Chapter 3
"Xuanyuan Mufeng."
I tell him so.
The protagonist repeats it quietly a few times, and then as if having remembered it, looks back at me, saying, "I'm Zhu Jue."
This is the name the whole world already knows, including me who knew about it before his arrival. So I answer with a ‘Mm,' pus.h.i.+ng him off and standing up.
He asks me, "where am I?"
"This is Icy Mountain."
While speaking, I can still feel the unkind gazes from outside the window. Clearly those spectators have failed to leave even after being chased away by me. While I understand everyone's burning curiosity, it doesn't feel comfortable to be surrounded and watched at all times. I decided to walk to the window the pull the curtains and then say calmly to Zhu Jue's confused expression, "the light is strong and not good for your eyes."
At the same time, there is knocking on my door, so I know another important character is making their debut. Right now, it would be the female protagonist of this novel.
In most situations, a lack of female characters is what the readers would hate the most about. While to my understanding, a certain subset of readers would like that setting well, but as this is a male-oriented novel, let's not dwell on that type of readers for now. To satisfy the demands of all kinds of readers, the style of the female characters greatly vary within a novel. Some novels will even arrange a whole harem for the protagonist. This is the approach our author makes, and all kinds of beautiful ladies exist in this novel. Though the one appearing right now can probably be crowned the female protagonist. Why her among all the other ladies? First there's obviously many other female characters, but she has the most screen time. While the new chapters have not reached that part yet, she will probably accompany the protagonist all the way to the boss. Not even I know if I can make it there, so I'm kind of jealous of her that way.
In consideration for the moe-ness of the character, the author has set her to be a princess-like lady who has temper tantrums. She is the one recognised to have inherited the skills of the Insect King, carrying all types of worms in the gourd she carries around her. By the way, this lady is also the daughter of the master of the Sect. An important part of her being the female protagonist is how beautiful she looks. In fact, besides some novels with pretty hardcore settings, I've seldom heard female protagonists looking ugly. Even if they're not beautiful, they would be pure, cute, naïve or untainted. Since she will be the one the protagonist falls in love with at first sight, it won't do to have her not be pretty. Of course, these are all part of the character setting. Since I basically grew up with her since I was but a little boy, I am quite clear on how she actually behaves in reality. While everyone in Icy Mountain Sect do indulge and treasure her, but she is not one to throw temper tantrums. She is actually kind and considerate of others. Most important, she is afraid of worms.
This is a huge tragedy, an unsolvable tragedy. Everyone has tried to come up with countless ways to reduce her fear of worms, but as you will see, they have all failed.
I opened the door up, and the female protagonist, named Qiu Yu, is standing outside the door with a basket looking at me. She sneaks a glance into the room, and having clearly seen Zhu Jue who is standing by the bed, she swallows, standing straight up, lifting her head up
"Mm."
The good thing about an ice-cold mountain setting is you can just ‘Mm' in a n.o.ble and cold manner when you don't know what to say.
Right, Qiu Yu is the female protagonist, and like most female protagonist settings, initially the one she likes is me. This is probably another of the author's setting by the way. She probably doesn't feel that way, and we're only childhood friends at best.
Finally, the protagonist has had his first historical encounter with the female protagonist. This is a memorable moment, but the two both look too calm. I can't see any of those ‘a flash of brilliance appearing in the protagonist's eye,' or ‘thousands of mountains and thousands of streams streak past the protagonist's eye.' To be honest, personally I'm really curious about how things can flash past one's eye. Maybe I just have bad eyes and I can't see it. Anyway, as someone who knows when he's a third wheel, I go out for a walk decisively as that happened.
In the 19 years of my life before this, while I kept going on about protagonist this protagonist that, but actually meeting him, I felt that he was so he was. All in all, he's just a character like us.
Thinking it is probably enough time, I stuff the fried batter in my hands into my mouth, clean myself up and prepare to go back. In the end I didn't manage to get Qiu Yu's breakfast, I feel down.
After I return Qiu Yu has left. The protagonist is sitting on the bed alone, with a blanket over him. He turns his eyes to me after seeing me enter, smiling when he sees me, "h.e.l.lo."
"Where's Qiu Yu?"
He blinks, as if trying to recall something, then he says, "because you left, she also left soon afterwards."
It sounds kind of weird but also maybe not. I nod, sitting next to the protagonist, "are you still hurting anywhere?"
"…" He remains silent for a moment before shaking his head, "are you a disciple of Icy Mountain Sect?"
"Mm."
Then he suddenly crawls up and kneels on the bed, saying to me as I look on in shock, "please teach me cultivation!"
Young man, your fated master is not me, nor do I know how to teach someone.
"Can you stand up right now?" I ask.
Zhu Jue stumbles a bit. I think he is trying to stand up properly, but his body does not seem to have recovered to an extent that would allow him to do so. So he falls head-first onto the bed, almost rolling down to crash onto me. I catch this bear of a child and sighs, "after you recover, I'll bring you to my master."
In the end, he didn't have to wait until he was fully recovered before my master has made his way to me. In a novel, especially in novels with golden fingers, there will always be one of those master pract.i.tioners that makes their happy way to a protagonist when they need guidance and wait to become their master with puppy eyes. Even if the disciple might not be interested, the master, as if with filial piety, would always be there when called, so pitiable it's kind of hard to watch. Before this my master did spoil me, but now he is going to enter their ranks, and the one he's going to make puppy eyes at is not me. It feels odd, but since he's serving the protagonist, I can't complain.
I'm sleeping when master has arrived, waking up only when he smacks his fan on me. After I wake up I can see the protagonist behind me looking at my master with hostility. He seems to have wanted to help me take the blow of the fan but my master is clearly faster with his fan and Zhu Jue has failed to block it. He looks a bit angry. Still, while thinking about why I'm being smacked open for both important plot developments, I still properly greet my master in a sitting posture, "master."
Zhu Jue looks at me before looking at my master, hesitates, before half kneeling down and lowering his head.
I can hear my master say from above, "you're a flexible person I guess. Hey, do you want to be my disciple?"
… Although this gangster tone is not something that should be uttered by a master pract.i.tioner, but my master is that kind of personality. He would not change his behaviour no matter what the settings so, so the promised gentle master pract.i.tioner has completely devolved into a gangster. My master is not someone who listens so n.o.body dares giving advices to him anyway. The only thing he did in this world is to nurture Qiu Yu. Yes, he is the Icy Mountain Sect's master…'s brother. Since his younger brother is always busy with affairs of the Sect so he is taking care of Qiu Yu… That said, the one who fed Qiu Yu and changed her diapers is me who is only five years older than her… Just recalling it is making me exhausted… G.o.d knows who taught him to make his personality irresponsible and casual and like to play tricks like that. Despite all that, though he often smacks my head with his fan, and disappears every now and then, and is severely interested in dumb tricks and acts only on his whims, master still treats me well. No matter how master is, he is my master. He did impart part of his personality on me like that, if we are talking about how protective we are of those under us.
Though Zhu Jue seems to have a bad impression of him, so he hesitates without agreeing at first. Master then says, "oh, for some reason I am required to make you my disciple. I believe it is best you agree for everyone's sake."
Saying it out loud… is that really ok? While everyone knows we are all characters in a novel, the readers are supposed to not know about that.
Zhu Jue pauses before nodding his head in agreement. Master rubs his head in satisfaction, but this clearly makes Zhu Jue less happy. I don't know what he's not happy about, but I can just feel that he's not happy. Then master says, "now that that's over with, Xiaoxuan?
With a highly ominous premonition, I respond, "yes?"
"Then this cute little kid is yours to take care of. If something's up… Xiaoxuan must be able to solve it yourself, right?"
… He's seriously asking me to take care of another kid. Oh well, I knew this would happen, "…yes."
Aftering dissing about how much filial piety masters have, this task then landed on me. Time to face the music. So readers listening to my story should also take note that there is a possibility of being retaliated for whatever you diss others for. In other words, don't make flags nonchalantly, these flags might be recovered in seconds.
I don't know what kind of change this might have to the plot, as I said, the novel is still ongoing. G.o.d knows where she might take this world. There's also those that suddenly go mad and kill everyone when they can't think of anything to write when they're half finished.
The only thing I can do is to face whatever they throw at us.
TL's notes: There's certainly some inconsistencies in the plot with how the settings vs. the actual personalities of the characters function in this novel, but eh, it's short and it's still interesting to me nonetheless.