Chapter 2: Skillful blind woman flaunts her ability, Part 3 — Three Marriages by Ming Yue Ting Feng (三嫁, 明月听风)

May 30, 2015 by inno 3 Comments

Chapter 2: Skillful blind woman flaunts her ability, Part 3 of 3

He tailed her to the end to find out that it is as Ju Mu Er has claimed; her family home is indeed in the wine shop. Li Ke quietly circled the area, explored around its vicinity to get a clear picture of the surrounding; then proceeded into the city, entered into several music shops purportedly to buy an instrument, but in fact just to chat idly, in the side made discreet inquiries; finally went to the marketplace to inquire about a bureau specializing in intelligence gathering, and there asked for a capable individual to go to the Long’s Residence and report to Long Er.

Unexpectedly Ju Mu Er enjoys a good reputation in the marketplace, from when she was small she’s said to be an intelligent person, has completely read poetry books, her qin playing skill is extraordinary, a daughter of a family so naturally gaining some legend. Ju Mu Er’s mother due to an illness passed away when she was ten years old, Ju Sheng had only his daughter, and therefore he really doted on her, letting her do whatever she loves doing without any interference from him.

Ju Mu Er does have a next-door neighbor younger sister, whose residence is not far away, the young girl is called Su Qing, her mother is also seriously ill. Su Qing sells flowers for a living, and occasionally earns some money from selling herbal medicine. That is, she hawks her goods on weekdays on the East Avenue. She got indeed seriously ill due to rain, was almost into the jaws of death.

“So you’re saying, every word Ju Mu Er uttered is true?”

Li Ke replied: “Yes.”

“Then, how did she become blind?” Long Er asked.

Li Ke hurriedly replied: “Two years ago, there was this scary major incident. The venerable qin master, Ba Yin, stole an exquisite qin musical score. Consequently, Minister Shi Ze Chun of the Ministry of Appointments liquidated the whole family. After the qin master Ba Yin was sentenced to be beheaded, because of his huge reputation and the emperor’s sympathy for him, the emperor allowed him to play one tune before his execution …”

Long Er nodded: “This is something I knew about, master Ba Yin requested that a bosom friend be present for his execution, only was he willing to play the qin, so the emperor graciously granted that all the kingdom’s famous musicians may come to listen to the qin and witness his execution.”

Indeed, the emperor also sent an invitation to let Long Er join in the fun, although nowadays in the whole Xiao kingdom qin is widely played, the entire country highly revere the art of qin and se,[2] nevertheless Long Er is an out-and-out qin ignoramus, so he had no interest in the noise and excitement, and didn’t have to be in the capital.

He didn’t go, did Ju Mu Er go?

Li Ke nodded: “Miss Ju went to the qin master execution, came back and became obsessively fascinated with the skill of qin, it was said that she studied day and night, did research and study on the qin playing techniques, meticulously delving into qin musical scores, she simply ruined her eyes in the process. This she spoke to me of her blindness and the reason for it, it was really also not bad.”

“She took the initiative to tell you of the reason of her blindness?”

“Indeed. It happened that way.” Li Ke tailed Ju Mu Er, but after she discovered this, the two of them talked about the matter and afterwards about many other things.

Long Er carefully listening, coldly smiled: “This blind miss is really cunning ah.”

Li Ke was puzzled, Long Er said: “She is physically frail due to a qi deficiency, her feet fell heavily, evidently she doesn’t have martial arts skills, so how can she hear the sound of your footsteps? She was just probing to mislead you, you know, as soon as you admitted she determined that I had sent you to her.”

Li Ke thought about it carefully, could it be that he was really deceived?

Long Er continued: “She told you some insignificant information, causing you to drop your guard, as soon as you did it, she asked casually who was the honored guest who I was chatting with, and you told her.”

This, Li Ke knew he did, so he hastily lowered his head to beg forgiveness: “Your servant was incompetent, please punish me Er Ye.”

“No punishment.” Long Er leaned back on the large round-backed wooden armchair, his thin lips curved: “You must handle it well, right away you have to let her know she offended a woman, someone she cannot afford to provoke, she’ll be distressed and flustered, this will be the case, oh that’s right!”

Humph, this woman spilt tea on his body, also caused him trouble, without good cause now he must expend money to construct those awnings, how can she be left to live in peace!

[2] Qin or Guqin is a plucked 7-string Chinese musical instrument of the zither family (string instruments). The qin is a very quiet instrument, with a range of about 4 octaves.
Se is an ancient Chinese plucked zither. It has a range of 50-25 strings with movable bridges and has a range of up to 5 octaves. (Source:Wikipedia)