When Wu Du returns, he finds Duan Ling sitting back on his heels in front of the low table, taking all of the powder at once and throwing the pills into his mouth, swallowing everything down with the cold tea on the table.
“Hey!” In a panic, Wu Du charges into the room, shouting loudly. All the poison in the packet has been cleaned out by Duan Ling; Wu Du immediately seals off Duan Ling’s meridian points, gets down on one knee, and turns Duan Ling face down. He rests Duan Ling’s stomach over his upturned knee, and with his hand over Duan Ling’s back he moves his internal force into his hands and slams it down Duan Ling’s body.
With a cry Duan Ling’s mouth opens and he vomits up all the powder alongside the dinner he ate earlier. Wu Du forces energy through him three times in succession and Duan Ling throws up again and again. Wu Du slaps him hard in the face and snarls, “What are you doing?!”
He leaves Duan Ling for the moment and turns around to search for medicine that he can wash out Duan Ling’s stomach with, but meanwhile Duan Ling is groping around on the floor, going through the filth for the pills. As soon as he grabs one he puts it back into his mouth.
Wu Du has managed to find half of what he needs when he turns back to look and realises what Duan Ling is doing. Immediately, he rushes back at him like a gale, and the moment he picks him up by the collar, he gives Duan Ling one slap in the face after another, hitting him at least ten times in a row until Duan Ling is seeing stars, fainting dead away.
Duan Ling collapses on the floor next to the table. Wu Du manages to find medication for purging his stomach with, and dissolving it in a cup of tea he puts Duan Ling on his back and forces it down through his nose with a reed pipe.
It doesn’t take long before Duan Ling feels a great storm surging through his insides and he’s throwing up violently all over again. Wu Du drags him out of the house and tosses him into the courtyard where he lies on his side on the ground, twitching. There’s a lot that Wu Du is mad about, and this is just the last straw; he’s so angry he doesn’t even know where to start. He picks up the boiling kettle, tosses it at Duan Ling, and the hot water splashes all over him. The water burns his neck and his shoulder, but Duan Ling doesn’t move at all; his seemingly lifeless eyes are wide open, staring right at where Wu Du stands in the doorway.
There is nothing but despair in that gaze. Wu Du has no idea what can be wrong. He takes a step towards him and gives Duan Ling a kick. “What are you thinking about?”
He grabs Duan Ling’s collar and picks him up a little, snaps his fingers in front of his face, and Duan Ling remains perfectly still — his eyes just stare blankly in front of him. Impatient, Wu Du slaps him again. In the wake of the crisp, clear sound, Duan Ling hasn’t reacted at all.
His eyes are open wide and tears are slowly rolling out of them; his watery pupils reflect Wu Du’s features.
Unable to make sense of what’s going on, Wu Du puts him down and decides to let him be, heading back inside to clean up. He sweeps away the vomit on the floor and the undigested, regurgitated meat that Duan Ling wolfed down earlier. Clearly, he was so hungry at night that he ate too fast.
Wu Du looks at Duan Ling again. Duan Ling remains perfectly still on his side in the courtyard, as if he’s dead.
With a frown, Wu Du abandons the broom and gets down on the ground, inclining his head as well, so he can look at him. He notices that there’s quite a bit of water on the ground; tears are flowing out of the corner of Duan Ling’s eyes in a perpetual trickle, dripping onto the ground in the courtyard, pooling into a tiny little puddle to reflect the Silver River above like a tiny little corner of the world.
“What on earth’s the matter with you? Hey!”
Slowly, Duan Ling closes his eyes. Wu Du doesn’t know why he’s acting like that, and he leaves again to clean up some more. As he cleans and cleans he comes to a realisation —
Perhaps this young man was trying to kill himself in the first place, and the only thing that was stopping him was that he wasn’t able to find a good way to go. Judging by the way he looks now, maybe his father died, and after he took the poison he jumped into the river — then the boy was saved by him. He regained the will to live at first, but when he heard about that poison tonight something must have triggered him and roused the idea of suicide.
“Hey.”
After Wu Du finishes cleaning up, he comes out of the house and crouches over the threshold. His elbows are resting over his knees and his sleeves are rolled up as he considers Duan Ling, lying in the courtyard. “Let me ask you something — were you not telling me the truth? You were the one who actually took the poison and jumped into the river yourself.”
Duan Ling doesn’t make a single sound; he’s already lost all awareness of this world, and his mind is entirely blank, his consciousness hovering in the time when he was still with his father, as though he’s built up a wall to keep everything happening in the outside world, outside.
Xichuan’s affluent streets go on for miles, with jade-green rivers winding around like ribbons. Cloud-topped Mount Yucheng is perpetually surrounded by a coiling mist, and extravagant, decadent Jiangzhou never sleeps … With the sky as a coverlet and the ground as a bed …
When spring comes, peach blossoms are just everywhere. There’s the ocean too; the ocean goes on forever …
I can give you whatever you want on earth.
Everyone has something that they must accomplish in their lives … Some are born to fight in wars, some are born to be the emperor …
Dad owes you. No one is going to take your place ever.
Life is bitterly short. If you live in this world then you have no choice but to face a lot of horrifying and cruel things.
You’ve grown.
You say one more thing and I’m not leaving anymore. I never wanted to leave in the first place.
My son.
“Did your dad die?” In an instant Wu Du’s voice strikes the wall and brings it all down, causing Duan Ling’s consciousness to come back bit by bit.
“Your dad must want you to survive. Did you actually see him die?”
Duan Ling’s pupils gradually come back into focus. Before his eyes, Wu Du is sitting on the threshold, his tall figure lean and his shoulders wide like a hunting hound. Hazily, he looks a bit like Li Jianhong, smiling and speaking to him.
“Did you think dad isn’t around anymore?”
Li Jianhong is gazing at him ever so gently. “My son, I’ve been with you all this time.”
A lot of ideas that have nothing to do with each other rush into Duan Ling’s head; perhaps it’s a coincidence, or perhaps it is the will of the heavens that makes it so — somehow it is only now that he receives the news of his father’s demise.
This news has come too suddenly; it has crushed him in an instant.
But this news has also come at just the right time; it didn’t make him die beneath the cliffs of the Xianbei Mountains, in the blizzard of Luoyang, submerged in the rushing turbulence of the Min River. Instead, it is in front of such a stranger, on such a moonlit night, that he’s learned of this truth.
Rather than dying, he’s been saved by Wu Du.
Erenow the thought of reuniting with his father has supported him off and on, until he’s made his way to this man.
Imperceptibly, but inexorably, Li Jianhong’s gallant soul seems to be doing his utmost to help his most beloved son survive in the mortal world.
Even if he should wander destitute, even if everyone he holds dear has left him … Li Jianhong doesn’t want Duan Ling to know all of this. Hence the heavens are still looking after the Li family’s Great Chen; in the end he has stepped onto the road home, and he’s successfully come home.
Every time he has dreamt about Li Jinahong, someone would come to him seemingly carrying with them a certain kind of destiny and the mandate of heaven. His figure once again disappears, leaving behind a confused looking Wu Du. Duan Ling’s consciousness gradually returns.
“Think it over.” Wu Du says, finally, “Everyone has to die sooner or later. Better to be a live dog than a dead lion.”2
Wu Du gets to his feet and goes back inside, closing the door behind him. He puts out the light.
Beneath the moon, Duan Ling is lying there alone; it’s not until now that his nose gives a little sniffle and tears gush forth as though a dam has broken. He has never felt so helpless before, nor so sad; he scrambles back inside and covers his face with the robe that he’s been using to cushion the floor, then burying his face in his knees, he begins to weep.
He can still remember that time when his father took him to school and stood outside the window watching him, how he couldn’t bear to leave. Duan Ling was the one who rushed him off himself, lest his schoolmates make fun or gossip.
The night before he left for his campaign, when they parted for the very last time, his father even said to him, “Tell me you don’t hate me. Tell me you’ve forgiven me.”
Back then, Duan Ling did not tell him so, and wanted to strike palms and swear a vow with him. But in truth how could he ever hate him? Ever since he was very young he was already anticipating his father’s arrival. He also stubbornly believed that one day he would come, and that they’d be together through thick and thin. The same way that Li Jianhong had forded rivers and crossed mountains to find him no matter how arduous the journey, Duan Ling was always waiting for his father no matter how late he may be. Yet Li Jianhong only stayed at his side for such a short period of time; without even saying goodbye, he’s left him so quickly, and so soon.
Life is bitterly short — he has finally managed to understand those four words.
The door is suddenly opened, and Wu Du holds up a lantern, shining its light onto Duan Ling’s face. Duan Ling’s cheeks are covered in tears as he looks up at him. Wu Du looks irritated, and he really doesn’t know what else he can do; he pries Duan Ling’s mouth open and pours a bowl of medicine down his throat.
Drowsiness assails him after he takes the medicine, and Duan Ling lies down on his side. His mind is all empty; it must be some kind of sedative, leaving him no time to think about sad things.
Duan Ling is awake the next morning. Yawning, Wu Du watches Duan Ling for a short while after breakfast. He’s attending to the flowers and watering them as usual, and doesn’t try to kill himself again. “I already said my piece on what’s right and wrong, so if you try to kill yourself again I’m not going to try to stop you. If you want to die though don’t die here — don’t make me clean up after a dead body. Got it?”
Duan Ling stares at Wu Du. Standing in the corridor, Wu Du is suddenly finding Duan Ling a bit troublesome, but inside him there’s an emotion he can’t quite describe in words as well; he both pities and sympathise with him, yet he also admires him somewhat. Surely Duan Ling has had to endure a lot of hardship coming thus far.
“Clean up the room a bit,” Wu Du tells him, changes into proper clothes, and leaves the house.
Duan Ling takes off his shoes, and heads inside to clean up Wu Du’s room for him. There’s nothing to eat in the afternoon again, and Duan Ling sits in front of the corridor looking up at the shock of blue above him; outside, the cicadas are starting to call. A lot of things that he wasn’t able to figure out before can be fully explained now, and the past is shattered along with it.
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. ↩︎
The English idiom is from the bible. The Chinese version is “better to live badly than to die well” or “better a useless life than a good death”. ↩︎
When Wu Du returns, he finds Duan Ling sitting back on his heels in front of the low table, taking all of the powder at once and throwing the pills into his mouth, swallowing everything down with the cold tea on the table.
“Hey!” In a panic, Wu Du charges into the room, shouting loudly. All the poison in the packet has been cleaned out by Duan Ling; Wu Du immediately seals off Duan Ling’s meridian points, gets down on one knee, and turns Duan Ling face down. He rests Duan Ling’s stomach over his upturned knee, and with his hand over Duan Ling’s back he moves his internal force into his hands and slams it down Duan Ling’s body.
With a cry Duan Ling’s mouth opens and he vomits up all the powder alongside the dinner he ate earlier. Wu Du forces energy through him three times in succession and Duan Ling throws up again and again. Wu Du slaps him hard in the face and snarls, “What are you doing?!”
He leaves Duan Ling for the moment and turns around to search for medicine that he can wash out Duan Ling’s stomach with, but meanwhile Duan Ling is groping around on the floor, going through the filth for the pills. As soon as he grabs one he puts it back into his mouth.
Wu Du has managed to find half of what he needs when he turns back to look and realises what Duan Ling is doing. Immediately, he rushes back at him like a gale, and the moment he picks him up by the collar, he gives Duan Ling one slap in the face after another, hitting him at least ten times in a row until Duan Ling is seeing stars, fainting dead away.
Duan Ling collapses on the floor next to the table. Wu Du manages to find medication for purging his stomach with, and dissolving it in a cup of tea he puts Duan Ling on his back and forces it down through his nose with a reed pipe.
It doesn’t take long before Duan Ling feels a great storm surging through his insides and he’s throwing up violently all over again. Wu Du drags him out of the house and tosses him into the courtyard where he lies on his side on the ground, twitching. There’s a lot that Wu Du is mad about, and this is just the last straw; he’s so angry he doesn’t even know where to start. He picks up the boiling kettle, tosses it at Duan Ling, and the hot water splashes all over him. The water burns his neck and his shoulder, but Duan Ling doesn’t move at all; his seemingly lifeless eyes are wide open, staring right at where Wu Du stands in the doorway.
There is nothing but despair in that gaze. Wu Du has no idea what can be wrong. He takes a step towards him and gives Duan Ling a kick. “What are you thinking about?”
He grabs Duan Ling’s collar and picks him up a little, snaps his fingers in front of his face, and Duan Ling remains perfectly still — his eyes just stare blankly in front of him. Impatient, Wu Du slaps him again. In the wake of the crisp, clear sound, Duan Ling hasn’t reacted at all.
His eyes are open wide and tears are slowly rolling out of them; his watery pupils reflect Wu Du’s features.
Unable to make sense of what’s going on, Wu Du puts him down and decides to let him be, heading back inside to clean up. He sweeps away the vomit on the floor and the undigested, regurgitated meat that Duan Ling wolfed down earlier. Clearly, he was so hungry at night that he ate too fast.
Wu Du looks at Duan Ling again. Duan Ling remains perfectly still on his side in the courtyard, as if he’s dead.
With a frown, Wu Du abandons the broom and gets down on the ground, inclining his head as well, so he can look at him. He notices that there’s quite a bit of water on the ground; tears are flowing out of the corner of Duan Ling’s eyes in a perpetual trickle, dripping onto the ground in the courtyard, pooling into a tiny little puddle to reflect the Silver River above like a tiny little corner of the world.
“What on earth’s the matter with you? Hey!”
Slowly, Duan Ling closes his eyes. Wu Du doesn’t know why he’s acting like that, and he leaves again to clean up some more. As he cleans and cleans he comes to a realisation —
Perhaps this young man was trying to kill himself in the first place, and the only thing that was stopping him was that he wasn’t able to find a good way to go. Judging by the way he looks now, maybe his father died, and after he took the poison he jumped into the river — then the boy was saved by him. He regained the will to live at first, but when he heard about that poison tonight something must have triggered him and roused the idea of suicide.
“Hey.”
After Wu Du finishes cleaning up, he comes out of the house and crouches over the threshold. His elbows are resting over his knees and his sleeves are rolled up as he considers Duan Ling, lying in the courtyard. “Let me ask you something — were you not telling me the truth? You were the one who actually took the poison and jumped into the river yourself.”
Duan Ling doesn’t make a single sound; he’s already lost all awareness of this world, and his mind is entirely blank, his consciousness hovering in the time when he was still with his father, as though he’s built up a wall to keep everything happening in the outside world, outside.
Xichuan’s affluent streets go on for miles, with jade-green rivers winding around like ribbons. Cloud-topped Mount Yucheng is perpetually surrounded by a coiling mist, and extravagant, decadent Jiangzhou never sleeps … With the sky as a coverlet and the ground as a bed …
When spring comes, peach blossoms are just everywhere. There’s the ocean too; the ocean goes on forever …
I can give you whatever you want on earth.
Everyone has something that they must accomplish in their lives … Some are born to fight in wars, some are born to be the emperor …
Dad owes you. No one is going to take your place ever.
Life is bitterly short. If you live in this world then you have no choice but to face a lot of horrifying and cruel things.
You’ve grown.
You say one more thing and I’m not leaving anymore. I never wanted to leave in the first place.
My son.
“Did your dad die?” In an instant Wu Du’s voice strikes the wall and brings it all down, causing Duan Ling’s consciousness to come back bit by bit.
“Your dad must want you to survive. Did you actually see him die?”
Duan Ling’s pupils gradually come back into focus. Before his eyes, Wu Du is sitting on the threshold, his tall figure lean and his shoulders wide like a hunting hound. Hazily, he looks a bit like Li Jianhong, smiling and speaking to him.
“Did you think dad isn’t around anymore?”
Li Jianhong is gazing at him ever so gently. “My son, I’ve been with you all this time.”
A lot of ideas that have nothing to do with each other rush into Duan Ling’s head; perhaps it’s a coincidence, or perhaps it is the will of the heavens that makes it so — somehow it is only now that he receives the news of his father’s demise.
This news has come too suddenly; it has crushed him in an instant.
But this news has also come at just the right time; it didn’t make him die beneath the cliffs of the Xianbei Mountains, in the blizzard of Luoyang, submerged in the rushing turbulence of the Min River. Instead, it is in front of such a stranger, on such a moonlit night, that he’s learned of this truth.
Rather than dying, he’s been saved by Wu Du.
Erenow the thought of reuniting with his father has supported him off and on, until he’s made his way to this man.
Imperceptibly, but inexorably, Li Jianhong’s gallant soul seems to be doing his utmost to help his most beloved son survive in the mortal world.
Even if he should wander destitute, even if everyone he holds dear has left him … Li Jianhong doesn’t want Duan Ling to know all of this. Hence the heavens are still looking after the Li family’s Great Chen; in the end he has stepped onto the road home, and he’s successfully come home.
Every time he has dreamt about Li Jinahong, someone would come to him seemingly carrying with them a certain kind of destiny and the mandate of heaven. His figure once again disappears, leaving behind a confused looking Wu Du. Duan Ling’s consciousness gradually returns.
“Think it over.” Wu Du says, finally, “Everyone has to die sooner or later. Better to be a live dog than a dead lion.”2
Wu Du gets to his feet and goes back inside, closing the door behind him. He puts out the light.
Beneath the moon, Duan Ling is lying there alone; it’s not until now that his nose gives a little sniffle and tears gush forth as though a dam has broken. He has never felt so helpless before, nor so sad; he scrambles back inside and covers his face with the robe that he’s been using to cushion the floor, then burying his face in his knees, he begins to weep.
He can still remember that time when his father took him to school and stood outside the window watching him, how he couldn’t bear to leave. Duan Ling was the one who rushed him off himself, lest his schoolmates make fun or gossip.
The night before he left for his campaign, when they parted for the very last time, his father even said to him, “Tell me you don’t hate me. Tell me you’ve forgiven me.”
Back then, Duan Ling did not tell him so, and wanted to strike palms and swear a vow with him. But in truth how could he ever hate him? Ever since he was very young he was already anticipating his father’s arrival. He also stubbornly believed that one day he would come, and that they’d be together through thick and thin. The same way that Li Jianhong had forded rivers and crossed mountains to find him no matter how arduous the journey, Duan Ling was always waiting for his father no matter how late he may be. Yet Li Jianhong only stayed at his side for such a short period of time; without even saying goodbye, he’s left him so quickly, and so soon.
Life is bitterly short — he has finally managed to understand those four words.
The door is suddenly opened, and Wu Du holds up a lantern, shining its light onto Duan Ling’s face. Duan Ling’s cheeks are covered in tears as he looks up at him. Wu Du looks irritated, and he really doesn’t know what else he can do; he pries Duan Ling’s mouth open and pours a bowl of medicine down his throat.
Drowsiness assails him after he takes the medicine, and Duan Ling lies down on his side. His mind is all empty; it must be some kind of sedative, leaving him no time to think about sad things.
Duan Ling is awake the next morning. Yawning, Wu Du watches Duan Ling for a short while after breakfast. He’s attending to the flowers and watering them as usual, and doesn’t try to kill himself again. “I already said my piece on what’s right and wrong, so if you try to kill yourself again I’m not going to try to stop you. If you want to die though don’t die here — don’t make me clean up after a dead body. Got it?”
Duan Ling stares at Wu Du. Standing in the corridor, Wu Du is suddenly finding Duan Ling a bit troublesome, but inside him there’s an emotion he can’t quite describe in words as well; he both pities and sympathise with him, yet he also admires him somewhat. Surely Duan Ling has had to endure a lot of hardship coming thus far.
“Clean up the room a bit,” Wu Du tells him, changes into proper clothes, and leaves the house.
Duan Ling takes off his shoes, and heads inside to clean up Wu Du’s room for him. There’s nothing to eat in the afternoon again, and Duan Ling sits in front of the corridor looking up at the shock of blue above him; outside, the cicadas are starting to call. A lot of things that he wasn’t able to figure out before can be fully explained now, and the past is shattered along with it.
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. ↩︎
The English idiom is from the bible. The Chinese version is “better to live badly than to die well” or “better a useless life than a good death”. ↩︎
