MLH | Chapter 10

By the time it was getting dark, the sweet potatoes were finally all dug up.

Aunt He rummaged through the half-basket of sweet potatoes that Fang Zichen had damaged at noon, picked out a few “misshapen rejects,” and handed them to Zhaoge’er: “These are for you.”

Zhaoge’er took them with both hands and said thank you.

Aunt He looked as if she were doing him a favor and he were receiving it with gratitude.

Fang Zichen frowned as he watched, and the soreness all over his body after being tired intensified, making his whole body uncomfortable.

Aunt He was satisfied with Zhaoge’er’s attitude: “There’s still a patch of land on my south slope. If you’re free tomorrow, you could…”

Fang Zichen looked at her coldly from the side: “No time. In the future, dig up your own sweet potatoes.”

“Ah! Th, this…”

“Aunt He,” Fang Zichen met her gaze and asked in a low voice, “you’re so generous, does your dad know?”

Aunt He: “…”

Her expression turned awkward, and she explained, “This year the taxes were levied, the family paid out a lot of silver, and the harvest in the fields wasn’t very good either. Or I’ll give you a few more? I just wanted to help Zhaoge’er.”

Fang Zichen said, “No need. Since the harvest in the fields isn’t good, Zhaoge’er even less should come help you. Otherwise, if you give away a few more sweet potatoes, your family might starve to death.”

Aunt He looked embarrassed.

“Guai Zai,” he called to Guai Zai, who was looking for wild vegetables by the field ridge, “we’re going home.”

On the way back, Zhaoge’er secretly looked at him.

Fang Zichen walked along at an unhurried pace, his body straight. After a whole day of work, the face, neck, and backs of his hands that were exposed outside his clothes had been tanned a little red, and there was even a small mosquito bite on the side of his cheek.

“What are you looking at?” he suddenly asked.

Caught red-handed, Zhaoge’er hurriedly looked away. “N, nothing.”

“Tomorrow let’s go to town. I want to find some work,” Fang Zichen said.

“But,” Zhaoge’er pressed his lips together, “it’s not easy to find work in town.”

Fang Zichen rarely sighed, his face sour. “If it’s not easy to find, we still have to find it. I don’t want to eat wild vegetables every day, and I don’t want to eat sweet potatoes every day.”

At his words, Zhaoge’er’s steps paused, and his hand holding the sweet potatoes unconsciously tightened… Fang Zichen looked down on the best things he could give him, the best things he could offer after sweating and working himself half to death.

At that moment, the sweet potatoes in his hands seemed to weigh a thousand jin, heavy enough to crush him until he could not breathe.

He watched Fang Zichen walk a few steps and quickly put some distance between them. Fang Zichen was still walking slowly, his body shrouded in the dimness of evening.

Once again, Zhaoge’er was trapped by a sense of helplessness.

He had felt this way countless times before.

When that person disappeared, when he could not find him no matter how he searched, when he was pregnant, when he lay alone on the straw in the shabby, damp wood shed and bit down on a wooden stick while giving birth to Guai Zai, when Guai Zai called him hungry and cold, when he was sick and knelt at the doctor’s door only to be driven away by a wooden stick, he had all been surrounded by this feeling.

That deep helplessness was something he could never drive away, and something he could never change no matter how hard he tried.

He really feared that because he had nothing to give Fang Zichen, Fang Zichen would not be able to endure life as it was now and would leave him again.

Fang Zichen led Guai Zai and walked in front. When he turned back, he saw Zhaoge’er with his head lowered, staring at his toes, not moving.

“Did you step in shit? Or is there gold on the ground?” he asked.

Zhaoge’er looked up and answered a different question. “You don’t like eating sweet potatoes?”

There was undisguised disappointment in his eyes. Fang Zichen looked at him quietly, and after a moment said, “I like them. But you and Guai Zai can’t just eat sweet potatoes every day, right?” He furrowed his brows, looking especially angry. “That stingy woman Aunt He, I won’t let you help her again. I’m going to town to find work, and once I get silver I’ll buy meat for you and Guai Zai to eat. That’s much more fragrant than sweet potatoes.”

Zhaoge’er widened his eyes, his lips parting slightly, and froze like that.

His mouth moved, and Fang Zichen spoke again. “Are you especially touched?”

Zhaoge’er had received so little kindness that even one or two casual lines that might or might not be true could make his heart tremble. He honestly nodded. “Mm.”

“Actually this is nothing,” Fang Zichen smiled, brushing his hair back from his forehead. “Who told me I’m a rare good man? Your ancestral grave must have caught fire before you could find someone like me as a husband… brother.”

Zhaoge’er froze in place, his whole body stiffening, the color slowly draining from his face.

Brother?

Those two words were more stabbing to his heart and lungs than the filthy language that had been thrown at him before.

Fang Zichen saw that he suddenly stopped speaking again, and his eyes slowly reddened, so his brows subconsciously knit together.

In the end, it was Zhaoge’er who spoke first. “It’s already dark, let’s go back!”

Fang Zichen inexplicably let out a breath. “…Okay.”

Once they got home, Zhaoge’er busied himself again. His face looked no different, as if he had already forgotten what had happened on the road just now. Fang Zichen quietly watched him for a long while, and his own heart also loosened.

However, in the middle of the night, Zhaoge’er was not right.

He seemed to be having a nightmare, and his mouth kept calling out as he struggled.

The movement was big enough that Guai Zai and Fang Zichen were both woken by him.

He was sweating a lot, crying out and struggling as if possessed. Fang Zichen was startled, while Guai Zai seemed used to it. He grabbed the sleeve and wiped the sweat from Zhaoge’er’s face before pushing him. “Dad, Dad, wake up~”

“Your dad is having a nightmare?” Fang Zichen asked.

Guai Zai nodded. “Mm!”

Zhaoge’er still had not come out of the dream, still calling, “…Don’t go… don’t…” Fang Zichen heard him chanting those few words over and over, while flinging his hands around, as if trying to grab something.

Normally, two calls would wake him, but now no matter how he was called, it had no effect. Guai Zai grew so anxious his eyes turned red, and he turned to look at Fang Zichen pleadingly.

“Zhaoge’er?” Fang Zichen had never encountered this kind of situation before and was making random moves. He patted Zhaoge’er’s face. “…Wake up.”

No effect at all.

He changed to lifting Zhaoge’er’s eyelids. “Zhaoge’er?”

Guai Zai clutched Zhaoge’er’s clothes tightly and watched as Fang Zichen lifted the eyelids to no use, then went to pull his dad’s ear and pinch the philtrum under his dad’s nose.

It was only when the last trick was used that Zhaoge’er woke up.

“Zhaoge’er, are you okay?”

Zhaoge’er seemed not to have come back to his senses. His eyes only moved a little, looking toward the voice. Once Fang Zichen’s blurry outline began to turn clear before his eyes, his pupils suddenly shrank and his gaze fixed dead in place.

His eyes were filled with red veins, his expression somewhat crazed. Fang Zichen was suddenly grabbed by both hands, and he did not react in time.

“Back then… why did you leave?” Zhaoge’er asked in a hoarse voice, tears filling his eyes at some point.

Fang Zichen’s wrists were gripped so hard it hurt. He had never known that someone who looked so thin and small, someone he could probably knock flat with one punch, could actually have such strength. “…Huh? Zhaoge’er, did you mistake me for someone else? I’m Fang Zichen!”

As soon as he said that, Zhaoge’er did not let go and did not speak. He just stared at him, as if identifying him.

Fang Zichen let him hold on, his expression somewhat blank as he met his gaze.

Zhaoge’er froze slightly, his expression looking very complicated, with a sense of confusion… as if he could not tell illusion from reality.

After a moment, Zhaoge’er finally came to himself from a dream… he was probably dreaming again.

He did not often dream.

Ever since he was sold into the Ma family, he had work every day that he could never finish, and every night he almost forced himself to fall asleep the moment he lay down. Over more than ten years, he had been like a donkey, with very little time of his own.

When did he start dreaming?

It was after that night.

He often dreamed repeatedly of that person. On the mountain, he had been pressed down. That person smelled strongly of alcohol, and kissed him madly, over and over without any method, his urgent and scorching breath spraying over his neck.

He cried, struggled, kicked, and hit, but it was all useless. Until the last line of defense was stripped away, he cried and begged.

“Please… don’t…”

That person slowly raised his head, and when he saw his tear-red eyes, he was dazed for a moment.

He raised a hand and touched his face, his palm full of cold tears.

“You cried?”

He did not make any sense, and his words were also without logic. “I’m sorry, don’t cry, okay?”

“I’m sorry, be good… don’t cry.”

Seeing his appearance clearly, and hearing him say don’t cry again and again, Zhaoge’er really did stop struggling.

That person had no experience at all, and his movements could even be called flustered. Zhaoge’er covered his mouth, and it was not until the very last moment that he could not help but let out a sob.

Afterward, that person kissed his forehead, lingering against his tear-streaked face. “Does it hurt?”

Before Zhaoge’er could answer, he lowered his head and kissed him.

Very suddenly.

Zhaoge’er’s whole body went weak, and he helplessly braced himself on his shoulder.

The other person clumsily gnawed on his lips, his eyes careful and tentative. Moonlight shone through the gaps in the trees, falling on that person’s soft hair and glowing with a very gentle light, deeply reflected in Zhaoge’er’s eyes.

That night, he stayed tense the whole time, wrapped around that person’s neck with his head buried against the man’s chest, refusing to make a sound. When he woke again, there was no one beside him.

He searched for a long time, almost turning the whole mountain over, but he could not find him no matter what.

He dragged his sore and weak body back, and after that acted as if nothing had happened.

A ge’er was not as easy to get pregnant as a woman. It was his first time experiencing something like this. Aside from the panic of fearing the Ma family would discover it, there was also a strange pleasure of having gotten back at the Ma family.

But he never expected that after just one night, he had become pregnant.

After that, what happened that night often appeared in his dreams.

Those words, those fragments, those hurried breaths, those hot and burning kisses, those rubbings, those neck-crossing embraces, with no fixed order, always flashing back in disorder in his dreams.

Zhaoge’er was dazed and in deep thought. Only after a long while did he struggle free from the dream, cold sweat seeping out again.

“Fang Zichen?” He pressed a hand to his head, which felt like it was about to burst, and found his palm full of cold sweat. In the blazing summer heat, he felt cold and said hoarsely, “I had a nightmare.”

“Mm! I could tell?” Fang Zichen said. “Still uncomfortable? Does your head hurt?”

The exact same words.

In a daze, Zhaoge’er seemed to see that person from back then again.

He took a deep breath and shook his head. “I’m fine. What time is it now?”

“It’s still early.” Fang Zichen looked out the window. “We can still sleep for two more shichen.”

Guai Zai was nestled in Zhaoge’er’s arms, nodding off repeatedly. Zhaoge’er patted his head, and with Fang Zichen so close again, his heart inexplicably became much steadier.

“Then sleep quickly. We have to get up early tomorrow.”

Fang Zichen, however, did not lie down immediately. Looking at him, he seemed to want to say something but held back.

Zhaoge’er seemed to know what he wanted to ask. “I’m fine, I just had a nightmare. Go to sleep quickly!”

Fang Zichen frowned, and after a while nodded before lying down.

Zhaoge’er could not sleep and kept his eyes open. Beside his ear was Fang Zichen’s steady breathing, and he seemed to have already fallen asleep. The bedboard was not sturdy, and it creaked with the slightest movement, so he did not dare move recklessly.

“Can’t sleep?” Fang Zichen’s voice suddenly came from beside him.

“I…”

Fang Zichen remembered the panic and fear in Zhaoge’er’s eyes when he had just woken from the dream. He got up and picked up Guai Zai. “Move out a bit, I’ll put him in the inside.”

Zhaoge’er’s question only lingered for a moment, then he obeyed the order and moved to the middle. He did not even dare move. After Fang Zichen moved Guai Zai to the inside, he lay back down.

He took Zhaoge’er’s hand and half-pulled him into his arms, saying softly, “Don’t be afraid, I’m here.”

Zhaoge’er looked up at him without a trace of hesitation, as if he trusted and relied on him especially. He leaned over gently, not daring to press too close, one hand lightly resting on Fang Zichen’s waist, his face buried in Fang Zichen’s embrace.

Fang Zichen patted his back, once after another. They were very close, so close that his voice seemed to stick to Zhaoge’er’s ear. “Did you dream of a ghost?” He had the attitude of someone who had been through it before. “Was it very scary? But with me here, you don’t need to be afraid.”

“…Why?”

Zhaoge’er pressed against his chest, warm breath spilling onto the chest hidden under the thin fabric, and a bolt of electricity flashed through Fang Zichen’s body. It was as if the most sensitive, untouchable place on his body had been kneaded again and again, instantly tightening his nerves.

His tone rarely stammered. “I, if, if it comes, I’ll beat it, beat it until it’s a dead ghost.”

Zhaoge’er laughed once, not very clearly.

Inside his chest was the sound of a strong, powerful heartbeat. He slowly closed his eyes.