Flower Stealing Master

As they spoke, a contingent of warriors had already ridden up and surrounded the tea stall. These warriors did not speak; they simply sized up the group in silence. The only sound was the snorting of the horses, which made the scene feel extraordinarily eerie.

Though these warriors were dressed in plain clothes, the fierce, aggressive aura they exuded betrayed their identity as soldiers. Song Qingshu’s heart skipped a beat. *Could this be Jia Sidao’s arrangement? He dares to brazenly defy all convention and secretly mobilize troops to seize the prisoners? He truly has audacity beyond measure.*

There were roughly five hundred of these warriors. Though five hundred men meant little on a battlefield, for dealing with isolated *wulin* figures, a dense mass of five hundred soldiers created an overwhelming sense of pressure.

What’s more, these were all cavalry. It was well known that the Song Dynasty had always lacked horses, making cavalry consistently scarce. Back when Nong Zhigao rebelled, sweeping through Guangxi and Guangdong with tens of thousands of troops, the entire court was thrown into alarm. They urgently transferred Di Qing, who had been fighting the Western Xia, to march south and suppress the rebellion. Even faced with a rebellion of such scale, Di Qing’s army had only five hundred cavalry.

To have five hundred cavalry appear here in this desolate wilderness was an astonishingly extravagant deployment.

“Where might you military gentlemen be headed, if I may ask?” Among those present, Song Qingshu was lost in thought, Ouyang Feng couldn’t be bothered to deal with these people, and Zhou Zhiruo was also unaccustomed to interacting with so many men. It was Lan Fenghuang who stepped forward gracefully to inquire.

The lead rider cast a greedy glance at her curvaceous figure but did not answer. Instead, he said to a companion beside him, “The numbers don’t seem quite right.”

“The Mongols are gone,” said another rider. “Boss, what should we do?”

The rider in the middle was clearly the leader. He said coldly, “Proceed according to plan.”

The rider who had spoken earlier glanced at Lan Fenghuang and Zhou Zhiruo and lowered his voice. “These two women are so beautiful. It would be a shame to kill them. How about…” Though he deliberately lowered his voice, Song Qingshu’s group were all masters. Every one of them heard clearly, and their faces turned to ice.

The leader looked up at Zhou Zhiruo and Lan Fenghuang, a flash of stunned admiration crossing his face. He nodded. “Kill the men on the spot. Take the women!” He did not lower his voice for this order but deliberately announced it loudly for his men to hear. As soon as he finished speaking, he raised his hand. The riders behind him, as if they had been waiting for this signal, each raised a short crossbow. In an instant, a dense rain of bolts flew toward Song Qingshu and Ouyang Feng.

Crossbows were different from bows and arrows. Bows had a long range and were often fired at a forty-five-degree angle in volleys, attacking indiscriminately. Crossbows were different. Their range was much shorter, but their accuracy and speed far surpassed that of bows. At close range, their killing power was terrifying.

Even in the hands of a child, a crossbow could easily kill a trained soldier. For this reason, throughout successive dynasties, crossbows had been strictly regulated by the government. Moreover, crossbows were complex to manufacture and expensive, not as easy to mass-produce as bows. They were typically only issued to specialized units.

This group fired without warning, and crossbow bolts were extremely fast. An ordinary *wulin* expert might have been turned into a pincushion before they could react. But these people were all top-tier masters. Though Lan Fenghuang was somewhat less skilled, the others looked out for her, and the soldiers’ bolts were not aimed at the two women. Thus, they were safe.

Song Qingshu and Ouyang Feng were highly experienced. From the conversation they had just overheard, they were already on guard. The moment the soldiers raised their crossbows, they pulled the two women back into the tea stall, causing the first volley to hit nothing.

The soldiers were well-trained. Seeing their targets take cover inside the building, the crossbow bolts followed them in like clinging parasites. The tea stall was a simple thatched hut—how could it withstand bolts with such penetrating power?

If not for the cover of tables and pillars inside, someone in Song Qingshu’s group might already have been injured.

“Cease fire!” The leader quickly stopped his men. *What if we shoot the two beauties dead?* When the rain of bolts stopped, he called out to the thatched hut: “Listen up, you inside. If you hand over the two women, we’ll let you live.”

Though he said this, a cruel smile hung on his face. *Even if they’re foolish enough to send the women out, would I really let them live?*

Song Qingshu’s expression darkened. “I’ll go out and deal with them.” Back in his day, he had been the kind of man who could deflect a sky full of arrows with a wooden sword. The only reason he hadn’t acted earlier was his concern for Zhou Zhiruo and Lan Fenghuang’s safety. Now that they had cover inside the building, he no longer had to worry about them.

Ouyang Feng shook his head. “Those short crossbows are terrifyingly powerful. Besides, the terrain here is open, perfect for a cavalry charge. Your martial arts may be formidable, but going out there would be too risky. Fortunately, Miss Lan and I were about to have a poison competition. Leave these men outside to us.”

Hearing the confidence in his voice, Song Qingshu nodded and was happy to watch the show from the sidelines.

“Miss Lan, let’s use these men outside for our contest,” Ouyang Feng said. “Whoever poisons them first wins. You’re the junior, so you go first.”

Lan Fenghuang laughed coquettishly. “Then I won’t stand on ceremony, Senior.” She picked up a wooden plank to shield her body and walked to the window. She tested the wind direction and was secretly delighted to find that they were upwind.

She took out a porcelain bottle and poured some golden powder onto a handkerchief, which she placed on the windowsill. With a gentle puff from her red lips, the golden powder drifted with the wind, invisible and silent, toward the riders.

It turned out that aside from being skilled at controlling the five poisonous creatures, Lan Fenghuang also carried two other highly toxic substances on her person: Golden Silkworm Gu Poison and Green Silkworm Gu Poison. Both were infamous poisons in the *wulin* that made people’s blood run cold. Since Green Silkworm Gu Poison was relatively harmless unless it contacted blood, she chose the Golden Silkworm Gu Poison. With just the slightest contact, this poison would make the victim feel as though tens of thousands of insects were biting them all over their body—the agony was unbearable. They would long for death but be unable to die.

However, both poisons had a drawback: when used against a master, the opponent’s internal energy could easily rebound the poison back onto the user. That was why she hadn’t dared to use them against the Vajra Sect Master or the Xuanming Elders. But against these soldiers, naturally, she didn’t have to worry about the risk of backlash.

“My patience has limits,” the rider leader called out from outside. “If you don’t come out soon, we’ll switch to fire arrows.”

Just then, a series of agonized screams erupted from within the ranks. Many soldiers fell from their horses, rolling on the ground and clawing fiercely at their own skin and flesh as they wailed.

Not only the soldiers, but even their horses became violently agitated. Soon, chaos spread through the ranks.

“What’s happening?” The leader was alarmed. Acting on battlefield instinct, he ordered, “Everyone fall back!”

This order saved the survivors. Though the Golden Silkworm Gu Poison was deadly, there was only a limited amount. In such an open space, the poison powder couldn’t reach everywhere. Once they retreated to a certain distance, the Golden Silkworm Gu Poison could do no more.

The cavalry leader finally managed to stabilize the formation. He saw that his comrades who had remained behind had gradually stopped wailing. Men and horses lay scattered in large patches, showing no further signs of life.

Ouyang Feng stood at the window and glanced outside, then laughed. “It looks like it’s my turn.”

Lan Fenghuang pursed her lips. In truth, by her calculations, the amount of Golden Silkworm Gu Poison she carried was enough to poison five hundred people with some left over. But she had overlooked one thing: people were not inanimate objects; they wouldn’t stand still. Moreover, with the terrain so open, once the cavalry scattered, her poison became ineffective.

Nevertheless, the earlier wave had poisoned nearly a third of the cavalry. This showed just how devastating the Golden Silkworm Gu Poison was.

Hearing that Ouyang Feng was about to act, Lan Fenghuang was filled with curiosity. Now that the enemy was on guard and had retreated so far, poisoning them would be no easy task.

Outside, the cavalry were busy investigating what had happened and had no attention to spare for the tea stall. Ouyang Feng found a teacup and placed it on the ground. He removed the strange snake from his Serpent Staff, pried open its mouth, squeezed out a single drop of venom, and put the snake back. Lan Fenghuang was startled. Curious, she asked, “Senior, why didn’t you extract more venom?”

She noticed that the drop of venom in the teacup was as black as ink, clearly extremely poisonous. But it was only one drop. Using a single drop of poison to deal with three or four hundred people seemed highly unlikely.

Ouyang Feng smiled but didn’t answer. He found a pot of clean water and diluted the venom in the cup several times. Then he picked up some crossbow bolts scattered on the ground, dipped their tips in the diluted solution for a few breaths, and walked to the window. Channeling his internal energy, he fired the venom-coated bolts outward.

Now even Song Qingshu was puzzled. Though the strange snake was highly venomous, after being diluted so many times, it was hard to say how much toxicity remained. Even if it could still kill, Ouyang Feng had fewer than twenty bolts. At most, he could kill twenty men. What good would that do?

Exclamations of alarm came from outside. Clearly, several people had been hit. Curious, Song Qingshu went to the window and looked out. The bolts hadn’t struck any vital points—just arms, legs, and so on. Strangely, the men simply pulled the bolts out, reacting as if only bothered by the pain of the wound. There were no signs of poisoning at all.

Realizing the bolts had come from the thatched hut, the cavalry were enraged. They immediately raised their crossbows and fired back. Song Qingshu and the others had to retreat from the window and take cover behind the tables again.

Song Qingshu smiled wryly. “This is your brilliant plan?”

Ouyang Feng smiled enigmatically. “Just wait and see the show.”

Not to mention people like Song Qingshu and Zhou Zhiruo, who didn’t use poison—even Lan Fenghuang, a poison expert, was completely baffled. After a while, the crossbow fire gradually stopped. Then came shouts of shock and fury from outside, accompanied by all manner of exaggerated screams.

Startled, Song Qingshu rushed back to the window and looked out. The cavalry outside had dissolved into chaos. The dozen or so men who had been wounded by the bolts seemed to have gone mad. They clawed and bit anyone they saw. Anyone they scratched or bit quickly became as crazed as they were, desperately clawing and biting others in turn… The number of frenzied people grew exponentially. Soon, the scene outside had become a living hell.

Zhou Zhiruo glanced out a few times, then buried her face in Song Qingshu’s chest. Even Song Qingshu’s brows twitched violently. The scene outside was simply too horrifying—like something out of a zombie apocalypse.

Lan Fenghuang bowed respectfully to Ouyang Feng. “This junior admits defeat wholeheartedly. I beg the Senior to enlighten me.”

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