MLH | Chapter 6

Zhao ge’er was used to being busy, and after talking with Fang Zichen for a while, he looked listless, as if he had been hit by something.

He went back to the kitchen, took out the broken basket that had held wild vegetables before, called for Guai Zai, and was about to go out. Fang Zichen stood up, dusted his butt, and followed: “Where are you going? Take me with you.”

“To dig wild vegetables,” Zhao ge’er said.

Fang Zichen’s face wrinkled. He did not want to go dig wild vegetables. That stuff really did not taste very good. Zhao ge’er only thought he did not want to go again, so he said, “Guai Zai and I can go by ourselves. It’s hot, you rest at home.”

Fang Zichen shook his head. There was not much food at home, and he was poor with nothing to his name, not even half a coin. He should be kneeling to thank the heavens for their mercy if he did not have to chew dirt and eat soil, he had no right to be picky.

He was no longer the rich young master from before who only licked the bottle cap when he drank yogurt.

There were not many places in the village where they could dig wild vegetables, only at the foot of the mountain, along the field ridges, and by a small stream.

Where Zhao ge’er took him was by the stream. A few wild celery plants grew here, very tender, and after being boiled to eat, they were not very bitter. He thought Fang Zichen should be able to accept them.

No one knew what kind of conditions this person had lived in before. Eating a bowl of wild vegetable porridge, he could almost vomit and retch, even worse than Guai Zai.

The someone who could not compare to Guai Zai did not recognize wild vegetables. After sitting by the stream for a while, he looked around, not knowing what he wanted to do.

…

“Guai Zai,” Fang Zichen lay in the grass, one hand pressed to the ground, waving at Guai Zai, as if he had caught something good.

Guai Zai still had a handful of small celery in his hand. He da-da ran over: “…father?”

Fang Zichen automatically ignored that address, and motioned for Guai Zai to come closer: “I’ll show you something good.”

“What?”

Fang Zichen loosened his hand a little: “Look.”

Guai Zai cried out, “Wow, shi frog.”

“Mm,” Fang Zichen grabbed one frog leg and lifted it up, shaking it. “Later find a rope, tie it up, and take it back for you to play with.”

Guai Zai had been taught manners by Zhao ge’er, and immediately smiled, tilting his little head to say to Fang Zichen, “Thank you, father.”

There were vines growing by the stream. Fang Zichen pulled one and tied the frog’s leg, then suddenly heard someone calling him.

It was He Xi.

Fang Zichen asked in confusion, “You’re looking for me? Something up?”

“No, I just heard that the Ma family people made trouble at your place this morning, so I came to see you,” He Xi said. He had gone to chop firewood in the morning, and only heard about this when he came back at noon. He immediately ran to the old house to look for Fang Zichen, but he was not there, so he came looking here.

“What’s there to see.” Fang Zichen squatted by the stream and casually pulled a blade of grass, tapping the water surface again and again.

He Xi said, “I heard about it all along the way. You beat up those Ma family guys,” he gestured with his hand, “Ma Dazhuang is that big, they said you punched him once and directly beat him until he couldn’t get up anymore, is that really true!”

There were no secrets in the village. Even the tiniest sesame-sized matter could be talked about twice. The morning incident had spread very fast, like it had been blown by the wind, not sparing any corner. Old and young alike, anyone with ears knew about it.

But some things, after too much mouthiness, changed flavor. Fang Zichen did not know what it had already been turned into, but what He Xi said was not wrong. He nodded: “Mm! One punch really was enough. The Ma Dazhuang you mentioned couldn’t get up anymore, he was useless.”

He Xi learned from Fang Zichen, pulled a blade of grass, and sat beside him: “He was that big, and still useless?”

“Tch,” Fang Zichen pouted. “All show and no use.”

“That still means you’re impressive,” He Xi said. “You’re tall, and you look thin too, but I didn’t expect you to be that strong. You took down the three brothers from the Ma family in just a few moves by yourself. Us villagers have always been afraid to provoke them, just afraid of getting beaten. You’re really impressive.”

Fang Zichen waved a hand, indifferent. “Just average.”

He Xi was the type who got familiar very easily, and he talked a lot too. It always felt like after sleeping with Fang Zichen once, the two of them already had a bond forged in life and death. Right then he curiously asked, “When you were thirteen, did you really carry a big knife and go hack people? Weren’t you afraid?”

Most people in the village were honest and proper. When disputes really turned into a fight, it was nothing more than you giving me a punch and I giving you a kick, then the two of us rolling around together a few times. There was never a time they used blades.

Zhao ge’er was digging wild vegetables not far behind them. Hearing that, he unconsciously pricked up his ears and lightened the movement of his hands. When Fang Zichen was beating people this morning, he had also been shocked. Mainly because the first impression Fang Zichen gave people was the kind of person who was easygoing and refined, someone who would use his mouth if he could and not his hands. But once this person got angry, he beat people, and beat them so ruthlessly too. Ma Dazhuang and the three of them had only taken a few blows and directly could not get up anymore, like a performance, and he had also broken Ma Erzhu’s hand without even blinking.

Guai Zai was also very curious. Fang Zichen had caught him a frog, and instantly he felt that Fang Zichen was not scary anymore. He held the frog and crouched beside Fang Zichen.

Fang Zichen looked faintly at He Xi. “Are you stupid? Could you even believe that? Even if I were going to hack people, I wouldn’t go to someone else’s turf. They have numbers on their side. Would I go there to have dumplings wrapped out of me?”

He Xi blinked. “So you were lying? I thought you really had hacked people before!”

Fang Zichen said, “I haven’t hacked people before, but I have beaten people before, when I was thirteen.”

“Huh?”

Fang Zichen answered, “On my way home from school, four people blocked me,” he blew up the truth, “each of them was like those three Ma brothers, arms this thick, pecs this big. They said I had a special car picking me up and dropping me off for school, so I must have money at home, and told me to give them some flower money. I wasn’t willing, so we started fighting.”

“What happened later?” He Xi pressed.

Fang Zichen looked at the stream water flashing in the sunlight. “They all got beaten into the hospital by me. I didn’t have a scratch.”

He Xi only half understood. “Hospital?”

“It means the medical hall,” Fang Zichen said. “They stayed for more than half a month before they got better. After that, when they saw me at school, they ran away faster than a dog.”

“You beat them that badly? Your mother didn’t scold you?” He Xi asked.

If they got beaten into the medical hall and stayed there for half the night, it should have been really serious, and the compensation silver would definitely be a lot. He Xi imagined it, and if he beat someone into the medical hall and had to pay money… his mother would probably hang him from the rafters and beat him to death.

“Why would she scold me?” Fang Zichen looked at him curiously. “My mother even praised me for doing a good job. There isn’t a single good thing about people who extort others. She told me that if I ran into something like that again, I should hit even harder.”

Zhao ge’er: “···”

He Xi: “···”

“Uh, then your family must have a lot of silver!”

Fang Zichen gave him the look one gives an idiot. “If my family didn’t have silver, could my mother say something like that?”

He Xi: “···”

His father had really guessed right. Before this person had drifted into the village, he really had been a young master from a wealthy family.

He Xi talked with Fang Zichen for a while before leaving.

He had a lot of family matters, unlike Fang Zichen, who was carefree and unburdened.

When Fang Zichen and the others returned, they found two people standing outside the courtyard.

One big and one small.

Fang Zichen recognized them at a glance. It was the one who had pleaded for Zhao ge’er this morning.

When Zhao ge’er saw Zhou ge’er, the body that had been tense while he was with Fang Zichen unconsciously relaxed. Facing Fang Zichen, he always felt uneasy, somewhat nervous, somewhat embarrassed, even inexplicably inferior, yet he could not help but follow him with his eyes, paying attention to every word and every movement.

This had never happened before.

Zhao ge’er ran over. “Zhou Zhou, why are you here? Liuliu came too!”

Liuliu raised his head and called out, “Uncle Zhao.”

“Brought you some food,” Zhou ge’er handed over the basket. “Picked from the field just now, I…”

Fang Zichen led Guai Zai over. Zhou ge’er pressed his lips together and did not speak again.

Zhao ge’er lowered his head and twisted the corner of his clothes. After a moment, he introduced Fang Zichen: “fujun, this is Zhou ge’er, he is my good friend.”

Fang Zichen: “···”

That sudden call of fujun left Fang Zichen dumbfounded.

He stopped in place, and his brain seemed to have suddenly been pressed on a button too. He felt a little dazed, a little shy, and also had a strange, unreal feeling.

Zhao ge’er had talked to him so much today, but this was the first time he had opened his mouth and called him fujun.

He had originally thought of helping Zhao ge’er a bit, bringing the person home, not as a fulang but as a brother could work too, but… Zhao ge’er obviously did not think that way.

He still had not prepared himself.

“You…”

Their eyes met. After more than ten seconds, Fang Zichen was the first to look away.

He had originally wanted to say, don’t call me fujun, but when he met Zhao ge’er’s clear and bright eyes that could not hide their nervousness, he suddenly could not say it.

In the eyes of outsiders, Zhao ge’er was his fulang, and calling him that was not wrong. If, in front of Zhou ge’er, he were to say outright, “I’m not your fujun, don’t call me that,” Zhao ge’er would be put in a very difficult position.

“fujun?” Zhao ge’er called him again.

His voice was soft.

He did not make a sound, and the few people at the scene were all staring at him.

Fang Zichen had heard it once already, and facing those scorching gazes, he also felt the roots of his ears burning.

Damn it…

This was really fucked up.

“You guys chat,” Fang Zichen said, his voice somewhat low, with no emotion that could be heard. “I’ll go in first.”

As soon as he left, Zhou ge’er relaxed.

Fang Zichen’s features were handsome to the point of being flamboyant. Logically, someone like that should have been pleasing to the eye, but when Fang Zichen did not smile and had no expression, the way he looked at people always carried a kind of oppressive aggression, making unfamiliar people panic from the bottom of their hearts.

One day was still not enough to tell much, but Zhou ge’er still could not help asking, “Is he good to you?”

“Mm,” Zhao ge’er said. “He gives us food, and he doesn’t scold me or Guai Zai. Just now he even caught a frog for Guai Zai.” At this point, a faint smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. Zhou ge’er froze for a moment, and his heart turned sour and bitter. He seemed to have not seen Zhao ge’er smile for a very, very long time.

Guai Zai clasped both little hands together. Zhou ge’er noticed it too at this point. Liuliu walked over to Guai Zai’s side. “Is there a frog inside?”

“Mm,” Guai Zai opened a crack to show him.

A green, fat frog was lying on his palm, its mouth opening and closing as it croaked twice.

Liuliu stared wide-eyed. “fujun, it really is a frog.”

Fang Zichen was lying on the bed. Not long after, movement came from outside.

The courtyard was not big. He heard Zhao ge’er telling Guai Zai to take Liuliu and play in the courtyard, not to run around. Then from under the window outside the room came bursts of exclamations.

At first Fang Zichen did not pay it any mind, but listening for a while, something seemed off.

Guai Zai and Liuliu were children at the age where their intelligence was worrying. They squatted by the wall. The frog, with its legs tied, lay motionless in the crack of the wall. Guai Zai pulled the rope and it moved once, pulled again and it moved once. The two children looked like they had never seen such a thing before, and were utterly amazed.

“Wow, it moves…”

“It has two eyes!”

“Mm! And two legs.”

“Guai Zai, look, it can even jump…”

Fang Zichen’s mouth twitched. He could not help leaning by the window and asking, “You’ve never seen a frog before?”

“Father,” Guai Zai stood up and shook his head. “Never seen one.”

Liuliu was not as shy as Guai Zai, and immediately nodded in agreement. “I’ve never seen one either.”

Fang Zichen: “···”

Are you really village children?

Fang Zichen looked at Liuliu and, raising his brows, asked knowingly, “What’s your name?”

“Liuliu.”

Zhao ge’er heard Fang Zichen’s voice and got up to the kitchen doorway, his gaze falling on Fang Zichen.

Fang Zichen had half his body leaning out the window, grinning, with a thoroughly improper look on his face: “Your name is Liuliu, does your family also have a younger brother called Dada?”

Zhao ge’er: “···”

“I don’t have a younger brother,” Liuliu shook his head and said.

Fang Zichen smiled and took the rope grass from Guai Zai’s hand, lifting the frog up. Hanging in midair, the frog’s four legs kicked and thrashed nonstop. Fang Zichen said, “Come, look carefully, count carefully, how many legs does it have.”

Guai Zai and Liuliu leaned closer. No matter how they looked or counted, it was only two legs.

“Uncle,” Liuliu said, “a frog has two legs.”

“Then what are these two?” Fang Zichen pointed at its obviously smaller front legs. “These aren’t legs?”

Guai Zai shook his head and said, “Father, these are the frog’s hands!”

Fang Zichen: “···”

“Who told you these are its hands?”

Guai Zai stopped talking.

No one had told him, but deep down he just thought that way.

People have two hands and two feet, and frogs are the same.

Fang Zichen pressed a hand to his forehead. His gaze lifted, and he just happened to see Zhao ge’er there, lips pressed together in a faint smile. It was not very obvious, so much so that one could not even really make it out, but Fang Zichen felt that he was definitely smiling. Right then he said, “You still have the nerve to laugh. Look at your son, hurry up and come save the situation!”