Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Shangguan Fei spent a whole day disguising himself. He applied make up, washed it off, reapplied it again, and then washed it all off again – he did it so meticulously that he could’ve been the woman who cared about her appearance the most in the Retention Alley. Even so, the result of his hard work failed to satisfy him, and he dumped out a dozen basins of water which had been used to wash his face.
Tie Linglong dutifully executed the task Dragon King had assigned her and she watched over Shangguan Fei the whole time. At first she had stood at the door, at noon she changed positions and leaned against the wall, then two hours later she sat on a chair, and every little while after she would move the chair a little closer to Shangguan Fei.
It was getting dark. Finally, Tie Linglong arrived at the side of the small table on which Shangguan Fei’s disguising materials were placed. With her head resting in her arms, she raised her head to look at him, and spoke to him for the first time this day. “Are you disguising yourself as a woman?”
Shangguan Fei pushed the oil lamp slightly further away, stared at the image in the mirror, and finally believed that the make-up was satisfactory. “I can’t afford to be seen through. In Jade City, Shangguan Fei’s face is even more of a target than the Dragon King’s. By the way, don’t call me by my real name. Hmm, I should find myself a more common name…”
Even Shangguan Fei’s voice was different when he opened his mouth. Tie Linglong felt a chill quickly crawl down her body, from the top of her head to the soles of her feet, giving her goosebumps everywhere. Yet she only became even more curious and asked, “Why does everybody keep saying that you like men?”
Shangguan Fei’s hands instantly stopped moving and he looked seriously at the green-eyed little girl. “I’m sorry, but do you think that you are close to me to ask a question this private? If you want to humiliate me, just go ahead. I got used to it a long time ago.”
Tie Linglong sat up, looking confused. “Well, the point I’m trying to make is that – why can’t a man like another man? I see that there are a lot of men who are friends with each other, but why do I feel that people’s opinions about you are… kind of different?”
Shangguan Fei smiled. He hadn’t expected that this little girl who had survived so many trials of the Dragon King and Waning Moon Hall would be so innocent. “How old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
“That’s not too young. I think I can explain it to you.”
“Of course I’m not young. The Dragon King was already a professional killer at sixteen.”
Shangguan Fei continued touching up his eye shadow. “Let me think about how I should best put this… It’s just like how you have feelings for Little Chu.”
“I have no feelings for him. He’s a total jerk who went back on his word,” Tie Linglong immediately contradicted out of anger.
Shangguan Fei nodded repeatedly. “That’s exactly what I mean. The only explanation for why you would hate someone for no particular reason is that you love him.”
“I don’t hate him for no reason… Eek, why are we talking about me now?”
“I like men in a different way. Kind of like the way you like – Chu Nanping.” Shangguan Fei plucked out an eyebrow with a suppressed grunt, grimacing as he was uttered the last two words.
Tie Linglong didn’t fully understand. She had a faint notion that this hobby of Shangguan Fei’s was somewhat related to the immoral things that the Waning Moon Hall had tried to make her do, so she replied, “You are so weird.”
“Weirder than the Dragon King? Than Old Man Mu and Han Wuxian?” Shangguan Fei lowered his voice when he said the names of the last two devils.
“Those two are weird, but the Dragon King is not.”
“Aiii, I was just speaking without thinking. Don’t take my word for it and please don’t tell anyone else. Okay, it’s finally perfect.”
Shangguan Fei turned his head to look at Tie Linglong, a self-satisfied smile on his face.
Tie Linglong couldn’t help but smile back as she exclaimed, “You look so much like Sister Ru.”
Shangguan Fei looked into the mirror and peered into it for a while, then frowned. “You are right. This won’t work. If by any chance the Dragon King sees me, I’ll get in trouble.”
He once again started adjusting his make-up as Tie Linglong was still pondering his hobby. Suddenly, she asked, “You like the Dragon King as well, don’t you?”
Her sudden accusation startled Shangguan Fei. “Stop speaking nonsense. Do you want the Dragon King to kill me? Besides… the Dragon King’s not my type.”
Tie Linglong widened her eyes in surprise as she asked, “You like men and yet you don’t like the Dragon King? How’s that possible?”
“You like men too, but it was Little Chu you fell in love with, not the Dragon King, right?” Shangguan Fei had found a rare opportunity to gossip about this particular topic with someone, and he felt his stress dissolve away measurably. “I like tall and strong men, like…”
“Long Fanyun – everybody knows.” But Tie Linglong didn’t actually “know” what she “knew.”
Shangguan Fei sighed as he lamented, “This is divine retribution. I like him, but he will never like me back.”
“Why? As far as I know, Long Fanyun’s a nice guy.”
“I can’t explain, and you wouldn’t be able to understand even if I could. Didn’t you once leave the Dragon King out of anger? Give it some thought and you will get it then.” As he observed the beautiful woman in the mirror that shared his actions, a bitter taste suddenly surfaced in Shangguan Fei’s throat. ” I don’t resemble her anymore now, right?”
“What?” Tie Linglong was still thinking about Shangguan Ru’s previous words, and she was surprised by his comment. “Oh, you don’t look like Sister Ru now. Now you’re like…”
“I know who I look like. You should leave.”
“Why?” Tie Linglong became vigilant immediately.
“Because I’m changing my clothes.” Shangguan Fei’s hair style and looks had become feminine, and yet he was still wearing men’s clothes. “If you don’t care, I’m fine with it too.”
“Hmph,” Tie Linglong snorted as she turned around and started walking out. Suddenly a problem occurred to her. “Did you prepare women’s clothes in advance?”
Shangguan Fei felt that this little girl had too many questions, and he was no longer interested in them, so he thought that it was necessary to distract her. “I find it very interesting that you’re not willing to talk about Little Chu and yet you can’t stop mentioning the Dragon King’s name. Is it possible that deep down there, the man you really like is… the Dragon King?”
“Of course I like the Dragon King.”
“The same way as you ‘like’ Little Chu?”
Tie Linglong was surprised and for a moment she seemed as if she was about to say something, but in the end, she changed her mind. Then she turned around and walked out of the room, staying silent for quite a while.
Shangguan Fei exhaled deeply, took several women’s clothes out of the basket, and tried them on one by one. It took him another hour to finally decide on an outfit.
It was completely dark outside, but the round moon in the sky was exceptionally bright. Surprisingly, Tie Linglong glanced at the dressed up Shangguan Fei without saying a word.
Shangguan Fei was slightly disappointed by her lack of reaction and said, “Well, let’s go. I know someplace special.”
The two leaped over the wall, and after walking into the street, they didn’t care about others seeing them. Though, Shangguan Fei warned her, “Remember to call me lady, and not by my name. And try keep your hands off your saber, as we’re here to collect intelligence, not to kill…”
Tie Linglong agreed listlessly.
They had barely arrived at the street when Shangguan Fei suddenly stopped. After looking around he admitted, “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have mentioned the Dragon King. Do you want to hear another piece of advice from me?”
“Go ahead,” Tie Linglong was completely confused, and was willing to accept anyone’s advice at this point.
“The Dragon King took care of you, so what you have for him is… reliance, but that’s not love, and you have to learn the difference. It’s as if the Dragon King were your elder brother or father, but you can never, ever fall in love with him, because he’s no common man – he’s not even human. So you can’t have him, and he can’t have you. My sister’s already stuck in this dilemma, and I hope the same won’t happen to you. Little Chu’s a good guy and you should hold on fast to him.”
The grave look on Tie Linglong’s face gradually turned into a smile. “Ha-ha, what are you talking about? I was thinking about the green-faced assassins of Golden Roc Castle. People keep saying that their kung fu skills are divine and I was just thinking that I’d like to see it for myself.”
Shangguan Fei knew that she was lying, but as long as she kept that happy look on her face and made sure the task tonight went well, that was fine enough for him. “That’s good. But we’re not going to meet any green-faced assassins. Well, at least not tonight.”
The two walked into the busy street. The well-dressed Shangguan Fei obviously attracted much more attention than Tie Linglong, who still had a puerile look, and so a lot of men came to hit on him. Shangguan Fei behaved very sophisticatedly and managed to deal with those men so expertly that, after a while, even Tie Linglong couldn’t tell whether he was a man or a woman.
“This is Retention Alley. All of the most famous prostitutes in Southern Jade City live here,” Shangguan Fei introduced as if he were a local, while in reality he wasn’t actually very familiar with it. “But our destination tonight is not here. Let’s keep walking… It’s here.”
This is an unnamed alley which ran closely parallel with Retention Alley, yet it was a lot shorter, was much narrower, had sparse pedestrians, and much more dimly lit, the distance between every two oil lamps very long.
To embolden himself, Shangguan Fei muttered, “Our outfits are too beautiful for this place.”
“I didn’t pick my outfit,” Tie Linglong said as she felt her saber with her right hand again. She was used to dark nights, but she didn’t like the eeriness of this road.
The two walked into the alley. Under the moonlight, Shangguan Fei counted the number of the doors at his right side. “Eleven, this is it.”
“Who are we looking for?” Tie Linglong was curious.
“My mother’s ex-maid who used to secretly sleep with my father. My mother sent her here to be a prostitute after finding out,” Shangguan Fei said blandly.
Madam Meng used to send a lot of women to serve her husband, but she refused to tolerate being cheated on with someone close to her.
The door was pushed open from the inside with a bang, and a strong man with a thick wine-like odor walked out as he yelled, “Old whore, you’re even blander than water.” Then he saw the two people outside – though he couldn’t see them very clearly, the two were obviously not “old whores.” “It turns out that you hid the good stuff, he-he.”
The strong man opened his arms and tried to embrace the two, but all he received were two fists – fists harder than rock, with greater strength behind them than the strongest man he had ever met.
Shangguan Fei watched the saberman slowly fall down and said disgustedly, “Stinky man. Dirtying my hands.”
The two walked in and closed the door, leaving the strong man outside – there were plenty of drunken men lying on the side of the road in Southern Jade City and nobody would pay special attention to him.
A woman walked out of the inner room with a lamp in her hand. Her face was expressionless, which indicated that she had no urge to ingratiate herself towards her guests. Seeing that it was two females who had come in, she appeared very disappointed. “I’ve already paid my rent this month. You must’ve… gotten the wrong address.”
The woman’s voice didn’t sound old, and her figure was also not corpulent, but under the yellow light of the lamp in her hand, they could see the fine wrinkles around her eyes.
“Aunt Tong? Is that really you?” Shangguan Fei had prepared himself, and yet he was still surprised.
Having not heard this form of address for a long time, the woman was even more surprised than he was, and the lamp in her hand nearly slipped out. She lifted the lamp closer to Shangguan Fei and asked in confusion, “Are you the Ninth Young Master or the Tenth Young Master?”
“I’m Fei’er.” Shangguan Fei’s voice couldn’t have been any lower.
With a scream of surprise, the woman dropped her lamp to the ground, and the room became totally shrouded in darkness.
Tie Linglong whipped out her saber immediately and her ears pricked up.
“Are you really the Ninth Young Master?” the woman asked in a tearful voice.
“It’s me, but I’m not the Ninth Young Master anymore.”
After staying silent for a while, the woman groped around and managed to find the lamp on the floor and relit it. Then she peered closely at Shangguan Fei who had disguised himself and asked, “How did you… end up like this?”
“I don’t want to be recognized by people from the Stone Castle.”
The woman quickly became vigilant. She locked the door, turned around, and led them to the inner room.
The inner room was very narrow, with only a single bed full of sundries.
“So you and the Tenth Young Master work for the Dragon King now?”
“Not really. Father wanted to kill us, and we were just trying to find a temporary shelter.”
“The Lord was very mad at Madam Meng, and even you two were even incriminated.” The woman’s voice became bland as she talked about her former master. All the misery she had suffered and was suffering could be attributed to her former Mother Lord.
“I want to see my mother and you have to help me, Aunt Tong.”
After considering all the possibilities, Shangguan Fei believed that his mother was the only one he could turn to if he wanted to get information on the green-faced assassins.
