Chapter 53- New Year

Wen Kexing walked his talk. He said he would take his time to complete old man Long Que's epitaph, and it wasn't only a genteel turn of phrase. He indeed took his sweet, slow time to inscribe the boulder.

As if he were embroidering flowers, he'd carve onto it about ten characters a day. Each time checking his progress left and right and up and down, to make sure his script was stylish and well-framed, and that the line rhymed.

When he was done for the day, he would not forget to take a step back to admire his handiwork with arms crossed behind his back, and head swaying to and fro — like he was gazing upon a masterpiece from Li Bai or Du Fu reincarnate.

Then, there was the content. Out of a hundred words, the epitaph wandered off-topic about a thousand miles. Boldly improvised, the spur of his digressions was comparable to celestial steeds soaring across the sky — no

mundane donkey could have made the journey from one paragraph to the next.1

When he saw it, even Zhang Chengling could only admit that the nice Mister Wen must have been so intent on perfecting the requiescat for the deceased that he forgot all about late Grandpa Long.

For his part, as someone who had drifted to Jiangsu at a young age, Zhou Zishu was built of rather stern stuff. Tough-skinned, he was used to soaking up as much as he was adept at dishing out. After being under the weather for a couple of days, he returned to his usual self, bouncing up and down the small courtyard amidst the mountain range to persevere in the torment of his disciple.

Zhang Chengling was thus made to vault walls and leap rooftops, suffering unspeakable miseries that he nonetheless endured without a single word of complaint. Indeed, the dreaded yet more than his Shifu would declare himself recovered and make them leave.

But then, it seemed that Zhou Zishu had forgotten all about going, that trivial little matter — doubtless because the winter was so cold even Shuzhong had frozen over, making lazy animals and people alike.

Thence, after the Laba Festival on the 8th, the day of the Kitchen God on the 24th came and went.2

Although there were only the three of them in the vast Marionettes Manor, not a single day elapsed without being filled with ruckus and clamor.

After the night Zhou Zishu had spent huddled up within his arms until the wee hours, Wen Kexing developed a sense of alarm that had him trembling with trepidation until well into the next day: He knew that being injured meant having to endure pain, but he hadn't imagined the other man underwent such torture.

His heart bleeding for the other, Wen Kexing consequently started treating Zhou Zishu as if he were made of the most delicate porcelain — he no longer dared brawl with him at the drop of a hat.

After two days of fretful observation, however, he came to realize that "Porcelain Doll Zhou" was, in fact, a big, mindless dum-dum. One that'd remember the cookie, but not the broken jar.3

Every morning, after a harrowing night of pain, was behind him, he'd appear as if he had already forgotten everything about it. The man would then resume jeering and calling him names, displaying a memory span as

enduring as that of a goldfish.4 A quick rinse in the shower later, and all trace of wanness was washed away from his physiognomy, till breakfast where the flurry of his chopsticks would descend upon the food as per usual. No decorum, no embarrassment, all operations normal.

Wen Kexing understood then that some people simply didn't know how to be coddled. Pity that man and he might as well pity a pig — a complete waste of his tender feelings.

When Long Xiao was still around, villagers at the foot of the mountain would provide the Manor with supplies every month. Paranoid to the extreme, the man in the wheelchair never showed up in person. He'd sent automatons charged with money to collect the goods instead.

In a blink, New Year was around the corner. Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu spent half the day studying the marionettes. Countless rounds of argy-bargy were fought, and both of them had garnered a dozen epithets that creatively varied upon the theme "useless piece of trash" before they finally concluded that the automatons didn't take orders from just anyone.

And so, Valley Master Wen was left with no choice but to condescend to trouble himself. He went down the mountain with the map in hand to retrieve the festive supplies.

The group of simple and honest villagers who awaited him had only ever dealt with marionettes before. Upon seeing a person made of flesh and blood descend from the skies, they took Wen Kexing for a god who had come to the mortal realm for a visit. When the guy vanished without a trace using his admittedly excellent qing-gong, the

villagers even kowtowed5 a few times in the direction he had disappeared.

The three thereupon gayly tidied up around the Manor to prepare for the New Year's festivities.

What did it mean to celebrate the New Year?

For an entire year, ordinary people toiled away painstakingly. They stinted themselves in food and clothes while hoping that the heavens would bestow peace upon the lands; hoping that they'd be granted, if not abundance, then at least not famine; and hoping that the whole family, old and young, could return and reunite.

Life wasn't easy. And it wasn't as if the ordinary man, whilst they hoped, wouldn't feel the injustice. But after millennia of the same way of life, rancor and grief had sunken deep into their bones and weren't lightly revealed.

On the day of New Year alone could they let go. Setting off a few strings of firecrackers, they'd work up a great ruckus, and amidst the noisy pitter-patter, they'd bring out foodstuffs usually skimped on, to reward themselves properly for once.

Even if it meant returning to stricture on the next day, that small window of indulgence at the end of a year had to be honored. And even if one was utterly penniless, as long as one still had a family, the New Year had to be celebrated.

Valley Master Wen never dreamed that he'd one day cook a New Year's Eve's dinner with his own hands.

Zhang Chengling was a former young master of a household. Though he was eager to show his gratitude, he was beyond clumsy and was a case of abilities falling short of ambitions. As for Zhou Zishu — the man was a former Liege and still loafed around like one.

Wen Kexing felt that the occasion was one to be remembered, so he immersed himself in the preparations. Amidst frantic fussing about it, he first gave his orders to Zhang Chengling.

"Kiddo, the chicken. Kill it."

Zhang Chengling gave a start. He threw a glance at the rooster clucking savagely in a corner.

"Sir," he said, pointing first at himself, then at the fowl. "Me... kill... it?"

Amused, Wen Kexing let out a chuckle.

"Would you rather that it kill you ?" he asked in reply. "Come on. Hurry up. The chicken has to be stewed for a long time before the flavors sink in, so it must go on the stove early."

Zhang Chengling picked up the cleaver with trembling hands and walked over on tiptoes. Plucking up his courage, he raised his weapon over his head with both arms before chopping downward with his teeth gritted and his eyes tightly scrunched up.

The rooster flapped its wings and dodged to the side. Then, it extended its neck and emitted a piercing cry, looking like it had every intention of battling it out to the death.

Zhang Chengling took a careful step forward and daringly reached out to capture their dinner. But the rooster sussed out that the boy was only feigning bravery. It took a ferocious leap upward and pecked at the offending hand. Scared witless, Zhang Chengling yanked his arm back at once. Given an inch, the rooster took a mile; it closed in on Zhang Chengling and pounced at him in relentless pursuit.

One boy, the other fowl, the two fluttered and wailed about, running in circles in the small courtyard, making it unclear who was the butcher and who was the quarry.

Zhou Zishu was crouched outside the kitchen, a stalk of straw in his mouth. He watched the spectacle with much enjoyment.

Wen Kexing spotted that the man was lazing around again; he nudged him with the point of his shoe.

"Oh great sword-master6, you go kill that chicken," he prompted.

Zhou Zishu arched an eyebrow and cast the guy a glance. Only to hear Zhang Chengling squeal from the other end of the courtyard.

"Shifuuuuu! Help!"

And so, Lord Zhou got off his ass and obediently went to kill the chicken.

The man was dexterous in the murder of men; he was likewise nimble in the slaughter of fowls. The rooster warrior finally met its match and perished before it could write down its last will. Zhou Zishu also excelled at disembowelment. He cleaned out his opponent in a few swift moves and, not minutes later, after washing his hands and taking a stroll around, he returned to his spot with nothing to do again.

Wen Kexing peered at the finished product presented to him and secretly sighed that the man was prime wife material7. Thus, while he chopped up veggies, he issued another order.

"Kindle the stove for me."

A puppet whose head was lowered stood motionless beside the kiln. No human had handled kitchen chores at the Marionettes Manor in a long time.

While Zhou Zishu hauled up the automaton and discarded it to the side, Wen Kexing piped up again. (As busy as he was, the guy didn't miss an occasion to give.)

"That Long Xiao person wasn't only unfilial, he also had zero standards. Food has to be prepared by another human being. A dish is savory only when it's made with soul. And it's even more flavorsome when it's made with sentiments..."

He threw a flirty glance at Zhou Zishu before adding, "Wait till you taste tonight's meal and you'll know what I'm talking about."

Zhou Zishu ignored him. He crouched to face the stove as if it were a fiendish foe. After staring the cooker down for a full minute, he picked up the fire tongs. The exotic contraption felt unwieldy in his hand no matter at what angle he gripped it. He proceeded to study it closely by flipping it over and over.

Having waited for a good while with no sign of progress from Zhou Zishu's end, Wen Kexing couldn't resist another quip.

"What are you batting your eyelashes at that thing for?" he said when he turned around. "Come on, get the fire going."

Unsurprisingly, Zhou Zishu had no experience with such tasks. He went for the thing that seemed obvious: bringing in an armload of firewood and stuffing it into the furnace. When he peered inside the kiln with his head tilted, he saw that it wasn't yet crammed full. Reckoning that adding more water would be inconvenient, he came up with the brilliant idea of finishing the job once and for all. Thus, he brought in another armload of kindling and jammed everything inside before lighting up the lot.

Which turned out not to be such a brilliant idea after all: there were no flames but an abundance of black smoke.

Zhou Zishu was quick enough to dodge, though. He lept back a good few feet and stared at the stove in puzzlement.

Wen Kexing hurried to the rescue; he raked out most of the timber.

"Good gracious," he said after letting out a fit of the coughs. "Are you trying to burn the kitchen down?"

Zhou Zishu was mute for a second. Then, feigning expertise he didn't possess, he proclaimed with ample conviction:

"The firewood has gone bad. So much smoke means it's too wet."

And so, Zhou Zishu too was invited to bug out.

While Wen Kexing slaved away with tears streaming down his face (whether because of the smoke or because of his choice of companions), he and Zhang Chengling stared at each other in the courtyard, sitting on their rears as they waited to eat.

Night had already fallen when Wen Kexing finished preparing the tableful of magnificent food.

Outside, the bleak northwest gale blew, rattling the latticed windows in a constant clatter. But inside, it was toasty. The room was heated by a couple of small burners with, spreading through the air, the delicate fragrance of wine set to warm.

Delighted, Zhang Chengling helped with setting the many dishes of the feast onto the table. By the time he sat down, he felt as if the steamy fumes were blurring his vision.

The boy had thought that, with neither home nor family, he was fated to be a miserable vagrant his whole life. He never imagined he'd get to have such a decent New Year ever again. It dissolved a good half of the grief in his heart.

He glanced at Zhou Zishu, then at Wen Kexing, and reflected that the gods above must have come to their senses.

As a casual winesop, Zhou Zishu's appetite was instantly whetted when he got a whiff of the heavenly smell. He poured himself a cupful, first things first. His eyes half-closed, he raised the cup to his nose and stayed like that, breathing in the bouquet for a good while, before he took a sip.

Although it was by no means labeled liquor from a famous brand, the farmers' moonshine had a crispness to it that seemed to warm and wake his whole body as he swirled it at the tip of his tongue.

He recalled how the capital was always the liveliest at this time of the year, with the night market bustling and chanteuses offering songs on the banks of Full-Moon River, while no curfew interfered with the lavish celebrations.

The alcohol in his cup had been decades aged, premium vintage then. But its aroma had seemed contaminated by the perfume of rouge. Moreover, he was always preoccupied in those days, so nothing had flavor.

The wine had never tasted so good.

Suddenly, a pair of chopsticks reached into his bowl; it deposited a few pieces of foodstuff into it.

Zhou Zishu looked up in amazement.

Wen Kexing, the foodie who was never more satisfied than when he had snatched sustenance from under another's chopstick, was smiling at him softly.

"Eat something, drunkard," the guy said.

At that, Zhou Zishu felt as if a string within his heart had just been lightly plucked.

Wen Kexing then heaved a long, heartfelt sigh.

"This has to be the most decent New Year's Eve I've had in my whole life," he said.

Zhang Chengling still didn't know who the mysterious man was, or from whence he came. He listened on in confusion.

"In the past, the occasion has been nothing but another round of dealing with a bunch of either brownnosers or backstabbers," Wen Kexing went on. "I'd then have a few cups with Gu Xiang to mark the date. But with nothing to talk about between the two of us, that was pretty much the gist of it."

He shook his head.

"When you don't have a family, celebrating New Year is quite pointless. It's only looking for gloom."

To Zhang Chengling, that mysterious Mister Wen instantly became a tragic hero with a poignant backstory; he sympathized with him at once. Zhou Zishu, however, threw him a pointed glance.

"What about all your flowery... Sorry, verdant, male confidants?"8 he asked in a tone that was jesting. Or not.

"One demanded money to get drunk, the other gave his smiles for free but sold his body. What kind of family celebration would that be?" Wen Kexing replied. "A-Xu, we're having a nice New Year's dinner here. Don't get jealous for no reason."

Zhou Zishu itched to splash his drink at the guy but hated to waste the wonderful wine. After much hesitation, he ended up pouring the piquant liquid down his own throat.

The steaming New Year feast was devoured, and Zhang Chengling produced a matt of firecrackers from who knew where. He set them off in the courtyard.

Red and blazing, the explosion of the small fuses ushered in the new spring. The boy laughed like a youth free of worries.

Zhou Zishu sat on the flight of stairs. He downed one cup after another. Wen Kexing seated himself too. He reached out to snatch the cup from the other man.

With a sidelong glance, he smiled at Zhou Zishu and, on purpose, placed his mouth where Zhou Zishu's lips had been before going bottom-up. When he was done, he licked the rim of the cup for good measure.

Zhou Zishu averted his gaze, feeling his ears heat up.

Wen Kexing grinned and grabbed the other man's hands, pulling them over and sticking them into his own breast to warm them.

This New Year, he thought, was truly the happiest one he ever had.

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1. Someone doing something imaginatively/with an unconstrained style is described as ( "celestial steeds traveling the sky"). I've translated the idiom literally. The author sardonically contrasts the saying with( "you wouldn't have found a donkey's hair in three pages") to describe WKX's divagations. The latter was a bit of a mouthful and doesn't really make sense if you don't get the meaning of the idiom so I transformed it.

2. (lit. "festival of the eight on the La month"), associated with the date of Sidharta Gautama's enlightenment. The day is celebrated by eating the delicious Eight Treasures Congee. (lit. "small year") refers in context to the ("festival of sacrifice to the kitchen god). It's done by cleaning the house, offering food, and painting over the mouth of an image of the Stove God with sweetened liquid. Celebrated either on the 23rd or the 24th. Since they are in the south-ish, I used the 24th.

3. (lit. "to remember the meal, but not the beating"). Meaning someone who doesn't remember past lessons/negative experiences.

4." to forget after raising its paw". The Chinese goldfish is a generic animal that'd forget after a piss/getting up on its paws.

5. I resorted to a bit of chinoiserie here. The villagers are said to "pray" which may entail kowtowing, but can also simply mean moving conjoined palms up and down in the direction of the divinity. Since the latter is a mouthful, I used the former although it may be less accurate.

6. WKX calls ZZS "Ox knife". It refers to either the idiom ("to use an ox knife on small matters") or ("to use an ox knife to slay the chicken"). Both describe using great skills to deal with small matters, and WKX using the term implies ZZS would be wasting his skills on trivial matters (but he is asking anyway).

7. WKX calls ZZS (lit. "bestowed with virtues"). The term is used to mean virtuous women, the virtues being those of a proper and decent wife.

8. lit. "red/blue colored confidant". The color red is used to describe women and the color blue to describe men in those phrases. A bit of a chinoiserie again as I tried to render the