Chapter Eighty-Five: Recruitment, Part Two

As soon as Miss Huang spoke, her bearing changed at once. She was no longer the aloof young lady who looked down on everyone, nor the fool on the island who could not so much as manage her own life. She had become instead a mysterious and unpredictable scion of the highest rank, ambitious and untouchable, the kind of rising power Xu Kaishan had called a dragon crossing a river, and in Monk Ren’s eyes, the Princess Phoenix of the Southern Dynasty.

The male is the phoenix, the female the fenghuang, the sovereign of all birds, able to change from hairpin to cap and command the world of men.

“Why?” Kou Li said calmly, not the least shaken by her pressure.

“You want to know. You want to take part. You want to die?” Miss Huang slowly let those words fall from her blood-red lips, her expression equally cold.

“You still owe me one answer.”

Miss Huang gave him a long look, then said slowly, “When one sleeps beside a tiger, how can one allow another to snore nearby? Great changes are about to sweep Yue Prefecture; the winds and clouds are gathering. Burn-Body Hall has been brought to the table, yet it neither eats nor drinks. Those who would snatch the food fear it, and those who want a seat at the table loathe it. So after some discussion, everyone decided it would be better to knock it out of the game.”

Kou Li understood a little now. Burn-Body Hall was simply too strong. It had four grand masters at the fourth refining level, yet had never pledged itself to any side. That made it an eyesore to some. Everyone feared it might be used by the other camp, so they might as well join forces and kick it out first.

“So if I were you, I’d be wise and protect myself. After all, you’re only an apprentice, not truly of Master Lin Xianshi’s line,” Miss Huang suddenly changed again, smiling slyly like a beautiful serpent. She slipped softly beneath the covers, and the medicine broth she had not yet finished was quietly poured by her fair, frost-white arm beneath the bed.

“Or you could come help me. What Lin Xianshi can give you, I can give you too. And more.”

This woman was like a thousand-faced python. Her expression changed again; her red lips parted, her eyes suddenly turning coy and tender. Her long, round, snow-white legs quietly emerged and brushed against Kou Li’s calf, soft and fragrant, yielding yet springy.

It was the kind of invitation that suggested that one promise would be repaid with her very body.

“Skin like congealed cream, clear and translucent,” Kou Li praised without the slightest concealment, though his gaze held no trace of lechery. After a pause, he added, “Still, it can’t compare with the part below your collarbones. Your backside is a mound of snow, your thighs those of a fat goose, and your twin peaks rise like peaches opening in bloom, round as the full moon.”

Miss Huang jerked her leg back at once, her disguise shattered, both羞 and furious. “What do you mean by that?”

“Even if you’ve forgotten who carried you back after you fainted in the stream, Lin Su'e should have told you. When the Japanese assassins surrounded us at the fire, I disguised the two of you as the corpses of assassins, a case of taking the plum tree for the peach. There was, however, a technical issue: all those Japanese assassins were men, flat of build, while you were tall and shapely, so your chest and hips had to be bound.”

“You were still unconscious at the time. Lin Su'e helped with your chest. But when it came to your hips, her strength was too small and she simply could not manage it. So I lent a little hand in the process...”

“Get out! Get out at once! This princess will kill you and exterminate your entire clan!”

Kou Li’s forearm shot out with a snap, and he caught the flying medicine bowl firmly. Looking at the beautiful serpent flailing and raging in a frenzy, Kou Li drove his waist and arms with decisive force, sprang like a tiger, and slipped out the door.

“Someone! Someone! This princess is going to castrate him—”

“Big Brother Kou, is Sister Lin all right?” Lin Su'e asked in terror, hearing the violent smashing of basins and jars inside.

“Nothing serious. Side effects from snake venom,” Kou Li said calmly. His expression rarely showed hesitation, but this time it did, just briefly, before he said, “Come to my room tonight. Don’t let anyone else know.”

“Ah!?”

Lin Su'e’s pretty face flushed bright red in an instant, from her forehead all the way down her neck. Her small hands clutched at the hem of her clothes with even more force.

What on earth did Big Brother Kou want to do to her on a night like this?

…

“Burn-Body Hall. Burn-Body Hall.”

Kou Li had no mood to concern himself with a young girl’s secret thoughts. He had not expected matters to turn so grave so suddenly. Thinking of the Water Dragon Gang’s movements, Zhu Baozi’s movements, and the strange conduct of Yuehang, it seemed that there had indeed been signs beforehand, but the storm had come too fast.

Among the three major martial halls, the Car Family Fist Hall, the Five-Forms Hall, and the Burn-Body Hall, only Burn-Body Hall had been singled out. So the other two had already made their wagers. Would they take part in the move against Burn-Body Hall?

No. They certainly would.

His nominal master, Master Lin Xianshi, was a grand master of Southern Fist, a martial artist of such terrifying attainment it bordered on the unbelievable. Since he had decided to move against Burn-Body Hall, the various factions must already have worked out how to deal with that formidable weapon. And as for Luo Yanzong and Yue Wuhuo, barring accidents they should already be back at the hall. Did they know about this?

And Third Senior Brother Mo Yi—after the dragon bones were blasted apart, he had vanished without a trace. Had he already boarded a ship, or... died?

Would he still make it in time?

Kou Li’s eyelids hung low, and now and then a green glint seemed to flash from beneath them. He had joined Burn-Body Hall, and Luo Yanzong had passed on the fist teachings in his master’s stead. He did not owe him gratitude; that was Zheng Laotie’s way of repaying Kou Li for saving his grandson’s life.

The debts were even.

But Luo Yanzong, Yue Wuhuo, and Mo Yi had risked their lives under the threat of the Water Dragon Gang sinking the ship in order to stand for him in combat and hold the line. That was righteousness. That was kindness.

Repay kindness with kindness; settle grudges with a clean ending. Only then, whether in cultivation or in boxing, could one advance with fearless vigor and no taboos. If one were shackled by the affairs of the world, how could one break through the void and awaken true understanding of heart and nature?

His fingers turned absentmindedly, from time to time producing a metallic whisper like blades scraping together. He let the tigerish killing intent flow slowly through his mind. Wherever it reached, his body seemed to discharge with current; in his ears he could hear a hissing flow of blood, and the parts he sensed would instantly tighten and harden, like iron knots under tough skin.

As his will moved in orderly circulation, wherever it passed, the whole body seemed to answer and question in turn. In time, his entire frame felt as if ants were crawling over it. At last, the sound of those ants merged together, like some perpetual machine humming within his body.

This was not merely success in internal boxing. This was mastery.

It seemed he would have to slaughter again soon, Kou Li thought faintly.

...

Three days later, the coast was already visible, and there was no longer a single cherry-painted ship, but nearly ten towering government vessels escorting them. Several thousand officers and soldiers filled the hulls, cleaving waves and parting the sea, while every civilian and merchant vessel at the harbor mouth had been swept clear. The spectacle was immense.

The Yue Prefecture military governor, the prefect, the naval deputy commander, the commander of Jiulong River, the customs envoy, and a host of wealthy clans and powerful figures had all come in person, surrounding Miss Huang in the center like stars around the moon, their severe and staid faces full of obsequious smiles.

Miss Huang wore white from head to toe, dressed like some exquisite young nobleman of the floating world. She held a jeweled fan and tapped the railing now and then with her right hand. She did not turn her head, but her eyes flashed with strange brilliance.

Xu Kaishan twitched at the corner of his mouth. Truly, people’s fates were different. He himself had been tortured half to death, wrapped from head to toe like a rice dumpling, and the first thing his own father had said was, “If you let the young master be put in danger, I’ll beat you to death when I get back!” Then he had turned around and gone smiling to exchange greetings and ask after the young master’s health, as though the other were his own flesh and blood.

Could it be that I’m really not his own son? No wonder that old man is so ugly and his son so handsome. I hear my mother used to be sworn to life and death with Marshal Hong. Could it be...

The dumpling-man stroked his chin and thought darkly.

Meanwhile, Lin Su'e was tidying clothes inside the cabin. A month ago, she had been merely the daughter of a physician, an ordinary commoner no more remarkable than any other, and she was naturally afraid of these court officials, so she had kept hidden in the room and dared not come out.

There was another reason as well. Just thinking of that night made Lin Su'e so ashamed she wanted to burrow into the ground. What on earth had she been thinking? The moment she entered the room, before Kou Li had even spoken, she had taken the initiative and wrapped her arms around him from behind. It was, it was simply indecent, wanton, and in truth the other side had not even been thinking anything of the sort.

I was utterly out of my mind then, Lin Su'e thought miserably.

“Yiya, yiya, yiya—”

While she was wallowing in self-pity, a tiny peach figurine suddenly rolled out from the pile of clothes and toddled over. It clutched Lin Su'e’s arm and would not let go, like a peach that had found a branch to cling to.

“Little Cui'er, don’t be naughty. Big Brother Kou said you’re a heavenly treasure, and many people are thinking of you,” Lin Su'e said fondly.

“Yiya, yiyaaa.”

This emerald fruit with its green skin was precisely the reason Kou Li had summoned her that night. Because of her kidnapping by the Water Dragon Gang, this spiritual fruit had been his compensation. But in the end, this sweet, innocent girl was like Tang Sanzang, unable to bring herself to bite into the fruit that had somehow gained intelligence. And unexpectedly, that jade-green fruit was also deeply affectionate toward Lin Su'e.

In the end, the fruit became her little pet.