Chapter 49

Chapter 49

Chapter 12 (part 3)

At nightfall, Wu Du comes over to check on the small case and his sword. Duan Ling is lying in a corner of the house sleeping next to the wall, and when he hears the noise, he sneaks a peek. He finds Wu Du standing with his back to him, opening the case and taking out something before going outside to sit down in front of the door.

Soon, the intermittent sound of a flute begins to play as if it’s being tuned. Duan Ling’s ears perk up, then the notes drifting through the air come one after the other stringing together into a melody.

Joyful Reunion!

The song is Joyful Reunion!

Duan Ling has heard it countless times before; in Shangjing, over the courtyard walls of the Illustrious hall, Xunchun’s playing inside the Viburnum, his father’s somewhat shaky flute song … He’s surprised to find that Wu Du can play it too. The moment he catches the first notes of the flute, Duan Ling goes into a daze.

At first, the sound that comes out of Wu Du’s flute seems to have an air of indignance to it, but past the opening, the notes gush forth like a waterfall; in the stillness of the night it is as though the music is coaxing a field full of peach trees into blooming, each note flowing boundlessly without end, filled with hope and expectation, ringing out with a carefree confidence.

When he heard it in the Illustrious Hall for the very first time, it was reticent and reserved, as though it had so many things to say but no way to put them into words; Xunchun’s tune on the other hand was bitter and heartbroken, with a touch of despair; once Li Jianhong managed to learn how to play, even his flute song was brimming over with a sonorous strength. When Wu Du is playing this song, it doesn’t evoke any of the same feelings Duan Ling has ever heard from it before — it’s rich and mellow without being aggressive, poignant without sorrow, as generous and free as water running through Xichuan’s Feng River, torrentially flowing out to sea.

Still dressed in an undershirt and short pants for bed, Duan Ling is seized with an irresistible impulse to step out of his corner, and he stops in front of the threshold to look outside. He finds Wu Du sitting on the steps in the courtyard, his profile looking exceedingly handsome with a strain of indifference and frustration in his gaze. The song gradually comes to a stop and Wu Du puts down the flute. There’s a bright full moon above, setting off the vastness and clarity of the night. Duan Ling is still absorbed in the music.

“What’s that?” Duan Ling asks.

Wu Du turns his head and looks Duan Ling up from the top of his head down to his toes, and the corner of his mouth gives a brief quirk.

“Never seen a flute before?”

Duan Ling is speechless; he had thought Wu Du would give him a word of explanation, talk about the song maybe, but Wu Du can’t be bothered to say anything superfluous to him. He puts down the flute and lies down outside the door, staring up at the moon.

“When I was as old as you are now, I already knew how to kill people.”

Duan Ling steps outside when he hears Wu Du speaking to him, and he sits beneath the eaves with his arms wrapped around his knees.

In the silence Wu Du takes a sip of wine and thinks aloud, “I was fifteen that year. My master’s wife gave me a copy of the Book of Medicine, a flute, the sword Lieguangjian, and told me to leave the mountain to search for a fellow apprentice.”

Duan Ling recalls Xunchun, who also knew how to play this song, but he doesn’t say anything to interrupt Wu Du.

“My master’s wife was a woman with conviction. She told me that, there are some things in the world that you mustn’t ever do, even if your life is hanging by a thread, even if you’re driven into a corner. Integrity … is more important than life itself.”

“And as luck would have it someone else also told me that,” Wu Du continues unhurriedly, “that there are some things in the world one must do even if there’s a mountain of swords and a sea of flames in the way, that no matter how difficult it is, one still must do it …”

The wine has gone to his eyes and Wu Du stares into space tipsily for a while before asking, “You’ve had some schooling before?”

Duan Ling gives him a nod and Wu Du continues, “What do you want to do when you grow up? Don’t you ever become an assassin like me.”

Duan Ling stares at Wu Du, and after a heartbeat, tells him, “When my dad was alive he wanted me to go to school, and rank high on the exams.”

Wu Du breathes out a sigh. “Rank high on the exams.”

Wu Du starts to laugh, shaking his head; whether he’s laughing at Duan Ling or at himself is a mystery. “How much have you learned? Pick a few sentences and recite them to me.”

“Black sky yellow earth, vast universe all chaos …” Duan Ling recites.

“Try again,” Wu Du says, “Who doesn’t know that one?”

“To review and practice what one has learned, isn’t it a joy…”2

“Try again,” Wu Du’s eyes are closed as he mutters, “I’ve heard that so many times already my ears are getting calluses.”

“The goal of higher education is to enhance the honourable part of one’s character …”

“No idea what that means, try again.”

“When will this endless cycle of seasonal flower and moon viewings end? Oh, the past is sorrowful to look upon.”3

Wu Du drinks a mouthful of wine and does not interrupt Duan Ling this time. Recalling the poems that the headmaster taught them, Duan Ling recites some for Wu Du; there’s Grieve the reflection of white hair in the main hall mirror; dawn’s black silk has gone snow white by dusk,4 and You march and you march, how the distance pulls us apart,5 and Wu Du listens, taking a drink of wine from time to time until at last the half catty of wine is all gone and Wu Du is leaning against the side of the bed, his eyes closed, not moving at all.

Worried he may catch a cold from sleeping outside, Duan Ling drags him laboriously onto the bed. Wu Du hasn’t fallen asleep though, and he opens his eyes to look drunkenly at Duan Ling as if he’d like to say something. In that instant Duan Ling’s heart begin beating madly inside his chest.

“This mouth of yours looks like Yao Zheng’s.” Wu Du jeers, “whenever I see it I want to cuff you in the face.”

Duan Ling hastens to say, “Who … who’s Yao Zheng?”

Wu Du ignores him, and Duan Ling tucks him in before going back into his corner to set up his bedding, and lies down. But Wu Du is keeping his eyes open, staring fixedly at Duan Ling’s back.

“Why do I keep getting this feeling that I’ve seen you somewhere before?”

“Have you?”

Wu Du rubs at a spot between his brows, but he really can’t remember. Duan Ling makes the bed, and with his back to Wu Du, he says, “You’re in my stars.”

“How so?” Wu Du closes his eyes, sounding disinterested.

“You’ve saved my life twice. I owe you so much, but I really don’t have anything to repay you with.”

“I’m not any sort of good person,” Wu Du airs his thoughts, “I can save you on a whim, but I can kill you on a whim just the same. Don’t you be glad so soon.”

Duan Ling knows Wu Du is just bluffing; of course he won’t kill him for no good reason. But as soon as Wu Du finishes saying this, he falls asleep.

The next day, Duan Ling makes up his mind to put his plan into motion — find some way to approach Mu Qing, and win his trust. At the very least he has to somehow leave an impression on Mu Qing. However, his access to Mu Qing mustn’t give Wu Du cause to become guarded against him and to distance himself. Otherwise without Wu Du’s protection, if Lang Junxia ever finds him, he’d be able to kill him just about any time he feels like.

Wu Du is working on strengthening his qi, and Duan Ling glances at him from time to time; his method shares Li Jianhong’s approach to increasing qi, using footwork and palm moves to guide the flow of force around the meridian points of the body. When Wu Du finishes he’s covered in sweat, and Duan Ling draws a bucket of water to wash his hair for him in the courtyard.

“Mu Qing asked me to do something,” Duan Ling says.

“What something?”

Duan Ling fills a basin with water and pours it over Wu Du’s head.

“He asked me to fill the prescription.” And he tells Wu Du what happened.

“Why didn’t you tell me last time?”

Duan Ling doesn’t reply to that. He asks, “What do I do?”

Through his observations Duan Ling knows that as long as he explains the whole situation in detail, Wu Du is definitely not going to get mad at him. Sure enough, he’s made a correct assumption.

“What do you do?” Wu Du says icily, “At least you know what’s good for you.”

So Duan Ling keeps his mouth shut, and once he finishes washing Wu Du’s hair, he dries it for him. It’s quite clear that Wu Du doesn’t really have a choice; it’s not as though he has money. He says to Duan Ling, “He’s asked you to fill it, so go ahead and fill it.”

Duan Ling silently breathes an inward sigh of relief, thinking to himself, well the plan has succeeded by half. He recreates the packet of drugs for Mu Qing, but instead of hurrying off to deliver it, he places it on the table in front of Wu Du. Wu Du doesn’t say anything, just continue to flip through his books.

It’s after noon before Wu Du tells him, “Go deliver it to him.”

Duan Ling leaves with the packet. This time, his trip into the chancellor’s estate goes much more smoothly. Mu Qing is studying in his room, irritation written all over his face. When he sees Duan Ling he beckons at him and says, “Come in here. Did you finish making it?”

Duan Ling produces the packet and sits down on his heels next to Mu Qing, handing it over. “Take half a copper’s weight at a time. You can’t take any more than that.”

This chapter is scrapped from readlightnovel.org

Mu Qing puts it away like it’s a most precious treasure. He takes out some silvers and asks, “What’s your name?”

“Wang Shan.”

Mu Qing nods. Since it’s not everyday that Duan Ling gets to come here, he wants to find some pretext to talk to Mu Qing and gain his favour, make sure he remembers him, because that’s the only way he’s going to have the opportunity to approach Mu Qing in the future. Yet reality has proven that Duan Ling truly worried overmuch; Mu Qing’s been shuttered off in his courtyard house for days and days studying, and the riffraff he used to call friends no longer come looking for him out of fear that Mu Kuangda will stomp them to death the way he did that cricket. The only people he has around him are a few serving maids. Mu Qing is already quite mad with cabin fever.

“Do you have any soporifics?” Mu Qing whispers, “Best if it’s the kind where, after they take it they don’t remember a thing, and just think they had a dream or something. We can knock out the guards and sneak out to play.”

Duan Ling gives this some thought and replies earnestly, “I don’t, young master.”

“Then do you have ordinary soporifics? Wu Du must have some, right?”

“No,” Duan Ling replies, “he doesn’t use soporifics.”

Mu Qing is facing a sheet of paper, wearing a miserable frown. There are only several lines on the page. Duan Ling has already noticed it.

“Where’re you from? Do you know any interesting things? I’ll give you some money. Go to the market and buy me some fun things.”

“The master will skin me, young master.”

Mu Qing goes quiet for a moment before asking, “Can you write essays? Answer this question. Know how?”

Duan Ling stares at the topic written on the side: Zi Lu, Zeng Xi, Ran You, Gongxi Hua are seated in attendance,6 which originates from The Analects of Confucius, and the balled up papers Mu Qing has discarded all over the desk; at once an idea occurs to him.

Mu Qing is downright out of energy, and he lies down spread-eagle on the bed. Taking one look down at the desk, Duan Ling picks up the brush, dips it in ink, and starts to write.

Meanwhile, Mu Qing gets up and paces around the room, stretching, but he doesn’t shoo Duan Ling out of his house either. He stands in the courtyard, bending this way and that, getting some exercise in. “Know any martial arts?”

“I don’t,” Duan Ling replies, already writing on the paper.

Mu Qing doesn’t bother looking back, just stretches out his waist and asks Duan Ling, sounding perplexed, “Doesn’t Wu Du live by himself? Did you just start living in his house recently? What did he want you for?”

Mu Qing’s impression of Wu Du is that of a man with an odd temperament. The whole 'slave with three surnames” business notwithstanding, he doesn’t seem to know that he should be trying to win his dad’s favour, and he’s bullied by Chang Liujun all the livelong day. If it’s anyone else, he’d have left already, but somehow this particular assassin is still grinning and bearing it, staying in that outlying courtyard house.

Duan Ling turns this question over and over in his head, but he doesn’t answer it directly. “I’m from Xunbei, young master.”

“Oh? Xunbei.” Even though Mu Qing was born with a silver spoon, he’s not all that haughty. He grew up in a literati family so he has the foundational manners of a scholar at least. “Xunbei … northern Xunyang. What’s fun to do around there?”

“It’s on the western edge of Shangzi. There are lots of wild animals in the mountains.”

“I wish I could go hunting sometime. I’ll give you some money. Go to the marketplace in my stead and buy a horse for me. It doesn’t have to be a big one; a Yunnan horse will do.7 Keep it in that courtyard of yours and I’ll go see it when I have time … what are you doing?”

“Doing your homework for you, young master.” Duan Ling has finished the entire essay while they were talking, and putting the brush down, he gets up and bows to Mu Qing.

Mu Qing is flabbergasted. “You’ve even had schooling before?”

Duan Ling stands nearby but doesn’t say anything, keeping his eyes to himself. Mu Qing reads the whole thing from top to bottom. “This … this will do — this is great!”

“Young master, you can’t just copy it wholesale and hand it in like that. You’ll need to change the first and last paragraphs and swap out some of the vocabulary in the middle.”

“Great! Great!” Mu Qing laughs. “Thanks so much!”

Mu Qing takes a seat, and Duan Ling grinds ink for him. And so Mu Qing copies it out, changing a few things here and there. Duan Ling rises as soon as Mu Qing finishes writing. Mu Qing takes out some money from his money purse, but after thinking about it decides not to reward Duan Ling. “Come over the morning after next. For now, go home.”

Duan Ling replies certainly, and Mu Qing is beaming as he looks over the essay he’s copied. After being shut away for a fortnight, he can finally hand in his work.

I do not monetise my hobby translations, but if you’d like to support my work generally or support my light novel habit, you can either buy me a coffee or commission me. This is also to note that if you see this message anywhere else than on tumblr, do come to my tumblr. It’s ad-free. ↩︎

From Confucius. To paraphrase, the whole paragraph is like “isn’t it a joy to practice what one learns? Does it not make one glad to see a friend who’s travelled far to visit? Isn’t it gentlemanly to not get mad when someone doesn’t understand you?” The ancients sound very sagely, but this whole paragraph is honestly closest to the English “Does a bear shit in the woods?” or in other words, “Did I stutter?” ↩︎

Another poem by Li Yu. This is quoted from the poem that famously got him killed. ↩︎

From Li Bai’s Qiang Jin Jiu / “Bring in the Wine”, that one’s a very long poem. ↩︎

This is a classic poem by an anonymous author, about a soldier going off to war, leaving his wife behind for years. ↩︎

You can read it in full. ↩︎

Short-legged, hardy workhorse for transporting goods. ↩︎