CH 92

Back to the Countryside

Chapter 92:说清

Speak Clearly

Translator: LittleYen

Qi Yue had just returned and saw Du Huashang dressed in red, standing in front of the door of their room, with a hesitant look on her face, her hand raised and lowered several times but she could not knock on the door. 

There were rumours in Jiang Hu that although the Sect leader of Yu Long Fang [Jade Dragon Resident] was a woman, her personality was very strong, not to be outdone by a man. Now, it did not seem so.

He slowly paced over to her. Being mindful of her older age, he said by cupping both of his hands in greeting, “I wonder the purpose of Sect Leader Du of coming here, is there something you want to see me about?”

The moment Du Huashang turned her head to look at him, she already had a different look on her face. Her feeling was difficult to tell whether she liked him or disliked him, “Where did you go when you left the sick person alone in the room?”

The tone was already carrying some interrogation in it, therefore Qi Yue raised his eyebrows, “I went to look for Xiao Gongzi, to ask about Ah Ling’s condition and how he has been doing these several days, after all I couldn’t by his side.”

“If you were so concerned, why didn’t you take good care of him in the first place?” Du Huashang seemed to be very annoyed and looked at him with an even more unkind look, “Or is it just on the mouth only that you are saying it and you don’t really care about him at all?”

“Sect Leader Du, whether I am truly sincere and deeply concerned about Ah Ling or not, I only need him to understand it in his heart. Besides, this has nothing to do with you, right?” His feeling for his Fu Lang, what need is there for an outsider to judge? 

“You…” Du Huashang was speechless by his words. Her heart was even more uneasy, such a venomous mouth and poisonous tongue guy, with her nephew’s character, how could he win an argument with him? He would have been suppressed to death!

“Xiang Gong?”

As the two were silently confronting each other, a soft call rang out from inside the room. It must have been He Ling who had woken up and heard the sound of people talking from outside the room.

His little Fu Lang had already woken up, so Qi Yue wasn’t in the mood to talk nonsense with the person here. He pushed open the door of the room, walked in and he saw the other party already sitting on the bed. Seeing Qi Yue enter the room, he revealed a smiling expression. 

“Why don’t you sleep a little longer? I’ll wake you up at dinner time.” He sat down on the edge of the bed and reached out to wipe the beads of sweat from his forehead. Just now, he had covered He Ling with a thick quilt because he was having a fever.

He Ling was just about to say something when he saw another person step in from outside the room. She stood there from afar and did not approach, but looked at him with eyes full of concern. Thinking of what the other person had said to him previously, he was distracted for a moment before he said, “Sect Leader…Du, why are you standing there? Please have a seat!”

Du Huashang was a little disappointed that she didn’t hear the form of address she wanted to hear from him but she also understood that this matter could not be rushed, the other party was still confused and didn’t know the truth, so it was normal for him to be like this. She took a few steps closer to the bed, “It’s nothing, I just came to see you.”

“I’ve just caught a cold, nothing serious.” He Ling also didn’t know what to say to her, he had never met his mother and didn’t know the other’s past, now this sect leader who still looked young and beautiful said she was his aunt, he felt a little complicated in his heart. 

Qi Yue felt that the atmosphere between them was a bit odd, as if there was a story behind it. He was really getting curious about what had happened between them earlier when he was not there.

Du Huashang sighed shallowly as she moved a stool, put it near the bed, and sat down on it. Looking at the person who resembled her sister in front of her and asked in a neutral tone, “Do you want to hear about your mother and me?”

He Ling nodded his head dumbfoundedly, he knew very little about his mother, what he knew was mostly from the villagers. Those were all things that had happened since his mother had come to the village, he had no idea at all about how his mother had been in the past.

Du Huashang had never felt sorry for anyone, but her Jie Jie was the only one who had made her feel guilty for half of her lifetime. She hated her past self for being ignorant and willful. She had hurt the person who loved her the most in the world.

During the time when Jie Jie had just disappeared, her heart had been filled with expectation that the other party was just angry and playing a little prank on her. Perhaps, she would come back in a couple of days, still as gentle as she always used to be. 

Before then, it slowly went from expectation to disappointment and from disappointment to despair, approximately twenty years had passed, yet her Jie Jie had never appeared in front of her anymore.

She sometimes would blame the other party for her cruelty (making the painful decision). How could she disappear without a trace with such determination (to cut off the relation)? But even more often than that, she blamed herself for hurting the only family she had. 

But she had never imagined that, while she had been making wild guesses and persistently searching for her, that beautiful and gentle Jie Jie was long gone. In this lifetime, she would never be able to get the opportunity to see her again. 

Now facing her Jie Jie’s child, she said all the regrets she had buried in her heart for so many years, not for the sake of peace of mind, but only to make him understand that she sincerely wanted to take care of him in place of her Jie Jie, “Child, I don’t force you to open your mouth and call me aunt.I just want you to remember that you have an elder who can back you up.”

‘An elder who could support him up?’ Such a statement made He Ling’s heart filled with many emotions. Ever since he was a child, he had never had an elder who could back him up, even when he suffered from being wronged, he could only swallow it into his own stomach. 

He did not know why his mother had left in the first place, but he was clear that she did not blame his little sister. Even though her time with his father had been brief, he was sure that his mother must be very happy during those times.

It was impossible for Qi Yue, who was listening to the whole story from the side, to say that he was not surprised. He had never expected that his mother-in-law, whom he had never met before, would have this kind of relationship with the Sect Leader of Yu Long Fang. 

The reason why she would choose to live in seclusion was something he himself could somehow understand. After seeing too many grudges and resentment, one after another of mess or chaos in Jiang Hu, she naturally wanted to find a place where she could calm the body and mind and spend the rest of her life peacefully. Wasn’t he also like this? 

He Ling raised his eyes and looked at Du Huashang’s gloomy expression, which was completely different from that strong and brash appearance when she stopped them in the middle of the road. He stretched out his hand and gently held the other’s hand. He smiled and said, “I have never met my mother, but I know that with her temperament, she certainly did not blame you. If there hadn’t been an accident, it’s possible that she would have gone back to see you.”

Held by the hand with unnatural heat, Du Huashang’s eyes gradually reddened and a tear rolled down from it, hitting the back of his hand, which she gently wiped away with her sleeve, softening her face, “You are a good child, if Jie Jie was still alive, she would be definitely gratified in her heart!”

Seeing the two people getting along like this, Qi Yue also curled his lips. There was one more person in this world who loved his little Fu Lang, so he had one more happiness, it was a good thing.

Hearing his light laugh, Du Huashang turned her attention to him. Where would he still have that previous gentle look? With frowning brows and angry eyes, not being polite at all, “How did you abduct (swindle) the person?”

“Ah Ling is my Fu Lang that I formally and officially wed. How can you use the word ‘abduct’?” Knowing her reason, her hostility towards himself was also explained, everything was just out of concern. 

“Hmph, this child is simple-minded, maybe he was tricked into it by you!” Du Huashang knew very well how complicated the minds of people in Jiang Hu were, especially those like the other party that were imperceptible to people.

“Xiang Gong didn’t lie to me, I was willing, with my own free will!” He Ling could not let other people say that about him, Xiang Gong was willing to marry him, so it was obviously his blessing.

Qi Yue’s eyebrows formed a curve as he pinched his face, finding the way he was defending himself very cute, “I will never ever deceive (cheat on) Ah Ling.”

He Ling saw that he smiled thinly, both of his heart and his eyes were filled with trust, “I know!”

Look, how much he has fooled him to turn towards (side with) him! Du Huashang was anxious, there were many female disciples in their sect and many of them had been hurt by love. Which one of them was not deceived by the other party’s flowery (sweet) words? In the end, they were eventually covered with cuts and bruises (beaten black and blue),”Do you know what kind of figure he is in Jiang Hu? Do you clearly understand that? Do you know how many people he has killed?”

That kind of cruelness and merciless, pursued to the brutal end, she even felt a chill down her back when she heard it. If her nephew were to accidentally annoy the other party one day, she simply couldn’t even dare to imagine it.

“I know, Xiang Gong has told me!” Those past events whenever he thought of it, he did not feel afraid, only felt distressed and heart ache for him. If the other party had a choice, he would not have forced himself to take this path too. 

“Since you know, you should understand how dangerous he is. If he treats you…” The latter words were not spoken by Du Huashang, but she believed the other party could understand her. She did not care at all if Qi Yue was here in person or not. At the worst, she would fight him to the death. (She would fight him with the risk of mutual destruction. The original one used this idiom 鱼死网破 :either the fish dies or the net gets torn which means life-and-death struggle) 

“Sect Leader Du!” What other people had said about him, Qi Yue would just listen to it and let it pass. There were plenty of people in Jiang Hu who talked about him so he would not take it to heart. However, this kind of words he did not even want to hear about it, “Even if I die at Ah Ling’s hands one day, I will never hurt him at all.”

“Xiang Gong!” He Ling threw himself into his arms and punched him on the chest unhappily. How could he say such words? How could he himself ever hurt him even for a little?! 

His earnest look shocked Du Huashang so she stared blankly for a long time. When she came back to her senses, she saw him holding He Ling in his arms and softly coaxing him, promising him over and over again that he would never say such things again. He was so gentle, not at all like the person who killed people like killing flies as he was rumoured to be in Jiang Hu. 

Her heart was a little bit touched.Moreover, her real intention was also not to separate the two. She just worried that her Jie Jie’s only child might be hurt. She had to tell him not to devote himself wholeheartedly to the other man, but now it seemed like the other man’s whole heart was the one preoccupied with her nephew.

“I know you are worried about me, but when I was cold-shouldered by the whole village, it was my Xiang Gong who married me and never cared about what other people thought. He has always treated me with care and attention in every possible way. In this world, he is the person who treats me the best!!” If the other party thought that his Xiang Gong was bad, he would explain to her that he was more affectionate and faithful than many people that seemed to be kind in the world.

“Dislike (Ignored)?” Du Huashang’s attention was on another point. Her nephew was a good-looking ger with a good personality. She didn’t say that he would be loved by everyone, but most unlikely she didn’t think he would be disliked either. 

Qi Yue patted his back while telling her all about the village however the cause of Du Jinxin’s death was not mentioned. Since the He family had received their retribution now, it would only cause her grief if he talked about it.

Instead of letting her kill them in anger, he thought it would be more painful for them to live in such hardship, only then could make them so filled with grief as to wish one were dead. 

She had no idea that the child’s life had been like that. No wonder he relied on Qi Yue and trusted him so much. That family indeed deserved to die, so selfish! Du Huashang felt a great deal of pain / incomparable heart ache, “It’s been hard on you.”

What happened in the past, it was like a lifetime ago for He Ling. Now he is living a good life with many people who love him, therefore he is very content, so why should he need to remember all those irrelevant things that would spoil his mood?

Everything that needed to be said by both sides had been said (clearly). The rest of it could be discussed later and take it slowly. The most important thing now was He Ling’s illness. He could not take medicine and Qi Yue did not want to use the acupuncture on him, so he planned to prepare a barrel of medicated bath for him after dinner. 

Actually it was as if ‘using a talented person in an insignificant position’ to use the medicinal bath to treat the common cold, but to him, as long as it kept his Fu Lang from having a hard time, no matter what it was not considered as a waste at all.

[大材小用 /dà cái xiǎo yòng : using a talented person in an insignificant position (idiom) / large material put to small use/ a sledgehammer to crack a nut]

Du Huashang also had the same idea, with a wave of her slender white hand, she sent the two disciples who were following her out to buy the required medicinal herbs. It was only natural that she should pay out of her pocket for the treatment of her family nephew’s illness.

He understood that she was now trying to be kind to his little Fu Lang in every way possible, to make up for the regret she felt for many years, so Qi Yue did not argue with her since he had a lifetime to cherish his Ah Ling anyway.