Chapter 26

The deerskin water bag could hold quite a lot of water. During the summer, Chen Jue could go a whole day without coming down the mountain, and this one flask was enough to last him the day.

So he poured water for Huo Lin several times in a row. At first, this man couldn't quite manage to drink from the oak leaves—or rather, he wasn't used to such an unrefined tool—and spilled some. But he got the hang of it after a bit and downed three full rounds.

A few droplets of water spilled, ran down his jawline and soaked into his clothes.

Chen Jue glanced at his bobbing Adam's apple and looked away. He figured he'd better hold back the urge to strangle the guy—murder was illegal.

After they'd drunk their fill, the two rested a bit before heading down to unload.

Although Huo Lin still didn't ask Chen Jue about the child in his belly, he still had the sense to take the heaviest basket. He loaded up all the root veggies and the heaviest stuff, leaving the light things for Chen Jue.

Little Flower's basket carried two loads of red berries. She trotted on ahead, light on her feet. Chen Jue walked in the middle, Huo Lin brought up the rear—the two of them and the goat made it down just as the sun sat dead overhead.

Chen Jue still made lunch. He boiled up a pot of corn.

This was the harvest season for corn. Although Uncle Liu's family had reduced their fields this year because Qing Shan's leg was lame—just one mu planted—they'd still handed Chen Jue a good amount. Chen Jue picked out the tender ones and set them aside to boil.

Huo Lin looked at the basin of boiled corn, then at Little Flower and the rooster beside him gnawing on their own ears of corn, and the corner of his mouth twitched, barely noticeable. His whole family was on the same menu.

Chen Jue pretended not to notice. Boiled corn beat a pot of mush any day, right?

At least each ear was its own thing.

Freshly harvested tender corn was still quite delicious. Without the GMO strains and chemical fertilizers of later times, the corn didn't grow all that plump, but the corn flavor was rich—that sweet, corny fragrance you can't get anywhere else.

Chen Jue polished off three ears. Huo Lin across from him did the same.

Two ears were left in the pot.

Chen Jue said, "We'll take these along. Eat 'em if you get hungry. One apiece."

Huo Lin looked at him: "You tired? Wanna rest a bit?"

Chen Jue stood up, bracing his back: "I'm going to take a nap."

He always took a nap at noon.

Chen Jue had Huo Lin wash the dishes while he went to sleep on the kang.

He slept till around two in the afternoon before getting up.

Right on time—no alarm needed, 'cause the rooster outside was pecking at his window, thumping away.

That bird had lousy eyesight. The corn was hanging right there, but it just had to peck at the window.

"Stop pecking! I'm up! One of these days you're gonna peck straight through it." Chen Jue came out, gripping the doorframe.

It couldn't actually peck through—Chen Jue had swapped out the windows.

Now Huo Lin was standing in front of the windows, eyeing the two panes.

When Chen Jue had renovated the house, he'd also changed the windows, swapping them for shell-glass panes that were super clear and tough. They'd cost a pretty penny.

More transparency meant better light.

He couldn't figure out shadowless lighting, so he just kept cranking up the brightness.

Chen Jue saw him staring at the two windows and thought he might ask about them. This kind of window was one of a kind in the whole village—even in richer areas outside, hardly any family could afford 'em.

But Huo Lin didn't ask a thing. He just turned his head: "Up?"

The two had no farmland, so no field work—they could only head back up the mountain.

Chen Jue noticed him slinging the bow and arrows over his shoulder. That bow had been hanging in the house the whole time, just about gathering dust.

So he was heading back out into the wild. Chen Jue couldn't help but get a little excited—maybe they'd bag a tiger or a deer.

But that afternoon, Huo Lin didn't catch a thing. Forget a deer—he didn't even bag a single rabbit, and he lost a few arrows in the process.

Chen Jue watched him stare off where his arrows had gone, then quietly looked away.

He wanted to ask if the guy had hurt something in the war—he'd been wounded, after all, and who knew if he'd pulled something.

But Chen Jue kept his mouth shut, 'cause Huo Lin was stubbornly nocking another arrow, aiming at a tree—the spot where the rabbit had knocked his arrow off earlier.

This time the arrow flew straight, wobbling in the sapling before sticking solid.

Seeing it stick, he turned to Chen Jue. His face was blank, but his eyes were saying that earlier miss was a fluke.

This guy had some serious pride.

Chen Jue wanted to say, what's the point of shooting a tree? Why not shoot something alive?

Forget it. Looked like no meat today. His archery was still at the "hit the still target" stage. Who knew when he'd ever hit something moving.

Chen Jue's barely hidden dismissiveness must've gotten to him. Huo Lin took a breath and shot several more arrows into that sapling. Some fell out, only to be re-nailed into the same old spots. That poor sapling had the worst luck of its life that afternoon, getting turned into a pincushion.

Only three arrows had been used on the rabbit from the quiver. The remaining seventeen all ended up stuck in that tree—it probably wouldn't survive.

The worst part was, he pulled all seventeen arrows out and shot another round.

Little Flower had kept her distance while he was shooting, and now she stuck close to Chen Jue, her eyes already filled with fear.

So she wasn't completely brainless after all.

Chen Jue led her to the other side to dig up wild kudzu root. There was plenty of it—Chen Jue had noted where it grew before, planning to dig it up if they ever couldn't afford food. Now that they could eat properly, he'd treat it as medicinal material instead.

Wild kudzu root wasn't worth much, but there was a lot of it, and it could be sold. Plus it was easier to dig than notoginseng or ginseng—pull up one root and the whole surrounding cluster came with it.

Chen Jue had just about finished digging when the man who'd been tormenting the sapling finally came over. Little Flower bleated and hid behind Chen Jue. Fortunately, Huo Lin wasn't there to shoot her. He crouched down, gathered up the kudzu root Chen Jue had dug, and hoisted it onto his back.

"It's heavy—let's split the load," Chen Jue told him.

Huo Lin just shook his head, glanced at the salted-egg-yolk sun on the horizon, and said, "Let's go."

Chen Jue was carrying less, so the walk was easier. Along the way, he picked some plump pine cones—pine nuts, a good remedy for insomnia. Paired with sour jujube seeds.

Oh, and sour jujubes could be eaten as a snack too.

There were plenty of sour jujube trees on the mountain. Little Flower ate with great enthusiasm, her tongue curling around the thorny leaves without a problem.

The sour jujube tree—from leaf to fruit—was treasure all the way through.

Chen Jue picked quite a few, eating as he walked. Huo Lin would occasionally glance at him, and Chen Jue pretended not to notice. He didn't know when he'd become such a big eater—his stomach was like a bottomless well.

The corn he'd brought that afternoon was already long gone. What he was eating now was just a little something.

It definitely wasn't him being greedy—it was the baby in his belly doing the eating.

The two of them got home just as the sun was setting.

Just as they got to the yard, they ran into Zhou Qingzhu, who'd brought food over: "Brother Chen, Brother Huolin, I made some pan-fried cakes with leek filling. Brother Chen, all you gotta do is make a soup to go with 'em."

Even though he'd said yesterday to let Huo Lin try Chen Jue's one-pot stew, his dad still had him make something nice.

Cornmeal cakes weren't as good as yesterday's white-flour dumplings, but they were still a pretty decent meal.

They'd been busy harvesting corn the past few days and hadn't had a proper meal.

Huo Lin looked at Chen Jue, wondering why he was taking it so naturally. Zhou Qingzhu smiled and explained to him: "Brother Dalin, Jue Geer left half his rice and flour at our place, so you can eat without worry."

Huo Lin paused, then smiled at him: "Oh, so that's how it is."

Zhou Qingzhu waved and grinned: "Alright, I'm heading off!"

Dinner was taken care of easily enough. Of course, Chen Jue knew the truth would come out eventually—he just didn't know how to cook.

This Huo Lin wasn't stupid either; he kept his eyes on him. First he'd get suspicious about his belly, then about him as a person—it was only a matter of time.

Chen Jue didn't plan to hide anything. He just hadn't said it outright because he was afraid of scaring the guy.

If his husband's soul had been swapped out, no normal person would get it. Even he, a modern person, didn't understand it, so how could some ancient guy?

Chen Jue wasn't afraid of being burned at the stake. But since he wasn't ready to leave yet, he planned to stay put and play dumb until the ninth month.

Over the next two months, he'd dig up more herbs and save up more—at least enough silver to rent a small courtyard in town.

Chen Jue kind of regretted spending money like water these past few days. He shouldn't have set up that half-assed surgery room, or spent so much on all those surgical tools.

Who would've thought Huo Lin would come back alive?

It wasn't that Chen Jue wanted him dead—he just really wasn't prepared for this.

But regretting it was useless; he'd just have to save up again.

Uncle Liu and the others couldn't bring food over to Chen Jue and his family every day. Back when Chen Jue was on his own, Zhou Qingzhu would bring him flatbreads, steamed buns, and other staples whenever he made them.

As for dishes, even if they wanted to send some, they didn't have anything good to offer. So eventually, the day came when Chen Jue made his one-pot stew.

Huo Lin looked at the pot of stew, pausing noticeably with his ladle in hand. He glanced at the chicken feed next to him—chopped veggie scraps mixed with corn and grains. Not only were the ingredients the same, but it looked even better than what was in their bowl. At least in the chicken trough, the greens were green, the grains were grainy, and the colors were bright.

Looking back at their pot, the veggie leaves had been thrown in too early and had already boiled to a dull color. The corn kernels were all mixed into a sticky paste with the flour.

Huo Lin watched Chen Jue eating from his bowl; his pace was noticeably slower than when he'd eaten dumplings.

It looked bad, and it tasted bad too.

This was the first time food was left over. Chen Jue had been afraid that with an extra person, there wouldn't be enough, so he'd added too many flour dumplings, and in the end, the two of them left half of it.

Chen Jue also glanced at Huo Lin. From what Zhou Qingshan had said that day, he knew this man had some standards, but wasn't he an ancient person?

In this era of food scarcity, wasn't anything edible?

After all, people could eat tree bark, grass roots, and even clay. So why wasn't he appreciating this meal that had vitamins, coarse grains, and fine grains all in one pot?

The man across from him answered: "I'm not hungry today."

Chen Jue gave an "oh."

Huo Lin thought for a moment and added: "Do you not have anything to cook with? I'll see if I can hunt some animals today."

And he said "some"—it would be a miracle if he caught even one.

This Huo Lin had been back for four days now, and every day he'd been practicing shooting at trees with his bow, without even hitting a single bird feather.

But Chen Jue only complained inwardly; on the surface, he just nodded: "Okay."

Today, when they went up the mountain, Huo Lin used a gourd to carry water. The water gourd that Uncle Liu had specially made for him had finally dried and was ready to use.

Though it wasn't as good as his original deerskin water pouch, it was still better than using leaves, which would have felt like he was being pitied by Chen Jue.

Chen Jue had never once meant to let him drink from his water pouch.