zhang crowed. His status was definitely the lowest in the group hierarchy, so he wanted to kiss ass at any chance he got. "Besides, although the monk in this picture does look a bit like dashi, the sketch’s face is far scarier. Look at the evil look in this man's eyes, he’s obviously not as righteous as dashi––"
Stone Zhang cleared his throat. Of course, he did not dare to actually touch Xuanmin's face, so instead he lightly nodded in Xuanmin’s direction, then added, "Look at dashi’s face. It isn't the face of an evil person at all."
   
As Stone Zhang spluttered, Xue Xian snickered to himself. That bald donkey doesn't need to act clueless. With his amnesia, even if he was a criminal, he's probably forgotten all about it. Of course he wouldn't know why they're after him. And yet...
The nose and cheekbones detail really did not match up. The likeness only showed the face from the front, so it was impossible to compare.
   
As Xue Xian fell deep in thought, the voice of the customers at a nearby table wormed its way into his ear. Xue Xian surreptitiously glanced over.
"Is that monk the one in the wanted poster?" one of them said in a low voice to his companion.
Xue Xian's ears were sharper than humans', which was why he could hear.
   
"I've had our eye on him since they came in just now, but it's not him," came the reply. "Our county is the closest to the river port, and with all the people coming in and out, you know as well as I do how many random monks have already been locked up by the authorities. The one from the day before yesterday looked exactly like the picture, but the clerks said it wasn't him, and that the one they were looking for had even higher cheekbones––"
The customer gestured subtly at Xuanmin, and continued. "This one's cheekbones aren't even as strong as that guy, so don't even think about it. Besides, that one suspicious monk was captured by the guards outside the city walls, so how could this one have gotten all the way inside? And my brother-in-law clerks for the yamen. Yesterday, he told me that they added more details to the description of the monk. The poster will have to be updated again in a couple of days."
"Again? They've changed it at least three times in the past two weeks. How could they still not have gotten it right? What kind of person's appearance suddenly changes?"
"Who knows!" The customer shook his head. "At the beginning, everyone in the county would do a double take as soon as they came across a monk. Now that they keep messing with the poster, no one wants to bother anymore."
   
Having seen the poster, and then overheard that conversation, Xue Xian finally understood why the guard at the gate had seemed briefly suspicious of Xuanmin, but had then let them go.
Those who didn't know Xuanmin would quickly eliminate him from suspicion, simply based on the differences he had with the description as well as the reasons that the two customers had just outlined. Plus, Xuanmin’s mannerism was that of a monk who had only recently left the temple and come into human society. Most people were immediately taken aback by that temperament upon first meeting him, and would only note the specifics of his appearance on a secondary level. Overall, monks with such a temperament were not generally taken to be evildoers.
But unlike ordinary townspeople, Xue Xian knew the other side of Xuanmin –– he was extremely powerful, and he had amnesia.
   
If you came across someone who looked similar to the likeness in a wanted poster, but with some significant differences, then it was normal to eventually conclude that these were not the same person.
But if that person looked similar to the likeness, and his origins and backstory were highly unclear, and he had a mysterious health issue that made him forget all the things that had happened to him previously... if all of those things came together within one person, could the wanted poster really be explained away?

Seriously –– could it?
Xue Xian squinted at Xuanmin while he sipped his tea. And Xuanmin still stared intently at the poster, without noticing Xue Xian’s gaze.
   
"Sir, [a] your dishes are here ––" came a voice. All the waiters in the inn were well-trained. They carried a large wooden platter in just one hand, and were able to keep it steady even when it was stacked with four different dishes, without a single drop of sauce spilling out.
But the waiter who was bringing them their dishes now was different from the waiter who had poured their tea. Most restaurants had an unwritten rule where the waiter who greeted a group of customers got to stay with that group throughout their meal. Waiters rarely traded tables mid-meal, in case they happened to be serving a generous patron who approved of their nimble service and sympathetic conversation and who would leave a big fat tip.
   
"Mn? Where's the waiter from before?" Stone Zhang could not shut up, and always had to be asking questions. When he said this to the waiter, he said it as a casual question, with nothing behind it.
The waiter smiled and said, "Oh. When Qijin [b] was taking the dishes from the kitchen just now, he burned his hand on the ceramic plates. He was worried he wouldn’t be able to provide you good service, so he asked me to replace him. These steamed pork beignets have just come out of the pot. They're a bit hot, so please be careful, sirs." [a]
Then he quickly added, "Have a good meal," [c] before bowing and retreating, still smiling politely all the while.
The group at the table didn't think more of it. They hadn't eaten anything all day. When they'd still been waiting for their meal, they hadn't necessarily felt their hunger, but now that the dishes were laid out on the table, the warm steam bringing savoury fragrance up to their nostrils, they were hooked. They readied their chopsticks and tucked in, and had no room in their minds for anything else anymore.
   
Because he'd fallen victim to Xuanmin's vegetarian trickery last time, Xue Xian had insisted on ordering all the dishes himself this time.
The steamed pork beignets were sticky and soft, the clay-pot chicken soup was dense and rich, the wild mushroom and tofu pudding was still gurgling and steaming, and the stir-fried taro jelly was stacked in an orderly, transparent tower –– and there were also beef bao with golden bottoms that gushed with hot sauce upon the first bite...
Stone Zhang thought he might faint from ecstasy, and even Lu Nianqi couldn't help but lick his lips.
"How do you know all the specialties at each restaurant?" Jiang Shining asked gloomily. As a ghost, he had to sit in the darkest patch of shadow, and could not take a single bite of food. Faced with such a delicious feast, all he could do was direct his resentment at Xue Xian.   
   
"Don't look so miserable," Xue Xian said, wagging his chin. "Just... take in the smell."
Back when he'd been able-bodied, although he hadn't liked to spend too long among humanity, Xue Xian had become rather familiar with the concept of restaurants and wine halls. Whenever he left the sea to run an errand, it would be easy to simply flip through the clouds and arrive immediately at his destination. But Xue Xian would never be in a hurry: on his way back, he would always pick some towns on the way and duck in to discover some obscure local delicacies.
Even in the six months since he'd been half-paralysed, Xue Xian hadn't deprived himself of the pleasure, and had found ways to order others to bring him good food each day. But then... ever since he'd met Xuanmin, he was now going two or three days without so much as a grain of rice. Ridiculous!
   
At the thought of this, Xue Xian became annoyed again and gripped his chopsticks tighter, as though about to eat back all of the meals he'd missed.
Xuanmin had still been focusing on the poster, but the zuzong beside him was moving too much –– Xue Xian’s chopsticks jumped around at lightning speed as he inhaled his food, and it was far too distracting. Xuanmin had no choice but to fold up the poster.
   
This restaurant was unusually generous with its portions. Each dish was piled high with food, especially the steamed pork beignets, which filled an entire deep bowl. The container for the wild mushroom and tofu pudding was so large that it seemed they'd just brought out the entire cooking pot altogether.
As Xuanmin scanned the meal, he thought it was far too much food for this table. Surely at least a few of their group would pass out before being able to finish these dishes.
Xuanmin himself never ate very much, so he only scooped himself a small bowl of tofu pudding and began slowly to raise spoonfuls to his mouth –– a composure that was in stark contrast to Xue Xian beside him.
   
When Xuanmin finished the bowl of pudding, he put his spoon down.
"Are you eating cat food? How are you already full?" Xue Xian asked.
Xuanmin glanced over at Xue Xian’s side of the table, at the mountain of pork and chicken bones. And this zuzong was sly –– he, too, seemed to think that he had spat out too many bones, so had used his chopsticks to cut the pile in half and nudge part of it toward Xuanmin, making it seem as though the bones had come from them both.
Xuanmin: “...”
Who had ever heard of a monk spitting out pork and chicken bones?
   
Stone Zhang, Jiang Shining, and Lu Nianqi sat gawking as Xue Xian sucked on a lingering piece of meat on a drumstick, then turned and looked over at Xuanmin, their gazes drifting down to the piles of bones nearest to him.
Seeing this, Xuanmin looked down at his pile –– it was twice as large as the pile Xue Xian had attributed to himself.
What kind of idiot would believe that...
   
Jiang Shining saluted Xue Xian. "I admire you."
Xue Xian ignored him.
   
No matter how hungry someone is, their appetite is still limited to that of a human being. When Xuanmin had scanned the meal, he'd calculated that the group would only be able to eat half of the food before keeling over. And yet Xue Xian had not rested his chopsticks even once since the start of the meal.
Xue Xian was not a messy eater: his manner did not betray his hunger, instead remaining steady and calm, and, paired with his face, it was almost a beautiful scene. But...
The zuzong really could eat!
   
Xue Xian cleaned out all the plates on the table, and then flagged the waiter down to order a second clay-pot whole chicken, which he gradually picked clean too.
Xuanmin watched, frowning, as Xue Xian swallowed his final bite, then couldn't help but say, "Can you even stand now?" In other words... Aren't you eating too much?
"It's not like I actually need to walk. You should worry about whether you have enough strength in your arms," Xue Xian said. He’d had to be carried on and off the boat and the carriage, and had completely given up on trying to resist it. "Besides, I'm just savoring all the different flavors. When I really get to it, you could tie up ten men as tall as you and throw them all in a cage, and I'd still be able to eat them all. I'm exercising restraint here, understand?"
As Xue Xian said this, he spread his arms to outline the size of the cage, those greasy fingers drifting toward Xuanmin's face.
“...” With a blank expression, Xuanmin picked up a hot towel from the table, wrapped the dragon's claw with it, and slammed it back onto the table. "Clean your hands before you move them around," he said.
"You're so fussy..." Xue Xian whined.
   
The snowstorm did not seem like it would abate before morning, and the horse-drawn carriage they hired from the innkeeper would also only be able to depart the next day. The group checked into a few rooms at the inn, planning to stay the night and head to Qingping County first thing tomorrow: first they'd find Jiang Shining's sister and do the funeral rites for the Jiang parents, and then they'd follow Lu Nianqi's vision and track down the person who'd commissioned Stone Zhang.
As they bundled up the stairs, Xue Xian happened to be looking idly around the inn and saw a man standing in the corner, near the entrance to the kitchen.
   
Xue Xian noticed that the man's hand was bandaged, and recalled the waiter who had first greeted them and poured their tea. What was his name again...
Oh, right, Qijin. He'd probably been nicknamed for his weight at birth –– appropriate for a weak baby who might not live past childhood. [d]
   
As Qijin met Xue Xian's eyes, he first froze, then quickly nodded at Xue Xian and disappeared into the kitchen.
Xue Xian didn't think much of it. His mind was on something else: since he couldn't walk, he needed help in case he had to move around at night, so he and Xuanmin were sharing a room. This was excellent, because he was planning to ask Xuanmin some questions about his amnesia, to try and see if the criminal the authorities were after really was the bald donkey.
   
As the group settled into their rooms, Qijin stood in the corner of the kitchen and rubbed his wounded hand while chatting with the dark-skinned [e] waiter who'd replaced him.
"Are you sure?" the dark-skinned waiter said in a low voice.
"I only saw him one time..." Qijin paused, then added, "Besides, you know that the Guoshi wears a silver mask every day, so that no one can see any part of his face except for his eyes. At the time, I was standing at the front, and someone bumped into me from behind. I almost ran right into the ritual parade. The Guoshi... he glared at me. I was so scared I couldn't move. How do I say this––"
With a dire look on his face, Qijin said, "If you look into those eyes once, you can't forget it for the rest of your life. That day, I was sweating all over. And when that customer glanced at me, I got the same feeling. My knees buckled."
   
The dark-skinned waiter was still skeptical. "But--"
"Plus, although I've never seen the Guoshi’s face, I did get to see the way he looked from the back. The way he moved, that mannerism, I'll never forget it. And that customer looked exactly the same from the back!"
"But it doesn't make sense. Why would the Guoshi come to a place like this? Don't they say he's sealed himself off?"
"You know, those wanted posters all over town these days... They're looking for a monk. The likeness looks a bit like that customer. Do you think..."
The dark-skinned waiter frowned in thought. Then he said, "Alright. How about when our shift ends, we go to the yamen?"