Chapter 11 (2/2)
“… The jingshi?!”
Wei WuXian didn’t know what was going on. The rest stared among themselves, afraid to make any sound.
It was HanGuang-Jun’s bedroom and study, which he had never invited anyone inside…
The furniture in the jingshi was extremely simplistic, without any unnecessary belongings. On the accordion partition, there was a painting of drifting clouds, floating and morphing with its fine brushwork. A guqin table lay horizontally in front of it. On top of the three-legged incense stand in the corner, a hollowed out incense burner made of white jade emitted soft, lingering smoke, filling the whole room with the chilling scent of sandalwood.
Lan WangJi went to see his uncle to discuss serious matters, while Wei WuXian was pushed into the room. Right after Lan WangJi left, Wei WuXian also went outside. He strolled around the Cloud Recesses, and found that, as he had expected, without the jade token for passage, even if he climbed up the white walls of a few zhangs’ height, he would be immediately flung off by the barrier, attracting the attentions of the nearby patrolmen at once.
Wei WuXian could only go back to the jingshi.
He never really worried about anything, no matter what he came across. He walked around the jingshi with his arms behind his back, firmly believing that, sooner or later, there would be a solution. The refreshing scent of the sandalwood was cold and clear. Although it wasn’t sentimental, it had its own way of tugging one’s heartstrings. With nothing to do, he started to think random thoughts, Lan Zhan happened to smell like this scent. His clothes were probably tinged with the fragrance when he was practicing his guqin or meditating here.
After these thoughts, he couldn’t help but to shift closer to the incense stand at the corner. With this shift, he became aware that, beneath his foot, one piece of wood was significantly different from the other places. Wei WuXian bent down and started to knock here and there, due to curiosity. In his past life, he did a lot of digging pits, excavating graves, and finding holes in the ground. After a few moments, he turned a piece of board up.
Finding a secretive space in Lan WangJi’s room was already more than enough to surprise Wei WuXian. However, after he saw what was hidden inside, he was even more surprised.
After flipping the wooden board open, a mellow aroma had filled the air, unnoticeable when it was mixed with the sandalwood scent. Seven or eight black jars were packed into a small, square cellar.
Sure enough, Lan WangJi had changed—he even started to hide liquor!
The Cloud Recesses prohibited liquor. Because of this, the first time they met, they had a small fight. Lan WangJi ended up spilling a jar of the “Emperor’s Smile” which he brought back from the city of Gusu.
After he returned from Gusu to Yunmeng, Wei WuXian never had the chance to drink the “Emperor’s Smile” made exclusively by Gusu’s experts ever again. He had thought about this for his entire life, always telling himself to come back to taste it if he ever received the opportunity. But, the opportunity never came. Hidden in here was no other than the liquor—he didn’t even need to open and taste it, and knew that it was an “Emperor’s Smile” just by the smell of it. He would never have thought that he would find a liquor-hiding vault in the room of a person as scrupulous and abstinent as Lan WangJi’s. Karma really outdid itself with this reincarnation.
As Wei WuXian exclaimed upon the matter, he finished one jar already. He had a high tolerance for alcohol and loved to drink. After he came to the conclusion that Lan WangJi still owed him a jar of Emperor’s Smile and it was time to collect his interests, he drank another jar. When he was just starting to get tipsy, a thought suddenly passed his mind. How hard was it to get the jade token? In the Cloud Recesses, there was a cold spring with a lot of miraculous effects, for the male cultivators to use. It was said to be able to calm down one’s heart, clear one’s mind, quench one’s fire, and so on. When he went into the cold spring, he was bound to take off his clothing. Then, with his clothing already off, there would be no where to put it aside from holding it in his mouth, which was definitely out of question.
Wei WuXian clapped his hands and finished the last gulp in the jar. After searching, he found that there were no places to throw it away, so he filled the empty jars with clear water and sealed the lids again, stuffing them back inside and closing the wooden board. With this done, he ventured out to find the jade token.
Although the Cloud Recesses had been burnt down before the “Sunshot Campaign” happened, the rebuilt structure of the area was the same. Wei WuXian walked through the winding paths from memory, and soon found the cold spring, situated at a quiet and obscure place.
The disciple on duty for watching over the cold spring was quite a distance away. The female cultivators were in another quarter of the Cloud Recesses and didn’t come here to use it. Nobody in the Lan Sect did an impudent thing such as coming to the cold spring to watch others bathe, anyway. Therefore, the security wasn’t strict at all and it was extremely easy to overcome, making it easy for Wei WuXian to go and shame himself. And, coincidentally, there was a set of white clothes on top of the white rocks behind the crisscrossed eupatorium grasses, meaning that someone had already came.
The set of white clothes was folded extremely neatly, almost making one’s hair rise. It looked like a snow-white piece of tofu—even the forehead ribbon was folded without any creases. As Wei WuXian put his hand in and searched for the jade token of passage, he was almost reluctant to mess it up. Afterward, stepping over the bushes of eupatorium grasses, his gaze passed over the spring, and suddenly halted.
The water in the cold spring was freezing. Unlike a hot spring, there wasn’t any vapour to shroud one’s eyes, so it was possible to take a clear look at the upper half of the person in the spring who stood with his back to him.
The person in the spring was quite tall. His skin was fair and his hair was black, wet and gathered to one side. The lines which outlined his waist and back were smooth, graceful yet holding strength. In simpler terms, he was a beauty.
However, Wei WuXian was definitely not stunned and unable to avert his gaze because he was looking at a bathing beauty. No matter how beautiful he was, he wouldn’t actually be attracted to men. Really, it was the things on the person’s back that made him unable to avert his gaze.
There were dozens of intersecting scars.
They were the scars from a discipline whip. In the different sects, there was a type of discipline whip to punish disciples of that sect who made significant mistakes. After the torture, the scars would never disappear. Although Wei WuXian had never been hit by a discipline whip before, Jiang Cheng had been. Even after desperately trying, he couldn’t make the disgracing imprint fade one bit. This was why Wei WuXian would never misremember scars like this.
Usually, with only one or two strikes of the discipline whip, it would already be enough of a punishment for the bearer to remember it for their whole life, never to make the same mistake ever again. The amount of scars on this person’s back accumulated thirty at the least. Just what sort of monstrous crime did he commit for him to be whipped so many times? If it really was a monstrous crime, why didn’t they kill him?
At the moment, the person in the spring turned around. Beneath his collarbone and near his heart, there was a clear sear. Seeing the sear, Wei WuXian’s shock instantly reached its highest peak.
Cloud Recesses: The name of the Lan Sect’s residence came from the last phrase of Jia Dao’s poem. A very beautiful and accurate translation of this poem can be found here: .
Morning readings: A common practice in China is for students to read out loud in their morning classes, because it makes them memorize the passages/teachings better.
Lotus Pier: The specifics of this place will be explained later. However, this name also came from a poem. It was the name of a poem by the famous poet—Wang Wei. I cannot find the translation of this poem online, but it doesn’t matter too much, as this doesn’t influence anything in the story.
Xiao: This is a vertical flute.
Lan Huan, ZeWu-Jun, Lan XiChen: Lan Huan is his birth name, Lan XiChen is his common name, and ZeWu-Jun is his “alternative name” or “hao” (but, in case anyone forgot, a hao is a name given by one to oneself).
Two jades: This term refers to two people who are especially good at something, on a generally equal level.
Summoning the winds and controlling the wind: There is nothing special to this proverb. It just means that he is very powerful and could do whatever he wanted to do.
Sworn brothers: The author of FoDC/GDC had stated that everyone in this book, apart from Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi, are straight. However, that does nothing to stop the fangirls from shipping practically every character with every other character. Feel free to ship Lan XiChen and Jin GuangYao, or any other characters you’re interested in, whichever way you’d like to do so.
Jingshi: This literally translates into “quiet room”. As there doesn’t seem to be any appropriate terms for this in English, it is kept as pinyin.
Guqin: This is the term for the type of zither that Lan WangJi plays. In past chapters, it was referred to as a zither, but the guqin is one specific type of zither, so it has been changed.
Quench one’s fire: Here, the exact term used is “quench one’s evil fire”. Wei WuXian may be referencing Chinese medicine, or he may be making an innuendo (which I happen to know because it is one of the most overused terms to describe the seme’s desires in Chinese BL smut). Who knows?