Green Dragon Totem Chapter 6 Part1

[T/N: Merry Christmas! Here's a chapter to celebrate! – LLS]

A lone city by the frontier, as the stars were faint and the moon waning.

The moonlight pa.s.sed through the window, and the sound of the wind infiltrated into the wooden house from the cracks in the four walls, sighing mournful wails.

"…" The youth awoke from his dreams, raising a hand to rub his eyes. Within the haze he saw a figure sitting cross-legged, his back straight, and every inch of muscle stretched taut and shivering, appearing as if it was resisting some pain with great difficulty.

"Master?" The youth arose clear-headed: "Master what happened?"

He nimbly threw himself forward, but in the next moment he was stopped by the young man raising a hand to stop him: "…don't come…"

"Don't tell me it started again?!"

The young man shook his head drenched with cold sweat, probably about to speak, yet came out of his mouth was a barely stifled cry!

The youth was at a loss, his chest rising up and down, and he stared blankly for a few seconds before he was rolling off of the heated brick bed, and ran to a corner of the house to ladle water from the bucket there. However, when he came back in panic with a bowl of water, he saw that the young man was biting his own wrist, the drops of blood as big as beans mixing with his sweat to roll off and fall, evidently in supreme pain.

Under the moonlight on his thin bright and clean back, a blue-green totem was gradually forming, with whiskers around the mouth, and a bright pearl in its chin, astonishingly taking the shape of a dragon!

The bowl of water fell with a crash, and the youth gasped in fear: "Mas… Master, this year's time has started again, exactly what is going on…"

The young man had sunk his teeth deep into his own flesh, blood bubbling out, to stain his elegant profile, which appeared to have some strange malevolence. The youth threw himself forward to drag his wrist away from his mouth, to no avail no matter what he did, worrying himself to the point where the final syllables of his words had risen in pitch: "Master beat me, don't hurt yourself, I'm begging you…"

A bang resounded, and the young man roughly pushed the youth back, and then staggered off the couch, and rushed with a stagger out of the wooden house.

The cold wind swept through the ash-coloured desert, stirring up drizzles of dust and sand, and spread out towards the horizon where the long howls of the wolves echoed in the distance. The young boy climbed up in a single breath and rushed to the door, only to see the young man kneeling on the ground in pain, b.l.o.o.d.y hands desperately grabbing into the sand, and until even the rough grains had mixed into his wounds while he was totally unaware.

The nightmare which came every year, had started again.

His usually perfect, omnipotent, and nearly flawless Master, at this moment seemed hounded by the green dragon totem upon his back, struggling to no avail, as if at any time he could be dragged into a dark bottomless abyss.

The boy grasped the door frame in a death grip, the immense suffering and grief tearing at his five viscera and six bowels until nothing seemed left.

― why am I so useless?

It would be fine if only I could help him…

If only I could be strong, strong enough to protect him…

Shan Chao suddenly opened his eyes, his tightly clenched fist relaxing.

The shining moonlight came into the room from the window, and it was extremely quiet in the inn, everywhere deep in the night completely silent.

He felt a dampness beneath him, and only then did he realise that the sweat from his entire body had soaked the sheets.

Shan Chao got up and took a sip of water, his mind was dizzy, as if he had dreamt of an affair in the past, yet somehow he could not figure out what was it about. He did his utmost to recall those disordered fragments, yet in his mind there was only the boundless desert and bleak moonlight, as well as an endless, mournful cold wind in the wilderness.

He shivered and let out a breath, and abruptly turned his head in alertness.

From the room of the maiden opposite his, there seemed to come extremely light yet peculiar movements.

Dong-dong-dong, Shan Chao knocked lightly several times, raising his voice to ask: "Miss Long? Is something the matter?"

Inside the room Xie Yun's face convulsed, cold sweat dripping, and his hands held broken porcelain fragments in a death grip ― just now in his pain he had somehow grabbed a teacup, and then under the circ.u.mstances where his internal force was completely sealed, had with his bare hands forcibly squeezed the cup until it shattered!

The hollow of his palm overflowed with blood once again, yet he felt nothing at all.

All his senses were fixated on his back, where it seemed that his flesh and skin were bring torn off inch by inch, every vein and muscle torn apart and exposed to the air, and then drenched with the strongest of scalding wines, painful enough to drive people insane.

The immense and complex Green Dragon Seal, unhurriedly floated into appearance upon that thin and graceful back.

"Miss Long? Are you alright within?"

Xie Yun sucked in a breath ― his entire skeleton immediately gave out kka cracking sounds, and his shoulders, elbows, and other joints broadened and grew, appearing as if his entire body had grown two or three inches. That was because the immense pain had prevented his bones from continuing in their shrunken state.

"It doesn't matter," Xie Yun hoa.r.s.ely said, though his voice was slightly unsteady, yet it was extremely calm: "I have troubled Master to ask, I am fine."

Shan Chao heard it and found it slightly strange, yet he could not push the door open and look, and could only stare at the tightly closed wooden door of the inn before him, as a strange feeling surface in his heart.

― as if he had gone through a similar and familiar scene in his dream.

A wooden house in the middle of the wind and sands of Mobei, gasps and struggles under a moonlit night, and a youth clinging to a door frame, a feeling which had sunk into the marrow of his bones and even his soul, that of helpless grief and suffering…

"…if you do have needs," Shan Chao abruptly opened his mouth, and said in a curious coincidence: "Please… please do inform me, at least let me help with something…"

The moment the words left his mouth he stopped, suddenly aware of how rash he was.

The inside of the room was quiet for a long time.

On the other side of the door, Xie Yun leant against the wall, the ice-cold moonlight shining on his slightly distracted, exhausted face.

"Thank you," he replied only after a long time, and if one listened closely, the dissipating final syllable seemed to hide a fragment of sentiment and gentleness.

"But there is really no need, I am fine."

Outside the room, Shan Chao lightly closed his eyes.

The next day, West Lake.

Xie Yun was clothed in white, draped with an ink-black outer robe, reclining alone aboard a small boat, one hand touching the waters in boredom, as he watched the pleasure boats riffle across the lake surface.

It was already the sixteenth day since they left Chang'an.

Half a month ago they had killed their way out of the Xie manor that night, and after hiding themselves in the city of Chang'an which had long closed its gates, on the dawn of the next day when the skies were brightening they had then disguised themselves and snuck out of the city.

Fortunately Commander Xie's manor had lost its master, and the inner city's Imperial Guard lost its leader, and had determined not to disclose this information, thus they did not dare to search wantonly within Chang'an City, and the pair could bring along the two Longyuan and Tai-E swords, and head south without a hitch.

― as for why they went down south and did not continue up north, it was because the great Master Shan Chao asked the beauty: "Amithaba, dare I ask for Miss' name and surname, and the whereabouts of your honoured homeland, so that this poor monk may escort you safely home before making other plans?"

The beauty replied: "This master has high virtue. I am surnamed Long, and from my childhood abducted and sold and thus do not recall my parents or my birthplace, only that my native land is in Suhang1."

It was fortunate that the Xie manor's aides were quick-witted, and had given the manor's purest gold, sufficient to cash in for over a hundred taels of silver, and thus the pair were not too hard-pressed on their way down south. It was only that Xie Yun's left hand had been pierced through the palm, and the fees to consult a physician and pay for medicine were considerable, on top of gravely tarrying their journey, thus they had walked for an entire half-month before they arrived in the Jiangnan region.

Jiangnan was prosperous, and the scenery substantially different from the capital. The golden autumn had moderate wind and beautiful sun, the streets filled with restaurants and bars, and young ladies carried slung over their arms entire baskets of fresh flowers to peddle while wandering the streets, as the literati wandered in threes and fours in casualness and dissolution, truly the loose ambience of a golden age.

There were a fair number of leisure boats belonging to rich families upon the lake surface, all draped in muslin curtains, with gorgeous decoration. There were also female singers aboard the pleasure boats performing on the zheng2 at feasts, inviting many pampered sons of wealthy families to fall over each other in eagerness to lean forward, with a fragrant and soft scent of cosmetics drifting with the wind the whole way.

Xie Yun did not have a helmsman, letting the little boat drift freely, with one hand supporting his temples, a cascade of black hair following the arm to fall on the boat's sides.

His clothes were white and unadorned, and he wore a conical bamboo hat veiled with light gauze, making it difficult to make out his face. Yet since he had occupied a leading position in the capital for so long, the grandeur in his languid bearing could still seep from his bones, and the occupants of many a pa.s.sing boat found themselves turning heads repeatedly, watching him in curiosity.

Commander Xie was disinclined to take note, to the point of closing his eyes for a breather.

A moment later when it was about time, only then did he slightly open his eyes.

As expected, upon the lake surface there was a decorated pleasure boat, especially gorgeous and redolent with gold and jade in splendour, sailing past from near quarters little by little.

Even though there were many pleasure boats nearby, this immense and magnificent boat was still especially conspicuous, such that through the entire river channel it pa.s.sed by all the other boats could only give way. Xie Yun's little boat floated past undisturbed, only to hear another boat pa.s.s by not far behind, and within it the sounds of a discussion were floating out: "See, that's the pleasure boat of Jiangnan's richest, the Chen family…"

"Tut-tut, truly a well-deserved reputation…"

"The Eldest Young Master Chen has come out to tour the lake again…"

The Chen family boat slowly sailed closer, and the sound of bamboo and silk instruments came from within, and the green gra.s.s blinds over the window of the ship's hold were pulled open to face the wind, its few occupants making merry with a free and easy banquet3; upon the seat of honour jesting was a young man clad in a brocade gown with arrow-sleeves, and a long sword carried on his back, unexpectedly dressed as a knight-errant of the Jianghu.

[T/N: an example of arrow-sleeves, found on: https://img.alicdn.com/img/bao/uploaded/i4/i1/1094233004/TB2p3dqn8jTBKNjSZFwXXcG4XXa_!!1094233004.jpg_196x196Q50s50.jpg]

Xie Yun's eyelashes dropped, as he calculated the time in his heart.

It was about time for Shan Chao who had gone to get medicine to return.

Xie Yun took off the gauze-lined hat, and in pa.s.sing threw it into the water.

In the next moment the hat floated with the current towards the Chen family boat, and as expected the helmsmen and servants aboard the deck were well-trained, immediately sensing it to some extent, and as if agreeing by chance their heads all swivelled towards this side.

Xie Yun reclined in his wide-sleeved loose robe at the boat prow, not even raising his eyelids, lazily saying with one hand on his temple:

"My belonging has fallen…"

"Tell your family's master to send it back to me."

1 ZH: 苏杭 - contraction for Suzhou and Hangzhou.

2 ZH: 箏 or Guzheng (古箏), also known as the Chinese zither, is a Chinese plucked string instrument. The modern Guzheng commonly has 21 strings, is 1.6 m long, and uses movable bridges on the strings.

3 ZH: 流水席 - 'flowing-water banquet', a banquet where guests arrive at various times and are served with food as they arrive

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