EWNV CHAPTER 88: JOURNEY TO THE NORTH (PART 1)

14:46

Ye Zhen Zhen opened her eyes.

She was greeted with a flash of the previous scene. White, white which now seemed so cruel to her, people adorned with it flashing everywhere in her vision.

She finally came to a realization; Died, Ji Wijiu is dead... he is dead.

Ye Zhen Zhen curled her body, burying her face in her arms, she started sobbing.

She felt as if the whole world has collapsed around her.

In the recent days, the only thing complementing her vitality was the still obscure fate of Ji Wujiu.

Now all of a sudden, struck with the reality, she accepted that he is no longer alive, this realization made her feel it would be better to become a ghost than to live in this world any longer.

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NO, no she can't die yet! She must live on to avenge him.

She wanted to personally kill Ji Li You.

Ye Zhen Zhen wiped away her tears whilst thinking it would do better to understand the current situation.

Thinking till there she started inspecting her surroundings. She was currently lying on a bed, quite a small one, set upon a wooden flooring. From her position she can also hear the sound of flowing water.

Also, the world seems to be shaking.

Ye Zhen Zhen thought her mind must be disoriented... dizzy. But she still held her doubt as the shaking seemed to be on a regular interval.

She leaned to the side to get off the bed, just as she set her foot down, she felt as if the whole world suddenly swayed, almost falling, she somehow managed to hold on the side of the bed, maintaining a firm foothold.

Ye Zhen Zhen carefully made her way out the door, stepping out, her vision was filled with blue, endlessly swaying blue, in the distant horizon she could see the sky meeting with the blue ocean creating a dazzling scene.

She is on a boat, it seems, "But... this river, how come there's no shore?", she muttered to herself.

"This is an ocean.", answered Ji Li You, walking over to her side. His eyes turning to look at the horizon, he asked, "Have you not seen the ocean before?".

Registering his presence, Ye Zhen Zhen clenched her fist, trying to conceal the hatred in her eyes.

How to kill him?

Ji Li You turned his eyes to look at her just to find her face filled with killing intent.

He frowned, angrily rebuking, "Don't be foolish, you cannot kill me."

Ye Zhen Zhen turned around to walk back into her room. She did not wish to speak with him, nor did she want to see him any longer.

Lying on the bed, she was staring foolishly into the empty space, in her mind she was thinking of various ways to kill him. When suddenly she thought of something.

Stange, why did he not kill her? Could it be he truly plans to pay her back for the previous insult?

Thinking till here, Ye Zhen Zhen had a sudden burst of nausea.

Sea... the sea. Previously she been looking forward to visit the sea with Ji Wujiu, as he wanted to come here to inspect the Royal Qi Navy, he also planned to take her to the beach to play afterward.

Wait a minute... the sea?

Ye Zhen Zhen suddenly felt this made no sense. Although the sea of Qi was now clear of dangers as merchants passed through quite frequently, but it would have still been better to travel by carriage, as it would have been faster. Why choose the sea?

Even if right now the downwind might have been fast, but who can guarantee it will remain that way?

Besides the ship is not as safe as the carriage.

There must be something wrong.

Why did he not choose to travel by land?

Someone must be on him, conducting a thorough investigation throughout making it that Ji Li You is not confident in wading through the land without exposing himself.

But who issued the command to conduct this investigation? The court of ministers?

Very few people know of Ji Li You's existence, much less his role in the floods.

Therefore, even if the court of ministers holds the power to conduct this massive investigation, they won't bother with him. Not after disarray caused by the death of the Emperor... so who?

Again, going by the identity of Ji Li You, he and Ji Tan are the only people qualified to inherit the throne, besides now the court is under Fangxiu Qing's command, and he hates Ji Tan, hence Fangxiu Qing will surely nominate Li You for the emperor.

So he shouldn't be scared of being exposed... unless, the investigation is not being conducted under the court of ministers' command at all.

Ji Wujiu, it must be Ji Wujiu who issued the command.

He's alive, Ji Wujiu is alive!

Ye Zhen Zhen excitedly jumped out as she thought of this, accidentally knocking her head into the low ceiling, the rebound forced her back on the bed.

She sat on the bed, clutching her throbbing head but her thoughts were not giving attention to the pain rather she seemed to be affirming that her conclusion is true.
 

But one thing she is still unable to understand... the national mourning surely was real, but for what reason?

She can logically affirm Ji Li You does not have the capital to bribe all those people, although the people under his faction were rich, but they did not hold enough wealth to facilitate this move.

She suddenly seemed to be lost in thought.




TL NOTE: Now this part is a bit confusing if I don't provide a proper explanation. in the previous chapter where she humiliates him, after which he retaliated with "***" seems to have been the part where he somehow made her faint. I'm assuming by hitting her neck or something. That's beside the point, the thing is I did not miss a single line in the raws so it's unlikely I missed translating that. Now the only explanation is, the scene change from "***" to "She awoke from her slumber in the carriage" held a clear assumption (Which I apparently missed) that she fainted. I hope the readers will forgive me for the tardiness and bear with me as I further explain why I just pasted the raws and a rough translation below.

Now regarding the below scene, even if you assume that she fainted, the author is clearly taking his liberties when it comes to her line of thought. She is just assuming that he planned the whole thing and Li You woke her up just at the time they reached the village so that she could see the national mourning. Whereas the author clearly shows that she woke up after her default amount of sleep rather than by poking or any other third party intervention. Basically the author is just desperate to explain this line of reasoning and while it might have been easier in Chinese, for me translating this, it's giving me a headache to explain this while trying not to take liberties, and changing the whole sentence, deviating from the original essence. 
[ 她好像莫名其妙地就突然出現在那個地方，應是之前被迷暈了。 那麼紀離憂若是想讓她看國喪，出門便是一個村落，肯定有國喪可以看，何必把她迷暈之後帶到一個新的地方？  太多此一舉了吧？

    解釋只有一個，他們所在的村子沒有，那個地方卻有]
Now below I will summarize the meaning of this raw, I hope the readers won't mind me doing that.

'Basically what she is saying if Ji Li You wanted her to see the scene of national mourning, he could have just made it so that she could have seen it in the village they were staying in these past few days. Why did he have to arrange it so that she is taken to the another village to see that. Isn't it too much of a bother?'
As you can see the author is clearly taking the readers for 3-year-olds. So Ye Zhen Zhen apparently knew that it wasnt the village she was previously staying near, now keep in mind, she wasn't allowed to go too far from the residence and it's unlikely she could have learned much about that village to later make a comparison.Besides, its possible that Li You must go through there so that he could catch the ferry. Haah~ I won't bother explaining further, I believe you all can sympathize with me on this and have grasped the rough meaning of the above whole.
Now without further ado, please enjoy the translation.

Ye Zhen Zhen closed her eyes, trying to recall the the scene she saw when she was standing on the roof of the carriage.

Disregarding the the prominent white in the scenery, there's also another major element she seems to have previously missed. The town's terrain, it was lower than that of it's surroundings. (TL Note: Ha! She can even discern that now, huh?
I don't know if I'm being too sensitive or the plot holes are too glaring, whatever the case, I'm honestly losing my will to translate any further.)

In the case of flood, an area with such low terrain would surely be impacted by it as well. Probably a lot of people must have faced heavy damages, a lot of them must have lost their lives.

In other words, that was no national mourning or such nonsense, it was just that, that area had faced a severe loss of life. The white there was to show respect to the people who have died, and the people participating in that custom seems to have been thoroughly limited to the locals of that town.

Realizing this point, now there did not seem to be any other flaw in her previous reasoning regarding the life of Ji Wujiu.

Her worries washed away, she was rejuvenated... she felt ecstatic, every vein in her body seems to have been jumping in joy, her heart pulsating with excitement.

Ji Wujiu is still alive, not only alive, he is safe and clearly declaring his existence so that she could become aware of it.

Otherwise, he did not need to move in a way in which Ji Li You would be alarmed, he could have just stayed low, pretending to be dead. It would have been the best policy to catch Li You.

Ye Zhen Zhen suddenly felt her heart warm up, this fool, just so that she could rest assured, he missed such a good opportunity.

Anyways, it doesn't matter, it's good that he is alive.

Ye Zhen Zhen laid back, covered herself with the quilt and gleefully started laughing.

Previously the swaying of the ship had made Ye Zhen Zhen nauseous but due the the anger and worries, she somehow seems to have suppressed that feeling, but now that her worries are washed away, the feeling of nausea relapsed.

This time she did not hold back and stumbled her way out the door to lean against the railing of the ship, subconsciously using the whole of her upper body strength, she vomited out in the dark waters, after finishing, her whole body felt weak causing her to be slumped against the railings, feeling the cool sea breeze passing through, she suddenly felt a lot more comfortable.


----------END OF CHAPTER 88 (Part 1)-----------


I Originally wanted to post the whole chapter but due to the above-mentioned problems, it took me quite a while to translate this whole and I'm in no mood to translate this any further for now. Hence,  this chapter too will be divided into two parts.
The readers can expect the release of part 2 within the next 24 hours.

P.S Yet again I apologize to the readers for that giant TL note sticking in there. I personally tried my best to refrain from using that, but the situation made it that if I had to continue the translation forwards, I had to use it to provide an explanation.
I hope the readers will forgive me this time, I will, to the best of my abilities try not to cause such a blunder again in the future.