That year, at the end of summer, the fierce anti-insurgency war that the court had poured the entire country’s resources into ended rather laughably.
The court’s armies, unluckily situated right in the flood’s path, were scattered like a rain-soaked nest of ants and lost over half their numbers. Gu Huaiyang, who’d been besieged for over a month, hadn’t gotten off much lighter. Each side had their own problems to worry over, so Gu Huaiyang took the chance to hasten back to Huaizhou and regroup with Meng Zhongyong’s forces. Li Si-niang, on the other hand, struck them while they were down and took the fertile land of Huzhou in one fell swoop.
The disastrous flood had sent the court into a panic.
Gu Huaiyang, knowing that he should recover his strength while he had the time, temporarily stopped provoking them. Since the flood had washed away many villages along the way, he ordered Li Si-niang to dispatch troops to transport provisions as fast as possible. Then, too busy to rest, he began setting up relay stations all up and down the Min River to help relieve all the passing refugees.
Of course, General Gu — now the self-declared King of Haining, wasn’t really that generous and benevolent. Even if he felt pity for them, having once been in their very situation, he didn’t have the capacity to do any more for them. And the motivation for the aid that he did provide was firstly, to improve his fame and reputation, and secondly, well, weren’t all these suddenly homeless refugees just perfect for replenishing his troops?
The Redscarf Army hovered at the border, facing off from the imperial troops across. Both sides glared at the other like a tiger watching its prey.
And as the court was busy dealing with the aftermath of the flood, Gu Huaiyang fished in troubled waters. He was busy settling all the young and elderly refugees, compiling records of all the refugees that joined the army, spreading all sorts of rumors throughout the populace…
He was also busy trying to find Shi Wuduan.
In the past, all these problems of how to deal with refugees and how to allocate resources had been handled by Shi Wuduan. While Gu Huaiyang and the others were out and about, Shi Wuduan quietly accumulated resources. Gu Huaiyang had great faith in the youth that fate had mysteriously brought to him. Because of that, he hadn’t known how vast or complicated the web that Shi Wuduan had wrought truly was. And he hadn’t known how tedious and trying it was to manage it.
The Redscarf Army had no shortage of skilled people. The moment that Xia Duanfang heard of Shi Wuduan’s disappearance, he gathered a bunch of people who understood calculations and worked with them day and night to try to confirm his location.
Shi Wuduan’s qin and astrolabe were handed to Lanre for safekeeping. Their attack at the Min River had consisted only of cavalry; they hadn’t brought any provisions or extraneous people. Everyone who wasn’t directly participating was ordered to set up camp far away. Thanks to that, they’d been spared from the flood’s destruction.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Several times, they tried to use Shi Wuduan’s astrolabe to find a lead, but no one was able to control the eerie thing. And his rabbit – for some reason, ever since the day Shi Wuduan had disappeared, that rabbit, perhaps sensing something though it was thousands of leagues away, refused to eat or drink. The servants tried everything they could to encourage it, but every time, it’d only spit out the leaves they stuffed into its mouth.
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Since the two of them had already gotten to that point, Shi Wuduan thought he might as well break the broken pot. After he’d furiously slapped Bai Li, he thought defeatedly, since we’re going to be fighting to the death regardless of whether or not we’re in this place, I might as well fight him right here in this damned place.
Perhaps he’d been angered past the point of reason, but he thought: so what if it’s the Inferno Realm? Every corner of the world, from the realm of the living to the realm of the dead, is there any place that can escape the fate woven by the stars? Do you think that just because I don’t have my astrolabe, I can’t stop you? Even if I die, it just means my ability was lacking. If that happens, I’ll beg for apology from my shifu down in the underworld. What’s so scary about that?
Yet, Bai Li was only dazed for a moment and didn’t retaliate. He clutched his face for a moment, but the next moment, all he did was silently lower his eyes and nudge the “plate” of meat skewers towards him slightly. He let go of the raggedy cloth covering him, then as if ashamed, backed away into the shadows. He said quietly, “It’ll taste bad once it gets cold, eat while it’s still hot.”
Shi Wuduan glared at him for a while. When Bai Li stood there, a hand over his cheek, his eyes lowered, it made his chin seem especially sharp. In that moment, he slightly resembled a fox, the way he used to when he was young. It only made him look even more like a wronged little housewife.
Looking at that appearance of his made his anger flare up even more. He thought, if you’re feeling wronged, don’t you know how to hit back? Don’t you have hands? Who’re you putting on that pitiful act for?
But when the words made their way to Shi Wuduan’s mouth, he thought it’d be too unreasonable to say it out loud; it’d be like he was asking to get beat up for no reason.
When the aroma of meat wafted over, Shi Wuduan looked down and decided not to make things difficult for himself. During his time in Haining, there wasn’t anything Shi Wuduan hadn’t done, cheating, swindling, you name it. His face was already invincibly thick. He didn’t plan on cutting him the slightest slack just because he’d made him food. He picked a skewer up without hesitation, stood up, and started walking outside.
As for what’d happened before… he thought, Bai Li had already tried to kill him more than once, and after they’d fallen out, they’d both already said the most hurtful things they could say to each other. Even if he’d been humiliated by that madman once, there’d always be a day when he could take an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
Since Shi Wuduan had, after all, grown up on Jiulu Mountain, and his occupation was rather special, he didn’t quite hold with conventional morals. He thought that, since he was constantly getting injured, weaker than the other party, and Bai Li, that bastard, had somehow mangled his soul, it wasn’t unimaginable that he could do such a thing.
Only, he wasn’t any saint or martyr. If someone slapped him, he wouldn’t turn the other cheek. To Shi Wuduan, slapping Bai Li was rather reasonable.
As for the rest… in truth, he hadn’t really taken it to heart.
At first, Bai Li hadn’t dared to show his face. Now that he’d unexpectedly bumped into him, he couldn’t bear to keep hiding. He hesitated for a moment, then followed behind Shi Wuduan from a distance. Shi Wuduan couldn’t be bothered to mind him. The sight of him made him angry, and he didn’t know what to say. Thus they walked, resting a few times along the way, up the highest mountain in the area.
His rather unique robe made of tujia leaf, apparently wasn’t fashionable to the creatures of this damned place. He’d only just reached the summit when he heard a sharp screech and a powerful burst of wind shot towards the back of his head. Shi Wuduan dodged reflexively and saw a bird the size of a baby goat flapping its bat-like wings as it flew at him, claws outstretched.
It was a buxu.
The dumb thing saw that it’s first attack had no effect and flew a circle in the air, planning to try again. Shi Wuduan raised a brow and thought, when a tiger falls from grace, it gets bullied by dogs – can it really be bullied by birds too? Hidden in his leafy sleeves, his fingers clenched into a fist. He was going to drag the thing back and cook it.
But before he even had a chance, an arm reached out from behind him and suddenly pulled him back. Bai Li’s nails sprang out and, in a flash, stabbed through the bird’s head. Its blood rained down; before it could’ve made a sound, it was hanging there dead.
Thankfully, Shi Wuduan had quick reflexes. The moment he saw a flash in those black eyes, he knew it meant nothing good, so he raised his sleeve and covered his face, saving himself from having blood spurted all over his face. Then, he very rudely shoved Bai Li aside, looked at how cluelessly he was holding the bird’s corpse, tried to hold it in, failed, and scolded, “You sure do fail at succeeding, and succeed at failing.”
Bai Li froze on the spot. He was so overjoyed that Shi Wuduan had spoken to him that he didn’t even hear what he’d said. His raggedy white robes flapped loudly in the fierce wind. The look of him stupidly standing there with his handsome face as he held a brainless, dead bird, was actually rather comical.
Shi Wuduan couldn’t help but glance at the incomplete, flickering shadow at his feet and think, no wonder old people say that those who don’t have all their souls behave foolishly and preposterously, it’s true after all.
The thought instantly gave him a headache. Mountains stretched out into the distance as far as the eye could see. So heavy was his heart that it seemed those mountains sat on his shoulders. Thanks to Bai Li, he hadn’t been able to leave; he had to stay another seventeen days. He wondered what had happened outside after the flood receded. He sat cross-legged on the ground, frowned, and carefully considered the military situation of Dongyue’s borders. The more he thought, the more anxious he became. He caught a glimpse of Bai Li out of the corner of his eye, but all he wanted to do was sigh.
Bai Li set the bird down to the side, casually plucked a leaf and thoroughly wiped the blood off his hands. Then he cautiously walked over to him. At first, Shi Wuduan ignored him. It wasn’t until Bai Li was a mere three feet away from him that he expressionlessly glanced up at him. Somehow, Bai Li understood that he was wordlessly telling him not to get any closer. Thus, he gingerly sat down as well. His words fermented in his chest for a while before he quietly said, “Wuduan… if in the future, you don’t want to, I won’t do anything like that again.”
Shi Wuduan lifted his gaze, not to look at him, but to look in the direction the sun had risen from.
Bai Li pressed his lips together, he was biting hard on the inside of his cheeks. He paused, then very openly said, “But I’m very happy.”
Even though Shi Wuduan thought he hadn’t taken the matter to heart, it wasn’t an honorable thing either. He hadn’t wanted to hear him bring it up, so he had been trying to figure out why the sun only rose once every seventeen days in the Inferno Realm.
The past few days of facing the wall in boredom as the fever steam-cooked his brain must’ve plucked some nerve in his brain, for in a moment of inspiration, he had some ideas about the “return to whence you came” Inferno Realm.
When he suddenly heard Bai Li say those words, he was instantly fuming. He turned and glowered at him, suddenly thinking that this bastard really didn’t know how to speak human.
When Bai Li saw that he finally deigned to look at him, he couldn’t help smiling like a child. It had a faint hint of innocence. Then, he slowly closed his eyes. The winds gusting atop the mountain brushed through his hair. Even in the dim light of the dark red sky, his ridiculously good-looking face was still soul-shakingly stunning. Bai Li said softly, “You finally count as being together with me. Even though I imposed it on you, yet I’m still… very happy.”
Fuck you! Shi Wuduan thought furiously.
But it seemed that his anger was very quickly erased by that defeated, despairing, yet stubbornly reminiscing and content expression. Shi Wuduan felt like there was something plugged up in his chest. It felt uncomfortably difficult to breathe and bizarrely sour. He was even slightly at a loss because of it.
He couldn’t help thinking of all those soppy romances written down in storybooks. He didn’t understand it. A lot of what he read, he thought was laughable and irritating. Yet suddenly, there was a phrase that flashed through his heart like the light of enlightenment — is it that in this world, love… is like a fish bone stuck in one’s throat?
After a while, Shi Wuduan asked, “Why is it… that your soul is incomplete?”
Haha, isn’t the wabbit goes hunger strike cuz he don’t get his hand in the affair lmao 😆
Thank you for the chapter!
SWD ,sigh. Your patience astounds me 😳❤️🩹
Thank you so much for your wonderful work 👏🙏❤️💐🧨🦋
Ngl, their interactions made me laugh even tho this is suppose to be a grim situation (I think)
💙💙💙
SWD is a more forgiving person than I would be