Seeing that Cai Jinjian was somewhat downcast, Fu Nanhua took her on a casual stroll. They walked side by side, treating it as a way to clear their minds, speaking here and there of strange tales and curious anecdotes from the south of East Treasure Bottle Continent. Cai Jinjian still forced a smile now and then, but compared to the irritation she had felt after leaving Mud Bottle Alley, her mood had indeed improved considerably.
Her impression of this noble young master from Old Dragon City had gradually improved. Old Dragon City possessed deep foundations and produced outstanding talents in abundance; it stood only a hair's breadth away from the top sects and should, by all rights, have surpassed the second-rate, bottom-tier Cloud Mist Mountain by far. Yet orthodox immortal families like Cloud Mist Mountain, with orderly inheritances and pure, legitimate roots, possessed an innate sense of superiority toward southern barbarians like Old Dragon City, tucked away in some corner of the world. In the past, if they encountered one another, it was already considered good breeding not to mutter "southern barbarian" behind their backs.
Cai Jinjian said bitterly, "Brother Fu, although the Cloud Root Stones are the lifeblood of our Cloud Mist Mountain, since we agreed upon it beforehand, I will not renege on the debt. Even if it leaves me penniless, I will repay Brother Fu."
Fu Nanhua comforted her, "Whether Gu Can's household has truly secured that opportunity is still hard to say."
Cai Jinjian's face darkened. Shaking her head, she said, "River-Cutting True Lord Liu Zhimao may have a notorious reputation, but his methods are not weak. Otherwise, he could never have claimed a place in Book Scroll Lake. This opportunity cannot be forced. Once Liu Zhimao is provoked, how could I withstand the might of a great True Person from an unorthodox lineage? What I fear is that Liu Zhimao has already taken a grudge against me. Once we leave the town, without a Sage holding the fort and rules to restrain him, who knows what extreme measures Liu Zhimao might take? I imagine Brother Fu also caught glimpses of the truth at the border. The attendants from my mountain who accompanied me here in search of treasure are too weak; they are no match for him at all."
Fu Nanhua smiled. "Rest assured. Even if it is only for those ten Cloud Root Stones, Old Dragon City will see you safely back to Cloud Mist Mountain."
Cai Jinjian turned and smiled radiantly at him, her autumn-pool eyes like cut water, brimming with tender affection.
Fu Nanhua felt rather pleased with himself. Out of habit, he reached to touch that jade pendant, only to grasp empty air. Then he remembered that he had already given his Old Dragon Spreads Rain Pendant to the young man named Song Jixin.
Cai Jinjian let out a breath of relief. As she walked, her steps tilted slightly to the left, and her shoulder gently brushed against Fu Nanhua's.
The trip to Mud Bottle Alley had been an unplanned wager for Cai Jinjian, a spur-of-the-moment decision, though she had weighed it carefully. The facts proved that she had lost, and the price was ten priceless Cloud Root Stones. This filled her with anxiety over the remainder of her journey through the town, and invisibly made her dependent on Fu Nanhua. Or perhaps she had simply developed a gambler's mentality. Ten Cloud Root Stones were a gamble—was fifty not also a gamble? If she won, she would make a fortune, filling her basin to overflowing. If she lost... Cai Jinjian did not believe she would lose. Absolutely not. She was Cai Jinjian, the foremost cultivation talent of Cloud Mist Mountain! Her path of cultivation had been smooth sailing, her advancement through realms like splitting bamboo. Cai Jinjian did not believe she would capsize in this stinking ditch.
As Cai Jinjian's mood improved, Fu Nanhua, feeling that the overall situation had already been decided, finally had the leisure to truly appreciate Fairy Cai's beauty and figure. It could not be denied that she was a woman born with inner allure. Once one formed a Taoist partnership with such a woman and spent day and night together, whether in cultivation or between the sheets, one could steadily enter ever more wondrous realms.
A highly respected senior had once personally praised Cai Jinjian as possessing "the wind of Cloud Root Mountain and the bearing to soar into the heavens." What he meant was that she was an exceptionally rare choice for a Taoist Companion. The Old Ancestors of Cloud Mist Mountain had long lived by the principle of relying on the mountain to eat from the mountain, and were accustomed to doing business. Their lavish cultivation of Cai Jinjian over the years, regardless of cost, was not without the selfish intent of waiting to sell at the right price. A match made in heaven through a Marriage Alliance between immortal families was far more solemn than marriages among powerful clans and great households of worldly dynasties, and it was viewed with a much longer eye.
Yet Fu Nanhua truly had little fondness for Cloud Mist Mountain. Placing the fate of an entire sect upon the shoulders of a single woman was simply outrageous. This was also why Fu Nanhua thought so poorly of Cloud Mist Mountain.
Fu Nanhua reminded her, "What if the young man next door to Song Jixin is also someone chosen by an outside force, and still possesses that natal porcelain? Then your actions this time will bring trouble. It will be easy for people to follow the vine and find both Cloud Mist Mountain and you. Moreover, Song Jixin and his servant, as well as River-Cutting True Lord Liu Zhimao, may all notice this matter."
Cai Jinjian smiled. "Brother Fu may have been focused on clues concerning opportunities and failed to notice certain unwritten rules here. If boys born in this town are not taken away by those 'porcelain buyers' who have waited nearly ten years, by the time they are nine years old, it means their innate bone structure and talent are inadequate. They are no longer worth much. The older they grow, the cheaper they become. Rather than spend an astronomical sum in 'adoption money' and become suckers, those sects and gangs would obviously be far better off using that money to lavishly cultivate a few personal disciples."
The moment Cai Jinjian mentioned that straw-sandaled youth, her heart filled with disgust. "Ordinary mortals should possess the awareness of ordinary mortals!"
Fu Nanhua chose his words as carefully as possible and advised, "That is true, but that young man is shallow in knowledge. How could he know the nobility of Fairy Cai from Cloud Mist Mountain? Even if he offended you, teaching him a lesson would have been enough. Why strike twice?"
Fu Nanhua felt that Cai Jinjian's brazen attack was unusual; where there was an anomaly, there had to be something sinister beneath it. It might well conceal some mystery connected to the opportunity, so he hoped to draw some words from her and see if he could uncover a few clues. He had to guard against the mantis stalking the cicada while the oriole waited behind. He might be treating her as the autumn cicada, when in truth she was the oriole. Only after Old Dragon City had endured untold hardship and offered a price far more extravagant than Zhengyang Mountain and Cloud Mist Mountain had it obtained a few scattered fragments of secret lore. This was how Fu Nanhua had learned that over the past three thousand years, the so-called opportunities in this town had indeed been nothing more than Magic Treasures and artifacts left behind by senior Patriarchs after that stirring, peerless, brutal war—apart from those exceptionally gifted town children. But when this blessed land faced total collapse, matters were no longer so simple.
When the mountains and rivers of a dying dynasty lay shattered, Divine Weapons and Heavy Items were bound to emerge, welcoming the new air of a new dynasty.
Cai Jinjian was somewhat sullen. "Don't mention him. Thinking of him makes me sick."
A rare streak of viciousness flashed through her Autumn Water Long Eyes. Yet unwilling to ruin the image of an immortal maiden she had established in Fu Nanhua's mind, she did not give voice to what she was thinking.
If she encountered that lowborn young man outside the town in the future, she would make sure he died swiftly, rather than dragging along that sickly body and continuing to cling to life for another ten or twenty years.
The tall woman particularly hated the young man's eyes. Deep within her heart, she harbored an obsession she had never carefully considered.
Those clean, spotless eyes—despite cultivating for so many years at Cloud Mist Mountain, famed for its immaculate clarity, she had only seen such eyes a few times from beginning to end. What right did a poor young man raised in a shabby alley have to possess such beauty day after day, year after year?
Cai Jinjian tilted her head and rubbed her eyelid. The gesture made her slender, distant-mountain brows appear even longer.
Fu Nanhua, who had been surveying the surroundings all along, casually teased, "Among the well-diggers of Old Dragon City, there is a saying that has spread far and wide: a twitching left eye brings wealth, a twitching right eye brings disaster. Is it your left eye twitching, or your right?"
As if her fingers had been burned, Cai Jinjian hurriedly pulled her hand away and glared at him. It was plainly her right eyelid twitching.
Realizing he had brought trouble upon himself, Fu Nanhua hastily tried to mend the fold after the sheep were gone, saying with a smile, "It is just the blind superstition of ordinary mortals. It cannot be taken seriously."
The corners of Cai Jinjian's mouth curled upward. Turning sideways, she gazed at Fu Nanhua's profile and said smugly, "Fooled you, didn't I?"
Fu Nanhua froze for a moment. Looking at Cai Jinjian's adorably naive, girlish manner, he felt his heart stir for no reason.
He suddenly hesitated. His intent to kill her began to waver. Would becoming an immortal couple with her better serve Old Dragon City's plans to expand northward? If Cai Jinjian successfully obtained an opportunity here, then once she returned to her sect, her status would inevitably rise like the tide. If handled properly, it was not impossible that she might become the mistress of Cloud Mist Mountain. In the ancestral records of the long-established Cloud Mist Mountain, there had been precedents of women leading the sect. If that happened, Old Dragon City would gain a springboard, allowing it to legitimately infiltrate the heartland of East Treasure Bottle Continent. From then on, north and south could answer one another; they could advance to attack and retreat to defend. This would be the foundation of a king's hegemony, freeing Old Dragon City from the awkward situation of possessing strength yet being able only to hold its corner of the land, after suffering exclusion for centuries.
Not far ahead, only a few steps away, lay a crossroads where two intersecting alleys met.
The instant Fu Nanhua saw that fork in the road, he suddenly awoke as if enlightened. His gaze became resolute once more.
Fine beads of sweat instantly seeped from the forehead of Fu Nanhua, whose head was crowned with a tall hat.
Those who disrupt my resolve must be killed, to strengthen my Dao heart!
At that moment, when Fu Nanhua looked at Cai Jinjian again, his gaze, bearing, and state of mind returned to their previous ease. He looked as though he were merely admiring a painting. Beauty and beautiful scenery alike could nourish the eye; he would look a few more times while he could. After all, once she left the town, she was destined to perish in his hands.
Those who murder and set fires wear golden belts; those who build roads and pave bridges leave no bones behind.
Listen to that—some maxims from the lowest levels of the marketplace truly applied everywhere under heaven.
Fu Nanhua's heart suddenly opened wide.
Standing sideways, Cai Jinjian asked in a soft, seductive voice, "Nanhua, what did you think of that made you so happy?"
She had quietly changed to a more intimate form of address.
Fu Nanhua shook his head with a smile. Just as he was about to speak, a flash of black entered the corner of his eye.
A lean young man seemed to take only one step as he crossed from the transverse alley to appear before Cai Jinjian. His left hand lashed upward, while at the same time his right fist had already smashed into the abdomen of the fairy from Cloud Mist Mountain. The blow was heavy and powerful, and the sudden exertion over such a short distance even carried the faint howl of wind, forcing the woman to bend at the waist and lower her head.
Although the power in the young man's right hand already far surpassed that of his peers, he was in fact left-handed. Thus, the sharp weapon gripped in his left hand plunged completely into Cai Jinjian's throat, piercing straight through the floor of her mouth.
Still unwilling to stop, the young man smashed his right fist into the woman's chest while his left hand continued to jerk upward.
He ensured that there would not be the slightest accident in this ambush.
At that instant, blood gushed from the woman's originally slender, fair neck.
Next, the young man drove strength through his waist and ankles, slamming his shoulder into the tall woman's chest and violently knocking her entire body into the transverse alley.
Fu Nanhua planted his feet on the ground and stood rigidly where he was.
The Young Master of Old Dragon City's mind was completely blank.