Elder Brother Chapter 3
It was difficult to discern He Tingzhou’s expression in the darkness. Xu Feng watched him ponder in silence, his heart pounded in his chest without him realizing, and he just knew that he didn’t believe what he’d said. The back of his clothing had long already been stained with sweat, thinking about how long he’d been planning, and knowing that soon there would be an opportunity to escape, however, he couldn’t let this moment ruin all that he had worked for.
With his heart in a jumble, he simply knelt down, his face lightly touching the lower hem of He Tingzhou’s clothing.
He Tingzhou came back to his senses, and said while stunned, “What are you doing?”
Xu Feng held in the disgust in his heart, and also softened his tone, then said, “I have not attended to the Palace Master for a while.”
As he spoke, he went to undo He Tingzhou’s belt.
He Tingzhou didn’t like it when he acted like a piece of wood on the bed, instead, he really liked it more when he used his mouth to serve him. At first, Xu Feng vowed to die rather than to obey, but after He Tingzhou unhinged his lower jaw, he accomplished the matter. Afterward, he vomited for a while, and for the next couple of days, he couldn’t get any food down. This time he was willing to take the initiative to perform this shameful act, which naturally took a significant amount of determination.
Unexpectedly when He Tingzhou heard these words, his face actually changed color quite a bit, Xu Feng had just grazed his belt, and it was as if a clean as ice and pure as jade[1] young girl was being taken advantage of by a Deng Tuzi[2], both startled and angry, he kicked his foot out towards Xu Feng.
The foot hit him smack-dab in the chest, Xu Feng stumbled back a couple of steps, and with a ‘bang’, he bumped into the soft couch that was on the side, making a loud noise.
Xu Feng lay askew on the couch, shocked beyond description, it was truly indescribable. Coming from the Palace Master of the Ji Le Palace, whom, according to everyone, was lecherous and shameless, without a single inkling of purity left. Now when he offered himself up as a pillow, he was actually kicked away by the foot of the Palace Master, how could it not be surprising? Even Jin Shu who had come in to move the light was stunned.
He Tingzhou had been momentarily desperate, which was why he’d kicked Xu Feng away, and as he looked at the deathly pallor of his face as he lay askew on the couch, he felt both regret and an ache come from within his heart, he then said while scrambling up, “Are you okay? Were you hurt?”
Xu Feng was confused by his cold and then hot[3] attitude and didn’t make a sound for a while.
He Tingzhou was afraid that he had suffered an internal injury, so he took his palm and placed it on his chest, and slowly transferred over his internal energy.
After Xu Feng had taken the antidote, his martial arts had already recovered by more than half, this time he could feel a strand of zhenqi[4] work its way around inside his body, originally there were a couple of barriers that couldn’t be broken through, yet all of them were overcome, one by one, leading him to experience an unspeakable peace of mind.
He Tingzhou saw that his complexion had improved, so he finally stopped worrying, and as he supported him and settled him down in position on the couch, he said, “It’s getting late, you should rest well first, as for other matters… no need to think too much about them.”
He spoke in a very roundabout way, which made Xu Feng even more confused after hearing it. He thought the Palace Master never usually practiced moderation when it came to his lasciviousness, there had been whole nights where he played around with two, and even three people, yet these last couple of months he hadn’t touched him at all, could it be that he was impotent?
He Tingzhou didn’t know what sort of thoughts were going through his head, seeing him stare blankly back at him, he couldn’t help but feel distressed again, so he reached out his hand, yet didn’t dare touch his face, and just said with a sigh, “Wait a bit, for the time being, after a few days have passed, I will tell you everything.”
What did he want to tell him?
And as for his excessive desire to indulge in pleasure, was that already quenched?
If that was true, he would certainly have to go out and buy some firecrackers to celebrate.
Xu Feng thought about this matter wholeheartedly and hadn’t even noticed when He Tingzhou had left. On the other hand, Jin Shu was weighed down with worries, he was deeply afraid that he had offended the Palace Master again, so Xu Feng had to try every way to persuade him, to coax him into feeling more at ease, then he laid down and went to sleep.
He slept until midnight when he heard a ‘pu’ sound of something hitting the window, it turned out someone was tapping on the window with rocks.
Xu Feng quickly woke up, he clambered out of bed with a single movement, then pushed open the window and peered outside, a slender figure standing in the moonlight could be seen, the wind was ruffling her skirt, and she had unparalleled beauty.
Xu Feng was overjoyed, and called out in a low voice, “Clan Master[5] Liu!”
Liu Yue took light, graceful steps, and walked up to the window in a lithe and delicate manner, then she asked while smiling, “Silly boy, the Palace Master isn’t in your room, right?”
Xu Feng’s face heated up, and he said, “Of course not.”
“I heard that recently you’ve become the favorite, the Palace Master swings by the Cui Zhu Pavilion day after day, I’m afraid that I might run into him if I’m not careful, so much so that I don’t dare come around to visit you.”
As for being the favorite, even Xu Feng couldn’t think it through clearly, so he just glanced over it by saying a couple sentences of ambiguous mutterings.
Liu Yue didn’t dig deeper either, and just said, “As for the matter you entrusted to me, it has been taken care of.”
Xu Feng said happily, “Really?”
“On the night of the fifteenth of the eighth month, during the sacrifice to the moon within the palace, all the guards around will be relatively more lax, and there will only be two people guarding the road to the steep cliff, so if you have the skill, there is a good chance you can avoid them and go.”
“Many thanks for Clan Master Liu’s aid.” Xu Feng replied with sincerity.
“No need to thank me. But in the dead of the night, what are you planning on doing by going to the edge of the steep cliff?”
Xu Feng had hardened himself for the past three years inside of the Ji Le Palace, and had actually acquired a skill, he could lie without batting an eyelid, “Have I not already spoken about this with Clan Master Liu? That year when Ji Zhong was experiencing a massive drought, my parents passed away at exactly this particular time, all I want is to find somewhere I can be alone to remember them.”
Liu Yue didn’t know whether to believe him or not, she blinked her eyes, and said half in jest, “I am only afraid that you might take things too hard for a moment, and leap off a steep cliff, if that comes to pass, where will I find another beauty to compensate the Palace Master?”
Xu Feng’s expression dimmed a bit, and said, “If I wanted to commit suicide, I would have just gotten it over with and died three years ago, then there would have been no need to live in degradation up till now.”
“You were really stupid back in those days, all for Mu Rong Fei, who you had no reason to help, such that you dared to offend our Palace Master. It really was because of your foolish stubbornness, that I was willing to help you out and leave you alive within an inch of your life.”
Xu Feng quickly thanked her again.
Liu Yue’s gaze wandered, and she chuckled, “Why do you still call me Clan Master Liu? Are you unable to call me a good Jie Jie?”
No matter how much Xu Feng’s skin had thickened, he was unable to utter the phrase, “good Jie Jie”.
Liu Yue stopped teasing him, and said firmly, “Now that you are the Palace Master’s favorite, when it comes to the day of the sacrifice to the moon on the fifteenth, it could be that the Palace Master will choose you to be his dual cultivation partner.”
The Ji Le Palace practiced an unorthodox type of martial arts that involved dual cultivation between two married ones, practicing on the day of the moon ceremony on the fifteenth, was especially effective, and the benefits were boundless, thus from every grandmaster, down to concubines and servants, everyone wanted to gain the Palace Master’s favor that day.
But this year wouldn’t be the same.
Xu Feng smiled darkly, and thought to himself, “I am afraid that your Palace Master is already impotent, who can he be intimate with anymore?”
However, if he spoke those words out loud, he feared that before the fifteenth even arrived, he would first be silenced with death by the Palace Master. As a result, he endured and didn’t bring it up, so he said, “I have never practiced the martial arts of the Ji Le Palace, so of course I am unable to practice dual cultivation with the Palace Master.”
Liu Yue made an ‘ah’ sound, at this point she remembered that his martial arts had already been crippled by the Palace Master, and her eyes couldn’t help but reveal pity.
Xu Feng simply acted naively the whole time, he held his tongue regarding the fact that he’d taken an antidote, and that he had already recovered his martial arts by more than half. He was no longer the chivalrous, stupid child from three years ago, and didn’t dare to casually trust anyone else.
Liu Yue joked with him again for a bit, and just as she had arrived, she lithely and delicately left.
However, Xu Feng wasn’t very sleepy anymore, he looked at the blue horizon beyond the window, and reached out and grasped the empty air. He had yearned every day, to escape from the depraved hole that was the Ji Le Palace, but now, it was only a step away.
The days passed by quickly and day-by-day the weather grew cooler.
He Tingzhou visited the Cui Zhu Pavilion daily like before, but after the day when Xu Feng gave him a scare, he no longer dared to stay too late. Xu Feng presumed that it was because he was suffering from an unmentionable illness, and could no longer perform those deviant acts. So, during the time he spent with him, he had lowered his guard.
Come to think of it, it was strange, if he was slightly more amiable, the Palace Master would reveal an expression of overwhelming joy, and if it weren’t for the fact that Xu Feng had first-hand knowledge of his exceedingly cruel way of doing things, he would have simply thought that his feelings for him had grown deeper.
It wasn’t easy to endure till the day of the fifteenth, Xu Feng woke up and took a look, it was a gorgeously clear day. The autumn weather was clear and refreshing, and there were no clouds for thousands of miles, if this continued till nighttime, the moonlight would also be very good.
Jin Shu made a round outside, and unexpectedly wore a deep frown when he came back. Xu Feng found out when he asked, it turned out that the Palace Master had selected Young Master Lin to serve him that day. Young Master Lin was originally a child from a wealthy family, but because he fell for the Palace Master’s good looks, he had gone as far as to voluntarily come to the Ji Le Palace to become a male concubine. Xu Feng had seen him from afar several times, his looks and manner truly exceeded those beside him, so it wasn’t strange that the Palace Master had selected him.
However, Jin Shu was very dissatisfied and said straightforwardly that his own young master really hadn’t had his heart set on it, such that he handed over such a good opportunity for no good reason. Xu Feng only thought about running away at night, where would he have the capacity to be love rivals with someone else? So he just absentmindedly placated him with a couple of phrases.
The fifteenth of the eighth month was originally the Mid-Autumn Festival[6], but at the Ji Le Palace, it held another significance. They held a ceremony to sacrifice to the moon, after which the Palace Master practiced dual cultivation with a married one whom he had chosen, others would indulge in pleasure to their hearts’ content. It didn’t matter if it was the Palace Master’s concubine or a disciple of the palace, as long as they were to each other’s liking, they could reciprocally experience sexual pleasure, not even the Palace Master would be an exception.
Xu Feng hated such salacious affairs to the extreme, the sky had not darkened yet when he tightly closed the door to his room, he had already sent Jin Shu away, so he sat alone waiting in his room. He mulled over the escape route several times, and was not aware of any danger of anything going wrong, so he proceeded to wait till the moon was in the middle of the sky before taking action. Who would’ve known that when the sky started to darken, there would be a flurry of knocking on the door coming from outside?
The ‘knock knock knock’ sound felt as if they were knocking on his heart, which startled him so much that he sprung to his feet, and asked, “Who is it?”
“It is me.” It was the voice of He Tingzhou.
Xu Feng quietly groaned, but he couldn’t open the door no matter what, so he assumed a drowsy and sleepy manner, and said, “I have already gone to bed, the Palace Master should come back tomorrow.”
He Tingzhou was quiet, he replied softly with a ‘mn’, and sure enough stopped knocking on the door, soon afterward, there was a loud crash, it turned out that he’d just directly kicked the door down and entered.
To feign sleep, Xu Feng had long extinguished the candle inside the room, but the moon on this night was very bright, and the moonlight flooded the room brightly, it illuminated He Tingzhou’s snowy-white face, he had long brows and sharp eyes, and his refinery and elegance were without peer. He strode into the room, casting a sidelong glance at Xu Feng, and asked, “Why are you sleeping so early?”
He took another measuring look at Xu Feng, and said strangely, “Yet, your clothes are still on properly.”
Xu Feng’s whole body chilled, he braced himself and said, “I presumed that the Palace Master would come today, so I was waiting for it this whole time.”
These words of his were contradictory, and yet, He Tingzhou didn’t doubt him, instead, he took another step inside. Xu Feng could smell the scent of alcohol and knew that he’d been drinking.
“Is the Palace Master drunk?”
He Tingzhou smiled faintly, and said, “If I didn’t drink some alcohol, I wouldn’t have dared to come and find you.”
“The Palace Master has already selected someone else to dual cultivate with, why would you come here to me?”
He Tingzhou looked at the bright moon outside of the window, and said while grasping Xu Feng’s hand, “It’s the night of the Mid-Autumn family reunion[7] if I didn’t come to see you, then who else would I go see?”
As he spoke, he reached out his arms and held Xu Feng in a full embrace.
Xu Feng was unprepared, so he couldn’t help but stumble back a couple of steps and was conveniently pressed onto the bed. Continuing, he could feel the other man’s fingers feeling his face, as he muttered, “Your appearance is really like… It’s laughable that I couldn’t recognize…”
Did he mean to say that he looked like a certain person?
Xu Feng felt uncertain, yet He Tingzhou held him even tighter, he could hear him talking next to his ear, “I have been separated from my family since my childhood, being brought to the Ji Le Palace by my master, and learning the rules of the Ji Le Palace, I have always done as I pleased, only caring about my own happiness.”
“That day when I happened to meet you on the public road, if I had used the sword and had killed you…” As soon as he mentioned the word “kill”, his voice started to tremble ferociously, and it seemed as if he couldn’t continue speaking, after a moment of silence, he said, “Then there would have been nothing for the future.”
His voice gradually became lower, “It is a pity…”
Xu Feng waited for quite a while, yet he couldn’t see what was such a pity, he turned and took a look, but saw that He Tingzhou had already fallen asleep leaning on him, with the smell of alcohol on his breath. His hand was still caressing Xu Feng’s cheek, like the close and intimate acts of a lover.
Xu Feng felt a burst of hatred in his heart and quickly swatted the hand away. He looked outside the window at the color of the sky, it was already time to leave, but because he was afraid that He Tingzhou was tricking him, he didn’t dare up carelessly, and just gently pushed him away a few times, then he cried out, “Palace Master!”
He Tingzhou was in a deep sleep, the moonlight fell upon his dark hair, which was as black as ink, his neck was slender and fair. Xu Feng looked at his sleeping countenance, and suddenly came up with an idea, he thought, “Why don’t I take this opportunity to kill this perverted crook who does all kinds of evil deeds?”
If he couldn’t accomplish this, then there was no doubt that there was only death, besides, even if he got lucky and succeeded, he feared that he wouldn’t be able to run from the clutches of the Ji Le Palace. But if he could have the chance to get his revenge, why would he need to care about that?
There weren’t any sharp blades in the room, so Xu Feng looked around, and happened to see the candle holder that was placed on the table. He freed himself and got off the bed, then pulled off the candle and held the candle holder in his hand. The candle holder was sharp on one end, and if he used it with some inner strength, it would be enough to kill a person.
Xu Feng’s heart started pounding fast, he didn’t dare delay another moment and walked to the edge of the bed step-by-step. His lame right hand hung down by the side of his body, he raised his left land high and stabbed towards He Tingzhou’s chest…
It was at this moment, He Tingzhou suddenly opened his eyes.
Xu Feng’s hand immediately froze in midair.
He Tingzhou’s eyes sparkled, it looked like he was still somewhat drunk, and he looked at Xu Feng. He clearly saw the sharp tool in Xu Feng’s hand, and yet he didn’t say even a word, he just very slowly, very slowly smiled, his eyes were filled with gentleness and softness. Afterward, he just closed his eyes and continued to sleep deeply.
The room was still and quiet.
Xu Feng couldn’t tell if He Tingzhou was really drunk or if he was faking it, he clutched the candle holder in his hand firmly, nevertheless, he couldn’t stab him. A bead of sweat rolled off the tip of his nose, and dropped onto the hair on He Tingzhou’s temple, under the moonlight it shone brilliantly, making it seem as if it were a teardrop.
Xu Feng’s heart trembled, the candle holder in his hand fell, and tumbled into the corner of the bed, making a loud and clear ‘clang’. He was greatly startled, and raised his eyes to look at the person on the bed, he saw that He Tingzhou was still fast asleep and hadn’t woken up, he hadn’t even raised an eyelid.
As long as someone practiced martial arts, they should be very sensitive to noises, how drunk did he have to be, to have this level of non-reactiveness?
Xu Feng felt that this situation was all the more strange, and didn’t even dare bend over to pick up the candle holder, once he was two or three steps away from the edge of the bed, he hastily scrambled out the door. He presumed that if the Palace Master was faking being drunk, he was sure to have immediately dispatched someone to catch him but other than scaring apart a couple of mandarin ducks[8], in the end, nothing happened. When he reached the path by the cliff–side, he saw what Liu Yue had spoken about, there were only two people keeping watch. And because it was the dead of the night, the two people were drowsy, and they were lax as they stood guard.
When Xu Feng reached this point, he finally calmed down once again, he picked up a rock and held it in his hand, and cast a hidden weapon technique to throw it, he took advantage of when those two were distracted and put his qinggong to good use to move past them. His skill in martial arts was average, to begin with, and after not cultivating for three long years, as a matter of fact, it wasn’t very smooth, but luckily those two people were also mediocre at martial arts, so they actually didn’t sense his presence at all.
Xu Feng made his way through this last critical juncture, and immediately shot out his feet and ran like mad, he reached the edge of the steep cliff in an instant. At this moment, the moonlight was like silk, the mountain breeze whistled by, and the space between the cliffs was filled with a gauze-like fog, the scenery was surely beautiful and vast.
The Ji Le Palace was built on the side of a mountain, with the back of it facing sheer cliffs, there was only one way in or out, which was usually heavily guarded, and ordinarily hard to escape from. Xu Feng was also determined, two years ago there had been another old servant he was on good terms with who had come down with a serious illness, and he had learned from him that beneath this steep cliff, a man-made path had been cut out, leading directly to the bottom of the mountain. Although it was called a path, in reality, it was just some shallow notches cut into the side of the cliff, that just allowed people to gain a foothold.
If you were extremely skilled at qinggong, you could just tread on these notches to climb down, but as for Xu Feng, the fact was that he was surrounded by danger, and taking any slight misstep, would mean falling so that his body would be smashed to pieces with his bones ground into powder. But compared to going back and suffering through the rape and insults of the Palace Master, he was willing to take risks.
He removed his belt, and tied one end to a boulder at the edge of the cliff, he wrapped the other end around his left-hand several times, then he nimble-bodily descended down the steep cliff.
The wind was strong as he descended the cliff, blowing the belt back and forth, Xu Feng fumbled about for a while, before he found a place where the rock was sticking out, and set his foot down on it. It was a pity that the belt was only so long, as he continued, there was no way to rely on any external factors, so he could only rely on himself. His right hand was void of energy, so while his feet hung in midair, he could only use his left hand to steady himself, which went without saying, was among the hardships and peril. The cliff had barely any trace of human activity, several places were covered in moss, so when he stepped down it was both wet and slippery, every step he took stirred his soul.
Xu Feng clenched his teeth tightly, and carefully probed about, eventually climbing down bit-by-bit.
He was getting further and further away from the top of the cliff, yet it still seemed like a bottomless abyss without an end was beneath his feet, he was neither touching the sky nor the ground, and there was only the sound of the lower hem of his clothes fluttering in the wind. Before he knew it, the moon had gradually moved west, and from the horizon arose a glimmer of sunlight.
Xu Feng hadn’t slept for the whole night, and by this time he was already exhausted, he could only rely on the remaining vestiges of hatred in his heart, to just force himself to keep going despite the difficulties. On one hand, he thought about when he would become better at martial arts in the future, he would definitely come back to find the Palace Master and kill him in revenge, on the other hand, he was finding a place to gain a foothold, who would’ve known it would be slippery underfoot, and he unexpectedly stepped into empty space.
“Uhh…”
He had already come across several dangerous situations like this before, and had solved them all one by one, but this time his strength wasn’t as strong as it had been before, his left hand trembled slightly, and he couldn’t hold onto the rocks on the side of the cliff anymore.
Shit!
If… if his right hand wasn’t crippled…
He took great pains trying to move the palm of the hand that was hanging down by his side, but could only feel a burst of unbearable pain, at long last his left hand was unable to persevere as well, and it loosened just a bit.
Xu Feng raised his head, the last thing he did was take a look at the sky that was gradually getting brighter, then he slowly closed his eyes.
As he let go, his body plummeted straight down. It was as if only an instant had passed, yet it also felt like a long time had passed, he felt a strand of overwhelming power seemingly come from nowhere, and suddenly hitting him in the waist. His downward momentum was hindered by this strike, after which he continued to fall down, and in the end, it looked as if he had dropped into the water. His back hit solid rock, and it felt as if all of his shaken internal organs were about to break into pieces.
He’d heard that before a person died, their lives would flash before their eyes, and Xu Feng was naturally unable to break away from convention as well. As he was dazed, it was as if he had returned to that summer day from many years ago. At the time, when he was on the road fleeing from the calamity, all around him were victims of the famine, there were many days where he hadn’t found anything to eat, and one time, when he was starving so badly from not eating anything for a full two or three days, he cried himself awake in the middle of the night, holding his stomach as he cried out in hunger.
By that time, his mother and father had already passed away from sickness, but he still hadn’t known what death meant, so it was also too late to be sad for this reason. In actuality, his big brother was by his side, and had reached out his hands and pulled him into his arms.
After all these years had passed, Xu Feng could no longer clearly remember what his big brother had looked like, all he could remember was that his appearance was delicate and pretty, growing up remarkably like their mother. In that kind of hot weather, the young boy who was six years older than him held him in a tight embrace, and hummed a tune in a low voice beside his ear.
“The willow tree lives, whip a top… the willow tree is green…”[9]
Xu Feng listened and listened, and he couldn’t even feel the aching pain anymore, all he could feel was the warmth and calm of the embrace which seemed like it could block all the wind and rain[10] in the world.
Translator: God
English Proofreader: Grumpykit
QC: Xiao
Translator’s Notes:
[1] Clean as ice and pure as jade – 冰清玉洁, something pure and uncorrupted
[2] Deng Tuzi – 登徒子, a famous lecherous character who is not easy to find on Google
[3] Cold and then hot – 忽冷忽热 – alternating, like Katy Perry’s song Hot N Cold
[4]真气, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi
[5] Clan Master – 堂主, the leader or head of a clan or family. There are most likely many clans in the Ji Le Palace sect
[6] Mid-Autumn Festival, 中秋节 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Autumn_Festival
[7] Mid-Autumn family reunion – 中秋团圆, the Mid-Autumn festival is also a time for celebrating family unity
[8] Mandarin ducks – 野鸳鸯, may be actual ducks, or may be a euphemism for people from the orgy
[9] The willow tree… – 杨柳儿活…, this is a real nursery rhyme, you can find the full thing here. Apparently, it is about kids describing their toys.
[10] Wind and rain – 风雨, trials and hardships.
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