T/N: If you’re not familiar with chinese euphemisms PLEASE read the footnotes as you go.
On a night with clear and bright moonlight1, at the Su Mansion.
A few spoonfuls of incense were added to the beast-shaped burner, and the green smoke slowly rose and dissipated. Su Shiyu tightened the strings of the paulownia wood qin, and effortlessly plucked out a few syllables2, the sounds as smooth as a stream. He stood still for a moment in front of the waternut desk, and sighed softly: “It’s this late in the night, for your distinguished self to come uninvited, do you need something?”
Suddenly, there was a rustling noise outside the house, and the carved window was slowly pushed open from the outer side. A voice that carried a smile said: “If I say I came to pick flowers3, what would you do?”
Moonlight brushed obliquely over the visitor’s forelock and landed in the room. His plain white fingers hooked the window lattice, leaning against the window ledge and looked at him with a smile in his eyes and eyebrows4.
Su Shiyu walked to the window and looked at him in silence for a good while: “…Why is it you.” “Can’t it be me?” Chu Mingyun said.
”Master Chu is visiting late at night, why didn’t you call someone to announce your arrival?” Su Shiyu asked.
”I intended to give you a surprise ah.”
”…” Su Shiyu said, “The medical hall (hospital) is three miles to the east.”
”This illness of mine is lovesickness, won’t you come and treat me personally?” Chu Mingyun raised a hand and casually hooked a lock of the black hair that scattered over Su Shiyu’s shoulder. The hair still felt a little moist. Then he raised his eyes again to look at Su Shiyu. He only draped on his outer robe, and the moonlight outlined his thin figure in detail, also casting shadows over the side of his neck and collarbones. Chu Mingyun laughed in a low voice, “It seems my arrival really wasn’t timely. If I were earlier, would I chance upon you in the shower?”
Su Shiyu took the hair back from his hand and said calmly: “Come into the house to talk.” After a moment, he stopped Chu Mingyun who was about to come in directly, and was very exasperated: “…the door is to the side.”
Chu Mingyun shot him a look as if he found it troublesome, retracted his hand and walked around to the side, pushing the door into the house with a drawn-out sigh: “When would there be someone coming through the front door for a tryst, Master Su is really no fun at all.”
Su Shiyu had already put on his outer robe properly, and as he poured tea, said: “If coming through the window is considered fun (your inclination), then don’t tell me thieves are all great beauties in the eyes of Master Chu?”
”Don’t I only have eyes for you?” Chu Mingyun said with a smile.
Su Shiyu handed the teacup to him, and said, “Let’s stop there with the jokes, what did Master Chu come here for?”
Chu Mingyun took the tea and held it in his hand, and said casually, “Because I missed you ah.”
”… …Pardon me being frank, Master Chu would be better off getting rid of this habit of evading the main topic.”
“Can’t I come to see you?” Chu Mingyun asked back.
”If that’s the case,” Su Shiyu paused, got up and walked out, “In accordance with my father’s reprimands, I don’t see to private guests in my residence at night. Although I’m being discourteous, Master Chu has already seen me, so I will send someone to send you back to your residence.”
”Hey — “
Su Shiyu halted, turned his head to look back and smiled: “Master Chu has remembered the purpose for his visit? “
This kind of person, no wonder to this day he hasn’t gotten married yet, Chu Mingyun sighed to himself, then bluntly got straight to the point:” Do you still remember that house of Song Heng’s?”
Su Shiyu sat opposite him, “Of course I remember, what’s the matter?”
”I studied that bronze seal for a few days and couldn’t see anything of interest. But suddenly I thought of the numerous mechanisms in that house, perhaps there may be some clues in there.” Chu Mingyun said, “Will Master Su be willing to explain to Lu Shi on my behalf, so that they will transfer custody of that house from Ministry of Justice to me?”
”The house has been vacant and there hasn’t been a use for it, so this shouldn’t be a problem. However, “Su Shiyu looked at him, smiled and said, “this is not an urgent matter, why did Master Chu not wait until tomorrow to discuss it with me, and insist on coming to my residence at night? I even thought it was someone with impure intentions breaking in. “
Chu Mingyun who had impure intentions drank a mouthful of tea, and said with no change in his expression: “Didn’t I already say I’m here for a tryst?”
Of course he had a plan for coming here at night. After his subordinates had investigated Su Shiyu for so long without any progress, Chu Mingyun simply took the opportunity to come here in person. Even before Su Shiyu noticed that he was outside the window, he had already made a round of Su Mansion avoiding the guards. The mansion was extremely ordinary, with no traces of mechanisms installed, and there was no areas for placing assassin killers like he did. The results were within expectations, but all the more baffling for being so.
However, it is truly a time-tested method to deal with Su Shiyu by hitting on him.
Su Shiyu stared at Chu Mingyun’s expression for a moment, and lowered his eyes while lightly moving along the topic, “After the mansion is assigned to the Grand Marshal’s residence, neither the Ministry of Justice nor the Censorate will have easy means to interfere. Then if there is a clue, how does Master Chu plan to notify me?”
Chu Mingyun tapped his fingertips on the porcelain cup, and said nonchalantly, “If you don’t trust me, you can go and have a look together with me.”
”What talk is that,” Su Shiyu smiled softly, raised his eyes and looked at him, “Of course I can trust Master Chu.”
“Shige? (senior martial brother)”
“…Huh?” Chu Mingyun returned to his senses, glanced at Qin Zhao, and lifted the carriage blind to look outwards. Only then did he realized they had already arrived in front of Song Heng’s mansion.
Su Shiyu has always executed matters neatly, so the handover between the two parties was completed within a day. Although things went smoothly, Chu Mingyun thought of Su Shiyu’s expression when he said he trusted him, and he constantly felt vaguely uneasy. If previously he had made the plan to be thick-skinned and shamelessly tell Su Shiyu that he hadn’t found anything, then he would have some qualms about it now.
Chu Mingyun and Qin Zhao alighted the carriage and entered the mansion, and made a straight route to the study, the shadow guards soundlessly spangled in a trail behind them.
According to Tan Jing’s testimony that night, when the fake Song Heng received the news of the scheme’s failure, he did not leave directly but went to the study. Since it wasn’t to seal the study’s exit to blockade him and Su Shiyu within the prison, this obviously implied that there was some other important thing here.
The (placement of the) furnishings within the study remained as before, but had accumulated some thin dust because there had been nobody inside for a long time.
Chu Mingyun was just examining the bookshelf that served as the exit of the dungeon, when the shadow guard searching around behind him suddenly spoke up: “Master5.”
”En?” Chu Mingyun turned and walked over.
The shadow guard retreated respectfully, and he saw there was a depression with a familiar outline, on the wooden frame hidden behind the ancient scroll. Chu Mingyun embedded the bronze seal, closely fitting them together, only to hear a sudden crisp ‘click’ sound in the silence. The sound of mechanism movement slowly rose, and the bookshelf before them opened from two sides (T/N: think like a sliding gate). Not only was it not dark, but the bright light that swelled out almost dazzled people’s eyes.
Gold nuggets shone brightly, stacked piles of them filled up half of the stone room.
Even Chu Mingyun couldn’t help but narrowed his eyes and sigh, “It turns out that the vault of the casino is here, and it is truly much richer than me. From this comparison, I actually haven’t made much money in these years, you think? “He turned his head slightly to ask Qin Zhao.
Qin Zhao glanced at him blankly.
On the other side of the stone room stood a row of bookshelves on which many booklets were stacked. Chu Mingyun picked up this booklet and flipped through it, seemed slightly surprised, then took a few other books and flipped through them, and immediately smiled with deep intent.
The booklet recorded the résumés of officials from several counties in Jingji (Gyeonggi)6. Each book was on a person, from his life experiences, to his family, wife, and child– everything was listed in detail, showing the effort used to scour the information.
From the death of Chen Xuanwen, to the case of Song Heng, to the case of Eternal Joy Casino, it is now certain they came from the same origin, and the other party had really menacingly planned this for a long time.
”Alright,” Chu Mingyun said, and said to the shadow guard: “Move these booklets to the residence, you can each take the gold nuggets over there as you need, move faster. Once I tell Su Shiyu, all of it will be taken to be squandered by Li Yanzhen.”
The shadow guard acknowledged the order, unanimously coming forward to carry the booklets.
Chu Mingyun retracted his gaze and casually cast his eyes on the booklet in his hand, “Zheng Wan of Right Fufeng7…”
There was a knock on the door in the middle of the night.
”My lord,” the person called from outside the door, “This subordinate has urgent matters to report.”
Hearing this Zheng Wan put down the official document, got up and opened the door: “What’s the matter…”
There were already two or three dead bodies laying in the courtyard, and the person standing in front of the door was clad in black with his face covered. He slowly raised his face.
A white light suddenly flashed, he felt a sharp and cold pain in his chest. Zheng Wan couldn’t react and lowered his head, only to see a white blade submerged in his chest. Before the scream could escape his mouth the man in black had already pulled out the knife and retreated, and with a tap of the his tips of his feet, he disappeared in a blink of an eye. Zheng Wan shook, suddenly spouted a mouthful of blood, and fell to the ground face-up.
The sky remained silent in cold moonlight.
—-
The author has something to say:
I suddenly saw a lot of comments and can’t contain my happiness ah.
To me, the biggest happiness in writing things is to see discussion/interpretation of the stories.
Of course, my lurking angels are also cute =v= hehe
T/N: Chu Mingyun coming through your window after searching your perimeter: Shiyu~ I’ve come to steal your innocence. I think he’s starting to fall for Su Shiyu. And then lets his men embezzle money from the casino case under Su Shiyu’s nose and said such a rude thing about the emperor HAHAH. That Chu Mingyun tried to install assassins in Shiyu’s house, he’s pretty ruthless. Another update so quickly because this one was a lot easier to translate, but the next one will take a few days because more politics incoming. Edit: Fixed problems with footnotes. Apologies!
1. 清月夜 – this may be a reference to Li Yu’s poem 《玉楼春》, the last stanza of which reads “待踏马蹄清夜月” but I’m uncertain. If it is, this is even more proof that the current season is spring.
2. The author used ‘音节’ (Yīn jié) here which translates to syllable, although I suspect it’s a typo for 音阶 (Yīn jiē) which is the term for musical scales.
3. 采花 – a euphemism for sneaking into a house at night to rape someone.
4. 眉眼带笑 – refers to expressing humour in the curve of one’s eyebrows or the light in one’s eyes.
5. 主上 – more respectful term for superior compared to 主子 that you commonly see. Not to be confused with the ‘大人‘ that is the ‘Master Chu/Master Su’ address these two use for each other. Dust Bunny translated those as ‘Your Excellency Chu’ etc. but I find it too cumbersome.
6. Jingji aka. Gyeonggi is a term for part of Korea when it was known to the Hans as Goryeo. It includes the modern-day Seoul. At this point in time, I believe the Liaodong Peninsula is under Han rule, I’ll edit if we find out otherwise.
7. Right Fufeng – 右扶风 (CE 104-220), One of the Three Qins (三秦), three of the Eighteen Kingdoms formed from the division of the Qin dynasty after the collapse of the empire in 206 BC.
