Faraway Wanderers Novel (English Translation)

Setting Off

Chapter 7.

When Zhou Zi Shu made Zhang Chengling pass out, he did it out of fear that the boy would harbor too many bad thoughts; calming him down was a necessity. There was barely any force to it, so the boy woke up not long after the strange Wen Kexing arrived.

He opened his eyes, dazedly staring at the ceiling as if his soul had left the body. Until yesterday he was still the Zhang’s young master, pampered by many — even when his tutor told him that he was utterly stupid and useless, even when his martial art teacher was secretly disappointed that he was just bad mud, unable to plaster walls1 — his life was happy and content.

He got people dressing and feeding him, everywhere he went servants would follow, serving him diligently even with his mediocre studying until late night2. They would flatter him all day long, and even when Zhang Chengling knew his worth, it didn’t stop him from basking in the false praises sometimes. His life went by with such privilege for fourteen years.

Then he lost everything in a single night.

His home was gone, his parents killed along with all relatives and friends, his world turning upside down. He was terrified, but he didn’t know what to do.

Zhou Zi Shu was the type who knew how to fart better than to console people, so he stayed at his place silently. There was only a blank stare on Zhang Chengling’s face, tears streaming down from his eyes.

He heard Wen Kexing asking Gu Xiang, "Who's this little thing?"

“He’s said to be Zhang Yusen’s son.”

Wen Kexing nodded with a dull face, like Zhang Yusen’s name to him was no more than a fleck of dust. He spoke again a while after,

“I heard that the Zhang family was so poor that they had nothing but money, how did a son of Zhang Yusen end up like this? Did he run off without bringing enough silvers or was he lost?”

Gu Xiang lowered her voice, "From what he told us, someone murdered all the Zhangs. The news must have shaken up the whole city by now, but I guess you didn’t hear about it while fooling around somewhere.”

Wen Kexing thought for a bit, nodding, “No wonder there were so many corpses.”

He turned to assess Zhou Zi Shu. “Then what’s he doing here?” He asked Gu Xiang.

The girl scoffed. “That beggar called himself Zhou Xu. He sold himself to a dead man for two silvers, so now he had to escort the boy to Tai Hu.”

Wen Kexing’s eyes widened, internally evaluating something with a completely serious face.

He told Gu Xiang afterwards, “Now I’m even more certain that he’s a beauty, only beautiful people can be that dumb.”

Gu Xiang resorted to ignorance, too used to her master’s antics; Zhou Zi Shu followed suit since he had yet to fully gauge this man’s ability.

He turned to look at a teary Zhang Chengling, feeling somewhat annoyed and wishing that the younger would stop already. He poked him with the tip of his toes, coughing, “Young Master Zhang, get yourself together if you’ve done resting. We shouldn’t stay at this place for long, there must be more people after you to finish off their job. This Uncle Zhou is entrusted, so the least he will do is taking you to Tai Hu safe and sound.”