Act XV, Hyperpolia (Part 9)
Nine
"You're still alive!" The first thing Glickley said to Yubi the next day was this exclamation. "That witch let you go!"
“Thank God,” Yubi blinked, leading him around to the back of the house, showing off yesterday’s catch, “and Yakov even managed to hunt so many.”
Glickley let out an even louder cry of surprise, stamping his foot. "...He's really something!" The poor farmer, seeing the enormous carcasses of the grizzly bear and beaver, tripped and fell to the ground. "He can hunt bears all by himself...and catch beavers!"
“I helped a little too!” Yubi proudly raised her chin.
Yakov lay on the warm stove, too lazy to get out of bed after a night of hard work. Hearing Grikli's voice outside, he yawned deeply and shouted into the house, "Yubi, give him his payment!" Yakov instructed, "He's the one who built our stove!"
"Should I choose myself?" Yubi answered him from outside the house. "Anything is fine?"
"You decide what to do!" Yakov said with his eyes closed.
The sound of their footsteps echoed around the house, sometimes in the foxtail grass, sometimes in the snow. After a while, Yakov heard Grikli's shouts again. "...This is too valuable, I have no need for it!" the farmer awkwardly refused. "How would we know how to use this stuff!"
“You can also take it to town and sell it for money,” Yubi said. “If there’s no spice shop, a pharmacy will do.”
Yakov could barely hear their conversation, finding it extremely noisy. After a moment's thought, he suddenly sat up abruptly from the couch, opened his eyes, wrapped himself in his clothes, climbed down from the fireplace, and went outside—it was too late. He watched as Yubi took the pair of precious castor oils from the smoking rack he had set up the day before and placed them in Grikley's hands.
"Thank you so much... thank you!" Glickley exclaimed, overjoyed as he examined the item. "I'm going home... I'm afraid I'll lose it!"
He took off running, leaving a trail of messy footprints in the snow. Yakov had no choice but to go over to Yubi and slap his fur hat hard, causing Yubi to wince and clutch his head in pain.
“He can hunt again!” Yubi retorted. “His furnace is so well-maintained!”
“We need money too,” Yakov sighed. “This is a one-time exception.”
They spent the entire day working on yesterday's prey. Yakov dragged the two carcasses to the riverbank, skinning them with a knife, his hands covered in blood—he had worried Yubi would be heartbroken at the sight, but the vampire only seemed to be staring at the raw, bloody flesh, swallowing hard. Yakov scraped the fat off the inside of the fur, then mixed brains and grease and applied it to cure the meat. Both the bear and the beaver had wounds on their necks, and their hides weren't intact enough to fetch a high price. However, the newly made smoking rack was overflowing with meat.
“We can take the bear paws and bile into town and sell them for money,” Yakov said. “We can keep the fur to wear.”
The next day, Yakov cut down a few unsightly trees behind the house, clearing a new clearing. He and Yubi worked together to build a low, triangular wooden hut there, lined with birch bark and moss, specifically for smoking. Now, even if Yakov hunted a bear every week, the meat would be smoked properly. They rubbed the cut meat piece by piece with snow, hung it on a rope along with the tanned hides, and then lit half-burnt charcoal underneath.
"We absolutely must go into town tomorrow," Yakov instructed. "We must buy everything we need before the heavy snowfall."
On the third day, the two rose before dawn. They first visited Grikli, borrowed a wheelbarrow, and then set off for town. Like ordinary hunters, they went to the market, haggling with the apothecary and merchants, exchanging all their possessions for red squirrel pelts—Yubi had never known before that there were places where squirrel pelts were used as currency instead of gold and silver. Carrying the pelts, they first bought salt, rye flour, a large bag of turnips, and a large bag of onions. Then, Yakov pushed the cart to the blacksmith's shop, troubled and conflicted as he chose a hardwood bow and counted out several iron arrowheads. After the last bit of space in the cart was filled with household items, they had spent every last squirrel pelt they had.
"...A bear hunted with all our might, and this is all the money we get?" On the way home, Yubi muttered regretfully as he towed the truck. "If I hadn't given away the castoreum so carelessly... you could have bought a good bow with cow horn on it."
“We can hunt again.” Yakov gripped the handles tightly at the back of the vehicle, struggling to keep the load from tipping over. “We can also buy a better bow.”
When the two stumbled home, it was already dark, and the river was frozen. Yubi hadn't even reached the door before he collapsed into the grass, exhausted. He lifted his hand, which had ached all day, and discovered that his delicate palms were covered in blisters and chilblains—but even a vampire wouldn't immediately remove the ring and let these horrifying marks simply vanish.
“Go start a fire and rest at home.” Yakov carried the goods into the cellar one by one, his sweat steaming like smoke from his head. “I’ll go return the car to Grikli myself.”
“…I’ll go with you.” Yubifei propped himself up and got up. “I’ll go with you.”
They traveled a while longer with their wheelbarrow and knocked on the wooden door of the Grikli family's house—now, their house had a clean new stove, no longer billowing black smoke. "Oh, dear guest!" His wife, Dalia, warmly brought over a basin of hot water and stuffed a wooden box into Yakov's hands. "We've gotten some good honey... please take it!"
"...This is too precious!" Yubi said, a little flustered. "Please keep it for yourself and your child!"
"Thank you." Koyakov immediately took the box. "I love eating this."
Yubi thought for a while but couldn't figure out whether Yakov's words were true or false. The two of them stayed there to soak their feet, and went out when they were warm. When they got home, Yakov cut meat and vegetables, fetched some melted snow, and scooped out a piece each of salt and honey, stuffing them all into a pot and pushing it deep into the scorching stove—soon, a rich and sweet aroma wafted out, making Yubi crane his neck to look inside.
"Would you like to try some?" Finally, Yakov sprinkled rye flour into the soup, making it thicken instantly.
Yubi climbed down from the stove and squeezed in front of the pot of sticky stew. “I want some,” he said. “I won’t swallow it… I’ll just taste it.”
After that, the urgent work lessened, and the snow on the road grew thicker. Besides hunting, Yakov would go to the woods every day to drag back a dead tree, chopping it into firewood with his axe; and Yubi finally had a chance to thoroughly tidy up the cabin. He dusted Redhorn, placed the icon and the wooden wheel together, and laid Yakov's longsword underneath. Then he tried to clean the blackened roof with a straw brush, but the soot had seeped into the wood, and his cleaning was futile—a few days later, the vampire suddenly remembered something and ran out, covered in dust.
"How are we going to take a bath?" Yubi finally asked the question that had been bothering her for so long. "It's so cold, we can't take our clothes off without the stove!"
The firewood beside Yakov quickly piled up into a small mountain. He turned his head, raised his eyebrows, and his mouth beneath his beard slowly opened and closed. The Slav put down his axe, looked around, casually broke off a handful of pine branches and held them in his hand, then picked up a few round stones. "...Then we won't leave the hearth," he said in a language Yubi couldn't understand, "we can bathe in the hearth."
"Huh?" Yubi stared at him as he bundled the pine branches into a ball. "It'll burn people to death in the stove."
“It’s similar to a ‘fire bath’,” Yakov reminded him. “Do you remember?”
“But the ‘fire bath’ isn’t in a furnace!” Yubi exclaimed, his mouth agape.
“You’ll see once you try.” Yakov stuffed the pine branch into his hand, turned and went inside, throwing the round stone into the stove.
The firewood in the stove burned out quickly, and Yakov didn't add any more. He emptied the ashes from the stove, leaving a few red-hot stones inside. Then, the Slav picked pine needles and layered them inside, and scooped a basin of snow from outside and placed it outside the stove. Immediately afterwards, Yubi watched as he took off his clothes in front of the stove, revealing his hairy chest and the long-unseen markings on it.
"...You're insane!" the vampire exclaimed in shock. "You really want to jump into the furnace?!"
“There’s room for both of us in there.” Yakov said dismissively, bending over and crawling inside. “Hurry up, or it’ll get cold.”
The enormous furnace swallowed Yakov whole, leaving no trace. Yubi peered inside, a mixture of curiosity and apprehension in her eyes. The scent of pine needles filled the air—Yakov lay comfortably inside, his feet pressed against the furnace wall, covered in soot. The vampire hesitated for a moment before deciding not to remove the ring. She quickly stripped naked and plunged inside—and as soon as she did, Yubi's knees were pricked by a dense mass of pine needles, and she screamed in pain.
“I’ve already picked the tender pine needles,” Yakov said, forcing him to climb onto him. “Next time, use straw.”
The stove was deep, dark, and cramped; it was already tense enough for two people to squeeze in. Yubi initially felt cold, but after a while, the scorching stones and stove walls made him sweat profusely, forcing him to escape from Yakov and prefer to seek coolness on the prickly pine needles. Yakov used pine branches dipped in melted snow to dust himself in the stove, making it not only hot but also unbearably damp, making it hard to breathe. It was hotter than the Tatars' "fire bath"... Yubi felt like a loaf of bread being remolded; like an infant returning to its mother's womb; as if he and Yakov were both made of iron ingots, about to be melted together.
"Are you ready?" Yakov suddenly asked him, wiping his sweat.
"Huh?" Yubi's mind was filled with a lot of ambiguous and passionate thoughts.
“Once it’s steamed, it’s time to wash it.” Yakov placed the pine branches, which he had been drying, on his burning back. “We should have used birch leaves, but they all fell off in winter. Pine branches will do just as well.”
This wasn't a bath; it was torture! When a snow-covered pine branch lashed his body, Yubi clenched his fists to stifle a cry. "It hurts! It hurts so much!" he yelled. "It's hot and cold... and it pricks!" But Yakov, after whipping him, nonchalantly turned the pine branches over himself and even told Yubi to sweep his back—Yubi touched the numerous whip marks on Yakov's back, too distressed to touch him. "Use some force," Yakov even urged him, "You need to work harder to get it clean."
"...I already used a lot of force!" Yubi shoved his shoulder angrily. "I wasn't holding a whip!"
“Just use it like a whip.” Yakov closed his eyes contentedly. “It’s not a whip.”
"Does anyone in this world really enjoy being whipped?" Yubi couldn't help but wonder. This inexplicable bathing continued for several rounds, leaving both of them feeling burning hot all over—towards the end, Yubi, almost driven by revenge, frantically swung the pine branch, determined to make Yakov sigh—"It's alright," the Slav shook his head, "still far inferior to the bathhouse attendant."
"Stop arguing!" Yubi gritted her teeth again and threw the wet pine branch on his back. "Then go find the bathhouse attendant!"
“Then we’ll have to walk half a day south to get to the city,” Yakov sighed comfortably. “Too much trouble.”
When Yubi finally emerged from the stove, he noticed that both of them were flushed from head to toe, glistening with what looked like sweat or steam. It was so hot that he almost wanted to run out the door and crawl naked into the snow outside—"Go for a walk, no need to wear clothes." Yakov actually said this crazy thing, "Scrubbing your body with snow now will get your blood flowing better."
The moment the door opened, the biting air instantly snapped Yubiben out of his daze. "...I'm not going!" the vampire shook his head frantically, wrapping the blanket tightly around himself. "I'll stay here!"
Yakov said nothing, only patted him on the back, and barefoot into the snow with the empty bucket in hand—Yubi watched him do this and his teeth chattered from the cold. Like a cloak of white mist, the burly Slav walked to the riverbank, broke through the ice, and immersed himself completely in the icy water. The cloak-like white mist dissipated instantly.
He even took a bucket and poured water over his head repeatedly! "...Don't you feel cold?!" Yubi exclaimed in astonishment. "You'll get typhoid fever doing that!"
“Fire can expel filth, and water can wash it away.” Yakov carried the bucket back to the doorway. “It must be in a state of equilibrium between hot and cold, just like casting iron.”
What strange legend was this? Yubi had never heard Yakov mention it before. Just as he was about to ask a few more questions, a bucket of icy water mixed with ice shards was poured directly over his head. His lips trembled, his palms and soles were numb and painful, and he couldn't ask any more questions.
"How is it?" Yakov asked him with a smile. "Is it cool?"
“…Damn it, damn it…” Yubi cursed in broken Slavic, uttering his first ever swear word. “It’s freezing cold.”
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