Chapter 21 Part1 (1/2)

As much as I tried to keep pace with my translations, clearly something has to give now that a certain drama has exploded into a pocket mania around here. Plus Tong Hua decided to throw what might be one of her longest chapters ever at me, hence chapter 21 is getting split into two parts. It’s either that or you all keep waiting. If anyone ever told me that a novel would take 20 chapters(!!!) before letting an OTP reunite, I would decree that it sucked for dragging it out on principle alone. Yet Yun Zhong Ge so marvelously reveals that the depth of the story is far greater than just the romantic relations.h.i.+ps, which are in fact controlled by such external forces. What will happen once Yun Ge wakes up to discover a truth that might just be worse than what Meng Jue did to her? What will she do when she realizes that she’s not just a victim, there is someone else out there in even more emotional pain than she is in? This chapter is both beautiful and heartbreaking, and even part I is already so satisfying to read.

Chapter 21: One Year Promise (Part I)

Perhaps it was the emotion flowing from Liu Fu Ling’s flute. Perhaps it was Yun Ge’s own desire to stay alive. Whatever the reason, Yun Ge’s injury stabilized and her fever started to break.

The second Yun Ge opened her eyes, she felt someone was next to her looking at her. In her daze, she felt her heart hurting and her body hurting. She unconsciously called out “Jue, I hurt!”, just like when they were happily together and she could complain to him about anything unhappy or upsetting.

The moment those words left her lips, she remembered that Meng Jue was no longer her Meng Jue. She viciously jerked her heart back and turned to look carefully at the person in front of her. It was like Yun Ge had been struck by lightning. She felt her entire world turn upside turn in an instant.

Liu Fu Ling acted like he didn’t hear the first name out of her lips and tenderly said “Just endure it for a bit longer. I’ve asked the doctor to give you pain medication. When the medicine works in a bit, you’ll feel better.”

Yun Ge dumbly stared at him, and Liu Fu Ling looked directly back at her.

In the depth of his dark eyes there was so much inside. With the littlest prodding, Yun Ge would understand everything. But she could not.

She jerked her eyes downward and stared at his waist.

No jade. She breathed a sigh of relief.

Liu Fu Ling held the jade in his hand and placed it in front of her “I rarely wear it.”

She stared at the jade. In her eyes there was stunned shock, there was fear, and there was despair.

Liu Fu Ling silently waited.

After a long time, Yun Ge turned her face away and her eyes fixed on a corner of the room. She coldly and very politely said “We’ve never met, but thank you for saving my life, sir.”

The jade in Liu Fu Ling’s hand hit the floor with a loud crack. In his eyes there was only numb despair.

Her body lightly shuddered.

The golden sunlight shone in from the window and bathed their forms. The warmth appeared to tie the shadow of the man and the woman together.

Inside the room, there was only unending silence so thick it could suffocate even the sunlight.

Her eyes continued to fix itself on the corner of the room. She calmly said “If sir you have nothing else you need, may I rest now?”

He stood up and politely replied “Young lady you have just woken up after a grave injury. I will not bother you any longer. Please don’t worry about anything, the most important thing is to recover your health first.” He bowed towards her and walked out of the room.

She felt her entire heart was empty, her entire mind was blank.

It was as if she took even one step forward and she would tumble down an abyss with no end. So she can only take big steps backward. She can only repeat over and over to herself that her Ling gege is Liu Bing Yi, and he’s already married to Xu jiejie.

It must be, it must be, she must not have made a mistake!

She must not have made a mistake!

…………………………………….

Yun Ge could not get up and move around yet. To keep the pain under control, her medication also contained a sleeping aid so she spent most of her days in and out of sleep. She would be awake for a short time and then go back to sleep.

When she was awake, she didn’t utter a single word, only staring into the distance in a daze.

When Yu An asked Yun Ge what she wanted, what she felt like eating, it was as if she didn’t even hear him talking to her. She said not a single word, and her expression never changed once. If he didn’t know that Yun Ge could talk, he would’ve thought she was a mute.

Yun Ge only wanted to seal herself up so that she had no contact with the outside world. She wanted to hide in her own corner and not move a single inch.

Yun Ge was silent, and Liu Fu Ling was also silent.

Both of them gradually wasted away in their mutual silence. Two people who are so close, yet appear to be so far away.

Liu Fu Ling came to see Yun Ge twice more, but both times Yun Ge continued to stare at the corner and never once looked at him. She responded very politely, but it was her politeness that showed how cold and distant she was.

Every time Liu Fu Ling came to visit, Yun Ge’s condition would take a turn for the worse. One time she even fell back into a high fever, and even Dr. Zhang couldn’t figure out why. She was clearly getting better, so why did she relapse?

From then on, Liu Fu Ling stopped coming to see Yun Ge. He completely disappeared from her sight. Only the serving girl Muo Cha accompanied Yun Ge daily, with Yu An sometimes coming by to check on her living conditions.

That person who turned her world upside down appeared to have vanished, so Yun Ge could continue to repeat to herself that she didn’t make a mistake, nothing that happened was a mistake!

But in her dreams she would remember things, and those memories were vividly clear. In the late night, she could hear the faint sound of a flute playing, the song full of longing.

When she woke up, she would try to forget it all. When she was awake, all she felt was pain, all sorts of pain. So painful she couldn’t think clearly. So all she could not was not think, and forget everything.

One day, after the effects of her medicine wore off in the afternoon, Yun Ge was in a state of half sleep-half awake. She opened her eyes and saw a shadow outside her window pane. She immediately closed her eyes and told herself that she saw nothing, that she knows nothing.

The sun was directly overhead and it was at its strongest peak. The shadow never moved and didn’t disappear. Yun Ge heard Yu An’s voice saying something, and the shadow appeared to order something, and then the shadow disappeared.

It was then that her heart, which was dangling over a precipice, finally relaxed. But then she felt like crying. She told herself that there was no reason for her to feel this way. Why would she cry? That was just a nice man that she’s never met before who happened to save her life. As she said this to herself, her tears landed on her pillow.

From then on, every day at noon, Yun Ge would lay on her pallet after taking her medicine. She ought to be napping, but instead she was extraordinarily awake. Every day at noon, he would always come visit her after she took her medicine. Even separated by just a thin window pane covering, he would just silently stand in the courtyard and never enter the room.

He would arrive quietly, and leave just as quietly.

Sometimes he would stay longer, sometimes he would stay shorter.

One person inside the window, one person outside the window, and with that two months pa.s.sed by.

One night, after Muo Cha fed Yun Ge her medicine, Yun Ge pointed to a chair inside the room, and then pointed outside to the courtyard. Muo Cha thought she wanted to go outside to sit down “My lady, you can’t! You are still gravely ill and need to rest longer before you can get up.”

Yun Ge shook her head and then pointed to the chair again. Muo Cha finally understood and moved the chair outside into the courtyard, despite not understanding why Yun Ge wanted it that way.

Yun Ge looked outside and the closed her eyes and went to sleep.

The next day, when Liu Fu Ling arrived, the room was silent as usual. And as usual, he stood under the blazing noon day sun right outside her window, silently keeping her company.

Even though she didn’t want to see him, but knowing that she was peacefully sleeping inside the room, knowing that she was so close to him and no longer an unknown distance away, it brought him comfort.

When Yu An came to bring Liu Fu Ling back, he noticed the chair outside and frowned. Muo Cha immediately said in a fearful voice “It’s wasn’t that I didn’t put it back, it was my lady that ordered it to be put here.”

Liu Fu Ling was almost out of the courtyard when he heard this and immediately halted. He turned and stared at the window, his gaze so sharp it appeared to pierce through the covering and staring at the person inside.

Yu An happily asked “The young miss has spoken?” Muo Cha shook her head.

Yu An didn’t know what the heck was going on between Yun Ge and the Emperor, and he didn’t dare ask. But since Yun Ge ordered it, he didn’t ask Muo Cha to take the chair away and instead waved her off. Yu An said to Liu Fu Ling “Your majesty, Qi Si reported that Lord Huo has been waiting for you for quite some time in Great Hall.”

Liu Fu Ling ignored Yu An and instead walked over to the chair and sat down without saying a word. Yu An was nervous and he also couldn’t figure out what was going on. He was just about to have someone send Huo Guang away when Liu Fu Ling stood back up and then left.

Yu An was beyond confused and he rubbed his head. Once again, he lamented why his parents didn’t give him a few more brains in his head.

……………………………………………….

Yun Ge’s injury took very long to heal. Half was because it was truly a severe injury, the other half was her own emotional illness. By the time she could tentatively get off the bed, it was already late Autumn.

She had laid on the pallet for two months and her bones were all itchy and sore for lack of use. She waited until the doctor okayed her moving around, and immediately she wanted to walk outside.

Muo Cha wanted to a.s.sist Yun Ge, but Yun Ge pushed Muo Cha aside and slowly walked as she held on to the wall for support.

She didn’t know where she was, she didn’t know how she got here. But none of these things mattered in her upside down world.

Yun Ge followed the wall and slowly walked out of the courtyard. After walking for a bit, she was sweating profusely. It had been too long since she walked and she hated feeling so weak.

She wanted to follow the steps and climb a bit more, but she had reached the end of her endurance. Her legs buckled and she was falling when suddenly a person supported her from behind.

Yun Ge thought it was Muo Cha, but when she turned around and saw it was Liu Fu Ling, her body stiffened. She quickly tried to push away from him. Because the sword stab had injured her vital organs, right now she couldn’t use any strength and instead it caused her to violently start coughing.

Liu Fu Ling held her with one hand as his other hand helped to stroke her back to calm her breathing down.

She wanted to tell him to go away, but when the words came to her lips, she couldn’t say it when she saw his dark eyes, his tightly pressed lips. She felt this aching pain in her heart and she couldn’t say anything. She pushed his hands away and sat down on the steps. She buried her head in her knees so she couldn’t see anything, she couldn’t feel anything. Like that, her world could return to normal.

Liu Fu Ling silently sat next to her, staring at the golden trees in the distance. He appeared to be talking to himself “Do you see the leaves in front? It reminds me of the colors of the desert. Every year I would live here for some time, and when I had free time, my favorite place is here. During the day I can view the Autumn scenery, during the night I can view the stars. All these years, I haven’t gotten better at much but my astronomy knowledge has improved greatly.” Liu Fu Ling started listing the stars and constellations.

Yun Ge tears fell on her skirt one drop after another. All those stars and constellations, she had studied them all. She flipped through books, she searched the night sky, and day in and day out, she gradually knew more astronomy than even those fortune tellers who use the stars as their guide.

She knew that he would know, and she knew that he would understand.

She stayed true to “his heart is like my heart”, but she wasn’t able to “never betray a promise to him.”

So how could she face him now?

Liu Fu Ling lifted Yun Ge’s head and wiped her tears away. “Yun Ge, are we really strangers who have never met before? Do you really want me to call you Miss or young lady from now on?”

Yun Ge could only silently cry, her eyes filled with pain and confusion. Liu Fu Ling didn’t have the heart to keep pus.h.i.+ng her “Let me take you back!”

Despite taking a sleeping aid, Yun Ge could not fall asleep. She heard the sound of a flute playing in the middle of the night, and it was a very familiar tune. So it wasn’t all just a dream! Yun Ge listened for some time and then she got up and grabbed a robe.

Yu An saw someone hiding in the corner and was about to be enraged at who would dare secretly spy on the Emperor here in Wen Quan Palace, which was when he saw that it was Yun Ge. Yu An sighed and shook his head, turning around to leave. But then he turned back “Ms. Yun, please listen to what this servant has to say.”

Yun Ge was startled and she turned around and saw it was Liu Fu Ling’s personal servant. She said nothing and silently stood there. Yu An thought about it some more but decided to heck with it. He started to recount how Liu Fu Ling lived his life for these past years.

My lord has been waiting for the person who has the hair rope;

My lord loves to look at the stars;