Zhang Chengling felt woozy. The scorpion's venom was probably starting to take effect: it was like thunder was booming right by his ear, the noise all around him sounding like it was separated from him by a layer of gauze—he could hear it, but it felt somewhat unreal.
He turned his head in the direction where the arrow had come from, and saw two men.
The man with a small crossbow in his hand was dressed in navy blue robes, his long sleeves fluttering. A belt the width of a palm was fastened around his waist, and on the side of it, hung a white jade xiao. He did not look like someone of the jianghu, nor did he look like a scholar, but looked more like a noble who luxuriated in wealth. His hooded, amorous eyes seemed as if they held a slight trace of laughter, but upon closer examination, the look he shot at the last Poisonous Scorpion contained the glint of a cold light.
Through the haze in his mind, Zhang Chengling thought that this person…was the best-looking person that he had ever seen.
There was another man following at his side. Dressed in black, that man had a face that came off as frosty-looking. A small ferret sat on his shoulder.
That suicide warrior seemed to hesitate momentarily, before hurtling like an arrow released towards the man holding the bow. Zhang Chengling only felt an indescribably sharp gust of wind whip past his ear, and before he could realise what had happened, that Poisonous Scorpion had become a dead scorpion.
That man in black who had seemed to still be some distance away earlier was by his side in the blink of an eye. Bending down, he picked up Zhang Chengling's bleeding hand to peruse it, and reached out to seal a few of his acupuncture points. Stuffing a pill into Zhang Chengling's mouth, he said, "Swallow it. It is scorpion venom."
Zhang Chengling could not care about anything else. He tugged at the hem of the man's robes with great effort, saying, "Gu…Xiang…jie…please save…"
The sounds he had expended all of his energy to form blurred into one another once they reached his mouth, troubling the man in long robes next to him to pause for a moment. Yet, miraculously, the man still understood, and asked in a gentle voice, "You're asking us to help you save someone? Where are they?"
Zhang Chengling extended a finger, pointing in the direction he had come from, mumbling, "Gu…jiejie…save…her, save…save…"
The man in black raised his head to glance at his companion. The man in long robes said, "Why aren't you going?"
The man in black plucked the ferret from his shoulder and threw it into his arms. "Take care. I will return immediately."
He was gone in a flash. Zhang Chengling fixed his eyes helplessly on where the man had vanished, his gaze nearly boring holes in earnest anxiety. That man in long robes helped him sit up and instructed, "Close your eyes, concentrate, don't let your imagination run wild. Safeguard your own life first, before worrying about other things."
Zhang Chengling knew that it was futile to worry any further, and so closed his eyes as instructed. That ferret wriggled out from that man's robes, curled up into a ball, and sniffed around on him. A faint stench of blood wafted in the air, and a whiff of fragrance clung onto the man's robes; it was amidst this kind of scent where Zhang Chengling gradually lost consciousness.
When he woke up, the sky was completely dark. The numbness had already faded with the scorpion venom, and it was only now that he got up sluggishly. For a moment, he was a little disoriented, unable to recall why he was in this state, until a young girl next to him exclaimed. "Ah, you're finally awake!"
Overjoyed, Zhang Chengling turned his head. Although Gu Xiang was a little dishevelled, she was still whole. The wound on her body had been given medical attention, and she was currently sitting by a fire pit for warmth. Right at this moment, a calloused hand reached over, fingers resting against Zhang Chengling's wrist as they took his pulse for a while, before releasing him. "The poison has cleared up."
The one who had taken his pulse was that man in black. He ignored Zhang Chengling looking curiously in his direction, simply nodded and stood ramrod-straight under the tree. When viewed from the side, his chiselled profile seemed like it was carved from stone. Zhang Chengling discovered that the gaze Gu Xiang directed at this man was full of respect and awe; it even felt like she was somewhat holding in check the raucous way of talking that she had been born with.
So he said awkwardly, "Many thanks…many thanks to these two heroes for saving us."
Hearing this, the man in black shook his head almost imperceptibly. "No need." And then he did not look at Zhang Chengling any longer, turning his head to look in the other direction.
Zhang Chengling followed the direction of his gaze and saw the man in long robes, who had been carrying that bow in the day, walking over to them with a bundle of firewood in his arms. Just as the man in black was about to stand, Gu Xiang had already run over enthusiastically and was taking the firewood from him. "Lord Seventh, you should sit, you should sit. Leave these things to me, why are you doing manual labour personally? I'm someone else's servant anyway…"
The hooded eyes of the "Lord Seventh" she spoke of curved in a smile as he heard this, and he let Gu Xiang take the firewood from him. He sat next to the man in black, who produced a small and delicate handwarmer from nowhere, stuffed it into his hands in a practiced movement, and nimbly plucked a dried leaf off his sleeve. It could have been Zhang Chengling's imagination, but he felt that the man in black had turned from a lifeless block of stone into a person of flesh and blood in that instant. Even the look in his eyes had grown warm.
These two men did not converse much, but there was an inexplicable intimacy and tacit understanding of each other to their movements.
Lord Seventh looked at Zhang Chengling and asked, "Are you feeling better?"
His voice was not loud, but was extremely nice to listen to. Suddenly, without knowing why, Zhang Chengling blushed, lowering his head, and nodded silently. He could not help himself from peeking up again, wanting to take one more look at that man—that woman he had seen in the tavern the other day was extremely beautiful, but Zhang Chengling suddenly felt that compared to this man, the woman's face was like a layer of skin made of paper: flimsy and purposefully fake.
Lord Seventh asked, "What is your surname? Those people…"
Before Zhang Chengling could react, Gu Xiang, who was adding firewood to the fire off to the side answered him loquaciously, "He's my brother—naturally, his surname is Gu as well. The two of us were originally hired to do chores in our master's house, I was a maid and he was a servant boy, but who would have known that calamity would befall our master's house? We don't know where they came from, but they want to hunt all of us servants down and kill us all no matter what. It's highly immoral of them--if they ever have children in the future, their children won't amount to anything. Many thanks to you two gentlemen…"
The man in black eyed her, and Gu Xiang could not bring herself to continue, her wide eyes drifting left and right.
She was speaking nonsense, but Lord Seventh did not point it out. He simply continued from where Gu Xiang had left off with a pleasant expression on his face. "Both of you are injured. We should have brought you to an inn, but this little maiden said that someone was hunting you down in the city, so it would not be safe. We would have to trouble you to spend a humble night here, and make plans tomorrow morning. Do you have anywhere else to turn to?"
His voice was gentle and mild, his words neither hurried nor slow, like he was trying to comfort two very young children. As Zhang Chengling listened to him, he suddenly felt very sorry for himself. He thought, where else could they go? His dad was long dead, his whole family exterminated, and good or bad regardless, everyone he bumped into wanted to kidnap him. He was like a startled bird that had flown until its wings were nearly at breaking point, but vast as the world was, he still could not find a place to land and rest. His eyes reddened, but he remained silent.
Instead, Gu Xiang thought about it, and said, "My master and this kid's shifu were originally going to meet up with us, but we didn't expect a bunch of people to suddenly emerge and hunt us down. We escaped without choosing any direction in particular, and we don't know if they are able to find us…"
Zhang Chengling thought of Cao Weining, and supplemented in what he thought was a smart addition, "And Cao-dage was taken away by a few strange people."
Gu Xiang immediately shot daggers with her gaze at him, warning the little idiot Zhang Chengling not to speak carelessly. Yet Zhang Chengling, who was preoccupied with his own sense of being set adrift and grief, did not take note of her gaze, but heard Lord Seventh pursue this line of questioning, "What kind of strange people?"
Zhang Chengling answered honestly, "A dwarf and a giant, and an old granny and grandpa dressed in flowery colours."
Gu Xiang rolled her eyes and looked up at the starry sky, wishing that she could knock Zhang Chengling into unconsciousness again.
Lord Seventh appeared to be unfamiliar with the pugilists. He paused, and asked, "Who are they?"
The man in black beside him said, "The Earth God Feng Xiaofeng and the Gaoshan slave, the ones in flowery colours…they probably ran into Peach Red Grandma and Green Willow Grandpa."
His gaze flashed towards Zhang Chengling like lightning, and he asked coldly, "Although they are shady characters, they have their own independent identities and will never work in tandem with the Poisonous Scorpions. Why are they hunting you down?"
Once his gaze swept over Zhang Chengling, Zhang Chengling felt like a frigid block of stone was pressing on his chest, and he choked on the spot.
Yet, Lord Seventh laughed, and said, "Little Venom, don't scare the kid." Hearing this, the man in black faithfully dropped his gaze and, like an ancient monk entering mediation, no longer paid any attention to Zhang Chengling and Gu Xiang.
Lord Seventh's gaze paused on an antsy Gu Xiang, before he turned to Zhang Chengling and suddenly asked, "Kid, let me ask you, does your shifu have the surname of Zhou?"
Gu Xiang was deeply afraid that Zhang Chengling would reveal other pieces of information, and answered hastily before he could, "You're wrong, his shifu doesn't have the surname 'Zhou', but is surnamed 'Tang', he's a sleazy and perverted old fart!"
Yet, her pig-like comrade Zhang Chengling frowned at her, and said with a righteous air, "My shifu isn't some sleazy and perverted old fart, you're talking rubbish!"
Gu Xiang's ten fingers thrummed with the urge to strangle him dead.
Lord Seventh shook his head and laughed out loud. "Where did this mischievous and clever little maiden come from? That's enough, we are not bad men. Come to think of it, your Zhou-shifu is still a good friend of mine from the past."
Gu Xiang's pupils darted back and forth with an idea. "Say, then, what is his shifu called, and what does he look like?"
Lord Seventh said, "His shifu's surname is Zhou, and his name is…"
He suddenly paused, his hooded eyes narrowing as he pondered for a beat, thinking: Zhou Zishu, that person, was used to hiding behind partial truths. Surely he would not use his own name, so what would he call himself?
Lifting his gaze, he saw Gu Xiang's pair of wide eyes staring at him unblinkingly. He found it humorous that he had really been stumped by a little maiden's questions, but in a split second, a light went off in his mind, and the words leapt out of him. "He's called Zhou Xu, am I right? 'Body like a drifting cloud, heart like a floating willow seed', and he had a brother called Zhou Yun. As for how he looks like…I do not know how he looks like today, because he's accustomed to disguise. Although, ultimately, he makes no progress whatsoever: no matter how he disguises himself, he can't be anything other than a man with a yellowish-green face and sleazy features, right?"
He could not be sure whether Zhou Zishu would use the pseudonym of "Zhou Yun" or "Zhou Xu", but he thought that with the man's personality, he would only use those few names, and so he bluffed his way through with half-truths.
But he had actually stunned Gu Xiang with his words, who said, semi-believing, "Huh? Does Zhou Xu still have a brother?"
In the long period of time she had known Zhou Zishu for, even if she had heard Wen Kexing say that he might be among the top brass of Tian Chuang, she found him very mysterious. Where he had come from, from where he would leave, which sect had he been of and other details like that were all unknown to her, and she had never heard that he even had a brother.
Another thought flashed in her mind. The two people in front of her: it was difficult to tell for the man in blue, but the man in black was truly one of those experts that she had rarely come across in her life. Even if her master was present, it would be difficult to tell who was more skilled. If he wanted to harm her and Zhang Chengling, it was as easy as squashing two bugs dead. There was absolutely no need for him to lie, and so, in her heart, Gu Xiang truly believed them.
Lord Seventh saw that he had these two tykes stunned, and lowered his eyes. He watched the fire flickering unsteadily, and chuckled soundlessly.
And thus, on the second day, Gu Xiang brought Zhang Chengling along with her and left with these two men, carefully avoiding detection by others. Lord Seventh brought the two of them to a bank, where the shopkeeper and the boss who resembled a ball of dough behind him came out immediately to welcome them, respectfully addressing the two men as "Master" and "Great Shaman" respectively.
Lord Seventh settled them in, and brought cakes to share with the two of them. Sitting off to one side, he excitedly started a game of chess with the man in black, whittling away time like this. At noon, the boss of the bank came in suddenly, and said to Lord Seventh, "Master Zhou has been located, and has arrived."
Lord Seventh threw the chess game aside and stood, rescinding his pale hands back into his sleeves as he smiled cheerily, instructing, "One of life's four greatest blessings is to bump into an old friend in a land far away from home. Ping An, hurry and invite him in."