TGM Vol.1 Chapter 9 – Si Feng

“Chu Xuanji!”

A loud roar came from behind, and Xuanji suddenly returned to her senses and turned around to see Yu Sifeng and Zhong Minyan, both holding a pile of things in their hands, with dozens of people carrying sacks behind them.

“Ah, you . . . have you bought everything?” She asked dazedly.

Zhong Minyan walked over, frowned at the honey on the ground and the unusable torches and pots and pans, “What are you doing?” He questioned weakly. God, I knew this kid couldn’t do anything right! Can’t count on her at all!

Xuanji spread out her hands and sighed, “It’s not my fault,” she said righteously.

“How dare you say that!” He was furious.

“I’ll go and buy a new one right away,” she said. She turned to leave, but was stopped by Yu Sifeng.

“This . . ?” He looked at the huge glass fish tank, his eyes flickering behind the mask. After a long time, he reached out his hand and lightly touched the tank, but shrank back as if stung.

Xuanji said, “They say it’s a demon… a demon with a long fish tail.”

When Zhong Minyan heard this, he turned his head to look, but saw the man in the tank flicking his tail and swimming away. He was so shocked that he took several steps backwards before shouting exaggeratedly, “It’s really a demon! Fishtail!”

Yu Sifeng shook his head slowly for a long time before whispering, “It’s not a demon… It’s a mermam . . . a merman from the South Sea.”

Xuanji said, “I know about the Merpeople. It is said that they are very good at weaving and embroidering, and that they sing on full moon nights, and all who hear them are intoxicated. And when they cry, their tears turn into pearls,” she said.

She spoke in a serious manner. As soon as she finished her story, she heard the beating of the clapper at the front again and someone shouted something, and the crowd gathered there at once.

Xuanji was almost knocked to the ground and was on the verge of falling down, when suddenly someone pulled her arm. She looked up and saw Yu Sifeng standing in front of her, holding her arm in his hand, his eyes staring at the glass jar, and she wondered what he was thinking about.

The man over there who was beating the clapper began to speak, “Friends and villagers, thanks to the wisdom of our county magistrate, we have summoned all the heroes and heroines to fight for a month and finally caught the man-eating demon on the mountain! Now, I’ve asked the Master to seal this demon in a magical glazed jar and send it to the capital in a few days. If you want to smash it, it’s better to do it before it’s too late!”

The crowd is agitated by these words. Demons have been haunting Lutai Mountain, causing suffering to the people and hated by everyone. As soon as they heard that the demon had been caught, someone picked up a stone from the ground and threw it into the jar, regardless of whether it was true or not. The merman was floating in the water, trying to hide, looking pitiful.

“Huh? Aren’t the demons that are haunting them, the Tengu and the Gu Eagle? It wasn’t a merman.” Xuanji was bewildered, seeing that the Merman was struck by a large stone, and the water suddenly turned red, and she didn’t know where the merman had been hit. She could not bear to see it.

“He was just a scapegoat – that’s all.” Yu Sze-fung said coldly, “The demon – is haunting this side, – and the Yamen^[1] can’t deal – with the higher-ups, – so they can only – find a random shaman – to make up for it, – for the time being.”

“What about the real demons? If you post a notice saying that the demons are gone, people can go to the mountains without any worries, but they will be eaten.” Zhong Minyan also felt incredulous. The two of them have been living in Shaoyang Mountain for a long time,and their goal is to cultivate immortality, but they don’t know much about the laws and dealings of the world.

Yu Sifeng says, “Water from afar cannot put out – a fire that is close at hand. Now, they can only – deal with the blame from above first, – but if there is any more death, – then they will have to use – another strategy.”

Zhong Minyan shook his head. When he saw the glass jar of blood and water in which the merman had been hiding, he couldn’t help feeling sad and sighed, “I hope the demon hunt goes well tonight.”

“With me here, – it will go well,” Yu Sifeng’s words were so proud that he received a cold snort from Zhong Minyan.

Xuanji looked at him with shining eyes and admired, “You are amazing, you know a lot of things!”

Yu Sifeng coughed, and you couldn’t tell if he was blushing or not through the mask.
“I’m just . . . I’m always out – and about, and I see a lot of people.” He lifted up the salt bag he was holding in his arms, “Let’s go, let’s get some honey, torches and other things first, and then go back to the restaurant.”

Afterwards, he flicked his sleeve and a pale red pill was sandwiched between his fingers. When no one was paying attention, he flicked in into the glass cylinder with his fingers. Whether it survives until tomorrow depends on the fate of this merman.

He turned around silently and walked away.

※※※

When we got back to the restaurant, the sky was already dark, and the red haze from the lights was reflected on everyone’s faces.

When Chu Yinghong saw Xuanji’s hair was dripping wet and her sleeves were still dripping water, she couldn’t help but wonder, “This child, did you go to the river to buy honey? How did you get like this.”

Xuanji shook her head, “On the street I just saw…”

Before she could finish her sentence, she was interrupted by Yu Sifeng: “She was walking, – not looking at people, – was splashed with dishwater all over her head.”

No! Xuanji stared at him in astonishment. He lied!

“She’s just the same as – having no soul” Yu Sifeng said indifferently “She is walking in a daze.”

Xuanji blinked her eyes, hesitating to argue, but Chu Yinghong rubbed her head hard and sighed, “You kid, at least try and be a little concerned about other things. Let’s find an inn and change clothes before we leave.”

Xuan Kei stayed for a long time and finally said “Oh” and decided not to break Yu Si Feng’s lie.

As she was leaving, Yu Si-feng came up to her and whispered, “Don’t tell them the thing about the merman.”

“Why? Xuanji was curious.

He whispered, “These grown-ups – they don’t like it – they’re different. We won’t be able to save him.”

“Huh? You mean you’re going to save him?”

He nodded his head, “I have my ways. Just wait and watch.”

Xuanji laughed and imitated his stumbling words, saying, “Good, good, good!”

He hit her on the head with his knuckles so hard that she couldn’t speak for a while. But he smiled again, flicked his sleeve and turned around to follow the adults out of the restaurant.

Xuanji suddenly realized that this boy was not as annoying as he had been at the beginning of their acquaintance, and couldn’t help catching up to ask, “Sifeng, how old are you?”

He was so startled that his stuttering got worse, “You… you called, called me, what?!”

She smiled, “Sifeng, aren’t you called Yu Sifeng? I didn’t call it wrong.”

That’s not the problem! He was speechless. It took half a day for him to say, “You, you ask me this, asking me about this, why?”

“Aren’t we partners ? Can’t I ask?”

He was silent for a while before saying, “Well, then you tell, first.”

“I’m Chu Xuanji, I’m eleven years old,” she said happily.

“A little – kid.” He sneered at her.

“You are also a kid.” She laughed, “You’re not an adult.”

He snorted, “Who said that? I am thirteen years old – and I have been an adult – for a long time.”

Only thirteen years old, not sure if he’s an adult or not. She hasn’t even told him that Senior First Brother is eighteen years old, and even Zhong Minyan is a year older than him.

“Why do you wear a mask on your face, Sifeng? Isn’t it boring?” Xuanji reached out her hand to touch that masked face, but he pushed it away coldly.

“It’s none of your business, don’t touch it.”

Xuanji retracted her hand in a sobering manner, thinking that it was really difficult for her to keep talking when she was rejected so stiffly.

He probably also thought that he didn’t sound good, so he paused for a moment before saying, “This mask, no one can touch, and no one can take it off, either.” After thinking about it, he added, “This is rule, of Lize Palace.”

Xuanji shrugged her shoulders, “I haven’t seen what you look like yet. In case we meet on the road in the future and you know me, but I don’t know you, how embarrassing it would be.”

He didn’t say anything for a long time, but his ears gradually turned red. After a while, he whispered, “I know you, that’s all that matters.”

What does that mean? Xuanji didn’t understand a thing.

Zhong Min-yin, who had been listening to them silently, suddenly turned around and said, “I heard that people at Lize Palace can take off their masks when they reach the age of eighteen, but they still have to wear them on important occasions. Is that so?”

Yu Sifeng said coldly, “So you know a lot about it. This is, yes, the rule. I don’t want to say more.”

When Zhong Minyan saw how arrogant he was, he couldn’t help but feel disgusted. Although he admired him for his broad knowledge, he was so bad-tempered that he wanted to raise his nose to the sky.

When he heard him chatting with Xuanji just now, he was very upset with his superior tone. Xuanji is an absent-minded person. She doesn’t care, but he does! How can you let the people of the Lize Palace act prouder than Shaoyang Sect?

“I’m not interested anyway!” He replied and turned his head and said nothing more.

Yu Sifeng was blocked by him so heavily that he also stiffened his neck and pretended to be a mute, and didn’t say anything.

Xuanji looked helplessly at both of them. She wanted to say something but didn’t know what to say, so she slipped away to Chu Yinghong’s side and listened to the adults’ arrangement of catching demons at night.

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[1]: A yamen (ya-men; simplified Chinese: 衙门; traditional Chinese: 衙門; pinyin: yámén; ) was the administrative office or residence of a local bureaucrat or mandarin in imperial China. A yamen can also be any governmental office or body headed by a mandarin, at any level of government: the offices of one of the Six Ministries is a yamen, but so is a prefectural magistracy. The term has been widely used in China for centuries, but appeared in English during the Qing dynasty.