Chapter - 353 Fresh Alliance of an Old Pledge (10) (1/2)
”I promised teacher I'd do it,” said Huang Rong.
”Well, try it out for a few days, then,” sighed Huang Yaoshi. ”When you're really sick of it, hand it over to another straight away. And afterwards…are you going to see this boy or not?”
Huang Rong took a glance at Guo Jing and saw him gazing back at her. The look in his eyes was one of overflowing tenderness, of a love infinite in depth. She turned her head back towards her father.
”Dad,” she said, ”he's going to marry someone else; so I'll marry someone else, too. I'm the only one in his heart, just as he's the only one in my heart.”
Huang Yaoshi laughed. ”The daughter of Peachblossom Island cannot lose out, so that's not too bad. Now, suppose the man you marry doesn't let you be friends with him…?”
Huang Rong gave a snort. ”Who'd dare to stop me?” she said. ”I'm your daughter!”
”Silly girl!” said Huang Yaoshi. ”It won't be a few more years before dad dies.”
”Dad!” sobbed Huang Rong. ”The way you treat me, would I really be able to live on for much longer?”
”So are you still going to be with this heartless, faithless boy?” enquired Huang Yaoshi.
”Each extra day I stay with him is an extra day of happiness,” said Huang Rong. She said this gently, but with an expression of utter misery.
While father and daughter asked and answered each other like this, the Jiangnan Freaks – despite being eccentric in character – couldn't help but listen agape. In the Song era, the proscriptions advised by propriety were followed with the most particularity; but because Huang Yaoshi was a man who 'opposed Tang and Wu and despised Zhou and Kong' and who perversely went against the conventions of the age, it had led to everyone calling him by the given title of ”Eastern Heretic”. As for Huang Rong, she'd been moulded by her father since youth, and regarded marriage as marriage and love as love; when had thoughts of rectitude and chastity ever passed through her little head? This kind of conversation, shocking by the standards of the time, would set tongues wagging incessantly in disapproval among anyone overhearing it. But father and daughter were even talking as if it were only natural – just like common, idle, household chat. Despite the open-mindedness of Ke Zhen'e and the others, they couldn't help shaking their heads quietly.
Guo Jing, who was feeling very bad, wanted to say a few comforting words to Huang Rong, but he'd always been wooden in speech. Now, he knew even less what was the right thing to say. Huang Yaoshi glanced at his daughter, then glanced at Guo Jing. Lifting his head towards the heavens, he suddenly roared long and loud. The sound shook the treetops and echoed from the mountain valley, startling some magpies; they rose in a flock and flew around the forest.
”Magpies, magpies!” called out Huang Rong. ”The cowherd meets the weaving-girl tonight. Why no hurry to build the bridge?”
Huang Yaoshi grabbed a handful of loose stones from the ground and hurled them up into the air. One by one, a dozen magpies dropped, most dying where they fell. ”What bridge is there to build?” shouted Huang Yaoshi. ”Deep passion, great love: all empty fantasy in the end. More fitting that it die an early death!” He spun around and floated off. In just the space of a blink, the others saw his blue-robed figure disappear beyond the back of the woods.
Tuolei hadn't understood what they'd been talking about; he knew only that Guo Jing was unwilling to turn his back on agreements from the past. ”Brother,” he said, happily, ”here's hoping you soon succeed with your big objective. See you again when you're back north!”