The sword remains between them, as cold as the water in the tub. The silence was suddenly broken by a small sneeze from Zhi Wei, then Ning Yi hears her gentle voice “Your Highness, be careful of catching a cold. Let me help you out of the tub?” Ning Yi closes his eyes for a moment, when he opens them again, the usual cold and distant expression is back. Pushing Zhi Wei away, Ning Yi steps out of the tub as the water falls away from him. A small gasp could be heard from Zhi Wei immediately following by her fumbling her way out of the tub.
Her voice reclaiming some of its composure again, Zhi Wei offers “Let me help you dress.”
“No need.” Ning Yi pushes her away again, stepped on the clothes on the floor, walk towards the bed without a backward glance. With a single pull on a string, the bed curtain falls. “You have successfully threatened me.” His cool voice comes from behind the curtain “All because you know I, care about you.”
No more sound came from behind the curtain. Zhi Wei stood silently in the puddle of water that has pooled around her for a long time before she finally quietly carried the bathtub out. Her internal injury still hasn’t completely healed so it was a bit difficult for her to haul the tub but the moment she had pushed opened the door, a pair of hands reached out and took the tub from her. Suppressing her emotions, Zhi Wei smiles gratefully “Thank you.”
Leaning against the stone steps, Master Gu throws the tub into the air until it landed at the far side without a sound. Surprised to notice that Master Gu is actually not munching on a walnut nor sleeping on the rooftop but has instead stationed himself in front of Ning Yi’s bedroom door, Zhi Wei wonders with embarrassment…has he been here the whole time? He…heard everything? Taken aback when Gu Nan Yi suddenly says “Sorry.”, it took Zhi Wei a minute before she realized the apology came from Master Gu’s mouth. Does he have “Sorry” this sort of emotion? She had thought he wouldn’t know how to use the word. Her mood suddenly lifted, Zhi Wei smiles as she pulls Gu Nan Yi up and tells him “Don’t sleep in front of someone else’s door. Go back to your room. And don’t apologize to me either, this is not your fault.” Gu Nan Yi allows her to pull him away from Ning Yi’s door, but insists on telling her again “Sorry.”
“Alright, alright, sorry, sorry.” Zhi Wei knows there is no point trying to change his mind or else he might keep apologizing until the morning.
Gu Nan Yi abruptly points at her then at the tub “Don’t let other people wash.”
Zhi Wei’s face flashed bright red.
Still not done, Gu Nan Yi walks over to Helian’s door and says “Him too.”
Speechless, Zhi Wei is afraid Gu Nan Yi is going to make a stop at every room in this place and then she will really never be able to show her face for the rest of her life. Dragging Gu Nan Yi towards a small garden outside of the courtyard, Zhi Wei assures him “No wash, no wash, let’s go for a walk.” The crickets chirping in the cool of the night as a breeze filled the air with a light fragrance of the holly tea olive tree. Sitting down on the grass, Zhi Wei looks up at Gu Nan Yi with a grin as she pats the area right next to her. There was a hint of teasing in her grin since she thought for sure there is no way someone like Master Gu would sit down on the ground. Who knew Gu Nan Yi just looked around for a bit then promptly sat down. Albeit Gu Nan Yi had left enough space between them to fit another person in but it was still shocking enough that Zhi Wei stared at Gu Nan Yi with disbelief. Master Gu is sure acting a bit different tonight…
Plucking a sweet grass, Zhi Wei hands it over to Master Gu who accepts it then slowly chews on it. In the moonlight, Zhi Wei could see a flash of the man’s snow white chin and full red lips as the wind softly pulls up his muslin face cover. The green blade of grass between his long slender fingers, his head slightly tipped to the side as he concentrates on the task at hand of chewing on the grass, Gu Nan Yi gives off a pure innocent vibe that is rarely seen in this corrupt world. Suddenly hit with the feeling that someone as vicious as herself, one who is full of this world’s pollutant will tarnish him, Zhi Wei scooted away a bit.
Master Gu promptly scooted with her.
“…..”
Speechless, Zhi Wei stopped moving. Master Gu seems rather cute tonight, maybe she should attempt to have a heart to heart conversation… After being with Master Gu all this time, Zhi Wei knew him well enough to know that it was fairly hopeless to try to get information out of him so she didn’t try…the only time she attempted it she was completed dumbfounded by his answer of “I am yours”. Tonight the moon is beautiful, the flower is very fragrant, the grass is very sweet, the little master is an obedient mood…so it should be safe to try again?
“Why do you get lost?” Let’s start with an easy one.
Unfortunately, the easy question stumped Master Gu. Pausing his munching on the grass to pondering carefully on the question, Gu Nan Yi tilts his head upward and after thinking for a long moment replies “I can’t remember.”
Can’t remember? Then how does he remember the fighting techniques?
“Roads are all the same.” Master Gu explains slowly “Roads are all twisted, faces are broken, fabrics are coarse, sounds are noisy.”
Zhi Wei stares at him blankly- is he explaining how he feels? This is probably the first time he told someone how he feels. All the roads are twisted in the same manner so he can’t tell them apart; all the faces are broken and shattered so he needs to slowly put them together to make sense of them; no matter how fine or delicate the fabric of a piece of clothing is but it always feels coarse when he wears them, the voices of people talking around him are forever like unbearable clamor. How terrible must those feelings be? All these years, that’s the world he lived in? Zhi Wei suddenly felt a slight stab of pain in her heart as if someone has pinched a corner of it.
“You…how did you make it through all these years?”
Gu Nan Yi tilts his head, seemingly unable to comprehend her question. How did he make it through? He walked.
“I mean, who took care of you. How did you grow up?” Zhi Wei is not trying to gain information, at this moment she just instinctively wanted to know how he grew up in such a chaotic world.
“Before three years old, daddy. After five years old, uncle and other people.”
Zhi Wei noticed the jump in time in his answer and asks “Between three and five years old?”
Gu Nan Yi doesn’t respond but his body trembled.
His response made Zhi Wei trembled too and her face turned pale- he lost his only family. A three year old child that is already different from others, how did he survive those two years?
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There were some comments/questions about why Zhi Wei rejected Ning Yi in last week’s translation so I thought I would share my own take on it. As you guys could tell by now, the Zhi Wei in the novel is pretty different from the one in the drama. In the drama version, Zhi Wei still has the innocence and yearning for romantic love like any young girl would have in the beginning but of course the harsh reality of life will eventually take all that away. The Zhi Wei in the novel however, never really had that kind of innocence to begin with. Her meeting with Ning Yi from the very beginning might have been sizzling but it was the “who is going to kill who first” sort. Now, does our heroine has feelings for our hero at this point? Of course she does. The simple fact that our heroine would let Ning Yi hold her, kiss her, and touch her already shows where her heart is…anyone else who would try to do the same would’ve been dead by now. One could argue that our heroine might be submitting to our hero because he is too powerful but no one understands better than Ning Yi that even HE would be in trouble if Zhi Wei sets her mind on killing him. Unfortunately, the one thing Ning Yi also knows…and has proven to himself in the whole bathtub incident is that what Zhi Wei feels for him means nothing when it comes to influencing her action. Actually, that’s not true. If Zhi Wei really refused to let emotions rule her, then she would not have risked her life to go rescue Ning Yi. But risking her life to save Ning Yi is one thing but giving up the rest of her life for Ning Yi is another. Like Ning Yi, Zhi Wei is someone who rarely allows her emotions to rule her action. She knows clearly that she is not in some fairytale where she can live happily ever after with a prince…especially since she is no Cinderella. She doesn’t need a prince to come rescue her nor is she a naive girl who can’t see clearly what marrying a prince means for the rest of her life. Like she told Ning Yi in their previous discussion in the academy, a life with Ning Yi could only end in two ways:1. Ning Yi fails to become the next emperor. She and everyone she holds dear will die with Ning Yi. 2. Ning Yi becomes the next emperor and she becomes the empress who is trapped inside the palace wall with his countless concubines. (Even if Ning Yi didn’t want any other women, by virtue of being in that seat it would be next to impossible for him not to be forced to take some concubines at a certain point.)
Does Zhi Wei love Ning Yi? Of course she does. She ran into a burning building on the almost nonexistent hope that he might still be alive. But she is too smart to let love cloud her judgment. Plus…there is one thing that neither of the leads are admitting out loud. The two possibilities listed above were actually the best scenario Zhi Wei could think of. The unspoken fear that neither are saying is that the third ending is that they are destined to become enemies, enemies who have to kill one another.
Your commentary on her character is right on point, and it is also why I liked the book so much better than the drama. Understanding her resolve makes what happens later and how their story falls out so much more heartfelt. She (both of them) is probably the strongest willed character I’ve ever read.
WOW! I love all the explanations and interpretations! These three men love her so much.
Thanks for the explanation at the end with comparing how the novel’s translation is reconciled with the drama. Its interesting that the character in the novel has many more facets than the drama. I had great difficulty with the drama’s ending and their interpretation of ZW’s character. With the novel the deviation is even greater as she is incredibly strong willed and fierce. I do wonder why the director choose to end the drama in a manner that is counter to ZW’s efforts at “survival” in the novel.
I had read a rumor online that the powers above that rule the C-drama industry was frowning on historical female characters that were too strong so some shows had to scramble to “soften” their female lead’s character a bit and also focus more on the hero’s character or in this case, palace intrigue. I of course have no backing whatsoever on that though but it seems to be a common understanding among the C-audiences.
I agree with Zhi Wei