Bright moon

The fourteenth day of the eighth month.

The Bright Hall deity presided; the God of Joy lay due south, the God of Fortune to the southwest.

Auspicious for breaking ground, beginning construction, moving into a new home...

Excellent fortune!

That day, Yang Ge rose before dawn, briskly lit the fire and kneaded dough, then cooked a great pot of noodles.

"Cock-a-doodle-doo..."

The crow of someone's big rooster drifted into the courtyard.

Squatting side by side outside the kitchen, Yang Ge and Little Yellow lifted their heads from their noodle bowls at the same time.

Yang Ge: "Burp."

Little Yellow: "Burp."

Yang Ge looked at Little Yellow. "There's still noodle broth in the pot. Want a bowl? Helps with digestion."

Little Yellow licked his chops and wagged his tail at him with a cheeky grin.

Yang Ge stood up. "You got it!"

He carried his enormous bowl into the kitchen, lifted the pot lid, and ladled out a brimming bowl of noodle broth. Then he carried it back out and poured half into Little Yellow's big bowl.

"Cock-a-doodle-doo..."

The irritating rooster crowed again.

Father and son lifted their heads together again and both let out a satisfied burp.

Yang Ge looked at his canine son. "Full now?"

Little Yellow got up and pushed his big bowl toward Yang Ge with a front paw.

Yang Ge rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Leave it for now. Can't miss the auspicious hour!"

He got up and set his enormous bowl beside the stove, then supported his round belly as he ambled into the woodshed. After rummaging around, he found a hoe, slung it over his shoulder, and leisurely followed the courtyard wall toward the back of the house. Little Yellow trailed at his feet, matching him step for step.

Behind the little courtyard stood an earthen wall.

Yang Ge sauntered over to the middle of the wall, raised the hoe, and struck it twice.

The pitted earthen wall obligingly shed a few crumbs.

Yang Ge didn't mind. He lowered the hoe and muttered, "That counts as a groundbreaking ceremony, right?"

He remembered news reports he had seen before, where a whole crowd of important people in suits and polished shoes donned shoe covers, went to a construction site, and ceremonially shoveled a couple of scoops of dirt. That counted as a groundbreaking ceremony...

So why shouldn't his two strokes with a hoe count?

With that thought, he set down the hoe with a perfectly clear conscience, spread his feet, and settled into a firm horse stance. Then he tightened his waistband with both hands and suddenly fired off a front kick. "Hi-yah..."

Thud.

The earthen wall burst apart, and Yang Ge's right leg punched straight through it, sticking out the other side.

"Well, well, pretty sturdy..."

Yang Ge teased it in a comical voice, pulled his right leg free, and steadied himself. After taking a deep breath, he suddenly kicked again. "Hi-ya-yah..."

Bang.

Half the earthen wall collapsed with a crash, and the brilliant autumn sunrise rushed straight into Yang Ge's embrace.

He lifted his face and squinted into the rising sun on the horizon, the smile lines at the corners of his eyes deep enough to pinch a mosquito to death!

"Woof, woof..."

Little Yellow bounced on the spot, squinting as he greeted the sunrise.

Yang Ge bent down and picked him up, taking his paw and pointing it toward the rundown courtyard beyond the wall. "Son, this is our home now too. Happy? Thrilled? Excited?"

The day before yesterday, he had finished all the paperwork for buying the house and registering his residence, firmly binding his name to this plot of land behind his home.

From now on...

If he committed a crime out in the world, the authorities would send people here first to arrest him.

If he stirred up trouble outside, his enemies would also come here first to lie in wait for him.

Put that way, didn't it feel wonderfully cozy?

Whether Yang Ge was happy, thrilled, or excited was anyone's guess, but Little Yellow truly was excited, licking his chops and whining eagerly.

He had grown up in the little courtyard out front. That tiny courtyard had been his entire world, and now his world was about to become so much bigger. How could he not be excited?

Yang Ge smiled, turned sideways to shield Little Yellow in his arms, and swung his withdrawn leg out again. With a low, powerful burst of air, it slammed into the remaining half of the earthen wall.

Bang.

The remaining stretch of wall, no taller than a threshold, flew apart, scattering clods of earth all over the courtyard.

"Woof, woof, woof..."

The instant Yang Ge put Little Yellow down, the fellow shot into the courtyard like a wisp of smoke, tearing joyfully around the clutter-filled space like a lunatic, both ears flying up like a rabbit's.

Yang Ge stepped slowly through the "earthen doorway" into the sunlight and stood with his hands on his hips, watching Little Yellow romp with a doting smile...

A little over 124,600 copper coins, tax included.

With prices soaring lately, the house had cost over half again as much as it would have in normal times.

But Yang Ge felt... it was all worth it.

Only after a long while did he let out a long breath of stale air, clench his fists, and tell Little Yellow, who was romping nearby, "Son, let's get to work!"

Little Yellow: "Woof, woof!"

Compared with rebuilding the front courtyard, renovating the rear courtyard would be much simpler.

In Yang Ge's renovation plan, this courtyard of nearly two hundred square meters would be divided into three sections.

The first section was, naturally, the vegetable garden he had been longing for.

Both his parents had come from the countryside. Though they had later bought a home in the city, as they grew older, both had yearned to return to their hometown. His mother in particular dreamed of having a vegetable plot. For that tiny patch of rooftop where she could grow vegetables, she had fought countless battles of wits and courage against the property management, losing again and again but always coming back for more.

The second section was the chicken enclosure he had planned.

The rectangular enclosure would be built alongside the vegetable plot on an east-west alignment, with only a narrow path between them. This arrangement would give the chickens room to move while making it convenient for him to transfer their chicken-brand organic fertilizer into the vegetable plot later.

The third section would be a multipurpose workshop at the northern end of the rear courtyard.

This multipurpose workshop could serve as a storeroom for grain and other bulky goods, a utility shed for hoes, billhooks, and other tools, and a woodworking and smithing workshop, giving him space to make furniture.

Once connected, the two courtyards would have a total area of nearly four hundred square meters, with comprehensive amenities and sensibly divided spaces that fully catered to every need of an old man living alone... simply perfect!

The thought of the lovely life awaiting him once the rear courtyard was finished-a house and a plot of land, a dog and chickens, and the chance to nip into the garden for a couple of handfuls of tender garlic shoots while cooking his morning noodles-made Yang Ge's demolition kicks even fiercer!

In just one day, he completely leveled every existing structure in the courtyard.

He even pried up every strip of bluestone used in the foundations and stacked them to one side...

Putting a martial arts genius with inborn superhuman strength and fully developed inner force to work on this was rather like cheating!

Even after sunset, Yang Ge still didn't feel tired. By the bright moonlight, he continued swinging a strip of bluestone weighing over two hundred jin to tamp down the ground.

His whole mind was on the job at hand, and he merely thought the moonlight was particularly bright that night.

Only when he happened to raise his head and saw the moon, big as a millstone, did realization suddenly strike him.

"Oh, it's almost the Mid-Autumn Festival..."

The second chapter will be a little late~