Chapter 43#
Brother Sang, Wife Yu’er#
Su Ruhui was pulled to the bottom of the tower and shouted for Sang Chiyu to stop. Sang Chiyu turned to look at him, his gaze cold and clear, like frost and snow. Su Ruhui raised his hands, which were bound by chains. “Do me a favor and unbind me.”
“You can’t escape,” Sang Chiyu said faintly.
Su Ruhui said helplessly, “I’m not escaping. I need a hand to stick down my throat.”
“Stick down your throat?” Sang Chiyu frowned, not knowing what he was going to do.
“My stomach has a bit of a problem. I can’t drink too much wine; if I do, my stomach hurts.” Su Ruhui leaned against the brick wall, his smile lazy. “I drank ten bowls at once. You punched me just now and I vomited a bit, but I need to get the rest out, or I’ll definitely have a stomachache later.”
Sang Chiyu looked at him for a while with his long brows knitted, then unchained him. Su Ruhui indeed didn’t play any tricks. He leaned against the brick wall and induced vomiting, getting all the wine he had drunk at the banquet out. After vomiting, he finally felt a bit better. Su Ruhui sat down against the wall, waved his hand, and said feebly, “Let’s rest for a bit.”
“Since you have a stomach ailment, why did you drink?” Sang Chiyu asked.
With no wine left in his stomach, the drunken color on Su Ruhui’s face gradually faded, revealing a snow-like paleness. He looked sickly and frail, like a paper man that could be blown away by a gust of wind. Many years later, when Sang Chiyu recalled this scene, he felt that although the heart core poison broke out when Su Ruhui was twenty-five, his body might not have been very healthy even then. The rapid decline of his body was inseparable from his unrestrained drinking.
Su Ruhui shook his head and didn’t answer Sang Chiyu’s question. He just looked him up and down and gave a smile. “How about you tell me first, why do you hate me? Is it because I coaxed you into helping me wash my socks when I was a kid?”
Sang Chiyu didn’t answer, but the coldness between his brows increased.
Su Ruhui took his silence as agreement and sighed, “I was wrong when I was a kid. I apologize. You’ve changed so much, I almost didn’t recognize you. They call you Master Sang, Sang Chiyu, but I only remember you as Yu’er.”
“Su Ruhui, you’ve changed a lot too,” Sang Chiyu said.
“Give me a hand.” Su Ruhui reached out to him.
Sang Chiyu unslung his saber and handed it to him.
He wasn’t even willing to pull his hand; this was the look of someone who detested him to the extreme. Su Ruhui was somewhat helpless. He grabbed the saber sheath, stood up, and walked back to the tent unsteadily.
Sang Chiyu was stubborn. He was the most inflexible person Su Ruhui had ever met in his life. When Dantai Jing asked him to do something, he would definitely do it cleanly and thoroughly. He made his enemies shattered, and he himself was almost shattered as well. This kind of person was very difficult to deal with because you couldn’t grasp his preferences or his weaknesses.
He worked neither for fame nor for profit. He didn’t care about the position of the Grand Sect Master’s successor, and he cared even less about gold, silver, and treasures. The clothes in his wardrobe were all Reclamation Guard style robes. The sabers, swords, bows, and crossbows he used were those issued to him from above. He didn’t drink, gamble, or visit brothels. He ate whatever food was served in the camp.
Su Ruhui later discovered that he had a notebook containing a cultivation schedule Dantai Jing had arranged for him:
Cockcrow: Ablutions, morning lessons
Dawn: Porridge, Zen meditation
Sunrise: Physical techniques, saber techniques
Mid-morning: Bowl exhibition
Midday: Physical techniques, saber techniques, walking meditation
Dusk: Bathing, Zen meditation
Nightfall: Retiring
What was even more ridiculous was that Sang Chiyu followed Dantai Jing’s orders meticulously. Sang Chiyu was such a person, which directly made Su Ruhui’s life in the Reclamation Guard more miserable than death. Dantai Jing said his precepts were Su Ruhui’s precepts, so every day before dawn, he dragged Su Ruhui out of his bedding to go with him for ascetic cultivation.
Sang Chiyu’s ascetic cultivation was harsh to an appalling degree. They had to go to the mountaintop for Zen meditation every morning. Su Ruhui often had a runny nose from the cold and would then nod off. Sometimes Su Ruhui would lean toward Sang Chiyu, and Sang Chiyu would use one hand to press Su Ruhui’s forehead and straighten him up. Sometimes Su Ruhui would wake up and find himself only one step away from the cliff. He would sit up in terror and complain, “Why didn’t you stop me? What if I fell?”
Sang Chiyu said plainly, “I would build a tomb for you.”
Su Ruhui: “…”
After that, Su Ruhui never dared to nod off on the mountaintop again.
Back at the camp, they had to practice saber, combat, and wrestling until sunset before they could rest. Sang Chiyu’s saber techniques were superb, and Su Ruhui was no match for him at all. Sang Chiyu’s requirements for physical and saber techniques were very strict, and he never went easy on him. When practicing saber with him, Su Ruhui was always the one being beaten, being bruised and swollen every day.
Even regular soldiers didn’t have to practice so hard. The disciples of the aristocratic camp watched Su Ruhui run down the mountain every day, paralyzed on the ground like a dead dog, and gave him sympathetic looks. If it were anyone else, Su Ruhui could have bribed them to get by, but unfortunately, he was facing Sang Chiyu, who had no desires.
Su Ruhui couldn’t take it anymore and started using underhanded tricks. He would sneak out of the tent at night while Sang Chiyu was sleeping to gamble with his friends, and deliberately let Sang Chiyu find out, so Sang Chiyu had to go out at midnight to catch him. For several nights in a row, as soon as Sang Chiyu rested, Su Ruhui would sneak away. The two of them were like a cat and a mouse, and neither of them slept well for several nights.
“Either leave me alone, or don’t even think about sleeping.” Su Ruhui was like a dead pig not afraid of boiling water. “Let’s see who can hold out.”
Although this tactic was a double-edged sword, it worked. Su Ruhui clearly felt that Sang Chiyu had been lacking strength these past few days, and his reactions were much slower during combat on the drill ground.
In the tent, Sang Chiyu’s lips were pressed into a straight line.
He had truly been very tired these past few days, and Su Ruhui saw that his face had become much paler. Lifting the tent flap to look at the sky outside, it had already darkened, and the plateau was shrouded in a hazy gloom. Usually, at this time, Sang Chiyu would have already rested, but since he had to watch over Su Ruhui, he still stayed in Su Ruhui’s tent. Su Ruhui lay on the bed and said mournfully, “Please, turn a blind eye. It’ll be good for both of us.”
Sang Chiyu ignored him.
Su Ruhui turned his head to look at him and called out, “Wife.”
The atmosphere in the tent instantly turned several degrees colder. Sang Chiyu’s face was tense, and his whole body was emitting a chill.
“Don’t call me that,” Sang Chiyu said coldly.
“Fine,” Su Ruhui smiled, “Brother Sang.”
He was deliberately annoying Sang Chiyu. If Sang Chiyu was driven away by anger, he would be free.
“I am not your brother.”
Sang Chiyu was actually a bit younger than Su Ruhui, but Su Ruhui was thick-skinned and called him “Brother” very fluently.
“Not Brother,” Su Ruhui said, “then Yu’er.”
Sang Chiyu closed his eyes to rest his mind and said no more.
“Good Yu’er,” Su Ruhui shook his sleeve. “Think of our past affection. You even called me ‘Brother Ruhui’ before. Yu’er was so sweet and obedient when he was a kid, why is he so heartless to me now that he’s grown up?”
Sang Chiyu frowned and said stiffly, “The past is over, there’s no need to mention it again.”
“I’m not asking for much. You just have to allow me to sleep in. I’ll still follow you for other cultivations as usual.” Su Ruhui negotiated with him, “Hmm? How about it? If you don’t agree, I’ll use my ultimate move. Tomorrow, I’ll let everyone in the Reclamation Guard know that you made a promise when you were a kid to be my wife. I’m not much, but they call me Big Brother. Starting tomorrow, I’ll have them call you Sister-in-law.”
Sang Chiyu stood by the flap like a door god, motionless.
Su Ruhui was completely defeated. Fine, let’s see who can last. Su Ruhui was also a stubborn one. He climbed off the bed on his own and started tinkering with his small puppets. His tent was piled with wood and iron scraps, all materials he used for making puppets. Sang Chiyu lowered his eyelids, watching him poke around with a chisel. There was a silver three-headed puppy at Su Ruhui’s feet. Sang Chiyu had seen it when they were at Zhuluo Mountain. He heard it was a gift from his father. There was a small mechanism inside; when the string behind the puppy’s butt was pulled, it would bark “o-o-o.”
Su Ruhui made the mechanism more complex and precise, and also added star arrays and spirit stones. The star array guided the spiritual power of the spirit stones, allowing the mechanisms to move freely. Quite a few wooden puppets began to move on their own. Su Ruhui drew star maps on the ground and constructed star arrays. The complex star lines were dazzling, intertwined like a spider web. Sang Chiyu couldn’t understand them.
Sang Chiyu asked hesitantly, “Can you still calculate without secret techniques?”
“Yes.” Su Ruhui looked at him, scratched his head, and said, “Oh, don’t worry about the past. It doesn’t matter much to me whether I have that secret technique or not. I can calculate the star array structure by hand, it just takes a bit longer.”
In fact, he was lying. The difference between having “Deduction” and not having it was not just a little bit. Answers that he used to be able to get in an instant now took months of calculation and repeated verification.
He pointed to the star map on the ground. “Look, these are the Three Enclosures, these are the Five Luminaries, and this is the Big Dipper. Stars attract and repel each other. Their movements must follow the times, forming the way of change, and aligning with the mystery of Yin and Yang. By finding the laws of their movement and arranging them into a star array, one can borrow the power of heaven to operate mechanisms.”
He poked a large iron rat on the ground. The large rat shook its limbs, scurried toward Sang Chiyu unsteadily, and kept bumping into Sang Chiyu’s boots, shouting “Brother Sang! Brother Sang! Brother Sang!”
Sang Chiyu: “…”
“Don’t step on it, it’ll explode,” Su Ruhui laughed. “This is a Volcanic Fire Burrowing Rat. It’s filled with spirit stone powder and black gunpowder. It can blast through mountains and open roads effortlessly. Do you want some? I’ll give you a few to play with.” Su Ruhui winked. “Of course, if you repay me by letting me sleep in for a day, I naturally won’t refuse.”
Sang Chiyu sat cross-legged and picked up the Volcanic Fire Burrowing Rat, holding it in his palm to examine it. He said, “I remember you didn’t like the Fenghou Star Array when you were a child.”
Su Ruhui shrugged. “Indeed, I still don’t like it. But when my father left, he told me that if I reached the Celestial Realm, he would come back to see me. I believed his nonsense back then and followed Master in cultivation wholeheartedly. In the end, when Master was about to die, he told me the truth: from ancient times to the present, no secret technique user has reached the Celestial Realm, let alone me, who has no secret technique.”
Sang Chiyu had heard about what Su Ruhui had gone through before: his father’s departure, his master’s death, his senior and junior sisters returning home, and him growing from a youth to a young man alone on Zhuluo Mountain. Having said that, normally Sang Chiyu should have comforted him. But Sang Chiyu was not good at speaking and didn’t know how to start, so the tent fell into silence.
Fortunately, Jiang Xueya came in at this time. This woman was like a ball of fire, bright and dazzling. As soon as she entered, the air seemed to become hot instantly. She looked at the Volcanic Fire Burrowing Rat in Su Ruhui’s hand, squatted down, and asked, “How many have you made? I’ll buy as many as you make. It’s best if you draw the blueprints, and I’ll bring craftsmen from Yunzhou.” She held the small rats against the light, seeing the snowflake emblem on their backs. “This small snowflake is quite pretty. Did you draw it?”
Su Ruhui replied, “Don’t touch it randomly. If it explodes, the three of us won’t even have ashes left.”
Jiang Xueya raised an eyebrow and asked, “Why use a snowflake as an emblem? Is your lover’s name Xiaoxue?”
“I don’t have any lover. I just drew it randomly,” Su Ruhui dismissed her.
Jiang Xueya threw the rat away, but the rat persistently went to bump into Sang Chiyu, shouting “Brother Sang, Brother Sang.” Jiang Xueya said, “Zhou Xiaosu is here.”
Su Ruhui was stunned. “Zhou Xiaosu? Why is she here?”
Jiang Xueya smiled. “Most likely she snuck out. She didn’t bring any luggage or servants, and she’s stubbornly insisting on sleeping in my room. She said she missed us, and when she heard we were both in the Reclamation Guard, she followed. Do you believe her?”
Su Ruhui also smiled. “I’d rather believe that Sang Chiyu broke his precepts.”
Sang Chiyu gave him a silent look.
“So I checked,” Jiang Xueya crossed her arms. “She came for a man. For the past year, she has been corresponding with this man, pouring out her heart, and even thinking about the gender and names of their children in the next life.” Jiang Xueya paused and said, “They even exchanged nude portraits—the painted kind, you know. I happened to intercept one. Zhou Xiaosu beautified herself quite a bit; she painted her chest several sizes larger, even though she’s flat-chested.”
Su Ruhui: “…”
Sang Chiyu stood up. “I’ll excuse myself.”
Su Ruhui pulled him. “You’ve already heard it all, there’s no need.” The shadows of the lamp covered Su Ruhui’s face, and it was hard to tell his emotions. “Who is the man?”
Jiang Xueya said, “Yan Jinyu of the Yan clan in Youzhou.”