Chapter 127: CH 127

What is this?

Xiao Feng Wu thought to himself, please don’t say that I fainted from hunger and then my brain fried and I am starting to see things now. He covered his face with the bedsheets, waiting quietly and calmly, when he heard a faint rustling by the bedside table. Peering through the gaps of the curtains, he could see that someone had brought a bowl of steaming hot congee over.

That ball of blue light appeared again.

[ My dear, eating costs money and that money also needs to be repaid. Within three days hmm~ Don’t ever ever forget about it. ]

Xiao Feng Wu: “……”

If it was another person, perhaps they would have already died from fright. But he had always been a bold one, and he stared at the ball of light for a long while. Yet he didn’t find it to be like any terrible, evil ghost and soon enough, it disappeared. 

So he gave up on caring about it, as this world was too big, full of never ending curiosities to be discovered. And perhaps, he had simply, just bumped into a ghost.

As for the spiel it gave, something something about being self-sufficient, self-reliant, whatever useless words, well, naturally Xiao Feng Wu would not believe a single word to be true; they were words that can leave the moment they enter his ears. 

Silence surrounded him, here in this house that he was brought to, and there didn’t seem to be a lot of people. He got out of the bed and grabbed that bowl of congee, cleaning it out in a matter of seconds. After that, he took a look out the window where he finally discovered a shadow of a human sitting by the pillar in the hallway, spacing off on some unknown thought.

Qin Ming Yue had been born to a life of poverty, being sold off to the theatre troupe when he was a very young boy. Practicing singing, washing clothes, cooking food: there was not a day he did not suffer under a whip. 

Later on, when he got a bit older, when he had become someone with the most potential out of the lot, he was presented up, with the reason of presenting a show, to a well known cut-sleeve, Xiao Feng Wu, by someone who wanted to gain the favor of the Xiao family.  

At that time, Qin Ming Yue had still been an unknown little theatre actor without even a single experience of going up on stage for a proper show under his belt. But he had known his life was probably always going to end up like this. 

Wearing lightly colored, clean clothes, he offered up a cup of tea to Xiao Feng Wu. With the faint steam blowing upwards, and his waist and body as thin as a branch of a willow tree, he was the type that Xiao Feng Wu loved the most, 

“Sixteenth Master, please accept this cup of tea.”

It was right during the summer season, with the sun burning with a heat that could cause heads to spin and feel hazy. Xiao Feng Wu himself was wearing a white silk robe, fanning himself with a paper fan. Beside him were all above average looking female servants, and he didn’t spare a look towards Qin Ming Yue. Qin Ming Yue’s hands had been extended the entire time, holding up that cup of tea. Seeing this, he lifted the teacup lid halfway to let the steam out and then waited a while before presenting it back to Xiao Feng Wu, 

“The tea has cooled. Sixteenth Master, please take a sip.”

Xiao Feng Wu lifted his eyes, staring at him who gave a shy smile.

Xiao Feng Wu thought to himself, this was a smart young man.

But unfortunately, however smart Qin Ming Yue could be, he was still young and naïve. He had lived, poached in bitter tea for his entire life; even if his master was Kou Yu Jun, the touch of the whips on his body was still as ruthless as it could be. 

For Xiao Feng Wu, who had nothing but endless wealth and power in his hands, to be willing to bend over for him and treat him well, there was no way Qin Ming Yue’s heart would have been able to defend against it.

Besides, Xiao Feng Wu’s pampering love could not be described as only “slightly good”; it was “extremely good”, so much so that in the eyes of others, it was looked upon with envy, so what could it be said for Qin Ming Yue who was the person involved.

Even if it was a few years ago, his heart still could not let it go.

Faint moonlight shone down, layering the green leaves of the courtyard with a silver sheen. Qin Ming Yue thought back to the words of Xiao Feng Wu from earlier today, on one hand feeling that it was true, but another side of him said they were all lies. After all, those lips were known to be a pair of good liars. Even when they suffered under a whip, they wouldn’t spout a single truth.

And Qin Ming Yue was not that boy who was willing to bend over and take everything at face value anymore; that naïve boy with a pure heart is gone. Whatever he experienced in these few years, it has made his temper wild and uncontrolled, one that was unable to be read. 

“Pah”, the fan that he had been holding in his hands, for no reason at all, was suddenly snapped in half, making the eyebrows of Xiao Feng Wu, who was hiding behind the door, twitch.

“Do you hate me this much, that you are unwilling to even keep a paper fan?”

He walked out from the shadows, wearing a lightly colored undergarment robe with the outer coat hanging on his shoulders. With a body like his, it seemed as if he was still that Sixteenth Lang of Yan Cheng who could mesmerize all the girls in town.

Qin Ming Yue looked at him emotionlessly, his fingers squeezing with even more force as if to challenge him, and “pah” went another sound.

Xiao Feng Wu stopped his hand, 

“Are you trying to copy Qing Wen? Unfortunately I cannot be Jia Baoyu; I don’t have a box of fans for you to break apart. After this one you have, there’s no more to be had.”1

When he said those words, there was a smile in his eyes, which made Qin Ming Yue harshly throw the broken remnants of the fan right at him. With a mocking expression, he said,

“What Qing Wen and Jia Baoyu? So in the end, Sixteenth Master had only thought of me as a servant.  Why do you need to utter such pretty words? Xiao Lao-tai-ye died, and I don’t see you shedding a single tear. Why don’t you leave these fake tears for him!”

Xiao Feng Wu’s mother had died quite early on in his life, and his personality was not the greatest; being such a mischievous child had made all the mistresses unwilling to take him in. In the end, he had been brought over to Xiao Lao-tai-ye, and supposedly that should make the two of them have a deep and meaningful relationship.

A fan that was broken was not worth any money. Xiao Feng Wu grabbed the jade pendant hanging off the fan and then threw aside the broken pieces of wood without a care. For some strange reason, the smile on his lips grew even deeper, 

“Why would I need to cry? For him death is a good thing. It is already a rarity for humans to live to 70. Although he was not of that age, he still had been stronger than quite a few people. Think about it, I have 15 older brothers and sisters above me, and each one of them is not to be taken lightly. With the Xiao family fortunes being taken away, if he were still alive, he would have to live a poor life with us. Sooner or later, he would have died from suffering, so why not just cleanly leave and not worry about a single thing.”

These words only made Qin Ming Yue think that his heart was really made out of ice.

But Xiao Feng Wu’s pair of lips could spin words into gold, 

“Can you sing << Burial of fallen flowers >>? I suppose you’ve read << The story of the stone >>. Thank the heavens that Lin Daiyu passed away early, as otherwise when the Jia family was being sealed up, would she not have to live through days of poverty? A beautiful lady who had never lifted anything in her life suddenly has to cook for herself? I really do not think I can even stomach the very thought of it.”2

Qin Ming Yue couldn’t help but raise his eyebrow, 

“She was not one who greeded for power and wealth nor one who looked down on the poor.”

“Of course not,” 

Xiao Feng Wu was still pretty weak, so after a short while he was pushed away by Qin Ming Yue, stumbling back a few steps and falling on the floor. Seeing Xiao Feng Wu like this, Qin Ming Yue angrily stomped his feet, and in the end, brushed his robes and walked away without turning his head back.

This was a very clean and quiet courtyard with a crabapple tree3 growing in the middle. Only, as it was not in season, no flowers could be seen. Xiao Feng Wu, lying on the ground, stared at Qin Ming Yue’s shrinking figure. Whatever he was thinking then, it made him shake his head. After a moment, he stood back up, dusted himself off and went back inside to sleep.

To be a human, it was better to not care and have no heart than worry about every single detail.

Just like Xiao Feng Wu, his grandfather and oldest brother died, left with not a single yuan to his body, unlike before when gold and silver filled his pockets. The same situation with a different person, they probably wouldn’t even be able to prevent themselves from crying for a single second. In contrast, there was no difference to him.

Bright and early next morning, the courtyard was emptied out, leaving only an old and elderly servant sweeping the grounds. Xiao Feng Wu grabbed some water from the well and after clumsily washing himself up, he casually asked,

“Where’s your master?”

At this time and day, he didn’t put on whatever arrogance and entitlement he had when he was still a “master”, so his voice was fairly warm and gentle.

The old servant had a bit of a hearing impairment, hearing Xiao Feng Wu ask a few times but still unable to understand what he was saying. Xiao Feng Wu ‘tsk’ed and shook his head. 

By 40, the body’s balance is off, by 50, the body is heavier to move and your eyes and ears begin to fail, and by 60, your entire body is against you. By the looks of it, this old servant before him looked to be about 50 or so years old. With his face so darkened yellow, he probably only had a few more years to live at most.4 

Xiao Feng Wu held down the back of his ear and raised his voice, using the last of his patience to ask again, 

“Where did Qin Ming Yue go?”

The old servant finally understood and said unclearly, 

“He went to Sheng De Lou to sing.”

Hoh, how much time he spent to get this information!

Xiao Feng Wu walked out of the courtyard with his hands behind his back, taking a leisurely pace through the streets. Even from this far away from Sheng De Lou, he could still hear the waves of applause and cheers. Crowds and crowds of people surrounded the entrance, filled with all those who didn’t have the money to enter the building and those who could not move past the crowd to get in.

Qin Ming Yue had only recently appeared in Yan Cheng, as before he would be travelling to different places. Wherever they set up camp, wherever he would sing. Hearing that he had come to Yan Cheng, quite a few fans from neighbouring towns came to see him, filling up the entire building. The middle of Sheng De Lou was filled to the brim, and at the top, the private rooms were all occupied by ladies, all of whom were wives of high ranking officials. They spent a lot of money to book these rooms, throwing such generous and large amounts that it made their husbands hurt from head to toe.

The sides by the railings themselves were also fully occupied and Xiao Feng Wu thought to himself that only idiots would try and barge through the entrance. He walked around towards the back and what did he spot but a smart man, shaking his butt as he prepared to crawl under a dog hole. His eyes looked up and down before purposefully shouting out loudly once, making the other jump up in shock.

“Ack my fucking mother!”

That man was from another wealthy family involved in a few businesses. About 20 years of age, he was a fairly chubby-faced man with small and narrow smiling eyes. In his shock, he tripped and fell to the ground.

Xiao Feng Wu held onto the wall as he laughed out loud, 

“And here I thought, who could this be? So it was Cen San Gong-zi. Crawl, keep on crawling. I shouldn’t have stopped you. They have guards here you know. The moment your head pops out on the other side, they would immediately use their stick to hit you to death.”

The two of them were actually acquainted with each other.

Cen San crawled back up from the floor and, seeing that it was Xiao Feng Wu, circled around him before smiling, 

“I’ve been in Taizhou for three years and now that I’ve come back, you still haven’t changed for the better one bit…… I heard about your family, and I am deeply sorry to hear about it, brother. May they rest in peace.”

With an unconcerned and unstirred face, Xiao Feng Wu said, 

“Should have been back way earlier! Why are you back at Yan Cheng?”

Cen San said, 

“The north’s at war so business hasn’t been going very well and had to be moved back. I just got here the day before and I wanted to see Qin Ming Yue’s show. Heh, fucking grandmother, there’s not a single seat left.”

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Xiao Feng Wu pointed at the horse carriage stopped right outside, 

“Can you see that? That’s the Huang family. And there’s also the Zhu family. Each one of them has ties higher up so who would give you their face.”

When there was a break, there was a fairly wealthy looking man shouting “great”, right in the front, in the first row of seats by the stage. His throat was almost cracked from how much he was yelling and he specifically threw up golden leaves5, throwing as he yelled out Qin Ming Yue’s name.

The ladies nearby began to whisper furiously.

“Isn’t that the young master from the Chen District Magistrate’s family? What kind of crazy man has he turned into? As far as I can tell, that Qin Ming Yue is really too coquettish; if he doesn’t seduce a man for one day, his heart can’t take it. My husband even wanted to invite him over to our estate but thank goodness I stopped him. With this kind of vixen, what will happen if he comes?”

“Chen Xiao-ye at least knows what he should and should not do, only daring to be this outspoken inside the theatre. If he dares do this all the way home, his father will not stop until he beat him to death.”

“Only an actor, how good will he have it for? He’s just relying on that foxy face of his. When he’s old and wrinkly, we’ll see if anyone would still be willing to put him on this pedestal.”

Xiao Feng Wu had been listening the entire time from the side, thinking that Qin Ming Yue was not such a person though. 

Although his temper was not very good, the words “seductive and flirtatious vixen” did not match him at all. When he had been on the bed with him, when has he not been shy?

After attending the show, he had been planning to leave, but then he saw Chen Xiao-ye following Qin Ming Yue backstage. For no reason at all, he sneaked in after them.

The backstage was filled with many boxes of equipment and other things with people coming and going, changing clothes and putting on makeup; there was no end to the bustle. 

Wearing a lavish gold-threaded robe for the role of “Imperial Consort Yang”, Qin Ming Yue was just sitting in front of a mirror and taking off his makeup. Chen Xiao-ye was right beside him on a little stool, eyes siphoned away as he kept looking at Qin Ming Yue.

Chen Xiao-ye quietly said, 

“Qin Lao Ban, your voice as the Imperial Consort is too good to be true. My heart flew away the moment you sang.”

Xiao Feng Wu sat on the other side of the mirror, listening, and unhappily thought to himself, what kind of sentence is my heart flew away, just a right piece of work that had no heart and soul.

Qin Ming Yue only faintly smiled in response, not saying a single word.

As popular as Qin Ming Yue could be, he was after all only an actor and he didn’t dare get in trouble with anyone with power. He smiled and took back his hand. With just a look from his eyes, he could hook away the hearts of anyone who met with them. 

Putting on that seductiveness of the Imperial Consort, he said, 

“Ming Yue has a low and unworthy life, not daring to go above his place.”

Chen Xiao-ye was even in more of a rush, 

“Ming Yue, I don’t care about these kinds of things. I only know, I like you. Don’t reject people like this and stray yourself so far away!”

Those around them who saw this spectacle were not surprised as this was the norm by now. 

Evidently, this was not the first time that this had happened. Besides, actors lived like this. Either you depend on your throat or you depend on your body. A more curious question would be who will be the one to snatch Qin Lao Ban away.

At least this Chen Xiao-ye had some kind of background, as otherwise if it was someone else, Qin Ming Yue wouldn’t even give them a glance.

Seeing that he could not get out of this, he went back to taking the paint off his face as he said, 

“Me follow you? And how do you, Chen Xiao-ye, plan on treating me? Find a courtyard, somewhere to keep me, being your secret mistress on the outside? Or is it when you marry, you plan to keep me as a mistress or as a little servant boy by your side?”

Chen Xiao-ye’s face shifted into a weird expression before he said, 

“I promise, my heart will reside with you.”

Xiao Feng Wu could almost die from how funny this was. First he said his heart flew away and now where in the world did he get this heart back.

Qin Ming Yue didn’t say a word, only sighing after a while. Whatever he was lamenting about, it made him undo the button by his neck, revealing a smooth and white neck. He took off the robe for the imperial consort role which made Chen Xiao-ye’s eyes go crossed eyed until Qin Ming Yue said, 

“It is quite late, Chen Gong-zi, please head back.”

Qin Ming Yue’s interest and enthusiasm was lower than low, evidently not wanting to deal with this at all. That “his heart flew away” Chen Xiao-ye didn’t dare to upset his mood any further and very unwillingly went back home.

Qin Ming Yue stared at his retreating back, eyes full of a cold smile and abundant mockery. He was just retracting his gaze when the hand that had been resting on the table was suddenly snatched up, and following that, the husky and playful voice of a man rang out right by his ear, 

“Qin Lao Ban, your voice as the lady is too good to be true. My heart flew away the moment you sang.”

Hearing this, Qin Ming Yue’s pupils immediately dilated, and his eyes were greeted by the sight of a handsome face in the mirror, the other smiling as he was looking right at him. Xiao Feng Wu!

After his shock, Qin Ming Yue coldly laughed, 

“I didn’t know when Sixteenth Master understood theatre art?”

Xiao Feng Wu held up his lower chin, holding the other’s hand by his face and playfully answering, 

“I don’t, but in a stage full of people, I felt that you sang the best.”

What he said was the truth. Staring at those eyes, Qin Ming Yue’s mind was suddenly lost in a daze, unable to say a word. In the end, he tugged back his hand, saying with a scowling face, 

“Then I must thank the Sixteenth Master for his praise.”

Xiao Feng Wu smiled as he looked at him, 

“How thankful should I be for you to still call me as a master, but I am not a master anymore, incomparable to the me from before. Now that you have a better future by your side, how could I just blindly join you?”

And then dusted his sleeves, as if to stand up and leave.

Qin Ming Yue’s heart immediately stuttered and he thought, had Xiao Feng Wu mistaken him and that Chen Gong-zi to be having something going on? He stood up with a bang, flipping over the mirror, and angrily said, 

“What do you mean by those words? You think that as an actor, my life is of such low worth, that I would be rushing to anyone who has a bit of money? What master or not, I have always only followed one. Have I not suffered enough already that I would be so dumb to try it again?!”

For him to give such a long and spirited speech, it immediately caught the attention of everyone backstage. Qing Ming Yue angrily kicked the chair, but then embarrassment immediately drenched over him and, seeing Xiao Feng Wu not reacting at all, he flipped his sleeves and left.

Those who were backstage immediately understood. They wanted to see what kind of man it was to have some sort of a relationship with Qin Ming Yue. With one glance, it was apparent that he was definitely not one of the average common folk, making them wonder which family that young man belongs to.

Xiao Feng Wu was not interested in the performing arts so he rarely came to Li Yuan. Everyone had heard of him but those who had seen him were pitifully small. Seeing Qin Ming Yue leave, he signaled a respectful farewell with his hands before chasing after him.

Qin Ming Yue was drowning in anger and hatred, the feelings burning so high it was painful. He didn’t even take his carriage and walked all the way home. The moment he returned, he slammed the door to his room, locking it and never came out.

Xiao Feng Wu had been following behind him but seeing that the old servant was still sweeping, he had quite the interest to stare at him for a bit. And seeing that his hearing was still quite impaired, he flipped over and up onto the roof. He pried open a tiling to see Qin Ming Yue sitting on the floor and grasping at his chest, patting it with force and with a very pale face.

Qing Ming Yu had come from the lowest of the low, and he was very sensitive. Xiao Feng Wu had never thought that such a casual joke would get a reaction like this. He placed the tiling back and flipped back down.

Leaning against the door, he half heartedly knocked twice, 

“Open the door.”

The room was immediately drenched in silence, not even containing the sound of breathing.

Notes:

*1 Qing Wen and Jia Baoyu are characters in << Dream of the Red Chamber >>. Qing Wen is a female servant of Jia Baoyu, and she had always been raised up differently from other servants (which gave her an arrogant and holier than thou attitude and made her quite a few enemies that led to her demise, but I digress).

Jia Baoyu likes her (in the way all males seemed to like females back then…) and one time she tears apart a fan, and says she likes to do so so Jia Baoyu gives her an entire box of fans.

*2 << Burial of fallen flowers >> is actually a very iconic symbolic scene from << Dream of the Red Chamber >> in which Lin Daiyu, a very intelligent but sickly girl, compares flowers to her life, and it speaks about how flowers are so clean if they were protected and planted in the soil where they belong; it references the respect for life but also the uncertainty and to live for yourself, finding your way kind of poem.

Since her parents died young, she had to live at her mother’s grandmother’s family home (the Jia family – the one with Jai Baoyu) in not the best sort of conditions, with her considered as somewhat of a freeloader. << The story of the stone >> is actually another old reference to the name of the << Dream of the Red Chamber >>.

*3 crabapple tree: technically it’s referenced as a flower tree (malus micromalus) that has pretty pink flowers with tiny little crab apples.

*4 body balance: this actually references how the body is believed to be a balance of yin and yang, and it’s referenced that the yin energy is halved by age 40, which in turn decreases the yang energy. Think of yin energy here as like the inner body/at peace/cold and the yang as the outer/energy/heat.

*5 golden leaves- this is a kind of currency that you can think of like gold paper (almost like origami paper, but made up of all gold)

TL Note:

And the second chapter is here! (sorry about that Galactic Judges, it was meant to go up way earlier today, but I found out that some sections were missed in translation and had to quickly fix it back up (hopefully nothing is missing now…)

In any case, I think we will probably keep to this schedule (of 1 chp every other week) as it seems like the references have slowed, but there are still quite a few coming up, so in that regard, I will see you all on Oct 30th! Hopefully, I can up the schedule releases soon (but I won’t jinx myself again, so we’ll keep it to this for now!)

Thank you to all those who are still on this journey with me, and I hope you have a beautiful and safe week! : )

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