Love from the Male Protagonist's Harem

Chapter 101-Late Night Talks at the Mountain Prison Part 1

The night before——

Multitudes of silver butterflies danced in the evening air.

“Youngster?  What are you doing here again?”  Holding his sword across his chest, one of the guards of the mountain prison frowned at the girl, his tone impatient.

Chu Yi smiled: “May I go in?”

The guard laughed: “Do you think it’s as easy as asking?  What do you take this place as?  Your family home?”

Chu Yi: “Why won’t you let me go in?’

Another Jianfeng guard answered: “Little girl, how do you expect to get in without a token?  The least you could do is show an identity token proving who you are.  If you really want to get in, you’d have to show the token from one of Jianfeng’s two senior disciples.  Idlers aren’t allowed.”

“Token?”  After thinking for a moment, Chu Yi pulled out a light blue token, “Will this one do?”

The guard took the token, and after giving it the once over, his expression shifted.  He examined Chu Yi for a long time before returning the token to her: “Yes, naturally.”

Chu Yi: “Then, I will trouble you.”

“Mmm……don’t stay for long.”  In the spirit of humanitarianism, the guard added, “If anything goes wrong, we can’t take responsibility.”

“Please be at ease, I’m only going to ask a few questions.”  Putting her token away, Chu Yi entered Jianfeng’s mountain prison.

The first guard was curious: “What token was it?”

Glancing over at him, the other guard answered: “Jianfeng’s [Command] token.”

The first guard inhaled sharply: “[Command] token?!  How could she have……”

“Who knows.”

Inside the mountain prison-

Calmly holding a bell in one hand, a woman wrapped in chains stared out a barred window at the round moon, silent tears falling down her face.

“What are you crying about?”

Long minutes passed before the woman tore her gaze away from the moon to look over at the girl in blue standing outside the cell.  The blue-clad girl had large, round, pitch-black eyes, silver butterflies embroidered on her sleeves, and a half-smile on her lips, yet her whole person was imbued with indescribable gloom and coldness.

“Why are you sad?”  Chu Yi’s silky white hand trailed up and down the rusty bars as she crouched down to look the woman dead in the eyes, half-smile still fixed on her face, “Why are you crying?”

The  woman didn’t respond, her eyes empty and mouth silent.

“The master of the Demon Sect, the Demon Sect’s priestess, now living like a stray dog……” Chu Yi chuckled lightly, “What an ugly sight.”

Qin Yue finally moved her lips: “Who are you?”

Chu Yi: “Simply a passerby.”

Just another person coming to ridicule.

Her eyes going blank again, Qin Yue said nothing further, soundless as the bell she held.

“I’m sure you’re thinking I’m here to mock you like everyone else,” Chu Yi laughed again, “But you shouldn’t ignore me due to such a misunderstanding.”

Leisurely taking a bell out of her sleeve, Chu Yi continued: “I might be nothing more than a passerby, but I’m a passerby who……likes to listen to stories.”

Qin Yue’s listless expression became intense the second her gaze caught the bell in Chu Yi’s hand.  Lips trembling, she frantically crawled over to the bars, clutching at them with rough hands: “That……you……you……why are……”

Chu Yi sat on the ground with a gentle smile.  Resting her chin in one hand, her other hand still held the bell: “So you do recognize it……it seems I didn’t make this visit in vain.”

Fingers tightly curled around the bars, Qin Yue asked hoarsely: “What are you doing?  Why did you come looking for me?”

Chu Yi: “Hmmm, someone asked me to find out if you recognized this bell.”

Naturally that person had been Chang Nian.

Wanting to know the whereabouts of his sister, Chang Nian had agreed to give Chu Yi the bell once she’d promised that she’d find a way to get into the mountain prison and speak to Qin Yue.  In exchange, Chang Nian had gone and told Chang Lan about the small puppets remains found on the night Chu Yao had been attacked, as well as Chu Yi’s reasonable suspicions of a particular person……

After the attack on Chu Yao, Chang Lan had made no moves to search for the owner of the puppet, meaning Chu Yao must’ve concealed the matter.

But it didn’t matter that Chu Yao was unwilling for it to be known.  That just meant someone would have tell about it on her behalf.

Besides, Chu Yao was dying to know the answer to Chang Nian’s question as well.

Despite all her laughs and smiles, Chu Yao’s gaze was icily calm: “Judging by your reaction, I definitely think you recognize it.”

Loosening her hold on the bars little by little, Qin Yue’s eyes were heavy with some indiscernible emotion.

“Since you recognize it, I won’t prolong the suspense,” Chu Yi sighed, “Let me ask you……where is the previous owner of this bell?”

“Dead, she’s dead!” Qin Yue’s word were frantic, “She’s dead!”

Chu Yi couldn’t stop chuckling: “Shattering someone else’s delusions with one sentence.  You really don’t know how to spare a person’s feelings.”

Lips quivering, looking like a lunatic, Qin Yue said not another word.

Chu Yi gave the bell a shake, saying nonchalantly: “I looked it up.  The name of the bell in my hand is Wenxian, and the name of your bell should be Koumo.”

“When the real owner of Wenxian opens their lingqiao, or rises in skill level, Koumo should sense it and ring.  Wenxian is a little more special.  It’ll ring when its owner makes a breakthrough,” Chu Yi’s smile was somewhat gleeful, “I heard that your bell actually rang a few days ago?”

Seeing Qin Yue dazed and speechless, Chu Yi stood up, patting the dust off her clothes.  “It’s alright, you don’t have to say it.”

“I have other ways of finding out.”

“Haha……what happens after you find out?” Qin Yue muttered to herself, “Why do you want to know, why……”

Chu Yi gave one last laugh, her backwards glance at Qin Yue incomparably cold.

“Because……someone has to pay for the sins you committed.”

Sins committed……ha.

After Chu Yi left, Qin Yue first glanced in the direction the girl had gone and then over at the silver butterfly hiding in a corner not far off, the expression in her eyes grim and cold.

In the long, tranquil night, she asked: “Watching this farce for so long, are you amused?”

“Did you think I would find it boring?”

A young lady’s voice sounded, languid and amused.  Meanwhile, the silver butterfly in the corner was unknowingly blocked by an invisible barrier.  “Everything here is fascinating.”

Qin Yue cast her gaze up to the window’s railings.  At some point, a small puppet, dressed exquisitely in red, had perched there, its chin in its hand and a smile on its delicate little face.

It was Su Chan’s puppet and it’d been staying there for several days.

“I hear you’re going to rescue me?” Qin Yue scoffed, any traces of lunacy in her face completely gone.

In the stillness of the mountain prison, she held her bell and gazed up at the puppet, bleak moonlight spilling over her solitary form.

She sighed: “Don’t waste your strength.”

“Why would it be a waste?”

The puppet’s face turning stiff, its spoke slowly: “Do you think I can’t succeed in getting you out, or……”

“Or are you unwilling to come out?”

“It’s been years of you ignoring my existence, but now I’m suddenly interesting again and you’re making a great fuss about rescuing me,” Qin Yue’s tone more than a little sarcastic, “They say revered figures have to get up early and work hard.  So I think that, instead of coming out and being exploited, I’d rather simply relax here.”

Koumo

叩kòu

to knock / to kowtow

魔mó

evil spirit; devil