Chapter 6 – Miss’s Punishment
Ning Ning glanced at Boss Qu.
Because of that song of his.
“Kidnapped kids, are made to pick a wooden man. Whoever picks a lame, will have their legs broken; picks the blind, will be blinded; picks the amputee, we cut their limbs. Then, as beggars, they’ll beg for money.” This song originally came from Zibuyu- ‘What The Master Would Not Discuss’- by Yuan Mei*. Ning Ning had not read the entire book but this paragraph wasn’t hard to interpret; the general idea was that a group of human traffickers kidnapped children, then made them pick a wooden man from the wooden box: if a lame was picked, their legs would be broken, if one with broken arms was picked, they would have their arms broken. The human traffickers created a bunch of handicapped people, then threw them out onto the streets to beg for money.
No wonder Boss Qu was so rich. Because he was a human trafficker. Every silver dollar in his hands, every piece of clothing in her wardrobe, was deeply drenched in human blood.
The box on her thighs was the wooden box sung about in the lyrics. And, if the lyrics turned out to be true, then the kidnapped child would be made into the appearance of whatever wooden man they picked.
Yet, what led Ning Ning to shudder all over was that there were not many men in the box- it mostly consisted of animals.
Ning Ning gathered herself together and picked a wooden mouse up to give it a closer look; this wooden mouse was different from the human faced puppy that she had picked up earlier. This one was a small delicate mouse that had a pair of a human woman’s big breasts.
“Good pick.” Boss Qu stopped humming and smiled. “This mouse beauty will do, it suits her.”
Li Xiulan once again started struggling, but was kicked down to the ground by Boss Qu who stepped on her mouth with his foot, making her unable to let out a word.
“Pa.” Ning Ning asked cautiously, “What are these small wooden items… used for?”
She only knew of human traffickers making kidnapped children blind and lame, but to make them into a mouse or dog… is this the magical version of the Republic period?
“You don’t have to know.” Boss Qu obviously did not want her to know the truth, thus he replied ambiguously, “You just need to pick one.”
“You, you agreed…” Li Xiulan struggled to say, “agreed to let me pick.”
Boss Qu gave her a few more kicks, stating coldly, “That was before, now you don’t have a choice.”
Li Xiulan was helpless against him, hence she could only vent it out on someone else. A pair of eyes filled with resentment and hatred pierced through the curtain.
Behind the curtain, Ning Ning was currently stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Although she had no clue about the purpose of the other wooden carvings, instincts told her that it wasn’t anything good, otherwise, Li Xiulan wouldn’t be struggling so violently.
“Can I not pick?” Ning Ning rubbed the mouse beauty in her hand and quietly asked.
“There are only two outcomes for her today, to die, or to accept punishment.” Boss Qu rejected her query immediately as he spoke out in a cold voice, “If she is allowed to walk out of here today without any punishment, anyone would dare to bully you in the future whenever I’m not around.”
On this point, he was persistent in his own view, and would not budge not matter how hard Ning Ning tried to persuade him. Thus, without a choice, Ning Ning could only put the mouse beauty down and take out the only three wooden men from inside the box.
One was without arms, one without legs, and the last one was the most tragic, for everything below the waist was gone as if it had been chopped in half.
There was no other choice. Ning Ning closed her eyes for a moment, before throwing a wooden man out through the curtain.
The wooden man fell to the ground in front of Li Xiulan, and she climbed over with great difficulty to hold it in her hands. When she had a clear look of it, her tears fell uncontrollably down, dripping onto the wooden man without arms.
“Why have you picked this?” Boss Qu clicked his tongue finding it a little pitiful.
“Don’t, don’t take away my arms.” Li Xiulan’s lips started trembling. “My hands are very skillful, they can do many things if you keep them…”
“Forget it, a pair of arms that can harm their owner is not worth keeping.” It was ,after all, someone else’s arms, so Boss Qu might find it a pity at first, but would not find it pitiful for long. He started pulling her away. Meanwhile, Li Xiulan cried as she was being pulled away, turning around to look at Ning Ning from time to time – it wasn’t a pleading gaze but one filled with deep-rooted hatred. It seemed as if she had pinned all the blame of her sufferings on Ning Ning.
After the two left and a long time had passed, Ning Ning’s voice lightly traveled out from behind the curtains. “What will papa do to her?”
Wang ma said monotonously, “Don’t know.
She must know and just refuses to tell me, or doesn’t dare to tell me.
Ning Ning did not dare to delve in too deeply with her thoughts, for the more she delved the more frightened she felt. She shut her eyes and supported her head with a hand while the other hand picked up a wooden carving then let go of it – the carving fell back in the box, thump, thump. This process was repeated a few times, then, Ning Ning opened her eyes and said, “It is so stuffy. Oh right, where is that young man from before? Call him over to perform some magic tricks.”
Chen Junyan once again appeared in her courtyard, and she once again wrapped herself up tightly with only her voice travelling out from behind her mask. “What’s your name?”
“My surname is Chen.” The young man spoke with a lowered head, “My name is Junyan- jun from Jūnzǐ (nobleman), and yan from Yàntai (ink stone).”
Ning Ning nodded. This was the right name, and now that the face and the name matched that poster, it was very likely that this world is the one from the movie.
“What are you going to perform?” She asked.
Chen Junyan made a bow towards her and then he straightened his back, crossed his arms on his chest, and suddenly did a backflip. After the flip, he did a few more consecutive flips until he reached the bottom of the tree. There, he pulled out a long rope from his coat.
He gave it a toss and the rope hung itself between two trees.
Taking the ground as a support, Chen Junyan swiftly leaped up onto the rope; one foot on the rope and the other in the air, then once again crossed his arms on his chest. He waited for the rope to gradually settle down from its shaking, made another somersault, then…Boom!
Ning Ning, who was getting ready to applaud, saw a blur, but by then he had already fallen headfirst to the ground, unable to get up for a long time.
“Are you okay?” Ning Ning straightened up on the chair and looked at him anxiously, worried he may have gotten a concussion from the huge fall.
Chen Junyan struggled to get up but failed to do so. But at last, with great difficulty, he managed to flip his body over into a prostrating position and with his head buried in the ground, he said, “Servant is useless, please exact punishment Miss.”
Ning Ning had absolutely no intention of punishing him because she had intentionally called him over in a bid to get closer to him. Thus, she smiled. “It was an accident, nothing to punish you over.”
However, Chen Junyan insisted on receiving punishment, and when he saw Ning Ning not reacting to his pleas, he started to get anxious. He lifted his head up. “Miss, please chastise me, otherwise master will punish me!”
When Ning Ning heard this, she gave it a thought, then said, “Fine, I’ll punish you since you insist on it.”
At her words, Chen Junyan heaved a sigh of relief; being punished by her would be better than master’s punishment because a young girl would unlikely be able to think of methods to torment him.
However, Ning Ning’s next words were, “What do you fear most?”
Chen Junyan’s face paled, thinking of lying to her but ultimately didn’t dare to. Thus, he could only tell her the truth. “…Servant, fears rats the most.”
Light laughter traveled over from above his bowed head, and he secretly took a glance. Ning Ning stood with her profile to him and currently had a white-gloved hand on her masked face while turning back to say something to Wang ma. He dared not take a long look and quickly lowered his gaze. In a short while, Wang ma’s footsteps could be heard leaving and coming back.
Rustling sounds made by a dress hemline rubbing against the ground gradually neared him, then, he heard miss’s voice above him in near proximity. It was a naive yet arrogant and willful voice. “Your punishment is to eat what’s in my hand.”
Large beads of sweat trickled down Chen Junyan’s forehead and fell into the soil on the ground. He replied, “Yes Miss, thank you for the punishment.”
He had actually left out part of the truth; what he feared most wasn’t rats, but rats that fed on human meat. A child that had been abducted together with him had died in the middle of the night in bed, and when his corpse was discovered in the morning, his ears and toe had already been gnawed off by the rat. He was the one that killed the rat, which had red eyes, perhaps because it fed on human meat.
Even if she had never left home before, she’s Boss Qu’s daughter after all, and tormenting people to her is natural instinct. Chen Junyan thought this as he slowly pushed himself up.
He saw a dot of dark red the minute he looked up.
It was currently mid winter with snow covering the ground, and a lone plum tree stood in the courtyard as the others had already withered away. Ning Ning stood before him, while behind her was the plum tree filled with pretty plum flowers. She stretched her white gloved hand out to him. In her hand was a snow white pastry with a red dot in the middle – just like a cinnabar mole on a beauty’s forehead.
“Did you really think that I would make you eat a rat?” Ning Ning showed an expression of ‘I find it dirty even if you don’t mind’, then casually pulled apart the pastry. “Look, it has sweetened bean paste filling.”
After she spoke, she put one half in her mouth and gave the other half to him.
Chen Junyan took the pastry whilst hesitating, with Wang ma watching his hand with an intense gaze, he suddenly had no idea whether to eat it or not. In the end, he clenched his teeth and put the pastry into his clothes. “Something this good, I’ll bring it back and eat it slowly.”
“Are you giving it to the young girl from last time?” Ning Ning asked abruptly.
Another bout of cold sweat overcame Chen Junyan. He hurried to clarify his relations to her. “After she committed such a heinous crime, I can’t wait to personally kill her to help miss vent your anger. Why would I want to specially bring something back for her?”
Ning Ning blinked. “I thought the both of you had a good relationship.”
“I am not familiar with her. We are only learning tricks together and know each other’s names.” Chen Junyan continued to emphasize the fact that he wasn’t close to her.
Ning Ning said, “Orh, what’s her name?”
“Li Xiulan.” Chen Junyan replied.
Now Ning Ning had also confirmed the female lead. She gave Wang ma a glance and Wang ma walked away to bring the pastry plate to her. Ning Ning took the plate and turned around to give it to Chen Junyan. “Take it, share it with Li Xiulan.”
Chen Junyan left with a heavy heart while hugging the pastries. After he left, Ning Ning asked, “Where’s papa?”
She couldn’t leave home at all, not even a step. Only Wang ma was allowed to freely leave and enter, however, it was very simple for her to see Boss Qu. “Help me tell him I miss him.”
Not even two hours later, Boss Qu appeared before her.
He had even changed into a new set of clothes to conceal the faint bloody smell on him.
My nose has been spoiled, no! I have no nose! Ning Ning tried to hypnotize herself, then asked, “Papa, do you run a circus?”
Boss Qu’s gaze sharpened immediately. “Who told you that?”
Ning Ning had guessed it, as the movie was called <Republic Circus> and both the male and female lead were present and possessed acrobatic skills. Thus, it was easy to have thought of this outcome. She pulled Boss Qu’s arm and said, “This you don’t have to know, just get more people to come over tomorrow.”
Boss Qu blinked his eyes. “Why? Do you like acrobats a lot?”
“That’s right. “ Ning Ning lied through her teeth, for she was definitely someone who would rather watch a commercial than watch the acrobatics channel. Yet now she wore the expression of one being obsessed with acrobatics. “I love watching acrobatics, do you have anymore people? Tell them all to come and perform for me.”
She wanted to witness with her own eyes the type of circus Boss Qu owned, then find out the truth and details and get to the bottom of this…In any case, she needed to be clear on the movie genre for <Republic Circus>, whether it be a romance, literary, suspense, drama, or a documentary movie that revealed how a circus operates!
…Please don’t let it be a horror movie!
Yuan Mei*- What the Master Would Not Discuss is a collection of supernatural stories compiled by Qing Dynasty scholar and writer Yuan Mei in 1788.
Here’s a photo of the cinnabar mole on a beauty’s forehead.
Translated by: Ruisi
Edited by: Ely
Chapter 6 – Miss’s Punishment
Ning Ning glanced at Boss Qu.
Because of that song of his.
“Kidnapped kids, are made to pick a wooden man. Whoever picks a lame, will have their legs broken; picks the blind, will be blinded; picks the amputee, we cut their limbs. Then, as beggars, they’ll beg for money.” This song originally came from Zibuyu- ‘What The Master Would Not Discuss’- by Yuan Mei*. Ning Ning had not read the entire book but this paragraph wasn’t hard to interpret; the general idea was that a group of human traffickers kidnapped children, then made them pick a wooden man from the wooden box: if a lame was picked, their legs would be broken, if one with broken arms was picked, they would have their arms broken. The human traffickers created a bunch of handicapped people, then threw them out onto the streets to beg for money.
No wonder Boss Qu was so rich. Because he was a human trafficker. Every silver dollar in his hands, every piece of clothing in her wardrobe, was deeply drenched in human blood.
The box on her thighs was the wooden box sung about in the lyrics. And, if the lyrics turned out to be true, then the kidnapped child would be made into the appearance of whatever wooden man they picked.
Yet, what led Ning Ning to shudder all over was that there were not many men in the box- it mostly consisted of animals.
Ning Ning gathered herself together and picked a wooden mouse up to give it a closer look; this wooden mouse was different from the human faced puppy that she had picked up earlier. This one was a small delicate mouse that had a pair of a human woman’s big breasts.
“Good pick.” Boss Qu stopped humming and smiled. “This mouse beauty will do, it suits her.”
Li Xiulan once again started struggling, but was kicked down to the ground by Boss Qu who stepped on her mouth with his foot, making her unable to let out a word.
“Pa.” Ning Ning asked cautiously, “What are these small wooden items… used for?”
She only knew of human traffickers making kidnapped children blind and lame, but to make them into a mouse or dog… is this the magical version of the Republic period?
“You don’t have to know.” Boss Qu obviously did not want her to know the truth, thus he replied ambiguously, “You just need to pick one.”
“You, you agreed…” Li Xiulan struggled to say, “agreed to let me pick.”
Boss Qu gave her a few more kicks, stating coldly, “That was before, now you don’t have a choice.”
Li Xiulan was helpless against him, hence she could only vent it out on someone else. A pair of eyes filled with resentment and hatred pierced through the curtain.
Behind the curtain, Ning Ning was currently stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Although she had no clue about the purpose of the other wooden carvings, instincts told her that it wasn’t anything good, otherwise, Li Xiulan wouldn’t be struggling so violently.
“Can I not pick?” Ning Ning rubbed the mouse beauty in her hand and quietly asked.
“There are only two outcomes for her today, to die, or to accept punishment.” Boss Qu rejected her query immediately as he spoke out in a cold voice, “If she is allowed to walk out of here today without any punishment, anyone would dare to bully you in the future whenever I’m not around.”
On this point, he was persistent in his own view, and would not budge not matter how hard Ning Ning tried to persuade him. Thus, without a choice, Ning Ning could only put the mouse beauty down and take out the only three wooden men from inside the box.
One was without arms, one without legs, and the last one was the most tragic, for everything below the waist was gone as if it had been chopped in half.
There was no other choice. Ning Ning closed her eyes for a moment, before throwing a wooden man out through the curtain.
The wooden man fell to the ground in front of Li Xiulan, and she climbed over with great difficulty to hold it in her hands. When she had a clear look of it, her tears fell uncontrollably down, dripping onto the wooden man without arms.
“Why have you picked this?” Boss Qu clicked his tongue finding it a little pitiful.
“Don’t, don’t take away my arms.” Li Xiulan’s lips started trembling. “My hands are very skillful, they can do many things if you keep them…”
“Forget it, a pair of arms that can harm their owner is not worth keeping.” It was ,after all, someone else’s arms, so Boss Qu might find it a pity at first, but would not find it pitiful for long. He started pulling her away. Meanwhile, Li Xiulan cried as she was being pulled away, turning around to look at Ning Ning from time to time – it wasn’t a pleading gaze but one filled with deep-rooted hatred. It seemed as if she had pinned all the blame of her sufferings on Ning Ning.
After the two left and a long time had passed, Ning Ning’s voice lightly traveled out from behind the curtains. “What will papa do to her?”
Wang ma said monotonously, “Don’t know.
She must know and just refuses to tell me, or doesn’t dare to tell me.
Ning Ning did not dare to delve in too deeply with her thoughts, for the more she delved the more frightened she felt. She shut her eyes and supported her head with a hand while the other hand picked up a wooden carving then let go of it – the carving fell back in the box, thump, thump. This process was repeated a few times, then, Ning Ning opened her eyes and said, “It is so stuffy. Oh right, where is that young man from before? Call him over to perform some magic tricks.”
Chen Junyan once again appeared in her courtyard, and she once again wrapped herself up tightly with only her voice travelling out from behind her mask. “What’s your name?”
“My surname is Chen.” The young man spoke with a lowered head, “My name is Junyan- jun from Jūnzǐ (nobleman), and yan from Yàntai (ink stone).”
Ning Ning nodded. This was the right name, and now that the face and the name matched that poster, it was very likely that this world is the one from the movie.
“What are you going to perform?” She asked.
Chen Junyan made a bow towards her and then he straightened his back, crossed his arms on his chest, and suddenly did a backflip. After the flip, he did a few more consecutive flips until he reached the bottom of the tree. There, he pulled out a long rope from his coat.
He gave it a toss and the rope hung itself between two trees.
Taking the ground as a support, Chen Junyan swiftly leaped up onto the rope; one foot on the rope and the other in the air, then once again crossed his arms on his chest. He waited for the rope to gradually settle down from its shaking, made another somersault, then…Boom!
Ning Ning, who was getting ready to applaud, saw a blur, but by then he had already fallen headfirst to the ground, unable to get up for a long time.
“Are you okay?” Ning Ning straightened up on the chair and looked at him anxiously, worried he may have gotten a concussion from the huge fall.
Chen Junyan struggled to get up but failed to do so. But at last, with great difficulty, he managed to flip his body over into a prostrating position and with his head buried in the ground, he said, “Servant is useless, please exact punishment Miss.”
Ning Ning had absolutely no intention of punishing him because she had intentionally called him over in a bid to get closer to him. Thus, she smiled. “It was an accident, nothing to punish you over.”
However, Chen Junyan insisted on receiving punishment, and when he saw Ning Ning not reacting to his pleas, he started to get anxious. He lifted his head up. “Miss, please chastise me, otherwise master will punish me!”
When Ning Ning heard this, she gave it a thought, then said, “Fine, I’ll punish you since you insist on it.”
At her words, Chen Junyan heaved a sigh of relief; being punished by her would be better than master’s punishment because a young girl would unlikely be able to think of methods to torment him.
However, Ning Ning’s next words were, “What do you fear most?”
Chen Junyan’s face paled, thinking of lying to her but ultimately didn’t dare to. Thus, he could only tell her the truth. “…Servant, fears rats the most.”
Light laughter traveled over from above his bowed head, and he secretly took a glance. Ning Ning stood with her profile to him and currently had a white-gloved hand on her masked face while turning back to say something to Wang ma. He dared not take a long look and quickly lowered his gaze. In a short while, Wang ma’s footsteps could be heard leaving and coming back.
Rustling sounds made by a dress hemline rubbing against the ground gradually neared him, then, he heard miss’s voice above him in near proximity. It was a naive yet arrogant and willful voice. “Your punishment is to eat what’s in my hand.”
Large beads of sweat trickled down Chen Junyan’s forehead and fell into the soil on the ground. He replied, “Yes Miss, thank you for the punishment.”
He had actually left out part of the truth; what he feared most wasn’t rats, but rats that fed on human meat. A child that had been abducted together with him had died in the middle of the night in bed, and when his corpse was discovered in the morning, his ears and toe had already been gnawed off by the rat. He was the one that killed the rat, which had red eyes, perhaps because it fed on human meat.
Even if she had never left home before, she’s Boss Qu’s daughter after all, and tormenting people to her is natural instinct. Chen Junyan thought this as he slowly pushed himself up.
He saw a dot of dark red the minute he looked up.
It was currently mid winter with snow covering the ground, and a lone plum tree stood in the courtyard as the others had already withered away. Ning Ning stood before him, while behind her was the plum tree filled with pretty plum flowers. She stretched her white gloved hand out to him. In her hand was a snow white pastry with a red dot in the middle – just like a cinnabar mole on a beauty’s forehead.
“Did you really think that I would make you eat a rat?” Ning Ning showed an expression of ‘I find it dirty even if you don’t mind’, then casually pulled apart the pastry. “Look, it has sweetened bean paste filling.”
After she spoke, she put one half in her mouth and gave the other half to him.
Chen Junyan took the pastry whilst hesitating, with Wang ma watching his hand with an intense gaze, he suddenly had no idea whether to eat it or not. In the end, he clenched his teeth and put the pastry into his clothes. “Something this good, I’ll bring it back and eat it slowly.”
“Are you giving it to the young girl from last time?” Ning Ning asked abruptly.
Another bout of cold sweat overcame Chen Junyan. He hurried to clarify his relations to her. “After she committed such a heinous crime, I can’t wait to personally kill her to help miss vent your anger. Why would I want to specially bring something back for her?”
Ning Ning blinked. “I thought the both of you had a good relationship.”
“I am not familiar with her. We are only learning tricks together and know each other’s names.” Chen Junyan continued to emphasize the fact that he wasn’t close to her.
Ning Ning said, “Orh, what’s her name?”
“Li Xiulan.” Chen Junyan replied.
Now Ning Ning had also confirmed the female lead. She gave Wang ma a glance and Wang ma walked away to bring the pastry plate to her. Ning Ning took the plate and turned around to give it to Chen Junyan. “Take it, share it with Li Xiulan.”
Chen Junyan left with a heavy heart while hugging the pastries. After he left, Ning Ning asked, “Where’s papa?”
She couldn’t leave home at all, not even a step. Only Wang ma was allowed to freely leave and enter, however, it was very simple for her to see Boss Qu. “Help me tell him I miss him.”
Not even two hours later, Boss Qu appeared before her.
He had even changed into a new set of clothes to conceal the faint bloody smell on him.
My nose has been spoiled, no! I have no nose! Ning Ning tried to hypnotize herself, then asked, “Papa, do you run a circus?”
Boss Qu’s gaze sharpened immediately. “Who told you that?”
Ning Ning had guessed it, as the movie was called <Republic Circus> and both the male and female lead were present and possessed acrobatic skills. Thus, it was easy to have thought of this outcome. She pulled Boss Qu’s arm and said, “This you don’t have to know, just get more people to come over tomorrow.”
Boss Qu blinked his eyes. “Why? Do you like acrobats a lot?”
“That’s right. “ Ning Ning lied through her teeth, for she was definitely someone who would rather watch a commercial than watch the acrobatics channel. Yet now she wore the expression of one being obsessed with acrobatics. “I love watching acrobatics, do you have anymore people? Tell them all to come and perform for me.”
She wanted to witness with her own eyes the type of circus Boss Qu owned, then find out the truth and details and get to the bottom of this…In any case, she needed to be clear on the movie genre for <Republic Circus>, whether it be a romance, literary, suspense, drama, or a documentary movie that revealed how a circus operates!
…Please don’t let it be a horror movie!
Yuan Mei*- What the Master Would Not Discuss is a collection of supernatural stories compiled by Qing Dynasty scholar and writer Yuan Mei in 1788.
Here’s a photo of the cinnabar mole on a beauty’s forehead.
Translated by: Ruisi
Edited by: Ely
