Jinxia stared at him for a long time, wondering whether he would let out a laugh indicating it was a joke or not, then she said, “I feel Daren has thought too much, stepping on Daren? He will definitely be cut into pieces by your father.”
“Is my father so fierce?” Lu Yi glanced sideways at her.
“I don’t know whether he’s fierce or not, but everyone must protect their children. Your father is an extraordinary man, how could he allow other people to insult you?”Lu Yi laughed a little. He realized that her mouth was full of ‘you, you, you’, she’d completely forgotten about her manners.
“Is my father very impressive?”
“Of course…” Jinxia’s elbow leaned on the board of the boat. She laughed out loud, “You don’t know this but one-time last year, I’m not sure what business it was for, your father came to LiuShanmen, and at the time I hid behind the hall. After peeking several times, I noticed that there was a gust of wind outside. At first, it was swaying lightly, but then rocks and sands started flying, breaking the willow tree branches, knocking down other trees as well…”
“Was Zhu Bajie coming?” Lu Yi interrupted her.
*[Zhu Bajie = The pig character from the movie Journey To The West. This reference is mostly used for chubby people or as a small joke, TN]
Jinxia was stunned for a moment, then she pointed at Lu Yi in surprise, “Daren, that is a forbidden book in our Ming Dynasty, how could you have read that?”
“A thief shouting thief*. This saying is for you.” Lu Yi raised his eyebrows and looked at her suspiciously, “Be honest, how many times have you read this book?”
*[It indicates a thief who pretends to be a victim. In here, he’s saying she’s lecturing him for reading nonsense books, yet she did read it more than him, TN]
“As an honest official in LiuShanmen, how could I possibly read those books? Let’s not talk about me.”
“How many times did you read it?”
“Just… Two or three times…”
“That’s it?”
“Five, six, seven, eight times.” Jinxia let out a small laugh,
“You’ve seen it too, it’s so good, right?”
Lu Yi smiled slightly and asked, “How many chapters did you read?”
“The part where Sun Xingzhe asked Erland for help, and when Sun Xingzhe thanked him. Erland then said, ‘the first is because the country has unlimited blessings, the second is because of the supernatural power of the wise king, I am not at all meritorious.’ I didn’t like Erland at first, I felt he was a hypocrite, it seemed he just listened to other people’s opinions but didn’t listen to people’s explanations, which doesn’t make sense. After reading this part though, I started to like him a lot.” Jinxia said.
“This was in chapter sixty-three when two monks suppressed the demon that had caused trouble at the Dragon-God Palace.”
She couldn’t help being surprised, “Yes, you remember it?”
“Let me test you, I want to see if you can remember the details.” Lu Yi thought for a moment, and said, “It’s about Zen Monks, there were countless visits, but in the end it was for nothing. Grinding stones to form glass, collecting snow as food, spending as much…”
The sentence was very familiar to Jinxia, she could continue his words at once, “Mao swallowed the ocean, the mustard seed received Mount Xumi, the wandering golden monk chuckled. Understanding the time beyond the three ways of ten worlds, stopping at the fourth world of six tao… This is the opening of the eight chapters of ‘Su Wu Man’, isn’t it?*” She said, both proud and happy.
*[They’re just reciting sentences from the book, TN]
Lu Yi’s face was full of smiles, “Yang Superior said that you are lazy when practicing kung fu, it turns out you were busy reading forbidden books.”
“Master said that about me?” Jinxia laughed, shy, “But Daren, you also read forbidden books, so why is your kung fu so great?”
Lu Yi lightly tapped her head, then pointed at himself, “My talent is different.”
“You can just say that I am a little more stupid than you, I can accept it.”
Jinixa looked at him with her big round eyes.
Lu Yi corrected her, “You are more stupid than me, not just a little.”
Jinxia tilted her head and said slowly, “As an official, these words are unmannered, it’s not good to say them.” This was exactly what Lu Yi had said to her when they were standing on the ship. Even though they were under the same moonlight, the situation was quite different now. As she finished speaking, she couldn’t help but laugh.
The night wind was getting stronger, the water on the river surface started to wobble.
Jinxia was still laughing. All of a sudden, Lu Yi raised his head cautiously, facing south-east, he then jumped down from the boat and pulled Jinxia into the deep grass.
“Are there people?” Jinxia’s hearing or seeing ability wasn’t as quick as his, so she could only ask.
Lu Yi continued to listen to the sounds. A moment later, he said in a low voice, “The Japanese are coming from south-east, about a hundred steps away, they’re heading this way.”
“I told you from the start that I’m unlucky today.” Jinxia hurriedly knelt down and put her ear to the ground, using it to listen to their movements. A few moments later, she raised her head, and let out a cold exhalation, “There are about thirty to forty people! This should be the group that the officers couldn’t find.”
How could they report this to the officers so they would catch them in time? Right now, in the middle of the night, they were in a remote area. As soon as she would return to the city, she would go and report this to the local officers. Hopefully, they could set out another search, by then the food would probably be already cold.
The wind passed and the grass swayed. Jinxia could hear the bits and pieces of their conversation, but because she didn’t understand Japanese, she didn’t know what they were saying to each other.
Lu Yi listened with attention, his eyebrows tightened…Jinxia guessed that he could understand their language. She tugged on his sleeve, restlessly looking at him.She was surprised to see that he understood what her signal meant. Then Lu Yi pulled her closer, and whispered in her ear, “They said that the silver plate with lotus leaf paintings looks good, now they have to go collect it and not miss out other good stuff.”
Go collect it – This time, did they want to rob or slaughter another village? Jinxia’s face immediately turned pale, were they really going to another village?
Lu Yi’s thoughts were the same as Jinxia, except that he had seen the map of Yangzhou, including the location of towns and villages. He tightly shut his eyes, trying to recall the map… There were rivers and waters, small towns and villages. Based on the location where Jinxia and he were, he carefully searched in the surrounding area, the distance to the village that was the closest and the direction of the path where the Japanese pirates were heading to was Lanxi Village!
“North-west direction, less than one mile away is Lanxi Village.” Lu Yi whispered in her ear, “You go to the village and warn them; to each village were given fireworks from the beginning. Once the Japanese are coming closer, light them up, and the local officers will come.”
Jinxia nodded, feeling nervous.
“North-west, a mile, will you remember? Are you able to see directions at night?” He asked.
She nodded vehemently and said, “Yes.”
Lu Yi nodded back and said, “Go ahead, be careful.”Jinxia was about to leave, then she remembered something, “What about you?”
“I will stay here and hold them back, but I don’t know how long I can hold them, so you have to be fast.”
“They have from thirty to forty people, and all of them are most likely will be carrying weapons, you…” Despite knowing Lu Yi’s extraordinary kung fu, Jinxia still felt the situation too dangerous.
“I know.” Lu Yi understood the worry in her eyes and he jokingly said, “If only your kung fu were good enough, then I would’ve left you here to deal with them.”
Even though he was joking, Jinxia’s face looked guilty.
“Go, quick!” He urged her.
“Daren, please be careful! Especially with those flying weapons.” Jinxia reminded him again.
As soon as she finished speaking, a strong wind started to blow, swaying back and forth the high grass around them. She took that opportunity to lean above the grass and walked out, unseen.
She was quite smart. Lu Yi smiled lightly, then regained his focus right away as the Japanese pirates’ footsteps were getting closer and closer.
He was not in a hurry to come out, hence he bent himself down at ease, patiently waiting for the Japanese pirates to pass by while counting in his mind the number of people: three, six, nine… twenty-four, twenty-seven… thirty-nine, forty-two, forty-five.
There were about forty-five heads, and all of them were fugitives… According to his calculations, if he were to face them all at once, they would have been too many.Fortunately, perhaps because they were accustomed to crossing inland and walking around in remote places, they felt free to be loud laughing and talking; their alertness was extremely low.
The last Japanese pirate at the end of the team passed not far from Lu Yi, still complaining that the oil in his can was almost gone, hence he would have to wait until they reached the village, in order to find other oil to fill it.
Japanese swords were very sharp but troublesome because they had to grease the blade with oil everyday, otherwise, it would rust in a short amount of time. When his distance was only about five steps away, Lu Yi started to move.
Like a hawk moving soundlessly at night time, Lu Yi jumped out of the grass, lunging at the Japanese who was last in the line. With one hand he covered his mouth and with the other he held his chin, turning it with all his power. The Japanese pirate instantly died and his body fell down on the ground.
He picked up the body and walked back into the grass, lowering himself again. He then took out the Japanese sword, charging out again.
This time, two of the pirates in the last line were walking happily, one of them was humming a Japanese song. The hum was stopped abruptly while the Japanese sword slid across his neck in a single move. The person next to him didn’t even have the time to react, the hilt of the sword had already hit his skull from behind. The pirate let out a weak snort. Lu Yi turned the tip of the sword, starting to cut him down right from his throat…
The Japanese who walked in front of him heard some movements in the back and turned his head. Before he could figure out the situation, his face was already splattered with the warm blood of the person behind him.
He shouted, wiping his face while drawing his sword. Before the knife could be drawn out, a cold object passed through the tip of his head and continued to split down, and he fell to the ground at once, motionless.
Hearing screams, some Japanese realized something was wrong. They turned around and saw someone attacking them. Right after that, several flying weapons were thrown at Lu Yi.
Lu Yi firmly held the sword and lunged toward the group, some flying weapons were blocked by the sword, making clashing noises, all falling in the grass.
One of the Japanese pirates was slashed in an instant by Lu Yi’s sword, in silence. The other Japanese Pirates did not dare to look down on Lu Yi and shot several more flying weapons toward his direction. Lu Yi was hiding in the grass, but the group didn’t hear any sounds or movements coming out anymore.
The leader of the group shouted at the two men standing next to him and they unwillingly drew out their long swords, held them tight in their hands and stepped closer to the grass…
The moonlight shone brightly, the tips of the grass were like the blades of swords.
When those two entered the grass, they started to slash the field with their Japanese swords at random, the thin green blades flying everywhere. The scent of the mowed grass and the smell of blood mixed together were making the atmosphere eerie.
There was no one in the grass, only scattered with flying weapons.
Jinxia stared at him for a long time, wondering whether he would let out a laugh indicating it was a joke or not, then she said, “I feel Daren has thought too much, stepping on Daren? He will definitely be cut into pieces by your father.”
“Is my father so fierce?” Lu Yi glanced sideways at her.
“I don’t know whether he’s fierce or not, but everyone must protect their children. Your father is an extraordinary man, how could he allow other people to insult you?”Lu Yi laughed a little. He realized that her mouth was full of ‘you, you, you’, she’d completely forgotten about her manners.
“Is my father very impressive?”
“Of course…” Jinxia’s elbow leaned on the board of the boat. She laughed out loud, “You don’t know this but one-time last year, I’m not sure what business it was for, your father came to LiuShanmen, and at the time I hid behind the hall. After peeking several times, I noticed that there was a gust of wind outside. At first, it was swaying lightly, but then rocks and sands started flying, breaking the willow tree branches, knocking down other trees as well…”
“Was Zhu Bajie coming?” Lu Yi interrupted her.
*[Zhu Bajie = The pig character from the movie Journey To The West. This reference is mostly used for chubby people or as a small joke, TN]
Jinxia was stunned for a moment, then she pointed at Lu Yi in surprise, “Daren, that is a forbidden book in our Ming Dynasty, how could you have read that?”
“A thief shouting thief*. This saying is for you.” Lu Yi raised his eyebrows and looked at her suspiciously, “Be honest, how many times have you read this book?”
*[It indicates a thief who pretends to be a victim. In here, he’s saying she’s lecturing him for reading nonsense books, yet she did read it more than him, TN]
“As an honest official in LiuShanmen, how could I possibly read those books? Let’s not talk about me.”
“How many times did you read it?”
“Just… Two or three times…”
“That’s it?”
“Five, six, seven, eight times.” Jinxia let out a small laugh,
“You’ve seen it too, it’s so good, right?”
Lu Yi smiled slightly and asked, “How many chapters did you read?”
“The part where Sun Xingzhe asked Erland for help, and when Sun Xingzhe thanked him. Erland then said, ‘the first is because the country has unlimited blessings, the second is because of the supernatural power of the wise king, I am not at all meritorious.’ I didn’t like Erland at first, I felt he was a hypocrite, it seemed he just listened to other people’s opinions but didn’t listen to people’s explanations, which doesn’t make sense. After reading this part though, I started to like him a lot.” Jinxia said.
“This was in chapter sixty-three when two monks suppressed the demon that had caused trouble at the Dragon-God Palace.”
She couldn’t help being surprised, “Yes, you remember it?”
“Let me test you, I want to see if you can remember the details.” Lu Yi thought for a moment, and said, “It’s about Zen Monks, there were countless visits, but in the end it was for nothing. Grinding stones to form glass, collecting snow as food, spending as much…”
The sentence was very familiar to Jinxia, she could continue his words at once, “Mao swallowed the ocean, the mustard seed received Mount Xumi, the wandering golden monk chuckled. Understanding the time beyond the three ways of ten worlds, stopping at the fourth world of six tao… This is the opening of the eight chapters of ‘Su Wu Man’, isn’t it?*” She said, both proud and happy.
*[They’re just reciting sentences from the book, TN]
Lu Yi’s face was full of smiles, “Yang Superior said that you are lazy when practicing kung fu, it turns out you were busy reading forbidden books.”
“Master said that about me?” Jinxia laughed, shy, “But Daren, you also read forbidden books, so why is your kung fu so great?”
Lu Yi lightly tapped her head, then pointed at himself, “My talent is different.”
“You can just say that I am a little more stupid than you, I can accept it.”
Jinixa looked at him with her big round eyes.
Lu Yi corrected her, “You are more stupid than me, not just a little.”
Jinxia tilted her head and said slowly, “As an official, these words are unmannered, it’s not good to say them.” This was exactly what Lu Yi had said to her when they were standing on the ship. Even though they were under the same moonlight, the situation was quite different now. As she finished speaking, she couldn’t help but laugh.
The night wind was getting stronger, the water on the river surface started to wobble.
Jinxia was still laughing. All of a sudden, Lu Yi raised his head cautiously, facing south-east, he then jumped down from the boat and pulled Jinxia into the deep grass.
“Are there people?” Jinxia’s hearing or seeing ability wasn’t as quick as his, so she could only ask.
Lu Yi continued to listen to the sounds. A moment later, he said in a low voice, “The Japanese are coming from south-east, about a hundred steps away, they’re heading this way.”
“I told you from the start that I’m unlucky today.” Jinxia hurriedly knelt down and put her ear to the ground, using it to listen to their movements. A few moments later, she raised her head, and let out a cold exhalation, “There are about thirty to forty people! This should be the group that the officers couldn’t find.”
How could they report this to the officers so they would catch them in time? Right now, in the middle of the night, they were in a remote area. As soon as she would return to the city, she would go and report this to the local officers. Hopefully, they could set out another search, by then the food would probably be already cold.
The wind passed and the grass swayed. Jinxia could hear the bits and pieces of their conversation, but because she didn’t understand Japanese, she didn’t know what they were saying to each other.
Lu Yi listened with attention, his eyebrows tightened…Jinxia guessed that he could understand their language. She tugged on his sleeve, restlessly looking at him.She was surprised to see that he understood what her signal meant. Then Lu Yi pulled her closer, and whispered in her ear, “They said that the silver plate with lotus leaf paintings looks good, now they have to go collect it and not miss out other good stuff.”
Go collect it – This time, did they want to rob or slaughter another village? Jinxia’s face immediately turned pale, were they really going to another village?
Lu Yi’s thoughts were the same as Jinxia, except that he had seen the map of Yangzhou, including the location of towns and villages. He tightly shut his eyes, trying to recall the map… There were rivers and waters, small towns and villages. Based on the location where Jinxia and he were, he carefully searched in the surrounding area, the distance to the village that was the closest and the direction of the path where the Japanese pirates were heading to was Lanxi Village!
“North-west direction, less than one mile away is Lanxi Village.” Lu Yi whispered in her ear, “You go to the village and warn them; to each village were given fireworks from the beginning. Once the Japanese are coming closer, light them up, and the local officers will come.”
Jinxia nodded, feeling nervous.
“North-west, a mile, will you remember? Are you able to see directions at night?” He asked.
She nodded vehemently and said, “Yes.”
Lu Yi nodded back and said, “Go ahead, be careful.”Jinxia was about to leave, then she remembered something, “What about you?”
“I will stay here and hold them back, but I don’t know how long I can hold them, so you have to be fast.”
“They have from thirty to forty people, and all of them are most likely will be carrying weapons, you…” Despite knowing Lu Yi’s extraordinary kung fu, Jinxia still felt the situation too dangerous.
“I know.” Lu Yi understood the worry in her eyes and he jokingly said, “If only your kung fu were good enough, then I would’ve left you here to deal with them.”
Even though he was joking, Jinxia’s face looked guilty.
“Go, quick!” He urged her.
“Daren, please be careful! Especially with those flying weapons.” Jinxia reminded him again.
As soon as she finished speaking, a strong wind started to blow, swaying back and forth the high grass around them. She took that opportunity to lean above the grass and walked out, unseen.
She was quite smart. Lu Yi smiled lightly, then regained his focus right away as the Japanese pirates’ footsteps were getting closer and closer.
He was not in a hurry to come out, hence he bent himself down at ease, patiently waiting for the Japanese pirates to pass by while counting in his mind the number of people: three, six, nine… twenty-four, twenty-seven… thirty-nine, forty-two, forty-five.
There were about forty-five heads, and all of them were fugitives… According to his calculations, if he were to face them all at once, they would have been too many.Fortunately, perhaps because they were accustomed to crossing inland and walking around in remote places, they felt free to be loud laughing and talking; their alertness was extremely low.
The last Japanese pirate at the end of the team passed not far from Lu Yi, still complaining that the oil in his can was almost gone, hence he would have to wait until they reached the village, in order to find other oil to fill it.
Japanese swords were very sharp but troublesome because they had to grease the blade with oil everyday, otherwise, it would rust in a short amount of time. When his distance was only about five steps away, Lu Yi started to move.
Like a hawk moving soundlessly at night time, Lu Yi jumped out of the grass, lunging at the Japanese who was last in the line. With one hand he covered his mouth and with the other he held his chin, turning it with all his power. The Japanese pirate instantly died and his body fell down on the ground.
He picked up the body and walked back into the grass, lowering himself again. He then took out the Japanese sword, charging out again.
This time, two of the pirates in the last line were walking happily, one of them was humming a Japanese song. The hum was stopped abruptly while the Japanese sword slid across his neck in a single move. The person next to him didn’t even have the time to react, the hilt of the sword had already hit his skull from behind. The pirate let out a weak snort. Lu Yi turned the tip of the sword, starting to cut him down right from his throat…
The Japanese who walked in front of him heard some movements in the back and turned his head. Before he could figure out the situation, his face was already splattered with the warm blood of the person behind him.
He shouted, wiping his face while drawing his sword. Before the knife could be drawn out, a cold object passed through the tip of his head and continued to split down, and he fell to the ground at once, motionless.
Hearing screams, some Japanese realized something was wrong. They turned around and saw someone attacking them. Right after that, several flying weapons were thrown at Lu Yi.
Lu Yi firmly held the sword and lunged toward the group, some flying weapons were blocked by the sword, making clashing noises, all falling in the grass.
One of the Japanese pirates was slashed in an instant by Lu Yi’s sword, in silence. The other Japanese Pirates did not dare to look down on Lu Yi and shot several more flying weapons toward his direction. Lu Yi was hiding in the grass, but the group didn’t hear any sounds or movements coming out anymore.
The leader of the group shouted at the two men standing next to him and they unwillingly drew out their long swords, held them tight in their hands and stepped closer to the grass…
The moonlight shone brightly, the tips of the grass were like the blades of swords.
When those two entered the grass, they started to slash the field with their Japanese swords at random, the thin green blades flying everywhere. The scent of the mowed grass and the smell of blood mixed together were making the atmosphere eerie.
There was no one in the grass, only scattered with flying weapons.
