Fish 023: An Embarrassing Illness

General Liu: Don’t want any gold or cabbages.

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To act secretively, this house was located in a remote area, which means, there are no people nearby.

This place was close to Ma County’s border and separated from Xiaohe Town by a mountain.

Liu Chang and the others walked down the mountain road amidst the snow today. They came from the North, so the roads leading South are much easier with the ravines and inclines relatively smooth and the roads relatively open.

But no matter how easy it is to travel, it’s still the season of ice and snow. The road was wet and slippery, making people fall several times, let alone a galloping horse. Aren’t you afraid of breaking a horse’s leg and ruining a good horse?

Deep doubt covered Mo Li’s eyes, almost suspecting that he heard wrong.

 

“…it’s a Mongolian horse.”

Meng Qi closed his eyes and listened to the rushing hoofbeats amidst the wind and snow, then whispered, “such good-spirited horses are comparable with the Western Region’s Dayuan horses. It’s one of Xiliang Kingdom’s trump cards in dominating the northwest grasslands, forming the Gansu Armored Cavalry, which was once famous all over the world. Even in the wind, frost, rain, and snow, it can run for thousands of miles.”

 

“Good horse.”

Mo Li gave a heartfelt compliment after hearing this.

Even if he learned history and could recite a lot of books since childhood, it can’t leave a deep impression on your mind if you haven’t seen it with your own eyes.

Now that Meng Qi mentioned it, Mo Li immediately remembered the famous Gansu Armored Cavalry as well as its defeat at Marquis JingYuan’s hand in its most glorious time. It had never recovered since then.

 

“With the XiLiang Kingdom destroyed, the Mongolian horses flowed into the Central Plains, but this type of horse isn’t something an ordinary person could have.” Mo Li listened for a while and determined that there were at least 20 riders.

This isn’t a small amount. Even if a wealthy businessman spent money on horses, they dared not raise so many at home.

——it’s not a question of money, but it might lead to suspicion of rebellion.

 

“Government troops?” Mo Li looked solemn, thinking that they wouldn’t be ordinary officers.

Just look at Zhushan County. It was so poor that the entire county government only have two horses to show its authority.

 

The hoofbeats amidst the wind and snow stopped.

There’s no place to rest around here, only that Mansion…are these people passing by? Or was this their intended destination? Are they also JinYiWei?

Mo Li was still thinking hard when Meng Qi calmly interrupted.

 

“What are you thinking for? Just go and see!”

“…”

 

Physician Mo thought that if the person in front of him was truly State Teacher Meng Qi, this ability to instigate people is truly quite powerful and exactly the same as the stories. The State Teachers in stories would always entice the Emperor to disregard politics or to massacre loyal subjects. They can also do bad things in a high-handed manner, such as seeking immortality and worshiping Buddha, building temples, and such things. Anyway, after the Emperor heard it, he couldn’t help but do it even though he knew it was wrong.

 

This should be a special case in their industry, right?

En, they’re not comparable, not comparable.

 

When Mo Li stepped over the courtyard wall, he thought that this was the third time he sneaked into this house tonight. Everyone said bad things don’t happen more than three times. What was originally just a simple thing like delivering a letter has changed again and again.

 

But Mo Li has no other way but to come. The current situation is too complicated.

With just one step, he didn’t know how things will change.

 

Thinking that when this group of JinYiWei squatted here to stare at the Xue family for the previous dynasty’s treasure, they inexplicably involved Qin Lu. If it weren’t for Mo Li finding it out in time, even Tang XiaoTang would be involved.

 

The door of the mansion was opened and the lanterns on both sides were lit.

This group of cavalry was on the road on such a snowy night, wearing black cloaks, and with Yanling swords slung across their waists. Although they dismounted from their horses, no one spoke, leaving the front yard quiet with only the horses snorting occassionally.

 

All the soldiers under Liu Chang had bruised and swollen noses. Snowflakes fell on their heads and clothes, but they dared not say anything with their heads hanging down.

The cavalry put away their swords, then said, “General, everyone in this house is dead.”

 

The General had his back to this side, so Mo Li can’t see his face. He could only see the long black fur coat and bearskin hat. The General randomly found a stone in the courtyard then sat down with one hand on his treasured horse and the other on his broadsword. He asked: “What happened?”

 

The General spoke in standard Mandarin, but Liu Chang stammered when responding, his language out of place.

Mo Li looked at Liu Chang’s respectful and flattering gestures, and had a vague guess in his heart——when the owner and the thin man were talking about Liu Chang in the study, they mentioned something about Liu Chang being a Sixth Rank Officer under the command of General Dangkou. Because this general also had the surname Liu, the thin man also asked if the two were related.

The result was that it’s just a coincidence, and it didn’t matter.

 

General Dangkou didn’t have a formal official rank. The world right now is in chaos and with the dynasties changing so quickly, some official titles became confusing. This was even more obvious on the military side. For such a miscellaneous general, just by hearing his name, no one had any idea what rank he has or how many people he has.

 

Over there, Liu Chang had already told his story. Just after staying in, he said that the servants and master of the house died. He didn’t push the blame on Miss Xue, which surprised Mo Li a bit.

But what followed proved Physician Mo wrong.

Rather than Liu Chang not wanting to, it’s more like he didn’t dare.

 

“I ordered you to take people to collect information about the robbers in An County. What are you doing in Ma county? Did you go the wrong way?”

Liu Chang began to tremble.

The General didn’t seem to see Liu Chang’s fear, even smiling and saying, “It seems that encountering the wind and snow in the mountains is very terrifying. You actually got lost and went dozens of miles away.”

 

“This official just has some family…family matters that have to be dealt with and made a detour here. General, please have mercy.”

Liu Chang didn’t yell, nor kowtow profusely. He just knelt there with a pale face while shaking all over.

 

The General asked with interest: “Didn’t your parents die early? Your ancestral home is in Yongzhou. What family affairs do you have here?”

“I-it’s before we retreated back then.” Liu Chang lowered his head.

“Okay, get up.” The General waved his hand impatiently, then walked in with his people.

 

Liu Chang cautiously followed behind him while staring at the other party’s face. Finding that the General didn’t look angry, he was relieved.

“Why did the General suddenly arrive here? The weather is cold and the road not easy to walk. With the General just bringing these personal soldiers, in case there’s a mistake…”

 

The Sword-bearing Cavalry glared at Liu Chang. The latter quickly changed his words: “General, I think there is a problem with this house.”

“Oh?”

 

“There are no women in this house, whether it’s a maid or a female servant in the backyard.” Liu Chang said while observing the General’s face.

The General’s smile deepened, and he immediately ordered his men to search for a secret passage or a cellar in the house.

 

Mo Li was guessing why when he suddenly saw an extra person on the wall beside him.

“Physician, you are lucky.”

“…”

 

Mo Li silently looked at Meng Qi. With the wall so big and with so many places to go, why squeeze with himself?

What lucky? Where is that luck?!

 

“Have you heard of General Dangkou Liu Dan?” Meng Qi pointed to the figure of the General who was going away.

“Should I have heard of him?” Mo Li asked back.

 

Meng Qi nodded disapprovingly: “What you say is reasonable since I heard that there are no bandits in Zhushan County. The Pingzhou Prefecture records even state that Qi Mao Mountain is full of ghosts, and travelers can enter or leave, but no bandit can camp there. Oh, by the way, Qi Mao Mountain is its ancient name. Your place should call it Ji Mao Mountain.”

Mo Li gripped the dagger in his sleeve while blankly looking at Meng Qi.

 

“…sorry, did I say something that shouldn’t be said?”

Meng Qi felt that the physician seemed to want to put a snowball into his mouth. He thought about it in confusion but still didn’t know why.

 

Mo Li’s tone was bad as he said: “You didn’t say anything wrong, but I hope you didn’t speak.”

Meng Qi seemed to find Physician Mo’s appearance very interesting. His heart moved and he pretended to regretfully say: “I thought you would be interested in Liu Dan’s purpose for coming here.”

 

“What do you mean?” Mo Li told himself to endure. After all, the other party knew a lot.

Meng Qi saw through Mo Li’s thoughts. He put on airs and unhurriedly said: “This person, Liu Dan, has a grudge against JinYiWei’s commander. He attacked thieves and bandits in Pingzhou and clashed several times with people from JinYiWei.”

 

Mo Li didn’t quite understand. JinYiWei was loyal to the Emperor, so why would General Dangkou dare not get along with JinYiWei? He heard that JinYiWei supervised the officials and directly obeyed the Emperor. Even the Imperial Censor didn’t dare provoke them.

 

“Remote places are beyond the reach of the central government.” Meng Qi explained.

Mo Li’s mouth twitched. Could it be that the Capital was so far away that the Emperor couldn’t see them fight? Is it useless to complain? Is using the Emperor’s banner not that easy?

 

Not right. Physician Mo thought about it carefully and figured it out.

“Do you mean that they’re all using the Emperor’s name to reap benefits? So while fighting with each other, they dare not expose the other?”

This time, it was Meng Qi’s turn to be surprised, because Mo Li looked like he wouldn’t understand these twists and turns at all. Why did he realize it so quickly?

 

“I heard General Liu being interested in the cellar and secret passages. There’s no gold or jewelry in the cellar. Is he looking for cabbages?”

“…that makes sense.”

 

Meng Qi inexplicably began to look forward to the people under General Liu opening the cellar and only finding piles of cabbages. Then General Liu would look desperate. No, no, it’s so interesting, why didn’t he think of it? If he prepared earlier, he could have emptied the cellar and find some cabbages to fill it.

 

Liu Dan walked into the courtyard, completely unaware that he was almost attacked by cabbages. He calculated how many dirt on JinYiWei he could find in such an empty house and the smile on his face became more obvious.

That smile continued until he walked into the study and saw the corpse lying on the ground.

 

“Kun Qi?”

General Liu was shocked. He had dealt with this person, and the other party’s martial arts was very high. How could he die here?

Then he saw the poisonous needles gleaming on the wall, and found the hidden weapon on the ground. After looking at the death of these two corpses, he quickly guessed that Kun Qi killed his companion and committed suicide.

 

“Not good…hurry up!”

“General?”

 

Liu Dan’s face paled as he hurriedly ordered his subordinates: “Bring people. Hurry up and get out of here.”

 

“General, what’s going on?” Liu Chang was a little unwilling. If they left like this, he wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the inquisition and take revenge on Xue Zhu.

 

“Idiot, what do you know!”

General Liu thought with horror. With Kun Qi’s martial arts, he not only failed to escape but also committed suicide. This shows how terrible the other party is. And Liu Dan happens to know such a terrible person. Because of his meritorious service, he received a reward from His Majesty along with some pieces of ginseng that were not written on the reward list. It’s said that this was added because of a temporary whim of His Majesty.

 

And such a careless omission saved Liu Dan’s life.

 

Because the origin of this ginseng was problematic. JinYiWei’s deputy commander, who presented that ginseng, died that year, along with hundreds of JinYiWei who secretly kept some ginseng leaves.

 

The Emperor was furious and ordered a thorough investigation, but no further information was found. With the conspirators assassinating court officials, the case was hastily closed.

Still, Liu Dan was well-informed, and he found that this ginseng was related to the former State Teacher of the previous dynasty——

 

General Liu regretted it. He found that people from JinYiWei made money from a gold mine in SiLang Mountain, and immediately felt that he had grasped something. He followed the clues to this mansion, and when he saw the dead, he thought it was some black-hearted ghosts who killed people when they left. Who knew he’d run into such a terrible evil star?

 

“Kun Qi, you motherf-ing made a mess!” Liu Dan gritted his teeth.

 

“General, we found gold in the cellar…”

 

“F-you, even if there’s a golden mountain, I don’t want it! Go, quickly go!”

 

Mo Li didn’t know what was going on, but General Liu rushed out with some people, the wind blowing under his feet.

“It turns out that General Liu can also do superficial internal techniques.” As soon as Mo Li finished his judgment, he felt the courtyard wall he’s in shaking.

 

“He ate my elixir…Physician Mo, stop me…”

Meng Qi’s voice suddenly changed, and the whole wall collapsed.

 

A figure emerged from the sky and chased Liu Dan.　　

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The author has something to say:

Meng Qi: I always can’t control myself, so I have to take preventive measures.

Author: When does your illness flare-up? 120 for first aid, 119 for fire and disaster relief, you choose one.

Meng Qi: 120 is not good, right? The doctors can’t stop me, and 119 is not enough. I want a cure, ah. Is there a doctor who has both 120 and 119 qualities?

Author: Somewhat, but no problem, I’ll give you one.

Mo Li: ???

——————

Thanks to the readers here, this article will enter V on Sunday.

Because of the midnight update pattern…I can’t catch up OTZ.

This is the last update before V of this article. There will be no update at midnight tomorrow, and I will postpone it for a few hours until Sunday noon to enter V.

Thanks again for the little angels who are reading here.

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Translator’s Notes:

Just to let you know, the next chapter is a VIP chapter and I think to commemorate it, the author freaking wrote almost 10,000 characters. For context, that’s 3 times a normal chapter. So I’m debating if I should split it up. Right now, I’m already imagining how long I will translate that many characters.

Assuming I mtl one fish chapter for 2 hours, that would take me about 6 hours, not including the 1-2 hours of editing it and researching some terms.

In that same amount of time, I could have mtl’ed 6 RTBAS or 4 Maid/ACDWL. (Not including editing time of course.)

Right now, I’m having second thoughts if I really want to translate this novel. Or should I just split it up? Meh, really drained right now. Let me sleep on it.