Chapter 74

[Wow! A chapter from Yuan Qingyun’s perspective! (whyyyy) At least it’s short.

He’s a little messed up! Who’da thunk it! (Warning for some vague underage recountings and prostitution, that wouldn’t be out of place for the time period.)]

My surname is Bao, personal Yun, and in all honesty, I really hate my name.

Qingyun is a courtesy that I later gave to myself, and is currently my alias. It doesn’t mean anything, just something I made off-hand.

There’s a lot of people I really don’t like, and almost all of them are women. For as long as I can remember, they would look at me with stupid, drooling smiles, wanting to paw at me or pinch my face or whatever. It’s real annoying. When I got a little bigger, women suddenly got aloof in front of me, frequently covering their blush with their sleeves and such while secretly making eyes at me. Someone seeing this every day, of course, couldn’t get any more tired of it. At the very start of my childhood I was still a bit curious about the female body, so when I was thirteen my maid took the initiative to fool around with me; that was my first time. This engrossment of my earliest adolescence lasted for about a year, with the belly of the Second Young Mistress of High Official Li’s family reportedly enlarged by me. She was four years older, and when she went and called for her maid to sent me a secret message in the middle of the night that her lady insisted upon marrying me, my hatred for women reached its peak, therefore causing me to go on another path.

Lan Guan was my first man. I was fourteen that year, and he seventeen.

On that day, a group of dandies that I usually mixed with brought him around to have a bit of fun.

You couldn’t say I wasn’t surprised at a heap of men taking turns toying with him on top of the Liu family’s – Uncle Guo’an’s – decorated ship. He was very pretty and tidy-looking with fair skin, and probably played the role of a Dan, very much unlike a man. It’s not the first time he’d see this kind of business. Proprietor Lan Guan was just a red light at the time, the hall calling upon his troupe a lot, yet who would have imagined that this extreme defilement was happening behind closed doors? And it’s little wonder, as these bigshot children are those he can’t afford to offend.

He was contrarily very meek, so being tormented like that repeatedly was extraordinarily painful to the point he couldn’t help but lightly groan a few times, and because of the strange twisted angle he then raised his head to meet my sight. Rather than there being any sort of grief or pain or hatred or fury in his eyes, or even the blankness of tranquility, he seems like sort sort of herbivore. His eyes are very dark, but the darkness is very warm and sleek with a bit of dense mist coming from it, making them look not-so-dark. I’ve always loved his eyes.

I sit in a chair and watch quietly. Someone invited me and I didn’t join in. Afterwards, when the rest had enough of toying with him, someone was called to bring him back, and I was the one to help him up, carrying him into my room to get him clean.

That was the first time I’d tasted the flavor of a man, and to say the truth, it’s truly different compared to that of a woman’s. No wonder there’s some who are especially addicted to it.

I didn’t mess with him much. For many years after that, Lan Guan consequently believed me to be a gentle, good person, which is of course a misunderstanding as big as the sky.

Because of this time, I think that men are better playthings than women, and Lan Guan above all. Though he likes to stare at me admiringly, the look in his eyes has none of the things I hate that came from those women, but actually puts me at ease. As a result, I took him under my wing, disallowing him from performing again, and because of me being a factor, he naturally doesn’t have to pick up that sort of filthy work again, too.

However, Lan Guan being taken by me made someone in that little circle was jealous of me getting his affections, resulting in the noise reaching my dad’s ears.

My old man hated me. He didn’t like my pretty looks, he didn’t like my gambling, he didn’t like that I wasn’t as good as my two older brothers, and he didn’t like that I wasn’t studying books or practicing martial arts. In reality, I don’t really like gambling and I don’t like that pack of hoodlums, but the feeling of boredom can make a person go mad. Staying idle can make you contemplate the mysteries of the Dao, like the question of what exactly you were put on this world to do and so on. For that reason, even if I’d feel like it was boring after the fact, I’ll do anything so long as it’s a bit of fun at the time.

As for the topic of studying, I don’t like classical Confucian texts or eight-legged essays, but I can’t look at my dad’s books on military much. And I do practice martial arts, he’s just scolding me for no reason. When I’m as big as my brothers my martial arts are going to be better; I’m not very hardworking, I still practice them pretty well. The reason my dad turned his back on them involves the one person I loathe the most aside from my dad: Yao Jinzi.

That little punk is unbelievably annoying. The first time I saw him was when I was eleven and he was six. His dad and mine were on really good terms, so our two families met with each other often.

Truthfully speaking, before this, I hadn’t though a six-year-old kid could be as arrogant as this one. He’s always quiet and doesn’t pay much attention to people. His dad will call him for a martial arts drill, and he’ll walk to the middle of the hall, cup his fist, and say ‘yes’, revealing no timidness or excitement. He isn’t one bit at all like a kid, or one bit cute.

From that point on, I decided to forever hate him. What’s this guy being so conceited for? In regards to appearance, he isn’t bad, but I’m so much better-looking. In regards to martial arts… he’s stronger than me, but that’s just because I don’t practice much. He’s the weird sort to painstakingly train everyday; is that to invite the favor of adults? Is it to have everyone’s hearts be filled with admiration for him, and look up to him?

My judgment: Yao Jinzi is a shallow and tasteless person.

Our paths are different and plans don’t align.

My old man’s likes him to utmost, hating that he isn’t his own son, which makes him increasingly ugly to me. In fact, I feel that, in essence, they’re both very similar.

Following the eruption of the matter with Lan Guan, my old man’s disgust and dissatisfaction of me had also erupted. He never wanted me stay in his line of sight. The ultimate cause of that is probably because I look the most like my mother who inexplicably went missing when I was one year old.

At last, the old guy decided to cast me off to the Western Regions.

Before I left, I sent Lan Guan to Prince Liang.

Prince Liang was born a full 10 years before me to the day, and he’s a very strange person. I never know what he’s thinking, or why he’d be willing to get close to a little kid like me. What’s funny is that though I don’t like him at all, dealing with him is pretty comfortable. He might feel the same way.

It’s also probable that it’s because we’re the sorts of people who aren’t acknowledged much, different from my dad, and that Yao brat.

Prince Liang isn’t necessarily a good person, but he at least won’t mistreat Lan Guan and doesn’t like men.

My teacher is another abnormality. [1] He and my dad were very good friends in their early years, but because the woman he liked was married off into a small country in the Western Regions, he followed yet never went to see her, instead hiding atop snow-capped mountains to be caught up in his own fixation like a hermit.

That clingy behavior is what I can’t understand the most. If you like someone, why say not say something? If you can’t, just snatching her would be better, and if you don’t want to do that, then forget about her. There’s so many women in the world, yet he’s acting like he can’t live without her.

Honestly, I rather like the Western Region. The people here are a lot more straightforward than the Central Plains, and the girls at most will run over and directly tell me that they like me when their faces turn red, and probably aren’t putting on a cute display. The air in the snowy mountains is very clean, and because there’s nothing to do, the progress of my martial arts is rapid.

But it’s really fucking lonely!

I lived there for eight years, until one day, news came through to the Region: my family had been executed up to the third generation. The West is remote and news travels slow, so I knew it had already been more than a year after the incident.

In truth, even now, I don’t believe that. I hadn’t seen their deaths and burials with my own eyes, so I always feel that they’re still merely in some far-off place, distant from my life.

That man I hated… I’d always though he’d be eternal and never die, never get old, never fall, never be defeated, never be exceeded. If even he could die like this, how can human lives exist with being so frail?

Well. As a result, I packed up my stuff, said goodbye to my master, and set foot on the return trip for vengeance.

Life was boring like this, so having hatred for revenge is a fine thing indeed.

Now, it’s quickly becoming a year since I returned to the Central Plains. Lan Guan came back to my side; this kid’s as devoted as a dog.

Prince Liang is the only one who knows of my return. Going from a child to a man, my appearance has greatly changed, and no one recognizes me.

He spontaneously offers to help me. I know what he’s thinking. He and I aren’t on the same path, but really, are some things worth so much struggle? How could I help even if he has my skill? Does he want to prove something?

However, I still take his lent hand, and lend my own hand when appropriate.

By the way, in the past few years I feel that not only are women annoying, but men are also really sickening, their eyes revealing starry fascination when they see me. My personal enemy is very interesting, though. He always looks at me disdainfully, even when he’s reportedly pretty preferential of men.

He’s also very pretty, quite unlike a man, but different from Lan Guan. I sometimes think he’s very charming, then sometimes very strong and fierce, and the majority of the time very amusing. I’m excited when I see him. From childhood until now, I hadn’t though I’d be getting something like this. Apparently, vengeance is really fun.

The only shame is that he seems to like that Yao jerk. Ah, even people like him still prefer men like Yao Jinzi.

YQY: qingliaaaaan, what does jinzi have that I don’t?

JQC: *making a rainbow with their hands* redeemable qualities

YQY:

[1] This is the same word used for ‘pervert’, which YQY wouldn’t know of because that’s a modern usage only.