久久久久久

When Hua Zhu Yu arrived at Liang Province, it was already the dusk of the 9th day. As the sun sank down, the sky above the Liang Province seemed to have been burned by a wild fire – red and miserable. The mule riders, the people carrying luggage, the people lifting a carriage were all walking toward the city under the bleak sunset.

Just at this time, the sound of a gong rang out. The large gates to the city were about to be closed. The horse Hua Zhu Yu was riding on neighed and then rapidly galloped through the half-closed gates. Behind her, the heavy noise of the large doors closing sounded. She pulled on the reins and then looked at the soldiers on the towers. She didn’t recognize them.

She rode all the way, pa.s.sing by familiar streets that she had walked over a hundred times. Even if she were to close her eyes, she would not get lost. She finally arrived at a residence with the four words ‘The Loyal Hua Residence.’ The four words were personally written by the emperor. However, the front of the residence was not as busy as it had been before. There was only the coldness. The vermilion-colored door was closed shut and two long seals were stuck on the door.

Hua Zhu Yu lifted off the veil and stared at the door for a long time before pulling the reins and trotting away.

In the east of the city’s w.a.n.g Sun Lane, there was a wine shop called ‘Drunken Beauty.’ This wine shop’s wine was Liang Province’s most mellow wine, and so, there were many customers. However, after the previous winter, they didn’t make as good of wine as before. Most importantly though was that the originally beautiful manager always wore a frowning expression as though someone had owed her 2,000 silvers. Slowly, ‘Drunken Beauty”s popularity fell and recently, they had decided to close.

Hua Zhu Yu rode to the wine shop. When she saw the closed doors she frowned and jumped off her horse. She circled around to the other side of the wall and flipped over the wall.” She landed with a loud ‘putong‘. Hua Zhu Yu frowned again. She had flipped over this wall many times but this was the first time in which her movements were so large.

“Who goes there?” A cold voice called out when they heard the noise.

She was a female that was bright like a peony and shining like the sun. If she were to smile, she would definitely be dazzling. However, her face was filled with depression and she wore a plain-colored robe and her hairpin carried a small white silk flower. Her gaze landed on Hua Zhu Yu and she coldly yelled: “Where did this thief come from?”

Hua Zhu Yu ignored her words and slowly said: “I want a flask of ‘Falling Flower Heavy Mist’ as well as you clean and light dishes. Send people to the door to pull my horse inside and feed it well.” Hua Zhu Yu walked over to the female. She hadn’t rested at all during the journey and was extremely fatigued and hungry. The plain-robed female immediately fell into a daze as she saw Hua Zhu Yu walk over. A faint sunlight shrouded the figure – this was a scene in that the plain-robed female had dreamed of countless times.

“You...you are...” She open her eyes wide in disbelief. Her eyes had long ago been filled with tears.

“Dan Hong, I’ve returned!” Hua Zhu Yu softly said with a sigh.

Hearing a familiar way of talking and a familiar voice, Dan Hong’s whole body began to tremble. She walked forward and took of the veil on Hua Zhu Yu’s head. When she saw the face behind veil, that delicately carved jaw, that pair of clear eyes, those beautiful lips, Dan Hong completely fell apart. As a bird would to a forest, she rushed into the arms of Hua Zhu Yu and cried herself into a complete mess. It seemed as though a whole lifetime’s worth of tears had been cried out.

Hua Zhu Yu lightly patted Dan Hong’s shoulder and said: “Dan Hong, you’ve become thinner.”

If she hadn’t personally seen her, then she really wouldn’t have believed that the female who was formerly dressed in a red robe and who had played the qin for her on the battlefield would grow so thin as though she had been gravely wounded. Her eyes swept across the hair of the female in front of her and stopped on white silk flower.

“Dan Hong, who died? Could if be that houye already...” Hua Zhu Yu’s heart twisted in pain and her face had already become pale white.

(TL: Ancient Chinese people have a custom of wearing white flowers to mourn for the dead)

Didn’t they say that the execution would be 10 days later? Or could it be that they had pushed the date forward and that she hadn’t arrived in time?

When Dan Hong heard, a complicated expression appeared on her face. She took the white silk flower from her hair and threw it onto the ground.

“Houye is fine, general doesn’t need to worry. I had originally worn this flower for you! If you were fine, why didn’t you tell Dan Hong? You don’t know how I’ve pa.s.sed these days! If it wasn’t for houye helping me and telling me that general still had a wish that needed me to complete, I’d would’ve followed you early on.” Dan Hong softly said. Her black eyes flashed with a sliver of deep resentment.

(She means to follow HZY to death also, so basically suicide)

Hua Zhu Yu closed her eyes. Her face wore an apologetic expression.

(The next paragraph little confusing, so the italicized ‘she’ is HZY)

Dan Hong was actually clear about Hua Zhu Yu’s thoughts. She had dropped several hints before that the two of them could not be together and had let her give up on that mindset. Dan Hong had agreed before. She had thought that she had come round, and had not thought that Dan Hong would still be persist in chasing for an impossible love. Her father had told her many times to never lead out her real ident.i.ty. She had actually done this very well. Not even Dang Hong and her Pin, An, Kang, Tai four personal guards had found out. However, she had never thought that she had still left this love debt! She had originally thought that she would never use this ident.i.ty to appear again as to let Ying Shu Xie’s death make Dan Hong formerly give up. However, she hadn’t thought that Dan Hong’s love would be so deep!

How should she deal with this!?

“I...” Hua Zhu Yu opened her mouth and closed it again. She didn’t know what to say.

Dan Hong rubbed the tears off her face and then lifted her eyes and said: “General, come inside. You should first bathe and then eat. After a while let’s talk.”

Hua Zhu Yu nodded her head and then followed Dan Hong into the room.

The servants had already prepared the meal. Hua Zhu Yu ate and also began to understand the current situation in Liang Province from Dan Hong’s words.

It was said that the government originally wanted to send Hua Mu to the capital for the execution, however, as the distance from Liang Province to the capital was too far and they were afraid of some accident happening, they decided to have the execution in Liang Province. However because Hua Mu had guarded Liang Province for so long, he had earned the favor of the people. These days, countless people had been begging for Hua Mu to be released from the punishment. And thus, for the fear that the citizens would revolt, they sent 20 thousand soldiers from the capital to replace all of Liang Province’s soldiers.

With this type of situation, the execution ground will be heavily guarded.

“Dan Hong, how is the orphan army? How are Pin, An, Kang, and Tai?”

“The army is fine. The government is only mainly capturing the generals under the command of houye. As Pin, An, Kang, and Tai are general’s personal bodyguards, they should be captured, however, they left the army long ago.”

Hua Zhu Yu nodded her heard. If she herself had been in the army, she would’ve probably been captured as well.

“Dan Hong, bring a ink brush, ink, paper, and an ink stone over.” Hua Zhu Yu quietly said.

Dan Hong prepared the materials. Hua Zhu Yu wrote a letter. Afterwards, she took out a small stamp from her robe. She dipped it in ink and then stamped it onto the end of the letter.

She directly controlled the orphan army. However, even though she was under the command of Hua Mu, her orphan army had not become part of the Hua family’s army. Perhaps her father had guessed a situation like this would arise sooner or later and had thus made it this way?

Her stamp didn’t have words on it, however it had a small flower. This wasn’t the government’s stamp, rather her own stamp. It was used to mobilize her five hundred elites. Those five hundred elites were a group that had experienced life and death together with her in the West Liang Desert. That time, if she hadn’t forced the enemy back through many strategies, they would’ve already been buried in the desert long ago. They had vowed to follow her the rest of their lives, thus they created this stamp. As long as this stamp has been used, even orders from the government would not be of use. She had originally believed that she would never have to use this stamp, yet the events that happen in life are hard to guess.

Hua Zhu Yu rolled up the letter into a small paper tube and said to Dan Hong: “Do you still have those pigeons?”

Dan Hong nodded and waved a pigeon over. She tied the paper tube onto the leg of the pigeon and then released it into the sky.

For clarification as this chapter was a little confusing, Hua Zhu Yu is Ying Shu Xie and in this chapter she is dressing up as Ying Shu Xie *not* as Hua Zhu Yu.

There are also a couple customs that I didn’t address in the chapter. The first is where Hua Zhu Yu pulled a stamp out of her robe. Ancient Chinese people normally kept things within their robe. It was basically a pocket. The second is where Hua Zhu Yu sent the letter. The ancient Chinese had the habit of training birds, and then placing letters within paper tubes and then tying it to the birds leg. The bird would then fly to the destination that they want it to go to.

Also, I messed up on the 16th, 17th and 18th chapters where I introduced Kang Laosan and Pin Laoda. They are from Ying Shu Xie’s 4 personal bodyguards: Pin, An, Kang, and Tai. ‘Laosan’ in Chinese is directly translated to ‘old third.’ It basically means the third which fits as Kang is the third of the four. ‘Laoda’ is directly translated to ‘old big’ which makes him the first. As such, I’ve changed their names to ‘Kang the Third’ and ‘Pin the First.’

[Hint quote from chapter 18: “Pin the First only felt that this person’s words made him mysteriously think of another person. He felt an empty sort of pain in his heart.” Just realized that Pin the First was thinking about Ying Shu Xie when he heard HZY’s words, as HZY is actually YSX]

My apologies everyone >.