Half an hour later, the ship continued to sail along the river.
Jinxia and YangYue were sincerely kneeling outside of Yang ChengWan’s room, the painful moaning noise could be heard even from the lower cabins.
The ship’s crew who passed by them, at first they shot a timid glance, then it was a look of disapproval, afterward the people passing by just treated them as the ship’s decoration. Next to them was a storage room, two crew members were tidying up the room while chatting in small voices; the door of the storage room was open and not tightly shut, therefore, Jinxia could hear their conversation.
“…He broke his leg, I heard it was just one kick.”
“…Thankfully the physician was called to rearrange his bone or he would have been disable.”
He called the physician to rearrange Sha Xiuzhu’s bones?! This Lu Yi really made people completely clueless about his character. He kicked Sha Xiuzhu’s leg without any warning, even though the aim was to get a confession, it was still rather cruel. Sha Xiuzhu was a strong person, with a painful broken leg like that, he was still able to stay quiet and endure the pain instead of speaking about it.
Her knees were starting to hurt, Jinxia couldn’t stand it anymore. Right when she was about to move, the door opened. Yang ChengWan with an expressionless face came out of the room.
“Father.” YangYue opened his mouth, exclaiming, “We admit we were wrong.”
“Master…” Jinxia looked at Yang ChengWan with a sad face.
Yang ChengWan stared at the two of them, said nothing and limped out. He didn’t say anything, it means the both of them would have to continue to kneel.
“This is all Lu Yi’s fault!” Jinxia gritted her teeth, she said it in a low voice but YangYue next to her heard it all.
YangYue sighed.
In fact, after Lu Yi found out that they were both hiding outside under the window, he didn’t say a word but went straight to look for Yang ChengWan and politely said: “Somehow your two disciples are hiding under the window outside my room and eavesdropping. I know Yang Superior is open minded and honest. There’s nothing to hide, I’m just worried whether or not there is a misunderstanding between Senior and me, are there any complaints?”
Yang ChengWan had to repeatedly say that it was not the case and swear that he did not know what was going on and begged him to forgive his mischievous students, promising he would definitely punish them severely.
After that, Jinxia and YangYue could only report everything in detail, from the dive in the water to find the chests to how they helped Lu Yi pull those chests onto the ship. Afterward they reported the conversation between Lu Yi and Wang Fangxing as well. They did not dare to miss out a single detail.
After having heard everything, Yang ChengWan did not speak for a while, but finally said: “Now that your wings have opened and you ignored the words I said, you don’t have to follow me anymore.”
Needless to say, YangYue was his biological son, while Yang ChengWan was a master but also a father to Jinxia. As soon as these words came out, they knew he was really angry this time and could only kneel obediently to show repentance.
The two of them kneeled for a whole day, they did not eat or drink. During the day, Yang ChengWan left and entered his room several times, but did not say anything. Jinxia and YangYue did not dare to get up, desperately seeing the time passing from daylight to darkness. They kept kneeling until their knees were numb.
“Master’s temperament is quite large this time.” Jinxia, feeling weak, asked him: “Maybe he wants us to kneel until tomorrow morning?”
“Maybe.” YangYue, who was in agony, slightly moved his legs but cheerfully said: “Thankfully, this ship’s floor is made of wood, kneeling on stone would be more painful.”
“My legs are numb, kneeling everywhere is the same. Right now, I might faint because of hunger.” Jinxia complained, “When you said you wanted to make dumplings this morning, I shouldn’t have stopped you…”
The shadow of a person’s head came approaching from the corridor of the ship; they both immediately fell silent and bowed their heads as though they were very sorry. From the corner of their eyes, they could see a glimpse of Yang ChengWan walking towards them. There was also a person next to him with a phoenix jinyi belt: It was Lu Yi.
“They are…” Seeing both Jinxia and YangYue kneeling down, Lu Yi seemed a bit shocked.
“These students did not understand the rules and have offended Jingli Daren.” Yang ChengWan said, “You don’t need to care about them.”
Jinxia and YangYue both dropped their heads in sadness, knelt in proper position and didn’t dare to speak.
“It’s just a misunderstanding, a small matter, Senior. You don’t have to worry about it. It’s better to let them stand up, otherwise Yan Yuan* will feel uneasy.”
*[Yan Yuan = A title that a lower rank uses to refer to themselves when talking to a senior, TN]
“Since Jingli Daren already said that, I will forgive them this time.” Yang ChengWan faced them both and loudly said: “Didn’t you already hear? Yet, you don’t know how to stand up and thank Jingli Daren! Next time if it happens again, I won’t be this lenient.”
With both of her legs numb from kneeling down, JinXia stood up slowly while grabbing to the wall of the ship cabin, as instructed by Yang ChengWan, and reluctantly turned to face LuYi, “Thanks to JingLi DaRen for being so magnanimous…” She had yet to finish the sentence and her legs were shaking so hard that they wouldn’t hold her up for long. She suddenly fell down on her knees again. Kneeling down… it was hurting so much that she gritted her teeth in pain.
Lu Yi just looked on, and said faintly: “Such a big courtesy is not needed, do get up.”
Right at this moment, JinXia had already sent a greeting to his ancestor backdated to 500 years ago, however on the facade she still had to maintain a submissive attitude, getting up slowly and then limping out.
YangYue got up obediently and thanked Lu Yi too, then just like Jinxia he limped out.
“No wonder Master didn’t let it go, he was waiting for him to come and say something.” Unable to find any available food, Jinxia took out a radish and bit on it fiercely, chewing on it angrily. “What a scumbag! He knew we were there kneeling for the whole day, then he only came and said ‘Just a small matter’! He did it on purpose to punish us.”
YangYue said as he was scoping the water into the cauldron, “Be thankful, if he had only come tomorrow morning, we would still have needed to kneel the whole night away.”
Because she was too hungry, Jinxia chewed two or three bites at the same time and swallowed two small red raw radishes, and then said: “This master is actually not satisfied. He ordered us for half of the day, the person was caught by him, the birthday gifts have also been confiscated, now he’s trying to teach us a lesson.”
“There are things you have to admit, his position is higher than ours, it doesn’t matter what he does to us, we can’t do anything either. After all, his martial arts are amazing, only one kick and he broke the banner-carrying officer’s leg, can you do that?” YangYue started kneading the dough, and he made two bowls of noodles to eat.
“Why do you keep praising others? Didn’t you say you’d make dumplings?”
“I was just saying as it is… I couldn’t find rice flour, we can just eat these noodles instead.”
Jinxia leaned her back on the stove, remembering Sha Xiuzhu’s agonized face, she thought: “…Maybe he hid an accomplice under his shoes?”
“Don’t worry about it, hurry up and start the fire.”
YangYue kicked her out and Jinxia immediately turned over to heat the fire. In her mind, she was still thinking: “You say, how was he going to deal with the birthday gifts? Bringing it all the way to Yangzhou?”
YangYue’s head poked out from the stove, leaning toward Jinxia: “Master Xia, I want to negotiate something with you.”
“Tell me.”
“Forget about the birthday gifts, how he handles them has nothing to do with us. This problem cannot be touched by us, we can’t even touch this person… Don’t give my father anymore problems.”
This reasoning, Jinxia didn’t understand, but understanding and following are two different things. She remembered her younger brother’s teacher who often touched his beard, shook his head and sighed, saying ‘it was easier said than done’… Thinking about it, it was the same situation.
In the ship’s kitchen, there was no other delicious food to eat. YangYue made two bowls of Yangchun noodles, both of them ate the food in a hurry then returned to their room to rest.
Unlike Lu Yi’s spacious and bright room, Jinxia’s room had an issue with the mold smell that had spread for several years, the windows were small and narrow. She did not bother to light a candle but immediately laid down without even removing her robe. In the dark, she felt her knees numb and sore, like she was being bitten by a group of ants.
Outside, someone knocked on the door, it was YangYue’s voice.
“The bolt is unhooked, you can just push it in.” The door link had been broken last night by the two aggressive soldiers but Jinxia was too lazy to pick it up, thinking that it would be fixed by tomorrow.
YangYue pushed the door open and gave her a bottle of medicinal wine: “Father told me to give this to you, it helps to improve circulation and cure blood clots. Massage your legs with this, tomorrow, they will definitely be healed.”
“Oh, have you used it?”
“I have my own. Don’t be lazy, the door must be closed properly.”
“I know.”
She was annoyed by YangYue’s chattiness, so she waved her hand to chase him out. YangYue picked up the hook of the door and put it back, closed the door and went back to rest.
Jinxia, leaning halfway on the bed, rolled up her pants, she poured the medicine into her palm, rubbed it to warm it up and then rubbed it onto the affected area. A moment later, the medicine began to work, both of her knees gradually felt warmer and much more comfortable. She knew that it must have hurt Yang ChengWan seeing them kneel all day, but because of Lu Yi, he could not show a soft heart.
She thought of Yang ChengWan limp walking. She was feeling exhausted but before falling asleep, she thought that she really shouldn’t cause anymore problems for the master.
The water was crystal clear, the night still long.
In the midst of pain, Sha Xiuzhu was swayed between being conscious and unconscious. He was confined in a room on the ship that was designed to hold criminals: There were three small spaces bounded by iron fences, sunlight couldn’t enter into that space and therefore he couldn’t tell the difference between day and night. His wounds were causing him a series of intense waves of pain. Groaning, he hugged his body tightly and pressed his feet against the cold iron fence, hoping it would reduce the agony a little.
“Brother Sha, brother Sha…” There was a voice from far away that could be heard faintly.
“Uhm…Uhm…”
He tried his best to open his eyes.
“Brother Sha! Don’t make a sound, it’s me.”
A sudden light got his eyes blind: it was coming from a bamboo fire* flared near him, lighting the floor area. Next to him, a crouched man dressed in black and wearing a mask appeared; he had a nine knot iron whip hanging from his waist.
*[Bamboo fire – a stick made of bamboo, inside are materials to create fire, TN]
The masked man, seeing Sha Xiuzhu’s glare and his doubtful look, pulled down his mask and showed his real face: “It’s me.”
Sha Xiuzhu suddenly realized: “Why did you come?”
“My problem has involved my brother… How can I sit quietly? Let alone hearing that my brother was arrested by JinYiWei and will be taken to the Administrative Prison! I immediately came here.” The masked man put his mask back on. As he spoke, his hands tried frantically to open the padlock on the iron fence, “Brother, let’s get out quickly!”
Sha Xiuzhu had the desire but no energy: “My leg is broken, I can’t walk. Good brother, you go quickly! Don’t mind me.”
The masked man was shocked, he used the bamboo fire to light up Sha Xiuzhu’s left leg: his knee was wrapped in a layer of white cloth, hiding the tinge of blood that appeared: “Who did this to you? I will avenge you, brother.”
“You go quickly, be careful with traps. If they find us out we could be harmed!” Sha Xiuzhu said in panic.
“I checked everything, no traps, my brother, I got you!” He did not move but instead leaned forward and took Sha Xiuzhu out. He put out the fire in the bamboo fire.
Sha Xiuzhu could only let his brother carry him, both of them quietly coming out of the ship’s room and following the ship’s ladder to crawl out. On the lowest floor, that was where all the ship crews were staying: they were tired for the day and deep asleep. Although he was carrying a person, the masked man had very light footsteps, landing without making a sound.
As he walked quickly toward the deck, at the end of the ship’s cabin a swaying shadow of a man appeared. The masked man immediately felt the danger and even though he was not afraid, he was still carrying Sha Xiuzhu, so he thought of trying not to involve him in any way. Looking around, there was no place to hide, he could only open the door of the nearest room and carry Sha Xiuzhu to hide inside.
It turned out someone was in the room.
Half an hour later, the ship continued to sail along the river.
Jinxia and YangYue were sincerely kneeling outside of Yang ChengWan’s room, the painful moaning noise could be heard even from the lower cabins.
The ship’s crew who passed by them, at first they shot a timid glance, then it was a look of disapproval, afterward the people passing by just treated them as the ship’s decoration. Next to them was a storage room, two crew members were tidying up the room while chatting in small voices; the door of the storage room was open and not tightly shut, therefore, Jinxia could hear their conversation.
“…He broke his leg, I heard it was just one kick.”
“…Thankfully the physician was called to rearrange his bone or he would have been disable.”
He called the physician to rearrange Sha Xiuzhu’s bones?! This Lu Yi really made people completely clueless about his character. He kicked Sha Xiuzhu’s leg without any warning, even though the aim was to get a confession, it was still rather cruel. Sha Xiuzhu was a strong person, with a painful broken leg like that, he was still able to stay quiet and endure the pain instead of speaking about it.
Her knees were starting to hurt, Jinxia couldn’t stand it anymore. Right when she was about to move, the door opened. Yang ChengWan with an expressionless face came out of the room.
“Father.” YangYue opened his mouth, exclaiming, “We admit we were wrong.”
“Master…” Jinxia looked at Yang ChengWan with a sad face.
Yang ChengWan stared at the two of them, said nothing and limped out. He didn’t say anything, it means the both of them would have to continue to kneel.
“This is all Lu Yi’s fault!” Jinxia gritted her teeth, she said it in a low voice but YangYue next to her heard it all.
YangYue sighed.
In fact, after Lu Yi found out that they were both hiding outside under the window, he didn’t say a word but went straight to look for Yang ChengWan and politely said: “Somehow your two disciples are hiding under the window outside my room and eavesdropping. I know Yang Superior is open minded and honest. There’s nothing to hide, I’m just worried whether or not there is a misunderstanding between Senior and me, are there any complaints?”
Yang ChengWan had to repeatedly say that it was not the case and swear that he did not know what was going on and begged him to forgive his mischievous students, promising he would definitely punish them severely.
After that, Jinxia and YangYue could only report everything in detail, from the dive in the water to find the chests to how they helped Lu Yi pull those chests onto the ship. Afterward they reported the conversation between Lu Yi and Wang Fangxing as well. They did not dare to miss out a single detail.
After having heard everything, Yang ChengWan did not speak for a while, but finally said: “Now that your wings have opened and you ignored the words I said, you don’t have to follow me anymore.”
Needless to say, YangYue was his biological son, while Yang ChengWan was a master but also a father to Jinxia. As soon as these words came out, they knew he was really angry this time and could only kneel obediently to show repentance.
The two of them kneeled for a whole day, they did not eat or drink. During the day, Yang ChengWan left and entered his room several times, but did not say anything. Jinxia and YangYue did not dare to get up, desperately seeing the time passing from daylight to darkness. They kept kneeling until their knees were numb.
“Master’s temperament is quite large this time.” Jinxia, feeling weak, asked him: “Maybe he wants us to kneel until tomorrow morning?”
“Maybe.” YangYue, who was in agony, slightly moved his legs but cheerfully said: “Thankfully, this ship’s floor is made of wood, kneeling on stone would be more painful.”
“My legs are numb, kneeling everywhere is the same. Right now, I might faint because of hunger.” Jinxia complained, “When you said you wanted to make dumplings this morning, I shouldn’t have stopped you…”
The shadow of a person’s head came approaching from the corridor of the ship; they both immediately fell silent and bowed their heads as though they were very sorry. From the corner of their eyes, they could see a glimpse of Yang ChengWan walking towards them. There was also a person next to him with a phoenix jinyi belt: It was Lu Yi.
“They are…” Seeing both Jinxia and YangYue kneeling down, Lu Yi seemed a bit shocked.
“These students did not understand the rules and have offended Jingli Daren.” Yang ChengWan said, “You don’t need to care about them.”
Jinxia and YangYue both dropped their heads in sadness, knelt in proper position and didn’t dare to speak.
“It’s just a misunderstanding, a small matter, Senior. You don’t have to worry about it. It’s better to let them stand up, otherwise Yan Yuan* will feel uneasy.”
*[Yan Yuan = A title that a lower rank uses to refer to themselves when talking to a senior, TN]
“Since Jingli Daren already said that, I will forgive them this time.” Yang ChengWan faced them both and loudly said: “Didn’t you already hear? Yet, you don’t know how to stand up and thank Jingli Daren! Next time if it happens again, I won’t be this lenient.”
With both of her legs numb from kneeling down, JinXia stood up slowly while grabbing to the wall of the ship cabin, as instructed by Yang ChengWan, and reluctantly turned to face LuYi, “Thanks to JingLi DaRen for being so magnanimous…” She had yet to finish the sentence and her legs were shaking so hard that they wouldn’t hold her up for long. She suddenly fell down on her knees again. Kneeling down… it was hurting so much that she gritted her teeth in pain.
Lu Yi just looked on, and said faintly: “Such a big courtesy is not needed, do get up.”
Right at this moment, JinXia had already sent a greeting to his ancestor backdated to 500 years ago, however on the facade she still had to maintain a submissive attitude, getting up slowly and then limping out.
YangYue got up obediently and thanked Lu Yi too, then just like Jinxia he limped out.
“No wonder Master didn’t let it go, he was waiting for him to come and say something.” Unable to find any available food, Jinxia took out a radish and bit on it fiercely, chewing on it angrily. “What a scumbag! He knew we were there kneeling for the whole day, then he only came and said ‘Just a small matter’! He did it on purpose to punish us.”
YangYue said as he was scoping the water into the cauldron, “Be thankful, if he had only come tomorrow morning, we would still have needed to kneel the whole night away.”
Because she was too hungry, Jinxia chewed two or three bites at the same time and swallowed two small red raw radishes, and then said: “This master is actually not satisfied. He ordered us for half of the day, the person was caught by him, the birthday gifts have also been confiscated, now he’s trying to teach us a lesson.”
“There are things you have to admit, his position is higher than ours, it doesn’t matter what he does to us, we can’t do anything either. After all, his martial arts are amazing, only one kick and he broke the banner-carrying officer’s leg, can you do that?” YangYue started kneading the dough, and he made two bowls of noodles to eat.
“Why do you keep praising others? Didn’t you say you’d make dumplings?”
“I was just saying as it is… I couldn’t find rice flour, we can just eat these noodles instead.”
Jinxia leaned her back on the stove, remembering Sha Xiuzhu’s agonized face, she thought: “…Maybe he hid an accomplice under his shoes?”
“Don’t worry about it, hurry up and start the fire.”
YangYue kicked her out and Jinxia immediately turned over to heat the fire. In her mind, she was still thinking: “You say, how was he going to deal with the birthday gifts? Bringing it all the way to Yangzhou?”
YangYue’s head poked out from the stove, leaning toward Jinxia: “Master Xia, I want to negotiate something with you.”
“Tell me.”
“Forget about the birthday gifts, how he handles them has nothing to do with us. This problem cannot be touched by us, we can’t even touch this person… Don’t give my father anymore problems.”
This reasoning, Jinxia didn’t understand, but understanding and following are two different things. She remembered her younger brother’s teacher who often touched his beard, shook his head and sighed, saying ‘it was easier said than done’… Thinking about it, it was the same situation.
In the ship’s kitchen, there was no other delicious food to eat. YangYue made two bowls of Yangchun noodles, both of them ate the food in a hurry then returned to their room to rest.
Unlike Lu Yi’s spacious and bright room, Jinxia’s room had an issue with the mold smell that had spread for several years, the windows were small and narrow. She did not bother to light a candle but immediately laid down without even removing her robe. In the dark, she felt her knees numb and sore, like she was being bitten by a group of ants.
Outside, someone knocked on the door, it was YangYue’s voice.
“The bolt is unhooked, you can just push it in.” The door link had been broken last night by the two aggressive soldiers but Jinxia was too lazy to pick it up, thinking that it would be fixed by tomorrow.
YangYue pushed the door open and gave her a bottle of medicinal wine: “Father told me to give this to you, it helps to improve circulation and cure blood clots. Massage your legs with this, tomorrow, they will definitely be healed.”
“Oh, have you used it?”
“I have my own. Don’t be lazy, the door must be closed properly.”
“I know.”
She was annoyed by YangYue’s chattiness, so she waved her hand to chase him out. YangYue picked up the hook of the door and put it back, closed the door and went back to rest.
Jinxia, leaning halfway on the bed, rolled up her pants, she poured the medicine into her palm, rubbed it to warm it up and then rubbed it onto the affected area. A moment later, the medicine began to work, both of her knees gradually felt warmer and much more comfortable. She knew that it must have hurt Yang ChengWan seeing them kneel all day, but because of Lu Yi, he could not show a soft heart.
She thought of Yang ChengWan limp walking. She was feeling exhausted but before falling asleep, she thought that she really shouldn’t cause anymore problems for the master.
The water was crystal clear, the night still long.
In the midst of pain, Sha Xiuzhu was swayed between being conscious and unconscious. He was confined in a room on the ship that was designed to hold criminals: There were three small spaces bounded by iron fences, sunlight couldn’t enter into that space and therefore he couldn’t tell the difference between day and night. His wounds were causing him a series of intense waves of pain. Groaning, he hugged his body tightly and pressed his feet against the cold iron fence, hoping it would reduce the agony a little.
“Brother Sha, brother Sha…” There was a voice from far away that could be heard faintly.
“Uhm…Uhm…”
He tried his best to open his eyes.
“Brother Sha! Don’t make a sound, it’s me.”
A sudden light got his eyes blind: it was coming from a bamboo fire* flared near him, lighting the floor area. Next to him, a crouched man dressed in black and wearing a mask appeared; he had a nine knot iron whip hanging from his waist.
*[Bamboo fire – a stick made of bamboo, inside are materials to create fire, TN]
The masked man, seeing Sha Xiuzhu’s glare and his doubtful look, pulled down his mask and showed his real face: “It’s me.”
Sha Xiuzhu suddenly realized: “Why did you come?”
“My problem has involved my brother… How can I sit quietly? Let alone hearing that my brother was arrested by JinYiWei and will be taken to the Administrative Prison! I immediately came here.” The masked man put his mask back on. As he spoke, his hands tried frantically to open the padlock on the iron fence, “Brother, let’s get out quickly!”
Sha Xiuzhu had the desire but no energy: “My leg is broken, I can’t walk. Good brother, you go quickly! Don’t mind me.”
The masked man was shocked, he used the bamboo fire to light up Sha Xiuzhu’s left leg: his knee was wrapped in a layer of white cloth, hiding the tinge of blood that appeared: “Who did this to you? I will avenge you, brother.”
“You go quickly, be careful with traps. If they find us out we could be harmed!” Sha Xiuzhu said in panic.
“I checked everything, no traps, my brother, I got you!” He did not move but instead leaned forward and took Sha Xiuzhu out. He put out the fire in the bamboo fire.
Sha Xiuzhu could only let his brother carry him, both of them quietly coming out of the ship’s room and following the ship’s ladder to crawl out. On the lowest floor, that was where all the ship crews were staying: they were tired for the day and deep asleep. Although he was carrying a person, the masked man had very light footsteps, landing without making a sound.
As he walked quickly toward the deck, at the end of the ship’s cabin a swaying shadow of a man appeared. The masked man immediately felt the danger and even though he was not afraid, he was still carrying Sha Xiuzhu, so he thought of trying not to involve him in any way. Looking around, there was no place to hide, he could only open the door of the nearest room and carry Sha Xiuzhu to hide inside.
It turned out someone was in the room.
