hotmtlnovel Chapter 377 I'm Not Sleepy
Chapter 377 I'm Not Sleepy
Chapter 377 I'm Not Sleepy
"This plow is well done," he said. "Was it dug from an iron well?"
"Yes," Chi Quan said.
"Tetsui is three years older than me. When we were young, he was learning blacksmithing in Konoha, while I was farming at home. He finished his apprenticeship, and I was still farming." The old man put down his blacksmithing tool, dusted off his hands, and said, "The plows he made were excellent."
Chi Quan bent down and rearranged the hoes on the oxcart. He then carried a bundle of hoes down and lined them up against the ginkgo tree trunk. Ya stood nearby handing out sickles, while Akamaru weaved through the crowd, chased by the children. Akamaru didn't run fast, deliberately letting the children almost catch him, then sprinting a few steps just before they were about to catch him. The children's laughter exploded at the village entrance like a string of firecrackers.
Chi Quan squatted under the ginkgo tree, unloading the farm tools one by one from the oxcart and arranging them neatly. His hands touched many hands reaching out to take the tools. Rough, delicate, large, small, scarred, unscarred, warm, cold. Every hand was different. But one thing was the same—every hand took the tools with both hands.
No one caught it with one hand.
Whether it's a hoe, sickle, shovel, or rake, whether it's an old person, a woman, or a child, whether it's someone laughing or...
Crying, expressionless—everyone caught it with both hands. As if catching something very heavy, or very precious, or something that shouldn't be dirtied.
Chi Quan squatted there, handed over the last shovel, and didn't stand up.
Ya walked over and squatted down next to him.
"Tired?"
"no."
"Your hand hurts?"
"no."
"Then why are you squatting there instead of getting up?"
Chi Quan glanced down at his left hand. The bandage had come undone, and a loose thread, covered in dust, dangled from his sleeve. He wrapped the thread around twice with his right hand and tucked it back into his sleeve.
"Who's farming the land of that guy with the broken leg?" Chi Quan asked.
Ya paused for a moment.
"have no idea."
Chi Quan stood up, patted the dirt off his knees, and walked towards the alley the little boy had run back into.
Tooth called after him, "Where are you going?"
"have a look."
Follow with your teeth.
The alley wasn't deep; it was the third house. The door was open, and an oil lamp was lit inside, its light spilling out and drawing a crooked yellow square on the ground. Chi Quan walked to the door and knocked on the doorframe.
"Please come in." The voice inside wasn't loud, carrying a tone of suppressed pain and feigned ease.
Chi Quan bent down and went inside.
The room was small, with the stove, table, and bed all crammed into one space. A man in his early thirties lay on the bed; his left leg was missing below the knee, bandaged at the stump, the bandage stained with dried blood. A little boy sat beside the bed, still holding the sickle, gesturing something to the man on the bed.
The man was stunned when he saw Chi Quan, then tried to sit up by supporting himself on the edge of the bed.
Chi Quan pressed his hand down, signaling him not to move.
"I am Chi Quan."
"I know." The man's voice wasn't loud, but it was steady. "My son just called out."
Ikezumi sat down on the bench by the table. Kiba stood in the doorway, not coming in. Akamaru squeezed in from beside Kiba's legs, crouched under the table, rested his chin on the ground, and half-closed his eyes.
"Your legs," Chi Quan said.
"It didn't survive." The man looked down at the severed part of his left leg. "When the people of the Land of Lightning burned down the village, a roof beam fell and hit me. I lay in the mud for two days before someone found me, and by the time I got to the medical station, it was already black."
Chi Quan remained silent for a while.
Who will farm the land?
The man smiled. It wasn't a bitter smile, but a smile that came from understanding, carrying a certain composure.
"Nobody wants to plant them. My wife died last year, and my parents are gone too. It's just him and me." He glanced at his son beside the bed. "He's five years old; he can't plant them."
Chi Quan nodded and stood up.
"I'll leave the farm tools at your door. There are small sickles and small hoes too. Once your leg is healed and you can use crutches, you can still plant what you can in the fields. The rest of the land will be planted for you by the whole village. I'll go and talk to them."
The man froze.
"you"
Chi Quan had already reached the door. He bent down and brought the farm tools inside, leaning them against the wall by the door. A small sickle, a small hoe, and a small rake—the three items were neatly placed against the wall.
The little boy ran over, squatted down in front of the three farm tools, and touched the wooden handle of the hoe with his little hand.
"Father, is this ours?"
The man's eyes reddened. He turned his head, looking out at the darkness. There was nothing outside, only the wind, and the shadow of the ginkgo tree at the village entrance swaying in the wind. He looked for a long time, holding back his tears, then turned back to look at the pond.
"Thanks."
Chi Quan stood at the doorway, half his body inside and half outside. The shadow of the door frame fell on his face, dividing it into light and shadow.
"Need not."
he's gone.
Ya followed behind, took a few steps, and glanced back. The little boy stood in the doorway, holding a small sickle in one hand and a small hoe in the other, raising them above his head and waving them in their direction. Ya gave him a thumbs up, the little boy smiled, and turned to run back into the house.
By the time all the farm tools in Shangtong Village had been distributed, it was already completely dark. A few oil lamps were lit under the ginkgo tree, their wicks flickering in the wind, illuminating the farm tools stacked under the tree, making them look like a flock of silent birds with iron-gray feathers crouching on the ground.
Chi Quan stood beside the ginkgo tree, leaning against the trunk, looking at the farm tools.
The old man came over carrying a pot of hot tea, poured a bowl, and handed it to Chi Quan.
"drink."
Chi Quan took the tea and took a sip. It was coarse tea, brewed very strong, and it was so bitter that he frowned.
"Bitter, isn't it?" The old man chuckled. "I've been drinking it my whole life. I'm used to the bitterness, so I don't find it bitter anymore. Other drinks just don't taste like anything else."
Chi Quan took another sip. It was still bitter.
The old man leaned against the other side of the ginkgo tree and hung the oil lamp on the branch, making the light cover a wider area, enveloping both of them.
"Chiquan."
"Um.
"
"How many people has that knife killed?"
Ya suddenly looked up from the side.
Chi Quan held his teacup, looking at the dark brown tea inside.
"a lot of."
"Are you scared?" the old man asked.
Chi Quan thought for a while.
"I'm not afraid."
"Why aren't you afraid?"
Chi Quan placed the teacup on his lap and watched the tea leaves slowly sink to the bottom of the soup.
"If you're scared, your hand will shake when you strike next time. And if your hand shakes, you'll kill even more people."
The old man remained silent for a long time.
"You're not lying."
"
Why would I lie to you?
"Some people will lie. They'll say I've never killed anyone, or that I only killed bad people. But you're different; you just say a lot, that you're not afraid." The old man took a pipe from his cotton-padded coat pocket, pinched a pinch of tobacco into the pipe, lit it, and took a drag. The smoke spread in the lamplight, grayish-white, thin, like the morning mist of autumn.
"You're not afraid, but you're not feeling well." The old man exhaled a puff of smoke, watching it being torn apart and blown away in the cold wind.
Chi Quan remained silent.
"Whether you feel good or not is a different matter from whether you're afraid or not," the old man said. "When I was young, I killed a bear. That bear ate three of my sheep, and I waited for three days before killing it. I'm not afraid of bears, but after killing it, I couldn't sleep well for several days. I kept feeling like the bear's eyes were still watching me. I wasn't afraid, but it didn't feel good."
Chi Quan looked at the tea in the teacup.
"More or less," he said.
The old man tapped his pipe against the tree trunk, and the ashes fell to the ground and were scattered by the wind.
"That's good. It's not your fault. The fact that you're feeling bad means there's something on your mind. People without anything on their minds don't feel bad."
Chi Quan finished the remaining tea in the teacup in one gulp, stood up, and returned the bowl to the old man.
"Thank you for the tea."
"Next time you come, I'll treat you to something that's not bitter." The old man took the bowl and smiled. "My grandson wrote to me saying I shouldn't drink something so bitter, it's bad for my stomach. I told him I've been drinking it for sixty years, my stomach isn't afraid of bitterness anymore. He didn't believe me."
Chi Quan's lips twitched slightly.
"Your grandson is right."
The old man paused for a moment, then burst into laughter. The laughter echoed from under the ginkgo tree at the village entrance, reaching the alleyways, the houses, and behind the lit windows. Some people inside laughed too, though it was unclear what they were laughing at, but they joined in.
Kiba led the oxcart over, and Akamaru squatted on the ox's back, his nose pointing north.
"Should we go north or east to the next village?" Ya asked.
Chi Quan took out the map of the Western Regions he had drawn himself from his pocket, unfolded it, and looked at it for a while under the lamplight of the ginkgo tree. Many villages were marked on the map; some were circled, some crossed out, and some had numbers written on them. Next to Shimohira Village and Kamishira Village, he drew two small checkmarks.
"Eastward. Iwami Village. Fifteen li."
"Fifteen li? By the time we get there, it will be dawn." Ya frowned.
"The oxcart can't go that fast. Let's go until midnight, find a place to rest, and then head to the village at dawn."
Ya glanced at Chi Quan's expression but said nothing more. He climbed onto the oxcart and wrapped the reins around his hand twice. Akamaru jumped off the ox's back, snuggled into Ya's arms, and curled up into a ball.
Chi Quan walked beside the oxcart, his right hand in his coat pocket, his fingers touching the cloth bag the old woman had given him. There were two rice balls inside, cold and hard as rocks. He didn't take them out.
The road was difficult to travel at night. The dirt road was frozen solid, full of potholes, and the oxcart bounced violently as it traveled on it. The farm tools on the cart were tied with straw ropes, but they still made a clanging sound that carried far in the quiet night. Occasionally, a tree would stand by the roadside, bare, like a black nail driven into the gray sky.
Ya yawned.
"Chiquan."
"Um."
Are you still sending it tomorrow?
"hair."
"And the day after tomorrow?"
"Dispatch. Dispatch all forty-three villages in the western border."
Ya remained silent for a moment.
"Your injury hasn't healed yet."
Chi Quan did not answer.
"Your left hand stitches haven't been removed yet."
"Can be grasped."
"The scar on the web of your right hand..."
"It doesn't hurt."
The teeth stopped talking.
Akamaru lifted its head from Kiba's arms and looked at Ikezumi. Its eyes glowed with a faint green light in the night, like two small, warm lanterns. It looked at Ikezumi for a while, then jumped down from Kiba's arms, ran to Ikezumi's feet, and rubbed its body against his calves.
Chi Quan looked down at it.
Aren't you cold?
Akamaru called out softly, his voice light and delicate, like a kitten.
Chi Quan bent down, scooped up Akamaru, and placed him inside his coat. Akamaru poked his head out from the collar, resting his chin on Chi Quan's collarbone, his eyes half-closed. His body heat seeped through the coat to Chi Quan's chest, a small, warm warmth, like holding a breathing hot water bottle in his arms.
Ya watched from the oxcart without saying a word.
The night wind blew from the north, whistling through the bare woods like a distant horn. The clouds in the sky were blown away by the wind, revealing most of the moon. The moonlight shone on the frozen dirt road, making it gleam with a pale blue light, like a frozen river.
The oxcart moved slowly, its wheels crunching over the frozen ground. Chi Quan walked beside the cart, a section of the bandage on his left hand peeking out from his sleeve, gleaming white in the moonlight. His right hand was in his coat pocket, his fingers touching the two cold rice balls.
He didn't know how many more villages he could help.
I don't know when the stitches on my left hand will be removed. I don't know when the scar on the web of my right hand will fade. The self-inflicted cut on my thigh still hurts occasionally when I walk, making me limp, but it's not very noticeable. The wound on my abdomen has stopped bleeding, but sometimes when I cough, it still feels like something is pulling inside.
But he has no intention of stopping.
It wasn't because he didn't want to stop. It was because someone had waited for him all day, holding an oil lamp at the village entrance, in the cold wind, after dark. It wasn't because those people were anyone to him, not because he owed them anything, but because the farm tools in their hands were made from the melted-down knives of 300,000 people. If those knives hadn't been melted down, they might still be killing people right now.
He turned the knife into a tool.
He wanted the tools to touch the soil.
Soil doesn't kill. Soil grows crops, and crops nourish people. If people are well-fed, they won't go to war. This logic is clumsy, long, and involves many steps; it might not be correct. But he wanted to try it.
Under the moonlight, the oxcart moved slowly forward. The lights of Kamiya Village grew farther and farther away behind, dimmer and dimmer, until they were finally obscured by a bend in the road and disappeared from sight. Iwami Village was still ahead, fifteen li away; if we walked quickly, we could reach it in the middle of the night.
Chi Quan lifted Akamaru up a little higher, and Akamaru grumbled, turned his head to another side, and continued to sleep.
Teeth poked their heads out from the oxcart.
"Chiquan."
"Um.
""
"You take a nap. I'll watch the road."
Chi Quan thought for a moment.
"Call me if you're sleepy."
"I'm not sleepy," Ya said. "I just yawned, but I'm not sleepy. Really."
Chi Quan didn't expose him.
He leaned against the oxcart's sideboard, closed his eyes, and began to rest.
The next day.
A frost had fallen in the morning, covering the withered grass on the field ridges with a layer of white, which crunched underfoot. Chi Quan squatted by the old well at the village entrance, washing his face with cold water. His left hand was still bandaged, and he used his right hand to splash water on his face; the water was bone-chillingly cold. Ya was cooking porridge over a fire nearby, and Chi Wan squatted by the fire, his nose pointing southeast, his ears twitching as if listening to some very distant sound.
Before the porridge was even cooked, a young man wearing a dark guard vest ran out of the woods to the east. He moved quickly but lightly, his footsteps barely making a sound on the frosty ground. He reached Chi Quan, knelt on one knee, and handed him a letter sealed with sealing wax.