清洗渣手的策略

Chapter 30

The moon above the carriage shone cold and bright. A faint ray of light filtered through the window flap and fell on Su Yang’s peacefully sleeping face.

Jing Cheng’s eyes were dark and inscrutable as he gently lifted Su Yang’s wrist. The silvery white bracelet glimmered with a faint, cold light. Just as he remembered.

Tianshan XuanSuo (索). Tianshan XuanSuo (锁). Just one word, yet it meant the very difference between life and death.

{T/N: 索 (suǒ) – rope, referenced in chapter23. 锁 (suǒ) – lock. They’re pronounced the same way. I will refer to them as the Tiānshān Chain and Tiānshān Lock from here onwards.}

Shaolin’s Great Master Jue Qing spent over thirty years of his life crafting the Tiānshān Lock from the Tiānshān Chain. And at this moment, the world’s most perfect manacle was lying quietly on Su Yang’s wrist.

{T/N: 绝情 (jué qíng) – His name means ‘heartless/ruthless’}

The Tiānshān Chain signifies the suspension of life, and the Tiānshān Lock forged by the Great Master Jue Qing signifies the ending of life. Every day at sunset, when the yīn energy begins to rise, the bitter, artic chill accumulated over thousands of years on the snow capped peaks would sweep through the body in a devastating rampage. Only the Tiāngāng Qi is capable of holding it at bay.

{T/N: To put it very very loosely, Tiāngāng Qi is the mystical inner force that allows people in Wuxia stories to act out Dragon Ball scenes.}

All Su Yang knew was that he was required to obediently return to Jing Cheng’s side every day before sundown, unsuspecting that failure to comply to this agreement would result in his death.

But even if this agreement is fulfilled…..

Very lightly, Jing Cheng stroked Su Yang’s forehead. Beneath his fingertips, the skin was icy cold to the touch. Under the Tiānshān Lock’s daily gradual erosion, the boy had long lost the warmth of a normal human body. It was summer now, but Su Yang was eternally frozen in winter.

His body’s foundation has already been ruined. His life expectancy is unforeseeable.

The millennia old arctic chill of the snow capped mountains and the Tiāngāng Qi form an equilibrium by mutually restraining and reinforcing each other. But this delicate balance was at risk of being broken at anytime. The push and pull of these forces within  would one day destroy this already weak and fragile body.

{T/N: 相生相克 (xiāng shēng xiāng kè) – The theory of the 5 elements philosophy, some elements will fuel and inhibit other element. Eg. Wood fuels fire, but wood cleaves metal. Hence some element combinations will be in harmony but some will be in opposition.}

What would he do, when that day comes.

Jing Cheng felt like his throat was held in a crushing grip. Back then it was he who had fastened the Tiānshān Lock onto Su Yang’s wrist. And now, he was the one who was filled with anguish and remorse.