Chapter 35

When Ruan Qing woke up, she remembered that last night she had talked so much that she forgot to mention something important to Nian Qi. As soon as she realized this, she immediately called her dad to demand an explanation. No one answered. Her dad was a light sleeper who woke up early, probably doing Tai Chi sword practice at that time. She dialed again, and this time he picked up: “I’m practicing sword. What’s with the early morning rush?”

“Why didn’t you return my call yesterday?” Ruan Qing complained, exaggerating a bit. “I waited all night.”

“I asked, I asked,” her dad replied. “But your Grandpa Qi kept me on the phone for three hours, chatting about this and that. I’m telling you—”

“No, no, I don’t want to hear it!” As soon as she sensed that her dad was about to start recounting Grandpa Qi’s stories about how “Zhang’s grandson got divorced” or “Li’s son just had a second daughter,” Ruan Qing felt a headache coming on. “I just want to know about that Daoist temple I asked about. Did you find out if it’s real, and is it still there?”

“I did ask,” her dad said, reluctantly steering back to the main topic. “Your Grandpa Qi said, yes, it’s real.”

“The temple used to have a dozen or so Daoist priests, but later on, they all went down the mountain to fight the Japanese. Only a young apprentice was left to look after the place, and none of the others ever returned.”

“In the end, it was just that apprentice left. Your Grandpa Qi said that when he was a child, he heard stories about him like legends. That apprentice would have been almost thirty years older than your Grandpa Qi. People in the village used to see him coming down from the mountain occasionally to exchange mountain goods for basic necessities. When they asked why he didn’t come down to live a normal life, he would say he was guarding the temple, waiting for his master and fellow disciples to return.”

“Then, during the Cultural Revolution, a group of Red Guards heard about the temple in the mountains and went up to destroy it. But they got lost in the mountains. It was the former apprentice—now a middle-aged Daoist—who led them back out.”

“Your Grandpa Qi calculated that back then, the apprentice must have been almost forty years old, while he himself was just a ten-year-old boy. The village kids surrounded the Red Guards, asking about the mountain. At first, the Guards wouldn’t talk, but eventually, they gave in and told some fantastical stories. They said the Daoist could leap across rooftops and scale walls. One of the Guards had fallen off a cliff, and it was the Daoist who saved him. Without him, the whole group of them might have died up there.”

“Grandpa Qi was completely fascinated by the story when he was young and kept trying to find the temple to become a disciple. But the path to the temple had long since been abandoned, and no one could find it. One time, your Grandpa Qi even got lost in the mountains himself. Fortunately, he had enough food and clothing with him, or he would have starved or frozen to death. When he finally made it out, his father—your great-grandfather’s cousin—gave him a good beating, and he never went back into the mountains again.”

“But ever since that time when the Red Guards went to smash the temple, the Daoist there never came down again. It’s been many years since.”

Ruan Qing did some quick mental calculations. “If that person is still alive, he would be over ninety years old by now, wouldn’t he?”

Ruan’s dad agreed, “Yes, he must be around that age. He’s about thirty years older than your Grandpa Qi.” Reaching over ninety is quite rare in the city, where sudden deaths among young people are more common. But in the countryside, you sometimes come across centenarians.

“Hello? Hello?” Ruan’s dad called out a few times, realizing she had gone silent and pulling Ruan Qing back to the conversation. “What are you up to?” he grumbled and then asked, “By the way, why are you suddenly asking about this?”

“Oh, me?” Ruan Qing quickly improvised, “I’m planning to take a vacation and wanted to find a place for inspiration. I just happened to think of the old hometown, so I asked.”

“You’re taking a vacation?” Her dad’s voice perked up. “Well, that’s perfect. Come back and visit us. I’ve got an old colleague whose child is a brilliant kid—graduated from Princeton, spent years in the U.S., now 35, and just decided to come back to start a business…”

“Sounds great, good genes. He should hurry up and get married and have kids, preferably a son,” Ruan Qing said casually. “When his son turns 18 and becomes an adult, give me a call. I like young boys.”

“Be serious now.” Her dad’s tone grew stern.

Ruan Qing, fiddling with her nails, replied nonchalantly, “If there’s a handsome, fit young man in his late teens or early twenties, keep an eye out for me. I’ll come back during my vacation to meet him. But as for thirty-five or thirty-six-year-old guys with deep schemes, forget it.” She lowered her hand and looked up coolly, “They’ll just end up conspiring with my own parents to manipulate me again. I’m scared, really. Younger boys are simple and straightforward, much easier to deal with.”

Her dad’s tone softened as he sighed, “Didn’t we agree to let the past go? Let’s not bring it up again.”

Still, he tried to coax her, “Since you’re taking a break, come home and visit. Your mom was asking about you last night.”

“Didn’t I just visit during the Dragon Boat Festival? I’m not coming back,” Ruan Qing rejected him outright. The problem was that her mom still refused to admit any wrongdoing. She always believed that if she could manage supporting her husband’s business, taking care of children, and doing housework under the conditions back then, Ruan Qing should be able to accept the life they had planned for her now, especially when circumstances were a hundred times better. Whenever Ruan Qing went home, it wouldn’t take more than three days before an argument would inevitably break out.

Ruan’s dad sighed and then asked, “Are you short on money?”

“If you’re giving me money, then sure, I’ll take it,” Ruan Qing said slyly. Why wouldn’t she accept money if offered? “If you don’t want to give it to me, you can always donate it to charity when you’re old. I don’t mind,” she added indifferently. “I won’t starve, anyway.”

“I worked hard all my life to make money for someone else? It’s all for you!” Her dad fumed. They say daughters are their father’s sweethearts, but to him, it felt more like a past-life debtor coming to collect on this one.

Even after hanging up, he was still grumbling, but he ended up transferring Ruan Qing 200,000 yuan as spending money.

Ruan Qing had woken up late that day and spent the morning talking on the phone in her room. Meanwhile, Nian Qi was in the living room practicing martial arts, supporting his body with one hand on the floor, perfectly parallel to the ground, without a single tremor. He was planning to start cooking breakfast for her once she came out to wash up; all the ingredients were already prepared.

Ruan Qing’s voice was loud enough in the bedroom that Nian Qi could clearly hear her phone conversation. When she mentioned “late teens” and “young man,” his ears perked up slightly.

So, Ruan Qing preferred younger men. Thinking back, it was true that Zhao Hao was quite young. Just looking at his face, you could tell he was fresh-faced… Nian Qi shifted his weight and propelled himself into the air, switching hands to continue his exercise. It was frustrating; although he had never been married and this would be his first, he was indeed getting older. In his community, men of his age would typically grow beards. Fortunately, due to his profession, which required frequent disguises, he kept his face clean-shaven, making him appear a bit younger. But would Ruan Qing reject him because of his age?

As he pondered this, he overheard her mention “scheming” and “manipulation.” Nian Qi turned his head slightly to glance at the bedroom door. What was this scheming she was talking about? Who was plotting against her? And why would her own parents be involved? The person on the other end of the line sounded close to her, and her tone was completely different from when she was on business calls. It seemed assertive, but there was a subtle undertone of playful petulance, like a child throwing a mild tantrum.

After Ruan Qing finished her call and walked out of the bedroom, she asked, “Is there breakfast?”

Nian Qi was already putting on an apron. “Yes, it’s ready. You can wash up first.”

Ruan Qing casually tossed out, “After breakfast, I have something to discuss with you.”

Huh, what could it be? Nian Qi watched as she headed into the bathroom, then went into the kitchen to start preparing breakfast. He heated the oil in the pan and took out the dough that had been prepared the previous night, covered with plastic wrap and left to rise overnight. He sliced it into strips, twisted two pieces together, and dropped them into the hot oil, where they quickly puffed up. The dough was clearly well-risen, which made it expand so fast.

When Ruan Qing finished washing up, she saw a plate of perfectly golden mini fried dough sticks on the table. The crispness was just right, and they looked incredibly appetizing. She picked one up and took a bite, pleasantly surprised. “Which brand of frozen dough sticks are these? They’re better than the ones I used to buy.”

Her freezer had been stocked with some frozen food, which Nian Qi had gradually used up. As someone from ancient times, he thought the freezing technique was quite clever, as it could preserve food for longer. But from a culinary perspective, the quality just didn’t compare.

“They’re not frozen. I made the dough last night and let it rise overnight. This morning, I fried them,” Nian Qi explained. “Auntie Niu said this is also how breakfast shops make theirs.”

He had only been in the modern world for eleven days, and he had already mastered something as complicated as frying dough sticks. Ruan Qing was impressed.

After finishing breakfast, she said, “I have an idea about your identity situation now.” She shared her thoughts with him, and Nian Qi asked, “Will it work?”

Ruan Qing replied, “Even if it doesn’t, we don’t have any other options. You have no idea how strict household registration checks are nowadays. Everything’s connected online, unlike before, when you could just pull some strings or pay a bit of money.”

“I’ve researched the relevant policies. The cases where you can get a replacement household registration include things like children born in violation of birth regulations, or people who were declared missing and had their registration canceled. But you don’t meet any of these criteria, and you’d need to provide proof that you do.”

“This proof can’t just be your word for it; you need an official stamp to certify it,” Ruan Qing explained. “Take the case of an unregistered child, for example. You can’t just say you’re someone who was never registered. You need documentation from relevant agencies, like a local community office, village committee, family planning commission, health bureau, or hospital that’s associated with your birth or your parents’ household. They need to stamp and endorse your claim. But getting that stamp means taking on responsibility. There’s no reward for doing it, and if something goes wrong, it’s all on them. That’s why grassroots organizations are reluctant to take this responsibility.”

“Village committees might be more accommodating since everyone knows each other, but at community offices, who knows who? Your first hurdle would be proving your situation to the community office. But the very reason you’re going there is to ask them to prove your situation. If you could prove it yourself, you wouldn’t need them. It’s a no-win situation.”

“This is what they call the ‘prove I am me’ problem, and it’s notorious for being so bureaucratic that you could run yourself ragged trying to solve it.”