A Leisurely and Extravagant Life - Chapter 8
Chapter 8: The Dance of the Spirits
A bone or tendon injury takes a hundred days to heal. The late rice harvest hadn’t even started yet, and now the main laborer was injured. For the Luo family, it was truly misfortune piling upon misfortune.
Luo Baolin’s leg was bound with wooden splints. Every step sent stabbing pain through him. Forget about harvesting rice, even doing household chores at home was difficult.
Xiao Chunxiu was terribly worried. “What are we going to do? Tianwang may be doing a little better now, but he still falls asleep from time to time. And now you’re hurt too. With just me working, when will we ever finish harvesting all the rice?”
“Didn’t Guangfu and the others say that when the time comes, everyone will come and help?” Luo Baolin sighed.
“But the weather is good right now. If we don’t take advantage of it to cut and dry the rice, once it changes, the harvest will mold.” Xiao Chunxiu said anxiously.
“What else can I do? You think I want to be injured?” Luo Baolin snapped in frustration.
“I didn’t say that,” Xiao Chunxiu quickly lowered her voice when she saw her husband’s temper flare.
Luo Baolin snorted. “Didn’t say it? You think I’m a pig that can’t hear what’s implied?”
All this time, Luo Tianwang had been silent. Now he spoke up: “Grandma, I’ll help you harvest the rice.”
“If only you really could. Even if we cut it down, who’s going to carry the thresher? Who’s going to haul the sheaves back home?” Xiao Chunxiu shook her head.
“We could just tie up the rice stalks and have the ox carry them back in bundles,” Tianwang suggested.
“Have the ox carry them? That beast isn’t so obedient,” she said doubtfully.
“Whether it works or not, we won’t know until we try,” Tianwang replied.
“…Fine. We’ll give it a try,” Xiao Chunxiu said at last. She had no better plan—only the desperate hope that a dead horse might be treated like a living one.
The late rice fields were dry enough to walk in with shoes. Even so, for someone Tianwang’s age, swinging a sickle to cut rice was exhausting work.
The two of them, grandmother and grandson, worked slowly. After half a day’s effort, they finally managed to cut down just over half a mu of rice.
[TL: One “mu” (or “mou”) of land is a Chinese unit of area that varies by location, but in mainland China, it is officially standardized as approximately 666.67 square meters. It is equivalent to about 0.067 hectares or 1/15 of a hectare]
The ox had already been tethered nearby, grazing on the slope grass at the field’s edge.
“Old Yellow, come here,” Tianwang waved.
Xiao Chunxiu had been ready to laugh at her grandson’s naivety. Since when did oxen obey like dogs? But before the words left her mouth, she saw in surprise that the ox lifted its head, then trotted over toward Tianwang, bobbing its head as it ran.
It reached his side, rubbed its head against his hand, and even licked him with its big tongue. Tianwang patted the animal’s head. “We need your help. Carry these sheaves back home for us.”
Together, Tianwang and his grandmother tied the rice into bundles, two at a time, and slung them across the ox’s back. Tianwang patted its head again and led it home.
At the courtyard, Luo Baolin hobbled out on a crutch fashioned from a tree branch to help unload. Working together, they removed the rice from the ox’s back.
The ox was astonishingly clever—it even crouched down, making it easier for them to unload. When finished, it stood up again, shook its body, and calmly walked back toward the fields on its own.
“This ox has spirit!” Luo Baolin exclaimed.
News of the ox carrying rice spread quickly through Hemawan. After finishing their own work, villagers came to watch Tianwang and his grandmother load bundles onto its back. The ox then marched home all by itself.
Soon, Tianwang and his grandmother hardly had to lift a hand—curious villagers eagerly took over the loading and unloading just to witness the marvel.
Luo Shengui, full of envy, asked, “Tianwang, how… how is your ox so obedient? H-how did you train it?”
“I didn’t train it. I just asked it to carry the rice, and it did,” Tianwang answered.
Inspired, Luo Shengui went back and tried the same with his big water buffalo. He told it, “You—you carry these for me too.” Then he tried to hoist two bundles onto its back.
The buffalo promptly kicked out with its hind leg, nearly robbing Luo Shengui of his future descendants. He tumbled to the ground, rolling several times, his thigh left badly bruised. Luckily no bones were broken.
Even years later, after Luo Shengui married and had children, the villagers still remembered that incident. The whole village came to the conclusion: only Luo Tianwang’s ox could behave in such a miraculous way.
They said the ox had “fallen into Meishan.”
In Hemawan, this phrase meant an animal had gained spiritual connection.
Naturally, people soon connected this to Tianwang’s strange illness and long bouts of sleep. Gradually, when the villagers looked at him, there was a hint of awe in their eyes.
As for what “Meishan” was, Tianwang himself had no idea. He’d only heard that Luo Zengcai in the village had also “fallen into Meishan.”
That day when Luo Zengcai applied salve to Luo Baolin’s injury, he had muttered some mysterious incantation. Tianwang hadn’t caught the words clearly, but he noticed something unusual—the floating points of light in the air had grown more active as Zengcai chanted, as if his words had stirred them.
Tianwang had wanted to ask what he was saying, but as soon as he opened his mouth, Luo Baolin shot him a glare. Tianwang dared not speak further. And even if he asked, Zengcai might not tell him anyway.
As he watched the villagers cheerfully carry bundles in the fields and the ox trotting back and forth, Tianwang’s eyelids grew heavy. He returned home, kicked off his shoes, lay down fully clothed, and fell asleep.
In his dream, he once again heard Luo Zengcai’s voice—the very chant he had sung when applying the salve to his grandfather:
‘We call upon the ancestral masters,
Open your eyes to the blue sky,
Master stands at my side,
Open your eyes to the heavens,
Master is before me…
Seal, seal, seal…
By decree of the Great Supreme Lord!’
As the chant rang out, the countless specks of light began to dance. Those already inside Tianwang’s body leapt in rhythm to the song, and suddenly, a single drop of emerald-green liquid appeared in that mysterious inner space.
Tianwang recalled the strange character formed of green light. Using the rhythm of the dance, he guided the drop with his will, slowly shaping it into that character.
This time, the usually unruly light responded easily. A stable glyph appeared in the hidden space.