Chapter 54- Waking up

Night had fallen.

With winter gone, the temperature was at the tipping point between frosty and warming up: a chilliness still hung around amidst the vegetation, its bite even more penetrating beside the waters.

A man wearing red stood by the just-thawed stream with its quiet currents. On his face was a crimson birthmark the size of a palm — it was Sun Ding, the Mourning-Groom.

Sun Ding surveyed his surroundings with his head tilted to the side, one of his hands splayed out by his side. Under the moonlight, his clawed fingers glinted with an unnatural luster.

Suddenly, shadows emerged from the darkness and rushed at him. Without further ado, Sun Ding leaped into the air and clashed with the black-clad men.

Out of the Devils' Valley's ten most vicious characters, the "Mourning-Groom Devil", the "Hanged Devil" and the

"Two-Faced Devil"1 pulled far ahead. But it didn't mean that the lesser Devils weren't likewise wicked. Those three simply had been around the longest and knew how to rope in or oppress others. That way, they had established influences of their own.

If the Mourning-Groom's Demon Palm couldn't be said to be unmatched, it still was unique in present-day wulin. Its victims were sure to perish within three steps, a blood-red mark in the shape of a hand that went through from the chest to the back marking their corpses. It was a fearsome technique indeed.

Hence, upon being assaulted in the dead of night, Sun Ding didn't show the faintest sign of panic; he boldly wielded his vicious palms while gliding through the air.

The gang of — to his mind — presumptuous insects were dealt with before long. Those who could still walk skedaddled for their lives in disarray.

Sun Ding didn't bother giving chase, though. He merely bent down to a corpse and yanked open its clothes. When he saw the demon's face tattoo on the waist of the deceased, he gave an icy sneer.

About an hour afterward, another person appeared behind him. They came forward before leaning over to examine that same tattoo.

"What happened?" the man asked, frowning.

The Mourning-Groom retracted his hands into his sleeve. He swept an indifferent glance over the newcomer and said, "Old Meng, you're late."

That Old Meng fellow was none other than the assistant Gu Xiang had called in to dig the ground on the day Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing got trapped in the cavern.

As before, he wore a simple ensemble made of coarse fabric. If he were to walk past, he'd show a limp in his left leg which was however slight enough, that it took scrutiny to spot. The features of his face were banal; they could even have passed for kindly if he weren't scowling. A long apron usually seen on people who worked in slaughterhouses fronted his body — he had changed into the attire of a butcher, as per Wen Kexing's instructions.

Old Meng crouched down to pull off the mask covering the corpse's face. He emitted a sigh before getting back to his feet.

"One of Xue Fang's underlings," he said, shaking his head.

When Old Meng looked up, Sun Ding was eyeing the apron he wore with amusement. He went ahead and explained:

"I changed into this ensemble on the Valley Master's order. Does Brother Sun object?"

"'Valley Master'?" Sun Ding sneered. "A wet-behind-the-ears sod who won't be siring children anytime soon like him — is he worth all the brown-nosing you're doing? You'll turn into a proper dog yet."

Old Meng's expression remained impassive.

"Would you dare say that in front of him?" he replied in a calm voice.

Sun Ding's eyelid twitched as if he had remembered something. Thinking better of it, he gave another snort before dropping the subject.

"Well," he said, pointing at the corpse on the ground. "Why don't you go report on what happened? Have him know exactly how reckless Xue Fang has become. He not only broke the Valley's rule by leaving without permission, but now he's trying to silence even me."

Old Meng frowned.

"I can't get hold of the Valley Master, lately..."

"What about that little wench, Purple Fury, then?" Sun Ding cut him off impatiently.

Old Meng gave a shake of his head before asking, "What's your view on the matter? Do you think Xue Fang is also after the Crystal Armour?"

At the words "Crystal Armour", a strange glint flashed in Sun Ding's eyes. He promptly looked away.

"Xue Fang's got ambition to spare," he replied in a mild tone. "If you want my advice — you... and that Valley

Master of yours, you'd better watch it. Else... Tsk ."

Old Meng kept silent for a moment. Then, he abruptly asked, "Wasn't Shen Shen's murder your doing, then?"

The question gave Sun Ding pause. He cocked a brow and answered by inquiring back in a drawl:

"What's this? Are you trying to feel me out?"

Old Meng gave an enigmatic smile and reached out a finger to poke the other man in the chest. When he spoke again, it was in a lowered voice.

"Brother Sun, between discerning men, let's not veil our words2. Who wouldn't want the Crystal Armour? To say

nothing of the Hanged Devil, even our lesser fiendish friends are getting restless. The Long-Tongued Devil3, that little creep, went so far as to arrange a trap in the caves, putting his life on the line to do the Valley Master in. Because everyone knows that whoever gets their hands on the Armour will be the next Master of Windcliff Mountain... If you didn't want it to, why have you been stalking the Zhang boy all this time?"

Sun Ding choked up at that last question.

"I only want the brat to confirm that Xue Fang is the one to blame!" he spluttered.

Although he refrained from passing judgment, a smirk crept across Old Meng's lips. Sun Ding had always loathed that expression on Old Meng. Just as with his deranged master Wen Kexing, you never could tell what the cagey smile hid.

"Two-Face," he snapped. "What are you playing at?" Old Meng shook his head and kept smirking.

"Brother Sun needn't worry. The Zhang boy is with the Valley Master at the moment. As long as the kid can remember, he will be the first to know. And since after Shen Shen's death, the two fragments at Gao Estate have disappeared without a trace, I'd say that we'd better capture Xue Fang first before making our moves. Don't you agree?"

Sun Ding narrowed his eyes to sweep his gaze up and down the other man's seemingly amiable face. After letting out another snort, he turned around and left.

Meanwhile, at the Marionettes Manor within the deep recesses of Shuzhong's mountain range, the Valley Master those two spoke of was, at the moment, engaged in tug-o-war over a blanket.

With Spring in season, the temperature was rising at speed in Shuzhong. So, as poetic as were lines like "worn by

years, the coverlet was as cold as iron"4, they clearly no longer worked as an excuse. Moreover, Zhou Zishu had made a point to have Zhang Chengling tidy up another room for Sticky-Wart Wen to occupy. It had zero impact on the guy's behavior: every night, Wen Kexing would still squeeze in on the dot.

What's more, in the beginning, Wen Kexing would at least bring his amenities. But now his shamelessness had grown to the point he showed up empty-handed, leeching off another's bed and blanket as a matter of course.

Zhou Zishu's threadbare cotton quilt was thus yanked back and forth while wrestling techniques from Shaolin's Qinna Locks to Taichi's Eighteen Throws were all showcased — as long as a style was suited to close-quarters combat, it was put to good use. The wrangling lasted long enough that both men worked up a sweat, making the blanket a redundant prop.

Zhou Zishu was no longer at the peak of his form, after all. In the end, he lost to his opponent by one move after a hundred or so rounds.

Proud as punch, Wen Kexing grinned with a mouthful of white teeth while he held the larger half of the blanket in one hand and pinned Zhou Zishu's wrist to the pillow with the other.

His shoulders hunched in sniggers, he beckoned leeringly:

"A-Xu, why don't you come closer? I'll cuddle you to sleep — you won't be cold at all, I assure you."

Zhou Zishu itched to kick the guy off the bed. He threw him a disdainful once-over and scoffed.

"First, you ain't perfumed; second, you ain't soft to the touch. And your bosom is a fucking row of ribs to the clutch. Cuddle you, and I might as well cuddle the bedpost; so no, thank you very much."

Wen Kexing's reaction was immediate. He glowered indignantly while he pulled Zhou Zishu's hand to his chest. "Bullshit! My bosom isn't a row of ribs at all. Feel it for yourself if you don't believe me!"

Zhou Zishu kicked the guy in the ankle and wrenched his arm back; he shook his palm in the air a few times as if he just touched something dirty.

Grasping the blanket, Wen Kexing clicked his tongue.

"Strange things do happen every year. I don't mind getting groped, yet you, the one taking advantage, insist on acting the prude. Tell you what, that kind of situation generally only arises when..."

Zhou Zishu was done listening to the guy's nonsense. He threw his cloak over his shoulders and decided to

migrate. As the saying went, "if one couldn't afford to provoke it, one could afford to flee from it"4. Worst comes to worst, he could always go to Zhang Chengling's room and make the brat sleep on the floor.

He had yet to make it off the bed, however, when Wen Kexing's hand that had been holding onto the blanket shot out at a weird angle.

Zhou Zishu dropped his shoulder and drew in his elbow to duck. In the next second, however, he felt half his body go numb and his entire person pitched toward the bed, crashing right into Wen Kexing's waiting embrace.

The hull of a sunflower seed landed onto the quilt... the weapon that had done him in. All smiles, Wen Kexing carried on prattling nonsense into his ears.

"That kind of situation generally only arises when the groper is so hung up, they've got a guilty conscience. And look at you: throwing yourself at me!"

Zhou Zishu had no words. He couldn't for the life of him reckon why somebody would go to bed carrying sunflower seeds to use as throwing weapons.

Wen Kexing kept grinning like the cat that got the cream. He figured out Zhou Zishu's train of thought and added, "Actually, I've also got walnuts in here. Would you like one?"

At the word "walnut", goosebumps rose all over Zhou Zishu. Feigning a bravado that eluded him at the moment, he retorted with a forced smile, "What's with all the hugging without letting go? Do you plan on serving as

my concubine for the night5?"

Wen Kexing's eyes shone. He swiftly pulled Zhou Zishu under the blanket and trailed his hands down Zhou Zishu's body by following the outlines of Zhou Zishu's inner garments, all the while exclaiming:

"It'd be only my privilege. My absolute privilege!"

The guy had been light-handed in sealing his acupoints. So, just as Wen Kexing's hands were getting increasingly wayward, Zhou Zishu was able to get rid of the gridlock on his limbs.

Zhou Zishu hadn't come anywhere close to getting laid since he quit the capital to drift jianghu. For one, he'd been injured. For another, he got embroiled in an unending series of predicaments — he hadn't been in the mood. Wen Kexing's light teasing was consequently like a spark that set his whole body afire.

The situation was getting out of hand pronto. Zhou Zishu caught the other man's wrists.

"The Valley Master is too kind," he said through gritted teeth. "But I'll have to... Apo... logic. For. De... clining."

"No need to be so polite," Wen Kexing replied, still grinning. "In fact, it puts you in the wrong as refusing a gift is uncourteous."

Zhou Zishu squeezed out a stiff smile.

"Please, the gift is truly too portentous."6

The two of them were thus amidst a deadlock when, suddenly, a sharp cry echoed from Zhang Chengling's room next door.

Zhou Zishu scowled. He shoved Wen Kexing away and got up, throwing on his cloak before taking off at speed.

Wen Kexing sighed and shook his head. He first brought his fingers to his nose and inhaled deeply — as if he could get drunk on that smell7 — before he too stood up and unhurriedly followed the other man out of the room.

Zhang Chengling was only having a nightmare. With his eyes scrunched up and sweat covering his forehead, he punched and kicked the air while muttering who knew what.

Zhou Zishu prodded him with a jab, but the boy failed to wake up. He grabbed the boy's arm and channeled a thin stream of qi into him. Zhang Chengling's body jostled.

"Don't kill her!" he cried out as he brusquely sat up.

With his face haggard, the boy glanced around with terrified eyes until his gaze stopped on Zhou Zishu.

"Shifu ..." he mumbled, his face full of confusion.

Zhou Zishu patted him on the head and wordlessly nudged him to lie back down.

"Get back to sleep," he said as he tucked him in.

Then, he sat on the bed by the boy's side and leaned himself against the bedpost. Crossing both arms over his chest, he closed his eyes - looking like he intended to stay and watch over the boy's sleep.

Silence stretched before Zhang Chengling reached out to tug at the corner of Zhou Zishu's clothes.

"Shifu," he said in a small voice. "I dreamed of... someone who was veiled from head to toe. They held a knife to the throat of my father's second wife while questioning him, asking him 'Where is it?'... Do you... Do you think that it was...?"

Zhou Zishu re-opened his eyes. At the same moment, the door was pushed ajar from outside and Wen Kexing walked in. The guy had heard what the boy said and his face grew solemn.

"What did that person look like? Did you notice anything peculiar?" he asked Zhang Chengling.

Zhang Chengling mulled it over for some time before shaking his head guiltily.

"It was all fuzzy in my dream..."

Zhou Zishu recalled what the Mourning-Groom said on the day he had lured the boy out. An idea struck him. "Did you happen to see whether the person had five or four fingers?" he asked in turn.

Zhang Chengling shook his head again and stared at him wide-eyed. Zhou Zishu sighed.

"No matter. Sleep," he said, patting the boy on the head again.

The both of them — one sitting on the bed and the other lying on it — thus fell into a hush. They remained like that until the boy's breathing evened out. Zhou Zishu got back up then and, after making sure the boy was well covered, exited the room with Wen Kexing.

Once outside, Wen Kexing abruptly heaved a deep sigh. He reached out his arm to circle Zhou Zishu's waist from behind before burying his face into the other man's shoulder.

After a long moment, he said, "These past few days have been like a wonderful dream... Why should we wake up so soon?"

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Notes

1." god of impermanence" is a minor deity in so-called Traditional Chinese Religion. Guardians of the netherworld, the dual "black and white Wuchang" that manifests as two separate deities, one black, and one white, are more common than the single-person version. In the web series, (the guy in greenish robes with black lipstick) is the boss of his group in the "Ghosts' Valley", two of his underlings. Since the author doesn't follow strictly historical mythology, I translated the name as "Two-Faced Devil" to reflect the implied changing nature of the character.

2. saying translated literally. A very common phrase in wuxia that online dictionaries mistranslate. The refers to "someone knowledgeable/understands".

3. translated literally. Most likely artistic license on modern ghost lore.

4. from My Cottage Unroofed By Autumn Gales by Du Fu

5. " to attend upon smb's sleep" is a euphemistic saying meaning the activities expected of an Emperor's concubine when she is chosen as the Emperor's companion for the night (a.k.a. sex). In ZZS' mouth, it's (weakly) sardonic as he implies that he is the emperor, and WKX would be taking on the concubine's/subordinate's role, which is braggy and potentially offensive.

6. Both idioms are often used conjointly and describe a situation where, as one receives a magnificent gift, one is put in a situation of embarrassment as refusing is uncourteous, but accepting is inappropriate. It touches on what some describe as "a culture of gift/counter-gift", i.e. In China, it is generally acknowledged that when one receives a gift, one is expected to give one in return. This confers another meaning to the exchange: ZZS is saying that he may not be able to return WKS' sexual "services".