Flower Stealing Master

Chapter 1099: Integrity and the Vermillion Dot

Zuo Lengchan’s willingness to lend his strength was, in no small part, driven by the fact that he had inadvertently offended the Mongols tonight. To avoid reprisals down the road, he needed to find some way of making amends…and he had privately worried that even this overture might be refused, which would have left him no choice but to accept crippling losses and silence every witness in the courtyard. It would have been an ugly business.

To his considerable relief, Wang Baobao agreed almost without hesitation. Zuo Lengchan let out a long breath and ordered his men forward.

Su Shidan’s group exchanged looks of bleak dismay. What had been a perfect position…watching two tigers bleed each other dry…had become two tigers turning in unison on the hunter. Their own fighters were fresh and uninjured, but they were no match for the combined forces of Ruyang Palace and Mount Song.

“We were led astray by treacherous counsel and trespassed against the Young Prince through no proper intent. My sincere apologies.” Zuo Lengchan knew perfectly well by now that he had walked into a trap. He had turned it over in his mind and concluded the Song group was most likely responsible…fury boiled in him…but he kept his voice smooth and conversational as he spoke to Wang Baobao, even managing a few pleasantries.

His eyes had already fixed on a target. 

Xin Qiji had been by far the most dangerous fighter of the group, and had come within a breath of Wang Baobao’s throat. He would be the first to fall.

Wang Baobao was sharp enough to see that Zuo Lengchan’s sole interest was Wu Tiande…there had been no malice toward himself in any of this. The thought that he had taken such devastating losses in a fight that should never have happened made something twitch unpleasantly in his expression, but he pressed it down and smiled. “I would not let the Sect Leader face such danger alone. Master, go and lend him a hand.”

Wang Baobao had watched carefully. Judging by what Xin Qiji had just displayed, Zuo Lengchan might not be enough on his own. At a moment this critical, he had no patience for half-measures. ‘When a lion pursues a rabbit, he uses his full strength.’ He wanted the Southern Song fighters neutralized as swiftly as possible, before anything else could go wrong.

Xin Qiji’s sword Qi was ferocious…the only man in Wang Baobao’s remaining force who need not fear it was the Vajra Sect master, shielded by his Indestructible Vajra Body. He was the natural choice.

At Wang Baobao’s command, the Vajra Sect master bared his teeth in a savage grin and threw himself into the fray.

Zuo Lengchan was the Alliance Leader of the Five Sacred Mountain Sword Sects…one of the supreme sword practitioners in the entire wulin…and his Frost True Qi carried its own terrible strangeness. Xin Qiji had been hard-pressed against him alone. With the Vajra Sect master added to the equation, the pressure became crushing…for every ten exchanges, he could mount a counter in only two.

Seeing Xin Qiji in desperate straits, Ding Dian and Su Shidan rushed to his aid…but Ruyang Palace and Mount Song had prepared for exactly that.

Daoist Baishang led the Xuanming Elders in a joint assault on Ding Dian. Under ordinary circumstances, Ding Dian’s ‘Divine Brilliance True Qi’…supremely righteous and radiant by nature…would have been immune to the icy venom of the Xuanming Divine Palm, and his Shadowless Divine Fist was a profound martial art. 

Against Daoist Baishang alone, or against the Xuanming Elders alone, he had nothing to fear. But the three of them fighting in concert…master and disciples unified…multiplied the Xuanming Divine Palm’s power many times over. Despite the protection of his Divine Brilliance True Qi, the cold crept through him regardless, and his qi and blood began to stagnate. Only because his ‘Divine Brilliance Scripture’ cultivation had reached full completion did his deep internal reserves allow him to barely hold on.

The Bald Eagle Sha Tianjiang, meanwhile, joined forces with Black and White Impermanence to surround Su Shidan. The Bald Eagle was a devil-figure of the same generation as Daoist Baishang. Black and White Impermanence had once driven one of Shaolin’s Three Du Monks to the brink. And all three of them hailed from the Qinghai Sect…their martial arts shared the same root, and their coordination was seamless, without the slightest friction. Su Shidan found himself in serious difficulty almost immediately.

“How do you know Shaolin’s One Finger Zen?” he demanded, indignation cutting through his alarm.

“Who ever said the One Finger Zen belongs to Shaolin?” There was nothing Black and White Impermanence despised more than hearing that. Both brothers let out a cold grunt in unison and redoubled the ferocity of their attacks. Su Shidan had no breath left to speak…he threw every shred of concentration into surviving.

“Grandfather! Fourth Great-Uncle! Go help them!” Ding’s martial arts were unimpressive, but she was quick-witted as a sparrow…two glances at the courtyard told her everything. She was beside herself, tugging frantically at Ding Busan and Ding Busi’s sleeves.

Ding Busan gave a sheepish grimace. “Grandfather’s arm is wounded…I’d be fighting at half strength at best. And Zuo Lengchan’s martial brothers are watching us like hawks. The moment we step in, we draw more enemies onto us.”

Ding Busi glanced at the bloody holes in his own arm and muttered a colorful curse. “Damn the Great Vajra Finger and everyone who ever learned it.”

With both grandfathers out of the reckoning, and Shi Potian still too shaken from the blow to his ‘Shanzhong’ point to recover any fighting ability, Ding was half-frantic…when a spark of inspiration struck her. She threw her head back and shouted: “Hey, Surnamed Song! If you don’t come out right now, everyone here is going to die!”

Neither Ruyang Palace nor Mount Song paid her any attention. Given her obvious lack of martial skill, who could she possibly know that would matter?

Then, from somewhere in the darkness overhead, a cool, faintly amused voice drifted down: “Surnamed Song? You shout and expect me to come running? Where would that leave my dignity?”

Su Shidan’s group had been on the verge of collapse. At the sound of that voice, something shifted…the enemy’s strikes began to slow, almost imperceptibly at first, then more noticeably. The Southern Song fighters seized on the change and began to claw their way back from the edge.

“That voice.” The Vajra Sect master’s brow creased deeply, as though some unpleasant memory had surfaced from the depths.

Zuo Lengchan stared with wary uncertainty toward the direction the sound had come from. Nothing…not a shadow moved.

“I feel as though I’ve heard that voice somewhere.” Confusion crossed Daoist Baishang’s face…then the Xuanming Elders leaned in and murmured a name in his ear. His expression changed in an instant.

The three Qinghai Sect fighters exchanged wide-eyed glances. Bu Tai managed, with some difficulty: “Could it really be ‘him’?”

Hao Mi looked as though he had seen a ghost. “Who else could it possibly be?”

The Bald Eagle Sha Tianjiang had earned his name because cultivating his deviant internal art had caused his facial features to corrode and sink away…what remained was a face of two eyes and two nostrils in a flat, featureless expanse of pale skin, like a blank board. With no features to betray him, his emotions had always been invisible…joy, sorrow, anger and mirth all looked the same on him, which Black and White Impermanence had teased him about for years. But now, staring at that blank face, even they could read the fear on it. That alone said everything about how frightened the Bald Eagle truly was.

As Ruyang Palace and Mount Song both quietly lowered their hands, Su Shidan’s group was mystified…but dared not press the advantage, terrified of provoking a sudden reversal. They retreated together toward Ding’s position. With wolves on all sides, there was some small comfort in standing close.

Seeing that Song Qingshu still had not emerged, Ding understood at once…he was holding a grudge over her earlier impertinence. Her large eyes spun with rapid calculation. Then she smiled sweetly and called out, her voice turning soft and coaxing: “Young Master Song~ Song-gē~ Dear Brother Song~ won’t you please come out and save us~?”

The sudden shift in her voice…from sharp-tongued demon to liquid honey…sent a visible shudder through every man in the courtyard. Several of the younger disciples shifted position with studied nonchalance, hoping no one would notice anything below the waist.

Fortunately, the men in positions of authority were either old enough to have one foot in the grave, or men of such consuming ambition that feminine charm held no particular pull over them. Every one of them kept their eyes nailed firmly to the direction the earlier voice had come from.

There was, of course, one exception: the deer-antler staff user, whose greedy gaze crawled slowly over every inch of Ding, his thoughts wandering somewhere thoroughly indecent. ‘What a little enchantress. If she made those sounds in bed…’

Fortunately, everyone else’s attention was trained on the courtyard entrance, and no one witnessed his expression.

Bu Tai and Hao Mi exchanged a glance, stepped forward together, and bowed with careful, elaborate courtesy: “Might we ask…is it Young Master Song who honors us with his presence?”

The Southern Song group stared at each other in blank astonishment. The contrast was incomprehensible. Not five minutes ago, Black and White Impermanence had been attacking Su Shidan with strikes aimed at killing…and now this?

What they did not know was that the Qinghai Sect had once been beaten like dogs by Zhang San and Li Si of the Isle of Heroes…and then watched Song Qingshu beat Zhang San and Li Si like dogs in turn. The chasm between the two encounters had left them with absolutely no desire to make an enemy of him, and their tone reflected that truth perfectly.

There was no longer any purpose in staying hidden. Song Qingshu emerged from his concealment with a slightly strained expression, shot Ding a look of undisguised exasperation, and said flatly: “Young lady. Where is your ‘integrity’?”

He had never had any particular warmth for Ding, and hearing her address him as “Surnamed Song” had genuinely irritated him. He had intended to make her work for it…let her stew a little. In his estimation, a brash and willful creature like her would never bend easily, which meant he could make her suffer some inconvenience first. He had not expected her to abandon all dignity and start calling him every sweet name she could think of, catching him entirely off-guard.

“Integrity?” Ding blinked first…then a flush crept up her cheeks. A flash of something sharp passed through her eyes and was immediately suppressed. She broke into a bright, teasing smile. “Song-gē, you’re terrible~ My… my ‘vermillion dot’ is perfectly intact, thank you very much.”

Under ordinary circumstances, any man who dared speak to her like that would have been missing his tongue before he finished the sentence. But Song Qingshu’s martial arts were higher than hers, and she desperately needed him right now…so she swallowed her fury whole, buried it beneath a dimpled smile, and played sweetly along. [G: 守宫砂…the “vermillion dot” or “palace guard cinnabar”…was a legendary substance in Chinese tradition, reputedly applied to a woman’s arm to verify her chastity; it was said to disappear if she lost her virginity. Song Qingshu used 节操 (‘jiécāo’), a modern colloquial term roughly meaning “moral integrity” or “personal scruples,” but Ding…unfamiliar with the modern usage…heard only the character 操, which carries vulgar connotations in classical usage, and assumed he was making a lewd inquiry about her chastity.]

“Vermillion dot?” Song Qingshu felt like weeping. Every man in the courtyard was staring at him with expressions ranging from bewilderment to barely suppressed amusement. He had only been repeating a habitual phrase from his previous life…how was he to know the people of this world had no such saying? And that Ding, the moment she heard anything touching on ‘jié’ and ‘cāo’, would immediately assume he was asking about her chastity?

He kept his face utterly composed. The worst of it was that there was no way to explain himself…not here, not in front of everyone. Was he supposed to chase after Ding announcing that he had ‘not’, in fact, been asking about her virtue?

Fortunately, Black and White Impermanence rescued him from the silence.

“So it truly is Young Master Song who graces us. We are honoured…deeply honoured.”

The Bald Eagle bowed with solemn formality. “Our respects, Young Master Song.”

The Xuanming Elders shared a pained smile and had no choice but to step forward as well: “Good evening, Young Master.” The two of them had crossed hands with Song Qingshu more than once…they knew his martial arts far surpassed their own. And having spent so long at Zhao Min’s side, they were aware of the complicated nature of the relationship between their Lady and this particular young man. There was every possibility he would one day become their superior. The thought of offending him, even slightly, was not one they could entertain.

The ripple of reaction moved through the rest of the courtyard and left several mouths hanging open. These were the wulin’s most feared and arrogant masters…each of them had carried themselves with imperious pride not five minutes ago. And now, at the sight of Song Qingshu, they behaved like mice who had walked into a cat.

Ding’s eyes went wide with a new kind of interest.

‘So the two old ones weren’t the problem at all,’ she thought. ‘This pretty-faced boy is actually that formidable!’

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