CH 17

Yao Guang got a shock when he heard what Chen Ziqi said, and subconsciously shrank back in fear for just a split second. But in this split second of hesitation, Dan Yi found his weakness, and hit out instinctively.

“ARGHHH!!!!!” A scream of pain shattered the heavens.

Yao Guang toppled to the ground and lay still, his two hands covering his crotch. The entire arena fell silent.

Dan Yi looked at his hands. His expression slowly turned into one of disgust.

“Hahaha!!” Chen Ziqi was laughing so hard that he couldn’t stand properly. He was draped over Dan Yi’s shoulders at this point and had to hold on to Dan Yi to stop himself from falling over with laughter.

Lingguan, who had been standing with the rest of the servants, immediately came forward with a damp handkerchief for Dan Yi to wipe his hands.

The Crown Prince hurried forward to check on Yao Guang’s condition. Yao Guang’s face was contorted in pain, and the Crown Prince quickly instructed his servants to send for the Imperial physician. All the young men present knew exactly how painful Yao Guang’s injury must be – they themselves felt their balls ache just by looking at him. The Crown Prince shot a look at Luo Zheng, who was still staring blankly in shock, to come over and help. Yao Guang was the only son of the Jiyang Sect’s leader, and if his fatherhood had been dealt with a critical blow, it would be very difficult for them to explain to him what had happened today.

Luo Zheng recovered his senses, and squatted down next to Yao Guang. “Brother Yao, are you alright?”

“Mmphh….” Yao Guang was simply unable to form any words.

Luo Zheng raised his head and looked at Dan Yi, who was still wiping his hands. “It’s just a friendly duel, did you really have to fight dirty?” he asked heatedly.

Chen Ziqi was annoyed on hearing this. “To begin with, he was the one standing up to fight Dan Yi,” he retorted. “If he didn’t want his crotch to get hit, then he should have just squatted down like Prince Qi. Serves him right for bullying a kid!”

The crowd had originally thought Chen Ziqi to be the vicious one, but on hearing this, they all turned to stare at Yao Guang in an accusatory manner. It was true, actually he only had himself to blame; he was the one who charged out to challenge Dan Yi’s Cloud Dispelling Fists and even fought him standing up, which put his crotch at Dan Yi’s eye level. Wasn’t he just asking for his crotch to get hit?

Prince Qi coughed lightly. “Injuries are common during friendly duels. Quick, call the Imperial physician over.”

Yao Guang seemed to have been quite seriously injured. He was still absent from Chunxi Hall when they gathered to study after lunch.

Chen Ziqi bit the handle of the brush he was holding, then stole a glance at Dan Yi, who was sitting at the desk next to him, listening seriously to the teacher. He wanted to ask, when the Cloud Dispelling Fists were used on that place, would it be crushed like a broken egg? If it were, then did it mean that Yao Guang would be like Fuxi and the other eunuchs…?

The more he thought about it, the more curious he got. He finally took out a piece of paper and wrote a note to Dan Yi.

At this time, Dan Yi was reading a book intently. This was a book that was written for the Imperial family, called the “Dragon’s Howl Thesis”. This was actually the secret instruction manual for the Divine Dragon’s Howl martial arts.

The Divine Dragon’s Howl was a type of high-calibre gongfa, and ordinarily, this book would not have been available for people to read. However, in the last few hundred years, nobody other than the men of the Chen bloodline had successfully cultivated this skill. The Imperial family was therefore not worried that others would try to secretly learn the technique, and allowed the book to be freely circulated among the princes for their study, the better to help them memorise the gongfa.

Dan Yi lifted his brush, underlined the words “Negative yin embraces positive yang, flushing the qi for harmony”, and narrowed his eyes in thought. The Danyang Divine Martial Arts also had a similar phrase in its first chapter, which went, “Negative yin embraces positive yang, rolling the qi to make it soft”.

“Plop!” A little paper ball landed on his desk. Dan Yi turned around and saw Chen Ziqi wink at him. He opened the paper ball to read it.

On the crumpled paper, the single word “naked” was scrawled haphazardly, and below it was a very ugly looking drawing, which looked to be a thick stick flanked by two eggs. One of the eggs had a hole, and runny egg white was leaking out of it.

The corners of Dan Yi’s mouth twitched. He figured that Chen Ziqi was asking if Yao Guang’s “eggs” had been broken by him. This fellow was already six, but clearly didn’t know very many words. Sticks and eggs? How vulgar. Dan Yi picked up a thinner brush, dipped it in ink, and started labelling the drawing. ‘Testicles’ was the first word he wrote after drawing a line out from the “egg”. As he finished writing this, he suddenly felt someone’s presence next to him, and raised his head quickly. The teacher, Professor Luo Yunsheng, was standing right beside him, bending his head to look at what he was writing.

“… …” Dan Yi was speechless. He wondered if he could somehow burn the paper to ashes then and there.

It was obviously too late to save the situation. Luo Yunsheng picked up the paper, and studied it for a moment. “How very interesting,” he said.

Luo Yunsheng, courtesy name Hailou, was one of the ten great poets of the current Zhang dynasty. In a dynasty that placed the mastery of martial arts above all else, he was one of the very few people who preferred to apply himself to scholarly pursuits instead of martial ones. He was a swordsman by training, but he greatly preferred writing poems, and before he was thirty, had travelled all over the land to expand his horizons. He had an extensive knowledge of many subjects, and had seen much of the world. As such, he was not particularly outraged by the Seventh’s Prince’s shockingly vulgar drawing. Instead, he started critiquing it seriously.

“The word on top is so badly written, it must be written by the Seventh Prince,” Luo Yunsheng said, tapping on the chicken scrawl. He set the piece of paper down in front of Chen Ziqi. “Look at the Shizi’s handwriting. It has strength and character, and I’m starting to see some personal flair there as well,” he said. “Seventh Prince, your homework tonight will be to learn how to write like this. Write the word the Shizi wrote a hundred times.”

“Huh?” Chen Ziqi scrunched up his face unhappily. He had just started learning to write, and his writing speed was very slow. The word “testicles” also looked to be complicated, and he didn’t know how long it was going to take him to write it a hundred times.

“Separately, since Shizi knows so many words, he can copy the first chapter of the “Dragon’s Howl Thesis” ten times,” Luo Yunsheng said blandly, before moving to check on the rest of the princes’ work.

When Dan Yi and Chen Ziqi returned to Qingyun Palace that night, they hurriedly went to do their homework in the study immediately after dinner. Chang Er was surprised. “What’s up with them today?” she asked Fuxi. That little bratty bastard never liked to practise his writing, and it was extremely unusual for him to be so hardworking about it. Had the sun risen in the west this morning?

“The professor gave a lot of homework today,” Fuxi said, not daring to tell Chang Er that his Dianxia had been punished by the teacher.

Chang Er nodded, then looked at Ah Mu, who was here to freeload as usual. “Little wooden block*, why aren’t you going to do your homework?”

*T/N: The “mu” in Ah Mu’s name means wood. Chang Er has given him a nickname as usual, and she calls him “little wooden block”.

“I don’t have any,” Ah Mu said, swinging his short little legs happily. He was still a very young child, and couldn’t even hold a brush properly, so Luo Yunsheng was in no hurry to make him start practising his writing. He only had to memorise a few simple poems.

“Dianxia, we should be getting back soon,” Ah Mu’s young eunuch reminded him.

“Chang mufei, I’ll be back again tomorrow,” Ah Mu said reluctantly. He wanted to stay and play for a while more, but he knew that this wasn’t his sleeping quarters, and Chang Er was not his mother, so he couldn’t stay for too long.

“Sure,” Chang Er said, pinching Ah Mu’s face lightly. She walked him out and watched as his fat little legs trotted out of her residence. She felt rather melancholy as she saw his small frame fade into the distance. If she had not struggled hard to survive to this day, her little bratty bastard would be just like Ah Mu, without anyone in the world to rely on. Ah Mu at least still had a responsible Jiujiu; if Chen Ziqi had been raised by his Jiujiu… he’d probably have been sold off long ago.

Chang Er looked at the letters on the table, laughed a cold little laugh, then cast the letters aside. She picked up her sewing and threaded a needle. Autumn was coming, it was time to make clothes appropriate for that season. The embroidery department made very nice robes, but didn’t seem to be able to make underclothes that fit Chen Ziqi well, so she still made those for him personally.

In the study, Chen Ziqi’s face was all scrunched up as he slumped on the table, copying the word “testicles” a hundred times as instructed. “Why does this word have so many letters?” he complained.

Dan Yi was nearly done with his assignment. He turned to look at Chen Ziqi’s handiwork and raised his eyebrows. That tangle of black ink didn’t look like words at all.

Actually, Chen Ziqi did want to learn how to write properly. However, the other princes started their education at three, and could write a thousand words by the time they were six. Even though he was able to recognise the words, he didn’t know how to write them; reading and writing were actually two separate skills altogether. The teacher didn’t seem to realise that, however. He assumed that if Chen Ziqi could read, he could write as well, and thus neglected to teach him the basics of writing.

Chen Ziqi threw his brush down, walked over to Dan Yi’s desk, then slumped down on it with a thump. He watched Dan Yi’s brush skim lightly across the rice paper, drawing out the beautifully elegant lines of his handwriting. It was very pleasing to the eye. Chen Ziqi scratched his index finger with his thumb, hesitating, then suddenly asked, “Dan Yi, can you teach me how to write?”

Dan Yi looked up from his writing.

“If you teach me, I’ll call you gege, how about that?” Chen Ziqi said, smiling with his small, white little teeth showing.

“What benefit is it to me if you call me gege?” Dan Yi asked, putting down his brush. He folded his arms and looked at Chen Ziqi.

“We’re technically from the same generation, so my calling you gege is a huge loss on my part,” Chen Ziqi said with a straight face. He took Dan Yi’s hand in his and tugged him over to his desk. 

What kind of logic was this? Dan Yi was amused and annoyed all at once, but he let Chen Ziqi tug him over to the table that was full of his chicken scratchings on rice paper.

“Write a word for me to see,” Dan Yi said, lifting his chin, indicating to Chen Ziqi to pick up his brush and try on his own first.

Chen Ziqi gripped the brush and applied it to the paper with great difficulty. After writing two letters, he had to look at the original again before continuing.

Dan Yi shook his head. “You’re not writing the strokes in the correct order,” he said. He picked up a brush, and wrote the word again for him slowly.

He succeeded in teaching Chen Ziqi the order of the strokes, but couldn’t seem to get him to hold the brush correctly. He finally stood behind Chen Ziqi, took his hand in his, and wrote the word once with their hands intertwined.

The Phoenix Kings and Emperors of the past had always met when they were in their teens. He, however, had met his chosen one early enough that he could teach him how to write… Dan Yi felt a queer mix of cocktail of haplessness and happiness as he held Chen Ziqi’s hand.

Dan Yi bent his head and looked at the paper they were writing on. The word “TESTICLES” was written in huge letters all over the paper. Dan Yi’s eyes, which had originally been curving into smiling half-moons earlier, suddenly fell back into a solemn position. In this historic moment when the future Phoenix King was teaching his chosen one how to write, they were writing this very vulgar word. What a waste.

When Chen Ziqi was done writing, he pestered Dan Yi to teach him the Cloud Dispelling Fists technique again.

“This move is just so useful – when I quarrel with anyone next time, I’m gonna go right up and give that fellow a few tight slaps! Like this, smack, smack, smack!” Chen Ziqi said, slapping his right elbow with his left hand for emphasis. He was dressed in the middle layer of his robes, and his feet were bare. 

Dan Yi allowed Linghe to remove the silk strip holding his hair in place, then raised his hand to stop Chen Ziqi’s slapping motion. “You can’t learn the Danyang Cloud Dispelling Fists,” he said.

“I know, I don’t have neili,” Chen Ziqi said. He bounded over to face Dan Yi, then hugged Dan Yi’s warm little body, placing his chin in his chest. He looked up from that position with bright, puppy dog eyes. “I just want to learn the moves!” 

He thought back on how Dan Yi had countered Yao Guang’s attack in one move by slapping his crotch. How simple was that? Once he learned it, he would alter it just a bit, to make its purpose solely to attack people’s crotches. He would be invincible!

Dan Yi turned, dragging Chen Ziqi, who was still stuck to him like glue. He walked to his desk, and picked up his copy of the “Dragon’s Howl Thesis”. “You don’t need to learn the Cloud Dispelling Fists. Learn the “Roving Dragon Follows the Moon” instead,” he said.

“Huh?” Chen Ziqi stuck his head out below Dan Yi’s arm, still holding on to his waist. He glanced at the document in his hands. “Isn’t this the divine martial art that nobody’s mastered in forever?”

Dan Yi looked at the head that had popped up below his armpit, then let his arm fall, trapping Chen Ziqi. “You can master it.”

“A sneak attack! No fair!” Chen Ziqi protested, immediately reaching out to tickle Dan Yi.

Dan Yi lost his balance, twisted a little and fell to the floor. The two children landed on the thick carpet, their limbs tangling together.

“Is the “Roving Dragon Follows the Moon” as powerful as the Cloud Dispelling Fists?” Chen Ziqi asked, biting the clothes covering Dan Yi’s shoulder.

“More or less,” Dan Yi said. He pulled his clothes from Chen Ziqi’s teeth, then struggled to stand up.

“Alright. That settles it. I’ll learn the Roving Dragon Follows the Moon,” Chen Ziqi declared. He wriggled his shoulders as if he were a roving dragon, and dove between Dan Yi’s legs.

Author’s note: Mini-theater

Qiqi: Watch this, the “Roving Dragon Follows the Moon”!

Birdie Gong: If you use this to attack me, it’s not called the “Roving Dragon Follows the Moon” any more

Qiqi: Then what’s it called?

Birdie Gong: The “Roving Dragon Meets the Bird”

Qiqi: … …

Birdie Gong: I’ve got other moves, wanna learn them?

Qiqi: What else is there

Birdie Gong: “The Phoenix Enters the Cave”, “Invading the Yellow Dragon”

Qiqi: Can I not learn those?

Birdie Gong: Nope

Qiqi: _(:з」∠*)_