Vicious Man

Xiao Jie was very fair.

Ning Xuan liked her fair skin.

The first time he saw her, she was outside a Buddhist temple in the neighboring prefectural city, copying scriptures for a wealthy patron.

Her handwriting was graceful, and she was lovely.

Ning Xuan went up and asked, "How much?"

Xiao Jie replied calmly, "Ten coins per hundred characters. The paper is fine Xuan paper, and the ink has a delicate fragrance, with pine resin mixed in. Pine resin is cheap, but this servant made it herself."

In the evening breeze and sunset glow, she adjusted her long hair. Her face bore the serene smile of someone who had seen through Zen and taken the world's troubles lightly. Then she said in an unassuming tone, "Ten coins per hundred characters isn't expensive. This servant isn't here to make money, either. I only seek some peace and a connection with the Buddha."

Ning Xuan took out a silver ingot and placed it on the table.

It was a hefty ingot, the standard twenty-tael weight.

"That's too much," Xiao Jie said.

Ning Xuan replied, "I need a personal maid. I'll give you this much every month. Will you do it?"

Xiao Jie was silent for several breaths, then packed up her things.

Ning Xuan asked curiously, "Weren't you seeking peace and a connection with the Buddha?"

Young Master Ning is this servant's peace. He is the connection the Buddha has bestowed upon her," Xiao Jie replied.

Ning Xuan liked Xiao Jie's candor.

So, after they climbed into the carriage, he took out another twenty taels and placed them on Xiao Jie's snowy-white thighs.

"That's too much," Xiao Jie said.

Ning Xuan replied, "I need a bedchamber maid."

Xiao Jie looked troubled.

Ning Xuan took out another ten taels and added, "Fifty taels a month."

Xiao Jie silently tucked the thirty taels of silver into her bosom, then happily linked her arm with Ning Xuan's.

After that, she did her job well.

She kept at it for two years.

The Ning Family's eldest young master was never short of women. Though he was young, he had grown up surrounded by beauties. Still, Xiao Jie had stayed at his side for two years, right when he truly needed a woman.

Xiao Jie never asked to become his concubine. Instead, she always said that once she had saved enough money, she wanted to leave. She wanted to see the world beyond, witness the sun setting at the ends of the earth, and gaze upon the lonely smoke rising beside distant rivers.

The maids who envied her would occasionally spread nasty rumors where the young master could hear. Things like, "Xiao Jie doesn't really want to leave. She's just using her sly fox tricks to deliberately seduce Young Master Ning." Or, "Xiao Jie actually wants to be a concubine more than anything. She's just playing games. That woman's so calculating." And, "Xiao Jie looks so refined and quiet, but when she's with Young Master Ning, she's such a slut. It's disgusting."

Ning Xuan never hid anything from her. So, when Xiao Jie nestled in his arms and fed him fruit, he told her what the others had said.

Xiao Jie didn't panic. Instead, she smiled serenely and said, "Back when this servant copied scriptures, she came across a saying: 'If a man is not offended when others fail to understand him, is he not a gentleman?' This servant is no gentleman, but she won't grow angry just because others don't understand her."

Ning Xuan asked curiously, "Then what do you really think?"

Xiao Jie fed the young master a piece of freshly arrived fish sashimi from the Eastern Sea. Then she gazed into the distance, a look of longing in her beautiful eyes, and said, "This servant's family is poor. If she follows the usual path, she'll do nothing but marry, have children, and toil away her whole life.

"But by staying with Young Master Ning, she can earn a lifetime's worth of money in just a few short years. With that money, she'll be able to see the world beyond.

"When that time comes, this servant won't stay for anyone. Wherever the wind goes, she'll go.

"As for being wanton, they aren't wrong. But a woman only gets to be a woman once. Naturally, she wants to give all her womanly charms to the person she cares for most, then leave without regrets."

She smiled flirtatiously, radiating charm, though contradictions and reluctance lingered in her eyes.

From that day on, Ning Xuan knew that the bedchamber maid at his side was a "shameless liar who never even blinked."

But

he liked her.

A truly sophisticated young lady could always keenly sense the reactions of the person beside her.

When Ning Xuan woke from his nightmare, the muscles in his left arm tensed.

Xiao Jie woke up too.

She opened her eyes.

The bright moonlight spilled in from outside, and the patch of light slanting across the stone floor had grown very, very narrow.

"Is something on your mind, Young Master?" Xiao Jie's voice had grown quiet and composed again, unassuming. In that moment, she seemed less like a bedchamber maid who eagerly catered to her master and more like his confidante.

Ning Xuan was recalling his dream.

In the dream, the Mountain Crashing Bear Demon had come after daybreak. Could that have been a sign?

A sign that the demon would really arrive after daybreak?

In the dream, he had faced death without fear and fought with all his might, but only those who had truly died knew how terrifying death was.

He had suffered so much in the dream.

Did he have to suffer in the waking world, too?

Why should he suffer?

He had been through so much misery in the dream, so why should he risk his life fighting again in the waking world? This time, he wasn't facing a "weakened" Mountain Crashing Bear Demon. He was facing a completely whole one.

No! Maybe there was more than one.

Ning Xuan suddenly rolled over and straddled Xiao Jie's waist.

Xiao Jie giggled.

But in the next instant, Ning Xuan rolled off her, swiftly got out of bed, and quickly pulled on his boots and clothes. At the same time, he took Xiao Jie's light gauze skirt and moon-white silk undergarment from the rosewood clothes rack and tossed them onto the bed. Then he said, "Go! We're leaving tonight!"

Xiao Jie asked no questions. She immediately got up and dressed, moving as quickly as she did when taking her clothes off.

Why would she ask?

Young Master Ning had already made his decision. She only had to obey.

By the time Ning Xuan had finished dressing, Xiao Jie was ready too. She had already fetched a large black umbrella and a bundle of the young master's clothes.

With the bundle on her back and the umbrella in hand, she stepped outside and casually asked, "Young Master, how many people should escort us?"

"Everyone!" Ning Xuan replied.

This time, Xiao Jie froze.

His words had caught her completely off guard.

They had only arrived that afternoon. Their bedding had barely warmed, and now, in the middle of the night, he wanted to take every servant, maid, and guard from Ning Family Manor and leave.

Xiao Jie asked, "What should this servant tell them?"

Ning Xuan replied, "Tell them I feel like it."

Old Master Ning clearly had considerable influence.

At a word from Ning Xuan, everyone really did leave with him in the middle of the night.

The kind-faced old man regarded the young master curiously. His sleeve bulged, concealing the Heavy Rain Pear Blossom Needles that Ning Xuan had used again and again in his nightmare.

Of course, the old man didn't believe that Young Master Ning had suddenly summoned them and ordered them away just "on a whim."

Why?

Because he was Old Master Ning's son.

That only made the old man more curious about what might happen at the manor.

When they reached the foot of the mountain, he quietly gave instructions to a sharp-witted guard.

The guard slipped away from the group and hid in a small grove at the mountain's base, waiting to see what would happen.

In the early hours, before dawn, the group returned to Star River County.

"My son, was the mountain too cold, that you came back in such a hurry?" A plainly dressed woman hurried out from the inner courtyard. The corners of her brows drooped slightly, giving her a kindly look, and her eyes brimmed with affection. A string of expensive prayer beads circled her wrist.

She was Ning Xuan's Mother.

She was a Buddhist.

"It's good you're back, it's good you're back," the plainly dressed woman said. "It's so late. Go get some sleep, Xuan'er."

Ning Xuan went to bed.

After a night of commotion, he was soaked in sweat. Once he had bathed, he didn't ask Xiao Jie to attend him, but lay down on the soft couch with a relieved sigh. Even so, he couldn't sleep.

Slowly, dawn broke.

Warm golden sunlight poured down from the sky.

By the afternoon, the old man who carried the Heavy Rain Pear Blossom Needles had received a report.

"Boss, everything was normal. Nothing out of the ordinary. I even went up the mountain and ran around. Young Master Ning really is so willful," his subordinate reported.

The old man said sternly, "Whether Young Master Ning is willful isn't for you to say."

The subordinate grinned and said, "Got it, Boss. I won't say it again, I won't say it again. Happy now?" He was every inch a roguish outlaw.

After he left,

the old man said, "Everything was normal. Sigh, everyone knows Old Master Ning had his son late in life, but is he... spoiling that boy too much?"

Remembering Ning Xuan's skinny arms and legs, he couldn't help sighing again.

The windows in Young Master Ning's room were all shut.

Ning Xuan looked at the panel.

[Heavenly Demon Scroll]

[Life-Affinity Gate 1: Mountain Crashing Bear] (Not Invoked)

[Life (Physique): 1]

[Temperament (Spirit): 1]

He silently said in his heart, "I beseech the Heavenly Demon Scroll."

As soon as the thought fell, a mysterious talisman instantly appeared in his mind. The strange, arcane characters on it were profound and enigmatic, but he knew those strange characters represented the "Mountain Crashing Bear."

The talisman burned.

At the same time, a powerful force surged into his body.

A rising black shadow loomed over the table in the secret chamber. In the bronze mirror, a fearsome figure stood nearly ten feet tall, so powerfully built he seemed clad in heavy armor made of muscle.

It was armor of tempered steel, wrapped tightly around his body, compact and unyielding. Every muscle was sharply defined, as if carved by a blade, and brimming with explosive strength.

On the roof, the black cat that had been out for a stroll suddenly bristled and let out a piercing yowl. As if electrocuted, it shot away into the distance.

Ning Xuan hunched his back, forcing his height down as he looked at his own imposing figure in the mirror. Then he glanced at "[Life (Physique): 1 (3.7)]" and frowned slightly, thinking to himself, In the end, this is power granted by the Heavenly Demon Scroll. I'll have to improve myself as well. I used to think this world only had low-level martial arts, but it seems I was wrong. I'll have to look around some more.