Deep in an alleyway, Wu Du takes the last gift list from the Shadow Guard, and checks it against the list of names Chang Liujun gave him. Altogether, there are seven functionaries.
“Your work is done,” Wu Du says, dismissing everyone and getting the coachman to drive the carriage away. It’s getting late, and he remains standing in the alley, waiting.
Footsteps approach, but it’s not the person he’s expecting. Someone else appears before him — it’s Amga. They stand off against each other at a distance.
“Wu Du.”
“Amga.” Wu Du raises an eyebrow. “Number one fighter of Yuan.”
Wu Du’s gaze sweeps over Amga, stopping on the sabre he wears at his side. “Your sabre looks decent, but your fighting skills are rather average. I’ve been meaning to say that since we saw each other the other day.”
“Go on, show me your evidence. How much do you want? Name your price.”
“You’re being paranoid. Get out of the way. I don’t feel like murdering a foreign diplomat here.”
“Well then … Apologies in advance.”
Upon the utterance of those words, Amga draws his weapon without wasting any more of his breath on Wu Du. But Wu Du doesn’t draw his weapon at all; he merely steps out of the way, flicking his thumb against his sword hilt to bring the Lieguangjian out of its sheath a fraction of an inch.
As they pass by each other, Amga’s sabre flickers with cold light, and they each turn around; with one push of his barely exposed blade, Wu Du blocks Amga’s sabre. There’s a clang of metal on metal, but neither of their weapons are made out of ordinary materials, so neither one of them can easily best the other.
And so Wu Du is blocked from leaving the alley, and Amga keeps him there for quite a while, but once he comes to the realisation that Wu Du’s skills mustn’t be underestimated, he steps back to retreat and calm his breathing, observing Wu Du’s every move carefully, not daring to hazard another reckless move.
Suddenly, someone comes up from behind him with a stumbling walk, laughing as he says, “Hey!”
This surprise is no laughing matter to Amga — he’d never expected for anyone to get so close to him without a sound. It’s Zheng Yan though, and Amga slashes down with his sabre. Zheng Yan takes an unsteady sidestep and dodges him.
Wu Du looks rather speechless.
“What are you doing here, Lord Amga?” Zheng Yan says.
As soon as he sees him, Amga realises that the two had arranged a meeting here in advance. “Stop wasting time and give me back the stuff!”
“What stuff?” Zheng Yan dips to the right and slumps to the left, tottering to evade Amga by Drunken Fist. As Amga’s sabre is about to cut across him, Zheng Yan slaps the blade with his gloved hand, his glove somehow impervious to the sharp edge, and throws Amga outwards by using his momentum against him.
Even though no one is watching, Wu Du still has to be wary of who he is, and he can’t exactly fight Amga with Zheng Yan two against one. All he can do is stand there as emotional support.
Zheng Yan doesn’t even bother drawing his sword, and stumbling and staggering, he plays drunken master with Amga. Amga had never encountered moves like these before, and finds himself unable to deal with Zheng Yan.
“That’s odd,” Zheng Yan says. “How come you’re so good at speaking Han all of a sudden, my lord?”
Amga is at a loss for words. Repeatedly humiliated by a drunkard of an assassin and nearly getting hit by this drunk fist several times, Amga flies into a rage; Zheng Yan’s punches and kicks are full of feigned moves that leaves Amga dazzled.
Yet his reputation of being the number one fighter of Yuan isn’t exactly a false one. Amga knows that if he keeps being so careless, he’s probably going to lose; he begins to observe Zheng Yan’s stance carefully, and shifts from assault to defence, deceptively slashing his sabre in front of him once before he stops chasing after Zheng Yan.
As soon as he spots Amga switching up his strategy, Wu Du realises that Amga has stopped underestimating them, and he moves right away; the Lieguangjian leaves its sheath, and taking advantage of the gap Zheng Yan leaves as he backs away, Wu Du’s sword flicks towards Amga’s waist. The sneak attack catches Amga completely off guard, and the sheath hanging at his waist breaks off into Wu Du’s steady grip. Amga’s expression darkens at once and he chops at Wu Du with one backhanded slash.
When Wu Du makes his move, Zheng Yan pulls his fist back to his sides. Amga’s sabre slashes about wildly, and as he strikes once more, Wu Du bows to avoid it. Leaping and vaulting off the wall, he flips over Amga’s head, and while in the air he tries to catch Amga’s sabre with the sheath. The sabre in Amga’s hand is nearly dragged away by Wu Du, and he backs away hurriedly.
Amga is still hesitating, unwilling to simply leave. Wu Du tosses the sabre sheath up and down. “Call me grandpa and I’ll give it back to you.”
Amga howls at the top of his lungs and charges at Wu Du, but then some more people are showing up — this time though, it’s the Jiangzhou Black Armours, making their rounds in the city.
“Who’s there engaging in illegal combat in the city?!” The captain is roaring.
The consequences of getting caught by the military are unthinkable, and Amga, not daring to stay and fight any longer, escapes swiftly through the alleyways. Wu Du and Zheng Yan each stand in the alley without a word.
“Eastern Palace Imperial Guard, the crown prince’s attendant, Zheng Yan,” says Zheng Yan.
“Lord Zheng, there is a strict prohibition on fighting in the streets of Jiangzhou. Please lay down your weapons and come with us.”
“Do you even fucking know who I am?” Zheng Yan tilts his head to size up the guard sitting on the horse. “I have to fucking ‘lay down my weapons’?”
Wu Du puts out a hand to let him know they should stop wasting time. He produces the emperor’s written letter that lets him act at his discretion, leaving the guards no other choice but to withdraw.
“That bunch is downright imperious.” Zheng Yan says, “Utterly out of control.”
The Black Armours have always been presumptuous, but it’s not like they can do anything about it. Even Wu Du gets interrogated on his way into the palace, and Xie You is a hard nut to crack — nobody can do anything against the Black Armours.
“Amga is pretty skilled.” Wu Du says, “He may be hard to deal with in a one on one fight.”
“Where’s the stuff?”
Wu Du hands Zheng Yan the gift list. “I’ve already spent too much time here. You take the gift list, I’ll keep the name list. Let’s talk some other time. I’m leaving!”
Duan Ling waits and waits, but he doesn’t see Wu Du. I wonder if something happened to him, he thinks, but he’s in Jiangzhou, so what could ever happen to him?
Everyone else is already gone, but Mu Qing is still standing there next to him. Duan Ling’s mind wanders as the day grows darker; early spring is still on the cold side so he can’t exactly let Mu Qing wait with him, so in the end he can only say, “Let’s just go home for now, come on.”
Chang Liujun hasn’t come to pick them up, and the one who’s come to get them is the steward from the Mu estate. They make their way home first. Mu Qing says, “My dad says we’ll have dinner together tonight. Wu Du is probably already waiting for us.”
“I’ll change my clothes first before heading over.”
“I’ll wait for you.” Having finished his metropolitan exams is a great weight off of Mu Qing’s chest, and he’s so happy he’s beside himself. “Let’s go somewhere fun together after dinner. Chang Liujun booked a spot for us at the Bouquet Pavilion tonight.”
Duan Ling is rather speechless; his own belly is all filled up by worries, and seeing Mu Qing so happy without a care in the world makes him truly envious. When he thinks of how his own schooling is all over and done with, he finds himself surprisingly infected by Mu Qing’s spirited mood. But the fact that Wu Du still isn’t back is a real mood killer.
While Duan Ling has gone inside to change his clothes, Mu Qing looks around the house. It’s the first time he gets to have a good look around Wu Du and Duan Ling’s house. He’s extremely curious, and he opens up Wu Du’s drawers, finding them full of medicinal components.
Duan Ling is looking for clothes, and when he hears a noise, he turns back to glance at him.
“Do you and Wu Du live in the same building?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you sleep together too?”
“Yeah.” Inside his head, Duan Ling is wondering whether Wu Du will be heading to the Bouquet Pavilion with them, and if they should drink together tonight. And once they’ve had drinks, he can send all the servants out, leaving only Wu Du and himself in the room. Suddenly, he wonders if Mu Qing has realised something and has a mind to bring both of them over there, and his face turns crimson at the thought.
It’s already pitch black outside. A masked man vaults past the courtyard walls, staring into the house with its lanterns lit.
Beneath the light of a lamp, Mu Qing is opening the drawers of a medicine cabinet, looking at the things inside.
Suddenly, a lasso flies towards him, wrapping itself around Mu Qing’s neck. Before Mu Qing can get a sound out, he’s already pulled so hard that he goes flying out of the room — the drawer he was looking at falls on the floor, medicinal ingredients spilling all over.
Duan Ling is tying his belt; at the sound, he turns back to look, and the sight gives him a terrible fright. He quickly dashes out from the side of the room, grabs the small knife on the table they use to cut up medicinal ingredients with, and slices the rope in two. Mu Qing falls onto the floor. The masked man charges towards Duan Ling. Duan Ling tosses the knife and it flies at the masked man.
The masked man turns his head to dodge the knife, and Duan Ling spins around to dash to the medicine cabinet, but the masked man is striking at him with a sabre, so Duan Ling rolls on the floor to get out of the way. The drawers with poison powders in it are too far away, so all he can do is hop onto the table and leap higher to grab the bow hanging on the wall. Turning at the waist, he shoots a single arrow backhanded. The masked man backs out of the house with a leap.
“Who’s there!?” Duan Ling calls out in a stern voice.
A sword stabs him in the back without warning, hitting Duan Ling on the shoulder, but it doesn’t get through his clothes as the blade is blocked by the White Tiger armour, surprising his opponent. As soon as Duan Ling turns to look, a palm chops down on his neck, and he falls to the floor unconscious.
“What do we do?” The masked man in the front court says to the masked man who just jumped in through the window. “There’s two of them?”
“We’ll take them both.” The masked man who came later replies.
One of them unties the lasso from Mu Qing’s neck so that it doesn’t strangle him to death, while the other one grabs Duan Ling and throws him over his shoulder. The two then run out of Wu Du’s house.
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. ↩︎
Deep in an alleyway, Wu Du takes the last gift list from the Shadow Guard, and checks it against the list of names Chang Liujun gave him. Altogether, there are seven functionaries.
“Your work is done,” Wu Du says, dismissing everyone and getting the coachman to drive the carriage away. It’s getting late, and he remains standing in the alley, waiting.
Footsteps approach, but it’s not the person he’s expecting. Someone else appears before him — it’s Amga. They stand off against each other at a distance.
“Wu Du.”
“Amga.” Wu Du raises an eyebrow. “Number one fighter of Yuan.”
Wu Du’s gaze sweeps over Amga, stopping on the sabre he wears at his side. “Your sabre looks decent, but your fighting skills are rather average. I’ve been meaning to say that since we saw each other the other day.”
“Go on, show me your evidence. How much do you want? Name your price.”
“You’re being paranoid. Get out of the way. I don’t feel like murdering a foreign diplomat here.”
“Well then … Apologies in advance.”
Upon the utterance of those words, Amga draws his weapon without wasting any more of his breath on Wu Du. But Wu Du doesn’t draw his weapon at all; he merely steps out of the way, flicking his thumb against his sword hilt to bring the Lieguangjian out of its sheath a fraction of an inch.
As they pass by each other, Amga’s sabre flickers with cold light, and they each turn around; with one push of his barely exposed blade, Wu Du blocks Amga’s sabre. There’s a clang of metal on metal, but neither of their weapons are made out of ordinary materials, so neither one of them can easily best the other.
And so Wu Du is blocked from leaving the alley, and Amga keeps him there for quite a while, but once he comes to the realisation that Wu Du’s skills mustn’t be underestimated, he steps back to retreat and calm his breathing, observing Wu Du’s every move carefully, not daring to hazard another reckless move.
Suddenly, someone comes up from behind him with a stumbling walk, laughing as he says, “Hey!”
This surprise is no laughing matter to Amga — he’d never expected for anyone to get so close to him without a sound. It’s Zheng Yan though, and Amga slashes down with his sabre. Zheng Yan takes an unsteady sidestep and dodges him.
Wu Du looks rather speechless.
“What are you doing here, Lord Amga?” Zheng Yan says.
As soon as he sees him, Amga realises that the two had arranged a meeting here in advance. “Stop wasting time and give me back the stuff!”
“What stuff?” Zheng Yan dips to the right and slumps to the left, tottering to evade Amga by Drunken Fist. As Amga’s sabre is about to cut across him, Zheng Yan slaps the blade with his gloved hand, his glove somehow impervious to the sharp edge, and throws Amga outwards by using his momentum against him.
Even though no one is watching, Wu Du still has to be wary of who he is, and he can’t exactly fight Amga with Zheng Yan two against one. All he can do is stand there as emotional support.
Zheng Yan doesn’t even bother drawing his sword, and stumbling and staggering, he plays drunken master with Amga. Amga had never encountered moves like these before, and finds himself unable to deal with Zheng Yan.
“That’s odd,” Zheng Yan says. “How come you’re so good at speaking Han all of a sudden, my lord?”
Amga is at a loss for words. Repeatedly humiliated by a drunkard of an assassin and nearly getting hit by this drunk fist several times, Amga flies into a rage; Zheng Yan’s punches and kicks are full of feigned moves that leaves Amga dazzled.
Yet his reputation of being the number one fighter of Yuan isn’t exactly a false one. Amga knows that if he keeps being so careless, he’s probably going to lose; he begins to observe Zheng Yan’s stance carefully, and shifts from assault to defence, deceptively slashing his sabre in front of him once before he stops chasing after Zheng Yan.
As soon as he spots Amga switching up his strategy, Wu Du realises that Amga has stopped underestimating them, and he moves right away; the Lieguangjian leaves its sheath, and taking advantage of the gap Zheng Yan leaves as he backs away, Wu Du’s sword flicks towards Amga’s waist. The sneak attack catches Amga completely off guard, and the sheath hanging at his waist breaks off into Wu Du’s steady grip. Amga’s expression darkens at once and he chops at Wu Du with one backhanded slash.
When Wu Du makes his move, Zheng Yan pulls his fist back to his sides. Amga’s sabre slashes about wildly, and as he strikes once more, Wu Du bows to avoid it. Leaping and vaulting off the wall, he flips over Amga’s head, and while in the air he tries to catch Amga’s sabre with the sheath. The sabre in Amga’s hand is nearly dragged away by Wu Du, and he backs away hurriedly.
Amga is still hesitating, unwilling to simply leave. Wu Du tosses the sabre sheath up and down. “Call me grandpa and I’ll give it back to you.”
Amga howls at the top of his lungs and charges at Wu Du, but then some more people are showing up — this time though, it’s the Jiangzhou Black Armours, making their rounds in the city.
“Who’s there engaging in illegal combat in the city?!” The captain is roaring.
The consequences of getting caught by the military are unthinkable, and Amga, not daring to stay and fight any longer, escapes swiftly through the alleyways. Wu Du and Zheng Yan each stand in the alley without a word.
“Eastern Palace Imperial Guard, the crown prince’s attendant, Zheng Yan,” says Zheng Yan.
“Lord Zheng, there is a strict prohibition on fighting in the streets of Jiangzhou. Please lay down your weapons and come with us.”
“Do you even fucking know who I am?” Zheng Yan tilts his head to size up the guard sitting on the horse. “I have to fucking ‘lay down my weapons’?”
Wu Du puts out a hand to let him know they should stop wasting time. He produces the emperor’s written letter that lets him act at his discretion, leaving the guards no other choice but to withdraw.
“That bunch is downright imperious.” Zheng Yan says, “Utterly out of control.”
The Black Armours have always been presumptuous, but it’s not like they can do anything about it. Even Wu Du gets interrogated on his way into the palace, and Xie You is a hard nut to crack — nobody can do anything against the Black Armours.
“Amga is pretty skilled.” Wu Du says, “He may be hard to deal with in a one on one fight.”
“Where’s the stuff?”
Wu Du hands Zheng Yan the gift list. “I’ve already spent too much time here. You take the gift list, I’ll keep the name list. Let’s talk some other time. I’m leaving!”
Duan Ling waits and waits, but he doesn’t see Wu Du. I wonder if something happened to him, he thinks, but he’s in Jiangzhou, so what could ever happen to him?
Everyone else is already gone, but Mu Qing is still standing there next to him. Duan Ling’s mind wanders as the day grows darker; early spring is still on the cold side so he can’t exactly let Mu Qing wait with him, so in the end he can only say, “Let’s just go home for now, come on.”
Chang Liujun hasn’t come to pick them up, and the one who’s come to get them is the steward from the Mu estate. They make their way home first. Mu Qing says, “My dad says we’ll have dinner together tonight. Wu Du is probably already waiting for us.”
“I’ll change my clothes first before heading over.”
“I’ll wait for you.” Having finished his metropolitan exams is a great weight off of Mu Qing’s chest, and he’s so happy he’s beside himself. “Let’s go somewhere fun together after dinner. Chang Liujun booked a spot for us at the Bouquet Pavilion tonight.”
Duan Ling is rather speechless; his own belly is all filled up by worries, and seeing Mu Qing so happy without a care in the world makes him truly envious. When he thinks of how his own schooling is all over and done with, he finds himself surprisingly infected by Mu Qing’s spirited mood. But the fact that Wu Du still isn’t back is a real mood killer.
While Duan Ling has gone inside to change his clothes, Mu Qing looks around the house. It’s the first time he gets to have a good look around Wu Du and Duan Ling’s house. He’s extremely curious, and he opens up Wu Du’s drawers, finding them full of medicinal components.
Duan Ling is looking for clothes, and when he hears a noise, he turns back to glance at him.
“Do you and Wu Du live in the same building?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you sleep together too?”
“Yeah.” Inside his head, Duan Ling is wondering whether Wu Du will be heading to the Bouquet Pavilion with them, and if they should drink together tonight. And once they’ve had drinks, he can send all the servants out, leaving only Wu Du and himself in the room. Suddenly, he wonders if Mu Qing has realised something and has a mind to bring both of them over there, and his face turns crimson at the thought.
It’s already pitch black outside. A masked man vaults past the courtyard walls, staring into the house with its lanterns lit.
Beneath the light of a lamp, Mu Qing is opening the drawers of a medicine cabinet, looking at the things inside.
Suddenly, a lasso flies towards him, wrapping itself around Mu Qing’s neck. Before Mu Qing can get a sound out, he’s already pulled so hard that he goes flying out of the room — the drawer he was looking at falls on the floor, medicinal ingredients spilling all over.
Duan Ling is tying his belt; at the sound, he turns back to look, and the sight gives him a terrible fright. He quickly dashes out from the side of the room, grabs the small knife on the table they use to cut up medicinal ingredients with, and slices the rope in two. Mu Qing falls onto the floor. The masked man charges towards Duan Ling. Duan Ling tosses the knife and it flies at the masked man.
The masked man turns his head to dodge the knife, and Duan Ling spins around to dash to the medicine cabinet, but the masked man is striking at him with a sabre, so Duan Ling rolls on the floor to get out of the way. The drawers with poison powders in it are too far away, so all he can do is hop onto the table and leap higher to grab the bow hanging on the wall. Turning at the waist, he shoots a single arrow backhanded. The masked man backs out of the house with a leap.
“Who’s there!?” Duan Ling calls out in a stern voice.
A sword stabs him in the back without warning, hitting Duan Ling on the shoulder, but it doesn’t get through his clothes as the blade is blocked by the White Tiger armour, surprising his opponent. As soon as Duan Ling turns to look, a palm chops down on his neck, and he falls to the floor unconscious.
“What do we do?” The masked man in the front court says to the masked man who just jumped in through the window. “There’s two of them?”
“We’ll take them both.” The masked man who came later replies.
One of them unties the lasso from Mu Qing’s neck so that it doesn’t strangle him to death, while the other one grabs Duan Ling and throws him over his shoulder. The two then run out of Wu Du’s house.
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. ↩︎
