Faraway Wanderers Novel (English Translation)

Extra 2: A Beloved, A Confidante

People in jianghu were making a terrible fuss, but who had actually seen the Lapis Armor’s key before?

Wen Kexing had.

He recalled that the ‘key’ that had initiated countless bloody tempests had actually been only a cun long, thin as a cicada’s wing, and weighed practically nothing in the hand, like some kind of oddly-shaped, beaded flower that a young lady would wear in her hair.

What a terrible flower.

Atop Fengya Mountain, fierce wind blew at Wen Kexing’s long robes. His palm was bruising. The Hanged Ghost had just died by his hand; his corpse had already fallen beneath the cliffs, gone, and from that point on, there would be even more people hiding bodies there.

Mortal humans cannot enter this land of evil spirits at will?

Very well! I, in a shell of mortality, will nudge this spirit world over for you to take a look.

He opened his hand and flung. The lightweight key had turned into bits of dust in his palm, falling into the infinite depths of the cliffs below.

“Ah-Xiang, let’s go.”

He situated himself into orientation of a watching bystander, then brought his little girl with him to hike through jianghu for over three months, waiting for various people to make their appearances. Within those months, he went from lands of luxuriant forests and growing bamboo, to passing through seas of yellow sand and desert, to drinking a sip of a sunny day’s snow, then to the fair hands of this brothel beauty, filling his lungs with the cosmetic fragrance of pear flowers.

Afterwards, in Jiangnan, he came across a vagrant that was sunbathing as he leaned against the corner of a wall.

Vagrants were nothing strange. What was strange was that he noticed a faint light hung in the eyes and condensed on the lashes of the man, then felt like something had stuck into his heart, as if he had witnessed the rise of peace and crush of defeat therein. Love and hatred acquired over generations, gratitude and vengeance gained since time immemorial — all that had been pressing heavily down upon his chest was lightened a tad, beyond his control.

“All my life of being down and out, I return to the inside of the goblet…” he suddenly recited.

“What?”

Ah-Xiang was a dumb girl that didn’t understand dogcrap. She couldn’t even comprehend the words of humans clearly, to say nothing of any sorrowful past happenings or plaintive anxieties of the present year. He had no choice but to gloss over it with a smile.

Against expectations, Ah-Xiang leaned full out the window, looked down, and then crisply called out on the next beat: “Young Master, look at that guy. If you say he’s a beggar, he doesn’t have any worn bowl next to him for that. If you say he’s not, he’s been sitting there stupidly all morning without doing anything other than grin like an idiot. Is he an idiot?”

In that moment, Wen Kexing was a teeny bit angered, as if a corner of his thoughts had been pried into, as if this stupid girl had thrown a rock into nice, mirror-like waters, causing ripples to go off in all directions.

He settled himself, however, and gave a collected reply. “He’s sunbathing.”

He noticed that the beggar had listened in on them, actually raising his head to glance at him. They were on a balcony, the street was wide, and the sounds of humans were akin to a boiling pot. With that sort of hearing strength…

Wen Kexing stroked the tips of his chopsticks, his recent languidness vanquished. Those martial arts were not weak. Below the surface of Jiangnan, an undercurrent was fiercely swelling, and it was already a season of turmoil. Those that came and went from every major sect, hailed as famous, were not few — which road had this one come from?