Lord Xingde looked at Liu Xiaolou's smile and felt a faint unease. He hurriedly warned, "I told you to bring someone here, so go speak to her properly. Don't use any crude methods!"
Liu Xiaolou patted his chest. "Rest assured, Senior. I won't be too crude. I'll try to bring her here without a sound, so even this lady won't know how she got here. Heh heh..."
Lord Xingde hastily stopped him. "There's no need for your tricks. Just go deliver the message honestly."
Liu Xiaolou suddenly understood. "Ah... so it's mutual love... But why not go straight to her door?"
Lord Xingde sighed. "She is a lady from a great household. Her clan's rules are extremely strict."
After Lord Xingde roughly explained the situation, Liu Xiaolou finally understood. So Lord Xingde had come to secretly meet his lover.
This Lady Zhou Qi was the legitimate granddaughter of the Zhou clan head. Though she was already past thirty, she remained unmarried, chiefly because her heart had always belonged to Lord Xingde. But Lord Xingde was a Rogue Cultivator with no backing, and his cultivation was nothing outstanding. To a great clan like the Zhou family, he was utterly unsuitable for a marriage alliance. Put plainly, they were not a match in status.
This pair of old lovers knew the difficulties as well. They had been together for years, keeping their affair tightly under wraps. Yet no secret could remain buried forever. Last month, they had been discovered during a secret meeting. Lord Xingde had been beaten badly by Zhou family experts. Only because Lady Zhou Qi begged bitterly had they spared his life instead of killing him on the spot, allowing him to escape with his life.
But how could a savage beating block the tide of longing? Before Lord Xingde's injuries had fully healed, he had come again—and he had brought Liu Xiaolou with him.
Liu Xiaolou grumbled inwardly. Lord Xingde truly wanted love more than life. This was no difficult matter for him. Since he still needed Lord Xingde to teach him formations, he naturally did as requested and went to the Zhou family manor to deliver the message.
According to Lord Xingde, Seventh Mistress Zhou went out each month on this day to clear her mind. It was also the day they had agreed to meet in secret. Liu Xiaolou deeply doubted that, after the beating last time, Seventh Mistress Zhou would still be able to come out and meet him. Still, he would first take a look and decide afterward.
He lay in wait at a crossroads three li from the manor, hiding amid the roadside mugwort and patiently waiting for his target to appear. Perhaps because the manor had only recently been breached by Rogue Cultivators, few people entered or left. He waited a full two hours, and only a few manor servants passed by.
Near dusk, a sedan carriage finally emerged from the manor. The coachman rode ahead, cracking his whip to urge the horses onward, while a young Young Master rode alongside the carriage.
The sedan curtains were made of blue gauze. The person he sought had truly come!
Liu Xiaolou rushed out as if the heavens had collapsed and the earth had split, blocking the sedan carriage. "Auntie!"
The fine horses reared, and the sedan carriage stopped. The young Young Master behind it leaped from his horse and rushed forward, snapping the whip in his hand through the air. It cracked sharply.
"Who are you? Why do you block the sedan?"
Along with the sharp crack of the whip, a wave of force swept over him. Caught off guard, Liu Xiaolou was nearly knocked off his feet.
Lord Xingde had reminded Liu Xiaolou that, after last month's incident, the Zhou family would likely assign a retainer to keep a close watch over Seventh Mistress Zhou, and he must be extremely careful. The one wielding the whip must be one of those retainers. Yet this retainer did not seem to possess the deep true essence Lord Xingde had described. He did not feel much stronger than Liu Xiaolou himself!
Liu Xiaolou continued shouting, "Auntie, it's your nephew! You'll know once you come out and see me!"
Hearing Liu Xiaolou repeatedly shout "Auntie" and "nephew," the Young Master did not bring down his second whip. Instead, he looked doubtfully toward the sedan carriage.
The curtain lifted. The woman seated within wore a goose-yellow blouse and a pleated skirt, with a golden hairpin set in her coiffure. Her figure was graceful and willowy, her features delicate and unworldly. Her beauty was truly beyond compare.
How did she look like a woman past thirty? She was clearly a girl not yet twenty.
She truly was a peerless beauty. No wonder Lord Xingde could never forget her!
Their gazes met. Liu Xiaolou was stunned by the woman's radiance and, in his haste, did not dare look at her for long. He merely held up a sachet with both hands. "Auntie, look!"
The sachet was a token. Once he displayed it, Seventh Mistress Zhou would understand its meaning and surely cooperate seamlessly.
After waiting a moment, he did not receive Seventh Mistress Zhou's acknowledgment of kinship. Instead, he heard a questioning voice: "Liu Xiaolou?"
Liu Xiaolou was utterly astonished. He instinctively raised his eyes and saw that the woman in the sedan had widened both eyes round as saucers, staring at him in equal shock.
Why did that voice sound so familiar? And that wide-eyed expression—had he seen it somewhere before?
After they stared at each other for a moment, Liu Xiaolou's heart jolted. He suddenly remembered. Wasn't this the one who had been harvesting spirit fields at Goose-Goat Mountain a few months ago?
The Qi Refining Paragon expert who had caught him red-handed, then inexplicably let him go. It had been nighttime in the wilderness then, while today she wore different clothes and had arranged her hair differently. That was why he had failed to recognize her at first glance.
The woman asked coldly, "Since when did I have a nephew like you?"
Liu Xiaolou was struck speechless, his mind somewhat muddled.
This change had truly come out of nowhere. For a long while, he could not figure out what was going on. How could Lord Xingde's lover of many years be her? As the Zhou family's legitimate daughter, why had she gone to Goose-Goat Mountain to do farm work?
His only response now was to keep displaying the sachet in his hands—showing it on the left, then the right, turning it around to show the front, then the back...
"Why are you holding that sachet?" the woman asked again.
She doesn't recognize it?
Liu Xiaolou glanced at the sedan curtain. That was right—the gauze was blue.
Could Lord Xingde have set him up? That should not be possible.
"How did you know I was here?" the woman asked again.
Liu Xiaolou's thoughts whirled, but before he could make sense of anything, the whip-wielding retainer made his move.
The whip tip curled like a spirit serpent and stabbed toward Liu Xiaolou's Shanzhong acupoint. Liu Xiaolou flicked his wrist and nimbly dodged aside. The Young Master angrily snapped, "You still dare dodge?"
The second whip lashed down. Liu Xiaolou evaded it again, only to have a powerful surge of true essence seal his Meridians, leaving him unable to move.
The woman had made her move, sealing Liu Xiaolou's Meridians.
The Young Master still wanted to strike a third time, but the woman stopped him and said softly, "Take him back."
The woman casually stopped the Young Master's anger-filled whip, and his face reddened. Embarrassed, he asked, "Ninth Mistress, are we not going out anymore?"
The woman shook her head. "This person is very strange. I want to take him back and question him. I'll have to trouble the Second Young Master."
Only then did Liu Xiaolou finally understand. He had mistaken her for someone else. The woman before him was not Seventh Mistress Zhou, but Ninth Mistress.
Wasn't it said that only Seventh Mistress Zhou's sedan had blue gauze curtains? Lord Xingde, I'm not done with you!
The Young Master hauled Liu Xiaolou onto his saddle. The sedan carriage turned around and headed back toward the manor.
They entered through a side gate. The sedan carriage stopped outside a moon gate, and Ninth Mistress dismounted to proceed on foot. The Young Master followed behind, carrying Liu Xiaolou. They passed covered corridors and gardens, circled several pavilions and towers, then entered a quiet little courtyard.
There was a fishpond in the courtyard, and clusters of emerald bamboo grew along the walls, lending the place a deep tranquility.
The Young Master set Liu Xiaolou down in a bamboo pavilion by the pond and looked toward Ninth Mistress. Ninth Mistress said, "Thank you for your trouble, Second Young Master. I wish to question him alone."
The Young Master reminded her, "These people of unknown background are cunning and treacherous. Ninth Mistress, be careful. The Zhou family manor was just breached last month by a group of bandits..."
Ninth Mistress sneered. "I know this bastard. With his three paltry moves and two clumsy tricks, could he possibly pull off something as great as breaking into this manor? He should cultivate for another thirty years before saying such things!"
The Young Master nodded and said no more. He withdrew from the small courtyard, leaving Ninth Mistress alone in the pavilion, silent and wordless.