Thunder rumbles faintly in the distance. Wu Du comes back to their room to find Duan Ling lying on the bed with his eyes still open, glancing over to him as he comes in.
“Not asleep yet?” Wu Du says.
Duan Ling shakes his head, about to get up so he can give his spot to Wu Du.
“Just sleep on the inside of the bed. The floor’s gross. I saw the attendant mop the floor earlier and that bucket of water he was using was so dirty I wondered how many years he’s been mopping with it. Even an ancient dead well is cleaner than that.”
Duan Ling laughs. Since they’re on the road together, they’re making do by squeezing into the only good room in the post house; the bed though, is plenty big enough.
“By the time we get back they may already have relocated the capital.” Wu Du says offhandedly, “We get some good work done here, Mu Kuangda may give us a more spacious house.”
Duan Ling is still thinking about their conversation from earlier in the afternoon. “Is Xie You in Jiangzhou?”
Wu Du gives him a short hum in the affirmative. Duan Ling lets his mind wander, circling back to all those things Wu Du said earlier. He wants to learn even more, but Wu Du is one of the society types, unfamiliar with the political machinations of Mu Kuangda and his ilk. Since the dawn of time the powers between emperor and chancellor, and between local and central government, has always been a series of mutual checks and balances, a test of strength in a tug of war.
Great Chen has experienced many conflicts of war and has finally survived the most perilous period, but Duan Ling has gradually come to realise that beneath the calm surface of recuperation there are crisscrossing undercurrents; one false move and the government will capsize entirely, sinking to the depths below. Northwest of Jiangzhou stands Huaiyin, which has become an increasingly important location to Jiangbei2 ever since the Liao occupation of Shangzi, and now its local lord has grown so powerful that it seems strong enough to act in opposition to imperial powers. Princess Duanping’s marriage alliance with the Marquess of Huaiyin Yao Fu was one way of winning him to the imperial family’s side.
Relocating the capital at a time like this is equivalent to confronting the Marquess, and it is also showing the Li family’s resolution to recover the north with the central plain as a foothold. On the face of it, Mu Kuangda looks like the one who’s pushing this plan forward from the shadows, but in practice the final decision rests with Li Yanqiu. There is no telling, however, whether or not the fake crown prince possesses such valour and insight.
“What’s the crown prince like?” Duan Ling asks suddenly.
Wu Du turns over, ignoring him. Duan Ling gives him a shake, but he can only leave it be when Wu Du doesn’t give him an answer. Eyes wide open, he keeps on thinking. If all he has is himself and his fourth uncle, will he be scared? They’ll have to move the capital sooner or later; when he thinks about that, he finds himself overcome with a vague sense of excitement instead of fear. It is the excitement one feels in the face of imminent danger …
“Why do you always look like you’re still half asleep?”
The next day as Wu Du gets ready to get back on the road, he can’t even get mad when he notices Duan Ling nodding off again; Duan Ling is drowsy as anything the moment he steps out the door, so sleepy he’ll get lost if no one is there to keep an eye on him. A light drizzle has started to fall today, off and on; it’s nearly autumn now, and as they move north along the border of Xichuan, it’s also gradually getting cooler.
By the time they get to the Min River, it’s sunset behind grey skies that wouldn’t stop raining. Wu Du says to Duan Ling, “Right now you’re the young master and I’m your attendant.”
“Alright.” Duan Ling nods, and ties the belt around his robe properly. With painstaking patience, Wu Du instructs him on how he’s supposed to talk depending on with whom, what he’s supposed to say, how not to let his real identity slip. Duan Ling keeps nodding with a humble and self-effacing look on his face while thinking about other things.
Wu Du has begun to realise that Duan Ling is indeed no ordinary person — or put another way, not the ordinary person he used to think Duan LIng was. This kid thinks much, says little, and never says anything before careful deliberation. At first glance he seems inattentive, but he actually possesses penetrating insight, noticing details that even Wu Du may easily overlook.
Days of rain have left the mountain paths wet and slippery, and once they’re outside of Xichuan’s borders, many of the places ahead of them have had landslides, giving their coachman no other option but to take detours. Tonight their coachman has gotten them lost, and he calls out inarticulately to Wu Du. Wu Du can only come out of the carriage and jump on top of the roof in an attempt to survey the terrain.
“What do we do?” Duan Ling wants to come out, but Wu Du gestures for him to stay in the carriage.
“You just get some practice … on how to be a young master,” Wu Du mumbles to himself, spreading a map open. Their surroundings are pitch dark though, and there’s nothing to see with; cold raindrops wrapped in a chilled wind weave themselves through the air around them.
“The people at the post house said this is the right way, "Duan Ling says. “We’ve verified it.”
“I suspect we went the wrong way two intersections ago.” Wu Du is downright frustrated. They have a deaf-mute coachman that’s pointless to yell at, so you can only use hand signs. It’s one thing travelling on Xichuan’s roads, but as soon as they entered the Hanzhong region they’ve lost all sense of direction.
“Or we can just head back,” Duan Ling says.
“Too many forks in the road,” Wu Du replies. “Who knows where in the wilds we’ll end up if we keep moving? Let’s just stay here for the night.”
The coachman drives the carriage to the side of the road and sets up an awning behind it. Duan Ling is sitting in the carriage. Wu Du says, “I’ll go check around the area.”
“I’ll go too.” Duan Ling gets off the carriage with the dagger Mu Kuangda’s given him for self-defence.
Wu Du looks him up and down, a bit surprised.
“How come you’re so brave now?” Wu Du looks rather baffled.
Duan Ling’s not sure how to answer that; as soon as they’re out of Xichuan and his life’s no longer in danger, it seems his courage has grown along with distance. After all, no one else besides Lang Junxia is going to come kill him for no good reason, and while he’s neglected his martial arts for a year, he has been training on a regular basis so he can probably still fight.
“I … just wanted to take a walk,” Duan Ling replies.
“Just wait right here.” Wu Du turns to go, but when he thinks about it he doesn’t feel quite assured. He turns back and feeds Duan Ling a pill. “Swallow it.”
“What is it?” It’s awfully bitter, but Wu Du is looking impatient so Duan Ling can but swallow it. It sits there in his belly with a cool sensation before it starts to glow with warmth. And then Wu Du hands him a gold bead.
With a start, Duan Ling remembers the gold bead — it’s a centipede!
He daren’t take it, and even more so he dares not look at Wu Du. Wu Du says, “Take it!”
Wu Du tosses the centipede at him, and since there’s not much else he can do, Duan Ling catches it. Anyway if he’s bitten Wu Du will just have to give him an antidote. However, the golden bead does not stretch out into a centipede — it simply remains calmly rolled up.
“Put it under your shirt and keep it safe.” Wu Du gestures at his chest. “I’m going to go find you some water. I’ll be back right away.”
Wu Du’s gone, but Duan Ling dares not move that gold bead around, and he wants to hold onto it even less. He sets it down nearby and observes it for ages before he recalls the pill Wu Du gave him. It probably contained realgar3 or other drugs like it, and the centipede won’t bite him if that’s so. He’s not sure why Wu Du asked him to do it, but he follows his order anyway, and carefully tucks the bead under his shirt.
In the dark the coachman pushes a pipe cleaner through his pipe, and crouches down beneath a tree to take his smoke. Duan Ling pulls a piece of flatbread apart and climbs down from the carriage, giving half of it to the coachman, and makes a few random gestures trying to thank him for his hard work. Since they can’t communicate, they each go back to what they were doing.
From far away comes the cry of an animal. At once alarmed, Duan Ling opens the carriage’s curtain to look outside.
It has stopped raining, and the night lay silent all around them; in the pitch black darkness of the night the only source of light is the intermittently dim and bright end of the coachman’s pipe, scattering off a faint, red glow. Duan Ling leaves the carriage and stares off towards the end of the road.
The rain clouds have gradually faded away, and the rain that has been collecting into puddles big and small now reflect the starry skies above. Duan Ling notices something flying away from a tree and takes several steps closer, and suddenly he finds a pair of glowing eyes glaring at him, making him yelp in surprise. His voice travels a long way on the quiet plains.
“What’s wrong?!” Wu Du’s been given quite a fright, and he appears on the highway in a single leap.
“There was … a bird.” Duan Ling points up at the tree. He saw an owl — a “cat-headed-eagle” in common parlance. Wu Du’s face twitches, and turning away he leaves once more for the pond for water.
Duan Ling catches up to him, keeping pace at a step behind. As soon as the night sky cleared up earlier, the air turned clean and fresh, brightening his mood at once.
“Someone’s been in this area.” Duan Ling says, “Look over there. Should we go check?”
“When you’re away from home don’t go around saying hello to just anyone. Not everyone enjoys having guests.”
Wu Du has wiped down his upper body and he’s left his shirt off. Holding a shoulder purse loosely in one hand, he walks back side by side with Duan Ling dressed only in a pair of pants.
“You hungry?” Wu Du asks.
Duan Ling has just had a bit of flat bread, and he holds up the rest of it for Wu Du. Wu Du eats it out of his hand and says, “Once we get to Tongguan I’ll get you something better …”
He’s barely finished saying that when they hear a horse whinnying in the distance as though something has happened; Duan Ling and Wu Du are both startled at the same time.
“Oh no!”
With a loud rumble, the carriage begins to move. The coachman yells at the top of his lungs, but his voice is abruptly cut short. The survival instinct that has accompanied Duan Ling through many brushes with death brings him back to his senses.
“Run for it!” Duan Ling immediately shouts, and pulling Wu Du with him, he starts running towards a patch of shoulder-high grass in the wilderness.
“Everything is in the carriage!” Wu Du says.
A split second’s thinking later has Wu Du accepting Duan Ling’s decision, and the two conceal themselves in the tall grass. Just as they finish doing so, arrows fly through the air, aiming at their hiding place. Duan Ling turns over once, dodging out of the arrows’ paths, and makes his escape towards the pond with Wu Du.
A horseman charges into the open. There are high piles of straw everywhere, and neither of them had been guarded against an attack; all Duan Ling has on him is a dagger, and he’s just about to give it to Wu Du when without even looking at the dagger Wu Du presses a hand casually on his shoulder to let him know he should wait behind the piles of straw. Then he covers Duan Ling’s mouth and nose with a wet cloth before tossing out a handful of glowing powder that spreads out like fireflies onto the nearby grass.
There are people coming towards them in every direction, yelling things in a language they can’t understand. Duan Ling realises immediately that they’ve run into a group of Tangut people! This place isn’t far from Xiliang, so they must have reached the border between Chen and Xiliang. Mounted banditry is a familiar sight in Tangut territory — looks like they’ve been targeted!
As this realisation dawns, the Tangut dressed up as mounted bandits nock their arrows, pointing them in the middle of the half circle they’re forming while calling out loudly.
Slowly, Wu Du raises both hands to show that he’s unarmed.
“Don’t come out.” Wu Du says, “Hold your breath.”
Duan Ling hides himself behind a pile of straw. He’s not at all worried about Wu Du’s abilities, however — he’s merely curious and wants to see how Wu Du’s going to deal with them.
The bandits come a little bit closer, and that’s when Wu Du stoops low; every bandit reacts at the same time, but as they take in a breath and fire their arrows, they all start shouting instead, evidently from a sharp pain to their hearts, and several arrows fly off haphazardly without any strength behind them at all. Some of the bandits cry out, probably having realised that they’ve been poisoned, and the group of them just falls into utter mayhem. Meanwhile, Wu Du back flips from where he stands onto a pile of straw and casually reaches out for one of the longest strands out of the pile.
“Don’t come out!” Lest Duan Ling would give him trouble again he orders once more. Then like a cyclone he spins into the middle of the mounted bandits.
Between his fingers the straw flips and spins, each casual flick bringing up a spray of blood from a bandit’s neck, and only then do the rest of the bandits realise Wu Du isn’t someone to be trifled with. With howls of fear, they back away from him. All Wu Du has in his hand is half a piece of straw not even two feet long, but as it makes contact it seems as sharp as a blade.
They’re all deeply frightened, and run away screaming with their hands to their necks.
Wu Du tosses the straw aside. His mouth slightly agape at the scene, Duan Ling has just noticed a problem.
The ground is covered in weapons, all the horses have run away, there’s blood sprinkled all over the grass, but … he hasn’t killed a single person.
“They all ran away? But … But didn’t you cut their throats?”
“All I did was scratch their necks open to scare them a bit. Who’d have the guts to keep fighting when his neck is spraying blood? Of course they’d all run off.”
Duan Ling is speechless.
Once their conversation is done, their eyes look once again into the distance. That’s when Wu Du suddenly remembers something.
“Oh no! All our stuff is in the carriage!”
As soon as this occurs to Wu Du, he quickly stumbles onto the highway, and begins his pursuit towards the direction of the bandits’ escape.
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. ↩︎
Jiangbei literally just means “north of the river”, Jiangnan “south of the river”. The river it refers to is the Yangtze. ↩︎
People used to drink realgar wine to keep away evil spirits, poison, and insects, since realgar was an insect repellent that was sprinkled on stuff to keep bugs away. It contained arsenic compounds, but not enough to kill you. ↩︎
Thunder rumbles faintly in the distance. Wu Du comes back to their room to find Duan Ling lying on the bed with his eyes still open, glancing over to him as he comes in.
“Not asleep yet?” Wu Du says.
Duan Ling shakes his head, about to get up so he can give his spot to Wu Du.
“Just sleep on the inside of the bed. The floor’s gross. I saw the attendant mop the floor earlier and that bucket of water he was using was so dirty I wondered how many years he’s been mopping with it. Even an ancient dead well is cleaner than that.”
Duan Ling laughs. Since they’re on the road together, they’re making do by squeezing into the only good room in the post house; the bed though, is plenty big enough.
“By the time we get back they may already have relocated the capital.” Wu Du says offhandedly, “We get some good work done here, Mu Kuangda may give us a more spacious house.”
Duan Ling is still thinking about their conversation from earlier in the afternoon. “Is Xie You in Jiangzhou?”
Wu Du gives him a short hum in the affirmative. Duan Ling lets his mind wander, circling back to all those things Wu Du said earlier. He wants to learn even more, but Wu Du is one of the society types, unfamiliar with the political machinations of Mu Kuangda and his ilk. Since the dawn of time the powers between emperor and chancellor, and between local and central government, has always been a series of mutual checks and balances, a test of strength in a tug of war.
Great Chen has experienced many conflicts of war and has finally survived the most perilous period, but Duan Ling has gradually come to realise that beneath the calm surface of recuperation there are crisscrossing undercurrents; one false move and the government will capsize entirely, sinking to the depths below. Northwest of Jiangzhou stands Huaiyin, which has become an increasingly important location to Jiangbei2 ever since the Liao occupation of Shangzi, and now its local lord has grown so powerful that it seems strong enough to act in opposition to imperial powers. Princess Duanping’s marriage alliance with the Marquess of Huaiyin Yao Fu was one way of winning him to the imperial family’s side.
Relocating the capital at a time like this is equivalent to confronting the Marquess, and it is also showing the Li family’s resolution to recover the north with the central plain as a foothold. On the face of it, Mu Kuangda looks like the one who’s pushing this plan forward from the shadows, but in practice the final decision rests with Li Yanqiu. There is no telling, however, whether or not the fake crown prince possesses such valour and insight.
“What’s the crown prince like?” Duan Ling asks suddenly.
Wu Du turns over, ignoring him. Duan Ling gives him a shake, but he can only leave it be when Wu Du doesn’t give him an answer. Eyes wide open, he keeps on thinking. If all he has is himself and his fourth uncle, will he be scared? They’ll have to move the capital sooner or later; when he thinks about that, he finds himself overcome with a vague sense of excitement instead of fear. It is the excitement one feels in the face of imminent danger …
“Why do you always look like you’re still half asleep?”
The next day as Wu Du gets ready to get back on the road, he can’t even get mad when he notices Duan Ling nodding off again; Duan Ling is drowsy as anything the moment he steps out the door, so sleepy he’ll get lost if no one is there to keep an eye on him. A light drizzle has started to fall today, off and on; it’s nearly autumn now, and as they move north along the border of Xichuan, it’s also gradually getting cooler.
By the time they get to the Min River, it’s sunset behind grey skies that wouldn’t stop raining. Wu Du says to Duan Ling, “Right now you’re the young master and I’m your attendant.”
“Alright.” Duan Ling nods, and ties the belt around his robe properly. With painstaking patience, Wu Du instructs him on how he’s supposed to talk depending on with whom, what he’s supposed to say, how not to let his real identity slip. Duan Ling keeps nodding with a humble and self-effacing look on his face while thinking about other things.
Wu Du has begun to realise that Duan Ling is indeed no ordinary person — or put another way, not the ordinary person he used to think Duan LIng was. This kid thinks much, says little, and never says anything before careful deliberation. At first glance he seems inattentive, but he actually possesses penetrating insight, noticing details that even Wu Du may easily overlook.
Days of rain have left the mountain paths wet and slippery, and once they’re outside of Xichuan’s borders, many of the places ahead of them have had landslides, giving their coachman no other option but to take detours. Tonight their coachman has gotten them lost, and he calls out inarticulately to Wu Du. Wu Du can only come out of the carriage and jump on top of the roof in an attempt to survey the terrain.
“What do we do?” Duan Ling wants to come out, but Wu Du gestures for him to stay in the carriage.
“You just get some practice … on how to be a young master,” Wu Du mumbles to himself, spreading a map open. Their surroundings are pitch dark though, and there’s nothing to see with; cold raindrops wrapped in a chilled wind weave themselves through the air around them.
“The people at the post house said this is the right way, "Duan Ling says. “We’ve verified it.”
“I suspect we went the wrong way two intersections ago.” Wu Du is downright frustrated. They have a deaf-mute coachman that’s pointless to yell at, so you can only use hand signs. It’s one thing travelling on Xichuan’s roads, but as soon as they entered the Hanzhong region they’ve lost all sense of direction.
“Or we can just head back,” Duan Ling says.
“Too many forks in the road,” Wu Du replies. “Who knows where in the wilds we’ll end up if we keep moving? Let’s just stay here for the night.”
The coachman drives the carriage to the side of the road and sets up an awning behind it. Duan Ling is sitting in the carriage. Wu Du says, “I’ll go check around the area.”
“I’ll go too.” Duan Ling gets off the carriage with the dagger Mu Kuangda’s given him for self-defence.
Wu Du looks him up and down, a bit surprised.
“How come you’re so brave now?” Wu Du looks rather baffled.
Duan Ling’s not sure how to answer that; as soon as they’re out of Xichuan and his life’s no longer in danger, it seems his courage has grown along with distance. After all, no one else besides Lang Junxia is going to come kill him for no good reason, and while he’s neglected his martial arts for a year, he has been training on a regular basis so he can probably still fight.
“I … just wanted to take a walk,” Duan Ling replies.
“Just wait right here.” Wu Du turns to go, but when he thinks about it he doesn’t feel quite assured. He turns back and feeds Duan Ling a pill. “Swallow it.”
“What is it?” It’s awfully bitter, but Wu Du is looking impatient so Duan Ling can but swallow it. It sits there in his belly with a cool sensation before it starts to glow with warmth. And then Wu Du hands him a gold bead.
With a start, Duan Ling remembers the gold bead — it’s a centipede!
He daren’t take it, and even more so he dares not look at Wu Du. Wu Du says, “Take it!”
Wu Du tosses the centipede at him, and since there’s not much else he can do, Duan Ling catches it. Anyway if he’s bitten Wu Du will just have to give him an antidote. However, the golden bead does not stretch out into a centipede — it simply remains calmly rolled up.
“Put it under your shirt and keep it safe.” Wu Du gestures at his chest. “I’m going to go find you some water. I’ll be back right away.”
Wu Du’s gone, but Duan Ling dares not move that gold bead around, and he wants to hold onto it even less. He sets it down nearby and observes it for ages before he recalls the pill Wu Du gave him. It probably contained realgar3 or other drugs like it, and the centipede won’t bite him if that’s so. He’s not sure why Wu Du asked him to do it, but he follows his order anyway, and carefully tucks the bead under his shirt.
In the dark the coachman pushes a pipe cleaner through his pipe, and crouches down beneath a tree to take his smoke. Duan Ling pulls a piece of flatbread apart and climbs down from the carriage, giving half of it to the coachman, and makes a few random gestures trying to thank him for his hard work. Since they can’t communicate, they each go back to what they were doing.
From far away comes the cry of an animal. At once alarmed, Duan Ling opens the carriage’s curtain to look outside.
It has stopped raining, and the night lay silent all around them; in the pitch black darkness of the night the only source of light is the intermittently dim and bright end of the coachman’s pipe, scattering off a faint, red glow. Duan Ling leaves the carriage and stares off towards the end of the road.
The rain clouds have gradually faded away, and the rain that has been collecting into puddles big and small now reflect the starry skies above. Duan Ling notices something flying away from a tree and takes several steps closer, and suddenly he finds a pair of glowing eyes glaring at him, making him yelp in surprise. His voice travels a long way on the quiet plains.
“What’s wrong?!” Wu Du’s been given quite a fright, and he appears on the highway in a single leap.
“There was … a bird.” Duan Ling points up at the tree. He saw an owl — a “cat-headed-eagle” in common parlance. Wu Du’s face twitches, and turning away he leaves once more for the pond for water.
Duan Ling catches up to him, keeping pace at a step behind. As soon as the night sky cleared up earlier, the air turned clean and fresh, brightening his mood at once.
“Someone’s been in this area.” Duan Ling says, “Look over there. Should we go check?”
“When you’re away from home don’t go around saying hello to just anyone. Not everyone enjoys having guests.”
Wu Du has wiped down his upper body and he’s left his shirt off. Holding a shoulder purse loosely in one hand, he walks back side by side with Duan Ling dressed only in a pair of pants.
“You hungry?” Wu Du asks.
Duan Ling has just had a bit of flat bread, and he holds up the rest of it for Wu Du. Wu Du eats it out of his hand and says, “Once we get to Tongguan I’ll get you something better …”
He’s barely finished saying that when they hear a horse whinnying in the distance as though something has happened; Duan Ling and Wu Du are both startled at the same time.
“Oh no!”
With a loud rumble, the carriage begins to move. The coachman yells at the top of his lungs, but his voice is abruptly cut short. The survival instinct that has accompanied Duan Ling through many brushes with death brings him back to his senses.
“Run for it!” Duan Ling immediately shouts, and pulling Wu Du with him, he starts running towards a patch of shoulder-high grass in the wilderness.
“Everything is in the carriage!” Wu Du says.
A split second’s thinking later has Wu Du accepting Duan Ling’s decision, and the two conceal themselves in the tall grass. Just as they finish doing so, arrows fly through the air, aiming at their hiding place. Duan Ling turns over once, dodging out of the arrows’ paths, and makes his escape towards the pond with Wu Du.
A horseman charges into the open. There are high piles of straw everywhere, and neither of them had been guarded against an attack; all Duan Ling has on him is a dagger, and he’s just about to give it to Wu Du when without even looking at the dagger Wu Du presses a hand casually on his shoulder to let him know he should wait behind the piles of straw. Then he covers Duan Ling’s mouth and nose with a wet cloth before tossing out a handful of glowing powder that spreads out like fireflies onto the nearby grass.
There are people coming towards them in every direction, yelling things in a language they can’t understand. Duan Ling realises immediately that they’ve run into a group of Tangut people! This place isn’t far from Xiliang, so they must have reached the border between Chen and Xiliang. Mounted banditry is a familiar sight in Tangut territory — looks like they’ve been targeted!
As this realisation dawns, the Tangut dressed up as mounted bandits nock their arrows, pointing them in the middle of the half circle they’re forming while calling out loudly.
Slowly, Wu Du raises both hands to show that he’s unarmed.
“Don’t come out.” Wu Du says, “Hold your breath.”
Duan Ling hides himself behind a pile of straw. He’s not at all worried about Wu Du’s abilities, however — he’s merely curious and wants to see how Wu Du’s going to deal with them.
The bandits come a little bit closer, and that’s when Wu Du stoops low; every bandit reacts at the same time, but as they take in a breath and fire their arrows, they all start shouting instead, evidently from a sharp pain to their hearts, and several arrows fly off haphazardly without any strength behind them at all. Some of the bandits cry out, probably having realised that they’ve been poisoned, and the group of them just falls into utter mayhem. Meanwhile, Wu Du back flips from where he stands onto a pile of straw and casually reaches out for one of the longest strands out of the pile.
“Don’t come out!” Lest Duan Ling would give him trouble again he orders once more. Then like a cyclone he spins into the middle of the mounted bandits.
Between his fingers the straw flips and spins, each casual flick bringing up a spray of blood from a bandit’s neck, and only then do the rest of the bandits realise Wu Du isn’t someone to be trifled with. With howls of fear, they back away from him. All Wu Du has in his hand is half a piece of straw not even two feet long, but as it makes contact it seems as sharp as a blade.
They’re all deeply frightened, and run away screaming with their hands to their necks.
Wu Du tosses the straw aside. His mouth slightly agape at the scene, Duan Ling has just noticed a problem.
The ground is covered in weapons, all the horses have run away, there’s blood sprinkled all over the grass, but … he hasn’t killed a single person.
“They all ran away? But … But didn’t you cut their throats?”
“All I did was scratch their necks open to scare them a bit. Who’d have the guts to keep fighting when his neck is spraying blood? Of course they’d all run off.”
Duan Ling is speechless.
Once their conversation is done, their eyes look once again into the distance. That’s when Wu Du suddenly remembers something.
“Oh no! All our stuff is in the carriage!”
As soon as this occurs to Wu Du, he quickly stumbles onto the highway, and begins his pursuit towards the direction of the bandits’ escape.
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. ↩︎
Jiangbei literally just means “north of the river”, Jiangnan “south of the river”. The river it refers to is the Yangtze. ↩︎
People used to drink realgar wine to keep away evil spirits, poison, and insects, since realgar was an insect repellent that was sprinkled on stuff to keep bugs away. It contained arsenic compounds, but not enough to kill you. ↩︎
