Beautiful Shadow IV

Beautiful Shadow IV

"Young Master." Xiao Qiao pushed the door open sleepily, rubbing her eyes as she set a large plate of Custard Cakes on the table. "Your breakfast is here. The millet porridge is still simmering. There are no steamed buns today, only Custard Cakes."

"Custard Cakes are the festival sweet around here." Lu Sheng slammed the window shut and turned to look at Xiao Qiao.

After just a few months apart, the girl had grown even more fresh and lovely.

"Oh, Young Master, your eyes are bad!" Xiao Qiao pouted. "The clothes you brought for me, Qiao'er only just realized they have all become too small. My body has been growing so fast lately."

Lu Sheng smiled. "I'll take you to buy clothes later."

Xiao Qiao's little face immediately scrunched up.

"Better not. Things are different at home now. We can barely afford Young Master's medicine, and there are so many places where money is needed."

Lu Sheng froze, suddenly feeling ashamed. The family was so poor that even Qiao'er had become this sensible and knew to save money, yet he had known nothing at all.

After Qiao'er came over, she lived in one of the rooms here. She was his personal maid, after all, and sooner or later they would share a bed. If Lu Sheng was willing in the future, he could give her the status of a concubine. That alone would count as her climbing the ladder.

Qiao'er had not been born into a good family. Her father was a gambling addict. When his eyes turned red from losing, he staked both his wife and daughter as well, only to lose everything down to the very bottom. Xiao Qiao and her mother had nearly been sold to a brothel, but kind-hearted Second Mother Liu Cuiyu spent money to buy them and paid off their debts.

Yet even so, Xiao Qiao's mother had fallen gravely ill from the earlier turmoil and soon passed away. Only Qiao'er remained at Lu Estate, and she came to regard the Lu Family as her own home.

"I need to think of a way to make money." Lu Sheng began treating the matter as a serious priority.

He turned around and saw Qiao'er taking another envelope from her robes.

"A courier just came and delivered a letter." Qiao'er placed it on the table.

Lu Sheng walked over, picked up two Custard Cakes with his chopsticks and ate them, then took up the letter. The sender marked on the envelope was the Lu Family.

"It's a letter from home." He opened the envelope and read the letter.

Its general meaning was that the family had decided to relocate to Yan Mountain City. Lu Sheng was not to worry; everything there was going smoothly, and he should focus on preparing for the Yearly Examination.

Shaking his head, Lu Sheng finished reading and put the letter away in the desk drawer.

"Is today's medicine ready?" he asked Xiao Qiao. At the same time, he swiftly devoured the Custard Cakes piled on the plate. Of the twenty-odd palm-sized cakes, he finished more than half in just a few bites.

"It's ready and in the medicine box. Young Master, go practice. The earlier you leave, the earlier you'll return," Xiao Qiao said hurriedly. She knew it was almost time for Lu Sheng's daily training.

"Mm."

Knock, knock, knock.

Suddenly, someone gently knocked on the door.

"Who is it?" Xiao Qiao hurried to open it. Before long, Lu Sheng heard her speaking with someone outside, followed by the soft sound of the door closing.

"Who was it?" Lu Sheng finished breakfast and rose, preparing to change clothes for training.

"A servant from the Song family. He came to deliver a letter." Xiao Qiao handed the envelope to Lu Sheng. "Young Master, have a look."

Lu Sheng accepted it. Seeing "To Brother Lu" written on the envelope, he knew it was from Song Zhenguo. Among his friends, the only Song he was close with was Song Zhenguo.

He opened the envelope. The letter said that tomorrow was the Scented Silk Festival, and he would be redeeming Ruler from the pleasure boat. He invited Lu Sheng to come celebrate with him and serve as a witness. At the end, it specifically stated that Lu Sheng had to come; Song Zhenguo would be treating.

"Redeeming her?" Lu Sheng murmured. He had long seen that Ruler and Song Zhenguo had an unusual relationship. He had not expected Song Zhenguo to have developed genuine feelings and actually intended to redeem her.

Still, Song Zhenguo was a good friend. Lu Sheng had nothing else to do, so there was no harm in going. Besides, someone else was paying.

After putting away the letter and locking it in the drawer with the other one, Lu Sheng took up a straight saber and prepared to leave. When he returned to his room to change, he stopped before the Bronze Mirror and looked at himself.

Recently, he had distinctly felt the power of the Black Tiger Jade Crane Skill gradually revealing itself within him. This internal art, transformed in quality, was nourishing his body bit by bit and making it ever stronger.

Coupled with the intense heat stimulation of the Black Fiend Skill, Lu Sheng could now feel his five viscera and six bowels constantly being tempered, impurities and toxins refined out of them.

These changes sometimes made him feel that even if he had not practiced hard martial arts, his physique, endurance, and strength might not be inferior to those experts in such arts.

He casually swung the saber. As the Black Tiger Jade Crane Skill and Black Fiend Skill circulated, a faint, rumbling vibration immediately sounded in the air. Lu Sheng raised his saber-wielding right arm. At some point, it had become faintly covered in black-red veins and sinews, twisted and savage in appearance.

He had grown much stronger lately. If he were not usually dressed in long robes, but instead wore close-fitting clothes, anyone would see the powerful, well-proportioned muscles covering his body. Compared with an ordinary scholar, one of his arms was as thick as another man's thinner thigh.

"I need a good saber."

Lu Sheng raised the straight saber. Its blade reflected his current face, but also showed countless tiny, warped cracks.

"This saber is nearly broken too."

Suddenly, faint footsteps came from the doorway. Someone seemed to be trying to sneak quietly into his bedroom, and the rhythm of those steps was vastly different from Xiao Qiao's.

"Who is it?!"

Roar!!! A tiger's roar erupted.

Lu Sheng whipped his head around, his eyes widening. As internal qi surged through his body, a fierce, majestic baleful aura burst forth. The churning surge of his inner qi even caused a deafening tiger's roar to ring through the air.

A girl at the doorway was so frightened that she dropped onto the floor on her backside. It was Zheng Yu'er.

Her little face was deathly pale. Frightened out of her wits, her legs went weak beneath her, and for a moment she could not even stand.

"Wuwuwu, Brother Lu, you're bullying me."

Zheng Yu'er had only wanted to secretly give Lu Sheng a surprise, yet she had been scared badly instead. Tears immediately welled up in her eyes.

"Wuwuwu..." Zheng Yu'er cried without stopping. Left with no choice, Lu Sheng stepped forward to help her up and comforted her a few times.

"I think I just saw a huge black tiger pouncing at Yu'er. It scared me to death!" Zheng Yu'er's little face remained pale afterward.

"Don't sneak up behind me in the future. It's dangerous." Lu Sheng reached out and rubbed Zheng Yu'er's head. "Why did you come here? Where is your brother?"

"He's still at the academy. Tomorrow is the Scented Silk Festival. Does Brother Lu have any plans?" Zheng Yu'er immediately recovered her liveliness. Rubbing her eyes, she quickly asked in a low voice.

"A friend invited me to drink."

"Ah?? Too late again!!" Zheng Yu'er cried out in disappointment. "Sigh, fine, fine. I need to hurry and find the next one, before they get booked too. I'm leaving first, Brother Lu!" She seemed to have some other purpose. In a rush, she jogged back out of the room, coming quickly and leaving just as quickly.

Xiao Qiao hurried in as well, her eyes brimming with tears.

"Miss Yu'er wouldn't let me say it was her. Young Master, I..."

"From now on, notify me beforehand whenever anyone comes in," Lu Sheng instructed calmly.

"Yes, yes." Frightened by Lu Sheng's stern tone, Qiao'er hurriedly lowered her head in acknowledgment.

Lu Sheng glanced at her, then carried his saber out of the room.

He felt that his baleful aura had been growing heavier lately. A life too peaceful and stable did not seem very beneficial for cultivating the Black Fiend Skill. From time to time, he felt an urge to kill brutally and slaughter without restraint. Perhaps this was the Black Fiend Skill's aftereffect.

The next day, the streets were filled with boisterous Scented Silk Festival folk-song processions, along with acrobats, embroidered-ball tossers, monkey trainers, wandering performers, and more.

All kinds of activities crowded the streets. The closer one went to the city center, the more packed and lively it became.

As usual, Lu Sheng read scriptures and classical texts, cultivated his internal qi, and practiced saber and palm techniques. Only when evening had fallen did he head to the place he had arranged to meet Song Zhenguo.

The meeting place was beneath a row of willows by the Pine Cypress River.

Song Zhenguo was already waiting there, and Chen Jiaorong was with him.

"Brother Lu, Brother Yue Sheng! Too slow, too slow!" Song Zhenguo strode up laughing and clapped Lu Sheng on the shoulder. "Jiaorong and I have been waiting for you quite a while."

After the incident with Wang Ziquan, he had seen the true faces of many so-called friends. In one stroke, he cast aside all those friends he had once acknowledged and no longer associated closely with them. The only people who truly counted as his friends were two.

One was Chen Jiaorong, Chen Yunxi's older brother.

The other was Lu Sheng.

Today, he was redeeming Ruler, and he had invited Lu Sheng and Chen Jiaorong to serve as witnesses. It was also a celebration.

Originally, he had planned to come alone. But after thinking it over again and again, this was such an important matter. If he did not inform his two best friends, he would feel bad about it.

So in the end, he wrote to both of them and invited them over.

"Today is Brother Song's joyous day. A whole night of endless romantic fortune and merry pleasures, hehe. Yet you specially made the two of us come watch with longing eyes. That's not very brotherly," Chen Jiaorong said, pointing at Song Zhenguo with a grin.

"Brother Song only cares about enjoying himself. How could he remember friends and confidants like us?" Lu Sheng joked as well.

"Enough talk. Let's go, let's go. Don't delay it. We'll board first!" Song Zhenguo laughed. "Everyone has something planned tonight!"

Chen Jiaorong's eyes immediately lit up. Pulling Lu Sheng along, the three headed toward the painted pleasure boat moored not far away by the river.

The pleasure boat floated quietly before the dock. People came and went aboard, with many guests present. It was quite lively.

At the window of a cabin on the side of the boat, Ruler sat before the window, her almond eyes wide as she stared fixedly at Song Zhenguo and the other two.

"How could this be??? How could this be!! Brother Song clearly promised me he wouldn't come today!!?" Ruler's face turned deathly pale. Her hand clutched the edge of the table tightly, and she bit her lower lip until a trace of blood appeared, without even noticing.

"How could it be like this???" Despair filled Ruler's heart. She knew her master's target was Brother Song, Song Zhenguo. So she had secretly warned Brother Song beforehand not to come to the pleasure boat today. Why had he come anyway, and with such delight and happiness? Ruler felt her entire body going numb, unable to summon any strength. She wanted to rush from the room and find Song Zhenguo, to tell him to leave at once. But she knew she could not do it.

"Hee hee hee..."

Suddenly, a shrill woman's laughter rang out from elsewhere in the room.

Ruler abruptly looked over.

At some unknown point, a long-haired woman dressed entirely in white had appeared sitting on her bed.

The woman's black hair cascaded like a waterfall, covering her entire head and face so that not even a hint of her features could be seen. Her body was so slender that a gust of wind seemed enough to blow her down.