Volume One: The Scroll of New Rain Chapter Seventeen: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

The endless spring rains over the small town eventually came to an end. With the relentless chorus of cicadas singing from the trees, the town’s dry and radiant summer days replaced the damp and shadowy season, settling in as the new routine for its residents.

In summer, the sun rose early, and so did Uncle. To ensure there would be firewood for the forge after his breakfast, the duty of chopping wood fell to Ye Mingke, who had to rise even earlier. Thus, beneath a night sky still heavy with stars, he would start splitting logs by the dim candlelight spilling from the house, continuing until the dawn light crept over the horizon and the red sun climbed into the sky.

He would set aside his woodcutting blade to prepare breakfast, eat with Uncle Jian, and then take up the blade again.

Months had passed since his first day of training, and Ye Mingke was coming to realize just how excruciatingly difficult his uncle’s regimen truly was.

Cutting a half-log into a thousand pieces, each the size and shape of a pinky finger?

The challenge lay not only in the precise control of force and accuracy required at high speed, but also in the ability to instantly analyze each piece of wood and determine how it should be chopped, splitting it from every conceivable, intricate angle.

It was only after he grasped this point that Ye Mingke understood how much calculation and finesse were hidden in Uncle’s seemingly identical “chop” each day.

Day after day, from the hour of the Rabbit to midday, Ye Mingke found himself immersed in the wondrous sensation that came from merging the utmost force necessary to maintain the blade’s speed with the utmost skill needed to preserve the wood’s shape.

To maintain the feel of the knife in his hand, he could go days or months without letting it go. And to prepare for the nightly blindfolded chess matches, he often kept his eyes covered with black cloth, even when he wasn’t chopping wood.

So, while the sight of a small boy carrying a bundle of firewood like a mountain had become rare in the town, there appeared instead a foolish-looking youth, blindfolded and gripping a cloth-wrapped blade, stumbling along the streets.

The townsfolk found his odd appearance both worrisome and amusing.

“What a good child—how has his adolescent fever grown so severe?”

Hearing this from afar, Ye Mingke—his hearing much improved—could only grit his teeth in silent protest.

At night, the chess games with Aunt Long remained as exasperating as ever.

It wasn’t that Mingke couldn’t remember the moves; born with an extraordinary memory, he had quickly adapted to remembering the games while training his hearing, and was soon able to replay the matches in his mind and truly challenge Aunt Long.

But it seemed that once Aunt Long realized she was facing a prodigy, she started to cheat. Her moves grew ever softer, so that even with his daily blindfolded training, Mingke could barely distinguish the positions by sound alone.

When Mingke tried to mimic her silent moves, Aunt Long was unfazed—still blindfolded, cracking melon seeds, occasionally offering him teasing hints.

“Oh dear, Leaf, I’m just one move away from surrounding you completely.”

“My, you really must like your aunt—just one move away and you still won’t slay my great dragon.”

“Tsk tsk, I’ve gotten so bored I arranged the pieces into a flower.”

Playing chess with Aunt Long was the least physically taxing, but the most exhausting for the spirit…

As he strained to listen for the moves, the young “blind man” silently clutched his chest.

He had a vague sense that Aunt Long’s ability to discern the game wasn’t just about hearing.

Otherwise, when he slowly moved his arm and placed a piece almost silently, how could she—cracking seeds noisily and complaining about his hygiene—still block his every move with ease?

If not by hearing, then how?

“Leaf, how many times have I told you, you must use your heart to play chess. If you don’t, how can you see the path clearly?” Aunt Long chided him earnestly.

“Aunt, could you put your feet down and finish the seeds in your mouth before lecturing me?” Ye Mingke replied in a flat tone.

…

“But even so, no matter how brutal Uncle’s training is, the results of these months of hard work are plain to see!”

“Look, Uncle is willing to use the firewood I’ve chopped, isn’t he?”

“And listen—clang, clang, clang—watch me roast snake blindfolded!”

Blindfolded, Ye Mingke suddenly pulled out a snake from behind, startling those around him into shrieks.

With a flourish, he wielded his blade, and soon, blindfolded as ever, he and Jojo, Dabai, and Tao Yao—who had gathered around again—were all feasting on roast snake.

Of course, timid Jojo refused to eat, but there was more than just snake. Around the tiny campfire, they had also brought sweet potatoes, corn, and other meats.

Golden flames flickered, sending the savory scents of roasting food into the air. Beyond the little circle of fire, the great banyan tree spread its canopy across half the sky, and the summer night rang with insects and glittered with stars.

This was their midsummer night gathering.

On the fourteenth night of each month, as if to make up for the time lost to the full moon’s customs of early rest, the town always became livelier than usual—especially on clear, refreshing summer nights.

Normally, the town’s residents had little nightlife, but on these nights, they would come out in small groups to chat, boast, drink tea, and gaze at the moon.

For Mingke, it was one of his rare holidays each month.

“Mingke, didn’t you used to be terrified of snakes?” Tao Yao asked between bites of roast snake.

“Mhm, that’s the result of my training. After you sleep for a few days in a snake’s den, you’re not afraid of anything anymore.”

Having finished his blindfolded snake-cutting performance, Mingke removed his black cloth, though his eyes seemed a little distant as he gazed into the firelight.

Conquering his fear of snakes was the outcome of his strangest daily training.

Every time he reached the mountain’s foot and was struck unconscious by an inexplicable pressure, he began to understand the true nature of the mountain’s barrier.

Besides the terrifying physical pressure and the assault on the mind, the strange mountain seemed to draw out a person’s deepest fears.

If you collapsed, unable to endure the pressure or spiritual assault, those would fade—but the fears they awakened would not, and most likely would turn into vivid, inescapable dreams.

This was the most difficult training for Mingke to master.

Whether it was fine motor control, memory, hearing, vision, or reflexes, Mingke was already far ahead of most people—he could leap through the forest, using the trees to evade tigers. So after a few months, both his woodcutting and hearing had improved greatly. Yet as for the mountain, after all this time, the furthest he had climbed was a mere dozen steps.

The mountain was an all-encompassing test.

It challenged one’s physical strength to endure gravity, one’s willpower to withstand spiritual assaults, and even more, it demanded a flawless state of mind. Any flaw, and you could not climb it—it would not accept you.

“Enough about me—how are things at the academy?” Ye Mingke asked.

“Same as always,” Tao Yao replied, rubbing his head with a habitual grin.

Ye Mingke looked at Tao Yao, always rubbing his head, and Jojo, who still rarely spoke and now quietly gnawed on her corn by the fire.

In their crisp, white academy uniforms, they seemed different from before, and yet unchanged.

Sensing Mingke’s gaze, Jojo looked up, her hazy eyes shining with a quiet joy as they met his.

Silly girl, still saying so little—he wondered if she could make any new friends.

Ye Mingke felt a pang of worry.

“What about you, Jojo?”

“Does your aunt still scold you often? How are you doing at the academy? Oh, and I never asked—after I walked you home that night, did your aunt give you a hard time?”

He hadn’t realized how long it had been since they’d seen each other, nor how many questions he wanted to ask.

“That night…” Jojo resumed nibbling her corn, squinting with a smile as she recalled, “I still got a tongue-lashing from that woman when I got home.”

“My uncle likes to put on a tough front, but he’s still afraid of her. Hmph! He claims no one can bully his daughter, but he’s no match for her in an argument.”

“But after that, she really did seem to scold me less. Maybe I’ve been better behaved since starting at the academy, and I rarely make her angry now.”

As Jojo spoke, her words came more easily—after all, there were so many questions to answer.

“Things are good at the academy too. The other day, a bully named Li Yin tried to pick on me, but Tao Yao chased him off.”

“Not bad, Tao Yao! You dare stand up to Li Yin, the schoolyard tyrant now? You should have done it ages ago!” Ye Mingke high-fived him in delight.

“No, I still don’t dare fight. I was just trying to take the beating for Jojo,” Tao Yao admitted sheepishly.

“It was Tao Yao who stood up for me, and then Senior Yi Wan stood up for Tao Yao,” Jojo added quietly. “Senior Yi Wan really likes Tao Yao.”

Jojo nibbled her corn, adding this tidbit with a mischievous glint in her eye.

The quiet Jojo, it seemed, had a sly side as well.

“Senior Yi Wan?” Ye Mingke’s eyes lit up with mischief as he threw an arm around Tao Yao’s shoulder. “Tao Yao, is there something you haven’t told me lately?”

“No, it was just a coincidence—she happened to walk by that day…” Tao Yao’s face turned crimson as he stammered.

“She came looking for Tao Yao and just happened to see him getting picked on,” Jojo whispered helpfully.

“Oho! There’s a story here—out with it!” Ye Mingke was even more excited.

“Is Yi Wan the red-clad disciple of the master? She reminds me of the heroes in Dabai’s stories—such good fortune!”

“Yes, tell us! It’s been ages since I’ve heard a good story,” Dabai chimed in, eager for gossip.

Song Yi Wan was indeed the valiant red-robed girl who had commanded everyone during the academy trial, one of the master’s only two disciples.

“It’s nothing, really.”

Under the barrage of questions from Dabai and Mingke, Tao Yao finally scratched his head and, haltingly, told the tale.

It turned out, on the day of the trial, after Mingke and Jojo disappeared, many more things happened. The master and others rushed to search the mountains for the missing children, leaving Song Yi Wan to oversee the rest of the trial alone.

With worried parents clamoring to end the trial and retrieve their children, Song Yi Wan, overwhelmed and seeing that most still lost in the maze would likely fail anyway, entered the maze herself to lead the trapped children out.

But after rescuing most, she injured herself while hurrying out with an injured girl on her back.

It was Tao Yao, the first to escape the maze, who went back in and carried her and the other injured girls to safety.

From then on, Song Yi Wan looked at the big, clumsy Tao Yao with new eyes, only to find that this sturdy youth—clever enough to see through the maze and strong enough to carry her over mountains—was often bullied himself.

With her fiery spirit, she could hardly stand by and watch a friend who’d helped her be bullied, hence the repeated scenes of her driving off Li Yin.

“So, see? I told you it was nothing,” Tao Yao finished, with rare indignation.

“Hmm.” Mingke nodded thoughtfully. “No wonder you blushed and grinned like a fool when I asked about passing the trial—young love is budding!”

“Hmm,” Dabai echoed, nodding sagely. “An older woman is a treasure!”