TL:
Yosh. I spent quite some time researching about the namesake for Mystery island, and here"s the choice I picked for it in the end - Nightcrow Island.
Why this? Well, the original name for it is 夜鸣岛, which meant "Chirping in the middle of the night-Island", and the full idiom, 雄鸡夜鸣, meant that it is an omen when you find roosters chirping in the middle of the night; possibly heralding a supernatural event about to occur (as the traditional chinese believed roosters only chirped in the morning)
I had other good suggestions for the name as well, but I ultimately needed to choose a subtle one as the plot may not necessarily need the "meaning of the island" to be revealed through the name. Thus, it was my partial mistake earlier to call it as "Mystery".
And since the heads up is over, so let"s dive right in the chapt! (took me so long to do this chapt [email protected]#!#[email protected]#[email protected])
Volume 1, Chapter 31: Nightcrow Island indeed had a problem
TL: flarewk
Happy times always seemed to pa.s.s by in a blink of an eye, and the feeling that it gave was like it seemed to be unreachable, yet occurring shortly after.
Boredly sitting onto the beach and watching others happily playing around, even though I didn"t do anything at all, but the atmosphere seemed to be infectious, which made me feel rather joyful as well.
"Zhang Jian~ wanna have some shaved ice?"
Ma Qing Xue carried a bowl of yellowish-fruity colored shaved ice and pressed it onto my face.
"C-cold...."
"Wanna eat? If you wanna eat then aaaa~"
She fed a spoonful of shaved ice to me; mm......it"s very tasty, this mango syrup should be a high quality commodity obtained by the Prez.
"Thanks."
"No need for thanks~ here, shaved ice. I"ll go carry on playing, by today I must educate Xiao Ling about my prowess!"
They are still arguing, huh........
"Sure, carry on playing slowly, I"ll go head somewhere first."
Since the sky hadn"t gone dark yet, I planned to visit the previous" native regional area as that place made me rather interested.
I stood up from the beach, put on a piece of coat and proceeded towards the airport.
"Zhang Jian! Wait....."
"You"re going to the previous" native regional area?"
Amelia chased up to me, and I saw concern from within her eyes.
"Mm, I"ll just take a quick look......it won"t be very deep....."
"I"ll accompany you!"
She suddenly grabbed onto my hand; the thing that me and her felt should be the same, but why was she so afraid of it?
"Are you frightened?"
"That thing....had a indescribably strange feeling on it.....Zhang Jian, I think it"s better if you not go!"
"I just wanted to go take a quick look......."
I quietly leaving the beach with Amelia, but ended up unexpectedly attracting the Prez"s attention.
"Where"re you guys going? It can"t be that your planning to find a secluded location to..........."
The Prez gave us a deep meaningful stare.
"How can it be, it"s just that we"ve forgotten something on the plane earlier......."
"You two both have something that you"ve forgotten inside the plane? I get it, I get it, remember not to go to overboard, and please do safety measures beforehand! If you don"t have them you can get some from the drawer at the right side after you"ve boarded the plane."
I had a sudden feeling that the Prez was too understanding already, she prepared these stuffs for what exactly?
"I said already that it"s just to take something......"
Ignoring the busybody Prez, me and Amelia reached the dilapidated small path.
The small path was built using rock slabs, and on the slabs had many mosses and a few unknown fungus; in-between the gap of the slabs laid numerous weeds, just one look and you could tell that it"s been a long time before anyone had went past here. The surroundings of the small path is littered with thick forestry huge trees, and as the thick tree leaves completely blocked out the sunlight, it made it quite impossible to see beyond further into the small path, as if that we would be transported to another world just by walking through it.
"Be careful, don"t slip and fall."
Stepping onto the small path, we took slow small steps forward, as Amelia tightly gripped my hands. Her palms were already drenched in sweat, and along the journey we didn"t make any conversation at all, as we approached closer and closer towards the small path"s end.
We have no idea how long it had been, but the warm beach breeze and the humid air had already vanished, and we, had walked up to the very end.
It was a stretch of wooden houses that looked extremely aged from seemingly a long time ago; some very dilapidated, some very luxurious, and the largest amongst them all seemed to be a rather ancient and big mansion, the wooden material it used was significantly different from the rest, although I couldn"t recognize it, it definitely must be some rather expensive wood to obtain.
All of the wooden houses had roughly some form of damage onto it, but only this mansion, other than it looking slightly older, there"s nothing much of exterior damage onto it.
We walked closer to the mansion, and in front of the mansion door stood a stone tablet, it"s written in traditional words, and only a portion of the tablet can be visibly seen.
(TL: refers to traditional chinese characters)
"Zhang Jian, I don"t recognize traditional words.....what was it written on top?"
I opened my eyes wide as I closely examined the stone tablet, and read out the words that I was able to see clearly.
"It wrote.......some kind of official residence, constructed during 明武宗正德八年, as an order by his majesty"s graciousness, posted here to guard the Ocean"s world."
(TL: I intentionally left it like that; to simply put, it meant the Emperor Ming WuZong"s established Ming Dynasty 8th year, which is roughly year 1513 back then. "Posted here to a guard from the Ocean"s world" -> see footnotes)
"Amelia, how"s your history?"
"It"s still alright, as I quite liked history, 明武宗正德八年 should be....roughly 1500 years A.D, which also means this house is constructed 500 years ago."
(TL: A.D means Anno Domini, just think of it as the present timeline, right now of this post it"s 2017 A.D)
A mansion from 500 years ago? It can already be considered as a relic already.
"Want to go in and have a look?"
Just as I had finished saying that to Amelia, that sensation of someone watching my back had returned, and this time, it was far more fiercer than anytime previously.
That sensation is approaching us closer and closer!
"Amelia.....don"t turn around, on count of three, let"s run!"
"One"
My back suddenly felt very chilly.....
"Two"
My hair for some unknownst reason had already stood on their ends.....
"Three"
Something had already touched the hem of my shirt.....
"RUN!"
Me and Amelia gripped each other hands tightly, and we dashed wildly towards the small path; even as the path is rather slippery, we still ran unbalancedly forward nonstop, and even nearly fell quite a few times in the midst. That feeling behind my back became less and less p.r.o.nounced as we ran further and further away.
"Haah.....haaah......haaah........haaah....."
Finally being able to see the light of day once more, me and Amelia gasped in huge mouthful of air; if we were to turn around just now what would we be seeing exactly?
I can"t imagine, and dared not imagine, in any case.....I"ve finally understood something clearly, the previous" native should be a huge ancient family, being posted by the emperor here to guard the sea, this can not be quite a delightful job post......
"Amelia? Are you alright?"
"Mm......I"m fine....."
Returning back to the beach, I relaxed my nerves when I saw Prez and the rest once again.
"Zhang Jian, Amelia~ you two must have had such a wild time, look at all the sweat on the both of you......"
"Prez.........why must your thoughts be that dirty-minded?"
"I won"t say much, but you guys should understand, if you forgot about the safety measures I still have some pills here, if you needed then I can pa.s.s them to you, relaaax~ I"ll help you guys keep it a secret."
"............"
I gave up trying to argue with the Prez and jumped into the ocean, plunging my entire head within the sea. The icy cool waves calmed down my raging hot body quite a bit.
Nightcrow Island.....I don"t feel like touching any of the secrets this island was keeping, as it had no meaning for me at all.
Right now, I only wanted to spend my two days here happily enjoying the vacation and quickly return home.
As time quickly pa.s.sed, when I regained back to my senses, it had already been sunset.
"Zhang Jian, come up! Quickly go get some logs, tonight we"ll have a barbecue~"
"Oh~"
The Prez finished setting the barbecue rack, and the girls were in a corner stringing the food into sticks, while me and the rest of the male body ended up doing miscellaneous ch.o.r.es.
"Librarian Keeper, you and Amelia were being followed!"
Master of Stalkers Liu Xiong dragged me into a corner, and whispered secretly into my ear.
"How would you know?"
"There"s some kind of scent on the both of you, if I guessed it correctly it should be some form of a mark, the person stalking you had such scintillating methods!"
"Scent? Mark?"
I"m completely clueless onto what he had just said.
"You probably wouldn"t understand on what I"m talking about, but in any case, you guys just be careful."
"Do you know who stalked us?"
"Sorry.....other than knowing that you guys were being stalked, I have no idea on the rest......"
"Then what"s the range of this mark?"
"It can"t be too far, otherwise it"ll only know the general direction, if it"s further a little more then it won"t work already."
"Thanks, Liu Xiong! You"re my comrade indeed!"
It should be "Ye Zi" leaving a mark on us, right....luckily, if we were to return home, "Ye Zi" won"t be able to locate us any more.
"Liu Xiong, are there ay marks on the rest of them?"
"No, and there"s something too, not long after we"ve alighted the plane, there"s a mark etched onto you already, and Amelia"s mark only appeared when you guys returned back here during the afternoon."
The initial target of "Ye Zi" was me, huh? Looks like I"ve dragged Amelia into this......
"Sigh....."
I sighed, and picked up a few logs along with Liu Xiong, as Prez and the rest of them happily ate the barbecued food; while anything that I placed into my mouth didn"t taste delicious at all....Amelia was the same as me, having an unappetizing look on her face.
What exactly is "Ye Zi".......
Strong curiosity really tempted me wanting to go back to that mansion again to properly investigate what"s going on.
Might as well......ask everyone to go to the mansion tomorrow, since there"s strength in numbers......
But I quickly rejected the idea, what if everyone is being marked by "Ye Zi", then won"t I be making a big mistake then?
After several think-throughs, I"ve decided to let go of the idea to once again check out the mansion.
"Jian ge~ here, your most favorite beef is here~"
"Zhang Jian~ don"t eat beef, have some mutton instead!"
"Just give me both, what"s the difference anyway?"
I took the kebab from Xiao Ling and Ma Qing Xue"s hands; these kebabs were barbecued to perfection, and the amount of spices and side accompaniments were just nicely put, it was way delicious from those kebabs that I"ve made by myself earlier.
"Thanks~ can I bring a couple of kebabs to Amelia?"
"Of course not!"
"Jian ge, what do you think?"
Of course I knew that they specially barbecued these for me, but because of my own curiosity, Amelia got dragged into this issue, so I felt rather guilty towards it.
"Me and Amelia saw a rather huge snake in the bushes this afternoon, and Amelia got a huge fright from it, didn"t you see her not eating anything right now?"
"Zhang Jian, I think in this moment it"s better if you go barbecue something for her to eat......."
"I agree with Ma jiejie, as expected of Jian ge, he"s too dense already, huh......."
Dense? Which part of me is dense already? Even though I came up with such a brilliant plan!
"It"s rather understanding of you guys......"
They could actually consider for Amelia, it"s indeed rather understanding of them.
"Sigh, being fellow females, I know what exactly Amelia feels like....if I was to be frightened by a snake, I wouldn"t be able to sleep at night........"
Ma Qing Xue imagined herself encountering a large snake as her face slightly turned pale-green.
"Same for me too....."
Xiao Ling seemed to have the same opinion as well.
I chuckled as I stroked Xiao Ling"s head, and ran over to make some barbecue.
"Sighhh~ so unfair, I also want my head to be stroked!"
"Ma jiejie, this is my height"s advantage, you understand now?"
I haven"t walked far from them when they started to argue again.
-ch 31 end-
(2889 words to tl)
TL: Qingxue gave me the sense that she spoke rather informally, so I had to replace "want to" to "wanna"
And uh, my fingers hurt from tapping onto the keyboard already, I might take a short break for awhile....
Footnotes:
"Ye Zi" = translates to "Something of the Night"
Posted here as a guard to an Ocean"s world = Alright. In ancient China, they believed that they lived in the center of the the world, and they called themself not China prior, but rather, Heaven"s land.
Anyway, with this in point, anything spread outside from them in the middle is considered to be "another world", try to think that in perspective. (Yeah, they also believed the world was flat-surfaced too.)
So this area where Zhang Jian is in, was believed to be the ends of the explored wide land, (possibly land recedence or drifting now due to a long time pa.s.sing, making it seem like a separate island), and the ancient Ming Emperor stationed one of his loyal officials here, to guard his land from the unknownst Ocean thing-of-a-bob.
Yep, the ancient chinese believed in the supernatural from the ocean, like demons and such. That"s why there"s so many xianxia novels around...
Glossary:
Librarian Keeper = a t.i.tle for Zj, it"s named aptly coz he have a library of p*rn.
Master of Stalkers = a t.i.tle for Liu Xiong (his name backwards meant "fiercely stay behind") , it"s named aptly because....it"s rather obvious, lol.
-jiejie = an appendix, it meant ""elder sister""
-ge = an shortcutted cute form of an appendix, it mean "elder brother"
Xiao- = an appendix, it meant "small", it"s used to cutely and closely call someone younger than yer.