Ascension to Immortality (2)
His master sat down on the bare ground and closed his eyes.
Jiang Zhou and Yang Jeong stared blankly at the sight for a while, then slipped into the kitchen.
A short while later, however, his master's voice drifted through.
"It's........... coming... coming........"
Jiang Zhou, seated in the kitchen, muttered under his breath.
"What in the world is coming........."
"Still, shouldn't we go take a look, Big Brother?"
Curiosity had both of Yang Jeong's eyes sparkling. Quietly rising to his feet, Jiang Zhou stepped out of the kitchen.
The moment he did, he saw his master wrapped in a hazy glow. The light enveloping his whole body was growing brighter by the second.
Ah............
Jiang Zhou let out a sigh and sank to his knees.
And here I thought it was just another of Master's mischievous pranks...........
His master had been a man of punishing severity, yet also one of great good humor. Because of that, Jiang Zhou had assumed the so-called Ascension to Immortality was nothing more than a joke borne of boredom.
But this time it was no joke. His master really was going through with it.
"Thank you for looking after me all these years, Master."
Yang Jeong knelt and prostrated himself at his side as well.
"Thank you, Master."
The master, wrapped in that radiance, smiled a gentle smile. Then the brilliant glow vanished without a trace.
Where the light had been, his master remained seated, still smiling. Jiang Zhou rose and carefully lifted him into his arms.
There was no sound of breathing, and no heartbeat. His master's body was unbearably light, as though the flesh had all slipped away and only the shell remained.
Hueeeeee............eee......................!
Jiang Zhou turned at the sound of Yang Jeong's anguished wailing.
"Let's bury him."
They made the master's grave in a spot where the sunlight fell generously. He had always loved bright places, and so they wished to lay him to rest in the light.
Yang Jeong gazed down at the grave for a long moment, then asked, "What will you do now, Big Brother?"
"Go out into the world. The only thing I have worth offering is my cooking, so I'm thinking of opening an inn."
"Then who will watch over this place? If the world ever learns what's here, it'll be chaos."
Chaos would hardly be the word for it. Bands of jianghu fighters would come swarming in droves, and it would end in a bloodbath of men killing one another over what lay in this soil.
"As long as you keep your mouth shut, we're safe."
Hehehe...
Yang Jeong laughed awkwardly. "You know very well how tight-lipped I am, Big Brother."
Jiang Zhou said nothing more. Samryong was a colossal chatterbox, but he did at least know what could be said and what could not.
When Jiang Zhou headed for the vegetable patch, Yang Jeong trailed after him. Past the patch where fresh sprouts had only just begun to break the soil, a tangle of vines and young leaves blanketed the whole area.
And the shape of those vines and leaves was truly strange. The young leaves of the vines were round and sharp-tipped, while each forked stem of the young plants bore five round, pointed leaves.
As Yang Jeong looked down at them, his eyes gleamed with a strange light. Not a trace remained of the grief he had shown over their master's death only moments before.
The reason was simple: those plants were a two- or three-hundred-year-old fleeceflower root at the very least, and at most a Korean ginseng some thousand years old.
"Big Brother, my mother's health is frail — could I not dig up just one root?"
"And what did you do with the one you dug up last time?"
At Jiang Zhou's counterquestion, he began furtively studying his surroundings. He had once secretly dug up and eaten a fleeceflower root and a ginseng, been caught, and taken an absolutely colossal beating for it.
"Well, you see.......... Father found out. He said the escort agency has been struggling, and........."
"Take one of the small ones and go."
Hehehe..............
"Thank you, Big Brother. Truly, thank you."
Bowing deeply, Yang Jeong found himself a wooden stick and began digging at the earth.
Thud...! Thud....!
He could have dug with anything, of course — but if even a single hair-thin root snapped, it would be a disaster.
"Just yank the thing out roughly, will you?" Jiang Zhou said at last, unable to watch any longer.
"How could anyone pull something this precious out roughly, Big Brother?"
At his reply, Jiang Zhou shook his head as if to say the boy was hopeless.
His master's estate was not a large one. A few swords, three or four sets of clothes, and the pots and dishes used in the kitchen — that was the whole of it. The only thing left over was a half-drained jar of liquor.
Jiang Zhou began packing. Moving, however, was not a simple matter. The baggage was meager, but far more than any man could carry on his back.
Yang Jeong, quick to size up the problem, was the first to speak. "Big Brother, I'll return home and bring a cart. Wait just a few days."
The roads here were so treacherous that no cart — not even a horse — could make the journey. But it was possible to leave the cart at a distance and ferry the load over to it in stages.
"How many days?"
"Four, I should think."
"Go quickly, then."
Yang Jeong gave a quick bow and set off down the road at once. Tucked inside his robe was a Korean ginseng some five hundred years old.
Whooosh...........
The instant he spread his lightness skill, Yang Jeong's figure vanished from sight in the blink of an eye.
Left alone, Jiang Zhou prepared liquor and made his way to his master's grave. "With you gone, Master, I'll be leaving this place. I may never return here again. Even so, I'll come pay my respects someday."
When the words were done, he lifted the cup and poured the liquor over the grave.
Rattle......rattle........
Each time the wheels turned, the cargo loaded in the cart swayed and jolted. Jiang Zhou rode in the cart taking in the scenery while Yang Jeong sat on the driver's seat handling the horses.
"Big Brother, shall I tell you an old story? Once upon a time..........................................."
Yang Jeong, chattering away without pause, snapped his mouth shut the moment a group of young women came into view. Then, maintaining a dignified expression, he drove on.
"My, look at that man. I've never seen a man so handsome in my life."
"I'd give anything just to trade a few words with a man like that."
The young women kept sneaking glances at Yang Jeong's face as they whispered among themselves. And indeed, as they said, he was handsome enough to stand beside Pan An or Song Yu of legend. Jiang Zhou's own looks were fine enough, but they did not quite measure up.
Once the young women had vanished entirely from view, Yang Jeong opened his mouth again. "Now, where was I......... Giddy-up, you brute!"
The instant he flicked the reins, the two horses veered off the main road and plunged into the forest.
"Hey! Hey, you mangy beasts...!"
Yang Jeong shouted in fury, shaking the reins for all he was worth. But the horses, having entered the forest, paid him not the slightest heed and went on grazing.
Hoooo............
He let out a long, deep sigh and turned his head toward Jiang Zhou. "I'm sorry, Big Brother. One of these two horses is a stallion — dumb as a post and lazy as sin."
Well, what could be done about a horse that was dumb and lazy?
"Let's rest a while before moving on."
Jiang Zhou took it all in easy stride. "By the way, Big Brother — do you really think we'll be able to find that plot of land with nothing but the deed?"
"There'll be a land broker in the village, won't there?"
A broker — a middleman who dealt in property. Yang Jeong nodded and pressed on. "The moment you open your inn, Big Brother, you'll have a line of customers stretching out the door. I have never once seen anyone in this world who cooks as well as you. Even the royal chefs of the Imperial Palace couldn't lick the heels of your feet."
At his praise, Jiang Zhou showed a flicker of quiet pride. "My cooking is decent enough, I'll grant. But there are only a handful of dishes I know how to make."
He had cooked only what his master loved all these years, so his repertoire had never exceeded five dishes. His most confident were the rice and a braised pork dish resembling Dongpo Pork, along with his pork noodles and chicken noodles. Beyond those, it was nothing but wild greens.
But even that was enough. He was confident he could run an inn and make his living on it.
"How much will you charge for the food, Big Brother?"
Jiang Zhou answered in a proud, ringing voice. "One silver tael for a bowl of noodles."
Yang Jeong burst out laughing the instant he heard it.
Hahahahaha.............!
"Big Brother, one silver tael is far too much! One silver tael buys an entire sack of rice — a whole sack of rice! Who's going to pay a silver tael a bowl for noodles?"
Jiang Zhou's eyes narrowed into slits as he glared at him. "So you're saying a bowl of my noodles isn't worth one silver tael?"
Yang Jeong hastily swallowed his laughter. It seemed his big brother had twisted his words around entirely.
"How could I possibly mean that, Big Brother? With cooking like yours, one silver tael would be too little — you could charge ten and still be shortchanged."
Once Jiang Zhou's frosty expression thawed, Yang Jeong picked up where he had left off. "The way I see it, you should start out charging something modest like two coins, same as any other inn, and raise the price bit by bit. That way the customers will curse you for being expensive — and keep coming back anyway."
It was a fairly sound argument. But Jiang Zhou had not the slightest intention of listening.
"One silver tael is already dirt cheap. I have no intention of ever selling below that."
"You'll go bankrupt, Big Brother, I'm telling you."
"Shut up and drive."
Aigoo...........
Yang Jeong seemed to give up on persuasion, sinking into a deep sigh. "When this goes under, don't you dare blame me, Big Brother."
"Don't worry. It won't happen."
Yang Jeong, constitutionally incapable of enduring boredom, rattled on and on without end.
"So do you know what I did then, Big Brother? I slapped that son of a bitch across the face. I barely even hit him hard, and three of his teeth snapped right off, and............"
Ah...........
Jiang Zhou wanted nothing more than to plug his ears against the endless torrent of talk. His companion had always been a chatterbox, but out in the jianghu it had gotten so much worse.
"Can we travel in silence, just once?"
"Yes, Big Brother."
Yang Jeong answered smartly, shut his mouth, and drove the cart. It lasted only a short while.
"So then......... Big Brother, I................."
The mouth that had closed opened again, and the story flowed on without end.
"Shut up already!" Finally Jiang Zhou's voice rose. "Understood, Big Brother." Once more Yang Jeong bit his tongue and drove the cart in silence for a time.
But then his mouth opened once more. This time, however, what poured out of it was a crooned melody.
I went out into the jianghu and met a friend.
We laughed together, wept together, and became sworn brothers of the heart.
I went out into the jianghu and met a woman.
My friend fell for her at first sight.
It was I who confessed my love to her first.
And my sworn brother turned his blade upon me.
Ah, oh my friend, my friend.
My friend is gone, and only the grudge remains.
Where has my friend gone, who laughed and wept with me once?
"What in the world is that song?" When Jiang Zhou showed a flicker of interest, Yang Jeong grinned slyly. "Not bad, eh, Big Brother? It's the fashionable tune these days — people have titled it Reminiscence of Friendship."
"To my ears it doesn't sound like reminiscence. It sounds like mockery."
Yang Jeong tilted his head at that. "Why would it sound that way to you? To me it sounds like a song mourning a friendship that was severed."
"The way it feels, it's laughing at the other fellow."
Haha..........
"That's only because your temperament is warped, Big Brother. Everyone else says it's a song of longing for one's friends."
When Jiang Zhou's gaze turned frosty, Yang Jeong hastily walked back his words. "I suppose people just don't understand the song's true meaning, Big Brother. I think exactly as you do."
Quickly averting his eyes, he fiddled uselessly with the reins.
"Just drive faster, you fool......!"
Jiang Zhou, seated in the cart, gazed far down the road ahead. "The jianghu hasn't changed one bit."
"What do you mean, Big Brother?"
When Yang Jeong voiced his puzzlement, Jiang Zhou answered in an indifferent tone. "You'll find out soon enough."
As the cart rolled on a little farther, Yang Jeong's own expression turned cold as well. From the far end of the road ahead, a miscellany of killing intents could be felt pressing toward them.
"Looks like a band of bandits."
"Then deal with it yourself."