Lanke Chess Edge
Chapter 63: The Word Fate Is Truly Amazing

Today was the fourth day of May.

Soon after, Ji Yuan sensed that the light above his head was growing dimmer, and large rain clouds were approaching.

“Boom…”

Another violent rumble of thunder sounded. The lightning right before the thunder was like a camera shutter flash, illuminating the earth that was already dim under the dark clouds.

Woo… Woo…

In the wilderness outside, the wind blew before the rain began, sweeping dust over the grass and trees. Fortunately, the small cave in the stone wall where Ji Yuan was located was a bit special. The stone walls to either side blocked a lot of the wind, and, coupled with the inclined angle above, although it seemed that the wind was blowing violently a few feet away, the inside of the cave relatively calm.

“Looks like it’s going to rain heavily!”

Ji Yuan smiled and reached into his bag. The next second, his smile froze.

He grabbed the bag, opened it, looked through it, and finally found four fresh jujubes in the corner, but the rest were gone.

Scratching his scalp in confusion, Ji Yuan really felt that he might have stayed here for too long. After all, hunger was a real problem.

“Oh… These jujubes are hard to come by, and they can also help resist hunger. I wanted to save some of them, but I didn’t expect that they would be gone after only such a short time…”

Right when he lamented, Ji Yuan’s ears suddenly twitched, as he heard a sound that was different from the sound of the wind.

Ji Yuan followed the direction of the sound and looked to the left. He couldn’t see clearly, but he was not mistaken. Someone was indeed approaching.

‘How can someone come to a place like this? It seems like they strayed off of the official road! ’

It didn’t take long for the voices of the visitors to be clearly audible. Three people could be seen driving a carriage with two horses, hurrying in the direction of the stone wall and hill.

“The Crouching Dragon Wall¹ is just ahead. Hurry up, hurry up, go over there and hide before the rain starts!”

“Come on, Zhuzi, Yulian, get out of the carriage it can go faster.”

……

From time to time, shouts and the sound of whips cracking could be heard. It sounded like these people were coming here specifically to hide from the rain.

Ji Yuan listened to their words and took another look at the pea-shaped rock cave where he was.

“Crouching Dragon Wall? Where did they get this image from?”

After a while, the group of people driving the carriage finally reached the vicinity of the so-called Crouching Dragon Wall.

Naturally, everyone in the group noticed that there was a man using a bag as a pillow on the other end of the cave, looking at them. The elder in the group, who was probably around 50 years old, bowed slightly to Ji Yuan. Ji Yuan really did not want to stand up, so he cupped his hands together and bowed seated in return.

Neither party spoke. Ji Yuan watched them hurriedly drive the carriage close to the hole in the rock wall. Two of the strong men immediately and swiftly took a pointed stick and a mallet from the carriage, and began to hammer in the stakes for the horse leads.

After working for a while, they finally secured the carriage and the three horses to the side of the cave. The group also relaxed. Everyone outside and those who got down from the carriage at sat down inside the cave, one after the other.

There were seven people in total. In addition to the elder who had bowed earlier to Ji Yuan, there were the two young men. The rest included a woman of similar age to the men, a girl of about sixteen or seventeen, and two little boys. The youngest boy was younger than Yin Qing, and the older boy looked to be about thirteen or fourteen years old.

Ji Yuan’s gaze focused on the three horses, and then looked at the people who had already sheltered under the stone wall. He didn’t have any particular interest in them, so he looked at his book again.

“Boom…”

The thunder sounded once more, and after about a dozen breaths, heavy rain began pouring down to the earth with a crashing noise. Although it was getting noisier outside, there was a feeling like the world had suddenly become quiet.

“Oh, I really almost can’t keep up. This road doesn’t lead anywhere. Fortunately, it’s not far from the Crouching Dragon Wall!”

The elder in the group said this in a relaxed tone, and their group of seven sat there chatting.

“Uncle Zhong, how long will it take for the rain to stop?”

“This kind of sudden thunderstorm happens a lot at this time of the year. It comes and goes quickly. I think it will stop in an hour at most.”

“Uncle, Uncle, there’s a man lying over there. He doesn’t move at all, and he even sleeps on the dirty ground. Is he a beggar?”

The little boy pointed at Ji Yuan and spoke.

“Little kid, stop pointing fingers at others. We are all just travelers hiding from the rain!”

The elder surnamed Zhong sternly rebuked.

However, the little boy’s words also made Ji Yuan take a look at his own appearance. After all, his clothes were intact, and his sloppy looks were not too exaggerated compared to his previous self… right? How could he look like a beggar?

‘Hehehe… I was called a beggar again!’

Ji Yuan smiled a little nervously, mainly because he thought of his hesitant self back then, and also the scene in an episode from his previous life when Steven Chow played Tang Bohu.² It could be said that, “the mood today is really different!”³

Unfortunately, the situation in reality did not follow elder Zhong’s words. The rain did not gradually weaken until an hour and a half later.⁴ The heavy rain turned to drizzle, and it looked like it was about to stop. Aside from Ji Yuan, most of the people in the cave were drowsy.

“Oh, someone is coming here in the rain!”

At one end of the cave, which had been quiet for a while, the little boy’s voice shouted again.

“Oh, they’re still walking so slowly, they must be soaked!”

Someone echoed.

Ji Yuan frowned, temporarily put down the book, and looked up into the rain. In the dim light, he saw an elderly man wearing a round-collared long gown⁵ beneath an open-front outer robe,⁶ walking slowly towards this stone wall.

Not only could Ji Yuan see this person clearly, but Ji Yuan also could not hear the sound of rain falling on him. However, as the person approached, it was obvious that his clothes were already wet.

Ji Yuan subconsciously looked at the seven people on the opposite corner of the cave, hoping that this was not a bad situation.

The visitor seemed to be in a good mood. He strolled to the edge of the cave in the rain. Suddenly, he was stunned for a moment, and turned to look at Ji Yuan, as if he had just realized he was there. Ji Yuan had already sat up, his book in hand.

The two sides’ eyes met, and after two breaths, the person who had just come in from the rain smiled and bowed to Ji Yuan. Ji Yuan, feeling slightly relieved, returned the greeting and smiled back.

The man walked over through the rain, entered the shelter under the stone wall, and walked to the front of the cave. He merely nodded and smiled at the seven people who were looking at him curiously, then walked directly to Ji Yuan’s side.

Before he arrived, he had already spoken.

“Sir, you are actually quite refined!”⁷

The man had already carefully observed Ji Yuan’s entire body. The dust on his clothes and his slightly messy hair showed that Ji Yuan had been lying here for quite some time.

Ji Yuan also carefully observed the new person. He was of medium height and had a straight posture. His beard and eyebrows were long underneath the square hat on his head.⁸ His expressive eyes were clear and full. He did not look like he was in his seventies or eighties but rather like he was in his sixties. When he heard the other party’s words, he wasn’t certain whether they were praise or ridicule, so, Ji Yuan simply responded with a smile.

“Haha… I’m just taking short a rest here. Speaking of refinement, nothing can compare to your leisurely stroll in the rain.”

While Ji Yuan was speaking, he still paid attention to the water droplets dripping from the other person’s clothes in his peripheral vision. He could hear his footsteps and the sound of the water falling to the ground. Neither the water nor the clothes seemed fake.

This visitor was definitely not an ordinary person, but it was unclear whether he was a god, a demon, or an immortal. Ji Yuan was not as relaxed as he appeared to be on the surface.

The visitor’s leisurely demeanor was not fake. He slowly walked to Ji Yuan and glanced at the book in his hand. His eyes seemed to widen a little.

“A Historical Account from Outside the Tao? It’s a compendium from many years ago! Do you mind if I sit beside you?”

“Please help yourself, sir.”

Although he did mind, now definitely was not the time to say it out loud.

The old man just sat a foot away from Ji Yuan. The rain dripped from where he was sitting onto the ground and flowed to Ji Yuan. However, Ji Yuan didn’t really care about that. Seeing that the old man had no intention of speaking for the time being, he would naturally not take the initiative to start a conversation. He picked up the book and pretended to continue reading, while his mind was mostly paying attention to the people around him.

The two of them were silent for a while. One was reading a book absent-mindedly, while the other was looking at the rain outside of the cave.

“Uncle, what are they doing?”

“Shh… don’t speak nonsense! Everyone, pack up, we’ll leave when the rain stops…”

The elder surnamed Zhong kept his voice low, as if he had sensed something was wrong. As he spoke, he winked and asked the two strong young men to go pull out the stakes for the horses’ leads.

The older generation often said that it was likely to encounter mountain spirits and demons in evil winds and demonic rains. The one who had just entered from the wilderness didn’t seem like a normal person, and now it seemed that the one who was already here was not normal either.

Yes, in this situation, apart from the youngest child who was curious, the feeling that spread fastest and strongest among the group was actually a sense of fear. Although the simple folk wisdom could not be said to be completely correct, it did help many avoid disasters. These instincts of this time period might have been difficult to imagine for those who had not experienced it before. If it were Ji Yuan’s previous life, many people would have scolded him for being stupid.

The inside of the cave became very quiet, with only the sound of the gradually lightening rain outside. After about a quarter of an hour, the rain eventually stopped, and the seven people at the other end of the cave hurriedly left with the horses driving the carriage, led by their elder.

At this moment, Ji Yuan naturally hoped that the seven people would leave quickly, but seeing how decisively they left, Ji Yuan couldn’t help but sigh in his heart.

The word “fate” was really amazing. Some people would spend their entire lives and never encounter the mysteries they were pursuing before they died, while some encountered them inexplicably but were frightened. Perhaps the feeling of regret would ferment only after the event had passed.

1. 卧龙 壁 (wò lóng bì): I considered keeping it as Wolong Wall to keep the consistency with not translating place names, but since the actual meaning is referenced later I decided to fully translate it. ↩︎
2. Tang Yin, courtesy name Bohu, was a Ming dynasty painter, calligrapher, poet. He had an “eccentric lifestyle” which led to his use as a trickster character in folklore and plays, such as with the 1993 Hong Kong comedy film Flirting Scholar (also available on YouTube), which is what JY is referencing here. In the film, he disguises himself as a servant in order to gain employment in the house where his crush lives. The character was played by actor Stephen Chow. ↩︎
3. T/n: I did a TON of research to figure out the official translation of this quote from the movie. Couldn’t find it without potentially watching the entire movie, which… I’m actually considering. Welp. ↩︎
4. T/n: Buddy if I could predict the weather with a half-hour accuracy I would bill myself as a genuine fortune-teller ↩︎
5. 圆领长衫 (yuán lǐng cháng shān): Here is an image of collar types. Imagine that with a long under-robe. ↩︎
6. 对襟直罩衫 (duì jīn zhí zhào shān): robe with a straight cut and an open front, which can be fastened or left open, serves as an outer layer. Examples are hard to find, but try looking here and here. ↩︎
7. The exact word used is 雅兴 (yǎxìng), which refers to an elegant attitude of mind rather than physical appearance ↩︎
8. This hat was not drawn in the manhua (we’re ~chapter 33 of the manhua, by the way), so I can’t point towards a reference… best I could find was an example here ↩︎