Fate

In the inner hall, Er Yuehong made three kinds of side dishes with crabs and put them on the table in front of Ya Tou’s spirit tablet.

There were newspapers on the table behind him, all neatly folded. Only some of them were scattered over the other parts of the table.

Within a week, there had been four massacres in Changsha and a total of one hundred and twenty people had been decapitated. They had all worked in the four Chinese medicine shops that Fo Ye had bribed. (1)

It had been a rainy night when Er Yuehong took the dying Ya Tou out to the beach on the southern part of the river. He wanted to have one last bowl of noodle soup with her, but all of the vendors looked at them as if they were crazy and drove them away.

Half a year later, it was also a rainy night when all of those vendors were killed. None of them were spared. The blood rushed into the river and dyed the embankments red.

Er Yuehong knew who did it. But after everything that had happened, he didn’t want to pursue it and was powerless to do so.

“You’re not going to be happy about this.” Er Yuehong looked at Ya Tou’s spirit tablet. “He still hasn’t changed a bit.”

He paused and looked back at the courtyard door, as if he could see the figure on the other side of the threshold again.

“But this crab is delicious. It looks like all those times you were good to him didn’t go to waste after all.”

**

“What did you do this time?” Ya Tou couldn’t help smiling when she saw Chen Pi Ah Si kneeling outside the front hall’s threshold.

“I went to catch crabs,” Chen Pi Ah Si said. “Master asked me to practice martial arts, but I was bored. I saw a lot of bubbles in the river and knew that you loved eating crabs, so I couldn’t help catching some. I brought back a basket of them and Master found out about it.”

“Oh? Aren’t you thoughtful?” Ya Tou smiled.

“Yes. Since I brought you crabs, maybe you can put in a good word with Master for me so that I can spend one less hour kneeling on the ground.”

“I can’t do that. If I intercede for you every time, I won’t be able to persuade him when you really make a mistake.”

“Hmph. I knew Master was old-fashioned, but I didn’t expect you to be so stingy. I caught those big yellow crabs in vain. In the future, you can have Master buy you crabs if you want to eat them. I don’t want to impress you anymore.”

“Hey, this and that are two different things. If you don’t practice martial arts, you’ll be punished. But if you impress me with crabs, I’ll reward you.” Ya Tou pulled out a bowl of crab noodles from behind her back and handed it to Chen Pi Ah Si. “You can eat the noodles while kneeling. Your knees won’t hurt so bad after you finish eating.”

Chen Pi Ah Si laughed upon seeing the noodles. “Ma’am, do you only know how to make noodles? Why are you still making noodles when you have crab roe? It’s a little tragic.”

Ya Tou said, “Are you expecting to eat four dishes and a bowl of soup while kneeling on the ground? If you’re so sick of eating noodles, then I won’t make them for you anymore.”

Chen Pi Ah Si immediately ate half the bowl in one bite. He swallowed the noodles with difficulty and said, “No. I can never get tired of eating the noodles you make. Even without the crab roe, the plain noodles you make are the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten.”

Ya Tou shook her head. “You should practice martial arts more instead of practicing those sweet words. That way, maybe you won’t get punished as often as you do now.”

Chen Pi Ah Si laughed as he ate his noodles. He had forgotten that he had taken these crabs after almost drowning the crab farmer. He also felt a little panicked and told himself that he would kill the woman in front of him without any hesitation if necessary.

But as he watched her enter the door, he knew deep down in his heart that he had finally found a person whom he cared about. He wanted her to stay alive and hoped that she would live happily.

In Chen Pi Ah Si’s life, he once had the fateful chance of becoming someone like Black Back the Sixth or even Banjie Li. But he wasn’t so lucky in the end. The woman whom he wanted to live died a few years later.

In the long years that followed, such a person never appeared in his life again.

<The Mystic Nine (10) New Sesame Seeds><Table of Contents><Ghost Car Extra>

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TN Notes:

(1) As depicted in the Mystic Nine drama, Er Yuehong had no intention of going grave robbing anymore after he was with Ya Tou. Fo Ye had a case to investigate in order to save the country, and he needed Er Yuehong’s help. Ya Tou was seriously ill at the time. As long as Ya Tou lived, Er Yuehong wouldn’t explore any tombs. Fo Ye followed Xie Jiuye’s advice and made the decision not to give Ya Tou any medicine. Based on this chapter, Fo Ye even went as far to bribe those who sold medicine and had them not to give Er Yuehong any medicine.

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Translated by: Tiffany X
Edited by: merebear226