Flower Stealing Master

Song Qingshu was brought to a cabin on the lower deck by Manager Du’s men, who shoved him inside and pulled the door shut. They clearly had no interest in further involvement.

Understandable enough. He was simultaneously a suspect in the assault of a Minister’s household member and a guard from that same household — the sort of internal business that Manager Du would greatly prefer to know as little about as possible.

Song Qingshu settled into the situation with equanimity, sitting cross-legged on the floor and beginning to regulate his breathing. Tonight’s events were plainly a trap. Whoever had set it would not leave things here. Rather than speculating without sufficient information, he would wait for them to come to him.

He was not especially worried about his safety. He still had the Soul Capture Technique — even a skilled practitioner caught unawares would fall to it, and from what he had observed, the men on this ship were all ordinary household guards. Still, out of caution, he turned his mind again to the problem of recovering his inner energy. He had grown too accustomed to being nearly untouchable; this current state left him profoundly uncomfortable.

He reviewed his arsenal carefully. His swordplay, his palms, his Qinggong — none of these could be used to purge a poison. The One Yang Finger, however — that technique capable of calling back the nearly dead — seemed to offer some slim possibility. He recalled a scene from the original Divine Condor Heroes: Xiao Longnu, in the critical moment of expelling her poison, had been struck by one of Guo Fu’s Frozen Soul Silver Needles, driving the toxin into her organs. When Yi Deng had encountered her later, he had lamented that if not for his own injury at Qiu Qianren’s hands, he might have been able to save her with the One Yang Finger…

Song Qingshu felt a spark of hope — then deflated almost immediately. “Without inner energy, I can’t form the One Yang Finger at all. There’s an old saying: the physician cannot heal himself. That really is profound wisdom.”

Among all living practitioners, the One Yang Finger at the level required to draw someone back from death’s threshold belonged only to Yi Deng and Wang Chongyang — and those two men moved through the world like dragons, rarely seen. Finding either of them in short order was not realistic.

Besides the One Yang Finger, both the Nine Yin Scripture and the Divine Brilliance Scripture had restorative properties — but he had already tested the Nine Yin true qi and found it powerless against the Jinbōxún flower’s hold on his organs. As for the Divine Brilliance Scripture — he dismissed it outright. Ding Dian, who had mastered that scripture in the original novel, had died from the Jinbōxún flower’s poison regardless.

That left only the Joyful Meditation Method.

The Joyful Meditation was the most profound and arcane art of Tantric Buddhism across a thousand years of its tradition. It was precisely because the Joyful true qi had been protecting him that he had not immediately succumbed as Ding Dian had. But he had tried many times in these past two days — the Joyful true qi was just as intermittent as the rest, flickering in and out, entirely unsuitable for forcing out a poison.

The central problem is the inconsistency — the true qi cannot be sustained… He turned the matter over carefully. The dual cultivation method within the Joyful Meditation operated primarily on the manipulation of yin and yang energies — and yin-yang energy was something every living person possessed innately, distinct from cultivated true qi. Whether it would be affected by the poison was uncertain, but the avenue was at least worth considering.

A pity there is no one here suited to dual cultivation. Otherwise it might be worth attempting.

He exhaled slowly — and unbidden, the image of Qi Fang rose in his mind. That moment when he had lifted the corner of the blanket.

‘Should I go to her…’

The thought had surfaced before he could stop it, and he became aware of a voice in the back of his mind making its case:

She has almost no protection right now. It would be trivially easy.

Married, a mother — and yet her beauty is exceptional. She is nursing. From the standpoint of dual cultivation, the conditions are unusually favourable.

Wan Qili and Wan Gui have done you tremendous harm. Using Wan Qili’s granddaughter-in-law and Wan Gui’s wife to balance the scales — one could argue that is entirely just.

A long silence passed.

Song Qingshu let out a slow, regretful breath. “What a pity,” he said quietly. “You had to be Di Yun’s beloved.”

Di Yun was simple, earnest, and had served him with unwavering loyalty. His history was one of undeserved suffering. When Song Qingshu considered it honestly, he found he simply could not bring himself to add to that man’s wounds.

“Forget it. I’ll find another way.” The clarity came back into his eyes.

At that moment, a sound came from outside the door. “I’m here on my master’s orders to bring Xiong Da up for questioning.”

Song Qingshu’s brow furrowed. The voice sounded like the page called Sixi, the one who attended Qi Fang. Had she thought of something and decided to question him herself?

The cabin door opened and Sixi walked in. “Xiong Da. Come with me.”

Song Qingshu noted inwardly that the boy had been calling him “Brother Xiong” with all the warmth in the world earlier, and now addressed him by his bare name. The world turns quickly.

He did not take it to heart. He gave a slight smile and stood.

The guard at the door offered to help escort the prisoner. Sixi waved him off. “He’s trussed up tight with hempen rope soaked in sesame oil. All the martial arts in the world won’t help him. I can manage.”

The guard persisted. Sixi grew impatient. “My mistress doesn’t want too many people involved in this. Too many eyes upstairs would be inconvenient.”

Invoking Qi Fang’s name silenced Manager Du’s man at once. Both men watched the pair leave.

After following Sixi for a short distance, Song Qingshu spoke mildly. “This isn’t the way to the upper deck.”

Sixi muttered an oath. “Stop asking questions and keep walking.”

Song Qingshu smiled quietly to himself. Just as expected. The fox was finally showing its tail.

Sixi led him all the way to the stern, to a deserted section of the deck, and stopped.

“I want to see the young mistress!” Song Qingshu put alarm into his voice.

Sixi glanced around. No one came here at this hour. He drew a short, heavy blade from his belt and showed his teeth. “See the young mistress? Go see the King of Hell first.”

“So it was you all along, pulling the strings.” Song Qingshu’s voice went cold.

Sixi raised his blade. “Knowing now won’t help you. What’ll it be — the board-knife noodles, or the wonton soup?” [Translator’s Note: These are criminal underworld euphemisms. “Board-knife noodles” (bǎndāo miàn) means to be hacked and thrown into the water; “wonton soup” (húntun) means to be stripped and drowned. Both refer to methods of disposal.]

Song Qingshu tilted his head up and looked at him with mild curiosity. “That’s odd. The fortune teller told me I have a very long life ahead of me.”

Sixi blinked, then scowled. “So it’s board-knife noodles, then.”

Song Qingshu looked at him steadily. “Who sent you?” He did not believe a page of this station would act on his own initiative.

“You won’t live to—” Sixi’s voice dropped abruptly. “Taohong. It was Sister Taohong.”

Naturally.

But something still didn’t sit right. Taohong’s position in the household gave her a degree of authority — but only a degree. Did she really have the nerve for this?

“And who is directing Taohong?” Song Qingshu pressed.

“I don’t know.” Sixi’s eyes had gone blank and distant — the Soul Capture Technique had taken hold.

“Untie me first.”

Once free, Song Qingshu asked: “Why were you willing to help Taohong move against your own mistress?”

In a society built on strict hierarchy, a servant who turned against their master faced consequences of extraordinary severity.

Sixi’s face reddened. “Taohong is old Master Wan’s concubine. I was weak for a moment and… got into her bed…”

Song Qingshu’s brow furrowed. The situation became clear enough. Having committed that offence, Sixi was already condemned — he had no path left but the one he was on.

He asked several more questions. When it became clear there was nothing further of value to extract, Song Qingshu said pleasantly: “You were going to treat me to board-knife noodles. Allow me to return the favour with wonton soup.”

Sixi nodded, walked mechanically to the railing, and dropped soundlessly into the water below.

“Help—”

The cold river shocked him back to himself — but only long enough for a single syllable before the current took him.

Song Qingshu watched the dark water for a moment. Taohong has no grievance against me specifically. This wasn’t aimed at me. His eyes moved to the faint light showing in the upper-deck windows. It was aimed at Qi Fang.

He stood there, weighing it. The sensible thing would be to slip away now, while the confusion held. But he was still well within Li Kexiu’s territory — travelling alone would be far more exposed than riding this ship downriver with the Minister’s flag as cover. And now that he knew Qi Fang was in danger, walking away felt like something he would have to account for the next time he faced Di Yun.

He made his decision. He would warn her.

The problem was the path. Qi Fang’s cabin was on the uppermost deck, and after everything that had happened, the stairway was thick with Manager Du’s guards. There was no walking through them.

Under ordinary circumstances, of course, this would have been trivial.

******

After Song Qingshu had been taken below, Qi Fang had dressed herself quickly and sent for a tub of hot water.

Perhaps it was the thought of having her clothes removed without her knowledge — despite careful examination confirming she was unharmed, she could not rid herself of a feeling of contamination. She needed to wash.

Manager Du, already half out of his skin with anxiety over the evening’s events, was desperate to ingratiate himself. Hearing she wanted to bathe, he immediately dispatched maids to heat a full tub and sent up an assortment of fresh flower petals.

Qi Fang drove everyone from the room — Taohong included — checked the door and windows carefully, and finally came to stand before the steaming tub. The warmth of the rising vapour was the first comfort she had felt all night.

She loosened her sash. She had just slipped the outer robe from her shoulders when a faint sound came from the window.

Soft as it was, Qi Fang’s nerves had been pulled to breaking point. She spun around. “Who’s there?”

Silence.

She hesitated — half convinced she had imagined it — and chose not to call out to the guards. Instead, she drew the sword from the stand beside her and moved toward the window, alert and ready. She had studied martial arts once. With a blade in hand, she was not the helpless creature she had felt like earlier.

She came around the folding screen — and found the window standing wide open, with someone clambering through it in a state of considerable ungainliness.

She saw who it was, and the colour drained from her face. She drew a breath to scream.

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