WHF Ch 43 – Young master, but a survivor at heart

The early spring air in Bayan County carried the scent of earth. Yu Tianbai, tucked into his collar, sniffed and couldn’t tell if the smell came from the air or himself. The uncle and nephew duo stood not far from them. In the five minutes from the hall to the entrance, both sides exchanged glances without a word.

There were few buildings around, and the wind blew dryly. Yu Tianbai’s hand fumbled in his coat pocket for a while before pulling out the car keys.

“Let’s go!” he said, unsure if he was addressing Xiu Ma or the uncle and nephew.

In the parking lot outside the service hall, two Wuling Hongguang vans were parked side by side. The police in Bayan County were diligent, towing the vehicles over, sparing them the trip back to the muddy service area. Yu Tianbai sniffed, feeling he’d develop a short-term aversion to the smell of dirt.

Both sides unlocked their vans, opened the doors, climbed in, and closed them. The sound of engines starting rose and fell. After the revving stopped, the Tu uncle and nephew’s van pulled out first.

Another engine roared, but Yu Tianbai’s van stayed put.

“Broken again?” Xiu Ma sensed something was off.

Yes, broken again. A month ago, when the van first broke down on the road, the repair shop owner’s words echoed in his ears—don’t brake suddenly.

Who knew if those wise words rang in Yu Tianbai’s mind every time he slammed on the brakes in the month that followed?

“Hold off on talking,” Yu Tianbai said, biting his lower lip, turning the key again, and forcefully releasing the clutch.

No response. The van stayed put.

After the third engine attempt, the Wuling Hongguang that had driven off reversed back. The passenger window rolled down, and Old Seven poked his head out. “What’s wrong with the van?”

Yu Tianbai calmly lowered his window, offering a polite smile. “We can call a tow truck ourselves.”

Old Seven’s brows furrowed against the northern wind. He propped his elbow out the window and raised his voice. “This is a small place—no tow trucks. You’d wait two days for a call!”

So this place was even smaller than he’d thought. The northern wind blowing into the van was chilly, and Yu Tianbai squinted.

“What about a repair shop?” he asked the man to his left.

“On holiday!” Old Seven shouted louder. “The repair shop’s run by our honest relatives. They told us before leaving they won’t be back until April!”

How nice, how enviable. At that moment, Yu Tianbai wished he were the carefree owner of such a repair shop, happily on holiday, leaving stranded travelers to fret endlessly.

But as a jobless wanderer, Yu Tianbai wasn’t one to panic. He asked Tu Laoqi, “Any bright ideas?”

In the parking lot, unobstructed by buildings, the free northern wind whipped around several times. Old Seven slapped his forehead. “Come stay at our place for a few days!”

His words landed like a bolt from the blue. The silent Old Five jerked his head around, locking eyes with the equally shocked Xiu Ma. Now, half the group had chosen silence—what was the other half’s opinion?

Yu Tianbai gleefully slapped the window, agreeing wholeheartedly. “That’s the plan!”

Twenty-odd kilometers, twenty-odd minutes, and they arrived at a small mountain village outside Bayan County. Spring hadn’t yet arrived. The Northeast village was a mix of gray and blue—gray from brick houses, muddy ground, and lingering snow; blue from dusty vegetable greenhouses and the endless sky.

Old Five stood in front of the open kitchen stove in the single-story house, holding a curved butcher’s knife. Anyone who’d slaughtered livestock knew such a blade was the fastest and most efficient for chopping bones, cutting through iron like mud. Beside him was Old Seven, already wearing a glossy leather apron.

“Nephew, let me tell you, chopping bones is all about using your shoulder. Don’t put force on the front of the blade—that’ll break it.”

Old Seven listened intently, watching his uncle’s arm move up and down.

“Come on, you try!”

It was a big task. Old Seven took the butcher’s knife with trembling hands. The gleaming blade reflected his face. He looked up at Old Five. “Uncle, do you think this knife would cut through a person just as fast?”

At that moment, the half-open kitchen door banged. The Tu family’s matriarch stormed in, slapping the wooden door. “What are you dawdling for? The guests are getting impatient!”

Her words were like a starting gun, spurring the uncle and nephew into action. They fired up the stove, boiled water, chopped meat, and tossed it into the pot with nimble hands. Steam rose from the boiling water, and she finally left the kitchen.

Inside the house, Yu Tianbai and Xiu Ma sat side by side on the edge of the kang. Since arriving, the Tu matriarch had been bustling about warmly, treating them like long-lost nephews. Her enthusiasm was so overwhelming that even thick-skinned Yu Tianbai felt a bit uneasy, sitting stiffly until she went to the kitchen, when he finally let out a breath.

Who could’ve imagined they’d one day be guests dining at the home of people who’d tried to kill them?

Xiu Ma sat motionless beside him, likely pondering the same question.

This was the uncle and nephew’s hometown, Changlin Village, on the edge of Bayan County. Few young people remained; those under middle age had left for work. The four arrived in a three-wheeler after switching from the van. Their house was at the village’s far end—a single-story, self-built flat with a small courtyard and a sheep pen. Now they were in the kitchen making sauerkraut stewed lamb. Thinking of the few sheep in the pen, Yu Tianbai felt a twinge of guilt. Who knew if the one slaughtered for the table was an elder or a junior, male or female?

“Why’d you agree so quickly?” Xiu Ma finally spoke after moving from the van to the three-wheeler to the house.

“Didn’t think he was serious,” Yu Tianbai said, tucking his phone into his coat pocket. He’d called earlier and confirmed a tow truck would take two or three days. A small village like this surely had no motels or guesthouses, so they’d spend the next few days in this modest courtyard.

Spend them in the courtyard?

If he hadn’t misjudged, this house wasn’t big enough for four grown men to each have a room. They were sitting in the living room, which doubled as the master bedroom, likely for the uncle and his wife. There were two smaller rooms to the east, seemingly later additions—one probably Old Seven’s. As for themselves, the two unexpected guests, they’d likely share a room and a bed.

A bed they had no choice but to share.

It wasn’t their first time sleeping close together, but things were different now. Sleeping with an enemy just meant staying alert. Sleeping with someone you’d done this and that with was a whole other story.

Yu Tianbai let out a deep breath, contemplating the possibility of sleeping in the sheep pen.

His impractical thoughts were interrupted by the sauerkraut lamb pot brought to the table. The copper pot filled the room with a festive New Year’s vibe. Even Old Five’s weathered face glowed with springtime cheer, and his nephew wasn’t far behind, eagerly calling to drink with his uncle. The brawl in the mud seemed like it belonged to someone else.

Hot pot, warm faces, heated kang—Yu Tianbai was no stranger to this quintessential Northeast warmth, but experiencing it at this moment felt indescribable.

He almost wanted to laugh. He turned to Xiu Ma, who’d already grabbed chopsticks and was piling garlic paste into his bowl. Seeing Yu Tianbai’s half-smiling expression, he took a bite of rice and said, “What are you staring at? Eat.”

True to form, the young master never forgot to fill his stomach, no matter the crisis. A born survivor—what else could you say? Eat.

The meal was genuinely good. Maybe it was the long delay at the police station or the effort of washing off that faceful of mud at the service area, but everyone in the room refilled their bowls at least three times. After a pot of authentic Northeast rice and the sauerkraut-stewed lamb were polished off, they wiped their mouths. The Tu matriarch spoke first. “My old man said you’re both truck drivers running cargo together?”

Yu Tianbai had just set down his chopsticks and nearly choked. Apparently, in the uncle and nephew’s story, they might even be sworn brothers who’d been through thick and thin. The matriarch likely knew nothing of what the uncle and nephew did or earned under the factory director.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Yu Tianbai said, going along with it since things had come to this.

Seeing him cover the lie, the uncle and nephew, still holding their bowls, exchanged a silent glance. Who knew which of them first came up with the terrible idea of passing off their pursuers as business partners? But business partners or drinking buddies, as long as they didn’t call the stingy health supplement boss a noble professional, it was fine. Yu Tianbai kept a polite smile, praying the matriarch wouldn’t ask what he did.

Across the round table covered with floral plastic, the matriarch smiled and asked, “What do you two do?”

Yu Tianbai barely kept from spitting out the lamb tendon he’d just eaten.

“We—” he began, his tongue tying up.

Xiu Ma, silent until now, suddenly spoke. “We’re in the funeral business.”

The funeral business—great idea.

Weddings and funerals, life and death matters. The funeral trade paired neatly with the health supplement trade. But you had to look at things from multiple angles. The business was fine, but they needed to ignore the “Stand Up Fast” ad on the van.

At this point, Yu Tianbai prayed she hadn’t seen the aphrodisiac ads on their van or started thinking of creepy things like corpse herding.

Seeing the matriarch’s delighted yet slightly worried expression, Tu Laoqi suddenly couldn’t sit still. “Yeah, Aunt, with Qingming Festival coming, their business is booming. While things are still quiet, we’re hosting them. It’s good to look out for each other in the future.”

The way to make a bad lie worse was to pile another lie on top.

Tu Laoqi blurted it all out, and his uncle’s smiling face turned the color of the blood sausage in the sauerkraut pot.

“You’re already resting at home—let’s not talk work,” Yu Tianbai said, stepping in to save the day. “We’ve relied on their help a lot. Our journey hasn’t been lonely.”

The “not lonely” was said with a deliberate pause, full of meaning. Old Five and Old Seven’s smiles grew uglier by the second.

“No kidding,” Old Five recovered first, plastering on a business-partner smile. “Sometimes you two make such rapid progress on the road, we have to put in extra effort to keep up.”

He meant that every time they got outsmarted, the uncle and nephew had to hustle for days to catch up. But even if they didn’t, it didn’t change their inevitable reunion—like at the public bathhouse or now.

Yu Tianbai chuckled, loving this unspoken verbal sparring, as he enjoyed beating around the bush. “You’re too kind, too kind,” he said, raising both hands to wave off their praise. “Calling us brothers who’ve been through life and death is a bit much. Let’s just hope our journey ahead stays like before—for progress, you die, I live.”

With that, he raised a bowl of sauerkraut broth in place of wine, toasting Old Five. Their laughter grew louder, one outdoing the other. Old Seven, likely not catching the coded banter between his uncle and Yu Tianbai, joined in with a few awkward laughs. Xiu Ma stayed quiet, silently serving himself a bowl of sauerkraut broth.

After the meal, the matriarch stood to clear the dishes. Chatting half-truths with former enemies, Yu Tianbai felt more relaxed than at the start. It vaguely reminded him of his army days, one New Year when he didn’t return to Beijing and followed a Jilin comrade to his hometown. He’d sat on their earthen kang, eating dumplings made by his friend’s mother. The dumpling broth wasn’t as rich as sauerkraut and pork, but looking at the steaming bowl back then, he’d wondered if his parents worried about him in Jilin.

“Oh, right,” Yu Tianbai said, a thought striking him. “Didn’t you mention you had a son named Old Six? Doesn’t he live here?”

He vaguely recalled Tu Laoqi saying his son had some mental issues, the kind of kid usually kept close at home, not even stepping out the gate. Yet, after an hour on the kang, there was no sign of him.

As his words landed, a clatter rang out across the table. The matriarch, holding a stack of dishes, froze. Old Seven dropped his long spoon, hurriedly bending to pick it up and offering it to his aunt. She didn’t take it or look at him, walking out with the dishes, leaving the door open. The northern wind stumbled in, stirring white steam from the last bit of sauerkraut on the table.

Old Five kept his head down the whole time, staring at the woolen patterns on his plastic-soled slippers. Only when the wind slammed the door shut did he look up. “When he was fifteen, he was playing in the yard. We didn’t watch him closely, and he ran out onto the highway. A passing driver didn’t see him, and there was an accident.”

He sighed, a faint, helpless smile on his face, and began gathering the remaining dishes. “With his compensation money, we bought a few sheep. They have a few lambs each year—not too many, not too few. It’s been ten years.”

He stacked the last bowl, walked out slowly, leaving the door ajar. The curtain in the side room fluttered, revealing a black-and-white photo of a young boy on the wall, smiling brightly, looking much like Old Seven.