Mobei-Jun, the tiny lift of his brow hiding that extremely covert hint of pleasure, dragged Shang Qinghua away and broke into a run.
Shang Qinghua thereupon began to wail. “Ow, fuck—that hurts, that hurts, that hurts! My king—you—take a look at me! Look at me, look at me!”
Mobei-Jun indeed looked at him, then looked at his bloody leg. After a moment of silence, he tried to carry Shang Qinghua on his shoulder.
Shang Qinghua howled like he was dying. “My king, spare me! My king, spare me! If you carry me like this the whole way, this leg of mine really will be ruined!”
“Then what should I do?” Mobei-Jun asked.
“What about…find me a doctor first?” Shang Qinghua suggested, eyes filled with tears.
With a click of the tongue, Mobei-Jun turned and left.
A gust of cold wind blew by the abandoned Shang Qinghua, dumbstruck like a wooden chicken. Had…Mobei-Jun decided he was too much trouble?
After some time, Mobei-Jun returned, and he was dragging a handcart stolen from who knew where. The wooden chicken finally became a living chicken.
The oh so mighty second-in-command of the demon race, noble and aloof chief of the icy Mobei clan, lowering his dignified self to drag a broken-down handcart that completely clashed with his image. This scene was…amazing!
With a chuckle, Shang Qinghua broke down again.
At the sight of the blue veins faintly popping on Mobei-Jun’s forehead, he hurriedly knitted his brows and started crying out in pain. After he called to him a few times, Mobei-Jun scooped him up and settled him on top of the cart.
Though he was sitting on a crooked and broken-down handcart, stolen off the old horse in some farming family’s courtyard—a cart that was probably only used to carry things like fodder, firewood, and slop buckets—Shang Qinghua still puffed up in self-satisfaction as he emanated a majestic aura. Those not in the know might even have thought he was a scholar who, after ten years of strenuous study, had achieved the status of Zhuangyuan, First in the Imperial Examinations, and been bequeathed a marriage match from the emperor himself, and that he was now out with a procession of drums and gongs to receive his bride.
This really was the karmic cycle. The first time he had seen Mobei-Jun, he had used a handcart just like this to ferry the unconscious demon to rent a room!
For proof, a poem: Thirty years the river flows east, / Thirty years the river flows west. / Back and forth the handcart goes, / Next year, it’s my turn. Ha ha!9
Filled with a breezy, immortal air, Shang Qinghua declared, “I want to eat noodles.”
That bowl of noodles from Bing-ge really had been delicious, but it hadn’t been enough. Bing-ge hadn’t saved more than a couple strands for him, so it hadn’t satisfied.
“Mm,” said Mobei-Jun.
“Pulled noodles,” said Shang Qinghua.
“Okay.”
Having won an inch, Shang Qinghua asked for a mile. “You make them.”
The handcart abruptly halted, and Mobei-Jun stopped in place.
A faint cold of unknown origin drifted over. Shang Qinghua was instantly terrified, and he contorted his face into a subservient expression. “I’ll make them, I’ll make them—of course I’ll make them. I was just joking, eh heh heh.”
Alas. Fantasy was so abundant, but reality was so wanting.
After a while, the handcart wheels slowly began to turn again. Mobei-Jun, in front, said without turning back, “I’ll make them.”
Silence.
What had he said? He said he’d make them? Who was this? Mobei-Jun. And he was going to do what? Make pulled noodles.
This Mobei-Jun, who was willing to let Shang Qinghua hit back and willing to make him noodles. Had the stars aligned? He was striking it rich today!
Shang Qinghua made a decision. He was going to take up his old profession again. The pen name Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky was going to rush boldly back into the fray!
But what should he write? Shang Qinghua slapped his thigh. As he’d heard it, Sleeping Willow Flower’s eighty-one-percent discounted Regret of Chunshan was selling like hotcakes. Hm, then he’d just go with the flow and write! Though he himself was upright without compare, where there were readers, there was a market. And if there was a market, he dared to write. Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky was the best at going with the flow; he’d just write whatever was popular. You couldn’t go wrong with that!
The first step would be to figure out a good title that would be well-received by the masses, such as Secret Annals of Qing Jing Peak, or My Disciple Can’t Be This Cute, or How Lovely, My Shizun—or something like that. He’d have to mull it over. His prose wasn’t as good as Sleeping Willow Flower’s, but that was all right; Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky had never sold because of his writing style.
On top of that, Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky didn’t like how Sleeping Willow Flower, the Three Holy Mothers, and the rest kept such a tight focus. They wrote all kinds of stories, but in the end they were only ever about Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe; their scope was way too narrow. In fact, as he saw it, it was entirely possible to be more daring and unbridled. For example, if you were calling it Regret of Chunshan, why limit yourself to one couple? With a beauty like Liu Qingge on hand, wasn’t it just a pity not to write him? Yue Qingyuan was also a beautiful fellow of noble bearing, accomplished in business and perfect spouse material. As for Mu-shidi and Wei-shixiong, both were basically idols in the eyes of this world: if you wrote a free-for-all sex scene and threw them into an orgy, you wouldn’t have to worry that no one would read it.
In short, as long as he was sufficiently explicit, depraved, and shameless, sooner or later he’d once again become a hegemon of this land’s literati. He wouldn’t even need to sell homemade soap to become a prosperous and dazzling entrepreneur!
Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky propped up his legs, the handcart creaking and swaying along on the bumpy mountain road. The evening sun descended in the west, and Mobei-Jun pulled him along, going in who knew what direction.
This story was riddled with landmines, a whole chaotic mess with grade school-level writing, and maybe the more serious readers would throw it down with a curse of “What dogshit is this?” But “Great Master” Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky was used to making excuses for his own fraudulent behavior. He could throw out a thousand “it’s justs” to smooth things over. For example:
It’s just reading a novel, it’s like living your life. Just have a good time—why take it so seriously?
It’s just a silly novel the author wrote for fun. Don’t set your expectations too high, everyone, and please bear with me!
It’s just a brainless satisfying read. Wake up—what did you expect to read?!
It’s just…
It’s just.
…It was just that he really, very much liked this story he’d written.