Nightfall
chapter-605

Come and Go

The wind was blowing wildly and there were few people in the south of Chang’an. The sunlight shone through the clouds but the weather was still very cold. Two people were saying goodbye in the pavilion. They were Chen Pipi and Tang Xiaotang.

“No one can represent the Academy in the world since Ning Que went missing or died. In this tense situation, we need to build prestige. The idiots from Qinghe County just came at the right time. Besides you, I am the youngest one in the Academy who is the perfect one to do this.”

“You also said the situation was tense. The Academy isn’t afraid any of them, but we don’t want to mess it up. Why do you insist on leaving at this time?”

Chen Pipi looked at her beautiful face and said, “Our marriage still needs the parents’ approval and I want to know my father’s attitude toward this.”

Since she knew Chen Pipi’s father was the legendary person, Tang Xiaotang had a very complex feeling. As the time passed by, she became calmer, so she said, “What if your father disallows?”

The Love Story between the son of the Zhishou Abbey Dean and a girl of the Devil’s Doctrine, in any case, seemed like it would end as Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai’s.

Chen Pipi said, “As his son, I need his permission. Since Teacher allowed, his opinion is not important at all. If he doesn’t agree with me, I will come back. If he doesn’t want to be beaten by Teacher again, I think he won’t dare to ground me.”

Tang Xiaotang smiled and said, “How dare you laugh at your own father like that?”

Chen Pipi grinned and said, “I’m telling the truth.”

Tang Xiaotang asked, “Are you heading to the South Sea, or going to Zhishou Abbey first?”

Chen Pipi straightened his face and answered, “Zhishou Abbey. Then I will go to the West-Hill Divine Palace to figure out what happened last year in the Lanke Temple. The West-Hill Divine Palace is going to disclose Sangsang’s identity and if they do so when Ning Que and Sangsang come back, they will be hunted down forever. I would like to try and stall it a little.”

Tang Xiaotang nodded and said, “When can you come back?”

The sky suddenly became dark and the wind and rain came after that. Chen Pipi looked at the rain and said, “I will return before the first spring rain next year.”

Tang Xiaotang said, “Take care.”

Chen Pipi said, “Remember to inform me when Ning Que is back.”

“How?” asked Tang Xiaotang.

Chen Pipi said, “You can tell the Southern Gate Temple. They can deliver the message fast.”

Tang Xiaotang said, “Then, take care.”

Chen Pipi turned around and walked out of the pavilion, but he turned back before going into the rain.

Tang Xiaotang looked at him, smiling and said, “Can this little rain make you sick?”

Chen Pipi looked at her and seriously said, “It can’t, but you can.”

Upon hearing this, Tang Xiaotang blushed and began to roll up her sleeves as a reflex.

Chen Pipi was terrified and said, “You told me to take care twice. It seems that you really want me to leave.”

Tang Xiaotang bit her lip and refused to talk.

Chen Pipi was about to go, but he felt reluctant, so he took courage and stepped forward to hold her in his arms.

Although he held the girl in his arms, he didn’t lose his attention. He kept an eye on her hands until he found, though, they were slightly shaking but without any signs of taking action. He was a little relieved and slowly lowered his head.

A long time passed, and they gradually separated.

Chen Pipi vigorously entered the rain and waved his hand without looking back.

Tang Xiaotang looked at his back and waved her hand as well.

She felt upset, but she didn’t know if it came from the bleak wind or the man who just left.

Some people left while some people returned.

No long after that, a couple walked into the pavilion with a blue umbrella in the rain.

The wife was a pretty young girl, with contentment in her eyes. She overlooked the city of Chang’an from a distance and said, “It’s so tall.”

Hearing this, her husband, a middle-aged man, smiled.

He was wearing a turquoise robe and looked gentle, revealing his elegance with his every movement. If he wasn’t carrying a little girl on his back, he would attract a lot of young girls in Chang’an.

The little girl was about two years old who was tightly grasping her father’s clothes and trying to look at the walls from a long distance. Her eyes were so bright that they were twinkling.

The rain was about to stop. The man left the pavilion with his wife and daughter and headed to Chang’an City’s south gate. His steps became lighter as he got close to the city.

The south gate was quiet, but there were a lot of people waiting outside the gate.

They were armored officers, uniformed officers, many men in blue robes who looked murderous, and even a eunuch.

When seeing this, the middle-aged man did not stop his feet but nodded. His wife, even though she had lived in the Capital of the Great River Kingdom for two years and had widened her experience, was still a country girl and could not help being nervous.

Looking at the family of three coming toward the gate, the crowd gradually became turbulent. Some blue-robed men’s eyes even got wet. A man wearing the Valiant Cavalry Battalion’s uniform took the lead to bow to the middle-aged man, so did the rest of them.

“Welcome back, Leader.”

“Welcome, Elder Brother.”

“Brother Chao, welcome.”

“Mr. Chao, please come into the palace with me. His Majesty is desperate to see you.”

The family entering Chang’an in the rain was Chao Xiaoshu with his wife and daughter. He was supposed to return last autumn, but because of his daughter’s serious illness, he had to delay it until this autumn.

Chao Xiaoshu didn’t go to the palace with Eunuch Lin. After seeing his brothers, he went straight home to see his parents. Eunuch Lin could not do anything about that but felt sorry for His Majesty.

After they entered the Chao family’s old mansion, his father, old master Chao, paid no attention to his son. He happily carried his granddaughter to pick fruit from his back yard and left his daughter-in-law to his wife.

Looking at his brothers in the hall and finding out that they were doing very well during these years, Chao Xiaoshu felt relieved. Since they had not seen each other for a long time, they had to celebrate the gathering. However, he discovered that his counselor, Chen VII remained silent since they had met.

Chao Xiaoshu knew that his silence meant something troublesome, but he didn’t want to talk about it tonight; he didn’t even plan to discuss it at all.

He quietly looked at the wine glass in his hand and suddenly asked, “Is the Old Brush Pen Shop still there?”

Upon hearing this, the people in the room all fell silent. They all turned to Chen VII, except Mr. Qi who nodded to show his different opinion.

Chen VII knew he was asking him, so he answered while rotating the wine cup in his hand, “All the leases in Lin 47th Street have expired, so I took them back to prevent being noticed.”

Chao Xiaoshu calmly said, “I don’t care about the others. I rented the Old Brush Pen Shop to him; if he doesn’t come back, I want to keep it for him. No one can take it back.”

Mr. Qi finally found a chance to interpose and said, “The profit of the casino is still being counted up and kept for him. The house by Yanming Lake is maintained as well.”

Chao Xiaoshu nodded.

Looking at Chao Xiaoshu, Chen VII put down the glass and said, “If the rumor is true… In fact, it is 90% true. We should make a clean break with Ning Que before anyone notices. We don’t owe him, so we should not be involved.”

“Brother, you are always the smartest one among us. Thanks to you, we were able to survive the lawsuits against the Ministry of Revenue and the Military Ministry. Even His Majesty admired you. If not because of the criminal record, you should have already entered the Military Ministry. You are right. It will be never wrong to be cautious.

Chao Xiaoshu raised the glass to toast and then slowly drank up the wine.

Chen VII slightly sighed. He knew his brother very well. If he said it like this, he had made up his mind. He could do nothing but drink up his wine.

Unsurprisingly, Chao Xiaoshu added, “Since the Lin 47th Street is my private property, I want to keep it that way.”

Chen VII reluctantly looked at him and anxiously said, “It is overly serious for us; even the court and the Academy are unable to handle it.”

Chao Xiaoshu put down the glass and said, “Not everything is about can or cannot. It is about should or should not. I invited Ning Que to kill people in the Spring Breeze Pavilion that year, and he didn’t ask who I am. So this time, I don’t want to know who he is, either.”

Ning Que and Sangsang had been missing for a year. They just vanished and no one knew where they went. Generally speaking, they should be dead. Even the prefectural magistrate of Chang’an City issued their death certificates. However, many people believed they were not dead.

Some didn’t believe it because they had not found Ning Que and Sangsang’s bodies while others didn’t want them to die. Either of which, They still could not find them or figure out where they had gone to.

Even the Headmaster did not know if Ning Que and Sangsang died or where they were.

In the cliff at the Academy mountain’s back, the Headmaster was eatting crabs, drinking yellow wine, and enjoying chrysanthemums. Even though the chrysanthemums were in somewhere far away from Chang’an, he was still able to see them clearly.

If in the chessboard, there was another world or space, Ning Que and Sangsang would have died as the board was destroyed. If Qi Nian had accelerated the flow of time, one year outside meant three lifetimes to the two poor little guys in the board.

The Headmaster picked up the little kettle and sipped, slurping. He said, “Either way, it doesn’t end well. The good news is, as a life-saving weapon the Buddha left to the Xuankong Temple monks, it would not be easily destroyed. I don’t believe Qi Nian was able to accelerate time to turn over the board. So they should be alive and not remain there for long. I just don’t know when they can get out.”

Upon hearing this, Jun Mo, who was sitting on his heels and peeled crab by his teacher’s side, said, “Master Qishan told the Calligraphy Addict that you were the only one able to open the board. However, we still don’t know where it is now.”

The Headmaster said, “The board is inside the board.”

Jun Mo immediately understood his meaning and he could not help asking, “Isn’t this a death loop?”

The Headmaster shook his head and said, “The loop should be infinite, how can it be dead? The board itself can assimilate doom. I just need to know how Qishan set the time.”

Jun Mo said, “The West-Hill Divine Palace is going to declare to the world that Sangsang is Yama’s Daughter in three days and the edicts are ready. They’ll call on all believers of Haotian to hunt her down. They will even publish her sketch. But they won’t mention the Academy nor Younger Brother.”

He paused after a while and added, “Eldest Brother has been looking for them for a year. Can he find them or can he find them before the Buddhists and Taoists do?”

The Headmaster looked at the rainy sky and said, “It has to be God’s will if they find them first.”

Jun Mo just finished peeling a crab and put it on a plate in front of his teacher.

The Headmaster looked at the complete crab which was in fact already peeled and said, “The joy to have a crab is to peel it by myself. How can I experience the joy if you do this for me?”

A scholar left the Lanke Temple last autumn and showed up in the western depth of the Wilderness. In front of him were hundreds of powerful monks. They were terrified to look at the gentle but dusty scholar.

A majestic voice sounded in the wilderness which chanted loudly. He asked, “Welcome Mr. First. What can we do for you?”

Eldest Brother replied, “I’m glad to see you, Chief Preacher. I want to know if you have seen my Younger Brother?”

During the next three days, loud bells sounded, the Light of Buddha shone, and the wind blew wildly in the temple. The scholar found nothing and left.

He then visited the 72 temples in Yuelun in this spring with a sketch in hand. He asked every monk in every temple, “Have you seen our Younger Brother and this little girl?”

Then, in the summer, he visited the Taoist temple in Song and found nothing.

In the fall, he returned to the Lanke Temple. He requested Guan Hai, the Lanke Temple’s abbot, to mobilize thousands of rural labourers to clear the ruins. He looked at the debris in the ruins and fell silent for a long time.

He always considered his Younger Brother’s life as his own responsibility.

After a while, he came to a dilapidated temple and politely knocked. After entering the temple, he showed the sketch to an old Taoist priest in a hoarse voice, “If you came from the town under Tile mountain, have you seen these two people?”

The old Taoist priest had no idea what he was talking about or why he knew he came from Tile mountain, so he confusedly shook his head. The scholar didn’t reveal any disappointment on his face. He thanked the old Taoist and left for the next destination.

There were more than 300 days from last fall to this fall. He had visited 400 Buddhist temples, 2,100 Taoist temples, and 47 cities. He had traveled a million miles. Even though he was exhausted and haggard, he never stopped.

It was raining in Chang’an tonight.

A cat squatted on a wall of the Old Brush Pen Shop, drenching. Then it screamed to the sky, jumped into the yard, deftly entered the bedroom and fell on the bed after rubbing his body with the bedding.

The yard had been deserted for a long time. Considering the young man who liked to smash it with rocks had been away, it felt happy for its life now.

It tried all kinds of postures to sleep in the bed; lying, upturning, pointing up, and putting its tail between its legs, and it finally felt a little bored.

The cat bent its forelegs and propped its head on them, staring at the door. It felt a little lonely that it began to expect for someone to push the door in the next moment.

The servants in the house by Yanming Lake had been dismissed and returned to the Grand Secretary Manor. The whole house was quite deserted without a light. The lotus leaves in the lake withered and swayed in the rain. Nobody knew if the leaves could remember the explosions in that day or the things happened in that year.

There was a cold sun over the Wilderness.

The yellow grass frosted. There were two little fish stuck in a pond which were about to be frozen. All of sudden, the shallow pond was suddenly deepened.

Wheels roared past.

A black carriage came from nowhere with furious power and heavily fell on the rough ground. It kept rushing so fast that it seemed to be chasing the sun.