A Donkey Named Tauxue

Chapter 38: A Donkey Named Tauxue

"Buy a horse?" His father was startled. "We can't afford that."

"But I really don't want to keep walking back and forth. We'll be going to Meng City plenty from now on. When will this ever end...? Qianshan, why don't you talk to the Prefect and ask him to set up a post station in Lower Yan Village?"

Luo Qianshan was sipping his porridge in tiny mouthfuls. At that, he swallowed a whole mouthful of piping-hot porridge and yelped as it scalded him.

"Don't go saying things like that. Post stations aren't easy to set up, and Lower Yan Village can't afford to maintain one..." Luo Qianshan thought Zi Bofeng was a strange fellow. Sometimes he was meticulous, but other times his ideas were so wild that he spoke without thinking.

"It's only a few horses and a building..." Zi Bofeng muttered.

"You don't understand." Luo Qianshan shook his head and tried to talk him out of it. "Give up on that idea now. Only two extremely remote townships in Meng City have post stations, and even they complain endlessly about them. The costs have to be shared by the place where the station is located, and raising a single relay horse isn't easy."

"Then let's just buy one ourselves. Even a pony would be fine..." Zi Bofeng pleaded with his father. Used to having a car whenever he went out in his previous life, he had grown thoroughly sick of walking the twenty-five kilometers to Meng City.

"Scholar, if you want something to get around on, why not buy a donkey or a mule?" The young guard was squatting in a corner with a bowl of porridge, slurping it down. He chimed in at that.

"A donkey? A mule?" Zi Bofeng's spirits sank. "They're nowhere near as impressive as a horse..."

"Impressive? If I gave you a horse, could you even ride it?" Luo Qianshan rolled his eyes. "Besides, even the Prefect sometimes rides in a donkey cart instead of having horses pull his carriage. You think you're more precious than the Prefect?"

"Didn't we ride in a horse-drawn carriage last time?" Zi Bofeng remembered that they had taken one when they returned to the village.

"That was the Prefect showing you special courtesy. Don't be ungrateful. You don't know how long Old Qi at the post station complained to me. He was heartbroken that his precious horses had to pull a carriage."

Seeing Zi Bofeng roll his eyes, Luo Qianshan immediately realized that the Prefect's tender glances had been wasted on a blind man.

"All right..." Zi Bofeng said weakly. "Then... let's buy a mule..."

"We can't buy a mule either! If we buy anything, it can only be a donkey!" Zi Jian snorted from the side, then fell silent. If Zi Bofeng could have reached out and touched his heart, he would have felt it aching fiercely. Buying a donkey just to travel to and from Meng City? That was far too wasteful.

But his son was now the Prefect's honored guest. Having to walk all the way to Meng City every time was a little too shabby. At least riding a donkey would give him something to get around on.

"If you're buying a donkey, have Xiao Jiu take you in a bit. His family used to raise donkeys." Luo Qianshan pointed to his young guard.

"Leave it to me!" The young guard thumped his chest so hard it boomed.

Zi Bofeng stared up at the sky and imagined himself riding a donkey. Then he let out a long sigh.

"I have a little donkey that I never ride. One day, on a whim, I rode it to the market. I held a little whip in my hand, feeling so proud, but somehow, splash! I fell and got covered in mud..."

On the official road from Meng City to Lower Yan Village, a small black-and-white donkey pulled a flatbed cart along the road. Its long ears twitched back and forth, its hooves clopped crisply against the ground, and its song carried far into the distance.

Little Stone sat on the donkey's back, waving a little riding crop and singing excitedly. Zhuzi led the donkey by its reins. Zi Bofeng, Zi Jian, and Zhuzi's Mother sat on the cart behind them. Zhuzi's Mother looked much healthier now. Sitting sideways in the cart, she watched her son leading the donkey and chatted with Zi Jian now and then. Perhaps buying the donkey had pained him too much; Zi Jian wasn't very talkative, and sat frowning, lost in thought.

Zi Bofeng watched the little donkey for a while with a sigh. Its tail swished from side to side, and its four legs moved quickly. It walked with an easy, cheerful gait, and he couldn't help feeling a little happier too.

"Little Stone, come down now. Let your Uncle Zhuzi ride for a while too," Zi Jian said, seeing how long Zhuzi had been walking.

"I'm fine." Zhuzi cheerfully led the donkey. It wasn't his own donkey, but leading it was much faster than pulling the cart himself. The donkey walked so quickly that Zhuzi had to jog to keep up. Before long, sweat covered his head, but he still couldn't stop grinning. He reached back and vigorously rubbed the base of the donkey's ears, praising it. "What a fine donkey!"

The donkey seemed to know Zhuzi was praising it. It snorted, lowered its head, and picked up the pace.

Little Stone stopped singing and started yelling, "Charge! Attack!" as if he thought he was a great general.

"Better to ride a Tauxue donkey than spur a Wind-Chaser steed. When frosted hooves lose bridle and rein, it's often the ones who chase delight who fall." Zi Bofeng had come around to it. He was a scholar with no strength to lift a chicken; riding a little donkey suited him much better than riding a tall horse. And now that he thought about it, the donkey wasn't slow at all. It was steady, too, and had a good temperament.

Thinking of it that way, he liked the donkey more and more. Its coat was black and white: black along its back, snowy white underneath, and black on all four legs, each speckled with white as though flecks of snow had splashed across them.

"Let's call it Tauxue," Zi Bofeng said. It was their own animal, so everything about it looked good to him.

"Tauxue, Tauxue." Little Stone repeated it twice, then shook his head. "That doesn't sound nice. Let's call it Little Snow instead. Little Snow, Little Snow."

After calling it twice, Little Stone giggled and lay across the donkey's neck, gently scratching it. The donkey seemed to know he was calling to it. It brayed twice and stepped along even more merrily.

Now Zhuzi really couldn't keep up. He quickly tugged on the reins to slow the donkey, then reached out to Little Stone. "No, it's going too fast. It's dangerous to sit up there."

Only then did Little Stone reluctantly let Zhuzi lift him down and sit him at the back of the cart, where Zhuzi's Mother could hold him.

Zhuzi sat on the cart shaft too, waving the riding crop as he drove the donkey cart. As they went, he kept calling out instructions. "Little Snow, turn left! Little Snow, walk carefully!" He urged the donkey on with one shout after another, and before long they had turned onto the mountain path leading to Lower Yan Village.

When they passed Galloping Horse Stone, Zi Bofeng took a close look. The obsessions and spiritual energy gathered around the stone had grown stronger again. Looking at the stone shaped like a galloping horse, Zi Bofeng couldn't help sighing.

A donkey was fine, but having a horse would be nice too.

He was still too poor!

His father probably wouldn't let him buy a horse for a year or two, so he had better focus on what was in front of him. Zi Bofeng began to calculate how he might upgrade his little donkey into an epic monster mount.

The journey from Meng City to Lower Yan Village usually took half a day, but now they arrived in just over an hour—less than half the time. Zi Bofeng was the only one still thinking that it would be even better if they could get there in half an hour, like in his previous life.

Not far from the village entrance, a group of children came running and shouting after them, following the donkey cart. They called out "Teacher!" and "Donkey!" Zi Bofeng couldn't help feeling as if they were insulting him. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

A little farther on, he spotted Yan Lao Wu squatting there, smoking his dry pipe. The instant the old man saw them coming with a little donkey, his wrinkled face blossomed into a smile. "Who bought the little donkey? What a fine one!" As he spoke, he reached out and rubbed its ears.

The good mood Zi Bofeng had enjoyed on the way gradually faded when he saw Yan Lao Wu. He remembered the Jade Tax.

"Old man, I have something I need to discuss with you in a bit," Zi Bofeng said seriously.

"If it's about setting up a post station, don't even bring it up." The old man hurriedly waved him off. Zi Bofeng now knew that the post station idea had been a joke, and his face flushed red. He quickly said, "It's not about a post station. This time it's serious—more serious than the last tax collection."

"Really?" The old man was startled. He hadn't had many peaceful days yet. Was it happening again?

When Zi Bofeng told him what was going on, the old man's brows immediately furrowed.

"This... this... sigh..." The old man shook his head. "Heaven itself won't let people live..."

"It's not Heaven that won't let people live. It's the immortals." They were cutting off people's livelihoods; it was a blood feud. These immortals only showed up to strip the land bare. They were more hateful than corrupt officials, and they deserved to die—every last one of them. Still, Zi Bofeng couldn't bring himself to accept such an extreme idea as assassination. Besides, Luo Qianshan's plan was hardly reliable and probably wouldn't succeed. Before leaving, Zi Bofeng had told Luo Qianshan not to rush into an assassination. That would only leave both sides battered and broken.

And even if the assassination succeeded, it would only be like drinking poison to quench one's thirst, and might provoke even harsher reprisals. Luo Qianshan probably wouldn't act so rashly; he would need to think it over carefully first. Zi Bofeng had said they should prepare early, but this was the sort of problem that should be left to someone at the Prefect's level. Still, he couldn't stop worrying about it.

The Prefect was upright and honest, Luo Qianshan was brave and principled, and the villagers were kind and decent. This was exactly the kind of life Zi Bofeng loved and cherished most. He didn't want anyone to ruin it.

"Shh, you can't talk like that!" Yan Lao Wu hurriedly covered Zi Bofeng's mouth, his face going pale with fright. "You don't know how powerful immortals are. Forty years ago, when the Jade Tax was collected, a white-bearded old priest came to our village. With one stroke of his sword, he killed the giant tiger in the mountains. I was the one who led him there. My grandfather was still alive then. He told me that when he was young, a bear spirit had been causing trouble in the mountains, and that same white-bearded immortal came down and killed it with a single sword stroke. Decades have passed, and the immortal hasn't changed a bit... Was the immortal coming this time a white-bearded old priest?"

"No. It was a young man dressed in white." Zi Bofeng shook his head, remembering the young cultivator with his flowing white robes and Feather Crane Cloud Carriage. They were both young men. Was he, a transmigrator, really powerless now, left with nothing to do but wait?

But what could he do besides wait?

Zi Bofeng drew a breath. "Old man, let's not say too much about this for now. We'll wait for the government notice to arrive before we decide what to do." He continued, "I need to think this through carefully."

"I understand." The old man nodded, then added, "Tomorrow, I'll call a few of my old brothers and take my old dog into the mountains to look for jade..."

In the end, the old man still didn't think there was any other way to solve this. For now, all they could do was search desperately for jade.

The Record of Raising Monsters