Wen Kexing, finally found a loyal listener, appreciated the boy’s admiration. Consequentially, he continued to ramble on, from the tales of the owl with the red water bowl, to Jiang Ziya fighting the White Bone Spirit, to Cui Yingying throwing her beauty trunk into the water out of rage, and so on. His strange and interesting tales lasted all the way to Dong Ting.

Once the three have arrived at the Gao’s Manor, they ran into Cao Weining. Zhang Chengling’s appearance surprised him, and he called out, “Oh dear, young master, to where did you follow these two? Sir Zhao was driven half mad trying to find you!”

Zhou Zishu said, “We coincidentally found him running outside on his own so we chased after him. We didn’t have time to warn anyone beforehand, and…”

Cao Weining tugged him inside before he could finish, “You missed the big news, quick, come inside! Everyone is a mess fighting each other right now!”

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Footnotes.

1 From the poem 黍離/Drooping Millet, from the Book of Odes collection compiled by Confucius.

2 Also called Haojing (the original text calls it both Zongzhou Haojing), it’s one of the two settlements that comprise the capital of the Western Zhou dynasty. King Ping moved the capital from Zongzhou to Luoyang, beginning the Eastern Zhou dynasty.

3 Wen Kexing was purposefully mixing up the legends to mess with Zhang Chengling; the tale of the Red Boy is separate from the tale of the white snake. See this and this for synopsis of the stories.

Translator’s Notes. We’re finally back on track! If you hadn’t noticed, I’m also translating Wanderer’s prequel story here. Thank you so much for your patience, I know it’s been a while since the last update ❤️

Chapter 24. Ghost Face

Zhou Zishu had absolutely no interest in all of this; it wouldn’t bother him in the slightest even if they beat each other to death. The only thing he wanted to do at the moment was to find a tavern to resupply his empty wine pot, then look for a place to sleep away the “Red Boy broke the mountain to save White Snake” tale he just heard.

He gracefully slipped out of Cao Weining’s hold and explained. “How about we bring the kid back to Sir Zhao first.”

Cao Weining smacked his head. “Right, I almost forgot.”

The young man turned to Zhang Chengling, his perpetually transparent expression showing a strange sort of pity. He sighed and patted Zhang Chengling’s shoulder, “You have suffered too much for someone so young. Be careful next time, alright?”

Since he and the boy were not that acquainted, the younger just stood there ignorantly. Wen Kexing were quick to react as he cut in, “What is it, are these people still quarrelling over the Lapis Armor? Are they being suspicious of the Zhang family…”

He glanced at Zhang Chengling and stopped there.