Chapter 107: Where Does a Happy Life Come From

After the gathering ended, Katerina returned to her own quarters.

Comrade Li insisted on clearing the table, washing the chopsticks, and scrubbing the dishes.

No matter how Chang Yu refused, he could not stop that unprecedented surge of enthusiasm.

What was more, after the dishes were washed, he even picked up a broom and a mop, determined to help Chang Yu mop the floor and tidy the room.

No one could talk him out of it.

"Where does a happy life come from? It has to be created through labor," Comrade Li sang as he mopped.

"The little butterfly loves to play, and does not like work or study; we must not follow its example."

"We should learn from the magpie and build a new house; the joy of labor is beyond telling, and the creation of labor is the greatest glory."

In an instant, the small room was filled with his astonishingly off-key, unbearable, screeching, howling songs.

Comrade Li truly sang like a disaster.

Chang Yu swore to the heavens that this was the most horrible singing he had ever heard in his life.

Even a donkey braying, he suspected, would sound better than Comrade Li singing.

Well... perhaps only about on par with Katerina?

"It's over, it's over, I'm ruined!" Yangyang clutched his ears in agony. "My ears are pregnant, my ears are pregnant!"

"Chang Yu, Chang Yu, make him stop singing, make him stop! I'm begging you, okay?"

"I honestly never would have thought it. A man with such a magnetic voice could sing so terribly."

"Bear with it a little longer, a little longer!" Chang Yu's expression was no better; pain had twisted his features into a knot.

"At least he's helping us with the work. It would be rude to kick him out like this. If we're going to drive him away, we should at least wait until he's finished."

Nearly an hour passed before the hair-raising singing finally stopped.

By then, Yangyang and Chang Yu had already collapsed on the bed, both of them wearing expressions of utter despair.

"Chief Chang Yu!" Comrade Li knocked on the bedroom door. "I've cleaned the whole house. Would you like to come out and take a look?"

"If there's anywhere you feel isn't clean enough, I'll come and do it over for you."

"No need, no need!" Both of them sprang up from the bed like lunatics and staggered out the door, faces full of alarm.

Even their heartfelt cries were astonishingly in perfect unison.

"You've already been cleaning for half the day. How could we trouble you to keep at it? The place is already very clean, and I'm truly, truly satisfied."

With lightning speed, Chang Yu snatched the broom from Comrade Li's hands, fearing that if he thought too long about it, he might decide to clean the whole room again.

"I'm glad you're satisfied, glad indeed," Comrade Li said with a cheerful smile, somehow giving off an especially simple and honest air.

"So long as you're at ease, then I'm at ease too."

"And once you're at ease, I can rest assured." he said.

Ah, being a person is hard.

Being a man is even harder.

Though Chang Yu seemed kinder than anyone on the surface, inside he was more irritable than anyone else.

Just think about it: what sort of person, driven to anger at not being able to watch a ball game, would dare to smash a television set? What was there he would not do?

Best not to provoke him.

Comrade Li truly felt that the only thing he could do now was take care of every detail properly, so that Chief Chang Yu would not have even the slightest excuse to pick a quarrel.

.........

Watching Comrade Li recede into the distance, Chang Yu said to Yangyang with lingering fear, "What on earth was wrong with Li today? Why was he acting so strangely?"

"Did you say something to him that made him misunderstand?"

Yangyang looked away guiltily, his big eyes rolling slyly. "Don't ask me. I'm just a child. I don't know anything."

"How strange." Chang Yu always felt that he had overlooked something, but for the moment he could not say what it was.

"Forget it..." He did not want to keep overthinking it. "A man, especially a handsome man, is bound to run into a few clingy fools."

The moonlight at night was soft and pure, but Chang Yu, lying on the sofa in the living room, could feel only solitude and indifference.

The reason was simple: Yangyang was too infuriating, so infuriating he was almost universally detested.

At first, the two of them had been sleeping peacefully in the bedroom.

But who knew what madness had possessed Yangyang? Even in sleep he would not stay still; he kept flailing about.

One moment he would swing an arm into Chang Yu's nose, the next he would kick Chang Yu in the navel, never resting for a second.

Poor Chang Yu had only just begun to feel drowsy when Yangyang jolted him awake again and again, making it impossible to sleep soundly.

And now it was already two or three in the morning, and Chang Yu still could not close his eyes because of him.

In the end, he had no choice but to carry his bedding and pillow to the sofa in the living room.

Only now did he truly understand how hard it must be for parents raising children.

"Pah, that unfilial little brat!"

"Ever since he came, I haven't even had the right to sleep." Chang Yu turned over irritably, his back and waist aching, his old arms and legs so stiff and sore they felt as if they might cramp.

Sleeping on a sofa was the worst part: it was too hard on the waist.

No matter how nice a sofa was, it was never as comfortable as a bed, was it?

"I've had enough of this damn outrage." The more Chang Yu thought about it, the angrier and more miserable he became. "Why should he get the bed while I have to sleep on the sofa?"

"Why can he sleep so soundly while I can only stare wide-eyed? No, tomorrow I need to go to the furniture market and buy myself a bed."

"Yangyang likes to thrash around in his sleep, doesn't he? Then if I sleep separately from him, wouldn't that solve everything?"

"Mm... that's what I'll do."

Imagining himself lying in a brand-new bed and no longer suffering Yangyang's kicks and punches, Chang Yu suddenly felt an inexplicable sense of peace.

Then his eyelids grew heavy, and before he knew it, he had fallen asleep.

In his dream, Chang Yu once again came to the fragrant and flower-filled Valley of the Bracken Herb.

Looking at the familiar scenery around him, he suddenly felt as though years had passed in a single breath.

It had truly been a very long time since he had come here. Returning all at once made everything feel especially intimate.

Thinking back on everything that had happened during this time...

It seemed that ever since Yangyang had been born... he had never come here again.

Wait, why had he just naturally formed the mindset of a young wife returning to her parents' home for a visit?

And "ever since Yangyang was born"...

Had his mentality begun changing in a feminine direction as well?

That would not do.

Chang Yu hurriedly shook his head, extinguishing the faint dangerous thought that had just arisen in his mind.

He, Chang Yu, was a genuine, authentic, pure-blooded man!

How could he, simply because he had borne a child like a woman, end up thinking like one too?

"I am a man! A real, iron-boned man!" Chang Yu pumped himself up fiercely, without noticing in the least the orchid-shaped fingers he had unconsciously raised.

After waiting for quite some time, he still saw no sign of the true person Hao Er arriving, and Chang Yu felt somewhat puzzled.

"How strange. Why hasn't Master come to pick me up today?"

At this hour in the past, Hao Er the True Person would already have come for him.

For him to be absent for more than a quarter of an hour like this was truly unusual.

"Master, Master!" Chang Yu, now impatient, drew breath into his dantian and shouted at the top of his lungs, startling a flock of immortal birds into flight.

Still no response. The valley remained empty; it was as though this realm of heaven and earth contained only Chang Yu.

Something was wrong. Could something have happened to Master?

At once, all sorts of scenes rose unbidden in Chang Yu's mind: the white-bearded Hao Er the True Person being kidnapped by a gang of burly men; Hao Er the True Person fighting a spell duel and, outmatched, being split in two by lightning summoned from talismans; Hao Er the True Person riding a flying sword high above the clouds, suddenly sneezing, losing his balance, and tumbling from the sword to splatter into a heap.

The world of cultivation was always fraught with danger. One might be alive and well today, and gone tomorrow.

Hao Er the True Person suffering some sudden misfortune sounded unbelievable, but in truth... it really could happen.

The more Chang Yu thought, the more frightened he became; the more frightened he became, the more terrified he grew. And when his thoughts reached the saddest point, tears came.

"Master, oh Master!" Chang Yu wiped at the tears in the corners of his eyes and cried in grief, "How could your life be so bitter? A perfectly good man, and then suddenly gone just like that?"

"Master, rest assured. Once a teacher, always a father! I will keep your teachings in mind at all times, and I will continue to practice the immortal arts you taught me."

"I will take good care of the ancestral tablets. I won't let the treasures in your medicine room fall into anyone else's hands. Those... those treasures will all belong to me alone!"

"With your disciple guarding your estate, you can go in peace. Every year on your memorial day, I will burn you some paper money, so that you can spend a little more freely on the other side."

"If you still have any unfulfilled wishes, just send me a dream. I will do everything I can, even if it costs me my old life, to see that they are carried out properly."

"Of course... if I ever fail to do something well, don't be angry. Just... don't come lingering around as a vengeful ghost and haunt your disciple."