Chapter 20: The Chameleon’s First Change
“Plop, ha-plop.”
Yun Ce could tell that this woman’s way of speaking was a bit like the Min Nan dialect, or rather a variant of the dialect from some small place in that Min Nan area that had evolved over many years.
This was impossible to guess.
However, Yun Ce still accurately translated what the woman had just said, meaning—He Kou, Hekou Village.
This was not Yun Ce guessing randomly; it was written on the gate in the middle of the wooden fence—Hekou Village!
Yun Ce could not understand the elegant pronunciation passed down from the Han Dynasty, but he had practiced a good hand of brush calligraphy to become an official, including Han clerical script. This calligraphy is thick and heavy; when written well, it best calms people’s hearts. Therefore, he naturally recognized the large characters on the village gate.
People without his kind of bizarre experience could not understand the greatness of the First Emperor’s unification of writing.
However, this did not make sense either. Yun Linchuan said the Yellow Emperor rode a dragon to ascend to heaven. Could it be that after the Yellow Emperor came here, he reenacted history?
This was impossible. History is actually the expression of countless coincidences, formed by people into history, formed by events into history. Even if the Yellow Emperor rode a dragon and ascended, at most he would be like Yun Ce currently, and he could not possibly reenact and replicate the history of Earth again.
Not to mention anything else, just the evolution of fonts—the Yellow Emperor could not possibly directly evolve the primitive characters created by Cangjie into Han clerical script. Carrying a large bundle of tree bark, Yun Ce pondered for a moment and then felt relieved about the Han Dynasty-dressed people appearing before him.
1 China’s history is very long; billions of people once lived on that land, and many unknown events must have occurred in between.
1 Yun Ce was still being led by the woman. When they arrived at the village, he discovered guards at the gate, who were also women, not very old, probably around thirty, not very good-looking, but with good figures.
1 “Jili Gulu kacha…”
1 The woman said something to the two fairly young women.
1 Those two women abandoned their guard duties and crowded around Yun Ce to look at him. He did not know what was wrong with them; they all liked to pinch faces and chests. When Yun Ce dodged, they laughed so hard they could not straighten up.
1 After entering the village, Yun Ce understood why women guarded the gate: the men were all disabled—some missing one leg, some missing two legs, all kinds of injuries, and missing one arm counted as one of the best among the disabled.
1 He thought these men might be more steady; after all, the soldier scent on them was detectable by Yun Ce from over ten meters away.
1 A man who had lost both legs but still looked fierce grabbed two benches with his hands and came behind Yun Ce, then pinched Yun Ce’s buttocks and said to the woman: “Jili Gulu, Jili Gulu.”
1 The woman looked at Yun Ce smugly and said, “Walu, Walu.”
1 Yun Ce broke free from the disabled man’s hand, lifted his leg, and kicked. The legless man extended an arm to block. Although he was kicked away hard by Yun Ce and rolled a few times on the ground, he came back in front of Yun Ce. A pitch-black arm like iron stabbed toward Yun Ce’s lower body like a whip.
2 Yun Ce grabbed the disabled old man’s hand and, with a little strength, flung this lecherous old disabled into the distant haystack.
2 The old disabled’s body smashed through the haystack. He crawled for a while before climbing out and shouted at Yun Ce: “Sou Lang, Sou Lang, ga Sou Lang.”
2 The woman jumped high upon hearing this, ignored the tree bark dropped on the ground, dragged Yun Ce, and ran toward a wooden house. Behind followed a group of women and children who could run and jump, as well as a group of disabled people walking in various ways.
2 After entering the wooden house, the woman shut Yun Ce inside, stood at the door spitting at the people outside, who also spat back at her. Ultimately outnumbered, she angrily slammed the door shut.
2 Seeing Yun Ce sitting on the bench, she seemed happy again and took out a greenish steamed bun-shaped thing from a basket hanging from the beam and handed it to Yun Ce.
2 Yun Ce did not move, so the woman took the greenish thing, bit it, and then handed it to Yun Ce.
2 Yun Ce frowned and did not take it. He picked up a small stick and wrote on the ground in Han clerical script: “Who are you, where am I?”
2 The woman saw Yun Ce scribbling on the ground, realized it looked like writing, and jumped up saying: “Xili Gela. Jili Guala?”
2 Yun Ce handed the wooden stick to the woman. She grabbed it, bit her tongue, and stroke by stroke wrote a huge character on the ground—E.
2 After writing, she patted her chest and said: “Nuo.”
3 Yun Ce nodded to show he understood and wrote his own name on the ground for this woman named E Ji to see.
3 This time, the woman refused to take the wooden stick. Her originally not-very-fair face became even darker.
3 Yun Ce sighed inwardly; this meant this woman knew how to write her own name.
3 Now, Yun Ce was anxious to locate himself and eager to understand this world. Clearly encountering fellow humans but unable to communicate was driving him a bit mad.
3 Fortunately, the woman seemed to have some wisdom. She hurriedly ran out and returned fifteen minutes later, carrying on her back an old disabled with gray-white beard.
3 The old disabled sat opposite Yun Ce and took out several wooden slips from the basket. Yun Ce lost interest in talking to him.
3 “Writing is as precious as gold and jade; how can it be written on the ground?”
3 Yun Ce looked at the wooden slip the legless old man handed over, which he had just finished writing on, washed off the carbon stains in the pottery basin of water the woman brought, took the brush from the old man’s hand, dipped it in carbon water, and wrote on the wooden slip: “What place is this?”
3 The old man looked at Yun Ce’s writing for a moment, then wrote with brush: “Muyun Prefecture, Dingbian Commandery, under Chuyun Colonel’s Sixth Zao Li Army, Seventh Scout Team, also known as Hekou Village.”
3 Yun Ce nodded, washed off the carbon stains on the old man’s bamboo slip, and wrote anew: “Who is the emperor?”
4 The old man stared at Yun Ce for a while before writing: “Great Han Emperor.”
4 “Emperor’s name and taboo.”
4 The old man took back the bamboo slip from Yun Ce’s hand. A layer of frost covered his originally kind face. Without greeting E Ji, he propped himself on two small benches and left.
4 Yun Ce watched the old man leave, knowing he had probably offended him, sighed, and hugged his legs while sitting on the bench, rocking back and forth.
4 E Ji handed a greenish food to Yun Ce, took one herself, and accompanied him in eating it bite by bite.
4 As night fell, E Ji gave Yun Ce a bed with thick dry grass and a mat woven from some kind of fiber.
4 There was a fire pit in the center of the house. When the blood moon rose and the temperature dropped, E Ji lit the fire pit. The wood crackled, and the smoke from the burning went out through a small one-foot-square window on the wall.
4 Yun Ce did not take out the sleeping bag from the Dragon Pearl; he just lay on the small bed in his clothes. The small bed was by the fire pit. Wind blew in through the door crack, hit E Ji first, got warmed by the fire in the fire pit, and then fell on Yun Ce, somewhat warm.
4 E Ji did not sleep but stared wide-eyed at Yun Ce’s back with a burning gaze on him. He felt very reassured because this gaze was pure, like a mother beast looking at a small beast.
4 From discovering that production here was very backward, technology very backward, and people very backward, Yun Ce’s mood had not been great, just like when he visited a poor remote mountain village back then.
5 He knew how difficult it was to make a destitute mountain village prosperous. There might be people who succeeded in helping destitute mountain villages become prosperous, but Yun Ce had not done it, at least not with his own strength; he had barely completed the task using the Yun Clan’s vast network.
5 Now, he had fallen into another poverty nest. Fortunately, this time he was an observer, a watcher, a recorder, not responsible for the people here.
5 E Ji’s home seemed truly poor to Yun Ce. The only place showing family wealth was a piece of meat hanging over the fire pit, smoked pitch-black, not large, seemingly ribs from some wild beast. The left side was slightly darker with a fresh knife cut, probably sliced not long ago.
5 Days here were very long, nights very long. E Ji laying out the bedding at night meant that in the long night ahead, people only had sleeping to do.
5 Even after a long day, Yun Ce had no sleepiness. He felt the liquid metal very active on the Dragon Pearl wristband, with metal beads constantly jumping up from the wristband and then falling back, sometimes regularly, sometimes chaotically. Yun Ce felt it was computing something.
5 When the blood moon rose, the night seemed very eerie, unlike the silvery full moon or the pitch-black crescent moon; the blood moon was like draping a red veil over the ground.
5 Yun Ce got up from the bed and, under E Ji’s attention, opened the gap-filled gate and sat on the threshold looking at the gradually familiar night sky.
5 The full moon and crescent moon visible during the day were gone; the blood moon hung high, like a pair of blood-red eyes staring at the ground.
5 E Ji also climbed up from the bed, sat side by side with Yun Ce on the threshold, and said: “Jili Gulu?”
5 Not knowing what E Ji said, Yun Ce nodded. As he lowered his head, he noticed a silver-white display screen appeared on the bracer with a line of text: “Where are you from?”
6 Just after reading this line, four or five lines appeared below it.
6 “Where are you from, 70%”
6 “Whose young master are you, 38%”
6 “Can you stay, 21%”
6 ……
6 “Jili Guala, pa pa.”
6 “My younger brother died, 85%”
6 “Can you be my younger brother? 36%”
6 “Can you stay? 21%”
6 Yun Ce looked at the liquid robot’s analysis, turned to E Ji with an expectant face, and said: “Pretty good, I’m lonely too.”
