[Sweet, soft, mushy]

The workers delivered the refrigerator to the gate of the Bai residence. All the neighbors in Yuqing Alley poked their heads out to look—Mr. Bai’s house bought a refrigerator! Must be rolling in cash.

Huo Zhenye rolled up his sleeves and started moving it inside.

“Sir, should we help you carry it in?”

“No need.” Bai Zhun had never said so explicitly, but it was clear he disliked strangers entering his home.

The fridge didn’t look taller than a person, but it was still quite a struggle to lift. Huo Zhenye carried it into the entryway and set it down to rest for a bit.

Bai Zhun’s bamboo wheelchair silently rolled over. “This thing can store ice pops?”

“Yes, the pops will be delivered soon. Have a soda first,” Huo Zhenye said, catching his breath. “Let me rest a bit, then I’ll move it into the kitchen.”

That’s it? And he needs a break?

“Ah Xiu,” Bai Zhun called.

Ah Xiu responded right away. She wrapped both arms around the fridge and carried it steadily into the kitchen.

Huo Zhenye was dumbfounded. Ah Xiu had a slim, willow-like figure—and she turned out to be a female Hercules.

Bai Zhun glanced at him and, with a tone that said “what’s there to be so surprised about?” asked smugly, “Where’s the soda?”

Huo Zhenye shook his head and laughed. The brother is odd, so of course the sister is too. He turned around and brought in two crates of soda, chilling them in the fridge before handing one to Bai Zhun.

The glass bottle held orange soda, a very pretty color. As soon as the cap was popped off, fine bubbles surged up from the bottom. Bai Zhun took a sip.

He choked a little, the fizz rushing out his nose. Just as he was about to toss the drink aside, he smacked his lips and realized the taste wasn’t bad. “That black one—open me a bottle of that too.”

The black one was sour plum soda. Huo Zhenye was happy to serve him, opening the bottle and handing it over. He even opened one for Ah Xiu.

Ah Xiu took the bottle but didn’t drink it. Instead, she stood in the courtyard holding the glass up to the sun, watching the little bubbles rise from the bottom.

Bai Zhun sat in his wheelchair, and Huo Zhenye squatted beside him, both holding bottles of orange soda, watching Ah Xiu play with her bottle in the sunlight.

“Where am I sleeping tonight?” Huo Zhenye asked.

Bai Zhun was so annoyed he laughed. “Do you have no shame?”

“Liu Er escaped. I’m worried about you,” Huo Zhenye replied shamelessly. Anyway, he was determined to stay tonight—no matter what, he wasn’t leaving even if he was kicked out.

Bai Zhun snorted. “You’re the one who caught Liu Er. You should be worrying about yourself.”

“Then… I’m worried about myself. You protect me.” Huo Zhenye switched tactics instantly, going with the flow. He even looked around the room at the paper figures and said, “This General Yue looks so valiant—he’ll definitely protect me.”

Bai Zhun gave him a sidelong glance, seeming pleased that he could recognize quality: “Fine, I’ll have him stand at your bedside tonight.”

Huo Zhenye was pleasantly surprised. He hadn’t expected Bai Zhun would actually let him stay.

Bai Zhun already looked annoyed, but seeing how happy Huo Zhenye looked made him even more irritated. Reluctantly, he warned him: “This house—there are ghosts at night.”

“Then I’ll squeeze in with you?” Huo Zhenye joked, but the moment he said it, he cried out and covered his face. A yellow blur flew out of the house and pounced on him, pecking wildly at his hair.

Waving the yellow blur away, Huo Zhenye looked up and saw it was a yellow finch the size of a ping-pong ball—round and plump, bouncing around like a little cannonball.

He held his head in shock, staring at the tiny creature circling him. “You keep a bird?”

“I don’t keep living things,” Bai Zhun replied meaningfully, giving Huo Zhenye a pointed look.

Huo Zhenye played deaf, pretending not to hear the implication. He looked closely at the yellow finch—it looked just like a real bird, but on closer inspection, it was made of paper. A lifelike paper creation, animated and deployed like a missile by its master.

After pecking Huo Zhenye, the finch proudly flapped its wings, swished its tail, and flew onto Ah Xiu’s shoulder. It turned its head and started grooming the feathers Huo Zhenye had messed up. After a couple of strokes, it opened its beak at him—one could almost hear the chirp coming out.

Huo Zhenye looked from the bird to Bai Zhun. Truly, the creature resembled its master—even such a tiny thing had the nerve to act tough with him.

“You don’t mean to say… there are only two living people in this house?” he asked, curious.

He had meant Bai Zhun and Ah Xiu, but Bai Zhun assumed he meant himself and Huo Zhenye, and silently accepted it.

Huo Zhenye went quiet for a moment. The more mysterious Bai Zhun was, the more he wanted to understand him. Growing up surrounded by paper constructs, getting to be around a living person—who couldn’t speak and had a stunted mind at that…

He couldn’t quite name the feeling that rose in his chest, so he swallowed it all down and casually asked, “What do you want to eat tonight? Steamed pork with rice powder in lotus leaf? Portuguese chicken in cream sauce? Or maybe something light, like chicken congee?”

“Portuguese chicken.” He hadn’t tried that before.

Huo Zhenye drove off immediately to buy it. The dignified Seventh Young Master of the Huo family was basically Bai Zhun’s errand boy now.

He came back with a table full of Western dishes—Portuguese chicken, baked clams, spaghetti with meat sauce. There were even two kinds of soup: tomato beef and cream of mushroom.

He had bought three portions, but at the table it was just him and Bai Zhun. He didn’t find it odd. Ah Xiu was a girl—she was probably shy and didn’t want to eat with them.

Bai Zhun watched him eat spaghetti with a fork, twirling it around and around. Then he picked up two bamboo chopsticks. Nothing compared to a pair of chopsticks—how could one eat noodles without them?

Then he started nitpicking: “These noodles aren’t even cooked—they’re hard.”

But he still tasted every dish. He didn’t touch the chicken in the Portuguese chicken dish, but he finished all the potatoes.

Sweet, soft, mushy. Huo Zhenye summed up Bai Zhun’s preferences—so he has the palate of an old lady with no teeth.

After cleaning up Bai Zhun’s leftovers, Huo Zhenye dragged over a lounge chair and set it down in the courtyard. He played a record on the gramophone and leaned back, feeling like he was the old master of this house.

There was a knock at the door. Ah Xiu went to open it. From the courtyard, Huo Zhenye poked his head out and saw Han Zhu standing in the foyer.

She hadn’t expected to run into him here either and gave him a polite nod.

Huo Zhenye nodded back, and neither mentioned the incident at the Han family’s courtyard.

Han Zhu gave a slight bow. “Seventh Master, I’ve come to pick up the offerings for my father’s hundredth-day ritual.”

“The flower basket is ready. As for the paper boat, I need to remake it. I’ll have it delivered to you later.”

Han Zhu took the basket but didn’t leave right away. She said to Bai Zhun, “Seventh Master, I want to break off my engagement to Liu Da in front of my father’s grave. I ask you to bear witness.”

The engagement had been arranged by her father while he was alive, with a formal betrothal contract, a matchmaker, and witnesses. In fact, Bai Zhun had been one of those witnesses.

He found it troublesome, and though he hadn’t come in person, he had sent gifts and received the matchmaker’s token. It was only right to return it.

Bai Zhun nodded. “Very well.”

Han Zhu bowed again. “Many thanks, Seventh Master.” With that, she lifted the flower basket and left the Bai household.

“Master Han’s hundred-day memorial is on the twentieth.” Huo Zhenye suddenly remembered. With Liu Er on the run, even if he didn’t return to the Han family courtyard, he would definitely go to Master Han’s grave.

Bai Zhun gave him a glance, expression unreadable.

After a moment’s pause, Huo Zhenye spoke frankly: “I’ll notify the police.”

Bai Zhun still needed to finish the paper boat for Master Han. He turned his wheelchair and went back inside. Huo Zhenye thought he was angry and tried to defend himself. “Su Manli is innocent.”

Liu Er had killed indiscriminately, targeting Courtesan Queen Selection’s beauties. If it hadn’t been Su Manli, it would’ve been one of the remaining ten. Su Manli just had bad luck.

“Up to you.” The debt he owed the Han family was paid. If Master Han wasn’t satisfied, he was welcome to come find him in a dream.

Bai Zhun sat down at the table and first lit a white candle.

Using a bamboo knife, he split thin bamboo into strips, then polished each piece smooth. One by one, the bamboo strips were laid on the table—this was the skeleton of the boat.

Next, he unfolded a full sheet of yellow paper, ground various colored inks, and began to paint the boat’s coverings.

It was the first time Huo Zhenye had seen Bai Zhun at work. He watched from outside the door as Bai Zhun wielded a brush in each hand—one drawing the tiger’s head on the bow, the other painting lotus leaves along the hull.

It was as if the two hands belonged to separate people, each performing its own task.

Even while Bai Zhun focused on the painting, his peripheral vision still studied Huo Zhenye—restless when stirring things up, and completely silent once quieted.

Sensing his gaze, Huo Zhenye asked, “What’s the boat for?”

Bai Zhun finished the tiger’s head and added water ripples around the lotus leaves. “To send off a ghost.”

On the hundredth day after death, a boat and bridge are burned. The departed soul rides the paper boat across the river—this marks the moment when lingering spirits begin their journey to the underworld.

Huo Zhenye had studied at private school, received a Western education, and even studied abroad. No other culture treated death as the Chinese did—so solemn, as if the dead still lived.

They burned winter clothes, offered food, paper bridges and horses, mountains of gold and silk. If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn’t have believed ghosts truly existed in this world.

While Bai Zhun lit candles and crafted the paper boat, Huo Zhenye simply sat and watched. When the boat’s skeleton was finished and the coverings painted, he thought it was almost done.

But then Bai Zhun began crafting tiny human figures for the boat—ten boatmen on each side, a drummer and steward at the prow. Only when those were done did he finally flex his wrists and relax.

The candle flame suddenly flickered out. Bai Zhun set down his bamboo knife.

Though there was electric light in the room, he still lit a candle. Huo Zhenye didn’t ask why. He just kept staring at the paper boat.

The boat was extraordinarily intricate—even the doors and windows on board could open. Huo Zhenye glanced at Bai Zhun’s fingertips. Just how is such skill honed?

To Huo Zhenye, this wasn’t a funeral item for sending off a soul—it was a masterful piece of craftsmanship. Yet this exquisite thing would be burned in just a few days.

Bai Zhun rubbed his fingertips. “What are you looking at?”

“I think this could go in a glass display case, exhibited in an art museum.”

Bai Zhun chuckled softly. There was no such thing in this world as a paper-crafting master famous across the land.

“What’s this?” Huo Zhenye pointed at the official’s chair on the deck at the front of the boat.

“That’s Master Han’s seat.”

“I know. I meant, what are these two next to it?” Who are they for?

Bai Zhun fell silent. His wheelchair rolled away straight toward the bedroom. Huo Zhenye followed him in a few quick steps, only to receive a sideways glare from Bai Zhun.

Does he really want to sleep in his bed?

Huo Zhenye sighed. “I’ll carry you to bed.”

That sounded even more outrageous!

Bai Zhun wheeled himself into the room and bam—the bedroom door slammed shut. Huo Zhenye bumped his nose on the bamboo door. While rubbing his nose bridge, he asked, “Then where am I supposed to sleep?”

Bai Zhun gave no reply, but Ah Xiu slipped out and pointed to the loft. Huo Zhenye followed her up and carried down a low bamboo cot. Ah Xiu even brought him a thin blanket and pillow, setting him up to spend the night in the main hall.

Though Bai Zhun had instructed Ah Xiu to arrange it so he had a place to sleep, the main hall was filled with paper figures. Let’s see if he dared sleep with them watching.

Huo Zhenye dragged the bamboo cot over near the courtyard, gazing up at the starlight and moonlight above. Leisurely, he spoke to the room full of paper people: “Alright, brothers, quit staring. I didn’t grow a third eye or anything.”

The paper effigy of Erlang Shen ^[1] A Chinese deity often depicted with a third eye on his forehead, symbolizing divine insight. stared at him with hollow eyes. While the other paper figures had two blank eye sockets with no pupils, this one had three.

Right after he finished speaking, the paper yellow bird hopped onto his bed, prancing all over his pillow before nesting into his hair and settling down comfortably to sleep.

Huo Zhenye couldn’t help turning over, and the yellow bird tumbled out of his hair.

It had inherited Bai Zhun’s temper—couldn’t make a sound, but it pecked his head with its beak. Huo Zhenye suddenly thought of something and cupped the little yellow bird in his palm, gently rubbing its head.

“You little thing want to sleep with me—could it be your master wants to sleep with me too?”

Bai Zhun opened his eyes and almost choked with rage. If he’d known it’d come to this, he shouldn’t have given him a blanket. Should’ve just let him freeze to death!