Here is part 2 of Chapter 1 of Huang Ying’s The Silver Sword Grudge. There will be one more installment for the first chapter before moving on to the final chapter.
A lamp, a silver lamp, a rich and powerful lamp.
The person next to the lamp was like the moon, shining white wrist like frost and snow.
The person was no more than twenty, quite young. Very pretty, skin really like frost, like snow. She picked up a jade spoon with her right hand, fiddled with the incense in her King Wen cauldron burner, cheek resting lightly in her left hand, her upper body leaning against the bird-carved table, barely sitting.
Lamplight shone from the side, casting a faint silhouette of her face and making her even prettier.
Outside the curtain, rain gurgled, spring coming to an end. But the spring in her eyes was still flourishing.
Wind suddenly gusted in through the window and blow over the lamp.
The lamplight flickered, wisps of smoke wafting up from the King Wen cauldron wavered.
The wisps of smoke suddenly curled around the lamplight and had yet to waft before her when she wrinkled her nose in disgust and she blew at it.
The wisps of smoke dispersed, drifting out far away but quickly coalesced again and were borne back on the wind.
Her nose therefore scrunched up more, she shook her head but didn’t blow at it again, only sighed. “The spring breeze…”
Only two words out and a “person” followed up with, “The spring breeze is a stranger, why have you entered my gauze curtain?”
The voice came from midair above her head, but there was no one there, only a green parrot perched on a stand.
The green parrot opened its beak, the word “curtain” lingering on its tongue.
The spring breeze is a stranger, why have you entered my gauze curtain? Ai, wasn’t that from Li Bai’s poem “Spring Thoughts”?
What a parrot, surprisingly able to recite Tang poetry. How many parrots were there like that? 100 taels of gold, for a wealthy person, was well worth the price.
Even if it was just a coincidence, it’s worth admiring!
But she didn’t seem to admire it. She didn’t say anything else, only looked up at the green parrot without the faintest trace of a smile on her face, only a look of displeasure.
The wisps of smoke once again assailed her.
She dropped her eyes, even more unhappy!
Too bad, the parrot might fear here gaze, but smoke? Absolutely not.
She whisked her sleeve and the smoke dispersed, but the scent of it already permeated the room, there was no way to whisk it away.
Fragrant, very fragrant. What fragrance? Sandalwood!
A green parrot, sandalwood, weren’t those the things that the “Finely Dressed Marquis” Xiang Zulou liked?
The scent of sandalwood was intoxicating, a parrot that could speak was also quite likable, but she clearly couldn’t stand them.
Then why was she sitting under the parrot next to sandalwood?
No one would willingly do something they detested. For something someone hated, they must be compelled against their will!
The lamp was a solitary lamp, and she too was all by her lonesome.
The door to the room was closed, she could have done whatever she wanted, yet here she was sitting under a parrot next to sandalwood!
No, there was no one else in the room but her, yet her heart was bound by some invisible fetters. It didn’t matter to her if there were anyone else or not, and she was indifferent to being compelled or not.
if she was married to someone who loved her, he would certainly accommodate her and certainly would not leave her out in the cold in the boudoir.
If she was married to someone who she loved, she would certainly accommodate him, and over time it would become natural, she would get used to it, and there would be no problem with a talking parrot next to her ear or sandalwood incense curling up before her eyes.
So when a man takes a wife he’d better choose a woman who truly loves him, and when a woman is given in marriage, it’s best choose a man who truly loves her.
No doubt this is a one-sided sentiment, but when men and women first have feelings for one another, let me ask you, how often is it not one-sided?
The problem is not appreciating the blessings one has and realizing that being loved by someone is a happiness few people can obtain…
If it’s not someone who loves her, and it’s not someone she loved, then what kind of person had she married?
As a matter of fact it was someone who loved her, only it was a quite unordinary person.
Such a person thinks nothing of wealth and was very hospitable, a person considered a real man, a hero in the eyes of others. Such a person always treats his friends well and would not hesitate to spill blood or lop off a head in the name of public righteousness.
If it was in troubled times, such a person would be an outstanding person. Even in peaceful times, such a person would have a good time in the jianghu. Anyone looking to make friends would first consider such a person, and so this person would never be short of friends wherever he went.
And precisely because he has so many friends, such a person would look after his friends and therefore have no time for his own wife.
And precisely because he has so many friends, such a person was always cavorting with a lot of people and never knew this thing called loneliness, and really wouldn’t understand the pain and suffering of loneliness.
Flushed with wine, absorbed in music and song, boisterously and drunkenly singing in a big party with his friends, such a person would never think of his wife, forlorn and lonely in her quarters, having just finished making herself up, asking her husband in a low voice, is the way I’ve done up my eyebrows trendy?
Being such a wife is really not easy!
And it’s no use for onlookers to say anything. Such a person in the end will just slip back into his old ways, and if she starts a fight about it, the man who just got home will just go back out again, and there’s no guarantee he won’t gallivant around somewhere else for a few months to prove his manliness, leaving the wife up all hours of the night fraught with worry.
It’s not that he’s unfeeling, it’s just that such a person even more fears being made fun of!
Inseparable love causes a hero to lose his ambition, what shames a wise man an heroic man won’t do, and this is such a person’s motto.
Perhaps every once in a while such a person will feel that he has wronged his wife, he might feel regretful, but that is probably something that happens years and years down the road.
Such long, drawn-out days, how can someone get through them?
But at any rate, being the wife of such a person, it’s better to behave properly, or else the consequences will be dreadful to contemplate!
A real man can’t guarantee his wife will remain virtuous and filial. For a long time there’s been the saying that a what happens within a household has nothing to do with such a person, one can only sympathize and not be reproachful.
And how can one know that someone who treats his friends well won’t necessarily treat his wife well…
The “Finely Dressed Marquis” Xiang Zulou was such a person, and she was the “Finely Dressed Marquis” Xiang Zulou’s wife, Shu Mei.
How many nights had she spent lonely she didn’t know, but she could count the days Xiang Zulou had been at home.
Tonight, she was once again she as lonesomely waiting. She didn’t care anymore!
Of course she could go rest, but tonight was different. She had to wait like this until the third watch.
After that she might not have to wait anymore, or she could be waiting forever, or it’s possible that even if she wanted to wait there would be no one alive to wait for.
She was by no means a gambler, but she was in no way inferior to any gambler, all because she had not only staked all her personal savings, she was also prepared, when the time was necessary, to pay with her life!
The third watch… The second watch had passed, could the third watch be far behind?
That’s what she was thinking when the displeasure in her eyes somewhere along the way went away, and then she was laughing, laughing at herself for getting angry over that sandalwood, that parrot. So what? She had endured them for so many years already.
She laughed and once again used the jade spoon to fiddle with the burnt sandalwood incense in the King Wen burner.
Her laugh was seeped in bitterness. Could she really be in the mood to laugh?
The sandalwood was almost used up, burning more and more faintly.
Outside the curtain the rain had ceased, but beads of water still dripped here and there from the eaves.
Gradually, she stopped hearing drops of water drip from the eaves.
And the little room was still.
Drumbeats finally sounded, the third watch!
She silently counted the drumbeats and unconsciously set down the jade spoon and stood up. Just then, the unlocked door of the room was suddenly pushed open with a creak.
“Who is it?” Startled, Shu Mei spun around, the look on her face different, her voice also altered.
“It’s me, Pan Yu!” The voice of the person who had pushed open the door fluttered in like a dancing butterfly. He shut the door and bolted it.
“You scared me half to death…” Shu Mei patted her chest, then suddenly lowered her voice and said, “What are you doing here at a time like this? Get out of here quick, if he comes back and sees you, what a mess…”
“If he was going to come back he should have done so around the second watch. The third watch and he’s still not here, you think he will be coming back?”
Pan Yu smiled. Even when he wasn’t smiling he seemed to be smiling. When he really did smile he looked even more charming and dashing.
And he certainly was handsome, around twenty-six or twenty-seven years of age, but when he smiled he looked around twenty-two or twenty-three.
He looked quite happy, almost like he’d transformed into a butterfly, dancing around, circling around twice and then he was right in front of Shu Mei’s face.
Shu Mei watched him in a daze and couldn’t help but ask, “Are you really sure about that?”
“If the one doing were someone else I wouldn’t be, but with ‘Silver Sword Assassin Sun Yu’, what’s there to worry about? Didn’t I tell you, Sun Yu is a killer among professional killers? For him, killing someone is easier than taking a bite of cabbage. Since he promised to finish the job before the third watch, there’s no way Xiang would live to hear the third watch. Besides, those Yu and Cui guys weren’t with him tonight, wouldn’t it be easy for Sun Yu to dispose of him?”
“You seem to know a lot about Sun Yu, do you know him?”
“No, but my gold and silver do.”
“Yours?” Shu Mei lip arched up.
“Shoo, it’s yours, but yours, mine, what’s the difference? Are you telling me you still want to separate this and that?”
Shu Mei chuckled. “I was just joking, and here you took it seriously.” In the lamplight her smile was even prettier.
Pan Yu was nearly dumbstruck. He smiled cheekily. “Who’s serious?”
“Then why did you say it so frankly?”
“If talk is frank, so what, as long as the hands are not.” Saying that, Pan Yu’s hands were really not frank in wrapping around Shu Mei’s slender waist.
Shu Mei suddenly frowned.
“What’s wrong now?” Pan Yu said, flummoxed.
“I’m worried…”
“What are you worried about now?”
“Second and Third Uncle…”
What Second and Third Uncle, they’re just Xiang’s sworn brothers, not blood relations. They’d best just stay out of it, or else by the looks of them, I believe Sun Yu will have some more business coming his way!”
“Use Sun Yu again? That would cost a lot!”
“For that so-and-so Xiang I spent all your years’ worth of private savings, but since Xiang is dead, what need do you have to worry about money? Xiang doesn’t have any brothers, and the remaining property needless to say is yours. Do you know how much he’s worth?”
“I never looked into it. What do you think?”
“In the past I secretly calculated it, Heavens, the numbers just about blew my mind. If you tried to convert it all, sixteen abacuses still wouldn’t do the job!” Pan Yu’s eyes in the blink of an eye seemed to become several times brighter.
Shu Mei was unmoved by this. Suddenly she asked, “You calculated it so clearly, not for his property…”
Before Shu Mei could finish, Pan Yu was already shaking his head, denying it over and over. “No, no…”
He was a smart person after all!
Shu Mei relaxed once again. “Whatever, I did this all for you…”
“I know I know…” Pan Yu’s head shakes turned to nods. His head slanted closer and closer. Quickly his lips touched Shu Mei’s ear and his voice became gentle. “The third watch is over. If we keep talking, won’t the night’s fun be over with too soon?”
Shu Mei’s cheeks flushed.
Pan Yu’s lips pressed closer, voice lowered even more.
What did he say? Shu Mei’s cheeks got even redder!
Pan Yu’s head moved away, but his hands didn’t loosen. Shu Mei’s mouth was parted, as if she wanted to say something, but the words were spinning in her throat as she was taken up in Pan Yu’s arms!
The bed was over there. Pan Yu carried Shu Mei over and set her down and deftly doffed his robe and hung it on the back of a chair nearby.
His hands didn’t stop there. With the next move of his hands Shu Mei’s robe slid slowly down her glistening jade-white shoulders.
Underneath was a bright red bandeau, but her cheeks were even redder. She buried her head in Pan Yu’s chest and threw him a seductive glance, finding it difficult to say, “Blow out the lamp…”
“Ha, I almost forgot.” Though Pan Yu said that, he didn’t really want to, but Shu Mei told him to, so he had to listen.
He laid Shu Mei’s robe on the chairback and turned around with a smile. But before he took another step his smile suddenly froze. Behind him, Shu Mei at the same time was also struck dumb!
Two people, four eyes, all attracted to the sight of the silver lamp! The silver lamp was still the same silver lamp, but in the chair next to the lamp that Shu Mei had just been sitting in now sat a person!
The person wore black tightfit nightwalking clothes and a black cloth mask covering his face, revealing only two glittering eyes. He was watching Pan Yu and Shu Mei with a keen look, like a sword, a sharp sword that seemed to pierce their hearts.
His right hand rested on his knee, his left on the table, his palm resting on a sheathed sword, a silver sword!
See the sword. Pan Yu’s eyes were truly fixated on it.
“Silver Sword Assassin Sun Yu!” He finally blurted out.
It indeed was Sun Yu. He laughed. The laugh came from his throat, sounding unusually low and deep.
Pan Yu chuckled twice, but it was made between his teeth. In reality he had nothing at all to be happy about, he just laughed because Sun Yu had. Shu Mei wasn’t laughing, hands crossed clutching her shoulders, shrinking back, her eyes already turned to the door.
The door was shut well, how did Sun Yu get in?
She really wanted to know. She asked haltingly, lips quivering, the sound she emitted so low even Pan Yu didn’t know what she was trying to say.
Sun Yu though heard clearly. He laughed again. “The window!”
Such a simple answer Shu Mei was struck dumb again. She was surprised at herself for asking such a stupid question, why hadn’t she thought of that before?
“Oh, the window, Brother Sun came through the window…” Pan Yu hastily put in, just saying whatever.
Sun Yu paid no mind, only laughed.
Pan Yu was baffled by the laugh, but he relaxed. He could tell that Sun Yu’s laugh had no malice in it, but he still wanted to know what was going on.”
“May I be so bold as to ask what makes Brother Sun so happy?”
Sun Yu stopped laughing, eyes gleaming brighter.
“When a person’s down on his luck, he runs into snags everywhere. When he’s in luck, earning tens of thousands of taels of gold is very easy.”
“Brother Sun, I feel the same way.”
“Shu Mei I knew lived here, but where you live, Pan Yu, I don’t know. I originally thought to ask Shu Mei where to find you, but unexpectedly I meet you here. Doesn’t that save me a lot of time?”
“It really does save you a lot of time.” Pan Yu seemed to know full well what Sun Yu meant. He clapped his hands and nodded. “But, earlier when I was at Master Liu’s listening to the report and happened to see you, Brother Sun, it seemed you said things will be settled before the third watch tonight. You didn’t say anything about coming to report to me personally after it was over, so I can’t help being somewhat surprised…”
“You think I came here for that?”
“If not that, could there be some problem with the money? I’ve already paid in full, I didn’t short you a whit…”
“I know.”
“Then, Brother Sun, why did you…”
“To take you two to see Xiang Zulou.”
Pan Yu and Shu Mei heard that and their faces sank. They happened to blurt out at the same time, “He’d not dead yet?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“So then he is dead…”
“You two can still see him when he’s dead.”
At that Pan Yu and Shu Mei’s faces turned even more unsightly. They weren’t idiots, after all.
Pan Yu couldn’t be sure. He stammered, “You mean you’re going to kill us?”
“I’m really sorry.” Sun Yu’s eyes flashed murder.
“Why?” Shu Mei cried.
“2,000 taels of gold.”
“Who gave it to you?”
“Xiang Zulou!”
“He told you…”
“To kill the ones who ordered a hit on him.”
Pan Yu pulled a long face. “You can’t…”
“Why can’t I?”
“We paid you first…”
“Isn’t that matter settled now?”
“Yes, it is, but… Ai! Let’s say all that makes sense, but since he’s dead, why do you…”
“I already promised him.”
“I’m sure this is no problem money can’t handle. We’ll give you more so long as you let us off!”
Before Sun Yu had time to respond, Pan Yu impatiently said, “He paid 2,000 taels, I’ll pay 10,000, how about that… If not, then 30,000 taels! 40,000…”
Sun Yu didn’t comment, just looked at Pan Yu coldly.
“50,000!” Pan Yu’s forehead was beaded with sweat.
“Even 50,000 taels is no good.” Sun Yu’s voice was calm. “I never go back on my word with anyone, not even a dead man.”
Pan Yu was practically on his knees. “Brother Sun, Big Bro Sun, Big Daddy Sun…”
“Pan Yu!” Sun Yu cut him off suddenly. “If you’re a man, stop with the nonsense!”
Pan Yu was quiet, cheeks blushing profusely.
“If you’re reasonable you’ll just kill me!” Shu Mei suddenly cut in. “The money was mine and the idea was mine as well!”
Sun Yu heard that and looked at Shu Mei strangely.
Shu Mei looked calm, with the bold spirit of one facing death unflinchingly on her face.
He looked again at Pan Yu, who was just looking on as if it were nothing.
Sun Yu couldn’t help but sigh. “You laid yourself out, I understand, but if I let Pan Yu off, I really can’t kill you!”
Shu Mei hung her head in despair.
“Sun!” Pan Yu suddenly stuck his chest out.
Sun Yu gave him a look of disdain in return. “What?”
“Don’t push me too far!”
“And if I do, what are you gonna do?”
“I… You must know where you are, who’s gonna let you just run wild around here. Get out of here in a hurry if you know what’s good for you, or else, hah!”
Pan Yu did his best to raise his voice, his voice was strained. “All I have to do is call people in here, and then you watch!”
“Call them if you want,” Sun Yu said, but Pan Yu was speechless.
He hadn’t forgotten that he was half-naked, nor had he forgotten what room he was in, and he hadn’t forgotten that it was already past the third watch.
Like this, in this place, at this time, if he could explain things clearly then he would call people in. But too bad, he really could not. His forehead was dripping with sweat and his puffed up chest deflated. He backed up, then again, and sat on the bed.
Shu Mei unconsciously got close to him. In her mind there was no safer place than next to Pan Yu.
But she was wrong. Pan Yu, yes, did tenderly draw her close to him, but then he shoved her over to Sun Yu and shot away like an arrow in the opposite direction!
He clearly had some martial arts training, he was quick and nimble, unexpectedly extraordinary. If it had been someone else, he would be uneasy to catch.
But Sun Yu was simply a demon incarnate. As soon as Pan Yu moved he sprang up and shot both arms out, his left hand toward Shu Mei and drawing his sword with his right and stabbing at Pan Yu!
Instantly his left hand forked onto Shu Mei’s throat while the silver sword in his right hand stabbed Pan Yu through the nape of his neck and out through his throat.
Pan Yu still had some strength left and kept going forward, the sword leaving his throat and blood spurting out.
He opened his mouth to cry out, but his throat was choked with blood!
he grabbed at air a few times then finally fell down.
Sun Yu didn’t even spare a look at Pan Yu as he stabbed him. He flicked his wrist and flung the blood off the sword and loosened his grip on Shu Mei’s throat.
His left hand had held her tightly, and Shu Mei wasn’t strangled to death.
But she was scared stiff, eyes looking blankly at Pan Yu on the floor, not moving nor speaking.
She really never dreamed Pan Yu would do that to her!
Sun Yu’s hand no doubt could strangle her to death, but Pan Yu’s hand could rip her heart to shreds!
A dead man of course could not come back to life, and a shattered heart was not easily mended.
She would rather Sun You strangle her, if only because no matter what, a dead person would not know pain. She was not dead, but her heart was shattered, her feeling broken into little pieces.
Wasn’t that harder to bear than death?
Sun Yu took two steps back and sat back down as before. He looked at Shu Mei and suddenly asked, “Do you regret it?”
Shu Mei seemed to snap out of a dream. She shook her head. “No, and I don’t hold a grudge toward anyone, not you, not him. If I’m going to resent, if I’m going to hate, I can only resent myself, only hate myself!”
That silenced Sun Yu.
“Do you know who he was to me?”
“Seemed like a cousin.”
“You said seemed, that means you don’t believe it?”
“To be honest, this isn’t the first time I’ve encountered this sort of thing. Strange, it’s always cousins, so I always hear older male cousin, and it always feels a bit…”
“No matter what you think, he really was my older male cousin. I got along well with him ever since I was little. If Xiang Zulou had not appeared, sooner or later I would have become his wife.”
“So then marrying Xiang Zulou was not your intention, but your parents’…”
“No, my parents didn’t force me. They would have let me have my way even if I wanted to marry my cousin, they wouldn’t object, but I was so poor, plus Xiang Zulou at that time was a hero in my eyes…”
Sun Yu nodded in understanding. Perhaps when he was younger he had longed for such a legendary hero-beauty matchup. Shu Mei thought back to those bygone days, the look in her eyes already bleary. “Whenever he spurred his horse past my entrance I just had to look at him blankly, watch him fade into the distance, vanish. Sometimes he would slow his horse and look back and smile at me, wittingly or unwittingly, and I couldn’t help having crazy thoughts, but I never could have imagined that he would really like me, how could I not say yes? I was just scared Dad and Mom would think it taboo and refuse him…”
“So your wish was fulfilled, what else did you want?”
“Yep! I ought to have been satisfied, but in fact I was wrong from the start. A hero in the end is not an ideal husband.”
“It can’t be easy to be a hero. Often you have to take care of others, only then can you think of yourself, but a hero’s time is not as long as anyone else’s. Taking care of others, where is the time to look after oneself?”
Shu Mei sighed with feeling. “I don’t know how he spent his days out there, but I can count how many days he spent at home.”
“So then he did come home at times…”
“Every time he came home he always had a bunch of people around him, always staggering around when he came in the room. If he wasn’t eight-tenths drunk he was at least seven-tenths!”
“Earlier I saw him come back from a banquet, but he looked sober as could be, didn’t seem like he had had any liquor at all…”
“Then you may have noticed in the daytime in the parlor the two sworn brothers waiting for him and his live-in jianghu friends. Even if he didn’t get drunk outside, when he got home he would get drunk.”
“Oh…” Sun Yu said with a faint sigh.
“I don’t know if you’ve taken a wife or not. If you have, right now I think you ought to be home. Yes, I’m not a good woman, but the taste of loneliness is not easy to bear.”
Sun Yu was silent.
Shu Mei looked at him, then suddenly laughed. “You, you’re very strange.”
“You, you’re even stranger, still able to talk about so much.”
“I didn’t expect you to allow me to speak.”
“Luckily what you spoke was not a load of nonsense.”
“To you it’s probably nonsense.” Shu Mei shook her head, suddenly asked, “Why did you let me go instead of just strangling me then?”
“I don’t like nor am I used to killing with my hands.”
“Isn’t holding a sword using your hands?”
“Yes, but it’s still the sword that does the killing.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to understand.”
“Is it that you’re afraid of getting the reek of blood on your hands?”
“I am afraid of that.”
“In other words, you never planned on killing for the rest of your life. When you decide to throw away your sword, you’ll still be clean.”
“Can’t throw your hands away… It sounds silly…”
“You nevertheless want peace of mind.”
Sun Yu couldn’t help but nod. “You, you’re smart.”
“Do smart people do foolish things?”
“People say that emotions can blind anyone. Smart people are no exception.”
(to be continued in Part 3…)