Zhou Zishu suddenly felt a gaze on him, as if someone was staring at him specifically. Turning his head around, he met Ye Baiyi's eyes. Ye Baiyi was also standing in the crowd, not too far from him, but not too close either; he didn't gesture, not even greeting him with a single nod, still staring at him without blinking at all. His expression was calm, like it had been when he had told Zhou Zishu "You're going to die soon."
You're going to die soon, you've been a tortoise that only knows how to shrink its head in the face of danger -- Zhou Zishu murmured it to himself quietly in his heart, thinking, what's the big deal about this? At this stage, what did he have to worry about paving the road ahead for future plans, or about plotting? If a person had never acted rashly at least once in his life, wasn't he then too repressed, too pitiable?
He suddenly discovered that his own dream was, all along, to be a bastard who stuck his neck out and didn't hide under his shell.
The endlessly-clamouring crowd suddenly heard a light laugh; that laugh of his should not have stood out among the raucous crowd, but by some unknown method, it suppressed all the other voices just like that. Then a thin, unassuming man with a sickly yellow face walked out, and said in a soft voice, "Everyone, what kind of logic is it, to trouble a child so much in public?"
Zhang Chengling's eyes brightened. His mouth moved soundlessly, forming the words, "Shifu."
Cao Weining had spoke highly of Zhou Zishu to Gao Chong, so Gao Chong hesitated for a bit, before calling out his identity, "Brother Zhou."
Gao Chong only found it strange that the man at this moment possessed the aura unique to an expert, and thus should have been unforgettable to himself. Yet, somehow, when Cao Weining had brought them to the Gao Family Manor that day, he surprisingly had not taken note of his person. Even at this moment, he could only recall with great difficulty that his surname was Zhou, and not his name. A chill twinged in Gao Chong's heart.
Zhou Zishu waved at Zhang Chengling, and said, "Come here, tyke."
Zhang Chengling threw himself into his embrace without a word, even more intimate with him than his own biological father.
Feng Xiaofeng screeched, "What are you to him?"
Zhou Zishu hugged Zhang Chengling's shoulders, and tilted his head to take an eyeful of Feng Xiaofeng. Looking at his appearance, he felt very peeved, and so challenged him with a languid air, "Do you not even recognise me, shortie?"
Feng Xiaofeng flew into a rage. This time, without even waiting for him to speak, the Gaoshan slave gave a low roar and charged towards Zhou Zishu. His physique was gigantic; for each step he took, it was as if he troubled the earth to quake thrice with it. Surging towards him like a tsunami, he had a meteor hammer almost as large as a person's head in his hand, intending to pulverise Zhou Zishu into mush.
It was as if he treated every person who dared to insult Feng Xiaofeng as an enemy who had slain his father. The relationship between these two was truly odd.
However, in a flash, Zhou Zishu was already no longer where he had been standing, bringing Zhang Chengling with him along the way. The meteor hammer slammed into the floor, making a crater in the stone slates.
Gao Chong watched with a clinical eye off to the side, and felt that this person's qinggong seemed to have reached a level unsurpassed by any, to be able to reach this sort of speed even while lugging a person around.
Having missed, the Gaoshan slave swept his hammer out horizontally once more in a woosh. Zhou Zishu timed his chance well, tapping the tip of his shoe, once, lightly on the chain, and rose another two feet, then made use of the hammer coming in his direction and added a kick to its head. No one knew how much force was in that kick, but regardless, when they had all finally registered it happening, that meteor hammer had already swung one round, and was heading straight for its master.
The Gaoshan slave's physique was not nimble, rendering him unable to avoid the hammer; under duress, he could only hug himself tight, retract his head, and turn himself sideways with difficulty. With a loud bellow, he absorbed the blow with his shoulder, his entire person sent flying by his hammer, crashing to the floor.
Feng Xiaofeng shrieked, as if that meteor hammer had struck him personally. In the moment, he no longer cared about the others, flinging himself forward to check on his Gaoshan slave first. The Gaoshan slave's shoulder had been shattered on one side, but since he was, after all, sturdier than others, he was still alive and conscious. He curled into an enormous ball on the floor, soundless, a pair of eyes gazing at Feng Xiaofeng in pain.
Feng Xiaofeng raised his head only then, glaring at Zhou Zishu hatefully.
Zhou Zishu's face was as placid as still water as he said, "He wanted my life, yet, I didn't want his." The he pulled Zhang Chengling to his feet, saying, "Let's go."
"Hold it!" This time, it was Huashan Sect Leader Yu Qiufeng. Once he stood, the few major sects that backed Huashan stood up with him; Yu Qiufeng looked at Zhou Zishu with an extremely unfriendly expression, and then clasped his fist haphazardly at him, grinding out between his teeth, "This wanderer, aren't you belittling everyone here by bringing this child away just like that, right in front of the faces of all the heroes under this sky?"
Zhou Zishu glanced at him, and said coolly, "So, what should I do, according to Sect Leader Yu?"
Yu Qiufeng said, "You can leave if you want, but first, let him explain why people keep hunting him down, whether the Zhang family has anything to do with the Lapis Armour, and in whose hands the Lapis Armour is at present?!"
Zhou Zishu looked at this embittered Huashan Sect Leader with a superficial smile, lowered his head, and asked Zhang Chengling, "Do you know what he's saying?"
Zhang Chengling tightened his lips, and shook his head.
Zhou Zishu asked, "Do you want to speak about the things he asked you?"
Zhang Chengling extended his arm, and carefully pulled at his robes, wordless. Zhou Zishu nodded, and turned back to Yu Qiufeng to say, "Sect Leader Yu, you have questions, but he too can decline to answer. It's better if we just bid each other farewell here, and never cross each other's paths in the future."
Done speaking, he tugged Zhang Chengling up and made to leave. Behind Yu Qiufeng, the Cangshan Sect Leader Huang Daoren chuckled coldly, "This lad is too arrogant!" And took the lead in causing him difficulty. This Huang Daoren had unassuming features, with a dark face that was very oddly-shaped, yet he loved to carry that folding fan all year round, always lurking behind Yu Qiufeng pretending to be one of culture. Whoever knew what he was thinking.
Yet he didn't conceal his hand, as he struck at this moment like a giant potato flung towards them.
Zhou Zishu scoffed internally. It was technically correct to say that he was arrogant; anyway, these present only knew how to cluck and titter like mother hens, and he did not respect a single one of them. As Huang Daoren's first blow arrived, Zhou Zishu did not even let go of Zhang Chengling's hand. In a flash, the two men had already exchanged innumerable blows, a blur to the crowd, then Huang Daoren gave a low sound of pain, and retreated three steps. Blood burst forth from his mouth as he fell on his ass.
And became a shrivelled potato.
The scene was instantly filled with shocked cries of "Sect Leader!"
Yu Qiufeng panicked, pointed to Zhou Zishu and said, "Where has this unorthodoxy come from; unless, he belongs to the Ghosts? Don't let him leave!"
He couldn't win, and so pinned falsehoods to him. The corner of Zhou Zishu's mouth twitched. He had no intention of quarrelling with them, so he hugged Zhang Chengling, and was countless zhang away in the blink of an eye. The scene was in chaos; Cao Weining was stammering his defenses of Zhou Zishu, others like Gao Chong and Zhao Jing remaining silent with unknown intentions, and there was a bunch of idiots led by Yu Qiufeng encouraged to quarrel without knowing the true reason why they were doing so.
They were shouting and hollering, like a marketplace of animals.
Zhou Zishu maneuvered through the crowd like a ghost, occasionally striking out to fend off a few that bumped into him. Because of the Lapis Armour, Zhang Chengling, in his arms, had become no more than a piece of meat that everyone wanted to take a bite out of; Yu Qiufeng seemed to morph into a mad dog all of a sudden, hot on his heels. Zhou Zishu only felt that this Huashan Sect Leader was like an old hag, unwilling to let it go!
The flames of annoyance raged in his heart. He stopped, whirled around, intending to meet him face on.
At this moment, a whip-like shadow suddenly broke through the air, coincidentally blocking Yu Qiufeng's path. Thereafter, he was met with the smell of alcohol. Zhou Zishu focused his eyes. That disheveled man covered in the smell of alcohol, was in fact Wen Kexing, who had left even without saying a word of goodbye last night.
Wen Kexing's eyes were completely bloodshot, his steps clumsy with the sloppiness unique to drunkards. He smiled lecherously at Zhou Zishu, intending to posture himself charismatically, alluringly, but it was ruined by a drunken belch--he said, "A-Xu, leave...leave first, I'll help you stop...stop them."
Before he even finished his sentence, he lurched a step, exactly like a roly-poly toy in the wind, head tilting and tail wobbling, causing the onlooker to worry. Then he dodged all of the blows Yu Qiufeng struck at him.
Amidst his wobbling, the whip in his hand cracked lawlessly; somehow, it "just happened" to loop around Yu Qiufeng's calf, and under the gaze of all, tripped the Huashan Sect Leader head-over-heels.
Wen Kexing even rubbed his eyes vigorously, stepping the dance steps of the Yang folk dance with his noodle-like legs as he tilted his head to watch the furiously embarrassed Yu Qiufeng. His hand waved in front of his eyes, and he said, tongue heavy in his mouth, "Hey, you, the one with…two, two heads, did…did you drink too much as well? What are you crawling on the ground for?"
Witnessing this, Zhou Zishu shook his head internally, feeling that the Huashan Sect would bear a profound hatred towards Wen Kexing this time.
To show his appreciation for Wen Kexing's offer, he took the chance to sneak off with Zhang Chengling without delay, and stole two horses from somewhere. He threw Zhang Chengling onto the horse's back, and took him far away, the dust settling behind them.
Zhang Chengling's riding was bad--he was bad at all aspects of it. They had not set out for long before he could hardly catch up with Zhou Zishu, swaying to and fro on the horse's back.
Zhou Zishu sighed internally. He knew that Zhang Chengling was a block of wood, and so did not expect from him the qualities of a wooden support beam, abandoning the horse after they had covered some distance. He took Zhang Chengling, and leapt over the wall into a long-abandoned, rundown courtyard, letting this youth who had been terrified for the whole day rest for a bit.
A short while later, the front door of this abandoned yard was suddenly pushed open by someone outside. Zhang Chengling jumped up in paranoia, only to see Wen Kexing stumble in, shaky on his feet.
At first, Zhang Chengling thought he was only acting drunk, but upon a second look now, he discovered that he was so drunk that he could not tell the four cardinal directions from one another. He stumbled a few steps like a headless fly zipping around, sinking onto one knee in front of Zhou Zishu. His body pitched forward, and he fell to the floor.
Zhou Zishu hastily pulled his face up for a look, and saw that Wen Kexing's face was flushed red, devoid of any injuries. But Wen Kexing still knew to direct a dazed laugh at him, hugging Zhou Zishu's legs tightly. Rolling to the side, he lay on the floor, using those two legs as either his pillow or his blanket.
Zhou Zishu couldn't help but ask, "Did you fall into a wine jar?"
Wen Kexing said, tongue heavy in his mouth, "Yesterday I, found a wine, wine cellar...mn, I spent a night in there, drank more than ten jars...how satisfying, how satisfying!"
He had really drunk too much. Once he started laughing, he couldn't stop, clinging tightly onto Zhou Zishu's leg, burying his face into it, still murmuring 'how satisfying'."
At a loss for words, Zhou Zishu watched his head loll to one side and start to snore, fast asleep while the sun was still up, and therefore concluded that this person was really spending his energy on frivolous things.