The Innocent Heart - Chapter 2

It was probably due to a sleepless night that Guan Yueyao did not finally drift into a heavy slumber until the sky gradually turned a faint white. This sleep lasted well into the morning; she only woke when her stomach began rumbling from hunger.

“This is quite good, too. No one cares if I don’t go to class,” Guan Yueyao said, sitting on the pile of straw. She rubbed her belly and, from the bottom of the straw heap, retrieved the pouch she had hidden last night, pulling out a single copper coin.

With this pouch, she would not have to worry about going hungry for the time being. Perhaps because of this assurance, she finally had the inclination to properly explore her current lodging.

Being only a child, Guan Yueyao had never considered why such a large estate, in a city with so many beggars, was otherwise uninhabited.

The answer, of course, lay in a reason well known to everyone in Chang’an City.

The original owner of this residence was once a meritorious official who had followed the founding Emperor Gaozu in conquering the empire. Unfortunately, after a period of great glory and opulence—the metaphor of “a fresh flower on brocade, oil being poured on a raging fire”—he became like “the hunting dog that catches the rabbit and is then cooked.”

The entire family, old and young, perished as unjustly executed spirits under the Yellow Springs, and their fame, fortune, grand feasts, and resonant bells all dissipated like smoke in the wind.

Following this event, the manor changed hands several times. Yet, whether the new occupants were officials or merchants, all who resided there seemed inevitably to meet a grim fate.

After the last owner offended a noble in the capital and vanished, having lost all his property, people throughout the capital widely rumored that the house was haunted by fierce ghosts that plagued its masters, deeming it highly ominous.

During the Han dynasty, witchcraft and sorcery were intensely popular. As the rumors circulated for a long time, the place became a notorious ‘Haunted House’ known to everyone in Chang’an City.

Forget finding a buyer; even the most wretched beggar would rather sleep out in the streets than spend a night here.

Naturally, this was unknown to Guan Yueyao.

She glanced around the desolate manor. Perhaps it was the boldness of the ignorant, or perhaps it was the bright midday sun, but she felt that although the courtyard was terribly dilapidated, it held no hint of horror.

Thinking this, she quickly looked around once more, then slipped out through a hole in the surrounding wall.

Mindful of the appointment she had made with the boy yesterday, Guan Yueyao decided that after securing her sustenance, she would wait in the small alley.

The currency currently in circulation was the Banliang (Half-Ounce) coin, minted by order of the Emperor, beginning in the fifth year of the Jianyuan reign. This was a mere ten years after his initial decree in the second month of spring during the first year of the Jianyuan reign to cast the Sanzhu (Three-Zhu) coin.

The change of two different currencies within a decade created an unstable monetary system that affected commodity prices to some degree.

Therefore, although the reigns of Emperors Wen and Jing were known as times of peace, with granaries so full that “the grain piles up year after year, overflowing and exposed outside until it rots and cannot be eaten,” the resulting prices were not exactly cheap.

With her single Banliang coin, Guan Yueyao could only exchange it with a vendor for two baked flatbreads and a bowl of watery, flavorless porridge, thin as plain water.

However, Guan Yueyao’s attire was too shabby. The stall owner forbade her from sitting at a table, worried it would hurt his business. Likely starving, she was too listless to argue, so she took the bowl and the flatbreads and sat down to eat by the roadside.

Midday on the streets of Chang’an was one of the busiest times of the day. Pedestrians jostled shoulder-to-shoulder, their faces bearing the relaxed expressions common to people living in times of peace.

Guan Yueyao finished her meal, patted her satisfied, rounded belly, and squinted comfortably in the warm sunshine.

Since arriving here, she had retained only the most basic concept of time, roughly estimating what part of the day it was by looking at the sky.

“Time to go to the alley,” she thought, rising to her feet and pushing her way into the crowd.

Even on the most crowded street, most people steer clear of a dirty beggar pushing past them. Thus, Guan Yueyao easily passed through the bustling thoroughfare and, relying on her memory, walked toward the alley from yesterday.

The alley was not deep, and a pile of miscellaneous objects lay at its end. The extended eaves of the houses blocked most of the sunlight, leaving only a sliver of light in the narrow space.

The clamor and noise from outside the alley were clearly visible to anyone sitting inside. Guan Yueyao stood for a while, then grew bored. She wanted to leave, but the thought of the money pouch the child mentioned kept her there.

It sounds a bit ridiculous, but in Guan Yueyao’s still-shallow and ‘chuunibyou’ worldview, while all were low-life deeds, using violent means to rob others of their property was superior to outright theft.

She would rather use stolen money to buy food from a vendor than surreptitiously pocket something as she walked past their stall.

In reality, of course, she didn’t have the skills for that, either. Moreover, compared to the carefully selected victims she preferred, the vendors—who were clearly robust adult men—were much harder to deal with.

She was merely finding excuses and psychological comfort for her own timid bullying and unjust actions.

And now, a foolish, yet seemingly wealthy, child had delivered himself right to her.

If beating him up every day could exchange for a period of carefree food and clothing, Guan Yueyao smiled, then that would be a dream come true.

However, the child’s naivety and short-sightedness prevented her from realizing that this was not a relationship that could last long, and that in this era, she possessed no skills to earn a living other than manual labor.

She was congratulating herself, sitting by the wall and waiting for the child from yesterday to show up again.

“What’s going on?” The sun gradually began to set in the west, and the line of light in the alley grew dim. But the child from yesterday never appeared. Guan Yueyao began to grow impatient.

“Damn it, is he trying to fool me?” she thought angrily, her mood instantly souring to the extreme.

“Next time I catch him, I’ll beat him so hard his own mother won’t recognize him!” Guan Yueyao thought, rising from the ground, brushing the dust off her backside, and walking out of the alley, unwilling to concede defeat.

The way she walked was truly arrogant, carrying the rough habits she had picked up while studying in Japan, making her look genuinely difficult to mess with. On the wide main street, pedestrians hastily gave way to her.

This reaction improved her mood somewhat. She swaggered down the street, taking in the strange looks from passersby.

“Hey, grandson! How dare you make your grandpa wait so long! I thought you ran away!” Suddenly, a still-boyish, high-pitched voice rang out ahead of her, so loud that the people nearby immediately turned their attention to Guan Yueyao.

A chuckle was heard nearby. Guan Yueyao looked toward the source of the voice. It was none other than the brat who had stood her up today. He was standing there, arms crossed, chin raised, looking at her provocatively.

“You still dare to jump around in front of me!” Guan Yueyao looked at the brat. The anger that had been temporarily dismissed immediately rushed back to her head. She charged towards the boy, grabbed his collar with one hand, and was about to lift him off the ground.

“Do you know how long I waited for you?” Guan Yueyao said fiercely, planning to drag him to a nearby small alley for a beating.

“It was clearly you who stood me up! How are you playing the victim, grandson!” The child stuck out his neck, shouting loudly and righteously.

“I sat in that alley for a whole afternoon, and I didn’t see a trace of you! How dare you argue!”

She turned and pointed behind her to the alley, which was still devoid of people coming or going. When she turned back, however, she saw the brat looking at her with a look of extreme contempt.

“You went to the wrong place, didn’t you notice?” the boy mocked with an irritating tone.

Guan Yueyao was stunned, but without further thought, she dismissed the idea. How could she have remembered wrong?

“You must be the one who went to the wrong place and are blaming me. But it doesn’t matter. Tell me, where do you want to get beaten?” After all, getting his money pouch was the most important thing.

The boy pointed behind himself: “Go over there.”

Guan Yueyao, not suspecting a thing, let go of the boy’s collar and followed him towards another alley. The further they walked, the more familiar the scenery became. Guan Yueyao finally realized: This was the place where she and the boy had fought yesterday.

Although she knew she had remembered the wrong place and wasted an entire afternoon waiting, a teenager’s pride was paramount. Guan Yueyao pretended not to notice. Once the two stood still, she looked at the fellow who barely reached her shoulder and asked casually:

“Shall we start?”

She would not resort to sneak attacks; she still observed the ‘martial code.’

Soon, the two took up their fighting stances and quickly began grappling with each other again.

This was a fight with a foregone conclusion, as Guan Yueyao herself knew. She was far superior to the boy in front of her in terms of age, physique, physical ability, martial arts training, and fighting experience.

It was virtually no different from any of her previous demands for protection money.

“Take it!” Beaten into submission again, the boy sat on the ground. This time, he very willingly untied the money pouch from his waist and handed it over.

“I yield to your superior skill,” Guan Yueyao said, not bothering to decline. She subconsciously spoke the humble phrase she was accustomed to using and took the money pouch. Opening it, she saw that it contained several pieces of roughly chopped, scattered gold.

“You’re very strong. Teach me how to fight!” The boy remained sitting on the ground, still sticking out his neck and scowling, as he spoke to Guan Yueyao.

“You want to be my little brother?” Guan Yueyao looked at the boy and asked casually. She had experienced such things many times before and didn’t take it too seriously.

“Who wants to be your little brother?! I want you to teach me how to fight!” The boy seemed exasperated by Guan Yueyao’s words. He scrambled up from the ground, pointing at the money pouch in her hand.

“If you teach me how to fight, I can pay you another pouch of this gold!”

“Fine by me,” Guan Yueyao agreed without further hesitation upon hearing this offer. What could be easier? Teach him some basic techniques, and the rest depended on cultivating a fearless attitude.

It was just as the old saying often circulated in the martial world: “The soft fear the hard, the hard fear the aggressive, and the aggressive fear the desperate.”

In a fight between two groups of hooligans, if you could suppress the other side with sheer dominance and loudness, you had already won more than half the brawl.

“What’s your name?” Guan Yueyao asked the boy. Since she had taken his protection money, she ought to know the name of her generous victim.

“Huo Qubing!” the boy declared.

“Alright, Huo Qubing. Since I took your protection money, I won’t just teach you how to fight. If anyone hits you, just tell them the great name of your Big Sister, Guan Yueyao! From now on, I’ve got your back!”

Guan Yueyao pointed to herself with her thumb, wearing a look of confidence, completely forgetting that this was not the Japanese schoolyard where she could be a local bully.

Huo Qubing’s face froze upon hearing Guan Yueyao’s words. It took a moment before he regained his composure and said: “Who needs you to have their back? I’ll fight back myself!”