Of Mountains and Rivers Chapter 9
No Good, I’m Being Too Weird and Vulgar
But on the next day, Chu Huan still awoke to the scent of medicinal herbs.
Although his friend Xiao Fang – despite the fact he learnt his real name was ‘Vicious and Ferocious Hairy Monkey’, Chu Huan personally believed ‘Xiao Fang’ was more simple, understandable, and vivid – would still frequently glare at him accusingly, looking as if he was wielding vajra, he woke up early in the morning to squat on the ground and boil medicine for him, dripping with sweat.
It was currently the season when one could already wear a windbreaker, yet Xiao Fang was near shirtless every day. Chu Huan found it incomprehensible how he could feel so hot.
Was this friend’s firepower stronger than ordinary people's?
Chu Huan heaved himself up using his uninjured shoulder. Awakening from his hangover, he didn’t feel uncomfortable nor did he have a headache; it could be seen that although Nanshan’s alcohol tasted strange at first, it must’ve been of good quality.
However, with this slight movement, his mischievous and relaxed expression suddenly hardened.
There was a saying that ‘those who wander Jianghu can’t avoid the blades1’. To get beaten before beating others was the development law’s objective, so although Chu Huan didn’t dare say how capable he was, he was definitely a professional familiar with blades and bullets. He’d suffered everything from injuries as small as bullet grazes to damages as big as ’three knives and six holes2’, allowing him to obtain full experience.
Nobody was clearer than Chu Huan when it came to knowing an injury's severity, how to heal it, and how long to heal it to what kind of level. For this kind of penetrative bullet wound he had now, if it didn't worsen or get infected, then it’d already be considered well-maintained.
But now, in just one night, his fresh wound had already begun to faintly scab.
Not to mention his advancing age, long-term depression, and unhealthy habits – all of which only further deteriorated his physical health – even during the prime of his life, he’d never had such a terrifying recovery ability.
It was as if his cell activity had been greatly enhanced in this part of his body.
What kind of medicine did they use on him?
In the splendour of dawn, countless thoughts lit up within Chu Huan’s heart. His long-term work experience dealing with various cross-border desperadoes caused his first reaction to being ‘drugs’.
The leaf bandaged around his wound and the medicinal herbs he drank – what kind of ingredients were contained in them?
Was it possible he mistook analgesic effects for his wound healing?
At this time, Nanshan came over carrying a basin. He greeted Chu Huan, brimming with energy.
Although Chu Huan had many doubts in his heart, he responded calmly. He glanced into Nanshan’s basin and saw it half-filled with water, two large leaves of more than two chi3 long and several palms wide soaked within – the same leaf bandaged around his wound.
Nanshan knelt on one knee by the edge of his bed and bent down to carefully unbound the leaf bandaged around Chu Huan’s wound. If there was no comparison he wouldn’t have known, but maybe because of dehydration, the leaf removed from Chu Huan’s body appeared dry and dull as if its vitality had been sucked away.
A bit of flesh and blood was stuck on the leaf. Thus, when Nanshan peeled off the leaf he accidentally implicated it; although Chu Huan didn’t make a single sound, his body trembled violently for a moment.
Painful – it was really painful. But the pain was good; at least, it meant he wasn’t anaesthetised.
Nanshan noticed his reaction. He opened his palm and pressed it against his forehead as if to comfort him in some way. Nanshan fished out a small bottle and poured out a small handful of snow-white powder that looked like flour; it was slightly whiter than normal flour and it carried a special smell.
Fishy, Chu Huan thought for a moment. He decided that the smell was between ‘bloody’ and ‘earthy scent of plants’.
Without waiting for Chu Huan to finish carefully observing it, Nanshan pasted the medicinal powder against his wound.
The intense pain caused by the unknown powder was out of the ordinary; he felt an ecstatic high more fatal than if chilli water was directly poured over him. Chu Huan felt someone had probed a long thorn into his wound and churned it.
However, he’d already mentally expected that ‘applying medicine must be painful’, so he didn’t even tremble this time – just instinctively stiffened his muscles and gritted his teeth through the process.
Towards such unyielding behaviour, Nanshan raised his head and smiled admiringly. He said something to him, the pronunciation very similar to Xiao Fang’s native name.
Chu Huan determined the compliment probably also meant ‘vicious and ferocious hairy X’.
With an emaciated look, he accepted the other’s appreciation. At the same time, he depressingly thought, please don’t let it be ‘vicious and ferocious hairy donkey’.
Miraculously, although his heart still held doubts, most of his guard had been put down.
The unadulterated pain played a part. The other reason was that Chu Huan had an intuition making him refuse to believe Nanshan was a bad person.
The guest house’s standard room only had two beds barely big enough to squeeze in a skinny girl each; it was definitely impossible for two men to sleep together. Xiao Fang had moved aside the TV from the TV cabinet and, while Chu Huan watched, spread a straw mat over it. Using a wine jar as his pillow for the night, he truly had the character of an out-of-this-world expert.
Nanshan very naturally helped him wrap his wound. Within a few minutes, he also finished shaving a wooden stick that could temporarily act as a clutch and help him move around more easily. After Chu Huan was all set, he brought a few pancakes to share with him.
The pancakes were made from coarse grains with both leaven and unleavened dough – dry and hard, it could be seen they were made several days ago. Similar to the rations travellers from ancient times would bring to their journey, the taste was ridiculous.
The unknown but effective powder filled Chu Huan’s mind with speculations about its origin, therefore he ate the coarse-grains pancakes extra meticulously, wanting to taste out any mysterious ingredients from them.
As a result, Nanshan mistakenly thought the pancakes were too hard for him to bite into and immediately carefully poured him a glass of wine. In front of Chu Huan’s baffled eyes, he exemplified by ripping off a piece of the pancake and soaking it in the liquid before taking it out and passing it to him.
Chu Huan: “…”
He thanked Nanshan for his concern, took it, and ate it silently. He excellently experienced the entire process of the taste going from ‘ridiculous’ to ‘extremely tragic’.
During his simple breakfast, Chu Huan began to blunderingly communicate with the other. He started off by using gestures to ask, are you going to wait here for a few more days for the teacher?
Nanshan shook his head. That person will not come.
He expressed this with difficulty, appearing a bit lonely, but he was also calm as if he was no longer concerned about this matter.
Chu Huan: “Then when are you leaving?”
Nanshan: After your wound heals.
At first, Chu Huan suspected their poor communication caused him to misunderstand the other hence, with extreme hesitance, he repeated his question. Nanshan stretched out his palm and patted his own shoulder and leg before bringing his hands together, making a gesture that seemed to mean ‘healing’.
Chu Huan was stunned.
He wanted to ask why. They didn’t know his history and he carried gunshot wounds on his body – they were just strangers that came together by chance. It was fine for them to have recognised the wrong person, yet now that they know the truth, they still wanted to stay here to take care of a stranger?
But in the end, he didn’t ask; he felt that if he asked this question, it’d be like he was doubting their intentions.
Did he doubt them?
It was impossible for Chu Huan to not doubt because it was part of his job. To him, negligence was synonymous with stupidity. He had to always maintain careful scrutiny of his surrounding environments.
However, whenever he looked into Nanshan’s limpid pair of eyes, he couldn’t help but feel ashamed of his doubts, so he covered them very tightly.
So Chu Huan was silent for a moment. “Then I’ll invite you to lunch in the afternoon. By the way, if it’s okay, I can teach you a bit more Mandarin, but could you also play the tune from yesterday a bit more?”
•·················•·················•
Nanshan was very generous when inviting people to eat and drink, so he wasn’t pretentious when invited out either; in the afternoon, with Xiao Fang beside him, he cheerfully supported Chu Huan and left the guesthouse.
The small county seat was a transfer station for travellers to rest. There was a row of buffet restaurants for tour groups, looking as if they were all born from the same mother; only a foreign fast food restaurant on the street corner appeared unconventional, its English store name hung on the doors like a crane in a flock of chicken.
Of course, after a closer look, the letters were found to be in Chinese pinyin.
On the corner, there was even a clear indication of the pinyin’s meaning – ‘Ken Dang Ji’4.
Chu Huan halted beneath the sign for a very long time before determining this was the baby produced by a 3P between McDonald’s, KFC and Chong Qing Ji Gong Bao.
But wasn’t ‘Ken Dang Ji’s aspiration… A bit too far-reaching?
When he rolled down the cliff, his telecommunication equipment had either fallen somewhere or was broken. It wasn’t until now did Chu Huan finally spend fifty cents to borrow a restaurant’s phone to call Old Wang and heartily listened to his round of curses, accepting it as his past life’s father-in-law’s baptism of love, before rejecting Old Wang’s suggestion to send someone to pick him up.
“I’ll stay here for a few days before going back myself. The environment here is pretty good, so I’ll just make this my vacation.”
Old Wang didn’t nag him for this matter. He was just silent for a moment before asking, “Just then, how did you say you dropped down?”
Chu Huan’s expression never changed. “I slipped.”
Old Wang: “…Will you die if you don’t talk nonsense?”
“I really did slip. But now I’ve reformed myself.” Chu Huan laughed lightly. “As for the agency- When you go back, don’t forget to greet Xiao Lu for this youth who tripped. When the child’s born in the future, they must call me uncle.”
Old Wang’s daughter’s nickname was Xiao Lu; two years ago, she married a photographer and was now about to give birth.
Chu Huan thought back and realised that throughout his entire adolescence, he’d been fighting for her – to the point where he got black eyes from it – yet he’d never once taken the initiative to ask her out to the movies or for ice cream or something. He hadn’t even written something as universally appreciated as a love letter. He’d simply fought for the sake of fighting.
He neglected the root and pursued the tip’5. He showered affection on an uninterested party, making him appear ridiculous to the point where… It was almost cute.
“I’m going now. Goodbye,” he said to Old Wang.
‘Ken Dang Ji’ sold rice, noodles, pies, and fried chicken. When Chu Huan innocently asked ‘are there any french fries? Fried potatoes?’ the lady boss turned around and carried a bowl of large potato pieces and steamed rice and millet from the kitchen. She reached out and grabbed a handful of coarse salt to sprinkle over the bowl before heroically saying, “You can eat now.”
Chu Huan: “…”
Although it was a knock-off, the food’s quality was unexpectedly okay – the pie was white, fat, crispy and soft, and the fried chicken was a glistening brown; even from a distance, one could smell the strange fragrance of meat.
In the beginning, Xiao Fang was extremely impatient towards Chu Huan and was even somewhat hostile. The other day, when they drank together, half of his hostility was eliminated; when the fried chicken was served, Chu Huan could tell that this vicious and ferocious hairy monkey was planning on turning his foe into a friend.
He himself didn’t have that big of an appetite. Chu Huan searched through his whole body and found merely half a packet of cigarettes left. He borrowed a lighter from the lady boss and smoked one near the window. When he went to sit back down, Nanshan suddenly raised his hand and pressed it against his chest.
Chu Huan was taken aback. He saw Nanshan gently knock with his index finger’s knuckle where his lungs were, his expression serious, and shake his head rather disapprovingly.
Then, Nanshan retracted his hands and passed Chu Huan a chicken leg.
Chu Huan couldn’t help but stare at him for a while. He found that when Nanshan ate, he did so with rapt attention as if he was dealing with a major sacred matter – not even a crumb was wasted.
Eating. For Chu Huan, it was just a fundamental act to live. He didn’t know when he’d lost his appetite for food; to him, there was no difference between tasty and untasty food. A hard, shrivelled, multi-grain cracker and a feast that smelled, looked, and tasted good were all the same in his eyes; with three mouthfuls they’d be finished, all tasting like chewed wax.
But looking at Nanshan, there was suddenly an illusion of ‘eating is a particularly blissful matter’. He lowered his head tentatively and took a bite, but he didn’t feel anything different – it was just normal chicken.
So Chu Huan couldn’t help but glance back at Nanshan again and was once again dazzled by his incomparable happiness.
Does it really taste that good? Chu Huan thought, involuntarily slowing down, returning his drifting concentration back to the bitten chicken leg in his hand.
Just like this, Chu Huan glanced at Nanshan before taking a bite of his food, slowly and gradually awakening his numb and inflexible taste buds. He… could actually taste the flavour.
The three people soon stacked the two big plates; the chickens that were once high above the brim were completely gone. Chu Huan only realised afterwards that he’d over-eaten.
After he settled the bill, he looked back at Nanshan’s peaceful and satisfied expression and, somehow, actually felt happy.
But… Wait, it didn’t matter if music could bring pleasure to the mind and body, but what’s with the same thing happening while he was watching someone eat?
Was he so beautiful it feasted his eyes?
Chu Huan embarrassedly twisted the ring around his finger, letting the words ‘just teasing you’ grind against his skin. He had an unperturbed expression, his heart filled with censure as he thought, no good, I’m being too weird and vulgar like this.
Translator's Notes
- An English idiom equivalent to this is ‘what goes around comes around’
- This is generally a gang rule where someone would use a knife to stab through both thighs three times
- A Chinese foot. One chi is equivalent to 33.33… cm, or 13.12 inches
- ‘肯当鸡’; ‘肯’ is the same as ‘肯德基’ (KFC), ‘当’ is the same as ‘麦当劳’ (McDonald’s) and ‘鸡’ is the same as ‘重庆鸡公煲’ (Chong Qing Ji Gong Bao)
- Idiom meaning 'ignored the fundamental aspects of something and instead concentrated on the minor details'
