My Interpreter Mistranslates Every Threat novel · Chapter 19 of 24
Chapter 19: Say It Plain
Lu Wen sat up in the grey morning with the sheet around his waist and said, "No."
Yan lay on his back with one arm over his eyes.
"I thought you might."
"Anything else," said Lu Wen.
His voice was too high, and he heard it.
"Anything you want. I'll sit in the hall. I'll carry the papers. I'll lie to Gao for a week. I won't do that."
"Wen," said Yan.
"I cut sentences, Shiliang. That's what I'm for. I don't stand up in front of three hundred people and say the hard thing out loud."
Yan took his arm away from his face.
"It isn't a hard thing. It's two paragraphs. You read them as they are, and the room hears the gap."
"It's a threat!"
Lu Wen was off the bed and across the floor before he knew it.
"Take possession of any vessel after one day. It's the cruellest sentence in the contract."
"You want me to say it to the Minister's face in his own language, plainly, and watch him hear it."
"Yes," said Yan.
"Why?" said Lu Wen. "Because it's true?"
"Because it's true," said Yan.
"Truth is what kills people!"
The shout bounced off the glass.
Lu Wen stood in the middle of the bare floor in his undershirt, shaking all over.
Yan sat up, slowly, and did not come to him.
"Tell me," he said.
"There's nothing to tell."
"There's a reason you cut. I knew on the third day. I didn't ask because it was none of my business. It's my business now."
Lu Wen looked at the window, and the river, and his own faint reflection.
"My father sold dried fish at a stall in Yangpu," he said. "He spoke Fuzhou dialect and very little else."
"When I was twelve he borrowed money from men who spoke Mandarin and did not wish to be misunderstood."
Yan said nothing.
"I interpreted. I stood between them."
He laughed, and it broke.
"They'd say, tell him the stock goes tomorrow, and I'd say, they'd like a little more time, Baba."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of My Interpreter Mistranslates Every Threat are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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