Heaven’s Shadow

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Listening to Ding Dang’s complaints, Lu Chen wasn’t angry but instead smiles, “Hey, I am just about to go out but after your words, how could I still leave?” After saying those words, he stops and returns to sit by the bed side. He retrieves a piece of Spiritual Stone from some place on his body and throws it towards Ding Dang’s pillow.

Ding Dang’s eyes immediately shines. She delightfully stretches her hand to grab it, revealing her jade-like arms. Lu Chen laughs heartily and made use of this opportunity to sneak his hand below the blanket and squeezes her flesh with force.

Ding Dang yelps. She clenches the hand that is grabbing the Spiritual Stone and throws it a fist towards Mu Chen while her other hand grabs the blanket tightly to stop that degenerate hand of his. Just that, in the chaos of her flailing her arms and legs, he manages to get in a few touch off her warm and soft body.

Lu Chen immediately jumps away from that warm bed and walks towards the entrance of the room with large steps. Opening the door, he steps out of the room. Behind him, the coy and angry voice of a woman echoes, “Damn it, there isn’t a good man out there. Remember this!”

※※※

The refreshing morning wind blows from the faraway tea mountain, touching the surface of the clear water of a flowing stream, creating a series of ripples. Then, it brushes by the green bamboos and delicate peach blossoms on both sides of the coast, giving a tinge of fragrance to it. Then, it flits past the Feng Yu Bridge which has algae growing on it, past the dam along the stream, past the bluestone road by the stream and finally, lightly caresses the body of those walking under the morning sun.

Lu Chen stretches his body as he releases a yawn from his mouth. A satisfied smile appears on his face. He looks around his surroundings. This village which was peaceful in the morning is the place he is staying at currently.

This place is known as “Clear Stream Valley”. The origin of its name came from the meandering clear stream that flows slowly and steadily through the village. Other than the deep lake under the tea mountain where the water flows from, the deepest part of stream reaches up only one’s knees. On sunny days, the children of many different valleys would play in its water.

There are many pebbles in the clear stream and they come in different sizes and many differing and bizarre shapes. There are often some unknown fish swimming between these pebbles, playing around leisurely.

On the both sides of the coast of the river, there are many peach blossom trees and green bamboos. When spring arrives, the scenery here would be magnificent. Green bamboo leaves coupled with pink peach blossoms reflecting off the clear stream, creating a beautiful picture of the mountainous village.

Lu Chen wanders around and hears the crisp chirping of the birds. In the distance, the call of the roosters echoes and the many residences of the farmers on both sides of the streams appear before him. It is slightly messy without any certain order to it, but it gave the scenery the carefree touch of the countryside.

Around this time, the residents of Clear Stream Village are already out of their homes. Walking around the village, Lu Chen meets quite a few people on the road by the clear stream. To them, he either nods or greets them with a smile on his face. It seems like he is quite familiar with most of the villagers here.

After walking quite a distance, a large chinese scholar tree appears between the bluestone road and stream in front of him. It is lush with long branches and plentiful of leaves on it. There is a large rock below the tree and a fisherman wearing a coir raincoat is seated on top of it with a fishing pole in his hands.

Lu Chen walks over to his side and looks into the fish cage placed on the floor. As he expected, it is empty. He couldn’t help but chuckle, “Old Yu, how many times have I told you? The fishes in this stream are too small. Not only will they not grow big, they are also hard to fish. If you want to fish, it would be best for you to go to the Little Pearl River five miles away from the village, or you could climb the tea mountain and head to the Dragon Lake on the west. Over there, you will be able to catch big fishes.”

The fisherman turns a little stiffly to look at him. It is an old man whose hair is partly dyed white. He slowly says, “There are big fishes in this stream. I have seen them before.”

Lu Chen laughs as he picks up a pebble by his foot and throws it into the stream. Putong, water splashes, creating ripples on the surface of the river. He smiles towards the old fisherman and says, “I have been living here for so many years but other than the few I have seen in the cracks between the pebbles, I have never seen any big fishes in this river. You are talking gibberish, are you?”

The old fisherman didn’t get angry at those words. He shakes his head and repeats his words, “Xiao Lu, I am not lying to you, there really are fishes in the water.”

Lu Chen laughs heartily, as though talking with this fisherman called Old Yu made him happy. He lightly pats on Old Yu’s shoulders before turning around and walking away with large steps, leaving Old Yu to sit alone under that large tree. After a short daze, he retrieves the fishing line and throws it in an arc in the air into the water, waiting quietly and peacefully for a fish to bite on the hook.

Along the road, he walks another 30 meters and sees a few buildings built together. There are a few bamboo trees growing at the side of the wall. The building at the end has a flag slanting outwards of it. On top of the flag, the fading word of ‘alcohol’ is written on it.

Lu Chen casually pushes the door. The door creaks as it opens. Then, from the interior of the house, an frustrated voice echoes, “Hey, have you ever seen a tavern opening at such an early timing?”

Without any care, Lu Chen continues walking into this nameless tavern. He sees many chairs still stacked upside-down on top of the table, seemingly the look of it when it closed yesterday. He made himself at home as he retrieves a stool by the window and sits on it. Then, he grins, “I am not here to drink.”

By the wall of the little tavern, behind the counter, a figure slowly sits up, revealing a plump and prosperous face of a gentle-looking middle aged man. He stares at Lu Chen and asks curiously, “Oh? Then that’s weird. If you aren’t here to drink, then why would you enter my tavern?”

Lu Chen pats his stomach and says, “I am starving from being busy for an entire night. Cook a bowl of noddle for me!”

That gentle old man humphs and replies, “I only sell alcohol. I don’t sell cooked noodles.”

Lu Chen laughs and says, “I don’t intend to buy it from you. There will be noodle anyway even if I don’t buy up. Hurry up.”

※※※

After a short moment, a bowl of steaming onion egg noodles appears in front of Lu Chen.

Lu Chen sighs in amazement. He grabs the chopsticks and starts eating in big mouthfuls. While eating, he speaks with a muffled voice, “Old Ma, your skills have improved once again. This noodle is really not bad. Speaking truthfully, if it wasn’t for your alcohol and food here for the past 10 years, I really don’t know how I can survive here.”

Old Ma grabs a cloth from the back of the counter and walks over, taking stool after stool down from the table to wipe them. At the same time, he smiles and says to Lu Chen, “Stop fooling around. Even if my alcohol and food are awful that even dogs refuse to approach it, you still can eat it nonchalantly.”

Lu Chen continues eating in big mouthfuls, as though he didn’t hear those words of Old Ma.

Old Ma isn’t bothered over it as well. After wiping all of the stools in this little tavern, by the time he turns around to look, the table in of Lu Chen only has an empty bowl remaining.

“The refreshing morning wind blows from the faraway tea mountain.”

TL: Tea mountain probably refers to , quite a beautiful scenery.

“past the bluestone road by the stream”

TL: This kind of 

“a large chinese scholar tree appears between the bluestone ”

TL: The name of the sounds bad it is actually kinda pretty also. It is also known as the japanese pagoda tree.

“fisherman wearing a coir raincoat”

TL: Damn it why are there so many descriptive phrases. Anyway, .

“Xiao Lu, I am not lying to you, there really are fishes in the water.”

TL: Xiao means small, it is like a common way to call someone younger than you. For example, your name is John, so an elder may call you Xiao John (Ok it sounds weird but that’s is the gist of it)

Actually, although there’s no action, I think I kind of like the peacefulness :O Makes me want to live by the countryside. But nay, I think bloodshed probably will come soon