Chapter 140: CH 140

As if Xiao Feng Wu knew that he would say as such, he lowered his head, not saying a word as his hand hit against the bars again and again. Each time was heavier than the last, revealing the turmoil in his heart until the jail bars were shaking with each clang.

“I’m not worth it —-“

Xiao Feng Wu’s whole palm had turned red at this point, and he suddenly lifted his eyes up to look at Qin Ming Yue. The intensity and expression hidden in those eyes were quite frightening as he said each word clearly, as if dropping stones into water and creating numerous splashes in the pool, 

“The one who had thrown you away and kicked you out of the Xiao family, the person who first made that decision was me.”

“Your years of wandering in destitution was because of me, your finger being cut off was because of me……”

“You do not need to accompany me to death, you do not need to accompany such a person like me to death.”

Qin Ming Yue seemed stupefied by his words and the expression on his face was frozen in place. Before his mind caught up to the words, he asked, 

“What are you saying?”

Xiao Feng Wu didn’t respond as he knew that Qin Ming Yue understood.

Humans were indeed so strange. When they had it, they did not treasure it. Yet when they lose it, they would regret and hate for the rest of their lives. As if they have to hold a regret in their heart to actually fully experience what it is to be human. Xiao Feng Wu thought, perhaps this was the last time they would meet… how could it become like this.

He reached out a hand out between the bars, grabbing on to Qin Ming Yue’s ice cold wrist, 

“Ming Yue……”

It seemed as if all the blood had drained out of Qin Ming Yue, leaving him deathly pale. His eyes became tinged with a darkening glow, one that would frighten anyone who saw it and would keep anyone from daring to look him straight in the eye. His entire body was taut, yet it was also trembling non-stop. His weak, paper thin wisp of a body was standing in this dark and damp jail, so weak as if even a single breath could dissipate him into nothing.

Qin Ming Yue felt as if all of his strength had been sucked out of him and he couldn’t even push Xiao Feng Wu away, only remaining tightly held against him. After a long while, his beautiful pair of eyes began to redden and as he spoke, each word was so feathery and trembling, disbelieving as he asked, 

“You have been deceiving me this entire time?”

A voice that was normally so heavenly became so hoarse that it could not make a sound.

Silence was the only answer.

Qin Ming Yue pulled his lips up into a rigid expression of mockery, yet it was as if to laugh at himself, 

“……I have only been nothing but a plaything to you. When you love me, you’ll put me in the heart of your palm, and when you hate me, you’ll just toss me aside…… I had looked upon myself too highly. I am nothing but a despicable, lowly, dirty theatre actor. Should I have really believed that you would like me?”

“You have always treated me, played me, like an idiot……”

Large beads of tears began to fall, rolling down an all too skinny chin and disappearing into the shadows of his clothes.

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But Xiao Feng Wu wished for nothing more than to receive as much pain as he could get.

So that when he dies, he will never forget about this little actor.

The moon in the sky was held by the branches of the crabapple tree, but the moonlight of the humans was in his embrace.2 Xiao Feng Wu had no way to wrap him in his embrace again, only able to look through the narrow gaps of the ice cold barrier between the both of them. Looking at Qin Ming Yue, looking with his gaze strict and detailed, compiling into a thick and sturdy net.

After a long while, Qin Ming Yue finally let go of him with a face full of tear marks, his lips tinted with a bright red smear of blood, and the hatred in his eyes growing in strength.

Xiao Feng Wu reached out to wipe away the tears on his face, 

“Ming Yue, if I can live and get out……”

Before he even finished speaking, Qin Ming Yue coldly turned his head to the side, avoiding his hand and retreating backwards. Then, right in front of Xiao Feng Wu’s face, he tore the written prescription into pieces and said darkly, 

“You should really stay here and endure, endure until the day you step onto the chopping block.”

Just like how the Shang Dynasty had ended, the fault lay with Daji. Just like Tang Dynasty’s Consort Yang, Yang Guifei, who had been pampered and beloved and yet her only conclusion was to be forced to die, blessed to be hanged by the Emperor himself.3

Xiao Feng Wu liked Qin Ming Yue, but he only knew how to spoil and spread the word about his golden treasure. He had never really thought about what kind of catastrophe it would bring to Qin Ming Yue. 

With so many years of repressed emotions and memories, it finally reached the point where Xiao Lao-tai-ye’s bottom line was touched. His voice sounded so aged and old as he said, 

“Sixteen Lang, will it be you who makes the move, or will I help you move.”

Him? Do what? Nothing but to make something up and end it with a bowl of medicine being forced down his throat. After all, no one cares about the life and death of an insignificant theatre actor.

Notes:

*1 title is from a poem by Li Bai called “To Wang Changling Banished to the West” (translations taken from the book 300 Tang Poems by Xu Yuanchong) -> “All willow-down has fallen and sad cuckoos cry / To hear you banished southwestward beyond Five Streams. / I would confide no sorrow to the moon on high / for it will follow you west of the land of dreams. / The only thing that could join the poet and his banished friend together is the moon.” 

It’s the most easily searched English result i got so I kept it, but technically the poem only has 4 lines and it’s sort of close but i would say the last three lines are kind of out of order if i read them literally in raws but as i am not a literature scholar, we’ll leave that to the experts lol. 

However as a translation it makes sense because the poem was Li Bai to his good friend Wang Changlin who as the title says was banished and this specific line and the latter half was him saying please let me put all my sorrows and thoughts that I have towards you and give them to the bright moon hanging on the sky, and may it accompany you all the way until the west where you are banished. 

Interpretations can be varied but I take it as to have the moon remember our relationship and may it comfort you as you leave so far away and never to be seen again but of course, beyond what the poem means, the “bright moon” part can also be referenced to Ming Yue of Qin Ming Yue’s name so double meaning!

*2  If you recall, Qin Ming Yue’s name means clear moon as a literal translation, so he’s using that and the crabapple tree is very likely the one he’s mentioning in the courtyard 

*3  Both metaphors he used were basically examples of emperors who indulged and pampered one specific consort (overly indulgent and gave too much love) that they ignored their duties and one caused the end of their dynasty and the other was ordered to hang herself – although of course that’s just simplifying it and there’s quite a bit more to their stories

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