Chapter 28
Chapter 28
The carriage had stopped at Mount Yuji on the eastern bank of the Min River.
The mountain rose steep and perilous, its face as sheer as if hacked out by blades and axes. Someone had once written, “Wait for clear skies and gaze afar; every other peak seems low” – proof of its great height. Not even mountain floods could submerge it.
For that very reason, Mount Yuji blocked the river’s eastward flow, leaving the Jiangdu Plain plagued by drought in the east and flooding in the west. Counties to the east lacked the water needed to farm, while those to the west suffered perennial floods. Both sides lived in misery.
At the foot of the mountain, Xie Chengze removed his outer robe. Then he bent over, lifted the hem of his long inner robe, rolled it up around his waist, and tied it in a knot.
With his long, straight legs exposed, Xie Chengze huffed and puffed through several warm-up exercises to avoid injuring himself during the climb.
Seeing his preparations, Shen Yuan asked, “You intend to climb the mountain?”
Xie Chengze nodded. “Would Lord Shen like to prepare as well?”
The mountain paths were rugged. An outer robe would make movement difficult.
Shen Yuan shook his head. “I have lightness skill. There is no need to go to such trouble.”
Envy filled Xie Chengze’s eyes. “How nice. I really want to chop off Lord Shen’s legs and attach them to this prince.”
Shen Yuan: “…”
What outrageous nonsense was he spouting now?
After warming up, Xie Chengze slung his little water pouch and bundle over his back and marched spiritedly up Mount Yuji. “The road to immortality, here comes this prince!!!”
Half an hour later.
Xie Chengze lay draped over a rock beside the mountain trail like a strip of rotten fish dried in the sun. Even a poke would not make him twitch.
Standing to one side, Shen Yuan looked down at him and jeered, “Your Highness’s ascent was not yet halfway complete when strength failed. Now the sun stands at its zenith, your legs exhausted. Truly, the road to immortality faces a desperate crisis.”
Xie Chengze: “?”
What was with all the fancy classical phrasing? He could do that too!
“This prince entrusts thee with the task of carrying Us up the mountain. Shouldst thou fail, We shall punish thy crime and report it, report it…” Xie Chengze ran out of words and looked around. His eyes suddenly lit up. “Report it to the spirits of the mountain ants thou crushed underfoot!”
Shen Yuan: “…”
Childish.
“Lord Shen.” When Shen Yuan did not move, Xie Chengze held both arms out to him with a pleading look.
Shen Yuan shook his head. “Your Highness, it is truly not that this subject is unwilling to carry you. This subject has not eaten since noon and has limited strength. I can guarantee only that I will reach the summit myself.”
“Then what did you come out here with me for?” Xie Chengze immediately said in disgust. “Wuji should have been the one to carry me up!”
He raised his voice and shouted, “Our Wuji is exhausted, yet even he could carry this prince up the mountain. Are you telling me you can’t do it?”
“Can’t you do it – ?”
“You can’t do it – ?”
“Can’t do it – ?”
“Do it – ?”
Xie Chengze’s contemptuous challenge echoed endlessly through the mountains. Several birds began chirping along, as if they too were mocking Shen Yuan for his inability to perform.
Shen Yuan: “…”
Shen Yuan turned his back. “Get on.”
Xie Chengze sprang back to life. With a carp’s flip, he flew onto Shen Yuan’s back and thrust out an arm. “Onward – !”
Only then did Shen Yuan realize he had been tricked by Xie Chengze yet again.
It was not that Xie Chengze could not climb. He was simply too lazy and wanted to ride Shen Yuan’s lightness skill up the mountain!
Sighing inwardly, Shen Yuan resigned himself to hooking his arms beneath Xie Chengze’s legs and started up the mountain trail.
Lightness skill really was the best way to ascend. They moved quickly, and the cool mountain wind swept past Xie Chengze’s ears, drying much of the fine sweat from the beautiful young man’s brow. He narrowed his eyes in comfort, rested both hands naturally on Shen Yuan’s shoulders, and sighed, “Lord Shen, you make an excellent mount.”
Shen Yuan stumbled.
Through gritted teeth, he said, “Your Highness, mind your words!”
Why did everything he said in this life sound so improper? Could this be revenge because Shen Yuan had praised Xie Chengze’s beauty too often in their previous life?
If that was what Xie Chengze intended, then Shen Yuan absolutely refused to give him the satisfaction.
The large hands supporting Xie Chengze’s buttocks tightened and lifted slightly. Whether deliberately or merely in passing, Shen Yuan gave him a small bounce and issued a silent challenge. “This subject may take you seriously.”
As if Xie Chengze would believe that. Refusing to be outdone, he blew softly against Shen Yuan’s ear and murmured in a delicate, seductive voice, “This prince is serious too~”
Warm breath rushed into Shen Yuan’s ear. His neck stiffened as a strange numbness and tingling itch spread through his entire body. His ears began to ring, his mind drifted, and even the mountain path beneath his feet seemed to turn soft and unsteady, nearly making him lose his footing.
He bit down hard on the tip of his tongue and recovered a sliver of reason. Striking back, he asked, “And just how serious can Your Highness be?”
“That depends on how much Lord Shen can handle~” Xie Chengze continued to needle him. “Lord Shen is so heroic and imposing. In truth, this prince has admired you for ages~ Ow! Don’t pinch my leg! That hurts, hurts, hurts – ”
The two thoroughly straight men competed openly and covertly, and amid one man’s ceaseless chatter and the other’s silence, they finally reached the summit.
Shen Yuan dumped Xie Chengze down as if shedding a burden, then strode into the shade of a nearby tree, unwilling to speak to him again. “Your Highness may do as you please. This subject will wait here!”
Xie Chengze excelled at taking a mile when given an inch. He immediately pressed his advantage and ran cheerfully over. “Lord Shen! This prince wants to go to the top of the tallest tree!”
Watching Xie Chengze bounce with energy, Shen Yuan began to regret leaving the yamen today.
Would it not have been better to stay there and torment Liang Wanda? Instead, he had insisted on coming here to toil like an ox and a horse for Xie Chengze, only to be subjected to his…
At the memory of the other man’s teasing and provocation, another tingling sensation traveled from the skin of his neck through his whole body. The sudden, unfamiliar emotion left Shen Yuan restless and even less able to discern what Xie Chengze truly wanted.
He was like the little feral cat Shen Yuan had found during his childhood travels. On a whim, it would tease you a few times, then dart away once it had had its fun. Sometimes it would suddenly turn vicious and scratch you, only to stick out its tongue and lick the wound.
Call him good, and he was not. Call him wicked, and he was not wicked enough.
Yet this version of him threw Shen Yuan’s heart into disarray.
For reasons he could not name, Shen Yuan did not carry him on his back this time. Instead, he wrapped an arm around Xie Chengze’s waist and leaped, taking him up the tree.
“Holy shit!” Startled, Xie Chengze squeezed his eyes shut and wrapped himself around Shen Yuan like an octopus, both legs clamping tightly around his waist. “Brother! Hold on tighter! Don’t drop me!”
“Relax.” Shen Yuan felt as though he were about to be strangled. “You will not fall!” he growled.
Only then did Xie Chengze open his eyes. The two of them now stood at the very top of the towering tree, Shen Yuan poised upon a branch. The skirts of his silver-white robe fluttered, and his high-bound black ponytail streamed in the wind, making him look strikingly heroic, dashing, and carefree.
Xie Chengze had to admit, the bastard really was goddamn handsome.
However… He patted Shen Yuan’s shoulder. “Brother, wrong direction. Turn around.”
Shen Yuan: “…”
Shen Yuan turned to face the other way, and Xie Chengze beheld the sweeping view available only from atop a high mountain. The Min River roared toward the Jiangdu Plain, its mud-laden yellow floodwaters like a savage tiger. Even from the summit, they could hear its low, thunderous growl, as if it would not rest until it had swallowed the entire Jiangdu Plain.
Trees toppled before it, fields drowned beneath it, houses collapsed in its path, and people died wherever it passed.
It was like a gluttonous taotie whose greed could never be sated. Powerless against it, people could only kneel and beg Heaven to show mercy and grant ordinary folk a path to survival.
Yet Heaven and Earth were not benevolent. They treated all things as straw dogs.
Heaven and Earth were swayed by neither emotion nor favor. They regarded all things alike, allowing each to flourish or wither by itself, and asked for nothing in return.
The sages, too, were not benevolent. They treated the people as straw dogs. Following nature without preference, they believed the proper course was to let the people develop in accordance with it. Thus, they would not interfere in the people’s actions, but left them to live and die on their own.
This was a line spoken by Laozi in the fifth chapter of the *Dao De Jing*. In essence, the “lack of benevolence” of Heaven, Earth, and the sages was itself the form their “benevolence” took in the mortal world.
But looking at the fertile fields swallowed by water, the innocent dogs and livestock swept away, and the people kneeling before their loved ones’ bodies in tears – some unable even to recover those bodies – was such “lack of benevolence” truly benevolence, or was it cruelty?
If Heaven and Earth lacked benevolence, all things would become as lowly as straw dogs.
If the sages lacked benevolence, the people would become as lowly as straw dogs.