CH 109

Lin Xian was quite a small town located quite far away from cities, but it was a place that was always bustling with people and noise, making it quite a lively town. On this particular day, an all-black car was parked by an old tenement building. With just one look, one would know that it must be quite expensive, which made it very different and out of place amongst its surroundings.

An old man was reading the news as he waited for new customers in his small little shop on the ground floor of the building. When he saw the mark on the front of the car, he sucked in a breath of cold air as he thought to himself, woah what a fellow, a car worth more than millions of yuan. Even if he didn’t eat or drink, he probably still won’t even be able to buy such a car for decades. When did this poor town attract such a rich man into coming here?

It was not only him as the pedestrians walking nearby were all looking. In the midst of these gazes, a man dressed in a full suit ensemble finally stepped out of the car. With fierce looking eyebrows and a pair of peach blossom eyes that leaned on the longer and narrower side, his face looked like he was smiling even if there was not a smile on his face, almost as if he was a wandering vigilante from a game.

Wen Chuo backed up a few steps and then looked up towards the top of the building. Through the dangling and clustered strings of electrical wires in the air, his gaze stopped at the fifth floor, and his chin lifted slightly as an expression of pride and superiority from coming back with a fortune and achievements under his belt seeped onto his face.

Not long after, a man who looked like a driver came rushing out of the building. Meeting up with Wen Chuo’s eyes, he wiped the sweat off his forehead, looking a bit nervous, 

“Chairman Wen Chuo, a widow currently lives there and even after asking a few times, she said there was no such person called Bai Yang. Have you, dear sir, perhaps remembered incorrectly?”

Wen Chuo slightly narrowed his eyes and coldly looked at him, 

“That idiot lives here. I’ve only been gone for three years, so there’s no possibility that I’ve remembered wrong.”

Wen Chuo furrowed his eyebrows then and impatiently pushed him aside. He walked up into the building himself as the driver stood downstairs and watched him go; watching him walk up to the fifth floor, knock on the door of room 503 and walk straight in before getting pushed out by that shrewish widow who was now screaming so loudly everyone could hear.

“Are you insane! I’ve lived here for two years now and have never heard of Bai Yang whatsoever. Have you lost your mind huh!”

In this kind of place, doors were built right next to each other, so close they might as well all be living together on the floor, and not to mention the other buildings packed so close together. So before long, people were pushing their windows open to watch the spectacle. Wen Chuo’s face darkened immediately upon her words and the driver tittered about, not daring to go up near him at all.

This newly appointed Chairman Wen Chuo was quite an amazing, ferocious character. Supposedly a child born out of an affair, he had been living in one of the countryside towns on the outskirts somewhere for more than ten years before he was taken back by the family head to be recognized. Only a few years since then, he had already won over his big brother of the main descent, becoming the Wen family’s official heir.

Wen Chuo’s temper wasn’t the greatest and the driver had some inkling of an understanding of that himself. But after a long moment of hesitation, he finally bolstered his courage to step forward as Wen Chuo came down, 

“Chairman Wen Chuo……”

Wen Chuo ignored him and walked over to the convenience shop on the ground floor. He bought the most expensive cigarette and leaned against the glass cabinet to ask, 

“Shop owner, let me ask you a question. Where did Bai Yang, who lived up in 503, move to?”

The shopkeeper was a bit confused and suspicious, thinking that this name sounded so very familiar, but he couldn’t remember who it was. Wen Chuo knocked on the table with impatience, 

“That idiot who’s always picking up bottles around here for money.”

“Oh Bai Yang—-” 

A fairly chubby lady came out from the back of the shop, brushing aside the plastic curtain strips used as a private doorway. Her hands held a basket of just plucked vegetables and she ‘ah-oh’ed on the way down to sit on the little stool, 

“Doesn’t he have some problems with his brain. Hmm, had been here a few years ago…… oh three years ago, he had been dazedly looking around all over the streets for someone, but he wouldn’t say who he was looking for. He ran out on a rainy day and never came back. When the rent was due later, San-shen2 couldn’t find him so she rented it to someone else.”

After the shop keeper’s wife said that, she saw Wen Chuo not making a single peep and gave him a second glance, feeling that the sight of him was weirdly familiar, 

When Wen Chuo was young, he did quite well in school. But when he grew older, he fell off the tracks. He hadn’t really continued after finishing high school, and instead had begun to play games all day in an internet cafe. His heart was higher than the sky as it was thinner than a sheet of paper3, waiting wholeheartedly for the Wen family to take him back.

It was not quite realistic, but it was perfect for a daydream.

Wen Chuo followed his gaze to look outside and his eyes froze.

Standing outside the internet cafe was a clean looking young man with black hair, wearing a t-shirt that had been washed so many times the color had been stripped off. And he was skinny, so skinny he was like the shadow of a balsam poplar tree.4

His eyes kept staring at Wen Chuo, and he did not utter a single word with his lips slightly pursed.

Bai Yang had experienced too much of a shock when he was a child and so his brain was a bit slow. Not one to like talking either, he seemed like an idiot, without much difference to those who had mental issues either. But the things he should know, he knew. He knew that staying in an internet cafe, playing games, was not a good thing.

On a normal day, he would stand outside waiting for Wen Chuo. If Wen Chuo didn’t come out, he’d just keep standing there. When it turned dark, when it was time for dinner and Wen Chuo still hadn’t come out, Bai Yang would go inside to drag him out.

So to speak, this was not an idiot who would be good to provoke.

This time, Wen Chuo didn’t need Bai Yang to drag him out. He quickly flew up from his chair as if the floor was turning into lava, wanting to rush out when he was blocked by the owner, 

“Ah ah ah, Wen Chuo, you still haven’t paid for the instant noodles yet.”

Wen Chuo subconsciously patted his pockets.

Empty.

He looked at Bai Yang, excited but also apologetic, and his heart was pounding like a racehorse, 

“That…..lend me some money.”

Bai Yang looked at him for a few seconds before turning away to leave.

Wen Chuo: “……”

The owner of the internet cafe knocked on the table, as evidently it was not the first time this has happened, 

“What are you going to do huh. Sell your kidney or saw off your flesh? 15 yuan and 5 kuai. Think about it.”

Wen Chuo coldly laughed, 

“That kind of shit, needs me to sell my own kidney?”

TL Tidbit:

And we’re back! I hope you all Galactic Judges had a great and safe week : ) This volume is fairly short, but an interesting volume nonetheless!

The schedule for the release of this volume (subsequent volumes I think) will probably not change from the 2 releases per week on Monday and Thursday, as Plum and I find a bit more flexibility with this kind of schedule (altho the particular weekday may change in the future, which we will see for now!) 

In any case, hope you enjoyed a breather from the volume that was volume 4 (*^﹏^*) and hope you like the story of Wen Chuo and Bai Yang ٩۹(๑•̀ω•́ ๑)۶

Notes:

*1 Mentally challenged idiot: so in terms of meaning, the way that “傻子” is meant here, usually means idiot/dumb/can’t (or doesn’t) think for himself kind of person, but it also means here as you might have already guessed someone who’s not quite mentally sound (usually used in a very dismissive tone). It’s kind of used interchangeably in this volume (but more so towards the mentally challenged meaning) as well as to mean both (and also has other connotations depending on how it’s used such as a mom calling her son that but could be affectionately…).

But just to make it easier on myself (of sorts, to just have an easy “noun” so to say instead of describing it everytime), I’m just going to try and stick with idiot/dumb, etc. (… depending on the case as you may see later) but as you read, when it’s being referred to Bai Yang especially, know that it has another meaning attached to it.

*2 The term ‘-shen’ is like aunt but can be for like an older aged female (married/like an aunt) and can also be called by non-familial members. The “san” means three, but is usually used to denote the “rank”, so to say, of the husband a woman usually marries (there can be other reasons) but to explain very primitively (lol), most commonly, say your dad has three brothers (and he’s the youngest out of the four), you would usually call the wife who married your oldest uncle as Da-shen (Da as in big), the wife who married your second oldest uncle as Er-shen (second aunt) and the third as San-shen (third). Of course there are many other situations for someone to be called “san” or “-shen”, but just to illustrate here as a very basic understanding : )

*3 This phrase came from the novel, Dream of the Red Chamber, and it’s the same phrase as in volume 2 or 3 but on a very basic level, it means to have dreams of being someone greater or doing much better but in reality life and death is not up to your own choice, but by who your family/background is. And this specifically references to people who are from poor backgrounds, unable to fulfill their dreams, and never will be able to fulfill their desires, looking upon those that can but are hindered by their poverty or their background, so they have low self esteem/feel like they can never do anything else and be bitter and regretful, hateful, etc. In this case, it’s to point out that Wen Chuo had a dream that was exactly that, a dream.

*4 Balsam Poplar: They kind of look like birch trees but grow very straight. These trees are also called the same name in pinyin as Bai Yang (so they are technically “Bai Yang Tree”  )