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Bribery and corruption, mentioned infidelity (not between main CP), death sentence, implied kidnapping, explicit mention of urination, de-ageing (of supporting character)“Liu Xiaoru reported to the authorities much earlier on and stuffed1A.K.A bribed, but the literal term used was ‘stuffed’. the magistrate officials with money. After that, she brought the officials2This should be ‘magistrate officials’, but it seems overly long and repetitive in English so I’ve shortened it. back to the house. Originally, she had only intended to wait for Wu Da and Wu Xiao to beat the person up, then have them be arrested for it but she hadn’t expected that Wu Da and Wu Xiao would beat the person to death. The two brothers are now locked away in prison and the officials at the prison accepted the bribe that Chen Xier gave. In future, the officials will ‘look after’ them properly.
“It was around this time that the two brothers found out that they had been fooling with each other’s wives. They beat each other half to death. Their family members haven’t been getting by well either. Wang Ting’s family goes to their house to cause a scene every day. Because of Wu Da and Wu Xiao murdering someone, their younger brother and younger sister’s weddings have both been cancelled. Wu Da’s younger sister almost committed suicide because of this. And everyone in their neighbourhood has been avoiding them as if they were snakes and scorpions.
“As of today, Liu Xiaoru, Chen Xier and their family members are preparing to leave Gaoling City for another city or town to live in.”
Shi Jiu reported the recent updates about Wu Da and Wu Xiao’s family situation to Wu Ruo.
Wu Ruo had already predicted long ago that such a day would come. He wasn’t very interested in Wu Da and Wu Xiao’s matters. He only wanted to know that they were doing miserably.
However, Hei Xuantang who was sitting next to him was listening with a serious expression: “Dasao, who are Wu Da and Wu Xiao?”
Shi Jiu answered in reply: “Answering Fourth Young Master’s question, the two of them used to be Madam’s personal servants. However, they accepted the bribes of others and allowed others to deceive Madam.”
Hei Xuantang said angrily: “They actually dared to go so far? Then we absolutely cannot let them off. I’ll send some people to infiltrate into the prison now and end them with a dao to vent for dasao.”
Wu Ruo sneered: “Isn’t it easy to end them with a dao? But if the person is dead, then they wouldn’t be aware of anything at all. Why should I let them off that easily? Right now, they’re living with the terror of their approaching death. So just let them properly enjoy this period of time.”
Hei Xuantang nodded his head and rested a hand on Wu Ruo’s shoulder as he said: “Dasao, if you need our help, feel free to let me know. My dage will put in all his effort to help you get things done. Dage, aren’t I right?”
Hei Xuanyi looked up slightly, his fingertip flicked and the chopsticks in his hand shot forward, hitting the back of the hand that was resting on Wu Ruo’s shoulder.
“Ah! Hurts—” Hei Xuantang hurriedly retracted his hand and saw that the back of his hand now had a red mark from getting hit. He immediately wailed loudly: “Dage, you get jealous3吃醋 (chi cu): the direct translation is to ‘eat vinegar’. More literally, Xuantang was saying Xuanyi eats vinegar way too well. way too easily! Dasao and I are both men! What’s wrong with putting my hand on his shoulder?”
Wu Ruo: “…”
Hei Xuanyi: “…”
At this moment, Hei Xin hurriedly rushed over: “Master, Madam, little young master has gone missing.”
Hei Xuanyi immediately frowned.
“What?” Hei Xuantang anxiously stood up: “My little nephew has gone missing? How did he suddenly4好端端 (hao duan duan): this more accurately should translate to ‘everything was fine and well’, but I couldn’t think of a good way to incorporate it into the sentence and ‘suddenly’ just seemed the best way to express it without any awkwardness. So I’m leaving this note to add on the extra flavour/nuance. go missing? He couldn’t have been kidnapped by someone, right?”
Wu Ruo also stood up anxiously: “Could he have gone out to play by himself?”
Hei Xin said with certainty: “The robes that the little young master had been wearing are still beside his bed, but the blanket he was covered in and he himself are missing. Oh, that’s right, Jiujiu was knocked out by the bedside. It’s obvious that he was kidnapped by someone and not that he went out by himself.”
“Who would kidnap him?” Wu Ruo first thought of the people from the Wu family, but he also felt that it was quite unlikely. In the Wu family, there were those who would not touch a child even if they hated him to death. On top of that, with their faux righteous personalities, even if they wanted to snatch a child, they wouldn’t secretly infiltrate into Hei Manor to snatch them.
He looked towards Hei Xuanyi: “Could it be your enemies who kidnapped him?”
“Not possible.” Hei Xuanyi and Hei Xuantang said in unison.
Wu Ruo: “…”
Hei Xuantang explained: “Dasao, we don’t have any enemies here.”
Hei Xuanyi instructed Hei Xin to send people out to search5I’ll be really honestly, I’m not exactly sure what Jin Yuanbao was saying here but I translated as close to what I think it was meant to say..
Wu Ruo walked out of the main hall with urgent footsteps: “I’ll go take a look at his frequent haunts. Who knows, maybe he really just wanted to go and play and ran out by himself.”
“I’ll go and take a look at the places that I brought him to play at these past few days too.” Hei Xuantang left the main hall with Wu Ruo.
Wu Ruo walked out of Hei Manor and headed straight for the horse carriage that he usually rode in. He got onto the carriage and lifted the curtains6These horse carriages usually had curtains that served as doors separating the interior of the carriage and the exterior. If you have ever seen a guzhuang cdrama, you may have seen this before. Here’s a picture for illustration, it’s that yellow piece of cloth., and saw that there were two children seated inside. One of them was Dandan, who they were currently trying to find, and the other one was actually the Mo tribesperson that he hadn’t seen for months — Ji Xi.
Wu Ruo was stunned. This Mo tribesperson had finally played enough outside and had come back to look for him.
He hurriedly turned around to instruct the ones who were outside7Just to clarify: he means right outside by the gates. Not the ones who had run out to go look for Dandan elsewhere. to go back in and report that the child had been found. Then, he got Shi Yuan to drive the horse carriage around leisurely. After that, he sat inside the carriage’s compartment and quietly looked at the strange postures of the two children.
Ji Xi was sitting with both his legs crossed8I couldn’t find a decent picture, but I’m talking about the yoga pose where your legs kind of look like they’re butterfly-shaped, not just one leg crossed over the other..
Dandan, whose butt was bare naked, had both his legs clamped around Ji Xi’s neck and he was using his little hands to pull on the braids on Ji Xi’s head as if he was afraid of Ji Xi running away.
It took Ji Xi a lot of effort before he could pull Dandan off of his body. His little face had a cold expression as he said: “No one has ever used their legs to clamp around my9Reminder that Ji Xi uses 本座 (ben zuo) to refer to himself, it’s a pretty lofty way of referring to yourself as someone of status/a government official. neck before. You are the first.”
He tossed the child onto Wu Ruo.
Dandan giggled. Following that, a stream of clear fluid shot out from Dandan’s little Dandan. It sprayed directly onto Ji Xi’s face, feeding him a face full of pee10Yeah, Dandan’s little Dandan refers to his penis. It’s pretty common for penises to be referred to as ‘little *person’s name*’..
Wu Ruo was momentarily stunned stupid. In that moment, he forgot to adjust Dandan’s position.
The vein on Ji Xi’s temple throbbed furiously. He snatched Dandan back with a dark expression and pressed Dandan down onto his leg. He lifted a hand and slapped down onto Dandan’s butt, ‘pai pai pai’, the sound was incomparably clear. No more than two slaps later, that little butt was already red. It was clear to see that Ji Xi had used all his physical strength.
“Daddy, save me!” Dandan pleaded Wu Ruo tearfully.
Wu Ruo had never hit his son before and took Dandan back into his arms, his heart aching. He wrapped Dandan up with the blanket to prevent him from catching a cold: “He’s just a child, he doesn’t know anything, why don’t you just forgive him?”
Ji Xi took out a handkerchief to wipe away his face full of pee and said coldly: “It’s precisely because he’s a child that’s why I’ve tolerated it until now.”
And a bit of it was because he was being considerate of Wu Ruo11看在乌弱份上 (kan zai Wu Ruo fen shang): this phrase sort of means ‘on account of’., otherwise, he would’ve made the other party disappear from this world a long time ago.
Wu Ruo lowered his head and looked at Dandan, reprimanding in a low tone: “You’re too mischievous, how could you pee at someone?”
“I couldn’t hold it in anymore.” Dandan said, aggrieved12Glad to announce I’ve finally figured out a decent translation for the term 委屈 (wei qu)..
“…” Wu Ruo didn’t believe these words of his at all: “Then why did you run out by yourself? Do you know how worried your father and I were when we found out that you were missing?13Personal commentary: CLASSIC! Classic ‘Mom’ line. I can almost hear this in my own mother’s voice.“
If it wasn’t for what had just happened, Wu Ruo really hadn’t thought that in the short span of just two months, he would have such deep feelings towards this child. When he heard that his son was missing, his heart had instantly turned into a mess.
Dandan said: “I wanted to play with dagege.”
On a regular basis, everyone who played with him was an adult. Now, he had met another child after much difficulties. Of course he would hold on tight without letting go first.
Ji Xi glared at Dandan and explained to Wu Ruo: “I originally wanted to look for you but I accidentally walked into the wrong room. After that, this little brat clung onto me14In English, I couldn’t figure out a better way to translate this. Here, the sentence flows more like “this person did this to me” whereas in the original Chinese, it flows more like “I had this done to me by this person”. Just an interesting note on the nuance.. In order not to get discovered by others, I brought him into the horse carriage to wait for you.”
Wu Ruo glanced down at the child in his arms and asked Ji Xi: “Then, do you know who he is?”
Ji Xi snorted coldly: “Why should I know who he is?”
Wu Ruo said straightforwardly: “He’s the child that was born out of the huge white egg you gave to me.”
Dandan knew where he had come from, so that’s why Wu Ruo didn’t avoid the topic.
“Huge white egg?” uncertainty flashed across Ji Xi’s face. The memory only came back to him after thinking for a long while, and he said, not understanding: “Wasn’t that egg yours? How did it become something that I gave you?”
“That night before I woke up, I had also never seen that egg before. So, until now, I had always assumed it was you who gave me that egg.”
Ji Xi sneered: “You summoned me to the human realm for no rhyme or reason and I even gave you an egg? Do you think that’s possible?”
Wu Ruo: “…”
These words were very reasonable, he had no way of refuting them.
“Then the huge white egg was really retrieved from between my legs?”
Ji Xi stared at Wu Ruo for a long while before saying: “When I was summoned by you, it was already by your side.”
Wu Ruo silently breathed a sigh of relief.
Luckily the egg hadn’t been laid15To be more accurate, Wu Ruo uses the word that means ‘to give birth to’. by him.
But then where exactly had the egg come from?
“Then, did you come looking for me for something?”
A flash of awkwardness appeared on Ji Xi’s expression. He stared at Wu Ruo for a long time without speaking.
For a moment, Wu Ruo didn’t know what Ji Xi could possibly want either. But then, he thought of something. The Ji Xi from his previous lifetime had told him before that 13 years ago16Note: this is Wu Ruo recalling as a grown adult, closer to his age at his death. Basically, what he’s trying to say is that Ji Xi told the grown him in his previous lifetime about a past memory, which is the period of time that he is in now in his current lifetime.
Err, previous-life Ji Xi told previous-life Wu Ruo about an old incident when they were both older, which should have occurred right about now in this lifetime. If it doesn’t make sense, please let me know., due to losing to someone else in a battle of skills17Pardon my poor vocabulary, he’s referring to a fight where they bet whose style of magic is more powerful., his body had shrunk into the body of a 6-year-old child. However, in fact, his age was much older than Wu Ruo.
At that time, it wasn’t Wu Ruo who had summoned Ji Xi to the human realm. Ji Xi had also not told him about his reason for coming to the human realm and Wu Ruo didn’t like digging into the private secrets of others either.
Dandan said: “Daddy, I want dagege to stay at our manor…”
Ji Xi immediately said: “There has to be good food everyday, only then would I deign to stay.”
“There’s good food.”
Wu Ruo: “…”
From how things looked, Ji Xi had probably come to him precisely to stay at Hei Manor.
Ji Xi snorted: “You still need that person from your household to agree before this can work out.”
Wu Ruo was confused: “Which person?”
“The head of Hei Manor.”
Dandan said happily: “That’s not a problem! With Daddy around, Father will definitely agree.”
Wu Ruo pinched Dandan’s little face good-naturedly. However, now that he thought about it, it seemed that Hei Xuanyi had really never rejected any of his requests before.
He looked towards Ji Xi: “Did you cause any trouble while you were out?”
According to his understanding of Ji Xi, if it weren’t for the fact that Ji Xi had run into some trouble, he would never have lowered himself to staying at someone else’s home. Unless he really did want to stay.
Ji Xi’s expression seemed to hesitate, then he said angrily: “What trouble could I cause?”
Wu Ruo knew that he wasn’t willing to speak of it, so he didn’t probe any further.
When the three of them returned to Hei Manor and entered the main hall, Hei Xuanyi narrowed his eyes and glared at Ji Xi.
“Eh?!” Hei Xuantang curiously walked in front of Ji Xi: “You’re a Mo tribesman.”
“So what if I’m a Mo tribesman?” As Ji Xi said this, at odds with his words18Over here I assumed JYB made a typo. The original text was 不目 (bu mu) but I think they meant 不睦 (bu mu). I don’t think the first phrase means anything, but if I’m wrong, please feel free to contact me to correct this., he couldn’t help but glance sideways at Hei Xuanyi. Ji Xi only relaxed when he confirmed that the other party wasn’t about to attack him.
Wu Ruo said: “Xuanyi, he wants to stay here for a period of time.”
Hei Xuanyi placed his cup onto the table and asked coolly: “He’s the Mo tribesman from before?”
“Yeah.”
“The egg was given by him?”
Hei Xuantang curiously asked: “What egg?”
Wu Ruo and Hei Xuanyi directly ignored him.
“No, he said then when he arrived, the egg was already by my side.”
It seemed that Hei Xuanyi had already predicted this conclusion from long before. His expression didn’t change as he said to Ji Xi: “You cannot let people find out you’re a Mo tribesman.”
He didn’t mind a Mo tribesman within the manor, but other people from outside the manor would not think this way.
Humans were still very prejudiced against Yao, Mo and Gui. If those people found out that their Hei Manor had a Mo tribesman, they would definitely stir up a fuss about things and cause trouble for Wu Ruo’s family members.
“Alright.” Ji Xi’s black eyes changed into that of a human’s within a split second19Just a reminder that Mo tribesmen have fully black eyes without any whites in them on a regular basis.. If someone wasn’t as skilled as he was, they wouldn’t be able to discover his identity at all.
Hei Xuanyi gestured for Hei Xin to bring him to a guestroom.
Before Ji Xi left, he said: “I’m20Don’t forget Ji Xi is using the very lofty version of ‘I’, 本座 (ben zuo), to refer to himself. Normally, if you wanted to be respectful to the other party, even if you’re someone of status, you can change your speech to lower yourself. This method of referring to himself clearly demonstrates that he views himself above and not below or even equals with Hei Xuanyi. Ji Xi.”
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