Бессмертие, Бессмертие - Глава 55
Shengxiang, soaking wet and disheveled, crawled out of the muddy pond and curiously untied Li Lingyan's bag. "Little Yan, you actually managed to catch some? I thought you wouldn't catch many. It seems that skilled people are skilled at everything... Wow!" He was suddenly startled by what was in Li Lingyan's bag. "Little Yan, what did you catch? You even threw silver-ringed snakes in the bag? And frogs... toads... and even loaches... stones... weeds... We're having a competition to catch eels, not to pick things up! Good heavens—you even picked up Da Yu's belt?" Shengxiang's voice rose by more than eight octaves. "Da Yu, when did you lose your belt?"
Yu Cuiwei tore off his clothes to make a bag, and he didn't want the belt anymore. How could he have known that Li Lingyan would pick it up? He found it unbelievable and turned around to ask softly, "Why did you pick up my belt?"
Li Lingyan sighed, "It's so dark here, even a god couldn't see it, let alone what I'm holding. How many eels did I catch?" He had almost no sense of touch in his hands; he could only feel the weight of the objects but not their shape.
"Twenty-two, that's as many as the trash you've collected," Shengxiang told him regretfully. "You lost."
“I lost.” Li Lingyan was very composed, not ashamed or angry at losing. “What about you, Shengxiang?” “This young master caught sixty-six!” Shengxiang announced triumphantly.
"Where?" Li Lingyan and Yu Cuiwei asked in disbelief.
“Here,” Shengxiang pointed to a small pit in the middle of the mud, “come and take a look.”
His simple phrase, "Come and see," left Li Lingyan and Yu Cuiwei in a dilemma. How could they go over? Should they, like Sheng Xiang, plunge into the mud with a "plop"? Li Lingyan thought for a moment, then helplessly used his "Spring Breeze Ten Miles Alone Walk" technique to lightly glide over. His lightness skill was far inferior to that of Li Shiyu or Yu Cuiwei. This was because he had no sense of his feet and couldn't evenly distribute his weight around the area his toes touched. Yu Cuiwei, however, was much more graceful. With a flick of his wide robe, he floated over, without even needing his "Spring Breeze Ten Miles Alone Walk."
Shengxiang used small stones to make a small trough in the middle of the mud pond. The eels couldn't escape if they were put in it. Eels of all sizes swam around and piled together, looking quite content. However, there were so many small eels that they took up more than half of the pond. Shengxiang explained proudly, "I found a few eel nests."
"Such a small one... counts as one?" Yu Cuiwei and Li Lingyan exchanged bewildered glances. "Such a tiny eel?"
“We only counted the numbers, not the size,” Shengxiang said with a smile. “I won.”
That kid is cunning by nature! Seeing Shengxiang remove the stone and release the eels, Yu Cuiwei shook his head, "What am I going to do with the forty-three eels I have here, plus the twenty-two from Lingyan?"
“Let them go. Keep a few to eat, and let the rest go,” Sheng Xiang said matter-of-factly. “Let’s grill some eels. It’s too much trouble to take them back and make eel stew. I’m so hungry.” He released all the eels that Yu Cuiwei had caught, and carrying the bag of odds and ends that Li Lingyan had “picked up,” he walked toward a dry place. “Let’s start a fire, let’s start a fire. We still have a story to tell.”
Neither Li Lingyan nor Sheng Xiang knew how to start a fire, but fortunately Yu Cuiwei did. They quickly lit a fire, set up a wooden frame, and sharpened wooden forks. The three of them sat around the warm glow of the campfire in the autumn night. Despite their different personalities and experiences, they all shared at least one thing in common: the sky was high and the stars were beautiful.
“Xiao Yan, tell me a story.” Sheng Xiang pulled the silver-ringed snake out of Li Lingyan’s bag, washed it clean, skinned it, and roasted it on a wooden fork. “I want to hear your childhood stories.”
Saint Incense's requests were always so strange. Li Lingyan raised his eyelashes and stole a glance at him, "When I was a child... my childhood stories were very dull. I was always studying, practicing martial arts, and trying to avenge my father. There were no stories at all."
"What a pitiful child," Shengxiang clicked her tongue in amazement. "Have you never rebelled? You've always been so well-behaved? Have you ever run away from home?"
"Run away?" Li Lingyan blinked. His chin was delicate, and his features were very harmonious. Although he usually had a baby face, he possessed an innocent yet melancholic air. "Why run away?"
"Let's run away and play!" Shengxiang said. "Don't you have any friends? Doesn't your older brother play with you?"
“Big brother?” Li Lingyan pondered, “I haven’t really paid attention to what you’ve been doing… Little sister has been playing with me, but she always makes me make dolls and fly kites for her, which is really boring.”
“If I had known you when you were little, I would have definitely taken you out to play.” Shengxiang looked at him with sympathy. “I was already very good at playing when I was five years old.”
"What did you play with when you were a child?" Li Lingyan asked Shengxiang with interest.
“There are so many. Playing in the sand, playing in the mud, catching butterflies, catching dragonflies, peeking at my father’s memorials, running out to play while my master was locked in his room. When I got a little older, I would go out with Rongrong and the others to climb trees and catch birds; raise puppies and kittens; dress up as a girl and go out to deceive people; pretend to go to General Murong’s house to sell myself as a maid, and then my father would buy me back; go to the lantern festival and solve all the lantern riddles, and then get chased by the shopkeeper…” Shengxiang talked more and more, and got happier and happier as he talked, “fighting with the little beggars on the street, forming the ‘Beggars’ Gang of the Capital’, with me as the leader; and going to Yuxian Tower to scam food and drinks… When we didn’t have any money, we would pawn Yumutou there and write lawsuits for people, which was a lot of fun. When I got a little older, I met Qiyang and Liuyin, and they were even more fun. I learned to dance with Liuyin, twisting and turning like this…” He jumped up and twisted a few times, covered in mud, and laughed loudly, “Liuyin said I danced like a duck that had been knocked unconscious by the duck vendor!”
"Hahahaha..." Li Lingyan and Yu Cuiwei burst into laughter, because Shengxiang really did look like a silly goose. "You were very happy when you were a child."
"I've always been this carefree." Shengxiang stuffed the roasted snake meat into his mouth without any hesitation. "Wow! It smells so good... It's a pity there's no salt."
“I rarely left home when I was a child,” Li Lingyan shook his head, “so I have no stories to tell.”
"Where's Da Yu? What's Da Yu's story from when he was little?" Sheng Xiang handed the empty wooden fork to Yu Cuiwei, gesturing for him to "fill it with meat."
"When I was a child?" Yu Cuiwei smiled. "I have many stories from my childhood. I wonder which one Saint Fragrance would like to hear?"
“Tell me about the scars on your face,” Shengxiang mumbled, biting into the cooked eel that Yu Cuiwei had prepared for him.
"He was splashed with oil," Yu Cuiwei said simply.
"Why was you splashed with oil?" Shengxiang clicked her tongue in amazement. "Dayu, you are still so young and beautiful. You must have been incredibly cute when you were little. How could someone splash oil on you? What a waste of your talent."
"Because I stole the red bean buns from the steamed bun shop owner," Yu Cuiwei said simply.
“I didn’t realize you were so poor when you were a kid, Dayu. If you had met me when you were a kid, I would have definitely dragged you to Yuxianlou to freeload and just left Yuxiu there,” Shengxiang said with boundless sympathy.
"Yu Xiu?" Yu Cuiwei had been paying close attention to who "Rongrong," "Yu Guaiguai," and "Yu Mutou" were.
“Yes, Yu Xiu, ‘Heavenly Eye’,” Sheng Xiang replied casually.
"And who is Rongrong?"
“‘White hair,’” Shengxiang replied casually.
A slight glint flashed in Li Lingyan's eyes, as if the fact that Shengxiang and these two had grown up together had shaken him. "No wonder."
“No wonder they’re so close to me.” Shengxiang continued, “I know a lot of good things. I even know a ghost who died over a thousand years ago. I’ll introduce you to him next time I have the chance.”
“Ghosts?” Li Lingyan’s beautiful eyelashes and melancholy eyes lifted together. “If ghosts really exist in this world, I would like to ask my father what it feels like when a person dies.”
"What does your father look like?" Shengxiang asked.
“I forgot,” Li Lingyan answered crisply.
Shengxiang rolled her eyes at him incredulously, then turned to Yu Cuiwei and said, "Da Yu, isn't your wife very, very beautiful?"
Yu Cuiwei was taken aback. "My wife?"
“Ah Wan’s sister. Ah Wan is so gentle and beautiful, his sister must look about the same as him when she wears women’s clothes.”
“His sister’s name is Wan Yuchengbi.” Yu Cuiwei looked up at the moon. “Would you like to hear her story?”
“I love listening to love stories,” Shengxiang said with a smile.
"She liked me, married me, and then offended many of my lovers. In the end, I don't know why, she was killed by those people in collusion."
Yu Cuiwei said, "I wasn't at the temple that day, so I don't know what happened."
"Da Yu, do you love her very much?" Sheng Xiang asked.