Chapter 73: Wooden Dummy

Chen Pingan savored the long-missed taste of candied hawthorns, returning to Mud Bottle Alley with the locust branch slung over his shoulder. He passed a dilapidated house even more ruinous than his own ancestral home. A pang of guilt struck him, contemplating whether he should borrow some silver from Master Ruan to repair the place. Though he had lived in this alley since childhood, he had never seen anyone reside in that particular house. During his rooftop chase with the Mountain Ape, he had deliberately lured it there, resulting in the ape stomping a large hole in the roof. Chen Pingan felt responsible for the mess. If left unattended, it would be exposed to the elements, suffering from rain and wind. The house, which might have endured another two or three decades, would likely crumble in less than five years, the beams rotting quickly. This was similar to his own body, forcibly "guided" by Cai Jinjian, equally vulnerable and exposed. He felt a deep sense of kinship with the house, resolving to repair this ownerless dwelling, ensuring it was solid and sturdy, if not grand or luxurious.

Chen Pingan considered using a Gold Essence Coin to exchange for silver or copper coins, perhaps with Old Yang at the Yang family store or Master Ruan at the smithy. However, he had a gut feeling that these coins were truly rare and irreplaceable. Every one spent was one less he possessed. Silver and copper coins, on the other hand, could be earned anywhere, simply by exerting more effort. Therefore, he decided to first ask Master Ruan for a loan. If that failed, he would resort to using the Gold Essence Coin, albeit reluctantly. He hated the idea, but some pressing issues were already staring him in the face, and he couldn't simply ignore them. Chen Pingan dreaded owing anyone.

Upon returning to his courtyard, he leaned the locust branch against the wall. The invaluable whetstone remained in the bamboo basket, but of course, he wouldn't leave it out in the open. He had already moved it indoors. Had time permitted, he would have dug a deep pit in the yard, burying the unremarkable yet precious whetstone. The Dragon Slaying Platform…just the name sounded more valuable than those three bags of Gold Essence Coins.

Chen Pingan heard the clucking of chickens from the neighboring yard. When Song Jixin and Zhigui left town, they hadn't had time to take care of the caged hens and chicks, which were probably hungry by now. Chen Pingan went inside, grabbed the string of keys, and took a handful of rice from his own house. He went to the adjacent yard, unlocked the chicken coop, and squatted down, slowly trickling rice through his fingers. After feeding the chickens, Chen Pingan opened the door to the kitchen, hoping to find some leftover grain to prevent it from spoiling. But stepping inside, he was astonished. A huge rice vat was nearly full! Just a glance at the contents was enough to fill him. The cupboards were stocked with pots, bowls, and utensils, everything neatly organized. A row of hams and dried fish hung on the wall. Everything was clean, tidy, and well-arranged.

Suddenly, a pair of firewood bundles near the stove caught Chen Pingan's attention. He approached and squatted down. Sure enough, it was the wooden figure he had seen Zhigui hacking at with a kitchen knife. She was hopeless at chopping wood, so her efforts had been futile. Chen Pingan, on the other hand, could have reduced the man-sized figure to splinters with a few strokes. He noticed something peculiar about the wooden figure – it was covered with tiny red dots, scattered across its body, some densely clustered, others far apart. Picking up a broken arm of the figure, Chen Pingan examined it closely. Next to each red dot, there were minute black characters, so small they were almost invisible. Only Chen Pingan, with his keen eyesight, would have distinguished them from mere red and black specks.

He attempted to reassemble the fragments. Fortunately, no major parts were missing. Unfortunately, many of the areas where the figure had been hacked or scraped by Zhigui's knife were missing the red dots and black characters. He estimated that about seventy or eighty percent of the red dots and black characters were still relatively intact.

Chen Pingan got up and opened the window to let more light into the kitchen. Then, he continued to squat and examine the figure carefully, not wanting to miss any details. This took almost an hour. Although Chen Pingan didn't recognize most of the black characters, he did his best to memorize their stroke structure.

Deep down, Chen Pingan always harbored a desire to read and write.

When he worked as a kiln worker, he often climbed to the top of the mountain and gazed at the town. Besides trying to locate Mud Bottle Alley, his second impulse was always to find the school. As a child, the skinny orphan would often go to the school and squat against the wall, listening to the sounds of reading. He didn't understand what was being said, but it gave him a sense of peace and tranquility. The grievances of the day seemed to fade away.

But for an orphan in Mud Bottle Alley, the chance to learn was a luxury far greater than candied hawthorns. It was best to just look from afar.

Now, Chen Pingan closed his eyes, relying on his memory to construct a complete wooden figure in his mind.

When his memory failed him, Chen Pingan didn't rush to open his eyes and check. He skipped over the uncertain parts. In the end, there were about forty or fifty red dots and black characters that he couldn't identify with certainty.

After identifying and memorizing those omissions, Chen Pingan took a deep breath. He wanted to go through the process again, but as soon as he closed his eyes, he felt a headache and dizziness. Chen Pingan wisely stopped forcing himself. Some efforts were not about sheer brute force, otherwise it would only lead to chaos. Chen Pingan learned this when he was studying ceramics, not because he was intelligent, but because he was constantly scolded by Old Yao. It was one of the lessons he had learned from being constantly scolded.

Chen Pingan scattered the wooden figure again, piling it in a corner of the kitchen. After leaving the kitchen and closing the yard door, he thought for a moment and decided to go to the east gate of the town again, to look for the gatekeeper one more time. After becoming a formal apprentice at the blacksmith shop, he would likely live there and wouldn't be able to deliver messages as often. Chen Pingan wanted to say hello to the bachelor, but he hadn't been able to find him the last time he looked.

Chen Pingan jogged to the east gate of the town. The mud house was still locked up tight. He sighed and sat down on the tree stump that the gatekeeper, Zheng Dafeng, often used. The town was not like the mountains; there was no tradition of a mountain god's seat. Chen Pingan sat there in a daze, enjoying a rare moment of leisure.

He didn't know how long he had been sitting there when he heard the sound of wheels on the road inside the town. Chen Pingan turned his head and saw a bullock cart leading the way, followed by two carriages with compartments. A group of children were sitting in the bullock cart, and Chen Pingan recognized two familiar faces: Li Baoping in her red padded jacket, and Shi Chunjia with her rosy cheeks. Besides them, he guessed that the other three children were Li Huai, Lin Shouyi, and Dong Shuijing, the pupils from the school that Shi Chunjia had mentioned.

The five children in the bullock cart were chattering and laughing.

The driver was an unfamiliar middle-aged man. The old man who swept the floor at the school sat behind the driver.

Chen Pingan saw at a glance that, apart from the little girl in the red padded jacket from the Li family, one of the four great families of Fortune and Prosperity Street, the other four children were dressed in starkly different ways. Shi Chunjia's ancestors had lived in Dragon Riding Lane for generations, running a shop called New Year's Money. They were comfortable but not wealthy, so the little girl was dressed comfortably and warmly. Next to Shi Chunjia was a solemn-looking peer wearing a new and expensive black fox fur coat, his face pale and his expression cold. Li Huai's father, Li Er, was a well-known good-for-nothing in the town. Li Huai also had an older sister named Li Liu, but his parents and sister had all gone out to make a living, leaving Li Huai to live with his uncle. Now, he was also leaving his hometown to follow the old man named Ma to that Cliff Academy. The last boy was dressed in thin spring clothes, wearing two patched and mended outer garments, looking poor and miserable. He was clearly a苦孩子, a child who had grown up in a poor alley.

Li Baoping, Shi Chunjia, Li Huai, Lin Shouyi, and Dong Shuijing.

Five children from the town were riding in a bullock cart that didn't offer any protection from the elements, heading toward the Cliff Academy, a sacred place in the hearts of countless scholars of Eastern Jewel Bottle Continent, one of the seventy-two Confucian academies. The five children certainly didn't know that, on the continental map of the various dynasties, countless noble families with generations of officials were desperately trying to send their children there, using every connection they could to study the Confucian sages' cultivation of self, governance of the state, and pacification of the world with those Confucian masters.

They certainly didn't know how rare it was to be able to call Qi Jingchun "Teacher." On the contrary, these children thought that Teacher Qi had too many rules, often wore a stern face, and wasn't friendly at all. When Teacher Qi smiled, the children didn't even know what they had done right to make him so happy.

Li Baoping had sharp eyes and saw Chen Pingan sitting on the tree stump. With lightning speed, she jumped off the bullock cart, stumbled, and ran quickly to Chen Pingan, stopping abruptly in front of him. She didn't seem to know what to say, and finally stuck out her chest and said, "I'm going to a very, very far place," her face full of pride.

The old man wearing a tall crown said sternly, "Li Baoping!"

Although he wasn't happy, the old man still told the driver to stop the bullock cart. The little girl pouted, but still turned and ran toward the bullock cart. Suddenly, she heard that guy behind her call her name. When she turned around, she saw him raise his fist at her and shake it gently, as if to tell her to work hard.

Li Baoping also waved her fist at him, indicating that she would work hard.

Chen Pingan smiled knowingly, thinking that the red padded girl's efforts would mostly be spent on playing. Her footprints would likely be left everywhere in Cliff Academy.

Chen Pingan looked up and saw the old man who swept the floor at the school, whom he had seen a few times, nodding at him. Chen Pingan subconsciously smiled and returned the greeting.

At the same time, someone in the back carriage gently lowered the curtain.

Although it was just a fleeting glimpse, Chen Pingan saw the face of that person clearly: it was the scholar who had gone to the blacksmith shop to find Master Ruan.

Chen Pingan watched the bullock cart and carriages slowly leave the town.

If Chen Pingan could soar through the air like Ning Yao, overlooking this newly rooted land, he would surely be shocked by all sorts of strange phenomena.

Countless kinds of birds and beasts were clustered on this border line between the Lihua Paradise and the Dali territory, refusing to move. Further out, countless others of their kind were frantically rushing towards this place, as if absorbing something.

They dared neither take a step forward across that invisible border, nor retreat a step backward.

An old woman stood at the end of a stream within the border, her upper body exposed above the water, her crow-black hair cascading down like a waterfall, spreading around her body like a black lotus.

The old woman, whose face was originally mottled like dry tree bark, now looked like a woman of less than forty years old.

And the Piyun Mountain seemed to be arched up by the ground, slowly rising at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The Paradise was broken, reduced to a blessed land.

The townspeople who were born and raised in the former Lihua Paradise, whether rich or poor, whether good or evil, all had a next life.