[Ch 1] My Love Comes to See the Grass on my Grave

Original novel: 心上人来看我的坟头草 by 长烟

English translations by phosphores/tautomerize

DO NOT REPOST. DO NOT RE-TRANSLATE.

My Love Comes to See the Grass on my Grave

Murong Yan is “dead.” His subordinate tells him that his love has been crying by his grave every single day.

He’s ecstatic and sneaks over to catch a glimpse, only to find that his love isn’t crying at all; he’s just standing quietly in front of the grave.

Feeling hurt, he goes to probe his love while under disguise.

Murong Yan: You come to see him every day. Is it because you miss him?

His love: I come to see how tall the grass on his grave has grown.

Murong Yan: …

#fluff, #crack, #imperial court

Chapter 1 ❧ He comes to see your grave

Murong Yan¹ is dead, ambushed by his enemy and perished from fatal injuries.

_{^{(1. Murong is a compound last name; Yan is his first name.)}}

This is what the Shanhe Gambling House’s Second in Command, Sun Fang, says. He wipes off a handful of snot followed by a handful of tears and burns paper money in front of their First in Command, Murong Yan’s mourning hall, fraught with grief.

At this time, Gu Lang, wearing an all-black, tapered-sleeve guard uniform, physique lean and tall, stands in front of Murong Yan’s casket and looks at the pallid human lying inside, wordless.

Finally, he lifts a hand to check for breathing from the person inside the casket.

There is none.

Sun Fang is still wailing but sees Gu Lang turn all of a sudden, traverse the cry-filled mourning hall, and leave by himself.

He didn’t cry? Sun Fang is quite disappointed. How is he supposed to answer to the First in Command?

Their First in Command has been hovering around Gu-huwei² for a long time. From when Gu Lang was guarding the Imperial City to now guarding the East Palace³, it’s been more than a year. However, Gu-huwei’s heart is hard as steel, and he’s still as cold and unfeeling as he was all those months ago.

_{^{(2. “huwei” means “guard.” I didn’t want to be calling him “Guard Gu” all the time.}}

_{^{3. East Palace is where the crown prince resides.)}}

Sun Fang sighs and carries on bawling at the top of his lungs.

❊

Three days later, Sun Fang, pretending to be paying respects to Murong Yan, runs into Gu Lang at the grave.

Gu Lang still does not say anything. Seeing Sun Fang arrive, he gives a slight nod as a greeting and then leaves.

Sun Fang is beyond excited—First in Command, Gu-huwei didn’t set off firecrackers; he even came to see your grave!

Before Murong Yan had faked his death, Sun Fang had lied to him and said, “Gu-huwei is going to be heartbroken.”

Holding pressure on the wound on his abdomen, Murong Yan had laughed in self-derision and said, “He’s probably going to set off firecrackers in celebration.”

And now, firecrackers haven’t gone off and the person has followed all the way to the grave. Sun Fang slaps his thigh and comes this close to digging up Murong Yan’s grave.

After this, Sun Fang sees Gu Lang in front of the grave several more times. And so, after a month, when the resurrected Murong Yan finally heals his wound and sneaks back to the Shanhe Gambling House, he hears Sun Fang say, with fervor, that Gu Lang goes to cry in front of his grave every single day.

Murong Yan is standing next to the pond with one hand behind his back and one hand tossing fish food. When he hears this, his hand twitches and almost overturns the fish food.

“That’s not possible,” he says, looking at the fish in the pond. “With his temperament, I’ve never even seen his eyes get red, much less cry.”

Sun Fang says, “It’s real. He’s been crying with such anguish that he’s starting to waste away.”

Murong Yan still doesn’t believe it. He can’t picture Gu Lang weeping.

But that doesn’t stop him from secretly going and looking.

He really does find Gu Lang in front of his grave.

That person really seems to have lost weight; his waist beneath the clothes is even smaller.

But he’s not crying.

He’s standing quietly, looking at Murong Yan’s grave mound, and emotionless.

That bastard Sun Fang, Murong Yan thinks angrily, Should really sew his mouth shut!

As he curses Sun Fang in his head, he sees Gu Lang squat down all of a sudden and starts plucking the grass growing on his grave mound.

Murong Yan: “…”

Why is he plucking the grass?

Gu Lang plucks a few blades then stops and walks away without a word.

Murong Yan comes out from his hiding place and stops at where Gu Lang was standing earlier.

What is there to see about a grave? He thinks, I’m not even the one buried here.

That night, Sun Fang kneels by the fish pond and, with the bone-chilling wind blowing on him, moon-gazes with the fish the entire night.

❊

It’s been a month since Gu Lang’s been transferred to the East Palace.

Originally he was responsible for guarding the imperial city walls, but the East Palace was supposedly short on guards, so a group was transferred over, and he was one of them. 

But having been at the East Palace all these days, he has not seen the crown prince once.

According to Wu Liu,* who works the night shift, the crown prince is lost in cultivation and daoism. He’s locked himself in his sleeping hall and rarely steps outside. Wu Liu’s been at the East Palace for more than a year, and he’s barely seen the crown prince.

^{_{(*t/n: Liu means six. Wu Liu basically means he’s the 6th child in the Wu family.)}}

That the crown prince has devoted himself to cultivation is something that everyone in court knows. If not for the fact that Great Yan’s emperor has a slew of daughters but only this one son, he would have never gotten to be crown prince.

Now, with the emperor gravely ill and the crown prince uninterested in governmental affairs, all court proceedings big and small are taken care of by the chancellor.

“In a few days it’ll be the Ghost Festival. In past years, the crown prince always went to the Ancestral Temple to pay respects. Maybe we’ll get to see him when the time comes,” Wu Liu says animatedly. “The crown prince is so incredibly good looking. What is it called again… oh, oh, a jade tree caressed by the breeze, charismatic and handsome, the world is filled with order⁴…”

_{^{(4. He used 3 chengyu in a row, in the fashion of “chengyu solitaire” where you start a chengyu with the same sound as the last word of the previous chengyu. Here it’s “yù shù lín fēng,” “fēnɡ shén jùn lǎng,” and “lǎng lǎng qián kūn.” The first 2 are commonly used to describe good looking men, but the last is just in there for the pattern and Wu Liu probably has no idea what it means. I tried to connect them in my translation but failed orz.)}}

Gu Lang: “…”

Gu Lang doesn’t know if the crown prince is good looking or not, and he doesn’t really care to know. It’s just that the grave outside the city has suddenly popped into his mind.

Ghost Festival? He thinks, Maybe that person will reanimate.

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Translator’s note: let me know what you think! This is a historical novel so I’m a little less confident about how the translation reads. Do drop me a comment with your thoughts/reactions/suggestions.

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