clothes and went down using the ladder. Her limbs were still slightly aching and weak. Seeing Duan Yu looking at the corpses and mumbling endlessly she smiled and asked: ‘What are you saying?’ Duan Yu said: ‘I only feel that having killed this many people, my mind is deeply regretful and uneasy.’

Wang Yuyan muttered: ‘Mr. Duan, you think why that Western Xia warrior surnamed Li gave me the antidote?’

Duan Yu said: ‘This… this… I don’t know either… Ah… I already know. He… he…’ He said the word ‘He’ continuously several times. Inwardly he wanted to continue saying: ‘He must have started to admire you.’ But he thought if he said that a rude and cruel Western Xia warrior like this man had started to admire Wang Yuyan, wouldn’t that offend the belle? She is incomparably beautiful and all people have a love for beauty, if everyone admired her, what would be so rare about this great admiration I, Duan Yu, have for her? Wouldn’t I and every other man in the world be exactly alike? Alas, being willing to die for her, what’s so amazing about it? Let alone I haven’t died for her. Thinking to here, he said: ‘I… I don’t know.’

Wang Yuyan said: ‘Maybe there’re Western Xia warriors coming in large quantities. We must leave quickly. You say where should we go to?’ In her heart she naturally wanted to go find her biaoge, but she found it embarrassing to say it straightforwardly like that.

Duan Yu knew clearly what her worries were therefore he said: ‘Where do you wanna go to?’ Asking this question he felt greatly distressed in his heart. He only waited for her to say ‘I wanna go find my biaoge’ to put on a bold face and say: ‘I’ll go with you.’

Wang Yuyan twiddled with the porcelain bottle in her hand, blushed and said: ‘This… this…’ After a while she continued: ‘The brave men of the Beggar Society have been poisoned with this ‘Sad Weak Clear Wind’ poison, if my biaoge was here, he might take the antidote for them to sniff. Besides, I’m afraid A’Zhu and A’Bi have already fallen into the hands of the enemies…’

Duan Yu jumped up and said loudly: ‘Yes! The two ladies A’Zhu and A’Bi are in danger. We must immediately go forwards and think of a way to save them.’

Wang Yuyan thought: ‘This matter is very dangerous. Depending on the abilities of two of us, how can we save people from the hands of Western Xia warriors? But A’Zhu and A’Bi are trusted maids of my biaoge, I already know that they’ve fallen into the hands of the enemy, how is it possible not to save them? There’s no choice but to play it by ear.’ She then said: ‘Very good, let’s go.’

Duan Yu pointed at the corpses lying in disorder on the ground and said: ‘We must bury them properly and investigate the name of each one, then at the grave of each person we must set up a tombstone. Someday, when their families come here to look for their remains to move to their native lands, there’ll be a piece of evidence.’

Wang Yuyan giggled and said: ‘Okay, you stay here to take care of their funeral arrangements. Dressing and laying them in coffins, burying them, issuing obits, receiving condolences, reading funeral addresses, making couplets, performing memorial services, releasing hungry ghosts, it seems there’re also things like the first seventh day, the second seventh day and so on. After seven times seven equaling forty nine days, you go notify their families’ members one after another for them to come here for moving the remains and reburial.’ (T/n: Things that need to be done in a traditional Chinese funeral.)

Duan Yu noticed that there was a mocking undertone in her words. After thinking, he himself also found what he wanted to do unsuitable. He also smiled and said: ‘In your opinion, what should we do?’ Wang Yuyan said: ‘Burning up everything with a fire, wouldn’t that be better?’ Duan Yu said: ‘This… hum, doesn’t it seem to be too disrespectful?’ He muttered to himself for a long while, then seeing that there was not any better way he had no choice but to go find kindling and ignited the stack of straws in the mill. In a short period of time after they got to the outside of the mill a fierce flame rose high into the air and blazed chaotically.

Duan Yu respectfully knelt down, kowtowed and said: ‘Forms and bodies are impermanent, and cannot be maintained forever. You brothers today lost your lives at my hands. Perhaps that’s the karmic retribution for your previous lives. I hope your souls will go to the Paradise and escape from the sufferings of the Samsara forever. Please don’t blame me, please don’t blame me.’ Only after mumbling for a long while did he stand up.

There were ten horses tethered under the tree outside of the mill. They were the horses that the Western Xia warriors had ridden. Duan Yu and Wang Yuyan each rode a horse and ran along the wide road. They vaguely heard ‘tang-tang’ sounds of gongs and a hullabaloo of people shouting, peasants in the neighborhood was rushing to the mill to fight fire.

Duan Yu said: ‘Oh well, a big mill was burnt because of me, I feel extremely sorry.’ Wang Yuyan said: ‘Why are you saying so many womanish words like this? Though my mother is a woman, she acts straightforwardly and resolutely. When she says she’ll do something, she’ll definitely do it. You’re a man, yet you have so many worries and rules.’ Duan Yu thought: ‘Your mother frequently kills people, uses human flesh to make a fertilizer for flowers, how can I be a match for her?’ He said: ‘I killed so many people like this for the first time and set other people’s house on fire, so unavoidably I feel somewhat frightened and disturbed.’ Wang Yuyan said: ‘Hum! That’s right, someday when you’ve got used to it, you wouldn’t be concerned.’ Duan Yu was startled. He waved his hand repeatedly and said: ‘Absolutely impossible, absolutely impossible. One time is already excessive, how can it be done once more? (T/n: 一之为甚，其可再乎 – Duan Yu took this sentence directly from Zuo Zhuan 左传) Things like killing people and committing arson can’t be done again.’

Wang Yuyan and he were riding their horses side by side. She turned her head and looked at him. Feeling very surprised, she said: ‘In jianghu, things like killing people and committing arson happen every day. Mr. Duan, from now on you wash your hands of them and no longer get involved in jianghu right?’ Duan Yu said: ‘My bofu (伯父 – father’s elder brother) and my father wanted me to learn martial arts. I said I wouldn’t agree to learn anything. Unexpectedly the situation became critical and eventually still forced me to learn. Alas, I don’t know how I should act.’ Wang Yuyan smiled and said: ‘So your ambitions are to study and become an official then in the future become a scholar or prime minister, right?’ Duan Yu said: ‘That’s not true either. There ain’t anything interesting about being an official.’ Wang Yuyan said: ‘So what do you wanna do? Could it be that you, you’re just like my biaoge, day and night wanting to be an emperor?’ Duan Yu asked in surprise: ‘Mr. Murong wants to be an emperor?’

Wang Yuyan blushed because she had unconsciously revealed the secret of her biaoge. After the battle in the mill, in which she and Duan Yu had gone through trials and tribulations together and narrowly escaped death, she felt that his nature was affable and she could talk about just anything in front of him, but the high ambition to wholeheartedly restore the former state of Yan of Murong Fu after all should not be let out. She said: ‘These words were blurted out by me. Please make sure you don’t tell anyone else about them. Furthermore, you shouldn’t mention them in front of my biaoge either, or else he might blame me a lot.’

Duan Yu felt grieved in his heart and thought: ‘Why are you so worried like this? If your biaoge wanna blame you, then just let him blame.’ But he had to reply: ‘Okay, I just don’t care about your biaoge’s unimportant businesses. If he was an emperor, fine, if he was a beggar, also fine, I don’t care at all.’

Wang Yuyan blushed again, feeling that his tone was sulky, she softly said: ‘Mr. Duan, are you angry?’

Since they had become acquainted with each other, Duan Yu had always seen that she totally thought and talked about her biaoge Mr. Murong. This was the first time she had talked to him sincerely with gentle words like this therefore he could not help but feel elated and burst with joy, almost falling down from the saddle. He hastily sat stably, smiled and said: ‘No, no. What am I angry about? Miss Wang, all my life, I will never ever be angry with you.’

Wang Yuyan devoted all of her affections to her biaoge. Even though Duan Yu had disregarded his own life to save her, she only felt grateful for his kindness and admired his heroic and righteous heart. At this moment, hearing him saying ‘all my life, I will never ever be angry with you’ in an extremely sincere manner, just like taking an oath, she suddenly realized: ‘He… he… Is he confessing his affection for me?’ She could not help feeling ashamed to the extent that all of her face became very red. She slowly bowed her head and softly said: ‘You’re not angry, then that’s good.’

Duan Yu was delighted, for the moment he did not know what to say. After a while, he said: ‘I don’t want anything. I only hope it’d be like this forever. This can make me perfectly satisfied. I have no other demand.’ The words ‘it’d be like this forever’ only meant riding two horses side by side with her.

Wang Yuyan did not like to hear him talk like that again, her pretty face slightly darkened, she said solemnly: ‘Mr. Duan, your great kindness of saving my life today, I will never forget. But my heart… my heart has long belonged to another person. I hope you’ll talk with politeness so that at some future time we’ll still be able to see each other.’

These few sentences hit Duan Yu like an extremely heavy stick, making him see flashes of light fluttering before his eyes and almost pass out.

The meaning of her words could not be clearer: ‘My heart has long belonged to Mr. Murong. From now on, you can’t say any word of admiration, if not I can’t see you again. Don’t flatter yourself that because you did me a kindness you can vainly covet me.’ These few sentences were not immoderate at all and Duan Yu also already knew her feelings, but this time she personally said them, therefore when he heard her words, the taste was really hard to bear. He took a furtive glance at Wang Yuyan to see her expression. Seeing that she looked solemn, really no different to the jade statue in the stone cave in Dali, he could not help but feel that a catastrophe was about to befall him. He thought: ‘Duan Yu ah Duan Yu, you’ve already met this lady, but her heart has long belonged to another man. In this life, you’re destined to suffer all kinds of torments and to be indescribably miserable.’

Two of them kept riding side by side in silence. No one said a word again.

Wang Yuyan thought: ‘He’s likely being angry, very angry. But I’d better pretend that I don’t know about it. If this time I apologized to him, later he’d likely always follow me and say these dubious words. If they reached biaoge, biaoge would definitely be unhappy.’ Duan Yu thought: ‘If I say a sentence that reveals my feelings for her once more, wouldn’t that be frivolous and boring, and be disrespectful to her? From now on, Duan Yu’d rather die than say half of any of these sentences again.’ Wang Yuyan thought: ‘He doesn’t say a sentence and just rides the horse straight forwards, most probably he knows where to go to save A’Zhu and A’Bi.’ Duan Yu also thought like this: ‘She doesn’t say a sentence and just rides the horse straight forwards, most probably she knows where to go to save A’Zhu and A’Bi.’

After going for roughly a meal’s time, they arrived at an intersection. Two of them coincidentally said at the same time: ‘Turn left or turn right?’ After exchanging a questioning look, they asked at the same time again: ‘You don’t know the way? Alas, I thought that you knew.’ After saying those two sentences, both of them found this totally amusing and laughed heartily together. The heavy atmosphere of just a moment ago was swept away.

But they knew nothing about affairs in jianghu, after discussing for a long time, they still could not figure out where they should go to save people. In the end Duan Yu said: ‘They captured a large number of the Beggar Society’s members. Regardless of whether they have killed them or are still keeping them prisoners, there’re always some traces we can look for. We’d better return to the apricot forest to see first then talk later.’ Wang Yuyan said: ‘Return to the apricot forest? If those Western Xia warriors are still there, wouldn’t we hurl ourselves willingly into the net?’ Duan Yu said: ‘I think after such heavy rain just now they’re certainly gone. Okay, you’ll wait for me outside of the apricot forest. I’ll quietly go inside to have a look. If the enemies really are still there, we’ll turn around and run away immediately.’

Very soon two of them agreed that Duan Yu would use the ‘Wave Treading Exquisite Steps’ to rush to A’Zhu and A’Bi, let them sniff that bottle of the stinking antidote, then after the detoxification think of a way to save them.

After identifying the way, two of them made the horses run very fast, in a short time they already arrived at the outside of the forest. They got off the horses and tied them to an apricot tree. Duan Yu held the porcelain bottle in his hand and walked on tiptoe into the forest.

There was full of mud inside the forest, the underbrush was still soaking with beads of water. Duan Yu scanned around, and there was not a single soul in sight. He shouted: ‘Miss Wang, there’s no one here.’ Wang Yuyan ran into the forest and said: ‘They’re really gone. Let’s go into Wuxi city to scout for information.’ Duan Yu said: ‘Very good.’ Thinking that he would be able to ride horses side by side with her on another stretch of road, he felt very happy and could not refrain from showing a smiling expression on his face.

Wang Yuyan said in surprise: ‘I said something wrong?’ Duan Yu hastily said: ‘No. Let’s go into Wuxi city.’ Wang Yuyan said: ‘Then why are you smiling?’ Duan Yu turned his head away, not daring to look squarely at Wang Yuyan, smiled and said: ‘Sometimes I can smile foolishly, you don’t need to pay attention to it.’ Wang Yuyan found it funny and also let out some laughs. As soon as this happened, Duan Yu could not help laughing loudly ha-ha.