Flower Stealing Master

Song Qingshu was startled. He hastily withdrew the Heaven Sword and glared at Zhao Min, caught between alarm and anger. “Have you lost your mind?”

Zhao Min turned her head away and answered coldly, “I’m not like the Xuanming Elders, clinging to life in fear of death. So you’d better give up any idea of threatening me with death.”

“I know you’d rather die than surrender, alright?” Even now, Song Qingshu felt a lingering chill. Fortunately, his control over his movements had reached a level where he could stop at will. If he had been even a fraction of a second slower, Zhao Min would have met her end.

But Zhao Min showed no sign of relief. Instead, she said flatly, “I’m already poisoned with the Three Corpse Brain Holy Pill. You can’t control me with d1ugs. I’d rather die than let you use the Soul Capture Technique on me.”

Song Qingshu knew she spoke the truth. She was not the type to abandon her principles for the sake of survival. Otherwise, after being poisoned by Murong Jingyue’s Three Corpse Brain Holy Pill, she would have obeyed his every command.

Seeing her resolute expression, Song Qingshu smiled wryly. “Who said anything about using the Soul Capture Technique on you?” He had indeed considered controlling her with the technique, but had quickly dismissed the idea. If he did that, she would no longer be the cunning, fox-like, scheming enchantress he knew.

Zhao Min was taken aback. “Then how do you plan to control me?”

Song Qingshu said, frustrated, “I haven’t figured that out yet. I’ve heard the Princess is resourceful. Perhaps you could offer a suggestion?”

The corner of Zhao Min’s lips curled upward, gradually blooming into a brilliant, radiant smile. “If I’m so resourceful, why would I give you advice that would only shoot myself in the foot?”

Beside them, Zhou Zhiruo stomped her foot in frustration. “Hmph, I knew you couldn’t do it.”

Zhao Min was now in excellent spirits. She smiled playfully at her. “Are you terribly disappointed right now?”

To her surprise, Zhou Zhiruo did not react with the anticipated fury. Instead, she looked almost relieved. “I am a little disappointed. But if Qingshu had chosen to kill you for his own benefit, I would have been even more disappointed.”

Though her words were somewhat convoluted, as a woman, Zhao Min understood instantly.

Song Qingshu, frustrated, said, “So all that pressure you were putting on me earlier was actually a test?”

Zhou Zhiruo’s face blossomed into a smile. She tugged at his arm and said pleadingly, “Oh, come on. How else was I supposed to tell whether my husband is a man of honor and feeling, or someone ruthless and cold-blooded who stops at nothing?”

Zhao Min snorted. “Grabbing at each other in public like that. Have you no shame?”

“What’s shameful about grabbing my own husband? If you’re so bold, you grab him too.” Zhou Zhiruo shot her a defiant look.

“Fine, I will. Who’s afraid of whom?” Ordinarily, Zhao Min would have limited herself to a few verbal jabs and never dared to actually act. But everything that had just happened left her heart sweeter than honey. In a momentary rush of boldness, she reached out and took hold of Song Qingshu’s other arm. “Brother Qingshu, do you like me grabbing you?”

Hearing her voice, sweet to the point of cloying, and feeling the soft sensation faintly transmitted through his arm, Song Qingshu felt there was no greater joy in the world. A look of blissful contentment crept across his face.

Zhou Zhiruo had never expected her to actually do it. She trembled with rage. “Do you have no shame at all?”

Zhao Min’s face also flushed with heat, but at that moment, her heart was brimming with tender affection, and she felt no annoyance. “You’re the one who told me to grab him. Now you’re blaming me?”

Zhou Zhiruo was taken aback. She hadn’t expected her words to backfire so spectacularly. For a moment, she couldn’t think of a retort.

Song Qingshu’s head began to ache. As blissful as it was to have a beauty on each arm, the risks were considerable. Before the two could truly start fighting, he deliberately coughed. “Princess, don’t get too happy just yet. Though I can’t bring myself to harm you, this matter is extremely significant. Until I’ve thought of a foolproof solution, I can’t let you go.”

“Fine by me. I didn’t want to go back to Mongolia anyway.” Distracted by this, Zhao Min ultimately felt too embarrassed to continue holding his arm in front of other women. She let go discreetly, but leaned her pretty face closer. “In the past two years, who else have you disguised yourself as? Tang Kuobian? The Kangxi Emperor?”

Standing by, Zhou Zhiruo had to admire her former rival. In such a short time and with such limited information, she had managed to guess the truth with remarkable accuracy. If their positions were reversed, Zhou Zhiruo doubted she could have done the same.

Looking at Zhao Min’s sparkling eyes, Song Qingshu deliberately put on a stern face and snorted. “Knowing too much tends to bring lethal consequences.”

“Hmph, don’t tell me then. I’ll find out on my own sooner or later.” Zhao Min pouted and didn’t press the matter further.

For some reason, every smile and frown from Zhao Min seemed to Zhou Zhiruo like a deliberate display of coquettishness before her husband. The feeling infuriated her. She couldn’t help interrupting their exchange. “Qingshu, the rain has stopped. We should hurry on our way. I don’t want to spend the night in a place full of corpses.”

Song Qingshu nodded. “You’re right. Those masked men might have accomplices waiting to rendezvous. I’m not afraid of them, but it would waste time. We should leave here as quickly as possible.”

The women naturally had no objection. As they passed the bodies of the masked men, Zhao Min couldn’t help asking, “How did your martial arts become so incredibly strong? According to the Vajra Sect Master and the Xuanming Elders, every one of these masked men was at least on par with the Five Ultimates. Yet you killed them in an instant. It’s truly…”

Accustomed as she was to extraordinary things, she still couldn’t find the words to describe what she had witnessed. She had seen the famously formidable Vajra Sect Master and Xuanming Elders beaten like dogs by these masked men. Then Song Qingshu, whom she had previously considered only marginally stronger than the Vajra Sect Master at best, had instantly annihilated those mysterious masters. It completely overturned her understanding.

Zhou Zhiruo and Lan Fenghuang also looked at him expectantly. Zhao Min’s question mirrored the confusion in their own hearts. They had just exchanged blows with those masked men and knew that their cultivation placed them among the top masters of the *wulin*.

Song Qingshu stopped and swept his gaze over the bodies strewn across the ground before explaining. “First, I was disguised as Jia Baoyu, so they had no guard up against me. Second, my footwork is fast enough that when I seized the opportunity to strike suddenly, they had no time to react.”

“But the more important reason is that although these masked men possessed internal power rivaling the Five Ultimates, they lacked the battle-hardened combat instincts of the Five Ultimates. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to take them down so easily with a single strike.”

Zhao Min was puzzled. “What do you mean?”

Song Qingshu crouched down, removed the wine flasks from the waists of the masked men, and sniffed them. Nodding thoughtfully, he said, “To put it more bluntly, these masked men are ‘top masters’ produced by a mysterious organization using special drugs to boost their internal energy, then uniformly trained with divine martial arts manuals.”

He shook the flask in his hand. “These flasks contain specially formulated medicinal wine—extremely poisonous. But when consumed in controlled amounts, they are highly effective at increasing internal power. Trained like this for decades, every single one of them can develop astonishing internal energy. Unfortunately, though they have the power and decent techniques, they lack the soul of a warrior tempered through countless battles. As a result, they can’t actually bring much of their strength to bear.”

“If we’re talking purely about internal energy, these masked men are not far behind the Eastern Heretic, Western Venom, Southern Emperor, and Northern Beggar. But in a real fight to the death, any one of the Five Ultimates could probably take on four or five of these masked men single-handedly without much trouble.”

Zhao Min suddenly understood. “I get it now. The reason the Vajra Sect Master and the Xuanming Elders were overwhelmed was that these masked men were all exceptionally skilled and too numerous. They were intimidated from the start. If they had known that their opponents were strong on the outside but weak within, they wouldn’t have lost so badly.”

Song Qingshu laughed. “The Vajra Sect Master’s theoretical strength places him in the middle tier of the Five Ultimates. But he willingly became a lackey of the court, ordered about here and there—he long ago lost the heart of a true grandmaster. How could he compare to the Eastern Heretic, Western Venom, Southern Emperor, and Northern Beggar, each of whom dominated their own domain with heroic spirit? In a real fight, I doubt he could defeat any of the Five Ultimates either. As for the Xuanming Elders… the less said, the better.”

Zhao Min’s face flushed slightly at hearing the masters she had always taken pride in so disparaged. But then she reflected that those scoundrels had now switched allegiances. Her mood instantly smoothed over. “Anyway, they’re your men now. You can train them yourself however you like.”

Song Qingshu felt a chill of disgust. “Can you not use such ambiguous phrasing? It’s really unsettling.”

From the side, Zhou Zhiruo spoke up. “Can you two stop flirting? We need to get moving.” Without waiting for a response, she turned and walked out.

Seeing Zhou Zhiruo jealous, Zhao Min pressed her lips together and smiled. Song Qingshu, looking rather sheepish, hurried after her.

Lan Fenghuang, bringing up the rear, had a peculiar expression on her face. *Compared to Song Qingshu, I’m the one who feels more awkward. The three of them are vying for each other’s affection, and I’m just standing here on the sidelines with no presence at all. How embarrassing…*

The masked men had earlier captured Zhao Min’s group and confiscated many fine horses, which they had left behind the temple. Song Qingshu and the women selected several and continued northward.

They rode swiftly and finally reached a small town before dark, where they found an inn to stay for the night.

The town was so rustic that it had never seen such breathtakingly beautiful women, much less three of them together. Everyone in the inn stared at Song Qingshu with a mixture of envy, jealousy, and resentment.

But Song Qingshu’s group had no time to pay attention to such looks. They had traveled all day and fought several battles. They were ravenous. What’s more, as martial artists, their hearing was far keener than ordinary people’s. They could clearly hear the rumbling of each other’s stomachs.

Zhou Zhiruo’s face turned crimson. Her temperament had always been elegant and refined. When had she ever been so undignified? Zhao Min was no better. Of noble birth and accustomed to fine food and clothing, she had never been so disheveled either.

This small incident somewhat eased the tense atmosphere that had prevailed along the journey.

Song Qingshu had just breathed a sigh of relief when the two women began arguing over what to order.

“Waiter, bring some mutton.”

No sooner had Zhao Min spoken than Zhou Zhiruo’s delicate brows furrowed. “Mutton is too gamey. Bring fish.”

Zhao Min’s brows immediately knitted. “Fish is too fishy. Bring mutton.”

The two women argued back and forth. The waiter standing nearby was dumbfounded. “Um… how about I bring both?”

“Absolutely not!” Zhao Min and Zhou Zhiruo said in unison. The waiter naturally had no idea what they were truly fighting over.

“Qingshu, you decide what we eat.” Unable to resolve the dispute, Zhou Zhiruo tossed the dilemma to Song Qingshu.

“Fine,” Zhao Min said, propping her chin on her hand and looking at him with a half-smile.

Song Qingshu suddenly felt as if he were standing at the epicenter of two killing auras. “How about… chicken?”

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