Of Mountains and Rivers Chapter 12
Chu Huan Had Unknowingly Become a Nice Guy; Thus, His Unstable Career as a Rural Teacher Began.
The region inhabited by the Liyi Clan had many vacated houses for various reasons. Nanshan allowed Chu Huan to choose whichever one he wanted as long as it wasn’t along the river near the forest.
Nanshan didn’t explain why nor did Chu Huan question him – ever since crossing the river, he’d been feeling an inexplicable sense of awe towards this place.
When one makes a judgement, they must believe in it; if one can’t make a clear judgement, then they must believe in their instincts. So, Chu Huan decisively complied with his sixth sense.
All the ladies here were very diligent – they’d be by the river washing up before daybreak. A crowd of intrepid elderly, middle-aged, and youthful ladies talking, laughing, and making a fuss were even mightier than the elderly ladies that danced in public squares; if one day he opened a window and looked out, it’d be very easy to catch an X-rated scene…
One must know, X-rated scenes in the real world weren’t very charming; a majority of them would make people wish they could gouge out their eyes.
Even if Nanshan didn’t mention this, he still wouldn’t choose a house by the river.
Chu Huan wandered around on a horse and swiftly chose a dwelling – he took a fancy to an old house away from everyone else.
It was said the house used to belong to an elderly man. The elderly man’s lifespan was as unyielding as a rock; his wife and children died, then his grandchildren died, and in the end, his great-grandson came to a premature end. Seeing how he was the last of his family line, he reluctantly bid farewell to the mortal realm. Since then, his family had no more successors. As time passed, his house was handed over to the clan; with the Patriarch’s final say, it was given to Chu Huan.
Here, the buildings all consisted of high-end and posh detached villas. Chu Huan looked around and couldn’t help but feel bitter; for his country and its citizens, he’d done so many life-threatening shady businesses, yet in the end, he was only allocated a small apartment no better than a cattery and no more spacious than a rural teacher’s employee dormitory.
However, after he entered the house, Chu Huan no longer felt it was extravagant anymore. This house truly proved itself to be a long-term vacated haunted house; the inside was penniless not just in name, but also in reality. It was so clean even bats were too lazy to cling to the windows. Its height wasn’t something common storied villas could compare to – on the outside it looked like a small two-story house, but when he walked in he realised it was only one-storied; not only that, there was only one room and no living room… In this life, he’d probably never escape the ‘one-room, no living room’ accommodation standard.
Tut. Such is the life of a poor ghost.
He raised his head. Through the transparent skylight, Chu Huan could see endless miles of a cloudless sky, a hundred-year-old big tree… and a row of wretched brats sitting on the big tree.
Chu Huan’s eyes abruptly focused on them – in any case, that height should be close to seven or eight metres, right?
As soon as the children squatting on the branch met Chu Huan’s eyes, they immediately banded together; they pulled and shouted at each other before their leader took initiative to jump down. The cool breeze gently brushed past him and his fart curtain1 fluttered – he was very skilled.
He reached out and grabbed a branch from below; with a few sways, he disappeared without a trace. The rest followed closely; lined up, they carried out the high tree-jumping movement and all landed safely in groups of two and three.
Chu Huan: “…”
The monkeys from this precious place resembled humans far too much.
In his everyday life, Chu Huan was extremely talented at barely getting by; wherever a cockroach could live, he could live too. Nanshan, on the other hand, was afraid of doing him wrong, so he quickly gathered a group of people to clean up the house for him. That dozen group of shirtless burly chaps stood in a line, remarkably similar to a human wall. They uniformly parted their mouths at Chu Huan and bared their teeth in a smile; then and there, they formed a team of Great White Shark commandos.
Chu Huan soon passively experienced what it was like to live as a pampered young master; he stood aside idly, unable to intervene. Then, Xiao Fang ran over as if the mountains were calling and the seas were roaring and dragged him over to flat ground in front of the Patriarch’s house to accept a welcome ceremony.
Welcome ceremonies were roughly similar all over the world; the basic elements included four major necessities – ‘singing, dancing, drinking, and eating meat’.
It was customary in the Liyi Clan for men to dance and women to sing – the dance performances were very enthusiastic. In Chu Huan’s eyes, there were two kinds of dances in the world; one was ‘turning in circles’ and the other was ‘jumping’. The Liyi Clan’s dances belonged to the ‘jumping’ category.
Dozens of big and tall men hopping around made it feel as if the Earth was trembling; in addition to the traditional drum beats played, the visual effects were almost mind-blowing.
Chu Huan wasn’t sure what the women were singing – it was probably along the lines of ‘welcome, welcome, a very warm welcome’ or something. He just felt their voices were unusually lucid, elegant, and resonant.
Refers to the field caps that were part of the Japanese military outfit during
Sinking autumn waters; the sky is high and the earth distant2.
In the past, Chu Huan would’ve fearfully avoided such noisy occasions; however, at this moment, although everyone around him bustled endlessly, as long as Nanshan wasn’t practising his oral Chinese with him he wasn’t able to understand anything. Because he couldn’t communicate, he felt a kind of ‘keep quiet in a noisy neighbourhood’ feeling. Human voices and bird language weren’t very different; in his world, there still was only one person.
Drinking alcohol with such a view, Chu Huan actually felt more happy and content.
Chu Huan: “Come, Xiao Fang, drink up.”
After he finished speaking, he immediately suited his actions to his words; he raised his bowl of wine and gulped down the content.
Not willing to be outdone, Xiao Fang also finished in one go. Seemingly overjoyed by all the alcohol, he relaxed his throat and laughed out heartily; one of his tooth-marked hands rushed towards Chu Huan.
Seeing his movement, Chu Huan immediately understood; he was tacitly struck with a heavy palm before the other squeezed his hand tightly and violently shook it a few times.
Xiao Fang thumped his chest and loudly shouted, “Ah lan wu-”
Chu Huan looked at Nanshan, so Nanshan explained. “Good friend.”
After, Nanshan mulled over something for a while before he couldn’t help but ask, “What did you call him?”
Chu Huan: “Xiao Fang.”
Nanshan: “What does that mean?”
Chu Huan plucked a flower from the grass and positioned it under Nanshan’s nose. “Flower – a flower’s fragrance.”
Nanshan stared blankly at the delicate flower; for the very first time, a very sci-fi-like expression was exposed on his face.
Xiao Fang probably thought Chu Huan was praising him, so he put his arms around his shoulders, shouting and jumping.
But then the young Patriarch smiled and, without batting an eyelid, sized up the guest he’d invited. This person had neat, short hair and lenses more translucent than crystal propped on the bridge of his nose – he appeared very gentle and weak.
Everything about him, from his head to his toes, was different from them.
In fact, he was different even from the few people Nanshan had come in contact with from across the river. Whether it be the way he’d narrow his eyes towards an unknown place or how he’d lazily twitch the corners of his lips into a smile, it all carried something people from across the river didn’t have.
Nanshan wasn’t sure how to describe it; in short, whenever he looked at this person, he’d feel as if everyone else in the world were like open books – as if they had no layers.
Chu Huan, Nanshan silently called out his name with unfamiliarity, for him to willingly follow us to this place nobody else wanted to come, he must be a good person.
Chu Huan had unknowingly become a nice guy; thus, his unstable career as a rural teacher began.
•·················•·················•
Their classroom was on the empty ground they’d been singing and dancing on. One of the clan’s men found a large white boulder from who-knows-where and raised it there before finding him a dark carbon rod so, if necessary, he could write against the white rock. Xiao Fang squatted beside the rock and, as if very well-trained, would rush to wipe the stone clean whenever it became covered in words.
It’s a pity that although he was serious when erasing the blackboard, he was an amateur at listening to the lesson. Whilst half of its content was still stuck in Chu Huan’s throat, he’d rush over to wipe it down. Every time this happened, Chu Huan could only stop and wipe his glasses with a smile – wanting to beat him up – but since he’d already struggled half a day to create an intellectual image of himself, he decided it wouldn’t be very good to start a fight. In the end, someone else would do it for him; beside Nanshan was another guard-like youth who was very adept at beating Xiao Fang.
That youth was called ‘What What More’ – Nanshan’s translation for it was ‘Glistening Cliff’. The train of thought behind the Liyi Clan members’ naming process was very weird. Chu Huan couldn’t imagine how a cliff could glisten – he’d already fallen once so he was filled with shadowed trauma against cliffs – so he simplified this person’s name to ‘Da Shan3’.
Da Shan was a young man who hadn’t reached twenty yet and already had a tall and strong body. Usually, he was serious in his speech and manner. He’d awkwardly sit there but would study harder than anyone else, so he was particularly irritated by the shit-stirrer Xiao Fang; whenever Xiao Fang made any interruptions, a shoe would fly over to hit him.
Not long after, Da Shan grew a conditioned reflex where whenever he saw Chu Huan wipe his glasses, he’d find something to throw at Xiao Fang.
Apart from Nanshan, who recognised a few words and could speak a few sentences, nobody else could communicate with Chu Huan; therefore, whenever there was a lesson, the Patriarch needed to stay on one side to translate the words Chu Huan taught into the Liyi Clan’s language. Sometimes, even the Patriarch couldn’t translate properly, hence both teacher and students had to stop and communicate back and forth with difficulty.
Chu Huan’s students included the entire village, from the elderly to the young. The patriarch couldn't act as a teacher’s assistant all day nor was it possible for the adults to not work, so their daily lessons would only begin in the evening for less than an hour – the work was extremely easy.
The welcome speech Chu Huan had originally prepared began with ‘children’, but when he arrived at his first lesson he found a large majority of his students not to be actual children. When the word arrived at his lips, he quick-wittedly turned a corner and turned it to ‘little ones4’.
Nanshan worked hard to get the others to call him ‘teacher’, but the pronunciation of ‘lao’ was too round and difficult for beginners, so when everyone began to talk at the same time in lively and disorderly discussions, Chu Huan waved his hand dramatically. “Don’t call me ‘teacher’, call me ‘My King’.”
These two words were simple – they immediately learned them. Suddenly, a chorus of ‘My King' repeated continuously, turning the entire Liyi Clan into the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit.
Chu Huan’s expression was serious and calm, completely inheriting Mr Chu Aiguo’s essence of ‘Just Teasing You’. If he continued teaching them as if nothing happened then, after a few years, everyone from the simple and kind-hearted Liyi Clan would think ‘My King’ would mean ‘teacher’.
A month flew by quickly. Chu Huan would only show up on time for the daily lessons; during other times of the day, his whereabouts were quite a mystery.
Other than for sleeping, Chu Huan rarely went back to his house because every time he looked up he’d see several butt-naked brats sitting on the branches peeking down at him.
In the morning, he’d usually be up before the crack of dawn to do some basic physical training around the river and mountains – Chu Huan didn’t think he was the kind of person to wallow in self-pity. He believed his problem lay in physiological causes, so he unyieldingly set himself a work-and-rest schedule. When he first began, there seemed to be something in his body stopping him from pushing himself; during the worst moments, he’d experience a skull-splitting headache that made him want to stab himself with a knife. During these times, he could only rely on the ring Chu Aiguo gave him and repeatedly remind himself of the promise he made to the old man.
When he felt he could finally breathe normally again, he’d go to Nanshan and sit with him for a while to listen to his flute-playing or make idle chatter. With this, Chu Huan felt himself absorb a large amount of vitality.
Due to language barriers, nobody in the Liyi Clan except for their Patriarch, Nanshan, could talk with Chu Huan; this indirectly caused the Patriarch's image to become even more brilliant.
Each day, whenever they couldn’t find Chu Huan, the older children would lead the younger children in a tireless game of 'Find ‘My King’'.
It simply became a fun expedition; although they were too shy to come over and talk to Chu Huan, if they found him, they could go back and brag to their friends about it for a very long time.
Unfortunately, unless it was because Chu Huan showed up himself, the little brats never once succeeded in finding him.
But even if he didn’t inquire and wasn’t curious, over time, Liyi Clan’s various strangeness inevitably ran into his eyes.
Translator's Notes
- Refers to the field caps that were part of the Japanese military outfit during WWII
- Part of a poem written by Liu Zongyuan called ‘Dance Music – Song of White Ramie’. ‘Autumn waters’ is a metaphor describing a person’s limpid, fluid glances; ‘…the earth distant’ refers to a remote place
- Means ‘big mountain’
- ‘Little ones’, ‘my King’, ‘Mountain of Flowers and Fruit’ – this is a reference to ‘Sun Wukong’ (or more commonly known as the ‘Monkey King’), a mythological figure from Journey to the West. In his birthplace, ‘Mountain of Flowers and Fruit’, he is the ‘king’ to all monkeys there, which he’d call ‘little ones’
