he had, in fact, worried unnecessarily.
Arms crossed, the Scorpion stood at the entrance of the room perfumed with burning incense. It seemed like someone had come in to tidy the bed; the bed curtains, half-put up, drooped loosely. The Scorpion asked, "Do you two gentlemen need to bathe and change, or require any items to...spice things up?"
Zhou Zishu rolled up his sleeves, and said very much like a man without a partner, "Such trouble is unnecessary. Bring me brush and ink."
The Scorpion paused, taken aback. A beat later, he clapped his hands lightly. A person in servant's attire ran over in small steps and stood still in front of him, waist bent and head lowered. The Scorpion gave him instructions in a low voice. Zhou Zishu hurried to add, "And a cut of xuan paper."
The servant went away. The Scorpion looked at him, and asked suspiciously, "Zhou-xiong isn't thinking of playing another trick, is he?"
Zhou Zishu brazenly sat by the bed with his legs crossed and said, smiling, "Aren't you sick of watching a few lumps of flesh roll around all day long? Wait for a brief while longer, and I'll let you see something novel."
To the side, Wen Kexing remained silent, going along with whatever was happening. He was contemplating--it was also good if A-Xu had the capability to shirk this, so that they did not have to let this Scorpion take advantage, but if he truly wanted to...ai, one had to follow the man they married, be he a rooster or a dog. Naturally, he would have to do his fair share of reluctant undertaking, and lay down his life for a gentleman this one time.
A short moment later, brush, ink, paper, and inkstone were all present. Zhou Zishu stood, extended a hand to gesture politely at the Scorpion, and said, "Please wait for a little longer."
Naturally, the Scorpion was not impatient. He closed the door behind him, picked up the teapot, and started to pour tea for himself--he watched as Zhou Zishu laid down the brushstrokes with almost no hesitation. Looking at his demeanour, Zhou Zishu gave off the air of a master artist. Brush flying, in a scant few strokes, a picture was completed. He set it aside to dry, and then stretched his demonic claw out at the next sheet of paper.
At first, Wen Kexing did not know what he was planning to do, and stood beside him curiously, craning his neck to look. As he watched, his expression grew odder by the moment, and his eyebrows rose even higher by the moment, until they almost lifted off from his face. It was like he had just met Zhou Zishu for the first time; words failing him, he was truly speechless in awe, and could only stand aside with a solemn expression.
After about thirty minutes, Zhou Zishu had burned through a dozen sheets of paper, and accomplished his grand task. He threw the brush aside, picked up the last sheet, and blew on it gently to dry it. Then, he picked up the first sheet with his fingertips, and slapped it onto the wall with the force of his palm. The soft and fine xuan paper sank into the wall. His hand did not falter; in an instant, he had arranged the dozen sheets of paper in a row according to sequence, and slapped them all onto the wall.
The Scorpion's face was already green--on the dozen sheets of xuan paper, the lines extremely simple, were none other than...erotic pictures.
They were very simple erotic pictures. There were only two small figures--a circle represented the head, and sparse brushstrokes extended from it sketched out the body and four…ahem, five limbs. Even though it was a simple drawing, the movements of the figures were extraordinarily life-like. From how they stripped, all the way to the end, the entire process was illustrated without a single missing detail, drawing the onlooker's eye to each subsequent picture. It even gave the onlooker the impression that the figures in the picture had started to move.
Wen Kexing held back his urge to remark for very long, before he finally tried his best to hit the nail on the head with his evaluation. "A-Xu, I couldn't tell that you even possess this sort of skill."
Zhou Zishu quickly replied with polite airs, "It's a mediocre skill unworthy of this praise, really unworthy."
Wen Kexing discovered that Zhou Zishu's skin was growing thicker by the day, and did not know how to respond. The Scorpion set the tea bowl in his hand down onto the table with great force, rose to his feet abruptly, and laughed in anger, saying, "Is Zhou-xiong playing a trick on me?"
Zhou Zishu put his hands together in his sleeves and said unhurriedly, "How can you say that? I asked who was after Zhang Chengling's life, but you only told us who the customer was, and didn't reveal who was behind the scene directing him to do so. Isn't this taking advantage of loopholes too? Since it is so, you only said that the two of us put up a show for you… "
He reached out and rapped his knuckles on the pictures on the wall. "The two of us have put on a show for you--if there are any dissimilarities to the real thing anywhere, please offer me some pointers."
Like his only fear was that the Scorpion could not make sense of the drawings, Wen Kexing enthusiastically explained, "I'm really sorry, my spouse's artistic skill isn't too good. Come, come, if you can't make sense of it, I can explain it to you. That small figure on top is me…"
Zhou Zishu cast him a sidelong glance, and interrupted him coolly, "To explain is to have some secret to hide. Why do that to yourself?"
The Scorpion clenched his fist tightly, and forced out a few words from between clenched teeth. "Too outrageous, you are!"
Instantly, without any discernible gesture from him, eight Scorpions in black materialised out of thin air around them. Yet, Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu did not seem to be surprised; Wen Kexing even laughed, "To have this dalliance of a humble one like me surrounded and observed by all of you present, I am truly ashamed."
The Poisonous Scorpions did not intend to waste any time on nonsense, and without warning, lunged at the two of them as a well-trained group. Zhou Zishu lifted his hand and slammed it down, flipping the small table before him, and took the chance to retreat swiftly. By this moment, it was already close to midnight; a dull ache was starting to form in his chest. He did not try to endure it, making a wise decision not to chance the odds, and told Wen Kexing, "I'm leaving this to you."
Then he executed a feint to dodge a Poisonous Scorpion, leapt out of the window, and fled.
Wen Kexing grimaced; for the first time in his life, he was cleaning up someone else's messes. Upon seeing that Zhou Zishu had disappeared out of sight, he instantly stopped being merciful. He struck out, and a Scorpion in front of him was drained of all life and blood by his single palm strike--in a split second, the portion of bared skin on the Scorpion's face swiftly greyed and withered, his eyes bulging out of his sockets, and looked as though he had become a desiccated corpse.
The man was dead.
Wen Kexing looked at his own palm, and sighed gently. "We were only playing a small trick, Scorpion-xiong, why be moved to anger?"
The head Scorpion calmed down, and raised his hand to halt his Poisonous Scorpions. Eyeing Wen Kexing guardedly, he asked, "Who are you?"
Wen Kexing flicked his eyes up to look at him, and said, "If you still do not know who I am at this point, aren't the Poisonous Scorpions too useless?"
The Scorpion seemed to have realised something, and the corner of his eye started to twitch. Wen Kexing lowered his voice even more, as if he did not intend for anyone else to overhear, and said, smiling, "We are both of unorthodox and demonic paths. Why cause trouble for each other?"
He turned around to leave immediately once he was done speaking. Although this man was all smiles, his expression devoid of any visible evil intent, inexplicably, in that instant, he radiated a potent bloodthirstiness that was difficult to overlook. Astonishingly, the swarm of Poisonous Scorpions was forced back by his aura--not a single one of them dared to step forward and detain him.
The Scorpion suddenly called out to him, saying, "Don't you want to know who paid for those suicide warriors…"
Wen Kexing looked back at him, and said, "Many thanks, I've mostly figured it out."
He leapt out of the window too, and chased after Zhou Zishu. In a blink of the eye, there was no trace of him, but the words that he murmured stayed where he had been: "If I'm stupid enough to be unable to figure it out until now, won't I have been already flayed alive by those minor ghosts predatorily eying my position?"
Fengya Mountain, the bamboo grove, housing swarms of malicious Ghosts.
Zhou Zishu was not travelling quickly. Along the way, he was mulling over those poisoned men he saw in the Scorpion's basement, and the rumoured Long-Tongued Ghost--evidently, the Long-Tongued Ghost had recognised Wen Kexing, but had still wanted to kill him. As expected, there was much more to this than met the eye. That Long-Tongued Ghost did not seem to be too capable; who was the person behind his actions?
Was it that Sun Ding in red purposely misdirecting them, or was it that six-fingered Hanged Ghost Xue Fang he spoke of behind this?
Right at this moment, he suddenly heard rushed footsteps coming in his direction. By now, it was very late at night, late enough that the night watchman had already gone around the streets with his gong. Reflexively, Zhou Zishu ducked into a side alley, engaging his martial abilities with some effort to suppress the Three Autumn Nails of the Seven Acupunctures so that they would not act up too fiercely, and listened closely.
That person sounded like they were getting closer and closer. Though their steps were in disarray, he could tell that they were someone who knew qinggong. Yet, for some unknown reason, their breathing was extremely rough, as though...they were injured?
Before Zhou Zishu could see who it was, he heard a person draw near behind him. His back stiffened. Fingers bent into claws, he whipped around and went for the person's throat, but was stopped halfway--Wen Kexing patted his chest, looking at him with a wronged expression, and mouthed "Murdering your dear husband!". Zhou Zishu only rescinded his hand then, and continued looking in the direction the sound had come from.
Surprisingly, the person who ran in their direction was someone familiar. It was that Green Vixen Liu Qianqiao, who had once come to look for him about the Lapis Armour. This time, she did not disguise her features, exposing her true, horrifying appearance. Her demeanour was even more dishevelled--her hair was loose and straggly, and there were bloodstains on the corner of her mouth. Zhou Zishu frowned slightly.
He did not expect the arm reaching out from behind to detain him by looping around his waist. A hand was laid on his chest, and he heard Wen Kexing whisper next to his ear, "Don't suppress it, lest it hurts even more when it acts up tomorrow. We'll just wait here for a while."
Frowning, Zhou Zishu said, "Then…"
Wen Kexing shushed him, and hugged him gently. An extraordinarily thin thread of energy flowed from his palm, combing through Zhou Zishu's meridians. However, he did not dare to use the slightest bit of strength, for fear that using a greater force would rattle his nails. Zhou Zishu paused, but did not reject it, and merely closed his eyes to rest. Regardless of who ran past them, they would have to wait until he lasted through the pain tonight.
While the two of them did not return for the night, Zhang Chengling made the decision to chase after that black swarm of women. He did not dare to go too close for fear that he would be discovered, yet he was also afraid that someone would recognise him. Thus, he picked up a block of mud by the roadside to smear his face dirty, and mussed up his hair with his hands, disguising himself as a child beggar.
He tracked them for a whole day. This group of women were like sadhu--they travelled very quickly on foot and did not rest, only stopping at a small inn when the sky darkened once again. Zhang Chengling observed them from afar, and felt that Gao Xiaolian was suffering beyond description. Harshly dragged along the journey like this, he thought, she would be barely hanging onto life if they continued on their journey for a few days more.
Coming out here of his own accord was a decision he had made after mustering up his courage; after mustering up his courage once, he couldn't resist doing it a second time. In his mind, he started to formulate a plan to rescue this Miss Gao during the night.
He watched those women in black enter the inn, smeared another handful of mud on his hands and followed them in, pretending to beg. After wandering around once, obtaining a few copper coins from his begging, he memorised which room Gao Xiaolian had been shoved into. Then he squatted outside the inn like a real beggar child, with his head lowered as he sat on the steps, hugging his knees. No one paid any attention to him; even though it was a prosperous era, there were still child beggars of this sort everywhere. He waited till it was late at night before he finally sat upright, limbered up his numb arms and legs, and prepared to infiltrate the inn.
He muttered the mantra for the Nine Palaces Steps, as though reciting it would make him a little more skilled, and silently wove his way through the guest rooms.
Out of the blue, a black shadow dropped from above him, catching him off guard--it was one of those black-clothed women! She, too, did not make a sound; upon facing him, she immediately started to strike at him.
Although Zhang Chengling did not have much confidence in himself, he had undergone half a year's training under the two great experts Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu. With his additional diligence, he was long incomparable to how he had been before. Instead of going toe to toe against her, he glided outwards past her like a fish, and then met each of her blows.
Yet, a brief moment later, that woman seemed to have noticed something, and made a light questioning sound. Immediately after, she executed a feint, then disappeared from before Zhang Chengling's eyes. Although Zhang Chengling's gongfu had improved, he was ultimately inexperienced; frightened, he searched his surroundings for her. That woman in black abruptly emerged behind him. Zhang Chengling felt the acupoint on his neck close to the shoulder go numb. A hand clamped over his mouth, and he was abducted by this woman.