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Chapter Four: Return My Life!

Ha ha, I can move, I can move! Duan Mingyu was overjoyed. Strictly speaking, at that moment he could only move his mouth; the rest of his body still refused to obey. Even so, he was so thrilled he could have gone mad, the feeling like a castaway adrift in an endless sea suddenly clutching a plank of wood.

He began thinking about how to face the present situation. Should he explain his condition to the two men, or shout for help and expose the ugly faces of those two constables? In the end, Duan Mingyu sighed and dismissed both impractical ideas.

There were few people around here, and this was indeed a fine place for murder and silencing the dead. True, less than twenty paces away there stood a rare lone household, but who could say whether anyone was home? If they were absent and he exposed the two men, they might well be driven to desperate measures. He could not be sure he would not truly die a second time.

But those two beasts were about to bury him alive. What now, what now? Another dead end.

Wait—he had it, he had it...

The two constables brushed the dirt from their clothes, glanced at the pit they had dug, and, satisfied, lifted Duan Mingyu's "corpse." Just as they were about to fling him into the hole, they heard a faint, eerie wail: "Return my life!"

The hair on both constables stood on end. In unison they asked each other, "Did you hear something strange?"

"Return my life!"

"My God!" This time the two constables heard it clearly. The ghost of Scholar Duan had come for revenge! That was the only thought in both their minds. They dropped Duan Mingyu and ran for their lives, so terrified they were practically wetting and soiling themselves as they fled.

You two dogs, could you not have dropped me a little more gently? If I lose an arm or a leg, can you even afford to make it right?

Duan Mingyu had frightened the two constables away, but he now worked even harder to gain control of his body. If he waited too long, something else might yet go wrong.

At dawn, the first rays of light fell over the outskirts of Bianliang, and a cool breeze stirred.

Had there not been a large pit before him, no one would have known that something so unbelievable had just happened here. Of course, even if they had seen it, they would still never have guessed the truth. Take Xu Zuye, for example: he stood there dumbly staring at the pit in the ground, unable to believe anything before his eyes.

Xu Zuye, a man just past forty, lived in a house on the outskirts of Bianliang. Strictly speaking, the house stood less than twenty paces from the pit.

Xu Zuye roared in fury, "Who did this? Which damned bastard did this?" A few strands of beard danced in the wind with his breath, as though answering his call.

After letting out that shout, Xu Zuye felt much better. Looking more closely, he finally noticed Duan Mingyu lying beside the pit.

His eyes lit up. At last he had found the culprit.

Staring at the unconscious young man in ragged clothes, Xu Zuye strode forward, rolled up his sleeves, and looked every inch the man who was furious and ready to make the consequences severe.

But he was disappointed. In truth, Duan Mingyu was still unconscious, and being unconscious meant precisely that he was still in the process of being unconscious.

Duan Mingyu had reached the final stage of regaining control of his body, the most crucial stage of all. One careless mistake could ruin everything and leave him a living dead man. He could not afford distraction; let the outside world make whatever noise it liked, he would not be moved.

The lifeless Duan Mingyu left Xu Zuye grinding his teeth, helpless and at a loss. Xu Zuye stepped forward and shook his shoulder. "Young master, are you all right?"

Duan Mingyu still did not wake. Xu Zuye, with all his anger and nowhere to vent it, raised both hands and slapped Duan Mingyu across the face twice. "You jinx. Meeting you has truly brought me nothing but bad luck."

Having said that, he looked at his own house, then at the pit, and finally gauged the distance between them. If he had stepped out a little carelessly just now and fallen straight into that hole...

At the thought, he could not help but kick Duan Mingyu twice more to relieve his anger.

Besides, this patch of ground before his house was his as well. Out of nowhere a great pit had appeared, ugly enough to offend the eye every time he stepped out. How could anyone be happy with that? Xu Zuye snorted and turned back toward the house.

After he closed the gate, the image of Duan Mingyu's miserable state kept replaying in his mind. That boy seemed to be a victim too, didn't he? From the look of him, he had been badly injured. Thinking of how he had just brutalized the boy a little more, Xu Zuye's heart began to pound, and his conscience started to stir.

After all, the customs of the people were simple and honest, and most were good folk. After a long while, the tightly shut gate of Xu Zuye's home finally opened a crack. Sneaking out, Xu Zuye crept over to Duan Mingyu and muttered to himself, "Boy, I'm not rescuing you. I just want you to compensate me for the damage to my land after you wake up!"

A man who needed an excuse even for doing good deeds finished speaking and, like dragging a dead dog, hauled Duan Mingyu into the gate of the house.

Xu Zuye looked at Duan Mingyu. The handsome face had grown weary and lifeless, as though he were a dying old man in his last years. Covered in dust, he looked as if he had endured every turmoil in the world.

Xu Zuye sighed. "Young master, you'll have to rely on your own luck. This is all I can do."

To Xu Zuye, Duan Mingyu's condition meant there was no hope of survival. But Xu Zuye was wrong. He was wrong because three days later Duan Mingyu woke up, and not only that—once awake, he was full of life, with not the slightest aftereffect.

Xu Zuye was not at home when Duan Mingyu woke. Duan Mingyu only felt his head swelling painfully, because he had traveled through time: the late Tang Dynasty, the fourth year of Zhonghe, Bianliang. A monk had given him thirty years of power and spoken some grand and righteous words, and later he had been saved by a middle-aged man named Xu Zuye. Now he was in that man's house.

Carefully sorting through the information that had suddenly surfaced in his mind, Duan Mingyu found it all utterly unbelievable.

He cooked a pot of rice gruel at Xu Zuye's house and, after wolfing down half of it, patted his belly in satisfaction. Ah, more than a thousand years without food, and he had never imagined he could ever be this hungry. A sin, a sin indeed!

Afterward, Duan Mingyu changed into Xu Zuye's clothes and went wandering around Bianliang. Sure enough, he really had traveled through time.

He drifted about Bianliang in a daze until evening, and only then did he finally accept this undeniable reality. Since this was how things were, he would have to settle down and find himself a way to live. Fortunately, his throwing knives were still with him, which meant he would not starve to death.

For the moment, he could only stay at Xu Zuye's house. By the time Duan Mingyu returned, night had already draped itself over heaven and earth. He carried back a pile of wood gathered from all over, intending to take up his old trade again—making wooden clogs. In truth, they were merely wooden slippers, but since he was now in ancient times, he had to use a slightly more elegant way of saying it.

As he passed by the front door, Duan Mingyu could not help seeing the great pit that had nearly buried him alive. He gave a wry smile and went inside.

Xu Zuye had not yet returned. The house was large, with three rooms. Duan Mingyu headed to his own room and, under the bright moonlight, began carving the clogs.

With steady hands and a small knife, he worked without haste, first shaving the wood into boards, then carefully carving them into the shape of a footbed, and finally engraving patterns along the edges...