Chapter 2

At night, Liu Wuyi talked to his son about getting him a wife.

Zi Xiu was drinking water when he heard this piece of shocking news. Being chocked, he spat a mouthful of cold water on his father. “My bad! My bad!” he apologized in haste and immediately found a handkerchief to wipe the water off his father’s face, without noticing that what he said made no sense to his father at all.

“All right! All right!” Liu Wuyi snatched the handkerchief from his son’s hand with a frown and wiped his clothes with it on his own impatiently. “What did you say just now? Who has gone bad?”

“Gone bad?” Zixiu froze for a moment before he suddenly remembered what he had said. “My bad?”

“What does it mean?” As Zixiu had always been saying strange things, Liu Wuyi didn’t pay much attention to it this time but only thought it was because his son had something wrong with his brain after a long period of coma.

“Dad, have you never heard of this word? It means sorry!” Zixiu explained calmly. As he couldn’t remember what had happened three years ago, he had no reason to deny his father’s deduction regarding his brain damage after falling into the river.

“Well, it’s getting late. Go back to your room and have a good rest. I’m taking you to the matchmaker tomorrow morning.”

“Matchmaker?” Zi Xiu recalled what his father had mentioned just now. “Dad, I’m only sixteen years old, not even close to marriageable age. Is this some kind of a sick joke?”

“Do I look like I’m joking?” Watching his son’s surprised look, Liu Wuyi thought that Zixiu had lost even such common sense, which made him feel both angry and funny. “That’s what every man does when they reach the age of marriage. Yu Xiaohu of the Yu Village is your age, but he will be a father next month. How dare you say you’re ONLY sixteen?”

“Be a father!” Zixiu was caught dumbfounded. “Don’t you think it’s too early?”

“Too early? If we don’t hurry, the Li girl will be someone else’s wife!”

“Which girl?”

“The owner of the Li’s Clinic, Li Daoling’s granddaughter, Li Rongrong!” Liu Wuyi said helplessly, almost lost his patience. “The girl is not only pretty and gentle but also knows about medicine. What’s more, she’s indifferent to fame and wealth…”

“Dad, you know Li Rongrong?” Zixiu suddenly chimed in.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Hearing that, Liu Wuyi couldn’t help rebuking him. “If Doctor Li hadn’t saved your life three years ago, you would have died!”

“Oh!” Zi Xiu vaguely remembered that someone had treated him after he fell ill three years ago. However, he had been too weak and always in a coma in those days, so he could hardly recall the details at the moment.

“Stop nagging! Go to bed right now. Or you won’t be able to get up early in the morning.”

“But…” Zixiu felt that he had many questions to ask his father, but he couldn’t call them to mind for the moment, so after wrestling with himself for a while, he went back to his room to sleep.

At five o’clock the next morning when the cocks crowed, Liu Wuyi and his son set out through the morning mountain mist with some food and silver ingots. As Liu’s family had been living by selling medicinal herbs, they had been living in the interior of mountains and only when there was a fair in the town nearby, would they go down the mountain to sell herbs. Liu Wuyi used to go to town with his wife and son whenever there was a fair, but after the incident three years ago, he hardly ever led Zixiu down the mountain. Therefore, though unwilling to get married at such a young age, Liu Zixiu was kind of joyful to spend some time somewhere else. “Xiaohu my age is going to be a father… It’s unbelievable!” Zixiu had a feeling that something was wrong, but he just couldn’t tell what it was. For fear that a headache might occur due to overstrain and hypertension, he stopped pondering and managed to focus on his journey.

The two walked along the winding mountain path and it wasn’t until dusk had fallen that they arrived at the town. Zixiu had been in the mountains for six months in a row and he had only been to the town twice ever since he had recovered from his illness, so though there were not so many people in the street, he still couldn’t hold back his excitement watching passers-by come and go.