The Talking Elbow:

In the small courtyard of Taiping Medical Hall, a group of people crowded around a tiny Eight Immortals table, making the space exceptionally cramped. When Liang Mao’er slightly raised his arm, he almost pushed Liu Quxing off his seat.

High stacks of steaming baskets, filled with hot buns, were piled on the table. The moment a steamer lid was lifted, hands from both left and right snatched up an entire basket of buns in an instant, as if everyone were fighting for food.

Old Man Yao was just about to reach for a bun when he saw Liang Mao’er’s hand move so fast it left a blur, and the buns in the steamer had already vanished. By the time he thought of getting another bun, it was already in the Young Master’s hand.

Old Man Yao, looking indifferent, held a bowl of millet porridge and sipped it slowly. He was accustomed to a quiet and solitary life, and now that Taiping Medical Hall was so lively, he was still a bit unaccustomed to it. Even meal times were full of chatter; it was too noisy.

“Master, why aren’t you eating?” Chen Ji asked curiously.

Old Man Yao said indifferently, “I’m telling your fortunes!”

“Huh? You don’t know the Young Master’s birthdate and time, do you? How can you tell fortunes?”

Old Man Yao scoffed, “I don’t need to see your birthdates to know you’re all bad for me. Hurry up and eat, then get out.”

Just then, it grew lively outside the gate. Countless common folk gathered on both sides of Anxi Street. Some carried fruit, others held baskets of eggs. The air on Anxi Street seemed to be boiling. The last time it was this lively was when the Young Master and the Princess Consort had just returned.

The next moment, a grand black imperial procession suddenly passed by the gate. The common folk, carrying their gifts, followed along, insisting on handing them to the soldiers marching alongside the procession. The laws of the Ning Dynasty explicitly stated that the Emperor of Great Ning could use a reddish-yellow imperial procession, while the feudal lords of Great Ning used black ones.

It was Prince Jing returning.

“Oh no, oh no!” The Young Master suddenly stood up, hurriedly shoving half a bun into his mouth, and mumbled, “Didn’t General Wang say the Old Man just arrived in Gongyi County last night? How did he rush back overnight? Bai Li, quickly go back to the manor! If he catches you, your monthly allowance might be cut off too.”

Bai Li was also flustered; she hiked up her skirt, scrambled up the ladder, and disappeared to the other side of the courtyard wall. The Young Master, usually so carefree, now looked like a mouse seeing a cat.

Chen Ji and the others walked to the gate, watching the grand procession enter Prince Jing’s Manor from a distance. He looked at Old Man Yao curiously. “Master,” he asked, “why is Prince Jing so beloved by the common folk? They’re all rushing to give him gifts!”

Old Man Yao pursed his lips. “Over the years,” he said, “many people in Yuzhou have survived because of him. Of course they respect him.”

Just then, a middle-aged man suddenly appeared at the gate. “Physician Yao, Physician Yao,” he cried, “my father fell and won’t wake up no matter how much I call him! Please come take a look quickly.”

“Did you bring the consultation fee?”

“Yes, yes, I brought it!”

Old Man Yao waved to She Dengke. “Go get my acupuncture kit!” he ordered. “Hurry up, his father won’t last much longer!”

Once Old Man Yao and the middle-aged man had gotten into the carriage, Liang Mao’er got up to clear the dishes. As Old Man Yao left, Chen Ji was just about to go back to the backyard to clear the dishes, when he heard a gentle voice speak at the medical hall’s entrance.

“Chen Ji?”

Inside the medical hall, Chen Ji’s body stiffened instantly. The last time Manager Yuan visited in the middle of the night, he seemed to have asked the exact same question! Could it be the Jing Dynasty’s military intelligence service showing up again? But didn’t Gui say that everyone who knew his identity had been dealt with?

He slowly turned around, but what met his eyes was not Manager Yuan’s stout figure. Instead, the speaker was a middle-aged man dressed in a worn, dark blue long robe. His collar was newly mended, his sleeves were patched at the elbows, and he wore a plain wooden hairpin in his hair. He looked tired.

Who was this? He had never seen him before.

The middle-aged man observed Chen Ji for a moment, then asked, “What, you don’t remember me anymore?”

Chen Ji was puzzled.

The middle-aged man smiled faintly. “It seems you don’t recognize me,” he said. “I even held you when you were a child in the capital. Your eyebrows haven’t changed much; they’re very much like your mother’s.”

Chen Ji was startled. “Uncle?” Could it be his uncle, the high-ranking official from the Jing Dynasty, who had fled to the Ning Dynasty for refuge to escape political enemies?

From his appearance, the man was weather-beaten, his trousers and boots splattered with mud. He indeed looked like someone who had traveled tirelessly through wind and rain. But what about the patches on his clothes? His uncle couldn’t possibly be doing so poorly. Most importantly, Chen Ji had just shed his identity as a Jing Dynasty spy and was just planning to live a quiet life. Why would this person show up now? He hadn’t been brought back to the Jing Dynasty during its prosperous times, so what was he doing here now? Was he planning a comeback in the Ning Dynasty? That would mean Chen Ji would be forced to risk his life for him again!

Chen Ji thought for a moment, then said stiffly, “What can I do for you?”

The middle-aged man paused, then joked casually, “No respectful terms for an elder? Where’s your master?”

Hearing the word “elder,” Chen Ji’s tone became even stiffer. “Master’s out,” he said, “If you have anything, just tell me!”

The middle-aged man lifted his robe and stepped over the threshold. “Then I’ll wait here in the medical hall for your master to return,” he said. “Do you play Go? Let’s have a game to pass the time! Your mother was very good at Go, so yours shouldn’t be bad either!”

Chen Ji said, “There’s no Go set in the medical hall.”

The middle-aged man laughed. “What do you mean ‘no’?” he said. “Isn’t it in the second drawer of the cabinet in the main room? Go get it; I’ll wait.”

Chen Ji squinted slightly. These words sounded more like a threat to him, just like when Yun Yang first gave him payment by directly placing a silver ingot by his pillow. The subtext was clear: “I can enter and exit the medical hall freely, and you won’t even notice.”

Chen Ji turned, went to the main room, pulled open the second drawer, and indeed, there was a Go set inside. He brought the Go set to the main hall of the medical hall, laid out the board on the counter, and held the stones in his hand. “Guess first!” he said.

The middle-aged man thought for a moment and said, “Even!”

Chen Ji opened his palm, revealing three black stones in his hand. “Wrong guess,” he said. “I’ll play black first.”

The middle-aged man said generously, “Alright, you go first. I’ll even give you two handicap stones.”

Chen Ji looked up and glanced at him. “Fine,” he said.

The middle-aged man’s Go skills were formidable; his sweeping and expansive moves were like Mount Tai pressing down, impossible to avoid. In just sixty-five moves, he cut Chen Ji’s black stones apart, leaving them isolated and helpless, like reefs in crashing waves.

The middle-aged man smiled at Chen Ji. “Your Go skills still need more practice,” he said. “Go is about making choices; sacrificing small things for a larger gain is how you achieve a grand strategy. If you’re unwilling to give up anything, you’ll gain nothing.”

However, at this moment, Chen Ji wasn’t listening to him. He simply placed another stone in a seemingly isolated and helpless spot. It was as if he stubbornly refused to admit defeat, or like a lone, desperate obsession.

The middle-aged man was startled, and then played a stone in response. Chen Ji placed another stone. The middle-aged man responded with another stone. As they went back and forth, on his seventy-second move, Chen Ji actually carved a path out of isolation, connecting his isolated stones with another lone group.

The middle-aged man’s eyes lit up. He exclaimed admiringly, “‘Swallowing the Dragon’? What kind of move is this?”

Chen Ji looked up at him. “Healing the Orphan,” he said.

“Healing the Orphan” means utilizing the weaknesses in the opponent’s formation while isolated, to carve out a living path for one’s own isolated stones. Often, a single isolated stone can, in turn, disrupt the opponent’s grand strategy. Chen Ji had won second prize in the Luocheng Go competition, relying on his unconventional “Healing the Orphan” technique.

Chen Ji didn’t have a grand strategic vision; he only had a stubborn persistence. Mimicking the other man’s tone from earlier, he slowly said, “In a world so vast, how can there be no place to belong? There are only cramped spaces, not cramped minds!”

The middle-aged man chuckled. “How did you end up lecturing me!” he said.

Chen Ji calmly replied, “No, I was talking about the game.” In truth, he was feeling a bit resentful. Ever since he arrived in this world, he hadn’t known his past identity and had been led around by others. Now that he had finally managed to send off Gui and Wu Hongbiao, he could finally catch his breath. Yet here was someone else showing up at his door.

Just then, Old Man Yao walked in from outside, leading She Dengke. She Dengke, carrying the medicine box, said gleefully, “Chen Ji, you won’t believe it, that old man just now had stopped breathing, but with two needles from Master, he immediately woke up… Huh?”

The middle-aged man turned to look at the doorway and said with a smile, “Physician Yao, long time no see. Your young apprentice’s Go skills are quite good, better than yours.”

Old Man Yao glanced at Chen Ji. “Well, that’s a surprise,” he said. “Why are you here alone?”

“Come take my pulse. I haven’t been feeling well lately.”

Old Man Yao shot him a glance. “You went out to procure provisions, and you ended up looking so exhausted?”

Chen Ji froze. Wait? Procure provisions? Procure what provisions?

The middle-aged man sat down opposite the counter, looking utterly exhausted, and managed a weak smile. “As soon as I arrived in Jiangnan for tax collection, people would bring their wives’ corpses to the yamen, claiming they were driven to death by our taxes. The southern gentry now treat us like invaders. At the slightest sign of movement, they try to resist. Collecting taxes isn’t easy.”

Old Man Yao walked behind the counter, saying plainly, “Taking people’s money is like killing their parents. What they fear isn’t actually the taxes, but that you want to re-survey their land.”

The more Chen Ji listened, the more something felt off. He had clearly mistaken this person for someone else. Who was this? Travel-worn and shabbily dressed, could he be some tax official? Or perhaps…

The middle-aged man extended his wrist onto the counter. “Provisions are still manageable, just requiring more effort and persuasion,” he said, “but the glutinous rice needed for the front lines has us stumped.”

Old Man Yao placed three fingers on the middle-aged man’s pulse. “Can’t find glutinous rice?” he asked.

The middle-aged man explained, “This year, too many strongholds have been destroyed by the Jing Dynasty, requiring a large amount of glutinous rice mortar to rebuild cities. This summer, there was a flood, and many families can’t even afford to eat. How can they spare glutinous rice for building city walls?” After speaking, the middle-aged man sighed. “Actually, there was enough glutinous rice initially,” he said, “but unfortunately, the batch from early autumn was intercepted by the capital to be sent to His Majesty for the renovation of Renshou Palace and the imperial mausoleum.”

Chen Ji was puzzled. This middle-aged man seemed to have an extremely close relationship with his master, speaking so freely about everything. And the old man, who usually avoided idle chatter, did not stop him from continuing.

He knew that glutinous rice was one of the strategic resources in those times. This was because the binding material used for repairing city walls was locally prepared by boiling glutinous rice mixed with slaked lime and limestone. The branched starch in glutinous rice mortar had excellent adhesive properties. After three years, once the glutinous rice mortar calcified, the repaired structures could stand for over a thousand years. But in this era, many common folk couldn’t even get enough to eat, and glutinous rice was life-saving food. If used to repair city walls, people would starve.

At this point, the middle-aged man coughed a few times, and Old Man Yao instructed Chen Ji, “Pour him some tea.”

Chen Ji went into the kitchen, brought out a cup of warm tea, and placed it in front of the middle-aged man, saying deferentially with his head bowed, “Please have some tea.”

The middle-aged man looked up at Chen Ji and smiled. “Why are you suddenly using such polite, respectful terms?” he asked. “Didn’t you just lecture me?”

Chen Ji said awkwardly, “I was indeed talking about the game just now, I didn’t mean to lecture you!”

The middle-aged man raised a hand and pointed at him in the air, saying with a smile, “It’s normal for young people to be a bit spirited and wild; you don’t need to be so humble.”

Chen Ji quickly said, “No, no, I’m not wild at all.”

Old Man Yao wondered, “What just happened? What crazy things did this boy say?”

The middle-aged man laughed heartily. “Who wasn’t like this in their youth?” he said. “I used to come to you often for injuries when I was young. When following His Majesty to fight against the Second Imperial Brother, His Majesty knew we couldn’t win, but still insisted I go first, causing me to get beaten up terribly.”

Chen Ji gasped. He could finally confirm that this was Prince Jing. But he simply couldn’t connect this plain middle-aged man in front of him with the grand and expansive Prince Jing’s Manor. No pretense, no temper, he seemed like an ordinary elder from a neighboring family, completely different from what Chen Ji had imagined.

At this moment, Prince Jing looked at Old Man Yao. “How is my health?” he asked.

Old Man Yao said indifferently, “I’ll prescribe you a few doses of medicine. Just rest for a while. But don’t run around outside lately. If you don’t rest, you might face big problems.”

Prince Jing shook his head. “Some matters cannot be delayed,” he said. “Next spring, the Jing Dynasty cavalry will march south again. If the city walls aren’t repaired before then, the loss of Chongli Pass will mean many deaths, and even the capital will be in peril.”

Old Man Yao said indifferently, “I’m just giving a casual piece of advice; whether you listen or not is your business. However, I suggest you stay in Luocheng. You could use the time to discipline the Young Master and the Princess Consort. They’ve become wild, and something bad might happen if they keep playing around. While you’ve been away, the Young Master and the Princess Consort have been sneaking out every night to play, disturbing my old man’s rest.”

Chen Ji thought to himself: *Huh? Old man, why are you slandering them behind their backs?* He turned to look at Prince Jing, only to find Prince Jing’s expression had worsened.

Prince Jing slowly asked, “Have they been causing any trouble lately?”

Before he could finish his sentence, sounds came from the backyard, as if someone was climbing over the wall. Immediately after, the Young Master’s voice was heard: “Strange, our father isn’t back, but his procession returned first. I don’t know why they’d make such a mistake, causing me to climb the wall for nothing. Chen Ji, come play Pai Gow with us! Watch me dominate today and win everything from you all.”

“Hiccup!” The Young Master walked into the main hall of the medical hall, and the moment he saw Prince Jing, he was so startled he let out a hiccup.

Prince Jing fiddled with the white Go stone in his hand, his voice calm yet inherently authoritative. “‘Climbing walls’? ‘Pai Gow’?”

The Young Master dropped to his knees with a thud. “Father,” he stammered, “it was the little monk who took me over the wall! It has nothing to do with me…”