A Settled Place in Life

Xu Dashi stretched his arms and legs in satisfaction. "Your son shows you a little filial devotion and you still find fault with him? Count your blessings. This demon peach and ghost apricot really does live up to its name — I feel warm clear through." He smacked his lips thoughtfully, taking stock of his own body. "This thing — its medicine is gently warming and nourishing, truly fine. If I had a little more of it, I could compound something for Big Fatty with even better effect..." He began at once to ponder the medicinal properties. "Add ginseng whiskers, Solomon's seal... let me think, mix in..." Liu Taohua, seeing her husband sink into thought, felt a flicker of displeasure. "The child is a good child, filial and obedient. But can't you think about it a little? Him following them up the mountain — that's just too dangerous." Xu Dashi sighed under his breath. "That's true enough. What business does a clerk have going up the mountain?" The couple had spent their whole lives going round and round this one small corner of the world. Their greatest hope was a wife, children, and a warm kang — a safe, untroubled life. Yet now their son had gone up the mountain with the squad and brought back this treasured peach. While their hearts were gladdened by his devotion, the worry was terribly hard to hold down. "What if we talk to him afterward, tell him not to go anymore?" Liu Taohua asked carefully. "Once a young man has tasted the sweetness..." Xu Dashi heaved a deep sigh. "We were young once too. There's no holding them back." Liu Taohua sighed, thick with worry. "The peach is good, but it's not worth our son's safety. I'd sooner not eat it at all than have him go..." "Have you noticed, these past few days? That spirit in him, the light that's come into his eyes — like a little wolf cub. He feels he has something to strive for now. There's a wind in his stride." Xu Dashi went on: "He's learned to be dutiful, too. Tonight he came home after he'd already eaten, and just to spare your feelings he stuffed himself again anyway — did you notice? That's a good thing. He's grown sensible, he's woken up inside, he can see a road ahead of him. At a time like this, the two of us mustn't drag at his heels and put obstacles in his way." Liu Taohua pouted. "I'm just worried, that's all..." "The child is grown. A loving mother's heart is warm, but it mustn't bind a child's spirit." Xu Dashi said it quietly. Liu Taohua said nothing, only gave a soundless sigh. She felt torn and aching inside. Of course she hoped her son could soar high in the sky, battling wind and rain, winning and winning, standing far above the world; and yet she also hoped he could still be that little bundle she could gather into her arms, so she could pour her whole care over him. Xu Yao returned to his room feeling filled with strength from head to toe. That piece of peach had left him glowing warm, a comfort seeping out from deep in his innards. He could sense the change in his body plainly. "Good stuff. When the chance comes, I have to get a few more of these." Xu Yao remembered how, every time the squad went out on a mission, they drew lots the moment they reached the site — it was all for this little benefit. He walked out the front gate, hunkered down on the tree stump in the open ground before the door, let the mountain wind blow over him, and sank into thought. He began going over the day's actions, piece by piece. This was his habit every day — to think everything through once more. It had been his old dad's habit too: every time he came home after seeing a patient, he would squat on the tree stump outside the door and go over it all again, carefully, and only sleep once his mind was at ease. "One wrong step is regretted till your hair turns white; one wrong medicine is regretted down to the Nine Springs." Those were the words his grandfather was forever repeating, and the creed of his father Xu Dashi's whole life. Now they had become the point from which Xu Yao drove himself forward. And so he too had formed the habit of squatting on the stump at this hour every evening, thinking. Normally, right after supper it was his dad squatting here, and Xu Yao would squat off to the side. Tonight his dad hadn't come yet, so Xu Yao took natural possession of this spot that had once been his grandfather's territory, then his dad's. "The march to the cliff — along the way, no mistakes. But I could be more careful still. For instance, wrap some antidote and insect-repelling medicine in waterproof cloth. Even if it's smeared on the skin and washed away by the water, as long as a little gets into flesh and blood it can save a life. At the very least it buys time until treatment is possible." "From spotting the mountain demon all the way to cutting it down — no errors, no omissions. But I must remember the captain's words." "The matter of the white jade skeleton — no mistake. The clothing did indeed have an effect. But those sirs never asked my name. A little disappointing." Xu Yao thought it over seriously. He hadn't known the ranks of the men who came, hadn't known how to address them, and could only fall back on a general "sir." At the thought, a faint sense of loss rose in him. But he knew it himself: for men of that stature to ask after the name of someone who had merely draped a garment over white bones — such a thing was simply not realistic. They had paid out good silver for his clothes. He had already come out ahead a hundred times over. And the silver hadn't been handed to him directly, sparing him from drawing envy — that too had been thought through with great care. To wish for anything beyond that would be his own failure to know his place. "Most likely there'll be word by tomorrow." Having gone over the whole day, Xu Yao let out a breath of relief. He rose from the tree stump. Only when he turned his head did he discover that his dad, Xu Dashi, was standing to one side, watching him with smoldering eyes, as if jealous that his son had taken over his perch. "Uh." Xu Yao quickly climbed down off the stump, swept it clean with his sleeve, and said, "Please, squat." "Squat, my foot!" Xu Dashi snapped it out, glaring, thoroughly put out — and then, unable to help himself all the same, he stepped over, and there he was, squatting on the stump a chi high. Then, with practiced hands, he fished out his dry-tobacco pipe and set its stem between his teeth. Xu Yao remembered his mother saying that even the red-copper mouthpiece of that stem had been his grandfather's... A scrape of flint — a thread of blue smoke rose. Xu Dashi blew out a long, slow mouthful and felt his very soul elevated a whole notch. "Big Fatty. You've changed a lot lately. You've steadied." Xu Dashi said, musing: "Grown up." "Heh heh..." Rarely in his life had his father affirmed him; Xu Yao felt a small flutter of delight, the corners of his mouth jerking wide. He fought down the laugh and strained to keep his composure. "Nothing much." "What's it feel like?" Xu Dashi did his best to look breezy and unbothered, talking with his son in the manner of "how the older generation imagines young people speak." "Nothing much. It's just — I feel like I've found that chance at a settled place in life you were talking about." Xu Yao said it very earnestly, with a touch of pride as he spoke, eyes shining, chest lifted. Xu Dashi's pipe stem froze at his lips. He forgot to draw on it. His mind went suddenly blank. He wanted badly to say: that speech I gave you that day — I made it up on purpose because I could see you had no confidence. The plain truth is I've just been a kept man living off your mother... But he thought it over, and looking at his son's shining eyes, Xu Dashi did not say it. He pressed the worry down and glumly took another savage pull on the pipe. Thick smoke drifted up before his eyes, screening the tangled look on Physician Xu's face. "Mm. Good. Good." Xu Yao asked with the utmost solemnity: "Dad, you're always talking about a settled place in life. What does it take to count as one?" Physician Xu puffed out smoke, coughed, and said, "On that, your grandfather really did have words." "Mm?" A look of reminiscence flashed through Physician Xu's eyes, and he said softly: "Your grandfather said that every station in life has its own settled place. The lowest grade is for the likes of us, children of the poor: to have a skill of one's own, to feed one's parents, wife, and children, to pass through this world safe and sound from beginning to end — grain enough at home that hunger and cold hold no fear, a little spare money set by for emergencies. That is a settled place in life for poor folk like us." "The middle grade is to have power, standing, and money — to become a man above other men, respected wherever you go. That too is called a settled place in life." Physician Xu stopped there. Xu Yao pressed on: "And the highest grade?" "The highest grade... it's beyond the likes of us. But when I went out practicing medicine, I heard a storyteller speak of it once." "How did it go?" Physician Xu gave a soft sigh. "...The highest grade is this: in a single glance, the mortal world becomes heaven — a wide, level plain stretching out before you."