Life: A Black and White Film (一生一世，黑白影画)

Chapter 2.3 - The Person at the Foot of Mercy's Seat (3)

She and Agnesa walked along the muddy road, avoiding puddle after puddle.

At the corner of the street, they turned, arriving at their destination.<>Copyright of Fanatical, hui3r[dot]wordpress[dot]com. If you are not reading this from hui3r[dot]wordpress[dot]com, the translation has been taken without consent of the translator.

Cheng Muyun led them inside to the first level. The shop owner was staring at a small, old and worn television. Seeing them, he stood and exchanged a few words with Cheng Muyun in a language Wen Han was unfamiliar with before calling out some instructions through the black curtain behind him. A young woman came out and, pressing her palms respectfully together in greetings to the two of them, she spoke a sentence in the local language. Then blushingly, she lifted her head to look at him. She was waiting for him to translate.

Cheng Muyun tilted his chin and motioned with it. "She is telling the two of you to go upstairs."

After stating this, he pulled over a chair and sat down, leaning his side into the chairback in a posture that indicated he would patiently wait for them.

Walking upstairs, the two of them saw four little rooms partitioned only by thick curtains.

The two rooms to the left and right were both occupied. When they arrived upstairs, a girl wearing a black, surgical-style face mask happened to be stepping out from one of the rooms next to where they were, carrying a tray of dyes in her hands.

Wen Han and Agnesa each chose a room. Lifting open the curtain, Wen Han stepped inside and then, rising up onto the tips of her toes, closed up the curtain's gap again. She turned around to see a simple bed, and spread on it was a blanket adorned with an Indian-style design.

Only a single, thick curtain separated this room from the adjacent one, and she could clearly hear the customer inside the other room laughingly asking something in, as before, a language she did not understand.

While she was still hesitating over whether this bed was clean or not, behind her, a figure lifted open the curtain. "Remove your top and lie down on there." Turning in surprise, she saw a familiar pair of eyes. Although he was wearing a black face mask that concealed more than half of his face, she still knew it was him.

Her mouth opened slightly, and her heart began to jump erratically.

Narrowing his eyes, Cheng Muyun set his index finger against the outside of the black face mask.

It was obvious he was warning her not to make any noise, that next door there was another customer, and that just a few steps away, in another room across from her, was Agnesa.

"What... what are you doing here?" Her voice was very light, as if she was being a thief here.

Setting a tray, which held the dye and a hot towel, down onto a low table, he sauntered over to her.

She stepped backwards, bumping into the bed.

He lifted up the hem of her shirt, but she held his hand down, glaring at him powerlessly.

Leaning forward, he whispered in her ear, "Look, there is a bed here. Every customer here does the same."

Wen Han hesitated. Yes, those words were correct, but—

He did not give her any further opportunity for wavering. Removing Wen Han's cotton, long-sleeved t-shirt, he pushed her onto the bed, held her by her lower abdomen and the small of her back, and turned her over. And then, standing beside the bed with one knee kneeling on its edge, he held down her right wrist and felt for a tube of dye.