MLH | Chapter 2

Fang Zichen stayed one night at the village chief’s house, and the next day he wanted to move out.

It really was impossible to stay there.

Last night when he entered the village, he had roughly looked around. The village was generally poor, most of the houses were built from mud mixed with thatch, and the village chief’s house was only barely a little better, but…

There were only six rooms, with more than a dozen adults. It was really crowded beyond words.

Last night he slept with He Xi. The room was small and narrow, and its location was not very good either, a little close to the pigsty. These two days the village chief’s house had been busy looking for people, so the pigsty probably had not been cleaned much. That smell was really intoxicating.

He had barely slept in the first half of the night, and in the second half he could not hold out and dozed off for a bit. Just that one bit made him have the illusion… that he seemed to be sleeping in the pigsty, sleeping with the pigs.

Too frightening.

Early the next morning, Fang Zichen tactfully told the village chief that he currently had no silver, could not go back, and wanted to stay in the village for a few days, but not at his house, was that okay?

That was naturally fine.

After breakfast, the village chief and several of his young men led Fang Zichen to a house and said he could stay here.

Then Fang Zichen froze.

This house had four rooms, one on the left, one in the middle, and two on the right, a concave-shaped layout, and it also had a large courtyard attached, spacious enough.

But…

Could this fucking place be lived in?

Fang Zichen wanted to jump up and curse, and also seriously ask the village chief and the others a couple of questions:

Did you not see that the wall had a crack as wide as a bowl? Did you also not see that more than half the thatch on the roof had been blown away?

And… that wall was leaning almost fifty degrees!

This had to count as a level ten dangerous house!

Are you trying to make me unhappy by letting me live in a place like this?

He Xi, thinking himself familiar with him because they had slept together, took the initiative to introduce it to him: “This is my family’s ancestral house. It started being built from my great-grandfather’s generation. Later, when there were too many people in the family and we couldn’t fit, we built another one. This house hasn’t had anyone living in it for many years. In a moment, us brothers will help you repair it, and then it’ll be livable.”

Fang Zichen’s face was a little grim. He asked, “It won’t collapse, right?”

“No,” He Xi said with great confidence. “That wall looks like it’s about to fall, but it’s actually very sturdy! It’s been like that since I was little. It hasn’t fallen after all these years. If you don’t believe me, go push it and try.”

Fang Zichen really went. He tried kicking it twice. A bit of dust fell from the wall, but the wall still did not move at all. It really was not good-looking but useful.

He Xi and his brothers rolled up their sleeves and helped repair the damaged roof. There was not enough thatch, so the brothers went back into the mountain to cut more, and the weeds in the courtyard were also removed by a few women who came later to deliver things.

In these times, every household was poor, and even a stool with half a leg missing was carried away by the village chief when moving.

The house was clean and neat, truly so poor that there was not even a ghost.

The village chief’s family set him up a bed, and also sent over a small pot, half a jar of oil, a little salt, and several jin of “rice”.

Whether it was rice or not he did not know. Anyway, what he ate at the village chief’s house last night was cooked from this stuff, and that taste was truly incredible, like swallowing poison after swallowing it… it could kill people.

Half a bowl in, Fang Zichen felt like half a layer of skin had been scraped off his throat. It really was unbearably awful.

The old and young in the village chief’s family all ate this stuff, and the village chief’s wife even told him that this was called coarse rice.

Most people in the village ate this. Only during New Year and holidays, if the family’s conditions were a little better, could they cook a few meals of white rice.

Fang Zichen: “……”

What kind of place had he come to, where even white rice had become a luxury item!!!

Grandpa Yuan Longping, please come quickly!

The village chief’s family was busy coming and going, and Fang Zichen felt embarrassed just standing there by himself, so he followed them and spent the whole afternoon busying himself. In truth, if he wanted to count carefully, it seemed like he had not really done much. He did not know how to repair houses, so he just helped pass things over, took a broom and swept here and there, failing to clean the ground thoroughly, yet somehow still making himself dirty all over, sweaty from head to toe.

There was a water vat in the kitchen. He did not know what material it was made from, but it was especially heavy. When Fang Zichen was cleaning the kitchen, he tried moving it, but it did not budge.

It was probably too heavy to carry and not worth much, so the village chief had abandoned it.

There was not a single bit of water in the vat. After sending off the village chief’s family, he headed toward the river.

The sun hung in the west. He lifted his head and glanced, counting on his fingers, estimating it was about five o’clock.

The broken pot at home was still cold.

At the time to cook dinner, there should not ordinarily be many people outside, but at this moment the riverbank was lively… because Zhao ge’er from the village had fallen into the water.

Zhao ge’er had accidentally fallen into the river while washing clothes.

In summer there was much rain, and the river water was swift. Before the aunties and ge’ers had even reacted, he had already been swept far away.

Someone cried out, “Zhao ge’er has fallen in the water, go call for people quickly.”

Someone panicked, “…What do we do?”

“Does anyone know how to swim? Hurry and save Zhao ge’er!”

The riverbank was full of women and ge’ers washing clothes and vegetables, and not many of them knew how to swim.

A few had already run off to call for help: “Help! Help! Zhao ge’er has fallen in the water, come quickly!”

Fang Zichen saw from far away that there were people gathered by the riverbank. They seemed very anxious. When he heard that person shout, his body ran faster than his brain.

Zhao ge’er was struggling desperately in the river. By now he had already swallowed quite a lot of water, and his chest hurt from the water pressing against it. He heard someone shouting from the bank, but no one had come down to save him.

Zhao ge’er did not know how to swim at all, so he could only flail around blindly. But little by little, his hands and feet began to lose strength. The despair and pain of death began to sweep in.

By the time Fang Zichen ran to the riverbank, he saw that the person in the water had already lost consciousness and was sinking down.

This was bad.

Someone was going to die.

Fang Zichen kicked off his shoes and, without time to think further, jumped into the river with a splash. The river current was swift. He swam to Zhao ge’er’s side, wrapped an arm under his armpit, and dragged him back while swimming. By the time they reached the bank, he was already exhausted.

“…Come help a bit.” he called.

Those people did not move, and even covered their eyes while turning back, not looking at them.

Fang Zichen’s eyelid twitched. After taking two breaths, he carried the person ashore by himself.

He was wearing a short-sleeved crewneck T-shirt, soft and thin. He had worn it as sleepwear before. Now the wet clothes clung to his body, making the very obvious lines visible.

An eighteen-year-old youth, his figure looked lean, but the body hidden underneath was unexpectedly good.

The abdominal lines were smooth and not exaggerated, full of vitality.

In other people’s eyes, right now he was holding Zhao ge’er, his clothes messy, looking indecently intimate.

“Who is he?” someone asked softly while covering her eyes.

“Don’t know, never seen him in the village.”

“Oh my, where did this person come from? Why is he so shameless.”

“He seems to be the one who brought Sixth Uncle He back yesterday. I caught a glimpse at the door then, his hair was short, very strange. It should be him.”

They were gossiping when someone suddenly cried out, “What are you doing?”

When they looked back, it was bad. That guy with the exposed clothes was molesting Zhao ge’er!

Touching his chest and kissing his mouth, simply lewd and shameless.

It really was unbearable to watch.

One bold auntie could no longer care about covering her eyes. She seemed to have a good relationship with Zhao ge’er, since she had been the most anxious just now. She immediately picked up the washing mallet and swung it straight at Fang Zichen’s back.

“You damn thing, how dare you act like a hooligan like this, how is Zhao ge’er supposed to hold his head up in the future?”

“What a sin!”

“I’ll beat you to death, I’ll beat you to death.”

Fang Zichen had not even reacted before he was inexplicably hit twice. That woman had quite a lot of strength, and his back immediately burned.

“What are you hitting people for? Are you sick?”

When the auntie heard that he still dared to talk back, she gave him another blow. This time Fang Zichen also got angry: “Fuck, I’m giving him artificial respiration, how is that acting like a hooligan? Look, look at me like this, who’s taking advantage of who!”

At that, everyone looked at his face. Only then did the crowd discover that this young man really did look quite good.

But no matter how handsome he was, no one would say a fair word for him.

In the eyes of the onlookers, no matter how good-looking he was, he was still a man. He had kissed a ge’er, so the one at a disadvantage was the ge’er, and the one taking advantage was always the man.

The village chief hurried over with a group of people.

When his wife Wang Damei saw Fang Zichen being hit, she quickly went forward to stop her. “Woman from the Zhou family, what are you doing?”

“Sister, this man, he, he…” The Zhou family’s wife seemed a little hard-pressed to say it. “…He was acting like a hooligan.”

Someone gave the village chief and Wang Damei a solid reenactment of the scene at the time.

At first Zhao ge’er was washing clothes by the river. One piece accidentally got washed away by the water. Zhao ge’er leaned down to pick it up, and as a result accidentally fell into the river. Then… and then…

All right, the people who came later basically understood the entire course of the incident.

Touching his chest and kissing him, this young man would not be wrong even if he were beaten to death.

But the village chief and Wang Damei felt that Fang Zichen probably was not that kind of person.

Last night at her house, when her ge’er put dishes on the table, he only glanced over and said “hello,” and then never looked again. Her ge’er was innocent and pretty, and Fang Zichen did not have any crooked thoughts. Could it be that Zhao ge’er, who had even given birth to a child, was better than her ge’er?

The village chief looked at Fang Zichen, meaning for him to explain.

Fang Zichen’s wet hair was stuck to his forehead. His gaze, soaked through by water, was moist, and his eyelashes were wet into strands. He looked pure and harmless. He shook his head and waved his hands.

“Injustice! I didn’t act like a hooligan, I just… just gave artificial respiration. The people where we come from all save people this way when they fall into the water.”

The village chief’s family all knew he came from overseas. The place was different, so customs, etiquette, the way things were done, and emergency rescue should also be different.

Fang Zichen also looked innocent, and did not seem like someone who could take advantage of others in a crisis.

Someone gave testimony for him: “I just saw him. After he kissed Zhao ge’er and pressed Zhao ge’er’s chest, Zhao ge’er spit out water. Before that, when Zhao ge’er was pulled out of the river by him, he was still unconscious.”

“But this…”

Zhao ge’er had been saved, but with such a method of saving him, how was he supposed to live afterward?

It would have been better not to save him.

The matter had gotten a bit big, and Fang Zichen still did not understand the situation. Uncertain, he asked, “What’s wrong with kissing once?”

He only knew that there was a strict separation between men and women in ancient times, but no one had said there was a strict separation between men and men!

Wang Damei looked up at him, her expression hard to describe. “…He is a ge’er, you can’t just kiss him casually.”

Fang Zichen looked blank.

Wang Damei sighed. “He has been married, and has had children. Now that you… I’m afraid the Ma family will not be able to accept him.”

“No,” Fang Zichen felt his throat go dry. “You’re saying he has been married, and… and had children?”

“Mm.”

Fang Zichen: “……”

“He had children?” Fang Zichen looked shocked, even his tone rising: “How could he have children? Isn’t he a man?”

“He isn’t a man,” the village chief seemed to have discovered something at this moment. Fang Zichen probably did not know what a ge’er was, otherwise he would not have asked like that. He explained, “Ge’ers marry people, and can have children.”

This was fucking too fantastical!

Even television dramas would not dare to write it like this.

Fang Zichen turned his head and looked at the person lying on the ground whom he had thought was a man.

At first glance, that person did not seem different from a man. It was just that this Zhao ge’er might be a little shorter, and his skin tone was not very fair, but his nose was delicate and small, his face round, his lips thin and pressed tightly together. He should have been feeling uncomfortable, because he had closed his eyes and his brows were tightly furrowed.

After a careful look, he was just a boy with a cute, delicate appearance, and nothing particularly special could be seen.

Maybe, perhaps, his insides were different from his own.

So… he could have children.

He had figured it out, but it was still very shocking!

The village chief and the others saw him change expression after expression, and roughly put those looks into his brain to understand them. It was probably: ‘Are you fucking kidding me’, ‘How can this world be so magical’, ‘I seem to have come to an incredible place’, ‘This world is a little fantastical’, ‘Am I not dreaming’.

To marry someone and be able to have children, then he was no different from a woman.

By now Fang Zichen knew he had made a huge mistake. He was a little dejected all over as he asked the village chief, “Then what should we do now?”

Zhao ge’er was still not awake, and the Ma family was not here either. The village chief also did not know what to do right now.

Fang Zichen came up with a solution: “I kissed him, so how about… I let him kiss me back?”

That way they’d be even, wouldn’t they.

The village chief: “……”

The village chief wanted to punch him backhanded.

Zhao ge’er’s clothes were completely soaked, so he could not be left like that. The village chief had his wife take the person back first. It was getting late, and the Ma family still had not come. Everything would wait until tomorrow.

Before leaving, the village chief told him the truth. This matter probably would not end well. The Ma family was overbearing and unreasonable, and they probably planned to pin themselves on him.

Fang Zichen did not care much and said, “My pockets are empty, and my stomach is empty too. If they pin themselves on me, what good can they get?”

The village chief said angrily, “Even if they can’t extort a single coin from you, they can still make you lose a layer of skin.”

Fang Zichen: “······”

That serious?

He returned home unsteadily and sat under the eaves, looking at the pitted, broken courtyard, dejected.

He did not know how the Ma family would make him lose a layer of skin, and he was not too worried. He even had the mind to think that if he had a cigarette now, that would be nice. He would not smoke it, just hold it between his fingers. That way he would at least look a little more downcast, which fit his handsome appearance a bit better.

After settling down, the pain on his back became even more obvious.

Fang Zichen was a little regretful now.

Before, he knew that old people could not be helped up, because some of them were specifically out to extort people.

At best they’d extort a hundred or a thousand. If they were unlucky, they could be extorted into bankruptcy.

He had never been extorted before, but after saving someone and still getting hit with a few sticks for no reason, it would be impossible to say he was not angry.

The ignorant are innocent.

Good intentions were not rewarded with good.

What a loss.