CH 4

Struck dumb by the man of ice’s vicious attack, Xue Xian toppled back into the pouch. The strange strike to his head had made him lose all sense of where he was.

After a moment of rest, he began to clamber around Xuanmin’s pouch again, and finally found his way back to where he had been when he'd been hit. Bracing himself against the coarse hemp cloth, he tried to knock his head against that thing again, but there was no reaction this time. 

"Was it something to do with the needle I stuck into him?" Xue Xian mumbled to himself, then went to retrieve the needle and try again. 

"Ah –– what are you stabbing me with?" came Jiang Shining’s muffled voice. "What are you getting up to now?" 

Something occurred to Xue Xian. He asked, "How is it that you can speak?" 

Jiang Shining hadn't thought about it. Now he was shocked, too. 

That's right: he'd already used up all his time for today. He shouldn't have been able to move or speak. Why was he suddenly talking again? 

Was it to do with the strange bell knocking sound from just now? No –– even before that, Jiang Shining had already spoken, but the two of them had just not realised anything was amiss. 

Or... this bald donkey really had some interesting magical item on him? As Xue Xian thought of this, he became curious. Without another word, he stuck the needle into Xuanmin's side again. 

Xuanmin, who had been about to leave: “...”

Xue Xian was probably the first person in history to behave so insolently to the man holding him captive. He was something to be reckoned with.

Xuanmin frowned and took out the mischievous paper man from his pouch. Although Xue Xian had been tumbling all over the place, his shape remained folded up, and, to anyone else, he looked like an ordinary piece of paper –– around the size of a letter –– with nothing amiss.

Xuanmin pinched the paper man's head, trying to peel the silver needle away from him.

But the needle was stuck solid to the paper, and wouldn't budge.

Xuanmin directed his gaze down at the paper man and said, "Let go." 

The clerks: “...” 

What was wrong with this scammer monk? What kind of show was he putting on now? 

Liu-shiye, still reeling from that You don't have long to live pronouncement, finally came back to his senses. Furious, he pointed at Xuanmin and yelled, "You good-for-nothing rogue monk! You look suspicious as hell and your origins are unknown too. Even if you're not the criminal in the poster, I can still arrest you and torture you until you tell me every last detail about where you came from and what you're doing! [a] It would all be legal! [b] I was kind enough not to bother you any further, and I didn't mind you not even being grateful to me, but for you to curse me?! Someone arrest him––"

Before he could finish, Xuanmin interrupted him. "The space between your eyebrows lacks light," he explained calmly. "The inside is black and the outline is green. This means that you have depleted all the years in your fate. Also, you have a blood stain on your left ear." 

"What blood stain?" Liu-shiye pawed at his ear, but found no trace of blood.

"You cannot see it." Xuanmin finally succeeded in removing the needle from the paper man's embrace, and put the weapon back into his pouch. He held onto the paper man and flicked it with his finger. 

Nobody in his long and illustrious life had ever dared to flick Xue Xian before! This bald donkey’s arrogance was unbelievable! [c] Xue Xian was about to retaliate, but then remembered what Xuanmin had said about the blood stain, and stopped. With some effort, he managed to twist himself around in Xuanmin's grip so that he could take a good look at Liu-shiye.

This Liu person had ears that stuck out prominently from the side of his head. Near the temple at the tip of one ear, there was indeed a red mark, as though something had spilled its blood onto him. 

Seeing the blood stain, Xue Xian's feeble paper body began to tremble as he fought to suppress the waves of rage and hatred spilling out from him like the roiling waves of the sea.

In a flash, he felt himself to be back at that damp beach underneath the swathes of pitch-black clouds that suffocated the sky above. The salty, fishy smell of the sea was assaulting him once more, along with the incessant thunder and pouring rain that beat down on his body like so many arrows. He was lying there, unable to move, only half-conscious, feeling only a long slice of agony along his spine, a row of numb pain like a million ants gnawing away at him...

They had taken out his spine and left him for dead, and he hadn't even been able to catch sight of their faces... 

Xue Xian shook himself back into the present, where Liu-shiye was still touching his own ear with an upset expression on his face. "What do you mean, I can't see it?" he barked at Xuanmin. "Stop trying to swindle me with this fake nonsense, monk! Black, blood-like light between my eyebrows –– anyone could make that up! What the hell do you mean by blood stain?"    

What could a blood stain mean?

Xue Xian looked up, and stared daggers at Liu-shiye. 

A blood stain hurled on the ear is a mark created by a victim who seeks revenge. That way, no matter how much time has passed, they will always be able to recognise those responsible for their misfortune. Earlier, Xue Xian had been inside the pouch, messing about with Xuanmin, and it hadn’t occurred to him to pay attention –– but now that he was focused, he could smell that smell on Liu-shiye’s body, too.

The blood stain was emanating a particular smell, one reminiscent of rusted iron, yet slightly different; one intensely familiar to Xue Xian –– it was the stench of his own blood. 

Since the day he awoke, he had been looking for those who had maimed him. But he didn't know what they looked like, nor anything about their backgrounds, so he’d had no leads. The only clue he had was his own blood: those stained by it would definitely have been on the beach that day. 

There were around a hundred such people, and, in the past six months, he had already tracked down a few. Based on what they'd told him, Xue Xian was beginning to piece things together. But it was far from enough –– and trying to find everyone based on such a small clue was like looking for a needle in the ocean. 

In half a year, Xue Xian had made his way from Huameng all the way to here, just waiting for another clue to emerge, and now it had been unearthed by his new nemesis... 

As the paper man in his hand had suddenly stopped struggling, Xuanmin assumed that he had finally calmed down and given up. He placed Xue Xian back into his pouch and looked back at Liu-shiye. "You were supposed to die today,” Xuanmin said, “but someone took the curse for you."

He broke eye contact again, then said, "Believe me or do not. It is up to you." He decided to stop wasting his breath, and went on his way. 

But he had humiliated the man in front of his inferiors. Did he really think he could just leave? 

Liu-shiye was incensed by all this talk of death, and didn't know what to believe. Part of him wanted to dismiss this rogue monk as a liar, but another part of him couldn't help but feel anxious at what was in store for his future. 

Most jianghu scammers liked to use this play: first they told you that a great disaster was coming, just to make you feel afraid. They'd refuse to discuss the matter further and pretend to leave. That way, you were hooked, and you'd be willing to pay any price for peace of mind. 

Liu-shiye was no fool. He ordered his clerks to take out their swords and arrest the man. 

Was the monk crazy? Trying to scam the yamen itself! 

Just as the county clerks advanced toward Xuanmin, poised to grab him, a breathless voice rose from nearby: "Laoye! [d] Laoye, something's wrong!" 

Everyone turned back to look: a small, wispy servant boy was shoving his way through the crowd, finally coming to a sudden stop in front of Liu-shiye. With a panic-stricken face, he said, "Laoye! Shaoye… [e] Shaoye has fallen into the well!" 

"What?" Liu-shiye felt his knees buckle, and his whole head became numb with shock. 

His eyes fell upon Xuanmin, still surrounded on all sides by the yamen’s clerks, and his heart skipped a beat. In that moment, he didn't know whether to run home first, or arrest Xuanmin first. 

"Laoye!" the servant shouted again. 

Shuddering, Liu-shiye hesitantly hurried away with the servant, but as he ran, he felt strange, as though his head were far heavier than the rest of his body, and as though his legs weren't his own. After a few steps, he came tearing back –– 

"Let go everyone, let go!" Liu-shiye breathed as he went to grab Xuanmin's sleeve. "You... You.... No! You must come with me!" 

Xuanmin frowned and pried away the man's hands with a look of disgust. He was about to speak when he felt a movement inside his pouch. The paper man that he'd just shoved back inside jumped back out and grabbed onto Liu-shiye's sleeve. In one swift move, he had hopped onto Liu-shiye, and then used the momentum to grab hold of the servant’s robe collar, and was now running away with them!

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The author has something to say: 

I’ve only just managed to get all the behind the scenes stuff out of the way, and I still haven’t gone to check the people who gave money Orz… I’ll say thanks first, and write out the list of names tomorrow =3=

This is my first time trying out historical danmei. I hope it won’t be too unpleasant to read. I’ll try my best~ Don’t get the CP wrong: Xuanmin tops, Xue Xian bottoms~

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[a] Here, Musuli uses the following phrase: “until you tell me about all eight previous generations of your ancestors.” This was too clunky to translate into English, so I went for a more literal phrasing.

[b] Indeed it would in fact be legal. The police and prisons do not protect us, anywhere in the world. Find out more about police and prison abolition, and alternative forms of justice, here. (This is a joke, since obviously Song dynasty bureaucrats cannot really be approximated to the fundamentally white supremacist and colonial institutions that are modern justice systems across the globe. However, abolition is an important concept, and includes approaches to justice that are not punitive; which everyone should check out and have a think about!)

[c] Musuli uses the expression, “This bald donkey drank all of the waters in the Yangtze, and now he was so full that he believed he could fly to the sky!”

[d] Laoye: see glossary.

[e] Shaoye: see glossary.