Mu Kuangda is steeping some tea while Chang Liujun sits nearby, eating his lunch. The cloth he uses as a mask is lying on the low table, and the tattoo on his face is clear and visible as he stares at Wu Du.
“I asked you to keep Yao Zheng company while she’s out seeing the sights.” Mu Kuangda sounds unconcerned. “So why have you lost track of her and come back alone instead?”
“Nothing I can do. She holds me in contempt.”
Mu Kuangda places a cup of green tea on the edge of the table. A look of apprehension lingers in Wu Du’s eyes as he steps up to receive it, taking a sip.
“Respect,” Mu Kuangda says, “is something that you have to fight to earn for yourself.”
“Right.“ Wu Du is aware he’s brought shame on himself again, but in the meantime he has no idea what he should say.
Mu Kuangda has made his point and doesn’t try to push him beyond that. “If you don’t know how to sweet talk a girl then learn how. You never can get past this obstinate temper of yours. I ask you to kill, you won’t; I ask you to win over the princess, and you won’t do that either. So tell me — what exactly do you want to do?”
“I definitely will,” Wu Du answers respectfully.
Chang Liujun starts to laugh. Wu Du does nothing else but stare at that cup of tea.
“Take a look at this formula.” Mu Kuangda hands a prescription to Wu Du. “Put the medicine together and let me know how well it works within a month.”
Wu Du nods at once and tells him as you will.
Mu Kuangda adds, “If you can’t be sure, then find someone to try it on.”
Wu Du rises and asks to be excused, but Chang Liujun reminds him, “The tea.”
Wu Du can only come back to finish the tea that the chancellor has granted him. Then bowing to Mu Kuangda and nodding at Chang Liujun, Wu Du goes home.
Duan Ling is still lying in the courtyard; he’s been awake for a while, but he’s too scared to say anything, terrified that he may end up getting himself killed again.
He hears a loud bang as a door is slammed shut. Someone is coming back.
Feeling utterly humiliated, Wu Du kicks over the medicine table as soon as he gets back into the house. Letting out a long sigh, he crouches over the threshold to look up at the boundless clear skies above, and before a moment goes by, he’s walking up to Duan Ling and picking him up by the hair; Duan Ling can only open his eyes then, and Wu Du tosses him to one side. Duan Ling’s eyes are full of dread as he stares at Wu Du.
It takes him very little time to recognise Wu Du, because he can see the tattoo on the side of his neck. In an instant, the past comes rushing back into the forefront of his mind: the snowstorm in Shangjing, the golden centipede that rolled into a ball … Duan Ling has a feeling that he won’t be able to get away this time.
“What’s your name?” Wu Du asks him frostily.
Duan Ling’s mouth opens and closes, but nothing comes out.
There’s a deep furrow between Wu Du’s brows, and his expression is full of foreboding. He stares at Duan Ling for a while, and something seems to occur to him, “Where are you from?”
Duan Ling dares not answer. From what Wu Du has asked him thus far he has deduced one thing: for now, he’s probably safe. Wu Du doesn’t seem to know who he is.
The first time he saw Wu Du was in an apothecary in Shangjing; that night, the lamps were turned down low, there was a blizzard out, and he was only eight, peering out from behind the counter as he met Wu Du’s eyes. Since then, Wu Du has never seen his face again.
“You a mute?” Wu Du asks.
Duan Ling scuttles into the corner, and so as to avoid making Wu Du suspicious, he puts on a terrified act, unwilling to look at him face to face.
Wu Du considers Duan Ling for a bit with a confused expression. “Say something.”
Duan Ling shakes his head, and he opens his mouth wanting to say something. That’s when he realises he really can’t speak anymore. The words are on the tip of his tongue but his vocal cords are outside his control. All he can do is make a quiet ah sound.
Wu Du can hear from the sound that this young man is a mute.
Wu Du wears a slight frown; he has a distinct feeling that something isn’t quite right, but he can’t rightly put his finger on it. Soon, he turns around and heads back inside.
As soon as Wu Du steps away, Duan Ling watches every move he makes vigilantly. When he sees that Wu Du’s attention is clearly not on him, he feels slightly less worried, and begins to think.
What is this place? In his head he sorts out everything he’s experienced so far, and as soon as he starts thinking his head pulses with a headache. First he came to Xichuan, then he found Lang Junxia, the two of them drank together, and Lang Junxia poisoned the food …
Duan Ling looks down at his clothes. They’re half damp. The skin over his fingers are wrinkled from soaking in water.
Lang Junxia wanted to kill him? Yes — at the very last moment at least, he could feel that. But how come he isn’t dead then? And he’s here now. Somehow the one who saved him was actually Wu Du?
Inside the house, Wu Du takes an afternoon nap. Soon when he’s up again he takes another look out at the courtyard. Duan Ling is still there. He hasn’t tried to run, and he’s curled up with his arms around his knees, nodding off just like a dog.
“Eat.” Wu Du tosses two flatbreads out into the courtyard where they fall onto the ground, and ladles out a bowl of water, setting it down in front of Duan Ling.
Duan Ling glances at Wu Du, afraid to touch the things he provided. Wu Du turns around and goes back inside. Duan Ling peers at him from outside and finds Wu Du staring at a book studying a prescription; he probably won’t have the time to worry about what Duan Ling is up to. Hunger prevails over his caution and Duan Ling picks up the bread, starts eating.
His throat burns painfully. He tries to speak quietly but discovers that he can’t get anything out. He’s been poisoned mute.
Why did Lang Junxia have to kill me? Has he pledged his allegiance to Mu Kuangda? Duan Ling perceives danger, but if Lang Junxia finds out that he isn’t dead yet he’ll definitely figure out some way to kill him. If he wants to stay alive he must leave Xichuan as soon as possible.
Where is his father though? He’s probably not in Xichuan, but there’s no way for Duan Ling to find out where he’s gone. Knowing his father he’s probably ridden off on Wanlibenxiao on his own with nothing but his sword by his side, leaving the imperial city behind to wander the world looking for him. When will they ever meet again?
There are two options laid out in front of Duan Ling. One is to escape as soon as he can while Wu Du is still ignorant of his identity, to go find Li Jianhong.
Another is to remain here for now, but he’ll need to be extremely careful. Presumably neither the Mus nor Wu Du know who he is — Lang Junxia is the only one who does.
The latter option is actually safer than the former. At least here in Wu Du’s house, as long as he isn’t discovered by Lang Junxia, he can wait until the day Li Jianhong returns to the capital.
Duan Ling decides that he’ll stay and observe for now.
Wu Du spends the entire afternoon racking his brains over the prescription and it seems to be giving him trouble. He comes out in the courtyard and stands there for a little while, then with a lasso in his hands, he throws it over Duan Ling’s neck and tightens it.
Duan Ling immediately turns red in the face, and thinking that Wu Du is going to hang him to death, he grabs the lasso with both hands and tries to loosen it. But Wu Du doesn’t say anything to him and simply ties the other end of the rope onto the woodshed’s door handle, chaining up Duan Ling the way one would chain up a dog. Once this is done, he leaves the place again.
The rope’s range happens to be long enough for him to reach the toilet and the woodshed. In this way, Duan Ling is now being kept in the courtyard.
By the time he returns in the evening, Wu Du has irritation written all over his face again as he tosses some food to Duan Ling, and Duan Ling eats it. Inside the house, the lamps are lit, and Wu Du’s shadow falls onto the window. Late in the night, Wu Du comes out of the house for a look.
The young man is no longer in the courtyard.
One end of the rope is tied on the woodshed door, while the other end has gone inside the woodshed.
Clearly Duan Ling has found a place to sleep.
Wu Du suddenly finds it all rather funny; he shakes his head, closes the door, and goes to sleep.
In the woodshed, Duan Ling is lying down and trying every which way to untie the knot in the rope, but it’s made of cattle tendon and the knot is dead tight. No matter how hard he tries he can’t seem to undo it, and so he has no choice but to wear it to sleep, the whole time feeling exceedingly uncomfortable.
His mind keeps going over the image of Lang Junxia’s table laden with food; once he’s sorted out his thoughts and it’s all clear to him, he doesn’t find a shred of anger in himself at all — all he feels is an overwhelming sadness. He can’t tell whether he’s sad because his father has correctly anticipated this, or if he’s sad because Lang Junxia has betrayed the trust he placed in him.
That night, while lying on the ice cold hard floor of the woodshed, Duan Ling had a dream.
He dreams that he wakes up in a splendid palace, and when he calls out for his dad a couple of times, a guard comes up to him and says, “Your Highness, His Majesty is at morning court assembly. I’ll go call for him now.”
Duan Ling is lying on a bed in the palace, and it’s not long before Li Jianhong comes into the room dressed in his well-fitted court robes, smiling as he sits down at the edge of the bed. “You’re awake now?”
Duan Ling whines a bit about wanting to stay in bed for a while longer, and so Li Jianhong lies down with his clothes on to keep his son company as he sleeps in. He orders someone on the other side of the bed curtains to break off a blooming peach branch and put it in a vase.
Duan Ling feels as though he’s returned to his childhood, his head pillowed on Li Jianhong’s shoulder as he plays with the ornament hanging by his waist — the other half to his jade arc.
Sunlight streams in through the bed curtains onto Duan Ling’s face; he opens his eyes and wakes up facing a crack in the woodshed’s ceiling. Dust motes dance in a shaft of sunlight above him, the ice cold floor lies hard beneath him, and the smell of firewood and coal is all around him. He crawls out of the woodshed; at dawn the birds in the chancellor’s estate are singing a continuous song. Wu Du’s door is still closed.
There’s a rope tied around Duan Ling’s neck. After one night, a scrape has been worn into his skin from chafing. He goes to the side of the well to draw water to wash his face and his neck, cleaning away the sour stink of sweat that clings to his body.
When he hears the commotion going on outside, Wu Du wakes up feeling rather baffled. He stands in the doorway, tall in his snow white underclothes, as he looks outside. Duan Ling has finished washing his face, and now he’s watering the flower beds inside the courtyard one by one. Since some of them are too far and his range is limited by the rope, he gives up on the rest.
Finally, he draws a bucket of water, sets it down in the middle of the courtyard, and pushes it forward. Wu Du understands what he means — that’s for him.
Once Duan Ling has finished working on all that, he sits down next to a flowerbed, leans back against the wall, and looks up at the clear blue sky.
Wu Du hurriedly washes up and changes into a set of clothes after he gets up, and leaves the house immediately.
As for Duan Ling, he sits in the courtyard for a while, still pondering over the issue of his next course of action. His mind has gradually calmed down since his abrupt change of fortunes, and judging by Lang Junxia’s actions, Mu Kuangda is probably extremely wary of Duan Ling’s existence. Right now he must make sure he stays alive; the days ahead are yet long.
For the next several days Wu Du comes and goes, leaving early in the morning and always coming back at noon seething with anger. In the afternoon he’ll begin preparing medicinal ingredients and making decoctions. This goes on until at the end of those several days Wu Du comes out carrying a bowl of medicine and says to Duan Ling, “Open your mouth.”
Duan Ling opens his mouth, and Wu Du pours the decoction down his throat. When it hits his voice box it feels as bad as if it’s on fire. In more pain than he’s ever felt before, Duan Ling lies next to the wall and dry heaves, but Wu Du scoffs at this as he observes Duan Ling’s reaction.
All of Duan Ling’s internal organs are throbbing with pain. Soon, he crawls towards the flowerbed and throws up into it. Wu Du watches him for a time, and when he notices that the rope has already worked a cut into Duan Ling’s neck and that the wound has gone raw and red, he goes back inside to get a sword and almost casually slices it towards Duan Ling’s neck.
Duan Ling instinctively tries to dodge out of the way, but the sword has moved as fast as lightning and it slices the rope away.
Duan Ling throws up for quite a while, then he lies on the ground in exhaustion looking like a dead dog. Wu Du grabs a chair and sits to one side of him. He says frostily, “Who poisoned you?”
Duan Ling’s pupils gradually dilate. Wu Du examines his eyes for a bit and asks, “Can you write?”
Duan Ling’s fingers twitch; Wu Du stuffs a stick of charcoal in between them but Duan Ling can’t get a grip on it — his hand keeps shaking and the charcoal falls onto the ground. Wu Du’s voice sounds close one moment and far the next, and Duan Ling can hear him say, “From what I can see, you seem to have been poisoned with something called ‘Tranquil Death’. This is not an easy poison to get a hold of. Whoever has such deep hatred against your family?”
Duan Ling’s senses are slowly coming back, but when he opens his mouth, all he can make are some senseless ah, ah noises. Wu Du observes him for a while longer. “The poison isn’t all gone yet. This will do for now.”
Right at that moment, someone comes into the courtyard without announcing himself — it’s Chang Liujun.
“What is that?” Chang Liujun asks suspiciously.
“That’s my medicine tester,” Wu Du says, “for trying out drugs on.”
Chang Liujun doesn’t press him about it then. “Chancellor Mu is asking for you.”
Wu Du’s only option is to get up then, and abandoning Duan Ling in the courtyard, he leaves again.
Duan Ling feels as though all his insides are twisting together in a knot, but after a round of vomit and diarrhea he feels much better. When Wu Du comes back in the evening, it’s to Duan Ling cleaning up all the places he threw up on, even going so far as to turn over the soil in the garden. Wu Du is holding a grass known as the “enom dragon”, and he plants it in the courtyard’s soil.
Duan Ling watches what Wu Du is doing without saying anything, but when Wu Du is about to water the transplanted grass, Duan Ling waves a hand at him, meaning that he shouldn’t water it at this stage. Wu Du looks doubtful and gets up; Duan Ling makes several gestures to convey that Wu Du should let him do this.
Wu Du kicks Duan Ling to the side and pours half a bowl of water in the flowerbed. Two days later, the venom dragon’s leaves have turned yellow. It’s dead.
Wu Du digs up the grass to discover that the roots have been soaked to a pulp, so he has little choice but to go see Mu Kuangda again to send someone to dig up this medicinal plant. When he brings it back this time, he tosses the venom dragon to Duan Ling. Duan Ling picks up some dirt with his fingers and plants the grass in the small bowl he drinks water out of, then he flicks a few drops of water on the leaves and sets it down in a cool, dark place.
“You’re a gardener?” Wu Du asks.
Duan Ling stares at Wu Du. Wu Du assumes that since he appeared on the shore of a tributary of the Min River, he may have drifted down with the current from further upstream Xichuan; perhaps his father was a gardener or a farmer. That’s good though. It’ll save him a lot of trouble.
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Mu Kuangda is steeping some tea while Chang Liujun sits nearby, eating his lunch. The cloth he uses as a mask is lying on the low table, and the tattoo on his face is clear and visible as he stares at Wu Du.
“I asked you to keep Yao Zheng company while she’s out seeing the sights.” Mu Kuangda sounds unconcerned. “So why have you lost track of her and come back alone instead?”
“Nothing I can do. She holds me in contempt.”
Mu Kuangda places a cup of green tea on the edge of the table. A look of apprehension lingers in Wu Du’s eyes as he steps up to receive it, taking a sip.
“Respect,” Mu Kuangda says, “is something that you have to fight to earn for yourself.”
“Right.“ Wu Du is aware he’s brought shame on himself again, but in the meantime he has no idea what he should say.
Mu Kuangda has made his point and doesn’t try to push him beyond that. “If you don’t know how to sweet talk a girl then learn how. You never can get past this obstinate temper of yours. I ask you to kill, you won’t; I ask you to win over the princess, and you won’t do that either. So tell me — what exactly do you want to do?”
“I definitely will,” Wu Du answers respectfully.
Chang Liujun starts to laugh. Wu Du does nothing else but stare at that cup of tea.
“Take a look at this formula.” Mu Kuangda hands a prescription to Wu Du. “Put the medicine together and let me know how well it works within a month.”
Wu Du nods at once and tells him as you will.
Mu Kuangda adds, “If you can’t be sure, then find someone to try it on.”
Wu Du rises and asks to be excused, but Chang Liujun reminds him, “The tea.”
Wu Du can only come back to finish the tea that the chancellor has granted him. Then bowing to Mu Kuangda and nodding at Chang Liujun, Wu Du goes home.
Duan Ling is still lying in the courtyard; he’s been awake for a while, but he’s too scared to say anything, terrified that he may end up getting himself killed again.
He hears a loud bang as a door is slammed shut. Someone is coming back.
Feeling utterly humiliated, Wu Du kicks over the medicine table as soon as he gets back into the house. Letting out a long sigh, he crouches over the threshold to look up at the boundless clear skies above, and before a moment goes by, he’s walking up to Duan Ling and picking him up by the hair; Duan Ling can only open his eyes then, and Wu Du tosses him to one side. Duan Ling’s eyes are full of dread as he stares at Wu Du.
It takes him very little time to recognise Wu Du, because he can see the tattoo on the side of his neck. In an instant, the past comes rushing back into the forefront of his mind: the snowstorm in Shangjing, the golden centipede that rolled into a ball … Duan Ling has a feeling that he won’t be able to get away this time.
“What’s your name?” Wu Du asks him frostily.
Duan Ling’s mouth opens and closes, but nothing comes out.
There’s a deep furrow between Wu Du’s brows, and his expression is full of foreboding. He stares at Duan Ling for a while, and something seems to occur to him, “Where are you from?”
Duan Ling dares not answer. From what Wu Du has asked him thus far he has deduced one thing: for now, he’s probably safe. Wu Du doesn’t seem to know who he is.
The first time he saw Wu Du was in an apothecary in Shangjing; that night, the lamps were turned down low, there was a blizzard out, and he was only eight, peering out from behind the counter as he met Wu Du’s eyes. Since then, Wu Du has never seen his face again.
“You a mute?” Wu Du asks.
Duan Ling scuttles into the corner, and so as to avoid making Wu Du suspicious, he puts on a terrified act, unwilling to look at him face to face.
Wu Du considers Duan Ling for a bit with a confused expression. “Say something.”
Duan Ling shakes his head, and he opens his mouth wanting to say something. That’s when he realises he really can’t speak anymore. The words are on the tip of his tongue but his vocal cords are outside his control. All he can do is make a quiet ah sound.
Wu Du can hear from the sound that this young man is a mute.
Wu Du wears a slight frown; he has a distinct feeling that something isn’t quite right, but he can’t rightly put his finger on it. Soon, he turns around and heads back inside.
As soon as Wu Du steps away, Duan Ling watches every move he makes vigilantly. When he sees that Wu Du’s attention is clearly not on him, he feels slightly less worried, and begins to think.
What is this place? In his head he sorts out everything he’s experienced so far, and as soon as he starts thinking his head pulses with a headache. First he came to Xichuan, then he found Lang Junxia, the two of them drank together, and Lang Junxia poisoned the food …
Duan Ling looks down at his clothes. They’re half damp. The skin over his fingers are wrinkled from soaking in water.
Lang Junxia wanted to kill him? Yes — at the very last moment at least, he could feel that. But how come he isn’t dead then? And he’s here now. Somehow the one who saved him was actually Wu Du?
Inside the house, Wu Du takes an afternoon nap. Soon when he’s up again he takes another look out at the courtyard. Duan Ling is still there. He hasn’t tried to run, and he’s curled up with his arms around his knees, nodding off just like a dog.
“Eat.” Wu Du tosses two flatbreads out into the courtyard where they fall onto the ground, and ladles out a bowl of water, setting it down in front of Duan Ling.
Duan Ling glances at Wu Du, afraid to touch the things he provided. Wu Du turns around and goes back inside. Duan Ling peers at him from outside and finds Wu Du staring at a book studying a prescription; he probably won’t have the time to worry about what Duan Ling is up to. Hunger prevails over his caution and Duan Ling picks up the bread, starts eating.
His throat burns painfully. He tries to speak quietly but discovers that he can’t get anything out. He’s been poisoned mute.
Why did Lang Junxia have to kill me? Has he pledged his allegiance to Mu Kuangda? Duan Ling perceives danger, but if Lang Junxia finds out that he isn’t dead yet he’ll definitely figure out some way to kill him. If he wants to stay alive he must leave Xichuan as soon as possible.
Where is his father though? He’s probably not in Xichuan, but there’s no way for Duan Ling to find out where he’s gone. Knowing his father he’s probably ridden off on Wanlibenxiao on his own with nothing but his sword by his side, leaving the imperial city behind to wander the world looking for him. When will they ever meet again?
There are two options laid out in front of Duan Ling. One is to escape as soon as he can while Wu Du is still ignorant of his identity, to go find Li Jianhong.
Another is to remain here for now, but he’ll need to be extremely careful. Presumably neither the Mus nor Wu Du know who he is — Lang Junxia is the only one who does.
The latter option is actually safer than the former. At least here in Wu Du’s house, as long as he isn’t discovered by Lang Junxia, he can wait until the day Li Jianhong returns to the capital.
Duan Ling decides that he’ll stay and observe for now.
Wu Du spends the entire afternoon racking his brains over the prescription and it seems to be giving him trouble. He comes out in the courtyard and stands there for a little while, then with a lasso in his hands, he throws it over Duan Ling’s neck and tightens it.
Duan Ling immediately turns red in the face, and thinking that Wu Du is going to hang him to death, he grabs the lasso with both hands and tries to loosen it. But Wu Du doesn’t say anything to him and simply ties the other end of the rope onto the woodshed’s door handle, chaining up Duan Ling the way one would chain up a dog. Once this is done, he leaves the place again.
The rope’s range happens to be long enough for him to reach the toilet and the woodshed. In this way, Duan Ling is now being kept in the courtyard.
By the time he returns in the evening, Wu Du has irritation written all over his face again as he tosses some food to Duan Ling, and Duan Ling eats it. Inside the house, the lamps are lit, and Wu Du’s shadow falls onto the window. Late in the night, Wu Du comes out of the house for a look.
The young man is no longer in the courtyard.
One end of the rope is tied on the woodshed door, while the other end has gone inside the woodshed.
Clearly Duan Ling has found a place to sleep.
Wu Du suddenly finds it all rather funny; he shakes his head, closes the door, and goes to sleep.
In the woodshed, Duan Ling is lying down and trying every which way to untie the knot in the rope, but it’s made of cattle tendon and the knot is dead tight. No matter how hard he tries he can’t seem to undo it, and so he has no choice but to wear it to sleep, the whole time feeling exceedingly uncomfortable.
His mind keeps going over the image of Lang Junxia’s table laden with food; once he’s sorted out his thoughts and it’s all clear to him, he doesn’t find a shred of anger in himself at all — all he feels is an overwhelming sadness. He can’t tell whether he’s sad because his father has correctly anticipated this, or if he’s sad because Lang Junxia has betrayed the trust he placed in him.
That night, while lying on the ice cold hard floor of the woodshed, Duan Ling had a dream.
He dreams that he wakes up in a splendid palace, and when he calls out for his dad a couple of times, a guard comes up to him and says, “Your Highness, His Majesty is at morning court assembly. I’ll go call for him now.”
Duan Ling is lying on a bed in the palace, and it’s not long before Li Jianhong comes into the room dressed in his well-fitted court robes, smiling as he sits down at the edge of the bed. “You’re awake now?”
Duan Ling whines a bit about wanting to stay in bed for a while longer, and so Li Jianhong lies down with his clothes on to keep his son company as he sleeps in. He orders someone on the other side of the bed curtains to break off a blooming peach branch and put it in a vase.
Duan Ling feels as though he’s returned to his childhood, his head pillowed on Li Jianhong’s shoulder as he plays with the ornament hanging by his waist — the other half to his jade arc.
Sunlight streams in through the bed curtains onto Duan Ling’s face; he opens his eyes and wakes up facing a crack in the woodshed’s ceiling. Dust motes dance in a shaft of sunlight above him, the ice cold floor lies hard beneath him, and the smell of firewood and coal is all around him. He crawls out of the woodshed; at dawn the birds in the chancellor’s estate are singing a continuous song. Wu Du’s door is still closed.
There’s a rope tied around Duan Ling’s neck. After one night, a scrape has been worn into his skin from chafing. He goes to the side of the well to draw water to wash his face and his neck, cleaning away the sour stink of sweat that clings to his body.
When he hears the commotion going on outside, Wu Du wakes up feeling rather baffled. He stands in the doorway, tall in his snow white underclothes, as he looks outside. Duan Ling has finished washing his face, and now he’s watering the flower beds inside the courtyard one by one. Since some of them are too far and his range is limited by the rope, he gives up on the rest.
Finally, he draws a bucket of water, sets it down in the middle of the courtyard, and pushes it forward. Wu Du understands what he means — that’s for him.
Once Duan Ling has finished working on all that, he sits down next to a flowerbed, leans back against the wall, and looks up at the clear blue sky.
Wu Du hurriedly washes up and changes into a set of clothes after he gets up, and leaves the house immediately.
As for Duan Ling, he sits in the courtyard for a while, still pondering over the issue of his next course of action. His mind has gradually calmed down since his abrupt change of fortunes, and judging by Lang Junxia’s actions, Mu Kuangda is probably extremely wary of Duan Ling’s existence. Right now he must make sure he stays alive; the days ahead are yet long.
For the next several days Wu Du comes and goes, leaving early in the morning and always coming back at noon seething with anger. In the afternoon he’ll begin preparing medicinal ingredients and making decoctions. This goes on until at the end of those several days Wu Du comes out carrying a bowl of medicine and says to Duan Ling, “Open your mouth.”
Duan Ling opens his mouth, and Wu Du pours the decoction down his throat. When it hits his voice box it feels as bad as if it’s on fire. In more pain than he’s ever felt before, Duan Ling lies next to the wall and dry heaves, but Wu Du scoffs at this as he observes Duan Ling’s reaction.
All of Duan Ling’s internal organs are throbbing with pain. Soon, he crawls towards the flowerbed and throws up into it. Wu Du watches him for a time, and when he notices that the rope has already worked a cut into Duan Ling’s neck and that the wound has gone raw and red, he goes back inside to get a sword and almost casually slices it towards Duan Ling’s neck.
Duan Ling instinctively tries to dodge out of the way, but the sword has moved as fast as lightning and it slices the rope away.
Duan Ling throws up for quite a while, then he lies on the ground in exhaustion looking like a dead dog. Wu Du grabs a chair and sits to one side of him. He says frostily, “Who poisoned you?”
Duan Ling’s pupils gradually dilate. Wu Du examines his eyes for a bit and asks, “Can you write?”
Duan Ling’s fingers twitch; Wu Du stuffs a stick of charcoal in between them but Duan Ling can’t get a grip on it — his hand keeps shaking and the charcoal falls onto the ground. Wu Du’s voice sounds close one moment and far the next, and Duan Ling can hear him say, “From what I can see, you seem to have been poisoned with something called ‘Tranquil Death’. This is not an easy poison to get a hold of. Whoever has such deep hatred against your family?”
Duan Ling’s senses are slowly coming back, but when he opens his mouth, all he can make are some senseless ah, ah noises. Wu Du observes him for a while longer. “The poison isn’t all gone yet. This will do for now.”
Right at that moment, someone comes into the courtyard without announcing himself — it’s Chang Liujun.
“What is that?” Chang Liujun asks suspiciously.
“That’s my medicine tester,” Wu Du says, “for trying out drugs on.”
Chang Liujun doesn’t press him about it then. “Chancellor Mu is asking for you.”
Wu Du’s only option is to get up then, and abandoning Duan Ling in the courtyard, he leaves again.
Duan Ling feels as though all his insides are twisting together in a knot, but after a round of vomit and diarrhea he feels much better. When Wu Du comes back in the evening, it’s to Duan Ling cleaning up all the places he threw up on, even going so far as to turn over the soil in the garden. Wu Du is holding a grass known as the “enom dragon”, and he plants it in the courtyard’s soil.
Duan Ling watches what Wu Du is doing without saying anything, but when Wu Du is about to water the transplanted grass, Duan Ling waves a hand at him, meaning that he shouldn’t water it at this stage. Wu Du looks doubtful and gets up; Duan Ling makes several gestures to convey that Wu Du should let him do this.
Wu Du kicks Duan Ling to the side and pours half a bowl of water in the flowerbed. Two days later, the venom dragon’s leaves have turned yellow. It’s dead.
Wu Du digs up the grass to discover that the roots have been soaked to a pulp, so he has little choice but to go see Mu Kuangda again to send someone to dig up this medicinal plant. When he brings it back this time, he tosses the venom dragon to Duan Ling. Duan Ling picks up some dirt with his fingers and plants the grass in the small bowl he drinks water out of, then he flicks a few drops of water on the leaves and sets it down in a cool, dark place.
“You’re a gardener?” Wu Du asks.
Duan Ling stares at Wu Du. Wu Du assumes that since he appeared on the shore of a tributary of the Min River, he may have drifted down with the current from further upstream Xichuan; perhaps his father was a gardener or a farmer. That’s good though. It’ll save him a lot of trouble.
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