Chapter 50

Chapter 50

Chapter 12 (part 4)

With the money he’s been given for the medicine, Duan Ling heads to the market to get some food and wine, and buys a cut of stewed meat. When he gets back to the house, Wu Du asks him, “What took you so long?”

“I was listening to the storyteller and lost track of time,” Duan Ling replies, spreading the food over the table dish by dish. He hands the leftover money to Wu Du.

Wu Du is watching Duan Ling with an exceedingly complicated look in his eyes.

“You must be quite happy you got paid,” Wu Du says, “There’s wine to drink, and meat to eat.”

Duan Ling can tell that Wu Du is angry, but it doesn’t seem like it’s because he came back late. Not to mention that it wasn’t like he took all that long; writing the essay only took him the lesser part of an hour. He can’t quite get a handle on what Wu Du is thinking, and he’s about to start explaining himself when he’s met with a loud bang right in front of his face as Wu Du kicks the entire table out of the room, the food on top of the table flying out along with it. Startled, fear surfaces in Duan Ling’s eyes.

“I trained so hard to master the martial arts,” Wu Du says, his tone frosty, “and I get to live like a dog — only by making an aphrodisiac for the young master of the chancellor’s estate and getting a couple of coins out of it do I get some wine and food to eat. Oh, I’m so happy I have no idea what to do with myself.”

Duan Ling knows what he’s upset about now, but he doesn’t know how he should console him. He looks on as Wu Du slowly gets up and walks over to the corridor, where he lets out one long, long sigh.

Carefully, Duan Ling picks up the food, pulling out the broken pieces of porcelain. Putting the table back into place, he sets the food back down neatly on the table as before. “Let’s eat.”

And the two begin to eat the dirtied food. Once they’re done, Duan Ling takes the dishes out to wash as though nothing out of the ordinary ever happened, and Wu Du goes to bed with his clothes on.

The next day, Duan Ling is thinking to himself anytime now, and when Wu Du practices his martial arts in the courtyard in the morning, Duan Ling trails behind him, following along.

“I don’t take apprentices,” Wu Du says, not really paying him any mind. His profile looks stern as he turns, taking one step forward, pushing his palm in front of him in a move called “parting of the mountains”. But Duan Ling ignores his words to focus on his movements, copying his every move.

Wu Du stops moving all of a sudden, and raises a foot to kick at the back of Duan Ling’s knee. Caught unawares, Duan Ling trips, and Wu Du sticks out a foot to trip him again. Duan Ling falls forward; when he stumbles back up Wu Du trips him once more. Duan Ling falls over. This goes on for four, five more times. Wu Du can’t help but laugh.

“This foundation of yours is trained like a spinning top,” Wu Du pokes fun at him.

Duan Ling is finding it pretty funny too, and gets up from the ground covered in dust.

“You’re not martial artist material. Save it,” Wu Du tells him.

After Wu Du steps away, Duan Ling goes through the entire set of moves Wu Du demonstrated earlier from memory, and he gets mocked anew, with Wu Du crouching over the threshold, making sarcastic remarks at him the whole time. Soon, a maid shows up at the house saying that the Grand Chancellor would like to see him, and while he’s at it he should bring over his young servant as well.

Wu Du’s expression darkens a smidgen as he recalls Duan Ling mentioning his run-in with Mu Kuangda several days ago, so he isn’t overly suspicious.

“If the Grand Chancellor asks where I came from …” Duan Ling says to Wu Du, feeling apprehensive.

Wu Du knows that what he’s done is inappropriate; it’s not a huge deal for him to take in a young servant out of nowhere and keep him in the Grand Chancellor’s compound, but it’s not exactly a trivial matter either. If he doesn’t explain things clearly, Mu Kuangda may let Wu Du keep the boy out of respect for Wu Du, but if Mu Kuangda wants him dragged off and exiled to serve in the army at the border, or to sell him off, Wu Du won’t be able to do a thing about it.

“Don’t utter a word when the chancellor asks you anything, no matter what.” Wu Du says to Duan Ling, “I’ll answer for you.”

Duan Ling nods, and enters the inner gardens of the chancellor’s estate trailing behind Wu Du. A servant comes to collect them and guides them to the main house.

They find Mu Kuangda sitting behind a desk, with Mu Qing standing apprehensively by his side, the masked Chang Liujun behind him. There’s also an old man with them who must be the teacher.

Wu Du’s eyes narrow slightly, while Mu Kuangda drinks his tea without seeming to notice them at all. Spread across the table in front of him is the essay Mu Qing copied from Duan Ling.

“What is your name?” Mu Kuangda asks Duan Ling.

Duan Ling doesn’t say a thing. Wu Du frowns at him. “The chancellor is asking you a question. Have you gone deaf?”

Duan Ling thinks, you’re the one who told me not to say a word. We only took one short walk through the gallery and you forgot all about it already.

“Wang Shan,” Duan Ling replies, not daring to look at Mu Kuangda.

Mu Kuangda takes one glance at him and remembers. “You’re the one who came to deliver medicine. I saw you the other day, and the medicine you brought was for crickets. What an eye-opening thing to learn about that was. I’ve lived this long and had no idea that medicine for crickets existed. Wu Du, why do you put your time researching this sort of thing all day long.”

Wu Du doesn’t speak. In the silence Mu Kuangda holds up his son’s paper and says to Duan Ling, “Wang Shan, were you the one who helped the young master write this essay?”

“He was the one who taught me how to write it …” Mu Qing explains.

“Shut your mouth!” Mu Kuangda says, sounding furious. Mu Qing is at once scared into silence.

Wu Du is looking at Duan Ling strangely.

Duan Ling replies, “I added some to the end for the young master.”

Mu Kuangda tells him, “The teacher is going to give you a question, and you’re to answer it right here. Write it right over there.”

Duan Ling glances at Mu Qing furtively, who looks guilt-ridden enough, and nods at Duan Ling as a sign of encouragement, thus Duan Ling keeps his head down and sits down at the table. The teacher picks up the brush and writes two lines for the question before handing the brush to Duan Ling. Duan Ling takes it from him, and after a moment of quiet reflection he begins to write.

“Have a seat,” only now does Mu Kuangda say this to Wu Du.

Wu Du sits down nearby but his eyes remain fixed on Duan Ling as they have been all this time, the emotions inherent in them exceedingly complicated.

“Well, I have no idea where you bought this young servant from,” Mu Kuangda says to Wu Du.

There’s a slight tremor to Duan Ling’s writing hand. For a long time, Wu Du watches Duan Ling, while Mu Kuangda simply keeps drinking his tea. Duan Ling finally can’t help himself from looking up at Wu Du, his gaze entreating.

It may have been Duan Ling’s longing stare and the sunset’s rays as he stood outside the Imperial University the other day that moved Wu Du, or perhaps it’s the look in his eyes in that very brief instant when he turned his head that has caused Wu Du to feel a sense of newfound sympathy towards him.

In the end, Wu Du didn’t have the heart to abandon him, and makes up some lies for Duan Ling on the fly to explain to Mu Kuangda that, “His dad was a medicine merchant, an old friend of mine, and as a kid he lived in Xunbei. His mother died when he was very young, and after Xunbei fell he helped his father run the business outside of the country. Later, his dad died and he had nowhere to go, so he came to me looking for a place to stay. Since his dad and I were friends, I’m letting him stay with me at the outlying courtyard house for now. I was just thinking about finding him some way to earn his own living in the compound, but now it seems like I was poking my nose where it doesn’t belong.”

Once Wu Du finishes speaking, he looks at Mu Kuangda, but Mu kuangda doesn’t even bother sparing Wu Du a glance. He asks Duan Ling, “You’ve gone to private school?”

Duan Ling doesn’t say anything and Wu Du answers for him once more, “His dad had meant to send him to school so he could take the civil exams, but who knows how many years he’s been held back with the war and everything.”

Mu Qing cranes his neck trying to sneak a peek at Duan Ling’s essay. Mu Kuangda coughs, and that neck of Mu Qing shrinks right back like a turtle’s.

When you can barely sustain a conversation with someone, half a sentence is too much, so Mu Kuangda speaks no more to Wu Du.2 It’s quiet all around and the only sound in the room is the near imperceptible slide of Duan Ling’s brush as it glides along expensive paper.

It is Wu Du though, who breaks the silence first.

“The servants haven’t delivered food over to the house in days,” Wu Du says, 'since the chancellor’s estate isn’t going to keep layabouts around, I was just thinking about coming over to say goodbye, Chancellor Mu.”

Mu Kuangda nearly spits out a mouthful of tea. For a brief moment he simply stares, startled, then he realises what must have happened.

When it comes to something like this, the chancellor does care about keeping up appearances; if the word of his taking in a retainer but not feeding him three meals a day gets out, he’ll get laughed out of town. It doesn’t take much thinking for him to realise that it must have been Chang Liujun’s doing, going out of his way to humiliate Wu Du, but Mu Kuangda doesn’t bluntly call him out on it, and instead he turns to a servant. “Send an order down to the kitchens — right now — and tell them that if so much as a single meal is missed at Wu Du’s house, the kitchen staff will be beaten to death as per the laws of this household.”

Wu Du looks a little bit less gloomy after that, for surely then it wasn’t Mu Kuangda who was deliberately making his life difficult. While his mood is still fluctuating, a light clinking sound is made as Duan Ling rests the brush on the brush rack, and the teacher brings the essay over, putting it down in front of Mu Kuangda with a bow.

Mu Kuangda only gives it a single glance before he turns to Duan Ling. “From tomorrow on, come over in the morning to study with the young master. Go home in the afternoon to look after your adoptive father as you used to do.”

Once he finishes speaking to Duan Ling, Mu Kuangda turns to Wu Du. “It only takes a single cut of your blade to kill a person, but raising a person takes a lifetime. This is an act of virtue for your karma.”

Chang Liujun picks up the thread of the conversation and adds, “A change in career to teacher man is rather nice too.”

Mu Qing titters. In the quietude of the hall this laugh sounds especially out of place.

Duan Ling’s heart has been hanging by a thread, and it’s finally found a place to land. He still looks to be ten thousand miles away from his goal, but for now at least, though the way may have been perilous thus far, everything seems to be moving in a direction that is most advantageous for him.

This chapter is scrapped from readlightnovel.org

“Bring him back with you.” Mu Kuangda says, “How are you progressing on the medicine?”

Wu Du replies, “I’m still working on it.”

Duan Ling gets up hurriedly and follows Wu Du out of the room.

Once Wu Du is gone, Mu Kuangda takes another sip of his tea. “A scholar would rather be killed than disgraced.3 Chang Liujun, can you be a bit more charitable? What do you get out of playing pranks all day long the way you do?”

Chang Liujun can only bow apologetically.

“Go on, then,” Mu Kuangda says to Chang Liujun, before turning to Mu Qing. “You have a month to finish this essay. If you dare try to muddle your way out of it again, you can take a little stool and come with me to court assembly every morning, sit behind the Chief Censor and I, and write your nonsensical essay right there.”

Mu Qing couldn’t nod fast enough; he’s managed to get off the hook once again.

Duan Ling wonders how Wu Du is going to blow up when they get back. He’s known all along that’s the reaction he’s going to get, but he doesn’t have any other alternative. He can only make himself a way out by risking Wu Du’s displeasure. Thinking about the past and all the steps he’s taken to get here, he feels utterly guilt-ridden. He never used to lie before; it was only after Lang Junxia took him to Shangjing that he told his first ever lie.

My name is Duan Ling, my dad’s name is Duan Sheng …

In order to survive, he must lie. And slowly he has started to understand what this lie signifies; he’s started to fabricate more lies to fool many more people in order to protect himself. But no matter how many people he’s had to deceive, it’s never made him feel guiltier than deceiving Wu Du.

Wu Du looks livid all the way back, and he doesn’t say anything the whole time.

They get back to the house, and as soon as Duan Ling turns around, he’s dragged to the middle of the courtyard by the collar and thrown to the ground. Duan Ling has just stumbled back up from the fall when Wu Du’s big band is wrapped around his throat, pushing him against a pillar.

“I wasn’t able to tell before, but it seems you’re quite conniving.” Wu Du’s eyes are filled with hostility. “Do you want to get ahead that badly?”

Squeezed by the neck, Duan Ling’s eyes start to water from want of air. He really does feel terribly sorry, and he looks at Wu Du, full of remorse. Unmoving, Wu Du holds him up by the neck just like that, until gradually his fury subsides in the path of Duan Ling’s gaze and he lets go.

Duan Ling falls to his knees, coughing nonstop and dry-heaving. Wu Du stands in front of him with a dark expression, but he’s no longer boiling over with rage the way he had been earlier.

“I’m sorry,” Duan Ling replies.

He doesn’t try to disavow himself from all responsibility. He could have easily pushed the entire thing onto Mu Qing — for instance, he could have said that Mu Qing kept him when he was delivering the aphrodisiac, and asked him to help write the essay, promising to give him money for it … But the truth is he was the one who planned the whole thing, up to and including this explanation.

But he doesn’t want to lie to Wu Du, and so decides to say simply, “You’re right. I want to get ahead.”

“Go serve your new master,” Wu Du replies, before returning to his room and slamming the door.

Duan Ling sits on the veranda for a while. It seems obvious that Wu Du was a little bit surprised, because when Duan Ling didn’t bother to explain himself, and instead telling him so clearly “I want to get ahead”, it has left him no excuse to fly into a rage.

It’s not long before Wu Du pulls his door open again to say to Duan Ling, “Why haven’t you left yet?!”

Wu Du is always getting angry, but his anger comes quickly and leaves just as quickly; his anger is as straightforward as a clap of thunder followed by rain. The second time he slams the door it’s already less full-throated and resonating if it was a song — on the contrary, this time it sounds like it’s all show.

“I’m used to poverty.” Duan Ling sits on the veranda with his arms around his knees, and his tone seems casual enough. “And I’m used to being a drifter. I don’t want to be looked down upon. I don’t want to be betrayed. I want to decide my own fate.”

Inside the house, Wu Du doesn’t say anything.

Duan Ling continues, “I don’t want to let other people decide when I die, when I live, how I die, how I live. I can’t take any more of that. I want to go on living.”

Duan Ling turns back to look inside the house. When Wu Du slammed the door earlier, it had bounced off the frame and left a small gap.

“That’s why I want to get ahead. I’m sorry, Wu Du.”

Duan Ling approaches the door and looks inside through the gap. Seeing Wu Du sitting in the dusky room without saying a word, he pushes the door open and lets the sun shine in, and the light spills onto Wu Du. Duan Ling doesn’t say anything more before turning to draw water for the flowers, to care for the plants in the courtyard.

Throughout your life, you will decide on the fates of many people.

Words he heard a long, long time ago resurfaces in Wu Du’s mind; it has been so long that he has even forgotten what that gentle voice had sounded like.

For every single person who dies in your hands, even if there are ten thousand reasons why they must die, everything that has to do with their lives will vanish like smoke from the very moment you thrust your sword into them. But what about you? You hold the ultimate power of life and death over these people, but have you ever thought about yourself?

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. ↩︎

When one meets a true friend a thousand cups of wine is too few; when you can barely sustain a conversation half a sentence is too much. It’s a long idiom by Ouyang Xiu. ↩︎

From the Classics of Rites. A Confucian may be moved by feeling or reason but not by force; would rather die than be ridiculed. Or, a Confucian gentleman will fall for the carrot but not the stick. ↩︎