The next four days felt like a century to Yun Jieshi.
He wanted to explore the world on this side of the Gap, and possibly find the source of the other golden lights. With shelter available, he could travel without too much worry.
However, when he asked the hag for permission, she only said that one word she loved saying each morning before she left the cabin:
"Stay."
It was even worse when Yun Jieshi asked about the urn. The hag wouldn't entertain the question with an answer. The little monkey retaliated in his fury and started calling the hag Qui Tian. She flinched every time he said it, which gave him an indecent amount of satisfaction each time.
The closest thing the little monkey ever got to an answer about the urn – as he persisted with his inquiries – was a grunt, but that might have been the hag choking on the meat she had prepared for the night.
Speaking of meat, Yun Jieshi was glad that he didn't have to live off the Shuang Fingers and tea. The hag made sure to test him every morning and every night with the three stone cups, each with a different set of ingredients. She made sure to put in different combinations of herbs and vegetables each time, and some of them had scents eerily similar to the ones in the tea she had given Yun Jieshi that first night she brought him to the cabin. It was very confusing.
Yun Jieshi had yet to pick the wrong one though, and he was even starting to enjoy the shallot, ginseng, and whatever else tea. But of course, man or monkey could not live on tea alone.
Yun Jieshi's thought about Qui Tian not being as impressive as he had assumed was further given credence.
She was a terrible cook with a touch for foodstuffs that might have been better utilized for crushing rocks. The satisfaction of his tastebuds wasn't something Yun Jieshi had been too concerned with… until now.
Qui Tian cooked meat for them both every day, but after four days of bland, oversalted meat, the little monkey was ready to try and be the one cooking instead. Other than his mind, Yun Jieshi also seemed to have reincarnated with his tongue of old in the Lower Southern Plateau too. His hierarchy of needs was slowly evolving and good food was finally becoming a much-needed component.
When he wasn't agonizing over what Qui Tian could have done to save dinner, Yun Jieshi had developed two activities.
The first was something he had told himself he would do after feeding on Bei Jun's scales: training his muscles. The little monkey was powerful, but his body was quick to run out of stamina.
Thus, he finally put the great bone bow to use.
Since the hag went out and came back at roughly the same time every day, Yun Jieshi capitalized on her absence. He would go outside the cabin with the bow, weather through the blizzard, and place the bow around one of the tree stumps just in front of the wooden enclosure.
It was an exercise routine. The little monkey would leverage his little feet on one end of the wooden stump and pull the bow's grip with all his strength. It was hard. Both the bow and the string were powerful and taut.
Yun Jieshi's current maximum was nineteen draws. He had yet to surpass this record after two days, much to his shame. The muscles in his arms and thighs burned and ached furiously as though alight and he would fall asleep almost immediately after he was done. The little monkey was determined to continue, however.
His second activity had to do with his daruan and wineskin.
As he hadn't given a meaningful attempt at plucking his ruan's yellow string – the Harmonising Psalm of Zhan Hao – since eating Bei Che's scales, Yun Jieshi had decided to try again. His strength had been distributed more precisely now, with his physical growth. Surely that would make a difference.
The result was… strange.
Yun Jieshi had nearly hooted when he felt the string buckle to his fiercest effort with a thumb. It grew brighter and brighter the more he drew – millimeter by millimeter – and then nothing.
When Yun Jieshi was missing the last half a micrometer worth of strength to reach some kind of special effect, the string resisted him. When he released it, it released a thrum like any other ruan.
This couldn't be it. There had to be more to the Harmonising Psalm of Zhan Hao! Right?
As much as the discount Sage would have loved to pull his furs out at this frustrating limit though, he could at least appreciate that now his ruan could fulfill its basic purpose: music.
He managed with the one flexible string, plucking like there was no tomorrow. It was difficult but worth it. One could make music with one-note, interspersed diiings. At least Yun Jieshi could.
It was unbelievable how much plucking soothed his anxious heart.
When it came to the wineskin, Yun Jieshi was hesitant to open the cork again.
'Who knows what that smell will draw here this time? Perhaps the Imps are too scared to come here, but that monster Hua Dongmei said the fairies are afraid of will come running here instead if I'm careless,' he thought.
The last time he tried to discern the contents of the wineskin, dozens of Jade Imps had rushed him as though hurrying towards some rare treasure.
Beyond that, Yun Jieshi wondered if he should use some of the sap just to discern what powers it had.
He had struggled with the veracity of this question for four days now, and today, he finally found his answer.
'I only five portions of that sap. Some future version of me will probably curse me if I waste some just for an experiment,' he said to himself.
It would be unwise, he imagined. Truly so.
As he made his decision, plucking the string of his ruan after one great effort, the door to the cabin opened and Qui Tian came in.
To Yun Jieshi's surprise, she hadn't brought anything today – no meat, and no herbs or vegetables. She wobbled into the house after closing the door and plopped onto the floor. Sensing something amiss, the little monkey threw his ruan aside and rushed up to the hag. He spotted the problem immediately.
It was the hag's legs. They were swollen.
Yun Jieshi, for obvious reasons, hadn't paid that much attention to the old woman's legs over the last few days. As he looked at them now, though, he saw that the skin on them was cracked, and portions of it had yellowed, turning into some hard, shiny gunk.
'Is this some kind of disease?'
The little monkey gave the hag's face a look. Her thin lips were trembling. She must have been in pain.
'Has walking on the cold snow barefoot finally taken a toll on her?'
Yun Jieshi had touched her foot to try and discern any oddities when he pulled his hand back immediately.
'Whoa!'
A freakish heat was flaring from them. Yun Jieshi almost thought they were hot coals for a moment. Since he was resistant to heat of that degree, however, he felt for any irregularities in the hag's legs and feet. They were stiff, no different from feet-shaped wooden logs.
Yun Jieshi sighed, stumped. Then he recoiled.
'Wait. I just touched her feet. That voice didn't say anything.'
And indeed, the old, sagely voice in his head had said nothing about Qui Tian. Yun Jieshi touched her legs again.
Nothing.
He raised a brow. This was just like the cloak nailed onto the wall.
Why couldn't the voice tell him something about the hag? Anything at all.
Shaking his head, Yun Jieshi cast the thought aside. Now wasn't the time. Seeing Qui Tian's lips shiver brought back agency to his spine.
Thinking for a few moments, the little monkey applied pressure on the hag's feet. She winched and he immediately stopped.
'What kind of condition is this?' Yun Jieshi thought, his face a contortion of conflict. He scratched his furs. His eyes brightened in the next second. A possible solution had come to mind. 'I guess I could…'
He rushed to his sack in the corner and gobbled up a few Shuang Fingers. Not long after, he sucked in a breath as the cold traced his innards and gathered to his fingers. Only then did Yun Jieshi race back to the hag, sit on his legs, and start massaging her feet.
'Good. I can't feel the heat anymore.'
He paid attention to Qui Tian's reaction. His motions didn't bother her. In fact, the coolness of his hands seemed to relieve her from the pain quite a bit.
Slowly, as he massaged her feet, he felt the heat dying down, and her feet became softer and flexible – as they should have been.
The hag was watching him closely as he worked her feet. Yun Jieshi thought she must have been wondering where he learned the skill.
'I'm winging it!' he thought with a smile.
"Good…" the hag said with a choppy voice.
Yun Jieshi beamed. He took that as a thank you.
Qui Tian wiggled her toes. Yun Jieshi had half a mind to wash them. The long black nails on them with all sorts of gunk collected, along with the dry scraps and gashes on her feet made him remember how Jane – his mother – used to scrub him each time he came back from playing with his friends back when he was in America. It was a bitter-sweet memory.
"Play…?" the hag suddenly said, pointing at something behind Yun Jieshi.
Donning a duck face, he turned. She was pointing at his daruan.
"You want me to play something for you?"
The hag gave a slow nod.
The little monkey smiled kindly… and then donned an evil smirk.
"Sure. I can play for you, but I'd like something in exchange," she said.
The hag lips curved downward. She was not pleased.
Yun Jieshi sighed. He continued massaging her feet.
"I don't want to sound ungrateful. You've taken care of me since you found me that day. I could never ask for too much more than that from you. The requests I have – in exchange – aren't entirely selfish. I promise," he said.
The hag still seemed suspicious, but she folded rather quickly – nodding. Yun Jieshi was surprised. He had prepared a longer speech, certain that it would take more to convince her than that.
"Play..." Qui Tian said.
The little monkey threw his arms in the air.
"Fine, fine. I'll play first. Don't complain if it sounds terrible though. I only have one working string."
The hag didn't mind. She waited as he took his time to think of a song and how to play it without depending entirely on instrumental complement.
"Ah. I got just the one," Yun Jieshi said, beaming. He almost called himself a genius with how quickly he came up with the lyrics. Faye Wong would be proud, he thought.
Clearing his throat and pressing his thumb on the yellow string of his ruan, he began to sing:
"I grasp the lost string of my innocence
Melted, thawed in your sweet grace
A child again, your hand in mine
Pulling me to dreams
A frozen mountain weighed my weeping heart
Flaking on my dimming hearth
You stirred my soul with sour grass
And now I wake alight
If I say you will be my guiding arm
Praying Winters come will numb
My voice aflame, a wishing well
Would you dream with me?"
There was more to the song. Yun Jieshi had wanted to sing it all, but he stopped, stunned.
A tear was running down Qui Tian's eye.