Zhou Shanheng had never seen one before.
He followed the original stone steps down. With no river water, the bluestone slabs used for washing clothes were completely useless now, so he walked down the bluestone slabs.
Xin Hexue’s cultivation was shallow to begin with. At most, he could transform into a half-human, half-fish form on Mount Zhaoyao. But with the sudden drought, as soon as he was out of the water, even that form couldn’t be maintained and now he was just a koi lying on the dry riverbed.
Even the little puddle was about to dry up.
When he saw someone approaching, he weakly flopped his tail a bit, looking extremely pitiful and cute.
Zhou Shanheng took off his straw hat, turned it upside down, scooped some water into it, then carefully placed the koi inside, and went home.
………
Zhou Shanheng finished writing the letter for the middle-aged man from the neighboring village and sealed it in a bamboo tube to avoid any damage. The man would later entrust a local courier to deliver it.
“I don’t know how things are in Guizhou. If it still doesn’t rain, I’ll have to go rely on my maternal uncle’s family.” The middle-aged man sighed, “They’re a thousand li away, and poor people like us aren’t welcome. This year is too difficult!”
Zhou Shanheng didn’t say anything. He had always been quiet and reserved, and the man wasn’t surprised by his silence.
To help the villagers, he charged very little for writing letters, only five wen per letter, which was just enough to cover ink and oil.
The man paid him sincerely. As if remembering something, he asked, “How’s your mother’s health?”
Zhou Shanheng shook his head. “Not very good.”
“Her cough has become a bit serious lately, she can only rest in bed.”
The middle-aged man originally wanted to chat a bit, to check in on his neighbors. But hearing this, he could only offer some comfort, “She’ll get better, she’ll get better. All these years, raising the two of you as a widowed mother hasn’t been easy. Where’s Zhou Xiao’er?”
Zhou Shanheng glanced at the sunlight outside. “He went up the mountain to pick mulberry leaves. He hasn’t come back yet.”
The middle-aged man said his goodbyes and was just stepping out the wooden gate when he noticed the small courtyard surrounded by a bamboo fence, which was bright and tidy. Under the eaves, he saw a completely white koi carp in the water vat and was immediately filled with curiosity.
He looked left and right. “Where did you catch this?”
Zhou Shanheng: “I saw it by the riverbank.”
The grass carp and crucian carp in the river had already been caught by the villagers not long after the drought began and boiled into fish soup to share.
A white koi was extremely rare.
People in the countryside didn’t recognize its worth and had no idea what species it was, so the middle-aged man just thought it was a rare sight. His family hadn’t had meat since the New Year and the children had been craving it so much they were crying out. He looked at Zhou Shanheng. “Are you selling this white koi?”
He felt that buying from a fellow villager would be cheaper than buying fish from town.
Zhou Shanheng glanced at the water vat and said calmly, “Not for sale.”
The middle-aged man left disappointed.
Zhou Shanheng bent down to look at the koi in the vat.
Behind their house was a mountain, and in the mountain there was a spring. The spring water formed a shallow stream that wound down behind their house. As long as the mountain spring didn’t dry up, their household would still have drinking water.
But the water volume wasn’t enough to irrigate the fields.
The water in the vat was collected from the stream behind the house, so it was clear.
The white koi stretched its long tail and fins and leisurely swam in the water, like drifting snow waves.
Its scales, once dulled from the sun, now shimmered faintly again. When it flicked its tail, it looked like scattered pieces of silver dancing.
Zhou Shanheng was so fascinated by the sight that he wanted to reach out and touch the beautiful white tail…
“Splash!”
Droplets of water run from Zhou Shanheng’s forehead and across his brow bone and chin.
He had been splashed in the face by the white koi.
When he looked back into the vat, the white koi had sunk into the water.
After a while, it floated back up, close to the surface, and blew two white bubbles at him.
Zhou Shanheng felt like he had just been scolded.
“My apologies.”
He apologized for his rash attempt to touch the koi’s tail.
Xin Hexue couldn’t be bothered with him.
The water vat was still a bit small, making it hard for him to move around, but since it was mountain spring water, the quality was at least pleasant.
He had more or less figured out this poor scholar’s background.
Zhou Shanheng, the eldest son of the Zhou family, was from Xushou Village in Sanyuan Township, Jiangzhou. The family owned a few acres of poor farmland and raised silkworms as a side livelihood. The household structure was simple too; a widowed mother and two sons.
It really did fit the classic image of a poor scholar in a story.
Xin Hexue quietly observed.
As the sun shifted westward, smoke began to curl up from the kitchen next to the main house, wispy and faintly blue in the twilight.
The Zhou family’s second son came bouncing back. Compared with his quiet brother, the seven or eight-year-old Zhou Erlang was very lively.
He set down the bamboo basket from his back that was filled with mulberry leaves.
After feeding the silkworms, he went to the kitchen to help out.
Zhou Shanheng brought a separate portion of food into the east wing room for their mother, and the two brothers ate dinner in the main hall.
Zhou Erlang asked curiously, “Gege, why is there a fish in the vat? Is it for eating?”
Zhou Shanheng swallowed his rice. “It’s for raising.”
Zhou Erlang: “Oh. That fish is really pretty. I’ve never seen such white fish. Should I go gather some silk grass tomorrow to feed it.”
Zhou Shanheng didn’t say much, only responded with a sound. Then he asked, “You haven’t been to the village school these past two days, have you?”
Zhou Erlang pouted. “With such a drought, there will be no food next year, and the village will have no money to give to Mr. Guo, so he left.”
There was no government-funded village school in Dacheng. The village school was funded by the villagers themselves, who pooled grain and money to hire a teacher to enlighten the children. The wages were already low, and people often said, “A family gives two dou of grain, but it’s not worth being a child’s king”. Mr. Guo couldn’t hold on and had gone to seek another way.
Zhou Shanheng nodded. “Then you’ll study at home from now on. I’ll teach you the Thousand Character Classic first.”
Zhou Erlang respected his talented elder brother, but when it came to studying and listening to lessons, it really felt like a hardship. So he agreed reluctantly and with little enthusiasm.
Zhou Shanheng brought freshly boiled medicine to their mother’s room.
After washing up, he went back to sleep in the west wing room.
Inorder to let him focus on his studies, he lived alone in the quiet and secluded west wing room. Their mother stayed in the larger east wing room, and Zhou Erlang had a small room partitioned off within it.
Zhou Shanheng added two liang of tung oil to the lamp, then sprinkled in some salt. This way, it would save more oil.
He studied by candlelight.
The books were borrowed from the village Buddhist temple. Book prices were quite high for farming families, and ordinary people had no books of their own.
Zhou Shanheng became deeply engrossed in reading.
After an unknown amount of time, he vaguely heard the sound of water breaking. After a while, someone knocked on the firewood gate.
It was already the hour of Hai and the moon was high in the sky.
Who could be here?
Zhou Shanheng went to open the door.
The visitor was a young Taoist passing by. He cupped his fist and saluted. “Gongzi, may I trouble you for a drink of water?”
Zhou Shanheng brought him a bowl of tea.
The Taoist drank it in one gulp, quenching the thirst from days of travel, then asked, “Gongzi, have you noticed anything strange in Xushou Village lately?”
Zhou Shanheng: “Master, what do you mean by that?”
The young Taoist didn’t want to speak of demons and spirits to ordinary people, for fear the rumors would spread and cause panic in the village. He had merely sensed a trace of demon qi when passing through Xushou Village and had come to investigate. But now that aura seemed faint or gone altogether.
His cultivation was shallow, so perhaps he had sensed wrong.
The night was deep, and it was inconvenient to linger, so the young Taoist thanked Zhou Shanheng and left.
Zhou Shanheng closed the wooden gate again and returned to the west wing room. He blew out the tung oil lamp and moonlight shone in through the window again.
He got onto the bed, and before long, his breathing grew steady, falling asleep quickly.
In the muddled haze of sleep, Zhou Shanheng felt as if someone was calling him by his ear.
“Zhou Lang… Zhou Lang…”
“Zhou Shanheng…?”
***“郎” (láng) means “young man” or “gentleman”, and combining it with a surname gives a somewhat gentle, affectionate, or familiar tone.
It was ethereal, like the sound of immortal music, faint and hazy.
Zhou Shanheng shook his head and opened his eyes…only to freeze in place.
There was a young man, just past the age of twenty, lying on the edge of the canopy bed.
He was leaning lazily on his side, and between his jade-white fingers, he was playing with Zhou Shanheng’s hair.
Seeing Zhou Shanheng finally wake up, he casually glanced down. Just that one look was enough to make someone feel enchanted, like facing a bewitching spirit.
What surprised Zhou Shanheng even more was that the young man beside him wore a light gauze shirt on his upper body, but his lower half was a white fishtail. The scales brushed against Zhou Shanheng’s leg, cold and smooth like polished jade.
It was as if his skin was made from kneaded snow, and his bones carved from moonlight. Under the moonlight, he was indescribably beautiful.
The young man lowered his snow-white neck slightly and leaned closer to him, and a pleasant, cool fragrance drifted toward Zhou Shanheng’s face.
Zhou Shanheng’s whole body tensed up, as if he was a stone and couldn’t move.
Xin Hexue’s eyes brimmed with amusement and his voice lilted at the end, “Are you scared? Poor scholar, are you afraid I’ll eat you?”
Zhou Shanheng’s throat felt dry for some reason. He couldn’t speak, so he shook his head. After a moment, he said, “Not afraid.”
“Since you’re not afraid, then hurry and wake up!” Xin Hexue’s tone suddenly changed. He frowned and ordered, “The stream in your backyard is almost dried up. Hurry and send me back to the water vat.”
His tone sounded like he might eat someone, yet it didn’t feel threatening. His eyes seemed naturally filled with tenderness and affection no matter who he looked at.
Zhou Shanheng, who was still dazed, got a flick on the forehead from the young man in front of him, and he suddenly sat up from bed.
The moonlight was light, and the room was empty.
‘Was it a dream?’
Zhou Shanheng pressed his forehead.
But he couldn’t recall what the person in the dream looked like.
He only remembered being told to go to the backyard?
What’s in the backyard?
Zhou Shanheng shook his head, got out of bed again, and put on his outer robe to head out.
In the shallow stream in the backyard, he saw the white koi that should’ve been in the water vat.
Earlier, Xin Hexue had jumped into the stream to hide from that Taoist. Now he couldn’t get back on his own, so he had no choice but to ask Zhou Shanheng for help through a dream.
“So strange…”
Zhou Shanheng put the white koi back into the water vat.
Watching the koi swim gracefully in the water, Zhou Shanheng couldn’t understand how a good fish ended up in the stream and he murmured to himself, “Could it be… it has become a spirit?”
At this thought, he chuckled softly.
It must have been the sudden visit from the Taoist tonight that stirred his thoughts and dreams. It was probably just a coincidence.
How could a fish become a spirit?
Zhou Shanheng suddenly rubbed his brow again, inexplicably feeling like someone had flicked him on the forehead.
