Great Merchant - Dao Ming (Chapter 4 - Cursed Child, Beloved Child 4)

Chapter 4

Previously on Dao Ming…

The Chief returns with his eldest son, bringing with them a slave merchant. They intended to sell the orphans due to the epidemic, but Ming’s action completely destroyed their plan, putting them in a bind. They conspire to sell off Ming and his parents in order to cover their asses, not knowing that Tong was spying on them. As a result, Tong renounced his surname and left the manor.


A mud brick hut inside the village

TAN TAN TAN

TAN TAN TAN

“Who is it?! Shit!” The half-awake man rushes out of bed, ripping his wooden door wide open. “Is there a fire?!” The gloomy, dark sky greets his eyes, causing him to look left and right. “Damn it, don’t tell me there are spirits about.” The man shivers lightly as he tries to close the door.

[T/N: 邋遢東西 - dirty things, slang for ghostly things, just made it explicit and upfront instead.]

“Sir.”

“Wah!” The man starts with a jump, nearly hitting the wooden beam above, before looking down at the child standing in front of the door. “Damn it, Tong! People scaring people, gets you scared dead people! Don’t play around like that!”

[T/N: 人嚇人 嚇死人 - the idiom is quite catchy and rhythmic, hard to preserve it though T.T]

“Sir. You three have to get out of here as soon as possible.” Tong speaks in a flat tone, with a slightly deep voice, despite his age, quickly dispelling any thought of playfulness from the man.

“Honey, what’s going on? Haaaa-” A feminine voice drifts in from the small bedroom, followed by a yawn.

“Why…? What’s the matter?” The man, noticing the irregularity, ignores his wife as he squats down to Tong’s height before putting his hands on his small shoulders.

“The Chief and his son are planning to sell your entire family.”

KATA

“They, they can’t do that, can they?!” The female voice sounds choked as she approaches from overhearing the conversation, knocking over a chair on the way.

“Dear Wife, calm down. Wake Ming up and pack the bare necessities, we will leave during Jan hour when the sky is the darkest.”

[T/N: 寅時, old chinese way of keep time, it’s the equivalent of our 3-5 am]

“Wait! This could be a trap!” The wife’s voice becomes slightly hysteric.

The man’s grip tightens ever so slightly as he stares at the youth’s eye that seems to shine in the darkness. “No, I believe Tong isn’t lying. Go! Get ready!”

His wife nods silently, biting her lower lip, before heading back into their bedroom.

“I will go get Master Green Wisteria in the meantime and cause a distraction, leave when you can.” Tong turns around, nearly ripping off the man’s grip.

“But what about you?” The man forcefully turns the youth back to face him.

“Don’t worry about me, I already have plans for myself. Quickly, we don’t have much time.” The youth turns again, taking a stride towards the house the monk’s staying at, leaving a hesitating man behind.


Guesthouse - Temporary residence for Green Wisteria

Creak

“Who goes there?” A slightly coarse voice asks as the door creaks open.

“Sorry to disturb Master Monk, but numerous lives are in your hands!” The youth answers with a grave, resolute voice.

“Oh?” A hint of surprise creeps inside the voice.

Sheik

The monk flicks his right wrist, sending two pieces of stone toward the candle wick, which sparks right on top of it, lighting up the room. “How so?”

Tong turns away and squints his eyes at the sudden brightness, bringing an arm up to protect his sensitive eyes. “The Chief and his son are planning to get rid of Ming and his family. If there’s a Buddha or Bodhisattva, this will not happen.”

“Ho? What would one such as you know about either?” The monk asks flatly, noticing the youth’s choice of words.

[T/N: Not sure if I’m ruining the experience, just ignore this if you already noticed his word choices. Otherwise, I’ll explain. Notice Tong never said “My father and brother” or anything with familial ties, talking about them as though they are strangers.]

“That they’d allow an injustice like this to happen!”

“Suffering is life, life leads to death, death leads to life. Suffering is endless, as is life and death.”

“I don’t care about your great ‘Truths’, all I know is that Ming stopped the spread of suffering! For the crime of saving others, he and his family has to suffer? Isn’t a Bodhisattva an enlightened one?! Isn’t Buddha supposed to ease our suffering?!” The youth clenches his teeth, his voice frantic as his previous appeal through the value of lives seemed to have failed.

[T/N: 大道理 - literal Big Reasons/Principles. It’s usually used as philosophical truths and arguments. Just clarifying that this ‘Truth’ and and the next ‘Truth’ isn’t the same.]

“Ask the world, what is love, why pledge to one another through life and death?” The monk sighs softly, advancing another prayer bead in his left hand. “Little friend, brotherly love, familial love, romantic love, the world lives and dies because of love, it makes no difference in the end.”

[T/N: Whooooosh, goes my brain, the dialogue is impossible to translate 100%. So here I’m again! “問世間,情為何物,直教生死相許” is a common-ish buddhist reference based on a rather famous work from the Jin dynasty, 情 alone means emotions, but the reference is love in this case. Then he went on with “友情, 親情, 愛情, 人情紙咁薄, 人間為情生死 - first 3 is “friendship, family, love” while the last two part is “human relations are paper-thin (this is a chinese idiom), the human world cause life and death because of love/relationships (also common-ish). It’s really smooth in cantonese and really rhythmic, so I’m trying to make it all x love, y love, z love, but it doesn’t work all the way as you will see in the following dialogue m(_ _)m]

“I don’t care for love, I just care about the reality!” The youth looks at the sky anxiously, he can feel that the time limit is soon approaching. “If you don’t want to help, fine!” Without turning back, the boy runs off toward the Chief’s manor.

“Praise be, Praise be… Rather it’s Truth, Reality, your True Nature, I shall bear witness to it all…” The monk gets off from the meditation cushion, prayer beads in hand, walking towards the door after Tong has left the building for a while.

[T/N: He said “真情, 真情, 真情, 是真是情, 我會雙目見證…” 真情 means Truth, Reality, True Nature/True Feeling, 是真是情 means “is real, is feeling” used as comparison. As you can see… I’ve no way to repeat “真情” in any english words nor is there an equivalent… The ‘Reality’ used by Tong was 真情 - meaning the reality of the situation, the true event, etc...]

Gwai Manor


“Fire! Fire!”

“Ahh! Someone! Someone help!”

“Master! Hurry, come out, there’s a fire!”

A few servants are screaming as they run outside the residence, helplessly flailing their arms.

“Come back here!”

A roar can be heard all of the sudden.

“Someone! Stop that man!”

A tattered and bloodied Tong appears from a nearby alley, causing the servants to gasp.

“Young Master Tong! Quick, Yu, go find the doctor!”

“But… the fire.”

“Go! I will handle this.”

The girl servant runs off into the village, screaming for ‘Doctor Ye’ all the while.

“Fire! Fire! Wake up and help fight the fire!” The previous, old looking servant, runs around the dirt road and yells. The other servants follow his lead and do the same, running in different directions.

Not long after, villagers can be seen charging out of their mudbrick houses to survey the scene. Without so much as a word, they form a line next to the nearest well as they immediately relay buckets upon buckets of water to the scene of the fire. Despite their efforts, the blaze refuses to die down, as such, they start to douse the surrounding area with water to prevent the fire from spreading.

“Ah… My… my house…” The village Chief collapses to his knees as he watches the roof of the manor crumble.

“Father, father!” His eldest son drags him by the arm to get him standing again. “You! You! You! Why didn’t you work faster?!” He stabs his finger towards the villagers that were the first on the scene accusingly. “And you!” SLAP “Useless piece of trash, why didn’t you protect the valuables?!”

The slapped chief steward covers his swelling face in shock, he was the first one to run back into the manor to drag out the then still sleeping Chief; something that the rest of the servants saw as well. In the midst of the commotion, the sorry looking Tong suddenly runs up and grabs him by the arm, twisting it. He stealthily smears a small clump of crushed charcoal on the arm inside the sleeve during the process.

“It… it was you!” Tong tears away the older youth’s sleeve, revealing the blackened arm underneath. “Why?! Why did you set the house on fire?!”

The Chief turns his glazed eyes away from the frame of the still burning manor toward his sons, drifting toward the blackened arm that’s still struggling in Tong’s grip before turning his gaze towards the eldest one that’s still supporting him with his arm. With a shake, he immediately distances himself in fright while pointing at him with a shivering hand.

“Wait…! Don’t listen to him! It wasn’t me!” The older youth roughly grabs Tong with his now freed arm and shoves him away. “It wasn’t me!”

The villagers had stopped drawing water from the well a while ago, many of which have turned their heads to watch the commotion. They murmur amongst themselves as they shake their heads in disgust and give the eldest son a look of disdain. Hidden away in the shadows, a man with muslin covering his face can be seen sighing.

“Praise be, praise be...”