Man I can"t wait for this semester to be over… at least most of my midterms have pa.s.sed so I can hopefully actually do some more translating soon.
Chapter 25 – Strange Things in the Riverbed
Yun Xie looked around to find that except for himself, it seemed that no one else had this feeling. Jiang Xingyi even smiled and reached out to gently twist the child"s cheek: “Be good and wait here, Gege is going to catch that big monster for you to play with, okay?”
Perhaps to avoid them continuing to poison the worldviews of these children, the gray-haired old man coughed awkwardly and interrupted again: “In fact, there really aren"t any monsters in the river. No one in this village has ever seen anything. Aside from people who enter the water dying… in the early morning, I often see a huge whirlpool appearing in the water without any cause, downright terrifying looking.”
Yun Xie recovered his composure: "You are talking about this current time of day, right?"
The old man looked at the color of the sky and nodded: “About now.”
Jiang Xunyi racked his memory but could not think of anything this could be. He glanced at Yun Xie: "Let"s go take a look?"
His words were concise and comprehensive, cold and indifferent. But this was a rare occasion where Jiang Xunyi voluntarily spoke to Yun Xie——just this short sentence was enough for Yun Xie"s heart to set off fireworks, and he did not even think before agreeing.
Jiang Xunyi smiled at the little girl still leaning on him. Managing to lift her off himself like peeling skin, he turned towards the river.
Probably because of the repeated loss of life, those villagers who had originally lived near the river bank had already moved away. After around ten minutes, the small group of people arrived at the completely deserted riverside. The abundant trash and weeds only made the place seem more overgrown and abandoned.
Walking a few steps closer, Jiang Xunyi did indeed see an enormous vortex on the originally calm and waveless river, endlessly swirling. But despite the size and rapidity of its flow, it did not make a single sound. Like an immense mouth gaping wide, the silence of the scene made the sight even more disturbing.
Although most of the villagers next to them had seen this scene before, several of them still could not hold back their exclamations of horror.
Jiang Xunyi subconsciously touched his waist. His Extinguished Flower sword had already been taken back from Yun Xie. Now making contact with the ice-cold hilt, it was as if his entire heart had stabilized. However, just at this same time, a warm palm covered the back of his hand.
Jiang Xunyi did not dodge or hide, but turned his head to meet Yun Xie"s gaze: "What?"
Yun Xie whispered: “I am afraid that attacking rashly would not be appropriate, you should still remain cautious.”
Jiang Xunyi casually scoffed: “What"s the matter, after not seeing you for a while, did you feed all your courage to the dogs?”
He did not realize at all that despite continuously saying he was Du Heng, he did not have any professional pride to continue acting as a fool in front of Yun Xie. His every word and action was like back in the old days; only his cold and harsh att.i.tude was no longer the same.
Yun Xun unconsciously used a little bit of force to tightly clench Jiang Xunyi"s hand, and whispered: “If I was on my own, I would charge even into the dragon"s pool or tiger"s lair1. But in this world, the only thing I do not dare to treat carelessly… is you.”
Did the author of 《Rising Clouds, Billowing Skies》 recently get rid of their single status or something? This writing style wasn"t quite right.
Yun Xie"s "corny" words made a row of gooseb.u.mps rise on Jiang Xunyi"s skin. He shivered and shook Yun Xie off: “Talk like a normal person. Tell me, what are you planning?”
Yun Xie was not angry to have been shaken off, and instead smiled: “Didn"t they say that those who died did not leave a corpse? Then let"s find the corpses.”
It was naturally a good thing that someone else was willing to take on this trouble. Jiang Xunyi arched his brow and made an inviting gesture, while he himself backed up a step.
The eyes of everyone at the scene concentrated on Yun Xie as he calmly took out a dagger. Just as he had cut off a branch the size of an adult"s arm from a nearby tree, the sound of hooves came from behind. Someone shouted: “Out of the way! All out of the way!”
Both Yun Xie and Jiang Xunyi looked over. The flying dust halted and landed a foot away from Jiang Xunyi without a single speck touching his sleeves, but no one had the presence of mind to notice those details. Two men wearing the red and black uniforms of local constables dismounted from their horses and quickly walked over, about to talk.
But they had not yet opened their mouths when Jiang Xunyi already spoke indifferently: "You two are constables? From where?"
Constables: “……” We originally wanted to introduce ourselves to intimidate this bunch of unruly people, but now being rudely asked like this, no matter whether we continue to introduce ourselves or not, neither option seems like it will give the effect we wanted.
Of the two constables, one appeared to be already past thirty, while the other looked like a young man. The young man paused and then puffed out his chest: “Yes, my name is Deng Zhi. Alongside elder brother Huang Wei here, we are both constables from Guoyang County. You two Daoist priests seem to be quite young, but you dare to engage in such deceptive swindling to fool these ignorant villagers? You"re going back to the government office with us!”
Jiang Xunyi merely grunted, and actually did not lose his temper. He lazily pointed at Yun Xie: “This has nothing to do with me, I"m just here to watch the show. If you"re going to catch someone, catch him.”
Yun Xie: "……" He immediately felt he had lost all his love for this world.
Seeing the constables turning their gaze to him, Yun Xie wordlessly smiled. He threw the branch in his hands up into the air and caught it again, and slowly said: “The two of you came in such a "timely" manner to insist we are swindlers… it seems like you feel that we are not able to deal with the thing in the river, but you are? Then would it be possible to let this humble one perform a magic trick before leaving, so when chatting with my fellow prisoners in jail in the future, I"ll have something to talk about.”
As the older of the pair, Huang Wei appeared to be more cautious. He had originally received a police report and rushed over in a hurry. But now seeing these two men, he felt that although they did not seem like the type to catch monsters, they seemed even less like swindlers. Hearing the sharp edge behind Yun Xie"s smiling words, Huang Wei did not dare to be too arrogant. After muttering to himself for a moment, he said: “Since you have said this, I will give you two the opportunity to prove yourself. If you resolve this matter, I will count this as a merit for you. If you cannot…” He turned his head to look at Jiang Xunyi, and said sternly: “Then you will come together to Guoyang County to eat prison food, you won"t be able to run!”
Yun Xie"s lips smiled but his eyes were ice-cold. He shook his head: "That won"t do."
Deng Zhi was surprised: “What won"t do? What do you mean by that?”
Yun Xie spoke with refined courtesy: "If we resolve this matter, the two of you shall kneel in apology.”
Deng Zhi was so angry he couldn"t help but laugh: “If you cannot resolve it?”
Yun Xie casually said: “Nothing is unresolvable.”
His word were as domineering and intimidating as ever. Unfortunately, without waiting for the protagonist"s halo to blind people with its light, Jiang Xunyi had already used up all his patience from listening. He raised his hand and waved it through the air. Deng Zhi only felt a swift and fierce gust of wind, but this gust was actually as sharp as a knife, sc.r.a.ping past him to slice half of a branch off a large tree. The large branch landed right in Yun Xie"s hands, and Jiang Xunyi said: "What are you wasting your words with them for? Just do what you wanted to do.”
Yun Xie laughed, and obediently stopped talking. He overlapped the two branches in his hands together. The willow branch and the scholar tree branch actually merged together in an instant, gradually becoming one. Deng Zhi watched intently from the side. He was unable to stop his eyes from widening at this sight, and then secretly cast a sidelong glance at Yun Xie"s wide sleeves.
Yun Xie was too lazy to pay him any attention, and minded his own business to pick up his dagger. His long and pale fingers appeared extremely dexterous, and he rapidly carved the tree branch into a small human figure. The miniature had all his limbs but no facial features, so it appeared quite strange and abnormal, not like anything respectable.
Yun Xie put the little man on the ground, while Jiang Xunyi had already casually begun to speak to Xu Da: “Give the birth Eight Characters2 of any person who disappeared in the river.”
Yun Xie smiled, while the gray-haired old man who had consistently led the villagers now frowned. “The birth Eight Characters are so important, how could we so casually give them to outsiders.”
With this change in tone, the people next to him were very surprised. Xu Da said: “Village Chief, just looking at these two brothers, you can tell they are capable people. You can"t doubt them just because of a few words from the constables."
Yun Xie"s eyes flashed, but no change in emotion could be seen on his smiling face: “The birth Eight Characters are important to the living, but this is my first time hearing that the Eight Characters of the dead cannot be carelessly spoken either. Alright then, if you"re not going to say it that"s fine, I"ll just search around randomly.”
Without even looking, he tossed his dagger down. The dagger landed with incredible precision, poking a round hole exactly into the heart of the little wooden man on the ground. Yun Xie then hooked his finger towards the river by his side. Three droplets of river water followed his direction to fly into the human figure on their own, and that round hole re-closed. Watching from the side, Deng Zhi and Huang Wei"s eyes had widened in shock, but the gray-haired old man frowned.
Yun Xie smiled: "Stand up."
The little man stood straight up from the ground.
Yun Xie: "Go."
Under everyone"s gaze, the wood man actually stepped forward with a swaying gait. At the same time, rustling and splashing sounds came from the river water. A human head gradually emerged from the water and began to walk towards the sh.o.r.e. Its movements were stiff and its pace unstable, exactly the same as the behavior of the wooden man!
The whirlpool on the river surface had disappeared at some point. As the human figure came closer and closer, its features were faintly discernible. This was a corpse with extensive rotting and decay. Chunks of flesh actually fell off with its steps, making for an extraordinarily terrifying sight. Amidst the shocked exclamations, Jiang Xunyi stepped aside to make way and turned his head aside from disgust: “Make him stay farther away from me when walking——why didn"t you pick a better one to call!”
How could he have had the chance to pick and choose for this sort of thing… Yun Xie continued smiling and did not argue with Jiang Xunyi, and only said: “Then you stand closer to me—”
He hadn"t finished speaking when his face instantly changed expression.
Jiang Xunyi had just asked a “What?” when he heard a loud crashing noise behind him. He hurriedly turned to see that the corpse Yun Xie was controlling had actually sunk back into the water, and its status could no longer be seen. At the same time, the wooden puppet on the ground had also fallen to a crawl. It incessantly kicked its small wooden legs, as if trying to free itself from something.
Author"s Notes (Translated): Thanks to the many years of tacit understanding between childhood friends, aside from some unspeakable sentiments and freak misunderstandings, they are still comrades who fight shoulder to shoulder. It"s difficult to change their habit of standing together.
Footnotes:
1.龙潭虎穴 lit. "dragon"s pool and tiger"s den" is just a saying for great danger
2.生辰八字 lit. "Birth Eight Characters" is one"s birth data as used in Chinese astrology. It"s a combination of year, month, day, hour, heavenly trunk and earthly branch. ex: people say two destined lovers will have matching Eight Characters.