Chapter 26: Garlic White Meat (Part 1)
All conditioned phenomena
Are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, shadows,
Like dew and lightning.
Thus should they be contemplated.
— Diamond Sutra, Chapter 32
A moonlit night with clear breeze.
After Jing Yi moved into this residence at the beginning of the year, he selected a wall in his courtyard that could be seen entirely with just one glance upon opening the window morning or night. He personally scrubbed the wall clean, gave it a fresh coat of paint, removed all the wilted plants at its base, and when the river thawed and swallows returned, he planted the entire wall with loofah vines.
He tended to them diligently every day. By the height of summer, they had attracted swarms of mosquitoes.
Jing Yi battled the mosquitoes throughout the entire summer, suffering miserable defeats, yet never once considered uprooting the loofah vines.
Loofah—"si"—homophonous with "thought." Within them lay his longing.
A longing that, like these loofah vines, grew increasingly lush and full with each passing day.
On his wedding day, while servants bustled about in frantic activity, Jing Yi stood beneath the now fruit-laden loofah wall in his crimson wedding robes, grinning foolishly to himself for half an hour.
As you sow, so shall you reap—this must be the meaning.
Therefore, when Leng Yue dragged him back to the bedroom by his ear, Jing Yi instinctively cast a deep glance toward that wall of dense loofah vines.
It must have been his planting method that was wrong.
Leng Yue kicked the door open, tossed Jing Yi inside, and began rolling up her sleeves as she advanced toward him.
Jing Yi silently retreated until his back met a folding screen, leaving him with nowhere else to go.
He glanced around—the spacious room held only a solitary lamp flickering on a stand within arm's reach. Aside from that lamp, he was the brightest object in the entire room.
This was like a cook moving the lamp closer to the cutting board during dinner preparation, the better to see where to make the cut that would best highlight the ingredients' qualities...
Jing Yi felt a twinge of regret.
He should have planted cucumbers instead.
"Xiao Yue..."
Leng Yue ignored his desperate murmur. Stopping just one step away, she reached for his collar.
Jing Yi was an intelligent man. In the Jing family, intelligence largely meant understanding how to assess situations and make the most appropriate choices accordingly.
Thus, in the blink of an eye, Jing Yi made his decision.
He raised his head, took a breath, closed his eyes, spread his arms wide, and set his feet apart.
I am the fish on the chopping block, the meat on the cutting board. The Buddha is merciful—let her do as she will...
No sooner had Jing Yi struck his spread-eagle pose than he felt a hand on his chest—a warm, soft, yet strong hand that grabbed his collar, exerted force, and hauled him aside.
"Move."
"..."
Staggering two steps, Jing Yi stood to the side with a complicated expression, watching helplessly as Leng Yue single-handedly moved the screen aside, pulled out a bathtub from behind it, and revealed a turtle the size of a bucket opening leisurely paddling in the water.
"Take it to see the Old Master tomorrow."
Jing Yi stared blankly, engaging in a wide-eyed standoff with the turtle until the creature retracted its head into its shell. Only then did he lift his head to gaze bewildered at Leng Yue. "Take it... to see the Old Master?""Doesn't the Old Master want a grandson?" Leng Yue's lips curved slightly as she crouched down and patted the turtle's moss-covered shell. "It just so happens we haven't named it yet. Starting today, it shall be called Turtle Grandson. Tomorrow we'll bring it to show the Old Master, and this matter will be considered settled."
Jing Yi's expression grew even more complicated.
Just standing here, he could vividly imagine what would happen if he cheerfully carried this creature to Master Jing and announced, "This is our family's Turtle Grandson." Master Jing would undoubtedly beat him into submission before the ancestral tablets.
I wonder if it's still too late to start planting cucumbers now...
Jing Yi stared blankly at the turtle shell, momentarily forgetting to respond to Leng Yue. He didn't know how long he'd been lost in thought when suddenly he heard Leng Yue's icy voice.
"Did you hear what I said? What are you thinking about?"
Jing Yi snapped out of his daze, his mouth moving before his brain could stop it. "Planting cucumbers..."
"...Go out and plant cucumbers then."
Jing Yi suddenly came to his senses. Seeing Leng Yue's face as hard as a turtle shell, he knew it was too late for appeasing smiles, but still managed to force one in a last-ditch effort. "No, my dear, it's the middle of the night..."
"Plant them around the rockery in the backyard. Do it alone, and make them as dense as the loofahs outside the wall. If you dare cut corners or slack off, from now on you'll sleep in the basin while it sleeps on the bed."
"...I'll plant them!"
And so, two gardeners were dragged from their beds in the middle of the night by Jing Yi, accompanying their unfortunate master to plant cucumbers under the moon and stars.
Early the next morning when Leng Yue came to the garden, the two gardeners were already sleeping head-to-head nearby, drooling profusely, while Jing Yi was still huffing and puffing as he dug in the soil.
The August weather retained some lingering heat. Jing Yi, bare-chested, was drenched in sweat from head to toe. Bathed in the bright morning light, he looked like a freshly dug and washed white radish - tender, dewy, and carrying the fresh scent of soil.
Looking at him like this...
He appeared quite refreshing.
Leng Yue approached to inspect the ground that Jing Yi had churned up like it had been rooted through by pigs. "How much have you planted?"
The white radish only glanced up at her briefly, not stopping his work. "Almost done..."
"Hmm... then take a break first."
"No break..."
Leng Yue sighed silently. To be honest, she never expected him to actually grow any cucumbers. Making him plant cucumbers last night was just a random excuse to keep him from sleeping in their room.
If he hadn't mentioned cucumbers, she would have found another excuse anyway.
Seeing Jing Yi genuinely drenched in sweat like this was somewhat unexpected. Given Jing Yi's usual style, why would he honestly spend the whole night planting cucumbers...
"We have guests at home. Go back to wash up and change clothes."
Jing Yi didn't respond, nor did he stop working.
"Alright, even if you don't finish today, I won't make you sleep in the basin. Hurry up, I've already prepared bathwater for you."
Jing Yi still didn't respond.
"And I won't let Turtle Grandson sleep on the bed either, alright?"
"Alright."
She knew it...
Jing Yi happily threw down the hoe, picked up his clothes, and hummed a tune as he returned to his room.
Watching Jing Yi's glistening retreating figure, Leng Yue genuinely felt the impulse to spend her nights holding the turtle from now on.What kind of person...
Jing Yi had been gone for over two hours. When he finally appeared in the living room, only Leng Yue with a gloomy expression and two cups of cold, steamless tea remained.
Jing Yi swore he never wanted to touch a hoe again in his life. Without waiting for Leng Yue to speak, he conscientiously stood before her. "My lady, I was wrong."
Leng Yue pursed her lips without speaking. Jing Yi then earnestly added, "My lady, actually the fault doesn't lie with me in the end. That Turtle Grandson kept trying to climb into my bathtub. I was afraid it would get scalded, so I tried reasoning with it, but it wouldn't listen. We ended up fighting..."
As he spoke, Jing Yi rolled up his sleeve to reveal several pink scratches on his pale arm. The skin wasn't broken, just slightly swollen, creating an unexpectedly pleasing sight. "Please examine them, my lady."
Seeing the corner of Leng Yue's mouth twitch, Jing Yi hurriedly added the most crucial point: "In the end, I flipped it over and pinned it to the ground. I still won."
"..."
"Though it might be somewhat dishonorable victory, as the Art of War wisely states..."
Leng Yue listened silently as Jing Yi recited nearly half of The Art of War, until she finally couldn't bear it anymore. She lowered her head, buried her face in her hands, and rubbed vigorously.
"Jing Yi... just now, Xiao Yunde came by."
Jing Yi froze, cutting off his recitation mid-sentence. Staring at Leng Yue's expression—angry yet somewhat regretful, regretful yet somewhat frustrated—he hesitated for a moment. "My lady, if you didn't vent enough... should I call him back?"
"I didn't hit him..." Leng Yue looked deeply at Jing Yi, who appeared immaculately clean after his bath, then slightly pursed her pale lips. In a heavy voice, she said, "Jing Yi, last night... a relative of your family—our family—passed away."
Jing Yi's brow furrowed slightly.
A relative?
For Leng Yue to be so affected, it must be someone she was familiar with, or at least had dealings with. A relative of the Jing family, and one whose death was announced by Xiao Yunde, who typically avoided interactions with relatives.
Jing Yi was slightly startled. "Qin Hehuan died?"
"No, she didn't."
"...Then which relative was it?"
Leng Yue hesitated again before standing up from her chair. She pulled Jing Yi's arm, dragged him to the chair, pressed his shoulders to make him sit down, and then lowered her voice, enunciating each word clearly: "Xiao Yunde."
"..."
If Leng Yue's hand hadn't still been pressing on his shoulder, Jing Yi would have jumped up to show her.
"My lady..." Jing Yi widened his fox-like eyes, his Adam's apple trembling slightly as he swallowed. When he spoke again, his tone was even more sincere. "I truly know I was wrong. I'll plant cucumbers along every wall in our house, alright? Please don't scare me like this..."
"Who's scaring you..." Leng Yue couldn't help but roll her eyes in exasperation, though her voice remained slow and heavy. "He really is dead. Qin Hehuan had someone carry his coffin over... Don't glare at me like that. While you were fighting with that turtle in the bathtub, the coffin had already been delivered to the Ministry of Justice's mortuary."Jing Yi let out a long sigh of relief, his wide eyes returning to their usual curved and upturned shape that carried a faint hint of a smile even when he wasn’t laughing. “You truly have a golden tongue, Madam. Just last night, you said that people like Xiao Yunde would be dealt with by the heavens, and today, the heavens have indeed taken him.”
Leng Yue opened her mouth to speak, then hesitated and shook her head. She withdrew her hand from Jing Yi’s shoulder, picked up a cup of tea from the table, and was about to bring it to her lips when Jing Yi reached out to stop her.
“Wait.”
He took the cup from her hand, stood up, and poured the cold tea into the courtyard outside the door. Turning back, he walked to the small stove in the corner of the room, picked up the kettle, and poured a cup of hot water. He blew on it gently before handing it back to Leng Yue.
“Drink slowly. It’s still a bit hot.”
Seeing Leng Yue’s dazed expression, Jing Yi pointed to the spot on his shoulder where she had just pressed her hand. “Your palms are drenched in cold sweat. It’s better to drink something warm.”
Leng Yue held the steaming cup, her nose tingling with emotion.
She didn’t know why she felt this inexplicable way, but under Jing Yi’s concerned gaze, she suddenly believed that their hasty wedding was truly valid.
Jing Yi frowned slightly and asked gently, “Just say it outright. What else has happened?”
Leng Yue was momentarily taken aback. She looked up at Jing Yi, who met her gaze with a faint smile. “It’s not your first time seeing a dead person. For it to frighten you like this, there must be something else.”
Leng Yue didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She lowered her head and took a small sip of the hot water. Warmth spread through her body, and her previously tangled heart inexplicably settled.
“His death…”
After uttering these two words, she paused, as if weighing her words, before finally choosing the next four and speaking them softly.
“…was not normal.”
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