WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: HidingTurtle

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◈ Raised by a Ruthless Swordsman ◈

Chapter 33: Hangzhou

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“Not like that. You’ll only pull the hook loose. When the float goes under, wait a breath. Then flick your wrist lightly, just your wrist.”

The elder beside me had finally had enough and clicked their tongue. I did as instructed, and sure enough, the next bite brought up a fish the size of my palm. Only then did the elder burst into hearty laughter.

I tossed the flapping fish into the bamboo basket at their feet. The basket, half-submerged by the shore, received it with a splash.

After baiting the hook again and casting it back out, I finally found the whole thing amusing. Only half a day ago, I would never have imagined myself fishing.

I had slept until the sun was high, only to hear that the boat would not leave until tomorrow morning. I did not want to spend the entire day cooped up in a room, either.

I had set out to wander around the dock like any other traveler and had just happened upon the elder sitting on a rock with their line in the water.

I had stood there watching for quite some time, fascinated by the way they caught fish with a single hook. Then they had pointed their chin at a spare rod and told me to try it myself if I was going to stare so much.

It was a strange experience. I had grown up seeing nets all my life, but this was my first time tempting fish in with nothing more than a hook and a line. On my father’s boat, fish had been hauled up in bulk. We had never coaxed them in one at a time like this.

As I sat watching the float, stray thoughts faded away. If I kept my eyes fixed on that single spot on the water, last night’s events and the bundle hidden against my chest both seemed distant for a while. I had not known fishing could be this enjoyable.

I had just put my third fish in the basket when it happened.

A sail slowly appeared around the bend upstream. They had said it would arrive in the evening, yet it had come early.

I turned back to the float, but I could no longer focus on it. Instead of that spot on the water, Hangzhou, the Mist and Sunset Pavilion, and that voice telling me to go on ahead kept intruding on my thoughts.

After missing two or three bites and pulling up nothing but an empty hook, the elder clicked their tongue again.

“Your mind’s off in the bean field.”

I could not deny it, so I reeled in my line.

“What I caught is payment for using your basket.”

The elder snorted and merely waved a hand.

The sensation of the line trembling all the way up to my palm still lingered in my hand. As I walked, I found myself smacking my lips for no reason.

I headed straight for the pier. The boat had just arrived and was being tied down. As the boatmen bustled about unloading cargo, I looked around briefly for someone to ask.

Soon, I spotted a man with a sun-darkened face and hands rough as tree bark. He had spread counting rods before his knees and was calculating something.

I approached him.

“Is that boat bound for Hangzhou?”

“It is. We leave tomorrow morning.”

The man answered without taking his eyes off the rods. Then he looked up and gave me a thorough once-over. His gaze seemed to tally up my bamboo hat and the single pack on my back before he reached a conclusion.

“Thirty cash. You handle your own meals. We leave half a double-hour after sunrise. Be late, and we leave you behind.”

Thirty cash. Judging by what Du Gi had paid in Guju, that did not seem far off for the fare from here to Hangzhou.

Without another word, I paid him in coins. He took the string, counted them, told me to see him in the morning, then went back to sorting through the counting rods.

By the time I returned to the inn, the sun still had a handspan left before setting. I left my pack in the corner of the shared room and stretched out my legs until supper was served.

When it was time to eat, I went out to the main hall and ordered a bowl of noodle soup. The inn was rather crowded. It seemed that some travelers and a couple of boatmen from the ship that had arrived during the day had settled in here as well.

The waiter must have already spread the story around once, because last night’s events had found a place at every table.

“They say there were at least twenty river bandits.”

“What are you talking about? A masked man was flying around, swinging a sword.”

Over a single night, one person had become twenty, and people had started flying through the air. As I listened to the stories, my bowl arrived.

I took it and had a mouthful. The noodles had gone soft, and the broth was thin and bland. It seemed Tonglu’s food would never agree with me.

After filling my stomach well enough, I lay back down in the room. One by one, the others came in and claimed their own places to sleep.

Once the sound of snoring had spread evenly through the room, I turned over and quietly took the bundle from inside my clothes.

I lifted one corner of the silk and brought my nose close. The fishy water smell had almost faded, and beneath it rose that dry, bitter scent again.

Still, it did seem somewhat weaker than before.

Had it gone bad? Even if it had, what did it matter? It only needed to serve as evidence.

Comforting myself with that thought, I tucked it deep inside my clothes again.

Tomorrow, I would be in Hangzhou.

The Mist and Sunset Pavilion. A pavilion wreathed in water mist and sunset haze. It was an impressive name for an inn, so it was probably a rather expensive place. What had Du Gi arranged?

Even with a few unanswered questions beneath my pillow, sleep came more easily than I expected.

* * *

The next day, I woke before dawn. When I turned at the sound of rustling, I saw the boatmen sleeping beside me gathering their belongings and leaving the room one by one.

I hurriedly got up, packed my things, and followed them out. Less than a meal-time interval after I boarded, the boat pushed away from the pier.

My place was beside a pile of cargo near the stern. Hugging my pack, I watched the shore slide past.

The sword hilt I could feel through the cloth somehow reassured me, and I held the pack closer for no reason.

They had said it was half a day’s journey, and the water did indeed run steadily in one direction. Once the river emerged from the valley, it grew wider and wider. After noon, it had spread so far that the opposite shore was barely visible.

There were far more boats as well. At first, we only passed one now and then. Before long, sails lay ahead and behind us. Fishing boats, cargo boats, even roofed pleasure boats. If the water was a road, then this was the middle of a market street.

One of the boatmen at the bow let out a long call. Hangzhou must have come into view.

Leaning out, I saw a long gray city wall beyond the water mist. Below it, countless masts stood packed together like a forest along the shore.

Even Lanxi’s crowded dock would be lucky to occupy one small corner over there.

The wall remained visible for a long while before we reached it. The boat gradually crossed the broad water and turned toward the shore where that forest of masts stood.

The closer we got to the dock, the tighter the waterway became. Boats filled the broad river so densely that the channels between them were as narrow as alleys.

The boatmen pushed their poles against the riverbed and forced their way through those alleys. Whenever oncoming boats blocked the way, shouts flew back and forth over who should pass first. Sometimes someone shoved another boat aside with a pole, and curses sailed across the water.

The sounds of the dock reached us first. Porters shouting, brokers calling for customers, anchor ropes being wound, and curses from one boat or another.

At last, the boat pressed up against the pier. The instant the gangplank was set down, I stepped into the middle of that noise.

The boatmen put down the plank and began unloading cargo first, while the travelers stood aside by the rail and waited their turn.

The man who had taken my fare happened to be standing nearby, watching the cargo come down, so I asked him casually.

“May I ask something? Do you know a place called the Mist and Sunset Pavilion?”

The man turned and looked me over from head to toe. Then he snorted.

“The Mist and Sunset Pavilion? Dressed like that?”

Dressed like that. I assumed he meant a traveler in a bamboo hat with a pack did not suit an expensive inn, so I let it pass. He did not seem to mean anything by it, since he continued.

“It’s by West Lake, west of the city.”

After telling me that much, he grinned and jabbed me lightly in the side with his elbow. Then he gave his hips a couple of lewd thrusts.

“I thought you had a pretty face. This young man’s quite fond of women too, isn’t he? Good luck.”

I knew perfectly well what that gesture meant.

Was it an inn where men enjoyed themselves with women? Were all expensive inns like that? The man turned back toward the cargo and began shouting again.

What sort of place had Du Gi sent me to?

I stepped down from the gangplank. The moment I did, the whole tide of people swept over me, and for some time, I simply walked wherever it carried me.

The dockside streets seemed endless. There were alleys lined with warehouses, alleys lined with inns, and alleys lined with stalls, each one a district of its own. Only after squeezing through that crush for a long while did I see the city gate at the far end of the street.

It was less a city gate than a mountain of one. It stood so high that even two or three of Guju’s gates stacked together would not compare, and the line passing beneath it stretched like a trail of ants.

The line moved forward slowly, and once I got closer, I saw why.

Soldiers carrying spears stood beside the gate, taking slips of paper from everyone passing through and inspecting them. They made people unpack their belongings as well, rifling through them. Some were pulled aside and questioned at length.

Those papers the soldiers were examining were probably travel permits. As I wondered what to do, I suddenly remembered the escort token.

I drew out my money pouch. As I felt between the coins, my fingers caught on the familiar wooden token. I had used this token to leave and enter the city gate in Geonnyeong. Would it work here?

There was no harm in trying. As I took out the escort token and tied up my money pouch again, I noticed the pieces of silver ingot inside.

Come to think of it, when Nangong Hwi had slipped something into a soldier’s sleeve, the gate’s tight restrictions had eased as if by magic.

If the token did not work, I intended to try that method instead. Clutching the token, I waited.

When my turn came, the soldier held out a hand. I placed the escort token on their palm, and they turned it over to inspect both sides before asking what had happened.

I said I had fallen behind my protection convoy and was trying to catch up with the main group. The soldier glanced at my appearance, then pointed their chin at my back.

“What’s that you’re carrying?”

I thought quickly. It seemed best not to invite trouble by admitting it was a sword, so I made up an excuse.

“A consignment. I got separated from the group, so I’m carrying this one item while I catch up.”

I turned slightly to show the soldier my back. The soldier glanced at it, then looked back at the escort token. Without even telling me to open the pack, they flicked their chin and let me through.

My worries had been for nothing. It ended so easily that I did not even need to slip anything into the soldier’s sleeve.

If the dockside streets had been a crowded market, the city itself was a completely different place.

Even the roads were different. Instead of dirt, broad stone slabs stretched as far as the eye could see. Sedan chairs, carts, and riders on horseback all split off along their own paths.

Two and three-story shops stood without gaps on either side, and the banners and lanterns hanging from every eave blocked half the sky.

He had said West Lake was west of the city. Estimating the direction by the setting sun, I headed that way.

The market went on and on. After passing a street lined with silk shops came a street of medicine shops, followed by streets lined with teahouses and tea merchants. In Guju, all those things would have been packed into a single market alley. Here, each trade occupied an entire street.

Gate towers with roofs set atop stone pillars stood at every intersection, and people flowed beneath them like a river. Though I was inside the city, waterways still ran through it, and I crossed two or three stone bridges.

At one point, I passed an area enclosed by especially high, long walls. Soldiers with spears stood in front of its red gate, and even the overflowing crowds diverted around it.

It looked like an official compound. The height of its walls alone showed its importance, so I hastened my steps.

The streets had no end, and I only reached the western gate when the sun had begun to sink.

Though it was the same kind of city gate, the people passing through it looked entirely different.

The gate where I had entered had been choked with cargo and carts. Here, there were only people. People in silk robes carrying fans, ladies in sedan chairs, even those carrying cases of instruments. Not a single porter could be seen among the crowd flowing out through the gate.

No one asked questions of those leaving. As I passed through with the crowd, the scent of face powder drifted over from somewhere. It was a smell far removed from the sweat and fishy stink that had filled the other side.

I wondered where everyone was going in such a rush, but I understood as soon as I passed through the gate.

My steps stopped on their own.

A vast body of water stretched all the way to the foot of the mountains, holding the setting sun in its entirety. Its surface was so still that it seemed less like water than a mirror.

Roofed pleasure boats floated upon it. Pleasant music carried in fragments from one boat, and a woman’s song drifted across the water from another.

I had lived beside the sea and rivers my whole life, but I had never seen water shine so quietly.

I did not come to my senses until the water had deepened from red to violet.

Two people in silk passing beside me glanced my way, exchanged quiet laughs, and moved on.

Standing rooted by the water in a bamboo hat with a pack on my back, I must have looked like quite the country bumpkin.

Well, I was a country bumpkin. I ignored them and continued on my way.

Pavilions and gazebos lined the shore. As night fell, lanterns began to rise one by one beneath their eaves, until the lakeside shone as though wrapped in a belt of fire.

Their light was reflected upside down in the water, forming another belt of fire across the lake.

I had no way of knowing which building was the Mist and Sunset Pavilion, so I followed that belt of light, looking up at each signboard beneath the eaves. This Tower, that Pavilion. Learning to read had its uses after all.

And as I walked, I gradually realized something.

There were no stables for tying horses, no courtyards for unloading cargo, and no travelers carrying packs. Everyone wore silk with empty hands, while music and the scent of face powder drifted from beyond beaded curtains.

Places whose trade and entire purpose was pleasure. At last, that man’s gesture made sense.

As I continued walking with an unsettled mind, one building suddenly caught my eye.

Its size alone was on a different scale from the rest. It was as wide as three or four of the neighboring buildings put together, and it rose three storeys high. The corners of each level’s eaves swept up toward the sky, and three layers of roof floated amid the lantern light.

The front of the building stood directly over the water. Stone pillars had been driven into the lake, and a pavilion rested atop them. Pleasure boats came and went beneath it, as though the place had its own gate on the water.

Lanterns hung in rows on every floor, while a pair of lamps as tall as a person stood before the entrance. Their light reflected upside down in the water, making it seem as though another illuminated pavilion stood upon the lake.

At the center of its eaves, three gilded characters stood clear in the lantern light. With a doubtful thought, I looked closer.

The Mist and Sunset Pavilion.

This had to be the place.

I stood there for a moment, looking all the way up to the top of the third floor.

Was this really where that man, who had haggled with a stall owner to get a discount on a set of clothes, had told me to go?

Du Gi was not bad-looking, but he did not seem like someone who belonged in a place like this.

It was impossible to understand.

Still, I decided to go in and approached the entrance. A man stepped aside to block my way and addressed me.

“Sir. This is an establishment where the pleasures cost dearly.”

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