Inside the grand hall hung paintings of the four seasons. The soft cushions on the wooden chairs of either side were slightly indented, and faint white mist still emitted from the tea cup on the pearwood table — it appeared that a guest had just left. A middle-aged man in the attire of a Confucian scholar twirled his beard as he stood with his bad to the hall's doorway. All of a sudden, his ear twitched, and he abruptly turned around. "You still know how to return home?" he bellowed harshly. "What does all this trouble look like? You've let people see a comedy to no purpose!"
The harsh bellows were akin to a thunderclap exploding in the ears. The very first thing that sailed into the room was a spate of spoiled laughter, followed by that fireball-esque, red silhouette.
Fu Wanqing faced her fully angry-looking old dad without a trace of trepidation on her face. She reached out to grasp the blue-and-white porcelain cup, and her brows creased suddenly. With a sweep of her sleeves, the teacup went flying towards the door.
There was no one simple in the Manor of Chivalry, as even the standing-by servant was equipped with extreme skill; he was seen to kick out his legs, nimbly flip around in midair, used a Monkey Fishes Up the Moon, then firmly took the cup, not a drop of liquid splashing out of it. On top of that, a maid wearing pink clothes had already appeared carrying a brand new tea set, filling it up for Fu Wanqing.
She took a light sip and narrowed her eyes, a brisk smile decorating her face. "Dad, you called me back with such urgency. What actually happened?"
Fu Hui's eyes widened to stare at her, his firmly clenched fists illustrating that his fury had already reached its peak. The imposing aura surrounding his body abruptly morphed, his green robes moving without wind, and the dissipating true qi incited the teacups to audibly jingle. Fu Wanqing wouldn't scared by this appearance of his, so she stretched out her legs, still having the mood to hum a tune she heard from Goldmelt Grotto. Ages later, she asked with composure, "Is it because of the Goldmelt Grotto business? That little affair wouldn't make you this mad, right, dad? I noticed that a guest had come here; has anything major happened in jianghu, then? I say, you have to be really tired being the Leader of the Whitepath Alliance, having to care about this, having to care about that, and having to get mad over a trivial food-scrap matter—"
"Shut it!" Fu Hui shouted, massaging his temples. His expression gradually softened up thereafter, and he stroked his beard with a light sigh. "Wanqing, this matter is not insignificant. You should know that Demonic Creed Head Yu Shengyan has come to our Central Plains, and heard that it was for the purpose of finding medicine to treat her sect-sister's legs. However, by quite some coincidence, at this juncture, someone murdered your Uncle Zhong of Divine Mystery Sect, quietly and without a breath; seeing the wounds, he died under Huaixiu! And only Yu Shengyan has that sort of martial arts!"
Fu Wanqing put away her frivolous smile, her expression slowly becoming grave. "Dad, you mean that she came to Yangzhou for some other secret machination? Has the Demonic Creed had unusual movement? At what time did Uncle Zhong die?"
"A shichen ago," Fu Hui answered deeply.
She sighed in relief, shaking her head. "It wasn't her."
"How do you know?"
She hooked up her lips and chuckled. "She was with me the whole time. However, this having nothing to do with her doesn't prove that it has nothing to do with the Demonic Creed. The Four Rats of Black Mountain suddenly showed up in Yangzhou and got struck dead by me. Maybe their Creed genuinely has some kind of conspiracy, eh?" But what does this have to do with me? She had originally wanted to say the latter half of that sentence, but upon looking at her dad that had spared no effort for the sake of the whitepath and Forest, she swallowed it back down. She covered her lips and let out a yawn, pretending to be sleepy. "I'm tired, dad," she said lazily, "Let's talk about this stuff again tomorrow."
How could Fu Hui not know how his daughter's personality was? Shaking his head in exasperation, he waved his hand, freeing her to go. Counting on her to take over his enterprise? He might as well hope that she does less shameful stuff in secret. Some of the variably-sized disturbances in the Forest came from her own penmanship!
The cool moon was like a hook, the chilled stars like specks.
Rustling autumn wind blew in from the cracked window, lightly brushing away a strand of cut hair away from before Fu Wanqing's forehead. The smile on her face widened all the more, and a cluster of sharp stars flashed out of her fingertips, every one of them gone into the back of the folding screen.
There was extreme quiet in the room, and she could only sense her own breaths. Her brows knitted, a thread of astonishment streaking across her heart, and she slowly pressed in on the landscape-painted screen — all of a sudden, a figure flashed out from behind it.
Fu Wanqing suddenly released her pent-up breath, but she went on alert again a split second after. The Manor of Chivalry had guarding disciples all over it in addition to confusing arrays, so it would be quite difficult for an average person to break in. How did she get in? Had her martial arts really reached the level of perfection? Fu Wanqing bit her bottom lip, revealing a trace of indignance.
She sat at the vanity with a swish of her sleeves, fingers smoothing out the hair hanging by her face, and looked at the serene face reflected in the bronze mirror, letting out a delicate laugh. "Why are you here? Could it be that you hate to be apart from me? There's rumors in jianghu about the women of Jadeite Water Creed all being highly affectionate, and it looks like they're not wrong."
Yu Shengyan's sleeves had several tiny holes in them, caused by the hidden weapons Fu Wanqing shot out. The bloodstains on her neck were faint, the seeping blood already congealed. Fu Wanqing's eyes slowly slid from the sleeve to her neck, and finally stopped lightly pursing her lips. Taking out a piece of white silk fabric from a drawer, she got up, walked over to be before Yu Shengyan, and brushed the silk over her neck. A vile smile rose on Fu Wanqing's lips as she deliberately put more pressure to her hand. "So long as I wanted to, I could wring your neck."
Yu Shengyan's eyes remained on Fu Wanqing's face for only a short instance, then shifted them somewhere else. "Mn," she answered lightly.
In the face of such a mild-as-mist person, a quite rare sense of powerlessness arose in Fu Wanqing's heart. "What did you come here for?" she asked again. "Are you wanting to steal the Millennium Turtle Gall to heal your sect-sister? Or did you just come to see me?" With the last sentence said, her eyes shortly became bewitching, and she placed her hand on Yu Shengyan's shoulder, her entire person leaning on her. In that moment, she forgot that Yu Shengyan was the Demonic Creed Head, and that she was a woman.
Yu Shengyan reached out and pushed her away, coming to standi several chi away from her. "You said you bought me. I will go when dawn comes, but… I won't duel with you," she replied indifferently. "As for the medicine, I will visit another day to request it, not steal."
Hearing what she said, Fu Wanqing felt a bit amused. "Did you forget what kind of place the Manor is? This is where the Leader of the Whitepath Alliance stays, and it cannot coexist with your Demonic Creed. Not one ordinary Creedman could even be able to slip by easily, to say nothing of you, the Leader. Before you come by to request the medicine — would our Manor give it to you? It's likely that the medicine won't get to be requested, and this life of yours, ah… it'd have to remain here."
Yu Shengyan furrowed her brows, having apparently never thought of that problem before.
How did someone like this come to be the Creed Head? Fu Wanqing secretly pondered, her smile not lessening in the least. "There is one thing; maybe you know of it, maybe you don't. Right when you came to Yangzhou, the Leader of Divine Mystery Sect, Zhong Tian, was murdered, and the wounds on his body show that he died under Huaixiu. A lot of people suspect that it was your evil doing, but, eh, you don't need to be worried. His two sons, Zhong Shiling and Zhong Shixiu, are your admirers, and they'll vouch for you in front of the crowd."
"I wasn't aware of this," the other said indifferently.
Fu Wanqing chuckled. "You didn't kill him, of course, but whether it was ultimately incited by the Demonic Creed's Communal Shrine isn't so certain. The Four Rats of Black Mountain had suddenly appeared in Yangzhou; why was that? Black Mountain is one of the four Halls of Jadeite Water Creed, right? I heard Right Envoy Lou Kexin was in charge of it? You're the acting Head, but instead of handling incidents in the Creed, you ran out the doors and far away. Aren't you afraid that the Creed's followers would seize the chance to do something?"
Yu Shengyan raised her brows. "The Four Rats?"
There were altogether four Halls in Jadeite Water Creed; the Black and White Mountain Halls belonged to Right Envoy Lou Kexin, while the Red and Yellow Mountain Halls were under Left Envoy Wei Xian's control. She herself practice in closed seclusion all year round and never got involved in internal Creed affairs, so she had never heard the name of these Four Rats before.
Fu Wanqing covered her lips and giggled, her nimble pupils roaming over Yu Shengyan's austere face. "Relying on the reputation of Jadite Water Creed, they traveled over here, and wanted to buy you for a night at Goldmelt Grotto with one copper coin. Thinking about it like this, I really suffered a great loss… a thousand taels of gold isn't a paltry sum." She paused, looked Yu Shengyan up and down, and showed a bit of regret. "A seriously huge loss, that I wasn't able to do anything on this spring evening."
Yu Shenyan nodded earnestly. "What you've said is highly true, Lady Fu. I can order someone in the Creed to send the gold to your Estate when I return?"
Fu Wanqing stared blankly at her. Was this chick a genius, or an idiot? There wasn't the slightest trace of worldly know-how on her, like she was a mountain hermit that didn't eat grains; since she realized this detail, if she didn't exploit it, then she wouldn't be Fu Wanqing.
Whether she was pretending, or if this was her real personality, Fu Wanqing didn't care; she had suddenly found an amusement within her unending boredom that would be just as interesting as dueling with Yu Shengyan. She minutely looked upwards, smiled exceedingly flirtatiously, and licked her lips. "I don't want gold now," she said, pauses between each word.
Yu Shengyan hadn't expected that she would answer like this, and a slightly awkward look showed on her face.
Fu Wanqing hooked her hand towards him. "I want you to stay by my side for a little while, just three months. The Creed's business isn't managed by you, anyways, so you wouldn't be holding anything up. As for the medicine you want, I'll offer it up with both hand afterwards. Your sect-sister's been lame for three years and clearly won't miss another three months."
After pondering for only a moment, Yu Shengyan nodded.