Jinxia scooped a bowl of porridge, blew on it to cool down the heat, and handed the bowl to Lu Yi, “Brother, this is Shenxian porridge, give it a try.”
Lu Yi looked at her, there was nothing special about a very ordinary bowl of porridge, “Shenxian porridge? The one that promotes immortality after eating it?”
*[Shenxian = immortality, so she’s saying she made immortality soup, TN]
Seeing that he was able to make jokes, she figured that he was fine now. Jinxia smiled and nodded her head, “This porridge recipe uses glutinous rice, ginger and river water, then it has to be boiled on the stove one or two times. After that it is necessary to put in six or seven green onions, to cook them until they are half boiled, then to add a small glass of rice vinegar and mix everything well. Whenever someone in my family gets sick, my mother cooks Shenxian porridge, it’s very healthy.”
“You cooked this?”
Lu Yi took the bowl and tried one spoon: there was a spicy taste of ginger, other than that, it was light and tasteless. Compared to the lotus seed porridge, beef porridge, and sweet potato porridge he had eaten, the taste of this was by far the worst.
“Uh, I’ve been cooking it for more than an hour, it should be thick enough.” Jinxia didn’t sleep all night, she rubbed her eyes, looking at him expectantly, “How is it? Is it good?”
“Not bad…”
He ate slowly, spoon after spoon, perhaps because he was hungry, he finished eating a whole bowl of porridge.
Seeing him clean the bowl, Jinxia was overjoyed. She was thinking about giving him another bowl when, at the same moment, Mrs. Shen stepped in.
Although the room was full of people, there wasn’t much chit-chat. The woman immediately went over to Lu Yi and checked his pulse, then said, “In his body, there is still some poison left, and it won’t dissipate for a while, so he can only wait for it to be released a little at a time. It might take a year.”
Jinxia was taken aback, “He… He, he still has poison in his body? So, can’t he move for a year?”
Mrs. Shen glared at her, “Who said he could not move? It’s just that his physique will be weaker during this time, and he will easily have a fever. In fact, the fever is a good thing, it means that his body is releasing the poison, little by little.”
“Oh… In that case, are there any side effects from this poison?” Jinxia asked attentively.
“Side effects…” Mrs. Shen muttered to herself, then looked at her, with a serious expression, “During this time, it is not suitable to have children, otherwise it will be bad for the children.”
“Oh…”
Jinxia was confused for a moment, wondering why those words were directed at her, then she started to wonder whether Lu Yi was married or not.
“Oh, yes Mrs. Shen, I have already cooked a special pot of bamboo leaf porridge for you and put it on the table outside. Did you see it?” she hurriedly said, seeing that Mrs. Shen was about to go out.
Mrs. Shen said lightly, “Since he is awake, you don’t have to work hard to please me.”
“Based on your words, am I the type who, after crossing the river, immediately cut off the bridge*? In fact, I feel very close to you, like to my mother, no… no, no, you are still young, like my aunt, so I can’t help but be kind to you.” While saying that, she took the bowl of porridge that the beggar uncle was in the middle of eating by force, “Uncle, don’t eat anymore, you go out to accompany my aunt to eat, eating alone is very lonely.”
*[Idiom = after successfully crossed a river, not wanting other people to be able to do so, the person would cut off the bridge. Indicating, after obtaining what they want, they would forget about repaying a favour/kindness. TN]
The beggar uncle said shyly, “That’s not too good, I’m dirty and smelly…”
Mrs. Shen glanced at him, and there was no emotion in her eyes, “Brother Lu, hurry and come out, don’t you see that this young couple want to be alone? Yet you’re still here.”
“Huh? Oh, oh…”
The beggar uncle realized it all of a sudden and followed Mrs. Shen out without further hesitation.
Seeing Jinxia’s attitude, Mrs. Shen no longer refused and accepted her kindness. The girl turned around satisfied, in order to scoop another bowl of porridge for Lu Yi.
“Brother, one more bowl?” She said in excitement.
Lu Yi shook his head, “No, you just eat… What’s with the ‘young couple’?”
Jinxia lowered her voice, gestured at the door, and said with a smile, “I lied to her, saying we were a pair of lovers who eloped… Ha ha ha, she actually believed it.”
After saying that, she was very happy, but when she saw Lu Yi’s expression, she fell silent for a moment.
“You’re mad? This is just to make the plan easier.”
Lu Yi gave her a quick glance, then said, “This, can it be considered as you taking advantage of me?”
“No!” Jinxia exclaimed and she seemed to remember something. Without realizing it her face became unnatural, her tone became awkward, “Absolutely not, Brother, you’re too worried. We came here to seek treatment, isn’t that the most important thing?” She turned around as she spoke, swallowed the whole bowl of porridge, then walked out in a hurry with the bowl and the chopsticks.
Lu Yi saw her exit the room no more than two steps away, and turn back right away while still holding onto the bowl and chopsticks.
“What’s wrong?” He asked.
Jinxia gently put the bowl and chopsticks down on the table, and said in a low voice, “Mrs. Shen and uncle are eating together, but uncle’s attitude is so awkward, I can’t stand seeing him like that… I feel that between them, there’s something, what do you think?”
“What’s weird about it? Isn’t he just admiring her in his heart? How could he possibly say it out?” Lu Yi disagreed.
“Yes, yes. I think so too.”
Jinxia raised her ears up, trying to listen to what the two of them were saying outside. Unfortunately, Mrs. Shen’s voice had a quiet voice and her ears weren’t sensitive enough, so she couldn’t hear anything at all. She approached Lu Yi’s bamboo bed and, in a sweet voice, said, “Brother, I know your hearing is good, try to listen to what they are talking about.”
“Eavesdropping on people… Not a good deed for a gentleman.” Lu Yi refused.
“Don’t make fun of me, if you JinYiWei didn’t eavesdrop on people, where would all the information come from?” Jinxia was afraid to make him angry and added immediately after, “Actually, we at LiuShanmen are the same… Sometimes we even have to crawl up onto the roofs of other people’s houses. It’s just because my hearing isn’t good, otherwise I’d listen to them myself.”
Lu Yi was helpless when facing her, therefore he tilted his head and tried to listen carefully, “…Mrs. Shen said, several years ago there were several urns of wine buried in the Taohualin Forest, she’s telling your uncle to go dig it up when he has time…”
“What else?”
“…Now telling your uncle to go to the bamboo forest to dig ‘Huang Ni Gong’, it can be eaten with steamed salted meat…”
“Huang Ni Gong?” Jinxia was shocked, and then realized, “That’s the freshest bamboo shoots. You have to eat them as soon as they are pulled out of the underground, if you put them aside for a while… What else?”
Lu Yi listened for a moment, “It’s all about trivial matters, don’t want to listen anymore.”
Jinxia pulled out a small stool and placed it in front of the bed, saying all excited, “A trivial matter is the most up-to-date information, keep listening, keep listening… Has my uncle answered yet?”
“He’s just saying… Uh, uh, uh.”
“Look at him!” Jinxia said, irritated, “What else?”
“Mrs. Shen asked how he knows us, he said…” Lu Yi looked at her with a hint of suspicion, “Because you were bitten by a dog???”
Jinxia propped her elbows on the bed, shyly saying, “It’s not not an ordinary dog! I’ve told you about it, a kind of tibetan mastiff, it looks like a bear, but I wasn’t bitten by it.”
Lu Yi smiled a little, continuing to tilt his head to listen. Jinxia closed her eyes, trying to listen carefully to the sounds outside the room.
“…He said in two days, he will chop some bamboo trees to build a large shelter, there are certain kinds of herbs that can’t be exposed under the sunlight… Mrs. Shen said there’s no rush…”
While he was talking, he realized that Jinxia wasn’t replying. He turned to look at her and saw that she was breathing regularly through her nose and fell asleep while leaning over the bed. Last night, she had to face the Japanese, ran to report, then Lu Yi was poisoned, hence Jinxia was up and worried… Now the poison in Lu Yi had been released, his life was no longer in danger, therefore she immediately felt more relaxed and couldn’t avoid falling asleep.
Lu Yi stopped talking and looked at her face without missing a single detail – Ever since they’d met each other, this was the first time he was seeing her so quiet. Thinking about the night before, he thought, ‘she must’ve been very tired’.
He remembered when they were outside the Taohualin Forest, when Jinxia had to put medicinal powder on his face. At that moment, unable to stop himself from reaching out his hand, his finger gently stroked her eyebrows, then her cheeks, and finally rested on her soft lips.
The red scar on her lips was so obvious that it made him slightly frown. He rubbed his fingers back and forth on the little scar, then leaned over her and put a gentle kiss on her lips…
***
Jinxia once again returned to the same path.
It was crowded and festive. She was alone, frantically looking around, not knowing who she was looking for.
She tried to keep going. From the sidelines of the crowd she could see street performers showing fire sticks soaked in oil raised high while they were spitting fire. The iron ring on them clashed with each movement.
The flames moved through the air, so bright and breathtaking at the same time.
Suddenly from the side, someone reached out to catch her; his grip was like iron, so strong that she couldn’t breakaway.
She desperately tried to free herself, she wanted to scream but couldn’t make a sound, then her body fell underwater, like plunged into a deep sea…
She opened her eyes, her breathing was rapid, the sunlight shone through the bamboo window illuminating the room. Beside her was Lu Yi, looking at her closely.
“A nightmare again?” He saw her panicked, and there was a confused look in her eyes.
‘It was a dream.’ Jinxia let out a long sigh, calming her heart back to normal rhythm. “Just a dream, it’s okay… Why did I fall asleep? How long have I slept?”
“You slept for less than a cup of tea.”
“Oh…”
She closed her sore eyes, massaged her head, trying to bring herself back to senses.
Lu Yi furrowed his eyebrows, “If you’re sleepy, just go back to sleep.”
Jinxia got up, stretched her arms and legs as hard as possible and said laughing, “It’s alright, I’m not sleepy. I’ll go wash my face, then I should be fine.”
Before Lu Yi had time to speak, she had walked out of the door facing the hot spring. A moment later, there was a sound of water, meaning she was getting water to wash her face…
Then, the sound of water stopped and everything was silent for a while, so peaceful that Lu Yi feared something had happened.
“Jinxia?” He tried to call her.
Jinxia answered vaguely and, a moment later she walked in, while holding something in her hand.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
Jinxia walked up to him and only then did she show him what was in her hand: a thin leaf shaped gold ornament.
“Do you remember this?” she kept her voice extremely low, “I recognize the shape of this orchid leaf; this is one of Zhai Lanye’s earrings.”
“Here?”
“That’s right, I found it in the hot spring, it might have accidentally fallen in.”
Jinxia tightened her eyebrows, looking at Lu Yi with a meaningful stare. At that time, both of them had the same thought, ‘Could it be that Mrs. Shen is related to Zhai Lanye’s disappearance?’
As a result of that thought, it could mean only one thing: that place was very dangerous. Jinxia couldn’t help but be worried about Lu Yi’s injury. If Mrs. Shen had already known Lu Yi’s status from the start, and while treating him had secretly injured him, wouldn’t he have been in danger?
Jinxia scooped a bowl of porridge, blew on it to cool down the heat, and handed the bowl to Lu Yi, “Brother, this is Shenxian porridge, give it a try.”
Lu Yi looked at her, there was nothing special about a very ordinary bowl of porridge, “Shenxian porridge? The one that promotes immortality after eating it?”
*[Shenxian = immortality, so she’s saying she made immortality soup, TN]
Seeing that he was able to make jokes, she figured that he was fine now. Jinxia smiled and nodded her head, “This porridge recipe uses glutinous rice, ginger and river water, then it has to be boiled on the stove one or two times. After that it is necessary to put in six or seven green onions, to cook them until they are half boiled, then to add a small glass of rice vinegar and mix everything well. Whenever someone in my family gets sick, my mother cooks Shenxian porridge, it’s very healthy.”
“You cooked this?”
Lu Yi took the bowl and tried one spoon: there was a spicy taste of ginger, other than that, it was light and tasteless. Compared to the lotus seed porridge, beef porridge, and sweet potato porridge he had eaten, the taste of this was by far the worst.
“Uh, I’ve been cooking it for more than an hour, it should be thick enough.” Jinxia didn’t sleep all night, she rubbed her eyes, looking at him expectantly, “How is it? Is it good?”
“Not bad…”
He ate slowly, spoon after spoon, perhaps because he was hungry, he finished eating a whole bowl of porridge.
Seeing him clean the bowl, Jinxia was overjoyed. She was thinking about giving him another bowl when, at the same moment, Mrs. Shen stepped in.
Although the room was full of people, there wasn’t much chit-chat. The woman immediately went over to Lu Yi and checked his pulse, then said, “In his body, there is still some poison left, and it won’t dissipate for a while, so he can only wait for it to be released a little at a time. It might take a year.”
Jinxia was taken aback, “He… He, he still has poison in his body? So, can’t he move for a year?”
Mrs. Shen glared at her, “Who said he could not move? It’s just that his physique will be weaker during this time, and he will easily have a fever. In fact, the fever is a good thing, it means that his body is releasing the poison, little by little.”
“Oh… In that case, are there any side effects from this poison?” Jinxia asked attentively.
“Side effects…” Mrs. Shen muttered to herself, then looked at her, with a serious expression, “During this time, it is not suitable to have children, otherwise it will be bad for the children.”
“Oh…”
Jinxia was confused for a moment, wondering why those words were directed at her, then she started to wonder whether Lu Yi was married or not.
“Oh, yes Mrs. Shen, I have already cooked a special pot of bamboo leaf porridge for you and put it on the table outside. Did you see it?” she hurriedly said, seeing that Mrs. Shen was about to go out.
Mrs. Shen said lightly, “Since he is awake, you don’t have to work hard to please me.”
“Based on your words, am I the type who, after crossing the river, immediately cut off the bridge*? In fact, I feel very close to you, like to my mother, no… no, no, you are still young, like my aunt, so I can’t help but be kind to you.” While saying that, she took the bowl of porridge that the beggar uncle was in the middle of eating by force, “Uncle, don’t eat anymore, you go out to accompany my aunt to eat, eating alone is very lonely.”
*[Idiom = after successfully crossed a river, not wanting other people to be able to do so, the person would cut off the bridge. Indicating, after obtaining what they want, they would forget about repaying a favour/kindness. TN]
The beggar uncle said shyly, “That’s not too good, I’m dirty and smelly…”
Mrs. Shen glanced at him, and there was no emotion in her eyes, “Brother Lu, hurry and come out, don’t you see that this young couple want to be alone? Yet you’re still here.”
“Huh? Oh, oh…”
The beggar uncle realized it all of a sudden and followed Mrs. Shen out without further hesitation.
Seeing Jinxia’s attitude, Mrs. Shen no longer refused and accepted her kindness. The girl turned around satisfied, in order to scoop another bowl of porridge for Lu Yi.
“Brother, one more bowl?” She said in excitement.
Lu Yi shook his head, “No, you just eat… What’s with the ‘young couple’?”
Jinxia lowered her voice, gestured at the door, and said with a smile, “I lied to her, saying we were a pair of lovers who eloped… Ha ha ha, she actually believed it.”
After saying that, she was very happy, but when she saw Lu Yi’s expression, she fell silent for a moment.
“You’re mad? This is just to make the plan easier.”
Lu Yi gave her a quick glance, then said, “This, can it be considered as you taking advantage of me?”
“No!” Jinxia exclaimed and she seemed to remember something. Without realizing it her face became unnatural, her tone became awkward, “Absolutely not, Brother, you’re too worried. We came here to seek treatment, isn’t that the most important thing?” She turned around as she spoke, swallowed the whole bowl of porridge, then walked out in a hurry with the bowl and the chopsticks.
Lu Yi saw her exit the room no more than two steps away, and turn back right away while still holding onto the bowl and chopsticks.
“What’s wrong?” He asked.
Jinxia gently put the bowl and chopsticks down on the table, and said in a low voice, “Mrs. Shen and uncle are eating together, but uncle’s attitude is so awkward, I can’t stand seeing him like that… I feel that between them, there’s something, what do you think?”
“What’s weird about it? Isn’t he just admiring her in his heart? How could he possibly say it out?” Lu Yi disagreed.
“Yes, yes. I think so too.”
Jinxia raised her ears up, trying to listen to what the two of them were saying outside. Unfortunately, Mrs. Shen’s voice had a quiet voice and her ears weren’t sensitive enough, so she couldn’t hear anything at all. She approached Lu Yi’s bamboo bed and, in a sweet voice, said, “Brother, I know your hearing is good, try to listen to what they are talking about.”
“Eavesdropping on people… Not a good deed for a gentleman.” Lu Yi refused.
“Don’t make fun of me, if you JinYiWei didn’t eavesdrop on people, where would all the information come from?” Jinxia was afraid to make him angry and added immediately after, “Actually, we at LiuShanmen are the same… Sometimes we even have to crawl up onto the roofs of other people’s houses. It’s just because my hearing isn’t good, otherwise I’d listen to them myself.”
Lu Yi was helpless when facing her, therefore he tilted his head and tried to listen carefully, “…Mrs. Shen said, several years ago there were several urns of wine buried in the Taohualin Forest, she’s telling your uncle to go dig it up when he has time…”
“What else?”
“…Now telling your uncle to go to the bamboo forest to dig ‘Huang Ni Gong’, it can be eaten with steamed salted meat…”
“Huang Ni Gong?” Jinxia was shocked, and then realized, “That’s the freshest bamboo shoots. You have to eat them as soon as they are pulled out of the underground, if you put them aside for a while… What else?”
Lu Yi listened for a moment, “It’s all about trivial matters, don’t want to listen anymore.”
Jinxia pulled out a small stool and placed it in front of the bed, saying all excited, “A trivial matter is the most up-to-date information, keep listening, keep listening… Has my uncle answered yet?”
“He’s just saying… Uh, uh, uh.”
“Look at him!” Jinxia said, irritated, “What else?”
“Mrs. Shen asked how he knows us, he said…” Lu Yi looked at her with a hint of suspicion, “Because you were bitten by a dog???”
Jinxia propped her elbows on the bed, shyly saying, “It’s not not an ordinary dog! I’ve told you about it, a kind of tibetan mastiff, it looks like a bear, but I wasn’t bitten by it.”
Lu Yi smiled a little, continuing to tilt his head to listen. Jinxia closed her eyes, trying to listen carefully to the sounds outside the room.
“…He said in two days, he will chop some bamboo trees to build a large shelter, there are certain kinds of herbs that can’t be exposed under the sunlight… Mrs. Shen said there’s no rush…”
While he was talking, he realized that Jinxia wasn’t replying. He turned to look at her and saw that she was breathing regularly through her nose and fell asleep while leaning over the bed. Last night, she had to face the Japanese, ran to report, then Lu Yi was poisoned, hence Jinxia was up and worried… Now the poison in Lu Yi had been released, his life was no longer in danger, therefore she immediately felt more relaxed and couldn’t avoid falling asleep.
Lu Yi stopped talking and looked at her face without missing a single detail – Ever since they’d met each other, this was the first time he was seeing her so quiet. Thinking about the night before, he thought, ‘she must’ve been very tired’.
He remembered when they were outside the Taohualin Forest, when Jinxia had to put medicinal powder on his face. At that moment, unable to stop himself from reaching out his hand, his finger gently stroked her eyebrows, then her cheeks, and finally rested on her soft lips.
The red scar on her lips was so obvious that it made him slightly frown. He rubbed his fingers back and forth on the little scar, then leaned over her and put a gentle kiss on her lips…
***
Jinxia once again returned to the same path.
It was crowded and festive. She was alone, frantically looking around, not knowing who she was looking for.
She tried to keep going. From the sidelines of the crowd she could see street performers showing fire sticks soaked in oil raised high while they were spitting fire. The iron ring on them clashed with each movement.
The flames moved through the air, so bright and breathtaking at the same time.
Suddenly from the side, someone reached out to catch her; his grip was like iron, so strong that she couldn’t breakaway.
She desperately tried to free herself, she wanted to scream but couldn’t make a sound, then her body fell underwater, like plunged into a deep sea…
She opened her eyes, her breathing was rapid, the sunlight shone through the bamboo window illuminating the room. Beside her was Lu Yi, looking at her closely.
“A nightmare again?” He saw her panicked, and there was a confused look in her eyes.
‘It was a dream.’ Jinxia let out a long sigh, calming her heart back to normal rhythm. “Just a dream, it’s okay… Why did I fall asleep? How long have I slept?”
“You slept for less than a cup of tea.”
“Oh…”
She closed her sore eyes, massaged her head, trying to bring herself back to senses.
Lu Yi furrowed his eyebrows, “If you’re sleepy, just go back to sleep.”
Jinxia got up, stretched her arms and legs as hard as possible and said laughing, “It’s alright, I’m not sleepy. I’ll go wash my face, then I should be fine.”
Before Lu Yi had time to speak, she had walked out of the door facing the hot spring. A moment later, there was a sound of water, meaning she was getting water to wash her face…
Then, the sound of water stopped and everything was silent for a while, so peaceful that Lu Yi feared something had happened.
“Jinxia?” He tried to call her.
Jinxia answered vaguely and, a moment later she walked in, while holding something in her hand.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
Jinxia walked up to him and only then did she show him what was in her hand: a thin leaf shaped gold ornament.
“Do you remember this?” she kept her voice extremely low, “I recognize the shape of this orchid leaf; this is one of Zhai Lanye’s earrings.”
“Here?”
“That’s right, I found it in the hot spring, it might have accidentally fallen in.”
Jinxia tightened her eyebrows, looking at Lu Yi with a meaningful stare. At that time, both of them had the same thought, ‘Could it be that Mrs. Shen is related to Zhai Lanye’s disappearance?’
As a result of that thought, it could mean only one thing: that place was very dangerous. Jinxia couldn’t help but be worried about Lu Yi’s injury. If Mrs. Shen had already known Lu Yi’s status from the start, and while treating him had secretly injured him, wouldn’t he have been in danger?
