Chapter Text
Xue Yang is greatly amused watching how Little Blind has been steadfastly pretending that everything is fine for several days. Winters in this area are very unfriendly ー it's very easy to catch a cold and easier still to depart to the next world if it's left untreated. Xue Yang has a passing interest in when the girl will finally stop rushing out into the streets with every bout of choking cough, which so far is only serving to further aggravate her illness. These days, she's quiet almost to the point of muteness, if only so no one will hear her hoarse voice. He's thankful for that — finally some damn peace and quiet around here.
A-Qing knows well that Xue Yang doesn't give one whit about her illness, but if it worsens, Xiao Xingchen will start to worry. It's surprising: she is jealous of her adored Daozhang’s “annoying bastard,” and yet she still doesn’t want to cause him any burden! Although it is a convenient way to soak up all of his attention — getting sick for a long time isn't so bad when she can receive the sincere care that comes from it. And he would give her everything he has, there's no doubt about that.
Xue Yang doesn't understand either of their motives. He, himself, would certainly take advantage of the situation, and in no case would bother with a useless cripple. Therefore, he only watches and waits for the truth to come out. Either Little Blind will confess, or he'll later be mourning theatrically, sadly lamenting and patting the shoulder of poor, suffering Xiao Xingchen. If only he'd looked after her better, he would not have missed the girl's obvious illness! Look better — good one, hah.
Anyway, he has to admit that, at first, she was hiding it like a true master, until all her running around became suspicious to the point he got curious enough to follow her and find out the reasons. With enough diligence, she can fool people flawlessly, no worse than Xue Yang, and that's an achievement deserving of respect.
Little Blind's pretense is revealed in the middle of the night, when a choking wheeze comes from her coffin. Xue Yang doesn't even move, hearing quick footsteps towards the source of the noise. It's none of his business, and in general, he can easily pretend that the shabby piece of fabric acting as a makeshift door to his room perfectly muffles these heartbreaking sounds. What he can’t ignore is the presence of Daozhang’s palm on his shoulder, gently wheedling him to get up and "go see". Well, true enough, Xiao Xingchen himself can only detect the presence of a fever.
“Of course, I’m no expert…” Xue Yang drawls, holding a bowl with a lit candle over the Blind Girl. “But things are bad,” he says, trying very hard to squeeze a little sympathy into his voice. Clearly it was unconvincing because A-Qing's perspiring face twists in disgust.
A blue glow is added to the orange flame. The compassionate Xiao Xingchen tries to alleviate the girl's condition in the only way available to him — by transferring Qi. Xue Yang isn't sure if that even works on non-cultivators.
“We need to take her to a real doctor.” Daozhang grimaces when he hears a cough that sounds more like a mutt’s bark.
Xue Yang rolls his eyes dramatically, glad that no one can see him anyway. Real doctor? So why’d they bother him then, for moral support?
“If we ask for help now, we'll only get a boot in the ass,” he reasons logically. “We’ll need to wait until dawn.”
It will be a long wait, but Xue Yang doesn't need to tell him that. Xiao Xingchen understands it very well himself, although he can't help but feel discouraged. Though he may be welcome in the city, no one will be happy to see him on their doorstep in the middle of the night. Now, the right thing to do would be to look after the lousy girl, or rather, to keep Daozhang company, who’d selflessly decided to sit with her until morning... But Xue Yang doesn’t consider himself a good person in the slightest, and so he sighs with relief when Xiao Xingchen waves his hand, allowing him to go back to sleep. This way, at least, he doesn't have to pretend that he has any interest in the life of Little Blind.
***
The diagnoses of a real (and extremely ancient) doctor are not very comforting. If the venerable young masters want A-Qing to be hale and hearty once again, they will have to at least fork out the coin for medicines. Xue Yang does not want to, but no one asks him for his opinion, so he's forced to bid goodbye to their miserable savings. However, the old man's second piece of advice is much more promising: the girl should not stay in their dilapidated funeral home. While the roof there is no longer leaking, the walls do not retain heat very well, and a poorly restored hearth smokes more than it warms. This means that Little Blind needs other accommodations, at least for the duration of her recovery. The doctor will allow the sick girl to stay until the evening, but after that she'll be kicked back out onto the streets. He's not running a temple here.
“I’ll try to find someone to hand her over to,” Xue Yang vows. Of course, he doesn't actually care about her, but there are some benefits to this. Firstly, the search for the naive fool who will shelter the sick girl will at least be amusing, and secondly, if successful, this will save him from having to deal with his personal pain in the ass, at least for a little while.
He’s refused Xiao Xingchen's help, even though his honest and handsome face would’ve been useful in conversations with others, since it's better to let him entertain the little one and listen to her hoarse excuses. Daozhang perceives this as the greatest sacrifice he could possibly make and hands Xue Yang a shabby piece of woolen cloth, traded for something else at the beginning of winter. After all, if he's going to be roaming the streets all day, he needs to dress warmly. What attentiveness, it's disgusting! At least, that's how Xue Yang defines the strange tug somewhere inside his heart. Although considering that this is the rag they dragged the obviously contagious Little Blind around in, this offering’s a double-edged sword at best.
Already on the street, catching a gust of frosty wind, Xue Yang laps up the attention. Especially when he unfolds the fabric to throw it over his shoulders and sees a paper-wrapped candy fall into the snow. With a furtive glance around, as if he might be caught doing something inappropriate (as though that's something he's ever cared about), he picks it up. His mood’s immediately lifted, but he still thinks the candy could be sweeter.
***
As expected, none of the locals want to keep a coughing hotbed of ailment for several days even for money (which has already run dry). Xue Yang himself, of course, still has some on hand, but he'll be damned if he gives it away for this. In a haze of unhappy thoughts and refusals, half a day passes. He uses all of his eloquence, trying his best to convince the citizens that they've always dreamed of adopting a sassy little blind girl — but all for naught! Xue Yang is already considering whether to arrange a small invasion of the risen dead to demand shelter for Little Blind as a reward for ridding the town of his self-caused calamity, but he'll save that as a last resort.
His gaze falls on a once bright signboard, powdered with snow. Of course, what city, even such a provincial one, is without a whorehouse? Every person wants to have a good time... Although, the good times to be had here are dubious: a mere two shabby-looking “girls,” comely only after a very generous helping of wine, work in this brothel. But, in the absence of choice, the ugly duckling becomes the swan. An idea sprouts in Xue Yang’s head. Pretty gross, but why not?
The owner of the whorehouse, Mistress Shuxian, turns out to be a person of indeterminate age and gender. Her appearance is very similar to that of Xue Yang's old friend, Jin Guangyao, with the addition of a few dozen years and a copious amount of cosmetics. Most likely, the reason for this connection is an unexpectedly expensive dress with peacocks embroidered along the hem. If she paints a cinnabar dot on her forehead and wears a stupid hat on her head, she could replace Master Jin at receptions! The woman is definitely not enthusiastic about the idea of her guest. Indeed, why should she take a common tramp into her establishment for the whole winter?
“She’ll work off her debt as soon as she recovers,” Xue Yang assures the hostess, breaking into laughter upon imagining the faces of Xiao Xingchen and Little Blind if they heard this conversation. “She's prettier than your 'girls', I must say,” he adds, and he's not even lying for once. If that petty bitch is washed and combed, a lovely maiden will blossom from the mud. Even as a dirty pauper, the local men often stare at her.
“Nonsense!” the woman is instantly offended. “Even so, she's blind. What can she do? Oh, and I saw your little beauty ー her white eyes are terrifying to look at,” she twitches from the memories.
“You don't need eyes to fuck. Just put a bag over her head, problem solved,” Xue Yang expertly counters. He's made his decision to leave Little Blind here and won't back out of it, brazenly flopping down at the guest table. On an embroidered tablecloth lies a greasy little book with a very obscene cover. Apparently, it's entertainment for the minority of the literate population. Or does mistress Shuxian read charming stories aloud while the patrons languish in anticipation of their turn?
“However…” Shuxian suddenly softens, as if she had a sudden insight. “I can take the girl for seven days in exchange for one favor.”
“What is it?” Xue Yang is quite intrigued. What could a hag like this need?
“Serve me,” she smiles oily, and there is no doubt about what exactly she means.
“Well…” Xue Yang tilts his head, looking at the woman, languidly fanning herself with a fan, considering if he really wants to make such sacrifices for the sake of his goal. Given the similarity of the old whore with Yao, he can fall into the memories of a bygone youth and try... Besides, in the dark, all the girls are the same, and he's not had anyone for a long time, to be completely honest. While living together with the holy Daozhang, somehow he’s not been up for it. Why not combine business with pleasure? “Okay,” he shrugs. "Just make it quick, I don't have a lot of time.”
Shuxian bursts into hysterical laughter.
“No, no, not you,” she smacks her palm on the table, trying to calm herself.
“Who then?” Xue Yang frowns.
“That stately looker in white robes, with whom you often wander the city,” the woman willingly explains, having finally stopped laughing. “I can’t look at most of the men in this hole without crying, but him…” she sighs dreamily. “He can come and bring the girl with him, then I'll host her at my place.”
“But he's blind!” is the only thing Xue Yang can say. He’s left floundering for a rebuttal for almost for the first time in his life.
“And who just told me that you don't need eyes to fuck?” Shuxian retorts.
“And don’t forget the head bag,” Xue Yang mutters, involuntarily imagining this picture. However, this woman sure has great taste! Even with his blindfold on, Daozhang looks… exquisite. Xue Yang can appreciate that, if he puts aside his personal animosity.
“So?” she squints. “Deal?”
“He’ll never agree,” Xue Yang snaps, and this is a shameless lie.
Xiao Xingchen will definitely agree, there is no doubt about that. For the sake of others, he’ll walk through fire and brimstone, and that's especially true for this annoying A-Qing. He'd do it even for him, a dubious stranger who still hasn't given him a name, despite the fact that they've been sharing the same house for nearly two years. Dirtying himself on an old whore, just to help others. At this thought, the taste of bile fills his mouth, a taste so disgusting not even sweets will help.
Not a chance — it’s him, Xue Yang, who has been carefully staining the vomit-inducing holiness and purity of Daozhang for almost two years now. Of course, not in the sense the owner of the brothel wanted, but nevertheless, this is exclusively his duty and obligation. He won't let others interfere.
“That's my final offer,” the woman says in a bored tone, rising from her seat. Closing the fan with a click, she points to the exit. “Now get out, it’s time to wake my girls.”
She walks away, swaying her hips, and Xue Yang wants to spit after her since he can't open her throat with Jiangzai. He does not consider it necessary to restrain himself, and so, in parting, the scabrous little book from the table finds its way to his bosom as a payment for moral damage. It’s not clear why he needs it because he definitely won’t get any radically new information from its contents, but he’d had to do something to calm this unexpected fit of rage, the real motives for which he doesn't want to think about.
***
Fortune smiles on Xue Yang when the idea that a fierce corpse created out of Shuxian becomes unbearably tempting. It warms him up along with the tasteless tea at the inn, where he stopped to take a short rest. He doesn't want to return empty-handed to Xiao Xingchen, who had probably already figured out how all of these problems could be wonderfully solved before the sun disappears on the horizon.
An elderly woman sits down at the table. She’d shuffled to her destination for such an unbearably long time that Xue Yang thought she might expire on the way. That's convenient ー she's practically a walking corpse already, but crafting his living corpses is still far more entertaining than adding another member to the undead. Without so much as a preamble, the old woman introduces herself as Lin Chuishen, the local herbalist who abhors the greedy healer because of market competition. Xue Yang doesn't interrupt, thinking to himself that he's had to deal with way too many women today.
“I heard you are looking for someone who can shelter a sick girl,” she finally comes to the topic of interest. “I can look after her and heal her at the same time, I’m better at decoctions than that hack doctor, and I don’t fuss with exorbitant prices.”
“And in exchange?“ Xue Yang doesn’t flatter himself about people’s sincerity, he’s not a naive Daozhang who tries to see the good in everyone. “See good,” nice, he'll have to remember that one.
“Money for medicines. Work for housing a girl,” Chuishen replies without hesitation, adopting Xue Yang's business tone.
“Which is?” he asks with apprehension, trying to calculate the chances that this terrible charmer is also eager to get a blind сultivator into her arms.
“I hurt my back, and this rotten stump doesn’t want to put needles in me,” the old woman complains and glares suspiciously at Xue Yang, who’d secretly chuckled. “And now I can’t get further than the market. I barely crawled here, when I heard from a neighbor...” she stops to take a breath. “If someone can roam the fields and forests instead of me, I’ll take the girl. It’s not a burden for me, anyway, my deceased son’s room has long been empty.”
Xue Yang is silent. He perfectly understands that he’ll have to crawl and dig roots out from underneath the snow because a blind Xiao Xingchen cannot do this. He, of course, will try, and then he'll have to be dug out along with the roots. Shuanghua is built to seek out dark forces, not comb through withered grass. This perspective doesn’t please Xue Yang at all: he’d hoped to simply cast off an almost dead weight into someone else's hands at minimal cost, preferably for his beautiful eyes*... And as a result, one woman wants Daozhang, who has no eyes at all, and the second one wants Xue Yang to run himself into the ground working for her. Both options are, frankly, shit. And when will he be able to get back to his own business?
On the other hand, if Xue Yang makes these concessions now, Xiao Xingchen will be overcome with joy and later go to the end of the world with only the crook of a finger to beckon him… The image of a gullible blind cultivator following him into the abyss does bring a smile to his lips.
“Where do I need to go?” Xue Yang asks.