The Matter Settled I

"Ruler!!" Song Zhenguo was instantly shocked. He grabbed Ruler and held her tight, his face full of panic. "What's wrong? What happened!? What on earth is going on??"

Held tightly in his arms, Ruler revealed a helpless smile.

"Brother Song, I... I..."

Lu Sheng, standing to one side, had actually long suspected that Ruler might not be human. He had not expected it to be true.

Perhaps none of the girls aboard that ship had been human. They were women who had died long ago, bound to the ship by some special force and using their beauty to achieve some purpose.

He did not disturb them. Instead, he silently walked away and kept watch over Chen Jiaorong in an open area nearby, regulating his breathing to recover from his injuries.

With every circulation of the Black Tiger Jade Crane Skill, he could feel a faint numb itch rising from his wounds. It was the sensation of flesh and blood regenerating as they healed.

After roughly the time it took for an incense stick to burn, Song Zhenguo came over with reddened eyes. Ruler was nowhere to be seen.

"Let's go. We're going back," he said in a low voice, his throat somewhat hoarse.

Lu Sheng knew the outcome. Ruler must have been connected to the Red Pavilion Ghost Ship. With the ship destroyed, its people had perished as well. Song Zhenguo had likely understood the reason too.

The two silently carried Chen Jiaorong on their backs and hurried toward Yan Mountain City. Song Zhenguo did not speak the entire way, nor did Lu Sheng. Only when they were nearing Yan Mountain City's gates did Song Zhenguo suddenly speak.

"Brother Lu, can I learn martial arts from you too?" His eyes carried pleading and grief. Ruler's death had clearly dealt him a severe blow.

Lu Sheng stopped and looked at him, then let out a sigh.

"There must be a powerful force behind Ruler. Otherwise, the Yan Mountain City authorities would never have allowed the Red Pavilion Ghost Ship to harm people on the river. In truth, they usually did not harm many people. Perhaps it was merely a concealed method, and they only acted when necessary."

Song Zhenguo shook his head with a bitter smile. "I know all that. In the end, Ruler's death was caused by that White Dress Female Ghost. Brother Lu has already killed her, so there is nothing more to say. I just... I just don't want something like this to happen again in the future."

Lu Sheng looked at him and saw profound helplessness and pain in his eyes.

"You should know that ordinary martial arts can be learned simply by paying money. But unique martial arts cannot be casually passed on."

Song Zhenguo's gaze was firm. "Then what conditions would make Brother Lu willing to teach me? Do I need to become your disciple? No problem!"

"No, no, there's no rush. I'm not even sure whether you have the aptitude for martial arts. We'll have to test you first." Lu Sheng himself had only taken up martial arts halfway through life. As for aptitude, he had no method of testing it and could only let Song Zhenguo try first.

Moreover, unique martial arts were not to be lightly transmitted. This was a common rule here, and he did not wish to break it. To put it plainly, most unique martial arts had been created through their founder's painstaking research and experimentation, consuming immense effort and energy. Some had even been developed at the cost of the creator's health, leaving them crippled or disabled.

Who would be willing to teach such a creation to an outsider for nothing? It was like those great merchants and wealthy magnates—after laboring half a lifetime to build their fortune, could they casually be asked to hand it over to an outsider? That was the true meaning behind the so-called family martial arts of many experts. Since they were not passed to outsiders, they could only be passed down within the family.

Lu Sheng had also heard of people casually teaching martial arts to others. Usually, it was because they had obtained those martial arts too easily and did not cherish them enough.

However, he did not care about that. With the Modifier, no matter who it was, trying to compete with him in cultivation speed would be futile. With the same martial art, he could reach its peak countless times faster than an ordinary person.

Thus, this was not what Lu Sheng worried about. What worried him was exposing his secret. If outsiders learned that his martial arts had been independently deduced and created from different martial arts, it might draw tremendous attention.

That did not fit with his plan to make a fortune in silence and quietly raise his strength.

"How about this? We'll test you first, then I'll consider whether to teach you martial arts." Lu Sheng planned to take a look first. If Song Zhenguo truly had talent, he would start by teaching him basic skills.

"Alright!"

Song Zhenguo also knew that there would be tests and such before martial arts were imparted. In those strange tale novels, wandering heroes often followed such rules.

The two entered the city one after the other with Chen Jiaorong, and the owner of a clothing shop by the city gate immediately recognized Chen Jiaorong and hurried off to spread the news.

Lu Sheng's current appearance was not suitable for others to see, so he had Song Zhenguo take Chen Jiaorong to the Chen family and explain matters. He himself quietly left and returned home.

As he walked through the streets, people everywhere looked at him strangely. Quite a few children even trailed after him, treating him as a spectacle.

Lu Sheng had no choice but to quicken his pace. When he reached his front door and felt around himself, he discovered that even his key and money pouch had been burned away.

"This is a huge loss. All the banknotes were inside..." Lu Sheng froze, feeling that things had gone badly.

Knock, knock, knock.

With no alternative, he knocked on the door.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Xiao Qiao's light, hurried footsteps raced over. "Who is it?"

"It's me," Lu Sheng answered. "I lost the key. Open the door, Xiao Qiao."

Hearing his voice, Xiao Qiao hurriedly opened the door.

The door slowly swung open, revealing Xiao Qiao's pretty, adorable little face. Smiling, she lifted her head to look at him.

The moment she saw Lu Sheng, the little girl first went blank. Then her eyes abruptly widened.

"Y-you-you-you...!!!" Her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed to the ground unconscious.

Lu Sheng was speechless. Hearing the voices of people in the shops below being stirred up, he hurried into the house, picked Xiao Qiao up, and placed her on the bed inside. Then he went to boil water and prepare a wooden tub.

After a round of busy work, he thoroughly washed away the soot from his body. He blackened the water in tub after tub, then got up and fetched a basin of water to wipe himself down once more, staining the towel gray-black before he was finally clean.

After washing and getting dressed, Qiao'er woke up not long after. Upon seeing him, Xiao Qiao widened her eyes and carefully examined him from head to toe before recognizing him as Young Master Lu Sheng, whom she served every day.

Lu Sheng explained things to her at length, saying that his clothes had caught fire and that fortunately his injuries were not serious. Only then did Qiao'er hurriedly run to fetch a doctor. Besides the money Lu Sheng carried on him, the household had several dozen taels of silver saved for Xiao Qiao's daily expenses, enough to pay for the doctor.

Seeing the burns all over Lu Sheng's body as the doctor slowly applied medicine, Qiao'er sat at the side with tears in her eyes, looking as though she wanted to reach out and touch him but feared hurting him.

After the medicine was applied to his burns, Lu Sheng began resting at home and did not even go to school.

After only half a month of recuperation, most of his injuries had healed. It was merely that his skin no longer had any of its former hair.

Strangely, his skin bore no burn scars. All his hair had simply been burned away, leaving him completely bald—no hair, no eyebrows, not even a beard. He was smooth all over.

After staying home on leave for some time, it was soon time for the Yearly Examination.

Since Song Zhenguo had gone back, there had been no word from him. No one knew what he was doing. After Chen Jiaorong returned, he learned what had happened and merely sent Lu Sheng a letter thanking him for saving his life. However, the letter did not mention the Red Pavilion Ghost Ship or anything similar. Song Zhenguo had probably not told him, and even if he had, Chen Jiaorong might not have believed it.

The letter said that he had been confined to his home. Going to a pleasure boat without permission was not exactly an evil act, but it was not something honorable either, something that could not be brought into the open. Furthermore, this incident had become such a huge mess and he had nearly burned to death, provoking his elderly father's furious rage. He had ordered Chen Jiaorong not to leave the house.

Chen Yunxi, however, personally came to visit Lu Sheng and thank him. She also gave him a pair of White Jade Qilin as a gift of thanks. On behalf of her father, the Chen family head, she invited him to visit their home once he had recovered from his injuries.

But upon seeing Lu Sheng with all his hair burned away, Chen Yunxi was greatly startled as well. Still, she found it rather amusing. Covering her mouth, she fussed with Lu Sheng for half the day, both worried and distressed yet unable to stop laughing. She did not return until late afternoon, nearly evening.

After resting at home for a while and gradually recovering, Lu Sheng planned to find a way to test his current state of strength. That final explosive move aboard the pleasure boat had stayed on his mind.

Before that, however, the appearance of an unexpected person slightly disrupted his plans.

Drunken Chaos Teahouse, beside the General Military Governor Residence in Yan Mountain City.

On the third floor of the red teahouse with its pointed roof, Lu Sheng sat facing a pretty woman veiled in black gauze, within a private room on the highest floor.

Sunflower seeds, chicken feet, fruit, nuts, and other tea snacks lay on the table between them. A vermilion teapot sat quietly in the middle, wisps of steam still rising from its spout. There was a cup before each of them, half-filled with clear green tea.

Lu Sheng picked up a dried fig and gently placed it in his mouth, his eyes calmly fixed on the woman across from him.

"How many times have we met now?"

Duanmu Wan smiled, looking somewhat exhausted. "I happened to be passing through here to see someone. Mm... perhaps they count as a friend. I didn't expect to run into you on the street."

She had spotted Lu Sheng going out for breakfast while riding through the streets. After they met, Lu Sheng suggested that they sit together for a while. For some reason, she had agreed to his invitation to have tea at the teahouse.

"Miss Duanmu, were you searching for that precious treasure before this?" Lu Sheng had learned the inside story behind the major events in Nine Links City from Duanmu Wan, so he hoped to learn more related news and intelligence from this mysterious woman—especially about the world she came from.

"Yes. There are many, many people searching for that thing." Duanmu Wan truly looked exhausted. Her entire body was wrapped in black gauze, and her large black conical hat hung from the coat rack beside them. If Lu Sheng had not seen her from below while they were on the street, he truly would not have recognized her as Duanmu Wan.

Lu Sheng glanced at her hands. Her slender, snow-white hands, the cuffs and forearms of her clothes bore several tears, stained with dried blood. Her trouser legs were also speckled with tiny yellow mud spots, clearly splashed there while rushing at high speed. The faint dark circles beneath her eyes showed that she had not rested well.

"You really are tired," Lu Sheng sighed.

Duanmu Wan nodded and sighed. None of the calm, seductive ease she had possessed when she first met Lu Sheng remained.

"Some people always think victory is already in their grasp. They refuse to listen to anything, and they believe they are right about everything. No matter how much proof you find or how often you tell them they are wrong, it's useless. Tell me, aren't people like that infuriating?"

Lu Sheng fell silent for a moment.

"They are very infuriating."