Beautiful Shadow I

Creak.

After closing the door, Song Zhenguo walked to the windowsill and happened to see a black pigeon with pinkish-white eyes perched on his window lattice, calmly preening its feathers.

At the sight, his spirits lifted. He quickly stepped over, caught the pigeon, and gently removed a small paper tube from its leg.

Unrolling the paper tube, he saw a line of delicate handwriting clearly written on it: "Brother Song, Ruler will help you ask about that Young Master Wang.

"Also, the Scented Silk Festival will be here before long. Can Brother Song promise Ruler that, when the time comes, you absolutely, absolutely must not come to the painted boat. You must not come!"

Song Zhenguo froze, then continued reading.

"On that day, Boat Woman and the others will use the girls' names as a pretext to stir up gimmicks and swindle people everywhere. They also have certain arrangements that are unfavorable to Brother Song. Promise me. Ruler will handle everything properly. Once this Scented Silk Festival is over, Ruler will agree to go home with Brother Song."

After reading the contents of the unrolled note, a rich delight immediately appeared on Song Zhenguo's face.

"Brother Song promises you. I definitely won't give them an opportunity!" Though he was somewhat puzzled, since the reasons here were rather far-fetched, out of trust in Ruler, he did not suspect anything.

Song Zhenguo swiftly found some paper and wrote down what he wanted to say. He then rolled it into a tube and tied it to the black pigeon's leg. Cupping the pigeon in both hands, he tossed it outward. With a flutter of wings, the pigeon flew away.

Flapping its wings, the black pigeon flew out of the Song Family Courtyard, lightly skimming through the vermilion brick and tile buildings. It crossed streets laid out like blocks of tofu, passed over the uneven black rooftops of lofty pavilions, and soon reached Pine Cypress River, descending toward a red painted boat.

The black pigeon flapped its wings and stopped before the window of a cabin on the painted boat, where a slender pale hand gently held it.

Ruler swiftly removed the paper roll tied to the black pigeon's foot, looked around, and hurriedly released it.

"Go on, go back to your nest," she said softly.

The black pigeon spread its wings and flew away, soon vanishing beyond the edge of the window.

Ruler closed the window and gently unfolded the note to read it. A trace of tenderness immediately appeared on her face. She hastily lit the paper roll over the candle flame.

She held it in her hand until only a tiny corner remained, then gently opened a crack in the window and tossed it out, letting it drift into Pine Cypress River.

Creak. The door suddenly opened by itself, as though someone outside had pushed it open. Ruler spun around in fright, pressing a hand over her wildly pounding chest as she stared fixedly at the doorway.

After steadying herself, she walked over and looked to either side. Finding neither movement nor shadow, she stretched her head out to look along the corridor outside.

This was a dressing room below the boat's deck. Because of Song Zhenguo, she now had a private dressing room of her own, and there was no one nearby. The other sisters had all gone upstairs to receive guests.

The corridor was empty, without a single person.

Ruler quietly let out a breath of relief, turned back into the room, locked the door, and slid home an extra bolt.

She sat before the dressing table, picked up a comb, and gently combed her hair. Whenever her emotions churned, combing her hair always gradually calmed her down.

Yet the moment she picked up the comb, her expression abruptly changed.

On the wooden tabletop beneath the comb, a line of writing had been clearly scrawled in black eyebrow pencil.

"The Scented Silk Festival is when you must make your move. Do not forget your identity."

Ruler bit her lower lip, struggle filling her eyes. After hesitating for a moment, she lightly wrote a single "Yes" with the eyebrow pencil, then reached out and wiped away the words, leaving behind only a smear of black stains.

When she raised her head again and looked at her blurred face in the bronze mirror, she was lost in a daze for a time.

She knew it was a warning, warning her not to do anything extra. But fortunately, the contents of the note had not been discovered.

"What a pity. I can't grow old together with Brother Song." Regret and resolve flashed through her beautiful eyes.

Her master wanted to gather people born at the yin hour, and they had to be born in a yin year, yin month, and yin hour. Song Zhenguo was one of the targets. In order to seize him, every contingency had already been prepared. All that remained was for her to invite him here on the day of the Scented Silk Festival.

But without realizing it, she had gradually come to like the upright and forthright Song Zhenguo. Admiration, longing, the wish to rely on him and have him to rely on... "Brother Song... Ruler is so tired. So, so tired..." Ruler gently touched her cheek as a tear silently slid from the corner of her eye.

In a small ravine outside the city.

Bang!!

Lu Sheng turned and struck with his palm, blasting the thick boulder behind him into fragments. The arm-length stone shattered into four pieces and scattered across the ground.

Bang bang bang!!

Lu Sheng spun around again and unleashed a rapid chain of palm strikes, smashing each of the remaining stones hanging around him into fragments.

Pale gray stone dust slowly spread through the air, making it somewhat hard to breathe.

Lu Sheng slowly withdrew his power, brought his palms together loosely, and settled into a stance with his qi sinking to his dantian.

"My saber and palm techniques are already sufficient. What I still lack are lightness skills and footwork, and I also need to make up for long-range hidden weapons. Otherwise, if the distance opens up and I encounter an opponent who flies kites, it'll be troublesome." Lu Sheng slowly calmed his internal energy as he considered the matter.

"Besides, the Jade Crane Skill absorbed the force-generating method of the Black Tiger Saber and underwent an improved qualitative transformation. But that improvement depended on the powder left behind by that ghostly thing.

"If I had to handle the fusion process and its details myself, the experience and experimentation required would be far too great. That would be as difficult as creating a martial art from scratch. It simply can't be done by one person."

Afterward, he had also tried making breakthroughs in other internal and external arts, but to no avail. After several attempts, they had all ended with his meridians injured. Moreover, the results of those repeated attempts had been completely different from what he expected.

"Without sufficiently rich martial arts experience, it seems I can't create a technique of my own to break through a technique's limits." Lu Sheng understood this clearly. "The Jade Crane Skill was able to absorb the Black Tiger Saber's force techniques and produce a beneficial qualitative transformation. It looked simple, but in reality, it must have been the best result after countless simulations beforehand. If I want to continue improving my martial arts, I must find more things like those left behind by ghostly beings."

After finishing his training, Lu Sheng walked to the trunk of a large tree, took down the outer robe and towel he had hung there, and wiped the sweat from his body.

"I should test the power of the third level of the Black Fiend Skill." He had never gone all out to test just how strong the third level of the Black Fiend Skill was. Now that his body had recovered, it was the perfect time to try.

Looking at the tree before him, Lu Sheng suddenly felt inspired. He fully drove his internal qi, poured it into his right hand, and struck out with a savage palm.

Bang!!

It sounded the same as before, and the force was not much greater. After all, the Black Fiend Skill did not mainly amplify explosive power.

Lu Sheng slowly withdrew his hand and saw a pitch-black palm print clearly imprinted in the center of the trunk.

The palm print was more than ten centimeters deep, and an acrid, fiery smell wafted from it.

Lu Sheng lightly touched the edge of the black palm print. A large piece of bark immediately fell away, its inner surface covered in countless black patterns like wrinkles.

"This is a burn, as though it had been scorched by fire. The Black Fiend Skill seems to be of quite a good grade even among yang-aspected internal arts. What a pity it only has a few incomplete levels... If I could deduce and strengthen the Black Fiend Skill, its future development and improvement might be even greater!"

By now, his deep cultivation was already equivalent to that of an ordinary person training for forty or fifty years, and that did not even include the time spent practicing the Black Tiger Saber Technique and his other martial arts.

"Next, I need to practice a specialized footwork. Whether it's the Black Tiger Saber or my other martial arts, they only have footwork that supports attacking. I don't have a complete system of footwork purely meant for traveling, pursuit, or escape."

Lu Sheng began searching through the footwork techniques he had collected. So far, he had only obtained one: the Eight Treasures Step acquired in Nine Links City. But that was only meant for dodging during combat.

"Deep Blue," he silently called in his heart.

The Modifier's square interface appeared, hovering before his eyes.

Lu Sheng recalled the Eight Treasures Step he had memorized earlier. This footwork was even a notch inferior to the Wind Chasing Saber and did not even have a visualization diagram, so he had simply committed it to memory.

Carefully recalling each step, Lu Sheng slowly extended his left foot. Then his left calf muscles twisted and exerted force to the left, while his right leg tapped against the tree trunk at his side. Borrowing the force, his entire body surged forward in a leap. This was the first step of the Eight Treasures Step. The footwork contained eight steps and three levels in total, and was said to imitate the once-famous Central Plains footwork, Eight Steps Chasing the Cicada.

Lu Sheng studied it for a while. With his existing foundation in footwork, he quickly became familiar with its movements and force methods, and the Eight Treasures Step option appeared on the Modifier.

He immediately stopped moving and pressed the modify button with his mind.

The entire Modifier interface abruptly flashed.

"Raise the Eight Treasures Step by one level," Lu Sheng continued.

On the Modifier, the Eight Treasures Step's status instantly changed from uninitiated to initiated.

Lu Sheng checked his physical condition. Other than a faint numb itch in his legs and a slight decrease in the internal qi of his Black Tiger Jade Crane Skill, there was no other reaction.

"Without realizing it, I've already accumulated to this extent. Martial arts at the bottom rung of the Jianghu can no longer make me feel burdened." Lu Sheng sighed inwardly, then continued looking at the Modifier interface.

"Eight Treasures Step: Initiated."

"Raise the Eight Treasures Step directly to the highest, third level," Lu Sheng simply commanded in his mind.

Whoosh! The Eight Treasures Step flashed, changing from initiated to the first level. Lu Sheng seemed to feel nothing.

Whoosh! The second level. Lu Sheng felt his legs itch more intensely.

Then, with one final whoosh, the Eight Treasures Step jumped directly to the third level. The internal qi of his Black Tiger Jade Crane Skill had also been depleted by four-fifths, an amount that would take him at least two days to recover.

But as for the entire footwork, Lu Sheng now felt that the countless experiences, movements, and applications of the Eight Treasures Step had all melted together in his mind. His legs were also clearly more nimble and a little stronger than before.

"Let's try it!"

Lu Sheng spotted a sparrow ahead of him that had just fluttered up from the grass and shot toward the distance.

He exerted force through his feet and charged sharply forward.

Pfft pfft pfft. He chased after it in eight rapid consecutive steps. Before the little bird could react and turn, Lu Sheng had caught it in his palm with a single slap.

"My explosive power is strong. Both the Black Fiend Skill's internal qi and the Black Tiger Jade Crane Skill enhance explosive force, and they've strengthened my body as well. Using the Eight Treasures Step on this foundation gives quite a good result. This should have the effect of Eight Steps Chasing the Cicada, right?" Lu Sheng released his hand in satisfaction, only to see the little sparrow crushed into a bloody lump. He immediately felt helpless.

"With my footwork settled, it's time to try finding a hard skill." Lu Sheng thought it over. During the months he had spent in Yan Mountain City, he had secretly investigated and asked around enough to understand the city's situation.

Yan Mountain City did not have many experts. Because the authorities were powerful and kept the Jianghu people under tight control, the city's experts were instead mostly officials and military commanders.

The most famous among them was One Qi Green Peak Sword Lu Chengzhong. Compared with him, everyone else was merely a foil. But Lu Chengzhong was already eighty-seven years old, and all three of his sons were high-ranking officials in the city. He was simply too difficult to approach for instruction.

Lu Sheng was the first to rule this one out.