UCTOOT CH50

The sky was azure, a gentle breeze blowing.

The weather was too hot and dry. Half-asleep, half-awake.

Shi Shu lay on the stone chair with his eyes half-closed. Xie Wuchi’s fan moved up and down around him, the breeze soft. Shi Shu was half-asleep, not knowing if he was a dull person, or if he just didn’t like to dwell on unhappy things.

Xie Wuchi supported himself with one arm, fanning him. He was really good to him. Shi Shu hadn’t slept well last night. Now asleep, he had a dream.

The shadow of Xie Wuchi flickered behind his eyelids. He was in his dream too.

When the pattern appeared before his eyes in a daze, Shi Shu cursed “Fuck!” in his heart.

Ouroboros, sun wheel, sharp and exposed.

“This saucy…”

Here it comes, again.

At all times, the slightest lack of attention and it would accompany him in his nightmares.

The “self-devourer,” a twisted line adorning a circular wheel of light, shot out in all directions like the rays of the sun, sharp and exposed. Black meant seduction, while the snake biting its own tail symbolized destruction and rebirth, full of mystery. It was exactly the same feeling Xie Wuchi himself gave him, exuding an irresistible temptation, unrestrained and degenerate. At first, Shi Shu rejected Xie Wuchi. Later, he found it increasingly difficult to explain and stopped questioning him, letting it exist like a tattoo within their normal relationship.

“Look.”

Shi Shu shook his head. The dream was particularly real.

“I won’t. Scram!”

The Xie Wuchi in his dreams was much stranger and sharper than the one he interacted with outside the dream. His cold, arrogant eyes that looked at people as if they were dogs made Shi Shu very unhappy.

Xie Wuchi had always been very good to him, but Shi Shu often felt that it was a hypocritical facade. The real Xie Wuchi was a selfish, indifferent, and self-righteous narcissist.

Shi Shu observed him in the dream. As a man, Xie Wuchi possessed more prominent masculine traits than him. In reality, Xie Wuchi would hide them, but in the dream, that sharpness was extremely clear.

“I thought you liked to look at my tattoo,” a demonic voice whispered in his ear.

The voice was like a knife and a sword blade, scraping his ear canal, grinding against his earlobe.

Shi Shu: “Bastard! You still have the nerve to say that!”

“Let’s change places.” A half-lit, half-dark shadow in the thick fog. The contour of his jaw was gloomy. His face couldn’t be seen clearly, but his voice was extremely clear, 掠 (lüè – ‘sweeping over’) his heart like a demon.

Shi Shu wanted to break free from the fog, but he couldn’t stand the feeling of panic. The demon’s hunt had already begun. How could the innocent shepherd escape in this guiltless chase? Shi Shu’s hand touched the tattoo. A strong, healthy human body—horse riding, hunting, extreme sports, a top-tier scion of a top family with high self-esteem. That tattoo almost represented Xie Wuchi.

Shi Shu saw that tattoo. All of it, it seemed to embody everything about Xie Wuchi. The reaction in the dream was instinctive, but the touch of the pattern wasn’t real, only a small part of a person’s warmth.

“…………”

“…………”

But the kiss in his mouth was real. Hot breath filled the air. It had been tried again and again. Shi Shu breathed unconsciously. Xie Wuchi laughed intentionally by his ear, coaxing him with a seductive, sensual, masculine, magnetic voice.

Responding to Shi Shu’s every reaction, encouraging, a mature man’s voice stirring him.

Shi Shu’s attention returned to the tattoo. The snake itself had a seductive meaning. Xie Wuchi himself was a representative of darkness, like a demon from outside the wall that had taken human form, trying to dominate and control humans.

The sharpness and contour of the tattoo seemed to be of very high artistic skill. The strokes were neat, sharp, and cold. In Shi Shu’s vision, it was very clear. Every stroke had its own story. The more clearly Shi Shu realized the intention behind it, the more he knew Xie Wuchi was intentionally showing it to him.

Xie Wuchi… you…

Liar?

Shi Shu grabbed his collar, his fingers clenching in pain, desperately trying to pull him away. How could a person have so many skills? For example, Xie Wuchi was constantly showing him his ability and attractiveness as a lover.

His voice, his strength, and the emotions he could provide. If he opened that forbidden door and tasted the forbidden fruit, he could make Shi Shu, even as a man, enjoy the value he offered.

Xie Wuchi was doing it on purpose.

He was intentionally seducing Shi Shu to become completely infatuated with him.

If he just picked it, what would happen? Maybe he would pick it sooner or later. What Xie Wuchi said was not without reason. “Didn’t I make you feel good when I kissed you?”

And then, just like that, he picked it. A feeling of frivolity and losing his mind.

Thinking of this, Shi Shu felt an explosive annoyance, a sense of betrayal for being kept in the dark, and also the absurdity of being seduced by someone.

Behind the screen, Xie Wuchi held him, pretending to be a couple, hiding from the person searching outside the door, and whispered in his ear.

“Being joked with like this by your brother… is it fun?”

“Hmm? Is it fun or not?”

Intentionally speaking obscene words, intentionally stimulating sentences. Shi Shu carefully examined Xie Wuchi. His voice was pleasant, like the relaxed pronunciation when the tip of his tongue touched the back of his teeth. Sometimes it seemed to have a smile, sometimes it was indifferent to the bone. But Shi Shu felt there were no emotions. Indifference, doing as he pleased, was his true color.

He seemed to be so good to him… that hard-to-suppress look, endlessly exuding the scent of a male dog in heat, wagging that male fox’s tail. Shi Shu felt he was very dangerous. Xie Wuchi was a huge addiction, a ball of fire, wanting to burn anyone who got close to him to death. No one could survive.

“…” Not fun at all, boring.

It was replaced by him using that ear-teasing voice.

In Shi Shu’s eyes, he only felt Xie Wuchi’s ghost-like, seaweed-like wet hair fall down, landing on Shi Shu’s neck. In the dream, he seemed to be sinking in the ocean. The mermaid with a swaying tail raised bubbles to envelop him. The water membrane ground against the water membrane. Space and time were nowhere to hide in the distortion, like clouds colliding, the fusion of fire and flame. Everything turned into a brilliant rosy glow, as if it was about to ignite him, burn him to ashes, and turn him into foam on the tip of his heart.

Very hot, the restlessness of summer.

Why was he in the dream…

The world really did suddenly converge into a beam of snow-white light.

Shi Shu woke up with a start from the narrow wooden board. In front of him was a stone slab. He let out a scared “Ah!”

“So hot, holy… what time is it?”

Shi Shu’s mind was blank, his chest heaving.

“Slept well?” Xie Wuchi screwed the lid on the water flask, single-handedly flicking his hair back. He walked over in a green shirt. “Two or three in the afternoon.”

“You don’t look well. Had a nightmare?”

Shi Shu glanced at him, still panting, as if in a daze.

After a while, Shi Shu looked up against the sunlight, his fair skin and brown pupils showing. “Xie Wuchi, how old are you really?”

Xie Wuchi seemed not to have expected him to ask this. He lowered his eyes. “24.”

“Twenty-four? No wonder you said you were thirty. A twenty-something-year-old provincial governor really doesn’t have much authority.”

Shi Shu avoided his gaze and stood up, dragging his heavy knees to the well. After pouring cool water into a wooden basin, he buried his face in it and held his breath. Since summer had come, Shi Shu had really liked this game.

The cold air instantly spread to his earlobes, touching the tips of his ears like little fish.

Shi Shu’s face was covered with a film of water. To this day, he still felt that from a purely platonic perspective, he couldn’t say he appreciated Xie Wuchi. Although in the past, Shi Shu had never thought he would be particularly indifferent to anything. But this person was very important to him.

“What’s wrong?” Xie Wuchi’s dark eyes watched him.

Shi Shu: “I just feel like I don’t know you that well. I suddenly remembered to ask.”

Xie Wuchi’s voice was slow. “Is there anything else you want to ask? I can tell you everything.”

“Nothing else. Let’s go.” Shi Shu wiped his forehead and strode forward.

Sow one millet in spring, harvest ten thousand seeds in autumn. The terrain of Qian’an Prefecture was flat and open, with occasional mountains, forests, and rivers, and streams gurgling by. Along the way were golden rice fields.

Shi Shu walked under the scorching sun with one hand on his straw hat. Before him was the harvest scene of the people of Qian’an.

“So hot, so hot, so hot…” Shi Shu stood by the drainage ditch, the clear water gurgling. He stood there washing his feet.

His toes were fair and translucent in the water. Xie Wuchi stood under the scorching sun and watched for a while, then looked away.

“Alright, we still have to travel.” Shi Shu jumped up from the ditch and swept his eyes over the current situation.

On the ridges between the fields, people bent over with sickles to harvest the rice. They would cut a handful and hand it to someone on the side to place on the ridge, sweating profusely. A few people were working hard to cut the rice, occasionally looking up at the sky. A child of about ten was also helping. The child was probably tired of carrying the rice and pestered his mother for something to eat and drink, only to be harshly scolded.

“Lazy thing! You’re going to be lazy to death! You can’t even help a little.”

The child’s eyes rolled. “Wuwuwu wa wa wa wuwuwu!”

Shi Shu raised an eyebrow, walked closer, and patted his head. “Big brother, what’s wrong? My mom said you can’t scold a child no matter how busy you are.”

The man seemed to have lost his head in a panic. He said, “I don’t want to scold him, but he’s not helping and just making trouble! We have to finish harvesting the land in these two days. A storm is coming soon!”

Shi Shu was startled. “What? Such hot weather, how can there be a storm?”

“You didn’t know?”

“The ‘double rush’ weather in Qian’an Prefecture. We have to rush to harvest and dry the rice under the big sun. Once it rains and the rice gets wet, it won’t dry and will get moldy and sprout! If it rots, there will be nothing to eat for the next year, and people will starve to death!”

“So that’s how it is…”

A ripple went through Shi Shu’s heart. “I only knew that rice had to be harvested. I didn’t expect that even the harvest would be so difficult.”

“That’s how it is in Qian’an. Every year, as soon as the grain ripens, a storm comes. We have to rush every year.”

The man said a few words and quickly buried his head in cutting the rice again. The child also ran away crying. Shi Shu looked around. The fields were full of people, each one’s back burned red by the sun. Sweat rolled down their reddish-brown skin. They didn’t dare to rest at all.

A silent wind blew through Shi Shu’s heart. “So hard.”

Behind him, Xie Wuchi walked up and stood shoulder to shoulder with him, fanning him with his fan, his voice very calm.

“Though the four seas have no idle fields, the farmers still starve to death.”

“They rely on the heavens for food. Agriculture is almost entirely dependent on the geographical environment for survival. If they are flooded, the farmers have no food. If the weather is too dry, the seedlings will die from the sun, and there will also be no food. As soon as a natural disaster strikes, there is a man-made one. They rely on the harvest from the fields to live, their lives hanging by a thread.”

Shi Shu listened, holding his straw hat steady with one hand.

A thousand words, waves rising and falling in his heart, but he couldn’t say them.

He glanced at Xie Wuchi, lowered his head, and walked ahead alone.

The afternoon was spent traveling and observing the people’s conditions. After about another half an hour, Shi Shu saw a woman in mourning clothes sitting ahead.

She was dressed in snow white, about forty or fifty years old, sitting on the ridge cutting grain. She would cut for a while and then cry for a bit, very sad, but her hands were nimble and wouldn’t stop.

Shi Shu and Xie Wuchi met her gaze. Just as they were about to go up and ask her why she was crying, a few women came over from the next ridge. “Stop crying, Auntie Jiu. We’ll help you. We can definitely finish harvesting this rice before the rain.”

The woman in mourning clothes asked, “Have you finished your own?”

The others said, “Almost, almost. If we all help each other, won’t we get this year’s harvest done?”

“Right, right, everyone come, come help Auntie Jiu cut the rice. We’ll eat at her house tonight!”

Hearing this, Shi Shu asked with a grin, “If we pass by and help you harvest the rice, can we eat at your place tonight too?”

The person was startled. “Go, go, everyone go! When everyone is busy, we help each other out and get through the difficult times together.”

Shi Shu looked at Xie Wuchi. He nodded.

“Then I’ll go down. How do you cut it?”

“Hold the root of the rice and pull the sickle up diagonally. The straw will be in your hand. Then place it on the ridge for someone to carry back to the courtyard, and use a flail to beat out the grains. Only after this whole process will you have rice.”

Shi Shu: “Understood!”

Shi Shu cut several handfuls. He turned his head, something suddenly coming to his mind.

Xie Wuchi stood by the field, his expression thoughtful. He slowly took off his soap boots and stared at the mud in the paddy field. Although he wasn’t wearing an official’s robe, his clean white silk clothes were proper and dignified, naturally carrying a bit of nobility and self-restraint, clearly setting him apart from this rough work.

Xie Wuchi also looked at Shi Shu.

Shi Shu: “What are you looking at? If you don’t want to get your clothes dirty, just find a shady spot and sit and wait for me. It’ll be quick. I’ll help this big sister.”

“Not exactly.”

Xie Wuchi placed his shoes and bundle together and entered the field. Shi Shu chatted with people as he cut, making them laugh out loud. When he suddenly remembered Xie Wuchi, he looked back and saw that he had already taken off his clothes like the other men, revealing his well-formed shoulders and powerful waist, completely losing that elegant and proper look. The sunlight shone on his skin. His hair was also tied up higher with a rope, sweat rolling down his jaw.

He cut the rice without a word, quickly advancing the area of cut straw.

“…”

Shi Shu’s heart skipped a beat. A person like Xie Wuchi, who had such a keen eye for work, really shouldn’t be underestimated.

Xie Wuchi sensed his gaze and looked up. “What’s wrong?”

Shi Shu didn’t answer, lowered his head, grabbed a handful of rice, and cut frantically.

I can’t lose to Xie Wuchi!

Cutting rice was not easy. It was very hard on the back. Once you stopped, it was easy to get lazy. Shi Shu stopped chatting and lowered his head to seriously cut handful after handful of rice. His back was burned even more like it was being roasted by fire, and he was drenched in sweat.

“…How can it be so tiring?” His mouth was dry, like it was on fire. The clothes on his back were soaked with sweat, then dried, and when the wind blew, they were sticky and heavy.

He was dizzy. Several times, the thought of resting surfaced, but when he thought that this field was someone else’s food for the whole year and had to be harvested before the storm, and that this woman had just lost her husband and had no labor force at home, he gritted his teeth again.

Can’t stop.

The scorching weather, even at six or seven in the evening, still made one’s head spin. Finally, after cutting the last handful, Shi Shu fell with a plop into the grass and looked at the sky.

Good.

Refreshing.

Ah.

At first, his arms were itchy and he would scratch them from time to time, but now he was numb. His arms and calves were covered with many long, thin cuts from the sharp leaves of the rice stalks. His hair was messy, he was covered in mud and water, his eyes were glazed over, and his strength was exhausted. He lay spread-eagled on the ground.

“Come and eat! See that house with smoke coming from the roof tiles ahead? The one with the mourning hall set up with blue drapes and white cloth. Go to that courtyard, understand? We’re going back first, there’s still grain to dry.”

Shi Shu: “Okay, I’ll find a river to wash up and then come.”

He was really too tired. Shi Shu lay there, unable to straighten his back. He picked up a grain of rice and threw it in his mouth to chew. “This taste…”

So much hard work, just to produce rice. It’s really not easy.

Shi Shu half-closed his eyes. Just as he was about to fall asleep, a voice sounded by his ear. “Find a place to wash up first.”

“Xie Wuchi.”

Xie Wuchi’s trouser legs were rolled up to his knees. His waterfall-like black hair was tied with a rope and scattered over his shoulders. He was covered in dust and rice awns. He carried his shoes in one hand and his tattered, clean, and proper robes in the other, walking over.

“Are you very tired?”

“It’s alright.”

Shi Shu stood up, lifted his legs out of the mud pit, and walked forward with his shoes and bundle. “Let’s go, take a bath and eat.”

The path at dusk, the stone bridge still held some warmth. The two of them, one after the other. The villagers had all finished work and were heading home.

The setting sun fell at the end of the road. The village was quiet.

The fine pain on his skin bloomed with each step. As Shi Shu walked, he also reminisced in his mind. After working all afternoon, and with the filthy state he and Xie Wuchi were in now, the strange feeling from the nap’s dream was fading.

At a secluded spot under the stone bridge where the water flowed rapidly, Shi Shu jumped into the water. The countless small wounds on his body instantly exploded with pain.

“So painful… how much grain do these people have to pay a year?”

“Before, it was three-tenths. They paid three-tenths of their harvest to the court. But it was changed to five-fifths a dozen years ago. After the military provisions on the northern border increased, Qian’an, as a major grain-producing prefecture, was responsible for providing military grain.”

Hearing this, Shi Shu suddenly looked up. “Hiss—how much?”

“Five-fifths.”

“I harvest a hundred catties, and I have to pay fifty catties in grain tax? Is that like having a salary of eight thousand and paying four thousand in taxes?”

Xie Wuchi threw his clothes in and also got into the water. “Yes.”

“What about the law?”

“The law is that the gentry who occupy vast fields, a single household with over ten thousand mu of fertile land, they don’t have to pay grain tax. Not a single cent. Because of one law: preferential treatment for officials and scholars. Once an ordinary person has an official title, not only are they exempt from taxes and corvée labor, the court will also give these people a monthly salary.”

“Many of the corrupt high officials in the court, after returning to their hometowns, buy land with their wealth and become the foremost great landlords. The treasury of the Great Jing is empty, and the people are endlessly exploited. Someone has long said that the real root of the disease lies with these scholars.”

Shi Shu stood in the water, washing off the mud. “Absurd.”

His fair calves were covered in bloody marks.

Xie Wuchi looked at his back. The two stood in the quiet stone pool, both taking off their clothes to wash.

Shi Shu thought of something. His fingertips rested on his shoulder, but he still threw his clothes into the water.

In an instant, his entire fair back was exposed, covered with red marks, irritated by the rice awns.

Shi Shu sank into the water. Sensing the gaze behind him, he ignored it, washed off the sticky sweat, and shook the mud and water from his clothes and pants.

“Your back, lots of sweat.”

“I know.”

“I’ll wipe it for you.”

Shi Shu was quiet at first. Hearing the sound of water rippling, a hot palm was placed on his back.

It first slowly caressed his shoulders, then went down his sunken spine, lightly touching his lower back.

It was very quiet by the pool. Shi Shu heard the heavy breathing behind him.

Shi Shu was relatively calm at first and didn’t speak. He let Xie Wuchi touch his shoulders and washed his hair with the soapberry powder from his bundle.

A moment later, until the heat was pressed against his back, Xie Wuchi’s breath fell on his ear. “Shi Shu.”

One of his well-defined hands was placed on Shi Shu’s jaw. When Shi Shu didn’t dodge, the hand rested there. When Shi Shu shook his head, the hand gently loosened.

Shi Shu was sure. He turned back. “Brother, are you a ghost?”

“Hmm?”

Although he was speaking, his eyes lingered on his own lips. Shi Shu looked at him carefully for the first time. The light in Xie Wuchi’s eyes had dimmed considerably. He stared at him. The greed and lust that would never appear in front of outsiders appeared in his dark brows and eyes.

Shi Shu’s hair was washed clean by the water. Just as he was about to swim and play, his wrist was suddenly grabbed, nose to nose.

Hot breath on his face, lips lightly brushed against his. Before the imminent flame could ignite, Shi Shu quickly turned his head.

The pool water was cold, different from the lingering warmth of dusk.

Xie Wuchi’s wrist drooped. Shi Shu swam into the water. “That’s enough, glug glug glug~ I’ve played with you for so long, I don’t want to play anymore, glug glug glug~ I won’t kiss you again in the future, glug glug glug glug~”

Xie Wuchi’s voice seemed very gentle. “What’s wrong? What made you unhappy?”

Shi Shu: “Nothing, I just feel something is wrong.”

Shi Shu was certainly not the kind of person who could ask “Do you like me?” or “Do you want to fuck me?” to his face. Since he couldn’t get that answer, he could only be vague.

Shi Shu didn’t hear a response. When he looked back again, in the dark bamboo forest at dusk, Xie Wuchi’s face had actually fallen. His eyelids were lowered, a dark color dyeing the area under his brows and eyes. His expression was so cold it was close to icy.

Shi Shu met his gaze. Xie Wuchi turned his face away, pulled up his clothes, and went ashore.

Shi Shu suddenly got angry too. He slapped the water with his palm, cursed, and put on his clothes.

One after the other, they were farther apart than heaven and hell.

They went to the courtyard where the funeral was being held. Unexpectedly, this courtyard was also a mess. A family that was not well-off to begin with had set up four or five tables to entertain the neighbors. Unexpectedly, another group of people suddenly arrived in the courtyard.

Holding torches, a steward followed by a group of strong servants, holding two big wolfhounds on iron chains, strode towards the family.

“The matter of pawning your land, still haven’t thought it over?”

“Heavens!”

When Auntie Jiu saw this group of people, her eyes rolled back and she fainted, hitting her head on the coffin, blood dripping.

“I told you! Your sob story is useless! Your dead husband, during the drought two years ago, personally signed the deed, pawning half of your Dahewan field! If you couldn’t pay it back last year, the remaining half of the field would be sold to my master. I ask you, is that what’s written on the deed!”

The villagers all said, “There was a drought two years ago, and a flood last year. The harvest was only half of what it used to be. How could they pay it back! Steward Chen, are you trying to drive people to their death?”

“Less nonsense! I told you not to touch that field. Today, you actually harvested the rice! You are encroaching on my master’s property!”

Auntie Jiu didn’t die. She shouted with all her might, “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”

She rushed up with a knife. Not only did this Steward Chen not dodge, he released the big wolfhound. “Your man was bitten to death by this dog. What, you want to die too?”

“Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!”

Auntie Jiu let out a shrill scream and was held back by several women, held in their arms.

“Who else? You bunch of troublemakers!!!” The steward tightened the chains. The big wolfhounds bared their fangs, extremely terrifying.

When Shi Shu walked into the crowd, Xie Wuchi was already standing at the forefront like a gust of wind. The courtyard, which was set up as a mourning hall, was eerie and terrifying, but Xie Wuchi, standing in front of Auntie Jiu and several villagers, had an even colder face.

Shi Shu clearly felt that he hadn’t swallowed the anger from beside the stone pool.

“Who are you?! You want to stick your head out for them!” Steward Chen asked shrilly.

Xie Wuchi: “My name, are you worthy of knowing?”

“You!”

Xie Wuchi: “Scram back. Tell your master to come and talk!”

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