Chapter 53: The Snobbish Black Moonlight (2)
The courtyard had two small sheds built on either side—on the left was the kitchen, and on the right was the washroom.
The stove flames licked the hearth fiercely, while smoke from the chimney drifted lazily into the air.
Shui Que had originally wanted to help, knowing well that Qi Chaojin didn’t seem very willing to take him in.
But the chimney of a rural household’s stove was rudimentary. Once the fire was lit, the entire kitchen filled with smoke and soot. The moment Shui Que stepped inside, he was immediately choked by the fumes, his eyes turned red, and tears welled up in his sockets.
Seeing him on the verge of tears, Qi Chaojin didn’t know how to respond.
Who knew which household this young master had wandered off from?
“Wait inside.”
With no expression on his face, Qi Chaojin tossed more firewood into the stove, then pulled the bellows with his left hand. The pot began to bubble and gurgle.
Preparing an extra set of chopsticks and a bowl was easy enough.
On the round wooden table sat a dish of pickled radish, a large steamed bun the size of a plate, and a bowl of dumpling soup served in a coarse porcelain bowl.
Qi Chaojin’s bowl even had a chip on the rim. As he lifted his eyelids for a glance, he saw Shui Que sitting across from him.
The coarse porcelain bowl was almost half the size of Shui Que’s pale little face. He had to hold the bowl with both hands, tilting his head back slightly to drink the soup—only the fine line of his brows could be seen.
His neck was slender, and his Adam’s apple moved subtly as he swallowed. Shui Que eventually set the bowl down, placing it gently on the table.
Qi Chaojin’s gaze swept across him.
Despite drinking for what seemed like forever, Shui Que hadn’t even finished half of the dumpling soup.
It was the most common meal in Qinghe Village, eaten in every household.
So why did this boy look so pitiful while eating it?
Qi Chaojin stood up. When he returned from the kitchen to the hall, there was a small dish in his hand.
It was the preserved meat he had just gone to chop.
The beef had been cured during the New Year’s festival with ginger, cassia, and other spices, then dried. If served whole in the bowl, Qi Chaojin didn’t even need to guess—this person probably wouldn’t be able to chew it.
So he chopped it fine, minced it until it resembled ground meat.
Tilting the small dish, he scattered the meat bits over the dumpling soup.
Shui Que blinked, his voice soft and muffled as he said, “Thank you. Aren’t you going to eat any?”
Qi Chaojin sat back in the bamboo chair without replying. He simply said, “Eat up. Sleep early once you’re done.”
“…But,” Shui Que hesitated, “I haven’t bathed yet.”
Qi Chaojin usually washed at the bathhouse in the academy, so he hadn’t considered that.
After eating a rolled-up steamed bun, he still had to fetch water so Shui Que could bathe.
There was a bathtub in the washroom out in the courtyard. There used to be a washbasin too, but since Qi’s mother had passed away last September, the basin—something she had used in life—had been burned as part of the funeral rites and buried behind the mountain.
According to Darong Dynasty law, children must observe a 23-month mourning period after a parent’s death, and may not take the imperial exams or become officials during that time.
Qi Chaojin had passed the xiucai examination in August last year. In the joy of the moment, his already frail mother passed away.
Note: Xiucai examination is county level imperial examination.
He handled the funeral and mourned for three months. Only this year did he return to Xijiang Academy to resume his studies. The earliest he could take the autumn exam again would be next year in August.
He crushed the pre-soaked soap beans with a hard object and kneaded them thoroughly. Once the water thickened slightly, he strained out the impurities. What remained in the large wooden tub was pure herbal bathwater.
Shui Que’s clothes, soaked when he fell into the water earlier that day, had dried in the courtyard. Qi Chaojin placed them on the clothes rod in the washroom for him to change into after bathing.
Just one touch and he could tell the fabric was fine wool—soft, smooth, and fitting. It was leagues above rough linen.
Shui Que actually found the soap bean scent rather pungent, but since he was relying on someone else’s hospitality, he didn’t dare complain.
Otherwise, he’d surely be seen as spoiled and delicate.
That night, as he tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep, he reached out to nudge Qi Chaojin beside him.
Shui Que scooted closer, speaking in a soft, timid whisper, not daring to raise his voice in the dead of night. “Qi Lang… the bed is really hard.”
Note: Qi Erlang when shorten to Qi Lang make the Lang at the end here sounds like the endearment term as in sweetheart, baby, honey, etc.
He had mimicked the sour pickle shop owner’s way of calling him “Qi Erlang” earlier in the day, shortening it into “Qi Lang.”
Though Qi Chaojin’s breathing had been steady since nightfall, the truth was he hadn’t slept a wink.
He couldn’t figure out how this person managed to smell so fragrant all the time. Could he be hiding a sachet in his underclothes?
The sweet and cloying scent had even seeped into the summer quilt, tendrils of it drifting to his nose.
There were only two bedrooms in the main house. If Mother Qi’s room on the east side hadn’t been turned into a study, Qi Chaojin would never have agreed to share a bed with Shui Que.
Shui Que, thinking Qi Chaojin was asleep, nudged him again. As he spoke, his breath brushed Qi Chaojin’s neck. “Qi Lang…?”
Was he really sleeping that deeply?
Qi Chaojin’s entire side had gone numb.
How could even such a simple form of address feel so ambiguously intimate?
He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Sitting up in bed, he lit the tung oil lamp on the table and fetched a quilt stuffed with reed flowers from the cupboard—a blanket meant for winter use.
Qi Chaojin said, “Get up.”
Shui Que obediently rolled upright in a flash.
Qi Chaojin laid out the heavy blanket on the bed, carefully smoothing out and tucking the corners. Then he spread a woven bamboo mat over it.
“Go to sleep,” he said.
Shui Que lay down on the right side of the bed, now with padding beneath him. It really was much more comfortable, and before long, his breathing had evened out—clearly fast asleep.
But Qi Chaojin still couldn’t sleep.
Maybe it was the heat. Sweat dotted Shui Que’s forehead. His underclothes were long-sleeved and long-legged, and the confined warmth made his sweet scent all the more potent.
Especially when he rolled over in his sleep, landing right next to Qi Chaojin and pressing his arm against his.
Qi Chaojin thought: I really should hand Shui Que over to the authorities.
*
“That won’t do,” the local official at the county office told Qi Chaojin. “What do you take our yamen* for? This is a vast empire. We only have his name and no idea where he lives. Besides, the surname Shui? Doesn’t even sound like someone from our Changzhou County. How exactly do you expect us to find his family? For all we know, he’s a refugee orphan who fled south—there’s even less hope in that case.”
Note: Yamen refers to the official government post/office/station.
“We can hold him for up to seven days. If no family comes looking and he has no relatives to take him in, he’ll be registered as a government slave.”
The official spoke with complete indifference.
Qi Chaojin hadn’t brought Shui Que with him.
He had come to inquire first.
After hearing the official’s words, Qi Chaojin frowned and took his leave.
So young, and with such a delicate face he looked like he’d stepped right out of a storybook—if he were assigned as a government slave, it wouldn’t just be about sweeping the courtyard or sprinkling water.
Yesterday, Xijiang Academy had given a break for the planting season. Classes wouldn’t resume until July.
After leaving the county office, Qi Chaojin somehow found himself wandering eastward to the bustling market streets, where all sorts of goods were sold, neatly organized into different sections. Shops big and small stood side by side with wine houses and teahouses, their green tiles and red eaves joined together.
An attendant at a silk shop saw him standing outside for a while without entering. Though Qi Chaojin had striking brows and eyes, wearing an elegant expression, his white hemp robe had been washed so many times the hem was faded and yellowing—clearly a country boy.
Fanning himself impatiently, the attendant asked, “Young master, are you buying or not? Don’t stand there blocking my business.”
Qi Chaojin rubbed a few strings of copper coins hidden in his long sleeve. “How much for one bolt of silk?”
The attendant perked up slightly. “It’s not cheap. Our silk comes straight from Qingzhou. Even the county magistrate’s son shops here. One bolt—no less than four or five strings of coins!”
Qi Chaojin: “…”
A thousand coins in total.
Two pieces of clothing made from a single bolt of silk—that was worth his entire fortune.
…
Shui Que carried a wooden basin filled with a laundry stick, soapberries, and the clothes he had changed out of the day before.
As he stepped out of the courtyard, he remembered to hang the bamboo-woven gate lock properly.
Not far outside the yard, a clear and shallow river flowed past.
He had woken up late—well into mid-morning. The male lead was in the kitchen, simmering porridge and side dishes, not even a shadow of him in sight.
Shui Que felt a little anxious, afraid the man might be planning to send him away.
He figured he had to prove his worth—he wasn’t someone who just ate for free!
A long stone slab jutted out from the riverbank, wide enough for seven or eight people to use at once. It was clearly a place meant for washing clothes; smooth and bare, with no moss growing on it.
Shui Que bent down and set the wooden basin onto the slab with a dull thud, immediately exhaling in relief as he wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.
He crouched down, emptied the basin’s dirty clothes, grabbed one, tossed it into the water, then heaved the soaked item back onto the slab.
The Overseer’s voice came, cold and expressionless.
【That’s enough.】
【Are you seriously washing his clothes?】
Shui Que mumbled to himself: 【But isn’t it part of the plot to look after the male lead and care for his daily life…?】
How else was he supposed to show he was considerate without doing chores?
The Overseer let out a snide chuckle, then softened its tone slightly:【When I said to show concern, I meant to coax him more.】
【Sweetie, isn’t that what you’re best at?】
Shui Que didn’t reply. He pounded the clothes twice with the laundry stick—almost hard enough to send them tumbling into the river.
Afraid he’d mess things up even more, he stopped, crouching by the river and idly paddling the water, bored out of his mind.
Qi Chaojin returned from the opposite riverbank.
In the Darong Dynasty, the average daily income for a commoner was about 100 coins. Back when he lived at home, his frail mother supported the family with her needlework, raising him and his older sister with great effort. His sister, Qi Xueru, had married off a couple of years earlier. His mother’s health had steadily declined since then, and even the best doctor in the capital declared her illness incurable. Eventually, the household came to rely on Qi Chaojin’s income from ghostwriting letters for others, but it was barely enough to scrape by—especially with the constant need to buy medicine. Most of the time, their expenses exceeded their earnings.
Even so, they managed to hold on for two or three years, until his mother passed away.
Qi Chaojin took care of the funeral arrangements himself, mourned for three months, then went back to studying while taking on odd jobs. After earning his xiucai title, it became easier to find work. For several months straight, he barely slept—writing letters, selling calligraphy and paintings, teaching at the village school, composing couplets and inscriptions, even writing epitaphs—all to pay off the 40,000 coins in debt they had borrowed for his mother’s medicine.
He lived a simple, austere life. Porridge and pickles every day, patched hemp robes that he still wore. Once he cleared his debts, he spent most of his free time reading, only occasionally working to support himself.
He had just over 4,000 coins left.
Silk was too expensive, but even a bolt of gauze cost 1,800 coins. Sewing it would take time he didn’t have, so Qi Chaojin turned his steps toward the ready-made clothing shop.
He didn’t care much for appearances and just bought whatever the shop assistant said was the current fashion in the capital.
A short floral gauze jacket with wide sleeves and overlapping front panels cost 1,500 coins.
At home, he only had straw sandals. But he was too delicate for those—just a few steps and his feet would blister. So, he bought a pair of black leather boots for 800 coins.
Then he went to the butcher near Bazi Bridge and bought two pounds of pork for 80 coins.
Most of his money was gone.
Lastly, he picked up a pine soot ink stick for 30 coins.
Qi Chaojin made a deal with the round fan shop owner—starting tomorrow, he would paint thirty fans a day, with daily pay.
He returned to the riverbank, where Shui Que was still crouched on the stone slab. Qi Chaojin asked calmly, “What are you doing?”
Shui Que hadn’t noticed anyone approaching, and the sudden voice startled him so much he jolted upright. Qi Chaojin, quick as lightning, grabbed him by the collar just in time to steady him before he tumbled into the river.
Before Qi Chaojin could say anything, Shui Que muttered, “Why do you walk so quietly…”
Qi Chaojin opened his mouth to reply, but Shui Que lifted his chin, grinning with pride like he was fishing for praise. “I’m washing your clothes!”
Qi Chaojin’s eyes half-lidded as he glanced at the pile of garments on the stone slab.
“…These are your clothes.”
The clothes were wet and clung together—mostly plain white undergarments. Shui Que had no way to tell whose were whose.
Now that Qi Chaojin had pointed it out, Shui Que looked a little embarrassed but pressed on stubbornly. “What’s the point of drawing lines between mine and yours, Qi Lang? Aren’t we close?”
He made it sound like they were brothers born of the same mother—practically grew up sharing the same pair of pants.
Qi Chaojin said nothing.
Was this person planning to stay and play the role of his “Xiao Langjun*”?
In the Darong Dynasty, male-male relationships weren’t as taboo as in previous dynasties. It wasn’t uncommon for noble families to marry men. “Langjun” was a polite term, but to call someone “Xiao Langjun” could carry a teasing undertone depending on the context.
Note: so from here on ill refer to Shui Que as Xiao Langjun or Langjun.
Shui Que stood there awkwardly, head drooping.
His wooden hairpin was poorly fastened, and the breeze by the river loosened a strand of black hair that stuck to his pale neck.
The silence from Qi Chaojin was unbearable. It made Shui Que feel even more awkward…
He started fidgeting with his fingers.
Finally, the man in front of him asked, “How’s the washing going?”
It was a rhetorical question—anyone with eyes could see there wasn’t even a trace of soap foam on the soaked garments.
Qi Chaojin had caught a glimpse of Shui Que skipping stones while crossing back over earlier.
Shui Que couldn’t very well admit he’d nearly let the clothes float away.
So he spread his hands, looking up with pitiful eyes. “The water’s too cold. My hands turned red just from scrubbing.”
It was the height of summer.
Qi Chaojin didn’t even know what to say.
He looked at those honestly outstretched hands—fair, delicate, not a single callus. From the soft palms to the long fingers, they were smooth all over.
The fingertips were indeed flushed and pale. He figured Shui Que had just been playing in the water.
“I’ll do it,” he said.
Shui Que stood up and obediently moved aside.
Qi Chaojin was used to manual labor. Unlike his fellow county scholars, who only had calluses from holding a brush, his hands were rough all over—from the base of his fingers, along the sides of his palms, even across the web between thumb and index finger.
He got to work immediately, the pounding of the laundry stick echoing rhythmically.
“Wait!” Shui Que quickly grabbed Qi Chaojin’s sleeve. “This—this one, let me do it myself.”
A pair of white underpants lay splayed on the stone slab.
Qi Chaojin lifted his eyelids. He hadn’t thought much of it at first, but seeing how red Shui Que’s ears had turned, even he started to feel the thin fabric in his hands was a little too warm.
His throat tightened.
His expression didn’t change, though his brow lifted slightly. “If you wash it yourself, it’ll probably… end up in the river again.”
If he’d been a more vulgar man, he might have joked that a pair of thin, freshly washed underpants floating downstream would still carry their wearer’s scent—enough to make some burly village brute fish them out, clutch them in his calloused hands, and sniff them over and over that night, wondering which soft-skinned Xiao Langjun they’d belonged to.
Truthfully, Shui Que didn’t have much faith in his own laundry skills either.
Qi Chaojin kept his head down, ears burning red, as he calmly scrubbed the white cloth.
He was just about to rinse it when—
From upstream, a trail of blood began flowing into the crystal-clear water, tinting it red.
Shui Que looked up toward the river’s source. Just twenty or so paces away, near a wooden bridge, a man dressed as a hunter squatted by the bank. He wore a straw hat and short rough clothes, and was in the middle of butchering a chicken.
He had already slit the chicken’s throat, and instead of catching the blood in a bowl, it spilled straight into the river.
Shui Que feared he might start plucking the feathers right there too.
He walked over politely and asked, “Hello?”
People in the village rarely spoke so formally—especially not to someone like him.
The man lifted his head. Under the wide-brimmed hat, his features were sharp and deeply set. The slight tilt of his chin revealed a severe jawline, and his hawk-like eyes held no emotion or expression—yet somehow, he exuded a natural sense of menace.
He looked as though he had some blood of the Hu people in him.
His rough hands gripped a pheasant by the neck. Beside his straw sandals lay a bloodstained dagger. His coarse clothes were fitted close to the body for ease of movement. In a half-crouch, the muscles along his back stood out in sharp definition.
He didn’t look like someone easy to talk to.
So Shui Que spoke to him in an even smaller, meeker voice. “Can you go downriver to handle that…?”
Qi Chaojin’s house was near the entrance to Qinghe Village, where the river ran past the upper part of the village. People usually came here to wash clothes on the stone slabs. Over time, an unspoken rule had formed—anything dirty or unpleasant should be taken care of downstream.
Wu Chun stood up without a word. His physique was even more imposing when fully upright—muscle-laden, with the broad frame and height typical of people with Hu ancestry. Just the width of his waist and abdomen was easily more than double Shui Que’s.
It was broad daylight… surely he wouldn’t hit someone just for making a request, right?
Shui Que pressed his lips together.
Wu Chun lowered his gaze to him, hawk eyes deep and unreadable.
This person—such a pale, delicate little face—was barely the size of his own palm. His arms and legs were all thin and delicate.
Wu Chun wasn’t particularly clever. In fact, he could be called a bit slow. All he had was this brute strength of his Hu bloodline, and he truly couldn’t figure out how someone like Shui Que had even survived this long.
Maybe because of his foreign ancestry, no one in Qinghe Village usually approached Wu Chun to make conversation.
Half of it was because Wu Chun was an outsider—Qinghe Village’s farming families were generally unwelcoming to strangers. The other half was because he looked frightening; parents in the village used his name to stop their children from crying at night.
The person standing in front of him clearly feared him too.
Their lips, full and plump, had been nervously bitten into a red hue. Wu Chun thought it looked far prettier than the rouge on the shelves of those makeup shops he passed when he went to the county to sell wild boar meat.
Shui Que, sweating under the sharp gaze of his hawk-like eyes, still tried to explain rationally, “We’re washing clothes on the stone slabs over there. If you slaughter chickens here, the water will get dirty…”
Wu Chun lifted his eyes and looked across.
The young men by the river seemed surprised that Shui Que had come directly to speak to him. Worried a conflict might break out, they put down their pounding sticks and prepared to come over and check.
The underwear spread out on the stone slabs were clearly not the young men’s—they varied in length and style.
Wu Chun’s gaze returned to the fair-faced Xiao Langjun in front of him.
He hadn’t spoken to anyone all day, so when he finally did, his voice was rough and stiff. “Understood.”
With a hunting bow on his back, he picked up his short knife and wooden bowl with one hand and grabbed the blood-dripping pheasant with the other. He quietly made his way downstream along the river.
The pheasant’s blood gushed from its neck, staining its back feathers red, then dripped in sticky drops onto the grass stalks along the path.
……
Qi Chaojin had initially assumed that someone as delicate-looking as Shui Que would prefer a light diet, but to his surprise, Shui Que said he wanted spicy stir-fried meat.
Shui Que’s eyes sparkled as he watched Qi Chaojin chop pork on the wooden cutting board.
It seemed he was making up for something—after years of eating poorly in the lab, now that he had the chance, he craved rich, spicy, and meaty foods with a vengeance.
Qi Chaojin felt uncomfortable under Shui Que’s eager gaze, especially when Shui Que occasionally praised him with things like, “Qi Lang, you’re amazing…”
In his family, emotions were restrained, and compliments weren’t spoken so plainly.
Qi Chaojin pressed his thin lips into a straight line.
He sliced the lean meat into thin pieces and soaked them thoroughly in soy sauce.
Then he said, “Time to light the fire. Go outside.”
He really couldn’t bear the way Shui Que looked at him—like he was about to cry from the smoke but wouldn’t leave.
Since he wasn’t needed anymore, Shui Que stepped out of the kitchen.
Qi Chaojin poured the meat into the smoking hot iron wok for a quick stir-fry. Once it turned pale, he scooped it out and sliced it into fine shreds, mixing it with pickled radish, Sichuan peppercorn, and sesame oil.
He walked out with a plate of spicy shredded pork.
But what he saw was Shui Que, having snapped off a top piece from the cactus behind the house, using a small knife from the yard to slice it up.
Qi Chaojin asked, “What are you doing?”
“Oh… there’s a little kid outside who came to play with you. I thought his cheeks looked all swollen like a pig’s head,” Shui Que said. “He said his name is Huzi, and his mom asked you to write the character for ‘tiger’ on his cheek with a brush.”
Huzi was a kid from a nearby neighbor’s house, only seven years old.
Qi Chaojin had also had mumps as a child. Farmers called it “big mouth” or “pig head swell” because of the unsightly swelling in the cheeks.
The villagers believed in folk remedies. One such method was to dip a brush in ink and write the character for ‘tiger’ on the swollen cheek to scare the “pig head” away.
Qi Chaojin’s father, who had died young, used to be a physician, and his mother knew a bit of medicine too. They told him that folk method was useless—it was better to apply a slice of cactus to reduce the swelling, or grind up typhonium root in vinegar and apply it externally.
The cactus behind the house was one Qi Chaojin had planted as a child.
Shui Que only knew about it because the lab next door had a rather eccentric test subject who claimed to be a master healer. Since Shui Que was young, that person constantly pulled him aside to teach him medical theories.
Most of it went in one ear and out the other, but he did retain a few basics.
Qi Chaojin had already begun to suspect whether Shui Que’s family ran a medical clinic. But even a backwoods family of barefoot doctors couldn’t have raised someone like him.
Huzi was still at the gate, catching crickets.
When he saw Shui Que come out, his eyes lit up. “Immortal Big Brother!”
He didn’t even look at Qi Chaojin, whom he usually clung to.
Shui Que pressed a slice of cactus against Huzi’s cheek, making the boy’s face scrunch up immediately. Shui Que told him he had to press the slice against his own face for it to work.
Huzi wailed, “But if I do that, I can’t catch crickets!”
Shui Que knelt down, hands on his knees, face serious, and looked Huzi in the eye. “Little Big Brother Huzi, are you going to be good or not?”
No one had ever called Huzi “Little Big Brother” before. His baby sister at home still couldn’t talk yet.
Blushing and shy, he nodded. “Okay, Huzi will be good. Can Immortal Big Brother be my friend? Will you play with Huzi from now on?”
Shui Que patted his head. “Of course.”
Qi Chaojin stood silently, watching.
Before evening, the entire Qinghe Village had heard that Qi Chaojin’s home now housed a fairy-like big brother—a divine healer.
……
The next morning, Qi Chaojin had to rush early to Changzhou County. Before the daytime market opened, he needed to paint thirty fan surfaces for a shopkeeper.
He warmed up a pot of meat porridge on the stove and headed out.
Shui Que woke up earlier than the day before—not quite when the sun was overhead, but earlier than usual.
He sat on a small round stool in the courtyard, sipping porridge from a bowl.
Someone knocked on the bamboo gate.
Since Qi Chaojin had worried Shui Que might need to go out, he hadn’t locked the door. Besides, in Qinghe Village, everyone knew everyone—there was little fear of theft.
Shui Que placed his bowl on the kitchen counter and went to open the gate.
He pulled apart the woven bamboo fence—two swinging doors opened wide.
The sunlight was warm.
A man stood there wearing a conical hat. His deep-set brow was shadowed, his left hand carrying a pheasant, and his right hand bent at an awkward angle.
Shui Que didn’t expect it to be him.
The Overseer chimed in, mimicking the dramatic tone of an ancient costume drama: [Could it be he’s love-struck and came seeking the little Bodhisattva for healing?]
Huge shoutout to @candycorns2 on Discord for commissioning this! The chapter will be posted regularly, show your support for Ciacia at Kofi.