Chapter 50 – Drinking Wine Together on a Lone Boat Under the Bright Moon
“You’re here.”
Chou Bodeng greeted him with a beaming smile.
Why are you still so happy, old man?
Lu Jing and Zuo Yuesheng were on the verge of tears. They pressed their backs against the wall, trembling as they watched the young man in the alley. The chilling aura coming from him gave them a strong premonition that their “lives were about to end.” Help! Young Master Chou! They didn’t want to die young at all!
Unfortunately, the great Young Master Chou couldn’t hear their desperate cries for help in his heart.
Fortunately, there was still someone! Someone who stepped forward! To save them from fire and water!
Heavenly Maiden Lian turned around.
She looked at the young man walking towards her with a bewildered and astonished expression… He was indeed good-looking, but he was cold and icy, without a trace of life in him. She was so pretty! So charming! How was she inferior?! A rush of blood surged up, and the Heavenly Maiden blurted out, “Look like him…”
Before the word “that” could leave her lips, Lu Jing and Zuo Yuesheng heard a dull “thud.”
They both squeezed their eyes shut.
This is too… too…
“Good throw!” Zuo Yuesheng gathered his qi and, in a desperate move, said, “This woman doesn’t even look in a mirror. How dare she approach Young Master Chou with that face of hers! Bah!!”
“That’s right, that’s right!” Lu Jing quickly added, “We were just about to teach her a lesson! We were just a step too late!”
The sound of rustling clothes drew near.
The two of them were sweating profusely, not moving a muscle.
Chou Bodeng leaned against the alley wall, his head slightly tilted up.
When he greeted Shi Wuluo, he was all smiles, looking very happy. But as Shi Wuluo walked towards him, he stopped smiling, his eyes unfocused as he gazed at the painted building that rose above the horse-and-rider wall. The glazed tiles on the ridge were burning, the eave tiles and triple bricks were falling off one after another, and the immortal statue on the ridge was teetering on the verge of collapse…
His line of sight was suddenly blocked.
The Kui Dragon Bracelet was pressed down, and long, slender, ice-cold fingers wrapped around his wrist bone. Shi Wuluo, without a word, pulled him up.
Chou Bodeng obediently followed him.
Their sleeves brushed past them. Lu Jing secretly opened his eyes a crack… The young man seemed not to want the youth to stay here a moment longer. He pulled him up onto the roof ridge. The deep black sleeves with embroidered corner patterns and the vermilion sleeves with rolled gold cloud patterns were both billowed open by the wind, revealing their overlapping wrists.
A flash of flowing gold on their wrists.
Lu Jing’s eyes widened.
“Fuck!”
“Fuck what!”
Zuo Yuesheng was still waiting for the blade to fall as if facing a great enemy. Startled by him, he almost peed himself.
“The bracelet… the bracelet…”
Lu Jing’s pale face flushed red, and he slapped his shoulder desperately.
Zuo Yuesheng had just had a near-death experience, and his legs were still trembling. Lu Jing’s slap sent him crashing to the ground with a “thud,” his butt nearly splitting into eight pieces. The pain made him curse, “Lu Shiyi, you snot-nosed brat, are you trying to die!”
“Sorry, sorry!” Lu Jing apologized repeatedly, still extremely excited. “They’re wearing a pair of bracelets!” He even held out his hand to show Zuo Yuesheng. “Right here, Young Master Chou wears it on his left hand, and that person wears it on his right. Didn’t you see it just now?”
“I didn’t see it.”
Zuo Yuesheng was truly impressed by this kid Lu Jing. He was really a foolhardy daredevil. When that person came over with his saber, he was almost scared to death, alright? How could he have had the courage to look at whether they were wearing bracelets or hairpins… Wait! Zuo Yuesheng suddenly came to his senses.
“Are you talking about the Kui Dragon Bracelet?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” Lu Jing nodded his head like a chick pecking at rice. “The same bracelet on Chou Bodeng’s wrist, that-that-that person, he’s wearing one too, exactly the same!”
Zuo Yuesheng slapped his thigh, “A love token bracelet? I remember Young Master Chou was wearing that thing when he first arrived in Fu City. Could it be that they’ve known each other for a long time?”
“It’s a sure thing,” Lu Jing slid down the wall and sat on the stone slab, his face serene. “I feel like I can write furiously tonight and churn out another three or four acts of the `Dream Return Order`.”
As soon as he mentioned this, Zuo Yuesheng wanted to beat him up, “You still have the nerve to say that? I’ve already had the printing blocks prepared and the paper cut. How long have you been stuck on the fifth act? A month! How many words have you even written for the sixth act?”
“Soon, soon!”
“How long has it been ‘soon’! Soon my ass!” Zuo Yuesheng didn’t believe a single word of this guy’s nonsense anymore.
“It’s not my fault!” Lu Jing cried out in protest. “After leaving Fu City, they haven’t seen each other… well, maybe they have and we don’t know. The only clue is a Ruomu Spirit Puppet. How am I supposed to write with that? The main couple has to have their sweet moments before I can write about them, understand?!”
What the hell was “the main couple has to have their sweet moments before I can write about them.”
The corner of Zuo Yuesheng’s mouth twitched, and he couldn’t help but roll his eyes, “What have you been learning from Young Master Chou all day? What is all this nonsense?”
“A crude person like you wouldn’t understand,” Lu Jing muttered, then gestured with his chin at the person across from them. “What about this one? Was what she said just now true or false?”
Heavenly Maiden Lian had just been swept into the wall by a sleeve from a distance and was still unconscious at the base of the wall across from them.
Lu Jing felt that she should thank Young Master Chou for being so disgusted by her advances… What kind of great luck did she have to run into the other main character while trying to seduce someone?
“Only an idiot would believe her,” Zuo Yuesheng sneered. “I’ll bet ten copper coins that this woman is definitely up to no good.”
“Then what should we do?” Lu Jing scratched his head in a dilemma.
Zuo Yuesheng thought for a moment, “Let’s take her back first. Doesn’t the monk know how to ‘observe all beings’? When he gets back, we’ll have him take a look and see what kind of muddy water this is… Damn it, they’re all coming for Chou,” his fat face suddenly became fierce. “Do they really think we, his friends, are dead?”
Lu Jing nodded and took out a crumpled letter from his sleeve, handing it to Zuo Yuesheng.
“What’s this?”
Zuo Yuesheng was taken aback.
“A letter from my older brother.”
Zuo Yuesheng was stunned for a moment, thinking, why are you giving me your older brother’s letter?
But with a glance, he saw that Lu Shiyi’s expression was unusually cold. Zuo Yuesheng didn’t ask any more questions and lowered his head to read the letter, reading ten lines at a glance. Before he finished, he almost jumped up. “What the hell? Your brother is telling you to stay away from Young Master Chou? Is he out of his mind? With your character, does he really have to worry about Young Master Chou being a bad influence on you? We’re all birds of a feather, partners in crime. How are you any better?”
“I just don’t get it,” Lu Jing said fiercely, as if he wanted to smash the words into his brother’s face. “It’s not like he’s committed some unforgivable crime. Why are they treating him like this?”
This thought had been circling in Lu Jing’s mind for a long time.
Fu City, Ru City, the Qin Wei Tower… It was as if there was always a thread following where Chou Bodeng went, as if countless murderous intentions were lurking in the darkness, coldly pointing at Chou Bodeng. But why? Lu Jing couldn’t figure it out. Was it just because of the karmic obstructions on Young Master Chou?
Even if he was actually just a profligate who lived an aimless life and was a narcissistic pretty boy, he still had to be guarded against and avoided?
Even if he had actually saved tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people, he couldn’t say anything, and could only continue to have a bad reputation?
Why!
Chou Bodeng himself didn’t seem to care.
But he was angry.
Lu Jing didn’t know what had caused Chou Bodeng’s karmic obstructions, didn’t know what all this was about. He only knew that when he shouted “Young Master Chou is number one in the world” in the Qin Tower, he meant it from the bottom of his heart… He truly felt that all the so-called young talents in the world combined couldn’t compare to his brother.
However, these words were too sentimental, and Lu Jing was usually too embarrassed to say them.
Mainly because he was afraid of being laughed at by Fatty Zuo. It wasn’t until today that he discovered that Zuo Yuesheng, like him, had been holding back his anger.
“Forget about everything else,” Zuo Yuesheng stood up, tossed the letter back to Lu Jing, and then carried Heavenly Maiden Lian like a sack of potatoes. “We’re back at the Mountain Sea Pavilion, and they’re still pulling this crap on me. Isn’t this just a slap in my face?”
How could a friend happily come to your home, only to run into trouble at your home?
Lu Jing crumpled the letter into a ball and threw it into the spreading fire. The flames licked it, and the Xuan paper and ink turned to ashes. Chou Bodeng would never know what hurtful words were written on it.
In the firelight, the bright moon gradually rose.
***
“The peacock lingers once, a clear song on the cloud-high terrace.”
“The peacock lingers twice, an old friend comes across the mountains.”
Chou Bodeng sat on the bow of the boat, his body swaying from side to side, humming “Peacock Terrace” out of tune.
Shi Wuluo put down the oar and went to support him. A wave from the vast sea crashed over, and the lone boat swayed. Chou Bodeng fell backward into his arms, and Shi Wuluo instinctively wrapped his arms around him.
The world fell silent for an instant.
A strand of hair was blown onto his cheek by the wind, fine and light. His heart first felt a soft, dense itch, then was scalded by the warmth coming through the youth’s clothes, and suddenly began to beat so fast and hard. Shi Wuluo, half-kneeling on the crossbeam at the bow, suddenly froze.
Chou Bodeng did not turn back, did not get up.
He smelled the familiar scent of herbs, and his hazy thoughts were half-awake in the clear coolness of the plants.
“Are you angry?”
He asked softly.
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
Chou Bodeng laughed, his beautiful pupils reflecting a pale moon slowly rising from the place where the sea and sky met. The moonlight spread over the sea’s surface, the vast sea shimmering like countless pieces of broken silver.
They were on the sea, on a small boat.
Shi Wuluo had pulled Chou Bodeng away from Red Railing Street, surprisingly, to bring him to see the moonrise over the sea… He didn’t know where Shi Wuluo had found this small boat, but it was just right for the two of them to sit facing each other. The vast sea flowed, the water rippled endlessly, and the long wind blew mightily. The boat moved slowly over the sea, like a single autumn reed leaf.
The wind was just right, so there was actually no need for anyone to row.
So if that person was sitting in the back, rowing without a word, what was it if not anger?
“I’m not lying,” Shi Wuluo said in a low voice, pausing slightly. “I would never be angry with you.”
He said it very seriously.
Even though he knew Chou Bodeng was now half-drunk, half-awake.
“So you are angry.”
Chou Bodeng laughed again, this time more obviously than before.
Shi Wuluo could even feel the shoulders of the person in his arms shaking gently, and he didn’t want to answer anymore… He didn’t know how to answer. Was he really angry? He didn’t know. He just saw from a distance the girl under the eaves standing on her tiptoes, her head tilted up so close to the youth, and he suddenly felt so gloomy, so unwilling, so afraid.
What was he unwilling about?
What was he afraid of?
He didn’t know.
“Lingering, and lingering again, the mountain flowers bloom in vain.”
“Lingering, and lingering again, the old friend is no longer here.”
Chou Bodeng tilted his head slightly, resting it on his shoulder, and softly hummed the last few stanzas of “Peacock Terrace.” His voice was clear and cold, echoing the recurring tide, rising and falling, as if there really was a peacock lingering alone.
His voice suddenly stopped.
Shi Wuluo tightened his arms, and Chou Bodeng sank completely into his embrace. The faint scent of herbs came over him, enveloping him without leaving a single gap.