Where Immortals Once Walked-Chapter 213: Golden Goose

He Lingchuan stared at the note, dazed, and a quiet warmth rose in his chest.

He did not need Hu Min to spell it out for him. He could understand what happened himself.

These were thank-you gifts from the families of the troops under General Nanke. If he had not risked his life in the Guizhen Stone Forest, blowing up the burrowing spiders’ den and drawing the greater monster Zhu Erniang away, then even if General Nanke had broken out, who knew how many of his men would have been buried in that forest.

Those lives were not numbers. Behind each one stood a wife and children, elderly parents, a family’s livelihood, as well as all the simple joys of the human world.

His one act of self-sacrifice had spared how many households the heart-splitting grief of a death notice? Human emotion could be plain and unadorned like this. Those who felt grateful to him sent him something to show him their gratitude.

“Surprised? Didn’t see that coming, did you?” Hu Min had kept quiet on purpose, saving the reveal for him to unwrap himself. “There’s quite a lot of stuff here. Let me help you move them in.”

Piece by piece, they hauled the presents into the courtyard until half the tiny space was gone.

As he moved the gifts, He Lingchuan frowned. “Why didn’t the thief take these and instead steal the fish and firewood from my house?”

“How should I know?” Hu Min shrugged. “Maybe swiping things from your front step would’ve been too conspicuous. Your doorway’s been way too lively lately.”

Just then, a child of about five or six poked his head around the gate. Hu Min called to him, “Hey, little brat, what do you want?”

“I live over there.” The boy pointed east.

“I know,” said He Lingchuan. He recognized him as the neighbor’s kid. The last time imperial nectar descended, he had seen the boy’s father tie him to a table leg when he had climbed up to the roof.

“You’re He...” The boy could not quite remember his name.

“That’s right, I am.”

“Wait a second! Don’t close the door!”

The child bolted. He Lingchuan heard a door open, then slam, then the patter of quick little footsteps.

Moments later, the boy reappeared at his gate, arms full of flowers.

“Papa told me to bring you these as soon as your door opened, and to say thank you.”

It was a huge bouquet. He Lingchuan recognized amaryllis and wax begonias, as well as what he believed to be daisies. The rest he could not name, but the bouquet was a wonderful mess of color, flowers in full bloom, with a few still beaded with dew.

Out in the biting wind, the dew quickly frosted into tiny pearls of ice.

He hurried to take the flowers inside before they turned to a frozen arrangement. “Is your father a patrolman too?”

He remembered that the boy’s siblings were all still young, so he was sure that none of them could be in the army.

“No.” The child shook his head so hard it wobbled like a rattle drum. “But Mama and Papa said you saved lots of people. You’re a good man.”

He Lingchuan could not help but ruffle the boy’s hair. “Thanks. Tell your parents I said thanks.”

Hu Min, though, asked, “In this dead of winter, where’d your dad find so many fresh flowers?”

The boy grinned, revealing a missing front tooth. “Dunno.”

“Where does he work?”

“He often delivers things to the command post!”

He Lingchuan and Hu Min exchanged a smile. That explained it.

There were special greenhouses in the city that grew flowers, supplying not just wealthy households, but also Commander Zhong’s official residence and manor. They said his wife had loved flowers when she was alive, and the Zhong Residence replaced its arrangements every few days.

He Lingchuan rummaged through the small mountain of thank-you gifts and fished out a bag of caramels, which he then handed to the boy. “Here, it’s for you. Take it home and share it with your family.”

The boy thanked him and scampered off, delighted.

Hu Min patted He Lingchuan on the shoulder. “Didn’t expect this, did you? You’re a local celebrity in this neighborhood now. Heh, you could probably even eat for free.”

He Lingchuan could not quite name the feeling in his chest. “I really didn’t see this coming.”

Ever since his brush with death in the Panlong Ruins, he had fought through life-and-death battles more than a few times. He had saved the people of Immortal Spirit Village from brigands, and he had even rescued his own family and Ke Jihai from the monster puppet master Dong Rui. However, never once had anyone thanked him this plainly and this fervently.

Hm, being liked and thanked doesn’t feel half bad.

“How did the news spread so fast?” He Lingchuan rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Hasn’t it only been a few days since the battle at Guizhen Stone Forest?”

“After every major battle, the Office of Military Merit sends people around the city to tell the stories of battlefield valor. The day after General Nanke got back to Panlong City, you and Sun Jiayuan were both posthumously honored as fallen heroes. If it weren’t so bitterly cold right now, folks would’ve been lining up to bring flowers to your door. Then word came you’d been found alive, which caused quite a stir in this neighborhood, but you were still out cold and couldn’t come out to bask in it.”

Ah, so that’s the case.

Panlong City rallied everyone to defend their home by celebrating those who had passed, setting up models for all to emulate.

He never imagined that one day he would be held up as one of those models himself.

It was a strange feeling.

After all, only he knew that his bravery had stood upon the foundation of not actually dying.

For anyone else here, death meant eternal sleep; for him alone, it was merely the moment of waking from a dream.

If he only had one life in this world—no do-overs—would he still have hurled himself into the spider den without looking back?

He honestly did not know.

He exhaled and brushed the thoughts aside. “So there are people thanking me on this street, and people stealing my stuff?”

Hu Min threw his head back and laughed, striding for the door first. “Is this your first day in Panlong City?”

* * *

About two hours later, He Lingchuan and Hu Min were standing inside the Bureau of Bright Prospects.

Merits Clerk Liu had taken a half-day off; the one receiving them today was Merits Clerk Xu. Merits Clerk Xu was a small, skinny, and stone-faced man.

“You’re alive?” Merits Clerk Xu rifled through the ledger after hearing his name, then said at last, “We’ll restore you to the rolls and recalculate your merits.”

“Everything else can wait, give me the papers for the tin house first.” It had never occurred to He Lingchuan that even his little dreamscape hideout could get robbed. “My current house was just burgled.”

“Tin houses are compensation for the families of fallen heroes,” Merits Clerk Xu said, lifting one of his eyebrows. “Are you a fallen hero?”

“Whether I’m dead or not, I’m the one who burned out the burrowing spiders’ den. Why should my merits be recalculated?”

“Living men get commendations, while the dead get compensation. Compensation runs richer, do you understand?” Merits Clerk Xu’s voice was hard as a board. “Since you’re alive, you can’t receive the compensation. The tin house drops to a water house.”

Hu Min stepped in to smooth things over. “A water house is good too. I’ve been to the ones on Lady Zeng Alley, and it was spacious and bright. The residents are merchants, soldiers, and city officials. It’s not like the neighborhood around your current wood house.”

Choosing a home was also about choosing the neighborhood, the amenities, and the neighbors. A home was not just a pile of timber and a few roof tiles.

Merits Clerk Xu added. “I live in a water house myself.”

Finally, He Lingchuan yielded.

Because this time his single-handed contributions were on the books, the rewards dwarfed everything he had ever received. Just the silver reward alone came to five hundred taels, plus two-thirds of a hectare of upper-grade paddy fields and two hectares of medium-grade fields, never mind the various other prizes he barely listened to.[1]

He had gone from owning barely over a tenth of a hectare of farmland to owning over two and a half hectares of farmland. His farmland had literally increased by over twenty times. He had just leaped from poor peasant to landed landlord.[2]

Going to war really was the fastest way to rack up merit. However, it was also the most dangerous.

“I can’t manage the fields myself. Help me lease them out,” He Lingchuan told Hu Min, remembering that the Bureau of Bright Prospects handled such business.

Soldiers spent their days drilling or on patrol. Who had time to mind fields? They leased them out, tenant farmers grew grain and sold it, and everyone made a living.

Tenant leasing was a crucial cog in Panlong City’s economy.

“Or...” Merits Clerk Xu suddenly produced a deed. “You can choose to exchange all of your rewards for this campaign for a ten-year lease for a store on Wanglin Avenue.”

“Storefront?” It was the first time He Lingchuan had heard you could exchange military merit for a shop.

From the side, Hu Min blurted, “Exchange! Exchange! Of course, we’re going to exchange!”

“Do you know how hard it is to get a storefront in Panlong City? And on Wanglin Avenue? That’s a place that rakes in silver by the day!” Hu Min thumped his chest. “Why don’t I ever catch a break like this? Merits Clerk Xu, can you get me one too?”

“There’s only this single unit. It’s been repossessed because a twenty-year lease just expired. It’s public property. You can run a business yourself or sublet it, but you can’t sell it.”

“When you say all the rewards, does that include the water house?” A water house was at least two levels above the wood houses.

“Of course. If you exchange for the storefront, you’ll walk out of the Bureau of Bright Prospects with one thing only: that deed.” Merits Clerk Xu’s bluntness could grate. “Decide now. If you don’t want it, plenty do—the line could stretch from here to Wanglin Avenue.”

The package he had been granted this time—paddy fields and other odds and ends, plus five hundred taels in silver, and a water house that one could not even buy with money—was enough to live a comfortable, respectable middle-class life in Panlong City. Was he really going to trade all that away for a storefront of unknown size and exact location, and only for ten years?

Heh.

“Alright, I’ll exchange my rewards.” He Lingchuan pushed everything back across the desk, trusting Hu Min’s call.

He could only watch as the freshly issued water house deed was whisked back out of reach.

So much for upgrading to a bigger, better home. For now, he was going to have to say goodbye to that dream.

Only after Merits Clerk Xu finished the last bit of paperwork did a sliver of a smile appear on his severe face. “Congratulations. You’ve earned it.”

“Huh?” Did Merits Clerk Xu also have a nephew or cousin under General Nanke?

He half expected the next line to be, “Listen, thank you.”

However, Merits Clerk Xu kept things curt, “Done. Next!”

And that was how He Lingchuan left the Bureau of Bright Prospects with nothing but a flimsy storefront deed that felt light enough to fly away in a breeze.

“If that shop doesn’t net me a thousand taels, plus ten years’ interest on that thousand, I’m seizing your house and moving in!”

Hu Min ignored the mock threat and hooked an arm around his neck. “Come on, buy me a drink! No, this time you’ve picked up a golden goose that lays eggs. You’re treating Boss Xiao and A’Luo, too!”

“We don’t even know the exact location of the shop. Is that storefront really so great?”

“Have you ever even strolled Wanglin Avenue?” Hu Min gave him a look of pure disdain. “Right, a pauper like you wouldn’t even be qualified to stroll it. Wanglin Avenue sells only the finest goods, and all the curios that come in from elsewhere. High-ranking officers and their families all frequent that strip.”

1. Just to clarify, paddy fields specifically refer to flooded fields, while fields refer to general arable land. ☜

2. The math is right. He went from having 2 mu (0.1333 hectares) of middle-grade paddy fields (Ch. 164) to having 2 (0.1333 hectares already owned) + 10 mu (0.6667 hectares of upper-grade paddy fields) + 30 mu (1.998 hectares of middle-grade fields) = 42 mu or 2.799 hectares. ☜