Futile Devices Scans

Yu Gong Zhao Ye’s original intention had been to understand what kind of effects childhood trauma could have on a person, because Ying Yue’s description of Kui Yue sounded very similar to what Wei Fu had said about “injuring his throat and developing a heart demon that caused muteness.” Unexpectedly, before one wave of trauma had settled, another rose up immediately, leaving him thoroughly shaken on the spot.

He was worst at dealing with other people’s genuine emotions, and could only say stiffly, “Then she’s actually pretty easy to manage now.”

“…I’m ashamed,” Ying Yue said awkwardly. “It’s all thanks to Your Highness showing mercy back then. Without Your Highness saving us, we would never have today.”

No matter how one interpreted that sentence, it sounded strange, as though the two of them were mutually pushing responsibility onto each other. Yet because Ying Yue’s attitude was sincere, it sounded far more pleasant than his sister’s sarcastic tone, leaving Yu Gong Zhao Ye unable not to accept it.

Yu Gong Zhao Ye waved a hand. “That was so many years ago. Why keep bringing it up?”

Ying Yue smiled. “The first time we met Your Highness was around this season as well. Perhaps I’m feeling sentimental because of the scenery.”

The day Yu Gong Zhao Ye encountered the Hua siblings, he had just dealt with two Ten Aspects Sect followers in an alley in Tongshan County, Chongzhou, Qiyun. As he sheathed his blade, he casually glanced aside and saw a skeletal child with an oversized head shrinking fearfully in the corner, trembling all over.

Yu Gong Zhao Ye did not have the habit of silencing innocent bystanders, so he pretended not to notice and continued walking forward while keeping track of the movement behind him out of the corner of his eye. Suddenly, the child scrambled up. Instead of fleeing in terror, the child rushed toward the corpses lying in the alley.

Yu Gong Zhao Ye: ?

He changed direction, circled outside the alley, climbed over the wall from the opposite side, and decided to see what exactly was happening.

The child was filthy and looked about ten years old, dressed in oversized tattered clothing. Carefully avoiding the blood all over the ground, two dirty hands rapidly searched the bodies, stripping away every money pouch and valuable accessory the Ten Aspects Sect followers carried.

Stuffing everything haphazardly into the front of the clothing, the child glanced around to confirm no one was there, then lowered the head and rushed toward the alley exit. Just as the little thief was about to successfully escape with the stolen goods, Yu Gong Zhao Ye leapt down from the wall and blocked the path.

The child abruptly stopped, lost balance, and fell into the muddy ground, staring at him uncertainly.

“Put it back,” Yu Gong Zhao Ye said.

The child bit the lip without speaking and stubbornly shook the head.

Yu Gong Zhao Ye did not bother wasting words. He grabbed the child by the ankle, hoisted the body upside down into the air, and gave a shake.

Money pouches, coin bags, and bronze belt buckles clattered all over the ground. Yu Gong Zhao Ye took one look and realized the child had looted things quite thoroughly.

The child flailed desperately like a live fish in his hand, stretching toward the money bags on the ground while loudly protesting, “They’re already dead! If I picked it up, then it’s mine!”

That crisp voice caused Yu Gong Zhao Ye’s brows to jump in surprise. “He” was actually a girl. He immediately let go and set her back on the ground. “You even covet dead people’s belongings? Aren’t you afraid they’ll stand at your bedside in the middle of the night demanding your life?”

The little girl rolled her eyes at him. “There are no ghosts in this world. Even if there are, they should come looking for you first. What does it have to do with me?”

Yu Gong Zhao Ye: “……”

This little scavenger had quite a clear head on her shoulders.

“Fine,” he said after realizing intimidation would not work. “These people have accomplices. If their companions come looking and discover the dead men’s belongings in your possession, not only will your life be forfeit, your entire family will die with you.”

Ghost stories had not frightened her, but the truth did. Clutching the money pouch, she looked at it again and again, unwilling to part with the windfall she had obtained, yet also afraid it might truly bring disaster. She looked up at Yu Gong Zhao Ye. “You’re telling the truth?”

Yu Gong Zhao Ye said, “Otherwise why would I go to the trouble of stopping you?”

Although the little girl was bold, she was not reckless. She genuinely understood the danger. Finally, gritting her teeth, she picked up the scattered objects and returned them to their original places. Bowing hurriedly three times toward the two corpses, she lowered her head and walked toward the alley exit.

Yu Gong Zhao Ye saw her roughly wipe at her face with a hand and immediately understood she was crying, though she made not a single sound while doing so. Unexpectedly, it reminded him of someone he had not thought of in a long time.

“Hey, stop.”

He called out to the child. “Why don’t you believe ghosts exist?”

The little girl shot him a baffled glare. Her voice still carried traces of crying, but her words remained tough. “My brother says that stuff was invented by bad people to bully others. When they can’t find a proper reason, they call people unlucky instead. That stuff doesn’t exist at all.”

“You have a brother?”

“What are you trying to do?” It seemed he had touched a sore spot. The little girl immediately bristled all over. “Why are you asking so many questions?”

Yu Gong Zhao Ye said, “Weren’t you the one who brought it up first?”

The little girl replied, “…My brother says people who keep asking questions are all trying to take advantage of me. Stop asking. I’m not going to tell you anything. Move aside, I’m going home.”

Yu Gong Zhao Ye said, “If your brother is such a sensible person, how could he let you come out and do something like this?”

Even if one did not believe in ghosts or taboos, rummaging through dead bodies was far too inappropriate for a child.

The little girl lowered her head silently without speaking. Yu Gong Zhao Ye asked, “What’s wrong?”

“My brother is sick.” The little girl lowered her head as tears pattered down one after another. “I don’t have money to hire a doctor to treat him. I know stealing from people is wrong, and stealing from dead people is also wrong, but… my brother won’t let me sell myself either.”

Yu Gong Zhao Ye nearly choked to death on her plain and straightforward bluntness.

He sized up the little girl for a long moment and thought to himself that herding one sheep or two sheep was all the same anyway. Better to take them both away and spare himself all the crying and tragic separation scenes.

“I can find you work, and I can also cure your brother’s illness so the two of you can eat your fill. The condition is that from now on, you siblings obey my orders and work for me. Not selling yourselves—selling your lives. Deal or not?”

The little girl looked at him hesitantly, her black-and-white eyes bright and clear. “You mean doing what you do? Killing people?”

“That won’t be your job yet. With skills like yours, who exactly could you kill?” Yu Gong Zhao Ye replied. “You’ll start by learning how to clean courtyards and do miscellaneous chores or something.”

He took out a silver ingot from his sleeve and tossed it to her. “Advance payment.”

The little girl scrambled to catch it like a kitten pouncing on a butterfly. After carefully examining it, she dropped to her knees with a thump. “Master!”

“Get up. Don’t call me that, and stop kneeling every other second.” Yu Gong Zhao Ye took half a step back in disgust. “If I really do ask you to kill people someday, will you be able to do it?”

The little girl held the silver ingot, staring at it from every angle, reluctant to let go, her eyes practically glued to it. “I don’t want to, but you paid me, so I can.”

“…Take me to see your brother.” Yu Gong Zhao Ye asked, “What’s your name?”

She answered, “Hua Jue. My brother is called Hua Mian.”

“Aren’t people usually awake before sleeping? Why are your names reversed?” Yu Gong Zhao Ye followed her toward their home. “And Hua Mian sounds more like a girl’s name.”

Elio’s Notes: Yu Gong Zhao Ye is commenting on the meanings of the siblings’ names. “Jue” [觉] means “awake” or “awareness,” while “Mian” [眠] means “sleep.” Normally, the natural order would be “awake before sleep,” so he finds it odd that the older brother is named Hua Jue while the younger sister is named Hua Mian. 

For some reason, Hua Jue’s mood suddenly sank. Dejectedly, she said, “Originally they were the right way around. My brother gave his name to me.”

Yu Gong Zhao Ye: ?

When they reached the shack the siblings lived in and saw Hua Mian reduced to little more than a skeleton from illness, he finally learned the story of the siblings’ lives from the brother himself.

On the day younger sister Hua Mian was born, an earthquake happened to strike Chongzhou. Their mother died in difficult labor from fright, and the father along with all the relatives regarded the infant as a disaster star, encouraging each other to drown her immediately.

It was older brother Hua Jue who forcibly snatched the baby away and hid outside for three days before finally forcing their father to give up.

The father ignored the infant completely, so the responsibility of raising her naturally fell upon the brother.

Later, the man abandoned them and disappeared. The two children relied on one another for survival. Hua Jue was not even ten years old at the time, yet he alone supported the entire household, acting as both father and mother while desperately trying to raise his younger sister.

The younger sister was always sickly as a child. A wandering doctor once said the name “Hua Mian” was bad, that it carried the appearance of natural weakness and doomed her to die young. But Hua Jue remembered how their mother had once gently guided his little hand to feel the baby moving in her womb while expectantly telling him, “A’Jue, your little sister is called Hua Mian.”

That was the only thing their mother had left them, and he could not bear to throw it away. So he swapped his own name with his sister’s instead. He was a half-grown boy and could better endure illness and pain than she could.

Every time Hua Jue retold this story, he felt miserable afterward, so later on, even when people asked, Hua Mian stopped mentioning it.

Until the time Yeguang assigned code names. Yu Gong Zhao Ye originally intended to give “Ying Yue” to the younger sister and “Kui Yue” to the older brother. But Hua Jue said, “My brother has already suffered enough losses. This time I want to be called Kui Yue.”

Elio’s Notes: The siblings’ code names play on the meanings of the characters “Ying” [盈] and “Kui” [亏]. “Ying” [盈] means fullness, abundance, or surplus, while “Kui” [亏] means deficit, loss, or suffering a disadvantage. Yu Gong Zhao Ye originally wanted the more fortunate-sounding name “Ying Yue” [盈月] (“Full Moon”) for the younger sister and “Kui Yue” [亏月] (“Waning/Deficient Moon”) for the older brother. But Hua Jue deliberately chose “Kui Yue” for herself, saying her brother had already “suffered enough losses” [吃过亏] in life. It is her way of protecting him and taking the burden onto herself instead.

Hua Mian froze on the spot. Hua Jue raised her head and flashed him a carefree grin.

The atmosphere was so touching it practically forced people to cry. The only outsider there, Yu Gong Zhao Ye, looked at the siblings’ deep affection and felt goosebumps rise all over his body. “That’s enough already. Weren’t you the ones saying you don’t believe in ghosts or gods? Weren’t you saying lucky and unlucky things are all just excuses? And now you’re standing here picking over names?”

Kui Yue said, “Why is His Highness angry? Could it be because Your Highness’s codename is Hui Yue? Aiya, that’s all superstition. The character ‘hui’ doesn’t only make people think of bad luck. Right, brother? Let me think… wisdom recognizing talent! Hui, hui… turning back with a smile that captivates a hundred charms! Hahaha!”

Elio’s Notes: Kui Yue is joking about the word “hui” [晦] in Yu Gong Zhao Ye’s codename “Hui Yue” [晦月], which can sound ominous because “huiqi” [晦气] means bad luck or misfortune. Earlier, the siblings had insisted they did not believe in superstitions about unlucky names, so Yu Gong Zhao Ye mocked them for suddenly caring about auspicious meanings. Kui Yue responds by deliberately making ridiculous word associations with other “hui” sounds and characters—such as “wisdom” [慧] in the idiom “recognizing talent with discerning eyes” [慧眼识珠]—to argue that the name does not have to imply bad luck. The final line references the famous poem verse “turning back with a smile that captivates a hundred charms” [回眸一笑百媚生], using another similar-sounding “hui” [回] purely to tease him.

That day at the training grounds, Yu Gong Zhao Ye beat her hard enough to teach her the meaning of “the emperor covering his face, unable to save her.”

“Brother! Where are you? Food’s ready!” Kui Yue shouted from the hall. “If you don’t eat now it’ll get cold! Do you want the pastry sweet or savory?”

Ying Yue answered, “Coming.” Then he turned to ask Yu Gong Zhao Ye, “Has Your Highness eaten breakfast yet? Would you like to join us?”

Yu Gong Zhao Ye waved a hand to decline. Thinking about his own breakfast earlier, he suddenly felt an inexplicable sense of familiarity and abruptly realized Wei Fu called out to him in exactly the same way.

Yu Gong Zhao Ye had never interacted this intimately with his own brothers and sisters. First, because of his status—he was not actually related by blood to the Yu Gong family to begin with, so there was no deep sibling affection to speak of. Second, because of the enormous age gap. His eldest brother, the late king Yu Gong Feng Ting, was old enough to be his father, while the other princes all had wives and children of their own. They only saw each other during holidays and formal occasions.

Kui Yue’s noisy voice drifted clearly through the half-open doors and windows into his ears. “Brother, after we eat, let’s go play at Jiuhua Pond. I heard there are lots of beautiful Snow-Robed Birds there.”

Ying Yue replied, “I still have matters to handle this morning and must await His Highness’s orders. Official duties come first.”

Kui Yue pitifully said, “But I’m leaving tomorrow. Then can we go tonight after you finish?”

The Hua siblings were what ordinary siblings were supposed to look like. Standing in the bleak autumn wind, Yu Gong Zhao Ye suddenly realized: Wei Fu also clung to him like this, always wanting to hover nearby. Was it because Wei Xiu had failed him—and had even once wanted him to disappear—that Wei Fu had unconsciously treated the Yu Gong Zhao Ye who survived together with him in the mountains as an older brother?

The more something was lacking in one’s youth, the tighter one grasped for it after growing up. Had Wei Fu suffered too much neglect as a child, and so now desperately sought excessive affection and attention from him?

Ying Yue compromised. “Fine then. I’ll try to finish things early and spend more time walking around with you. I’ll also buy you some snacks for the road, alright?”

—So “compromise” was apparently a universal trait shared by all older brothers.

Yu Gong Zhao Ye suddenly understood everything at once.

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