Chapter 26: With Favorable Winds, the Sail Is Set

Cheng Ruyi hurried after Yan Kuang, his hands full of various bags—luggage Yan Kuang had retrieved from an informant, claiming they would be needed for the journey.

"Yan... Master Yan, slow down, please slow down..." Cheng Ruyi gasped, completely out of breath.

Yan Kuang stopped and looked back. "Who was it just now that claimed to be a lowly servant, snatching the luggage to carry?"

Cheng Ruyi rolled his eyes. Internally, he cursed the grim-faced devil for being so ungrateful. Didn't he snatch the bags precisely because he saw the injury on Yan Kuang’s arm? And yet, in Yan Kuang’s eyes, he was just showing off!

The more he thought about it, the angrier he grew. He simply stopped walking, dropped the bags on the ground, and huffed, "This old servant is aged and cannot walk any further."

Yan Kuang paused, looking back at the man who was once a renowned scholar fighting for fame and fortune. Seeing this childish side of him—and noting that Cheng Ruyi, with his delicate features, looked barely twenty-four—Yan Kuang found himself momentarily dazed. A surge of memories washed over him, bringing the past to the forefront of his mind.

...

"Senior Brother Han! I can’t walk anymore, I’m not going, I’m not going!"

There had once been a young, innocent lad, vibrant and full of life, who would chatter incessantly by his side every single day.

Cheng Ruyi didn't know what Yan Kuang was thinking about, but this man was prone to such trances, and it wasn't the first time he had seen it.

Suddenly, Cheng Ruyi felt his waist tighten. Startled, he cried out, "Master Yan, what are you... Hey! Put me down!"

Yan Kuang had reached out, hooked an arm around Cheng Ruyi’s waist, and lifted him horizontally, conveniently hooking the luggage onto his elbow.

This was the first time Cheng Ruyi had been carried by Yan Kuang while fully conscious. Losing his balance, he instinctively clutched at Yan Kuang’s neck, but feeling embarrassed, he immediately let go and lowered his head, terrified of being seen.

Buried in Yan Kuang’s embrace, Cheng Ruyi muttered, "Master Yan... if you are dissatisfied with me, you can just say so. People... people should choose 'speaking' as the primary way to communicate... instead of..."

"I was afraid you would get tired."

Despite carrying the heavy bags and holding Cheng Ruyi, Yan Kuang hopped onto the boat with effortless agility.

But the sudden jump made Cheng Ruyi once again cling tightly to Yan Kuang’s shoulders. He heard the boatman chuckle from the side:

"Are you two brothers? You have such a close bond!"

"Put me down, quickly..." Cheng Ruyi hissed through gritted teeth.

"Hmm."

Yan Kuang grunted, though it was unclear whom he was responding to.

Once his feet touched the deck, Cheng Ruyi offered a polite smile to the boatman and stepped forward to help Yan Kuang unload the bags. They carried the luggage into the cabin together.

With the belongings settled, the boat pulled away from the pier, rocking gently with the river’s current.

Cheng Ruyi pulled back the curtain and looked at the capital’s pier as it faded into the distance—

A surge of people: laborers carrying goods, merchants from all corners of the world, and lonely figures departing the capital in defeat. As the boat moved further away, the view blurred. But surely, there were also fools like he had once been, carrying dreams of wealth and rushing headlong into the imperial city.

The river flowed steadily, leaving behind both sweet dreams and nightmares. Just as it had years ago, this same river had delivered him into that bustling, graveyard-like trap.

Perhaps it was never prosperous; it was only a whirlpool. A whirlpool of blades that devoured flesh and blood. He had almost fallen in.

Yan Kuang began to make the bed. "I forgot to ask earlier, you don't get seasick, do you?"

Cheng Ruyi snapped out of his thoughts. Seeing the tall, broad-shouldered Yan Kuang unable to stand straight in the low cabin, he couldn't help but chuckle. "If I were truly seasick, it would be too late to jump overboard now, wouldn't it?"

It had been so many years since anyone had joked with him that Yan Kuang found it fresh and interesting. He sat down on a storage chest nearby and asked, "Then, can you swim?"

"Why... are you planning to throw me over?" Cheng Ruyi asked, guardedly clutching the window frame.

Yan Kuang suppressed a smile, rarely feeling in the mood to tease, and nodded with a deliberately straight face.

"Let’s not..." Cheng Ruyi couldn't quite grasp Yan Kuang’s moods. Although he knew the man wouldn't harm him, he still felt a sense of trepidation. "I was only just rescued by you... what if my wounds soak in the water and burst open again?"

After some deliberation, Cheng Ruyi decided to play the part of the pitiable one, his large eyes glistening.

Yan Kuang met his gaze and said, "Water ghosts aren't pleasant to look at. Naturally, I wouldn't mistreat Master Cheng."

Hearing this, Cheng Ruyi’s courage grew. He leaned in closer and asked, "My, listen to how Master Yan speaks... then what kind of ghost is pleasant to look at? A mountain spirit...?"

Yan Kuang stood with his hands behind his back, leaning down to stare into those eyes. "With a lovely gaze and a charming smile, does the child admire my graceful form?"

"Um... what?"

Cheng Ruyi stammered and lowered his head. In that brief moment of eye contact, his heart felt as if it had been pecked by a bird.

He never dared to look directly into Yan Kuang’s eyes.

Clearly, this was a malevolent spirit steeped in the underworld, yet his gaze was so direct and open that it left a wandering soul like himself with nowhere to hide.

"You’re quite the master of quoting classics. Why didn't you take the imperial examinations, Master Yan?" Cheng Ruyi murmured, eyes downcast.

Yan Kuang turned away, rummaging through the luggage as he said, "The path of the examinations and officialdom is a long slog. I couldn't wait."

"Oh... indeed."

Cheng Ruyi agreed from the bottom of his heart. Without a noble background or a powerful patron, even if one topped the imperial examinations, one could never truly ascend.

Those like himself, impatient and unable to endure, were they not immediately cast into the eighteenth level of hell?

Yan Kuang held up a medicine bottle. "Take off your clothes."

Having heard Cheng Ruyi mention his injuries, Yan Kuang intended to tend to them himself. After all, the road ahead was long, and if the wounds worsened from the jolting, it would be just as Cheng Ruyi had feared.

He was the one who had saved him, after all.

Cheng Ruyi understood it was a kind gesture, but he couldn't help but feel nervous. "I, I can do it myself..."

Yan Kuang said coolly, "Do you have eyes on the back of your head?"

Cheng Ruyi: "No... but—"

"Take them off, quickly," Yan Kuang commanded.

Cheng Ruyi sighed and began to slowly loosen his clothes, but suddenly something slid from his collar.

"Oh..."

Seeing Yan Kuang catch it with quick reflexes, Cheng Ruyi let out a breath of relief.

Yan Kuang opened his palm; it was the pair of green jade fish pendants they had won at the ring-toss stall that day.

"You wouldn't believe it, Master Yan, but this thing is quite sturdy."

As he undressed, Cheng Ruyi continued, "It doesn't break no matter how much it’s tossed about. But it’s strange—it didn't fall out even when I was being tortured or buried in the earth. Why is it so eager to show itself now that I’ve met you?"

Hearing Cheng Ruyi mention the suffering he had endured, Yan Kuang felt a sourness in his heart. He tossed the jade aside.

"It’s a fake piece of jade," he said. "Yet you hide it as if it were some great treasure."

Cheng Ruyi shrugged and tucked the pendant under his pillow. With his clothes mostly removed, Yan Kuang uncorked the bottle, dipped his fingers in the medicinal wine, and began to rub it onto the scarred skin of Cheng Ruyi’s back.

Cheng Ruyi felt the wounds grow hot and itchy. Being touched by Yan Kuang made him want to laugh, and he couldn't help but shrink his neck. "Hey, Master... Yan, your medicine is truly effective. It doesn't really hurt anymore... though it hurt quite a lot when you beat me, it was just..."

"It hurt much more than when my stepmother beat me."

At these words, Yan Kuang’s hand paused.

Having left the capital, the "Cheng Ruyi" of old was truly dead. Shedding the shackles of his identity and waking from the dream of wealth, Cheng Ruyi suddenly felt an urge to unburden himself. He didn't care if Yan Kuang wanted to hear it or not, and simply continued.

"You must have investigated me. The Huang woman is not my birth mother. My birth mother died long ago—driven to her death by my father."

Cheng Ruyi’s tone was light and breezy, but his final sentence was like a giant boulder crashing into Yan Kuang’s heart, causing his hand to slip. He pressed down too hard, making Cheng Ruyi cry out in pain. Yan Kuang snapped out of it and loosened his grip.

"Hiss... why are you so agitated?"

Cheng Ruyi feigned lightness. "Oh, you don't have to pity me... actually, I can barely remember what my mother looked like. I don't even know her name or her family name."

"I only remember that she was very skilled with her hands and treated me very well."

"The humidity in Sichuan is high. When I was a child and developed a rash on my back, she used to apply medicine to me just like this."

Perhaps the similarity in their pasts stirred Yan Kuang’s emotions, and he finally couldn't help but ask, "Then your father, why..."

Cheng Ruyi sighed, his voice taking on the accent of his hometown: "That old man of mine, he was good for nothing... even after slaving away until death, he was only a low-level scholar..."

"My mother was ill. He thought that if he could just wait for his wife to die, marry into the wealthy Huang family, and pull some strings... he could leap to the sky, become a candidate, and maybe even top the imperial examinations to become a... top scholar?"

He laughed self-deprecatingly and added, "Oh, and I had a little sister, too. He thought she was a burden, so he sold her. If I had been a girl, probably... no, definitely, he would have sold me too."

"What a pity... my stepmother knew exactly what kind of man he was. Why would she ever truly help him climb the ladder?"

Cheng Ruyi couldn't tell if he wanted to laugh because the medicine was itchy or because he truly found it all absurd.

Yan Kuang’s heart constricted. He couldn't quite remember his own mother’s face either... and he, too, had a heartless father.

Yan Kuang wanted to say something but stopped. In the end, he remained silent, blowing on the medicinal wine on Cheng Ruyi’s back to dry it before slowly draping his clothes back over his shoulders.

Cheng Ruyi sighed softly. "They were all just too greedy..."

He pulled his clothes tight and turned around. His large, moon-bright eyes gazed at Yan Kuang, looking both innocent and helpless.

"So, I killed them all."

"Yan Kuang... do you think I did the right thing?"

Yan Kuang did not answer. He could clearly see the shimmer of tears in the eyes so close to his own.

It was a question he simply could not answer.

"Autumn has arrived. Don't catch a cold." Yan Kuang smoothed Cheng Ruyi’s collar, turned, and left the cabin, heading straight for the bow of the boat.

Autumn had arrived. The air was turning cold.

Yan Kuang felt a dull ache in his chest once again.

He was afraid of water. Terribly afraid.

That year, on the day of the beginning of autumn, the banks of the capital river were packed with people, surrounding a shallow bay until it was impassable.

Yan Kuang looked out at the river. The water below was deep, but in his mind, it was nowhere near as deep as that shallow bay.

Water so shallow could still drown a person. It just required one to have their hands and feet bound and be stuffed into a bamboo cage.

"Hey, Master Yan!"

Cheng Ruyi, having just emerged from the cabin, saw Yan Kuang swaying at the bow and rushed forward to steady him.

Yan Kuang came to his senses and shook his head slightly.

"What’s wrong with you? You almost fell into the river!" Seeing Yan Kuang regain his focus, Cheng Ruyi let out a sigh of relief and pulled him back a few steps.

"Are you feeling unwell? By the way..."

Cheng Ruyi lowered his voice. "I remember you were injured too... shall we go back to the cabin, and I’ll apply some medicine for you?"

"It is nothing." He knew his own problem, but he still didn't know how to speak to Cheng Ruyi about it.

"It seems Master Yan is practicing some supreme martial art? Truly, the skillful are bold."

Cheng Ruyi teased, sitting on the deck to let the river breeze blow over him. Watching the ripples spread across the water, he felt, for the first time, a sense of ease.