Chapter 28: Have You Ever Heard of the Human Swine?

Chapter 28: Have You Heard of the Living Corpse?

“We need to make money.” Cao Ying sighed.

Yi-niang pounded on the tree trunk, mocking, “If a man is so worthless, does he expect a woman to go out and earn money?”

Cao Ying smiled. “Making money is no trouble, but right now, your status is that of the young master’s cousin, and as for me, I’m merely a tutor you’ve hired for him… The young master comes from the countryside of Yuanzhou and hasn’t had much education. You, cousin, are so earnest in your care! Should the tutor be sent out to make a living?”

“Hypocrite!” Yi-niang’s face was cold. “Now that the young master’s been admitted to the Imperial Academy, I wonder if it’s possible to take the Academy into our hands.”

Cao Ying snorted, “Those lazy fools are lucky not to have ruined themselves. Still, there are a few capable ones among them. No one knows the true strength of Ning Yayun, but it certainly isn’t lacking. By the way, those students… If the young master manages to win their favor, perhaps they’ll be useful in the future.”

Yi-niang frowned. “You’ve said so much. What are you really getting at?”

“The young master must become an official!” Cao Ying’s tone was grave. “He’s just a country boy from Yuanzhou. If he doesn’t seek an official post, how can he ever win over those people, those generals?”

Yi-niang cursed, “That old dog Yang Lue! If only he’d sent the young master to a wealthy household back then!”

“To be drowned in a horse trough by the women of the inner chambers?” Cao Ying said softly. “You were always headstrong and thoughtless, and you’re still the same now.”

Yi-niang paused, then sneered, “Look at you, full of fake benevolence and righteousness, yet with the face of a gentleman. Back then, even the filial emperor couldn’t stand your hypocrisy and shamelessness—no wonder he never promoted you.”

Cao Ying chuckled. “What do you know? That’s called biding one’s time. I was still young then and couldn’t get involved in big affairs.”

Yi-niang was impatient. “Talk business.”

Cao Ying shook his head slightly. “If I wished, I could trick you, and you’d have to thank me for it.”

Swish!

Yi-niang’s hand flashed to her waist, and a flexible sword trembled at Cao Ying’s throat.

Cao Ying smiled. “If you have the guts, kill me. I’ll just go below and look for the filial emperor. Even underground, I’d need to carve out a kingdom.”

Yi-niang smiled sweetly, winding the sword around her waist and producing a slender silver needle between her fingers.

In a most beguiling tone, she said, “I learned acupuncture at the Daoist temple these years.”

Cao Ying sighed, “Perfect, I’ve had some trouble with my lower back recently. Give me a treatment.”

Yi-niang circled behind him and drove in a needle.

“How is it?” Her voice remained seductive.

Cao Ying praised, “Sore, numb, and swollen.”

Her voice turned colder. “If I’d gone an inch lower, you’d be a eunuch with your bird still attached.”

Cao Ying tensed, then laughed, “I’m not young anymore; haven’t had much use for it in recent years. If I don’t use it, so be it.”

For all his bravado, when Yi-niang came around, Cao Ying’s attitude improved considerably.

“We have neither an army nor vast wealth. The only way is to help the young master become an official and rise swiftly.” Cao Ying lowered his voice, “With control over a single county, we’d have a foothold. If we could take a whole prefecture… who could challenge us then?”

Yi-niang’s beguiling eyes shone. “If we succeed…”

A burning ambition flashed in both their eyes.

“The young master is coming out.”

They straightened and smiled at Yang Xuan as he emerged.

“I’m going out to earn money.” Yang Xuan sounded a bit disgruntled.

After he left, Yi-niang sighed, “The young master is tired of you.”

Cao Ying rose. “Then I’ll go see if I can scrape together some coin.”

“You’ve just returned to Chang’an—you’ve probably even forgotten your way around. How will you manage it?” Yi-niang asked.

“Just wait and see.”

Cao Ying went to Pingkang Ward.

He wandered about. There were plenty of ways to make money, but he had no capital to start with.

Beside a brothel in Pingkang Ward, a few impoverished scholars were writing letters for others, explaining the contents to their clients with much gesturing and self-importance.

Business was brisk.

Cao Ying moved along and found a pauper, offering him three cash for his tattered outer garment.

The pauper must be crazy! That rag wasn’t worth three cash.

The pauper was delighted.

Cao Ying smiled. “I’ll give you two cash now. I have a business proposal—interested in partnering up?”

The pauper clutched the white robe and stepped back warily. “It’s mine. If you go back on your word, I’ll kill you.”

Cao Ying’s smile faded.

The pauper hesitated. “A gentleman like you wouldn’t trick me. Speak, but I’m not putting up any money.”

A while later, the pauper, dressed in white, knelt before the largest brothel in Pingkang Ward with a sheet of paper laid out in front of him.

A passing client stooped to look.

“Selling myself… to bury my father.”

On a nearby battered cart lay a middle-aged man in rags, his face deathly pale, half-covered by scraps of cloth.

“Alas!”

Someone asked, “Where’s your family?”

A small crowd began to gather.

This was the top brothel in Chang’an; its patrons were all wealthy or noble.

The pauper kept his head down, as Cao Ying had instructed.

“My grandfather always favored my second uncle’s family. When my father fell ill, we had no money for treatment, and now he’s gone. As soon as he died, I begged my grandfather for coffin money, but he…”

The pauper’s body shook as if overcome with grief. “He threw me out.”

A wealthy-looking client frowned. “Isn’t that old beast your grandfather?”

“Indeed—a fondness for younger sons is common, but refusing coffin money shows a truly vicious heart.”

“Such a beast should be killed.”

“And those concubine-loving, wife-hating types, too.”

“Old beast!”

A rich man approached, pointed at the pauper, and his servant tossed a string of cash onto the cloth. “No need to sell yourself.”

“I must,” the pauper replied, thinking work in a rich household sounded promising and was about to change his mind.

But the man in white’s words echoed in his mind: “Servants in wealthy homes are hereditary; outsiders can never get in.”

The rich man sighed, “Take the money and be careful.”

The pauper bowed his head and wailed, tears streaming down in great drops.

“Father!” he cried in utter grief.

One by one, the wealthy patrons threw money down. Soon, the cloth was heaped with cash, even a small lump of silver among it.

The man in white’s warning came back again: “Take enough and leave, or people will get suspicious and beat you.”

“No more, no more!”

“He’s an honest one.”

“I suspected fraud, but now I see it’s real.”

Another shower of coins.

With everyone’s sympathy behind him, the pauper dragged his battered cart away. Inside the cart, Cao Ying sat upright.

Later, in a secluded alley, Cao Ying called the pauper to a halt.

Time to split the take.

Cao Ying took the silver first. “This is the planner’s share.”

The pauper, never having seen so much money, nodded quickly.

The murderous glint in Cao Ying’s eyes faded a little. He divided the coins into three piles, pointing at one. “This is mine.”

The pauper nodded. “And these two?”

Cao Ying pointed at another. “This is for my father. Any problem with that?”

The pauper hesitated, greed flickering in his eyes.

Cao Ying’s murderous intent suddenly surged.

“My mother still needs money for medicine.” The pauper sighed. “Fine, you can curse your father, but I can’t. Take it.”

They exchanged clothes. The pauper took his share of coins and dragged the cart away.

Cao Ying wrapped up his bundle and slung it over his back.

“Your nature should have kept you from letting him live,” came Yi-niang’s voice from behind.

Cao Ying didn’t turn. “At least he’s filial to his parents.”

“But all those people just called your father a beast, and you let it pass… Your shamelessness seems to have reached a new height,” she taunted.

Cao Ying turned, brushing past her.

“That year, he let his concubine curse and mistreat my mother, until she died soon after.”

Yi-niang paused, then cursed, “Old beast!”

“I wanted to ruin him in revenge, but he was already dead—killed in a fit of rage when he caught his concubine cheating. They say his eyes bulged out.”

“Serves him right. And what became of the concubine?”

“Have you heard of the living corpse?”

Yi-niang, raised in the palace, went cold all over.

Cao Ying hummed an odd tune as he made his way home with his bundle, buying a skewer of roast meat along the way. He bit off a piece and handed the rest to a child at the roadside. The child, clutching his mother’s hand, was terrified. Cao Ying patted his head with a warm smile. “A child who never eats meat grows numb to the world.”

…

Yang Xuan was at the Imperial Academy.

“How goes your training?” Zhong Hui stroked his beard, looking with satisfaction at his prized pupil.

“Not bad.” Yang Xuan had practiced the academy’s techniques, but after realizing they progressed much slower than those Yang Lue had given him, he gave up.

“Did anyone make things difficult for you in Wannian County?” Zhong Hui asked carefully.

“No,” Yang Xuan shook his head. He’d considered leaving Wannian County before, but now he’d earned merit and couldn’t leave until he received his reward.

“Keep at it,” Zhong Hui said kindly. “Attend classes daily, come back for cultivation lessons when you can, as for the rest…”

Cough, cough.

Someone cleared their throat outside.

Yang Xuan turned, feigning innocence. “Greetings, Director An.”

An Ziyu entered, holding a ruler behind his back, and sneered, “Three days of seclusion.”

Seclusion meant intensive cultivation, a torment for these metaphysics students.

Zhong Hui’s face fell.

Then An Ziyu summoned several students.

“Tomorrow you’ll all work in Wannian County.”

One student forced a smile. “Director, Wannian County isn’t friendly to us. It’s nothing but trouble.”

“Nonsense!” An Ziyu had overheard Yang Xuan’s answer earlier.

The ruler spun on her fingertip, whistling through the air.

“Yes.”

Often, harm comes from people completely unrelated to you.

Just like the children in scrolls whose parents always compare them to someone else’s.

…

By the time Yang Xuan got home, he could already smell mutton.

Cao Ying sat under a tree and rose to salute him. “Greetings, young master.”

“How did we get mutton?” Yang Xuan eyed the kitchen warily.

Cao Ying smiled, “What are you worried about, young master?”

“Yi-niang said she could earn money in a brothel last time.”

Crash!

A bowl shattered inside.

Cao Ying laughed awkwardly. “This money is mine.”

“You have money?” Yang Xuan thought life was getting hard.

“I have… a little.” Cao Ying felt that repeating the ‘selling oneself to bury a father’ trick was getting too risky.

“So we still need to earn money.”

Yang Lue really has taught the young master well, Cao Ying thought, sighing inwardly. Before, he’d thought Yi-niang calling Yang Lue an old dog was too harsh, but now it seemed just right.

No.

Perfect.

He looked at Yang Xuan and said earnestly, “Young master, you must work hard.”

“Work hard to earn money?” Yang Xuan thought Cao Ying rather shameless.

“No, work hard to become an official.”