Demanding an Explanation

The night was deep, roughly around midnight.

After seeing off Gu Junrong and the other two, Chen Ming sat in his room reading a book. A pot of yellow wine was warming on the red clay stove nearby, filling the room with its fragrance.

As a modern person, he valued his privacy and didn't need anyone to attend to him at night. The two maids, Chunxiang and Xiaxiang, had their own quarters; this courtyard was his alone.

Suddenly, the window was pushed open from outside, and a woman's voice came through. "At least now I don't have to fight in the alley anymore."

A dark figure vaulted inside—it was Zhong Shuyu, clad in a night robe.

Chen Ming seemed to have expected her arrival; he'd already prepared two cups. "You could have come through the front door."

Zhong Shuyu retorted without hesitation, "How could I use the front door for a secret nighttime rendezvous?"

She plopped down onto the stool across from him, her eyes fixed on the pot of yellow wine as she swallowed. "Where did you buy this wine?"

"Home-brewed."

Chen Ming lifted the pot and poured her a cup.

Zhong Shuyu downed it in one gulp, her eyes lighting up. "Good wine," she praised.

"Aren't you afraid I poisoned it?"

"Why would I poison it?" Zhong Shuyu giggled. "If you wanted to kill me, you'd have done it long ago. If you wanted my body, slipping in some aphrodisiac for fun would just be part of the bedroom sport."

Having just drunk, her eyes shimmered with a hint of allure.

Chen Ming had long known she wasn't your typical proper lady, but such brazen talk still caught him off guard.

Over the past ten months, Zhong Shuyu had come to spar with him every few days. As time went on, he'd noticed a pattern: she showed up on days ending in one, four, and seven, like she was hitting a market fair.

They'd crossed blows nearly a hundred times. Though they rarely chatted, they'd grown quite familiar.

Sitting down to talk like this, however, was a first.

He said, "My lady has a low tolerance for wine; one cup and you're already talking nonsense."

Zhong Shuyu replied, disappointed, "I thought you were different from other men, but you're just as dull." With that, she grabbed the pot and tipped it back to drink.

Chen Ming felt she was acting off tonight, but he tactfully didn't ask.

In these ten months, he'd never pried into her affairs.

And she'd never asked about his, keeping their relationship purely that of training partners.

Their bond had lasted this long precisely because of that unspoken understanding.

Zhong Shuyu drained the entire pot of yellow wine in one go, then wiped her mouth, stood up, and drew her sword. "Come on. Today, I will beat you."

Chen Ming picked up the long blade resting nearby and followed her out of the courtyard.

"Watch my sword."

The two began to spar in the yard.

After thirty-some moves, Zhong Shuyu suddenly snapped, "I'm done."

Chen Ming stopped and looked at her, puzzled.

Zhong Shuyu glared at him. "You always hold back. Don't you get tired of it?"

She'd gone to spar with her two senior brothers before. At first, they'd been patient. After a few times, they started making excuses to avoid her. Even her own brothers were like that.

But this man—he'd sparred with her every few days without ever showing a hint of impatience. Always calm and unruffled, he'd go past fifty moves before "barely" winning.

Every single time.

He was clearly far stronger than her; he could beat her in under ten moves.

At first, Zhong Shuyu had indulged in a bit of dark amusement, wondering how long he could keep it up. A month passed. Three months. Six months...

He never changed.

Without realizing it, she'd started to enjoy this feeling. Chen Ming's encouraging gaze, his generosity, his tolerance—they guided her, inspired her...

It was something she'd never experienced from anyone else.

"Why are you so good to me?"

When Zhong Shuyu said this, tears welled up in her eyes.

A giant question mark popped into Chen Ming's mind. We're just training partners. What the hell have you been imagining?

Since she'd already laid her cards on the table, Zhong Shuyu decided to go all in. "I'm leaving. Going to a very far place. I don't know when I'll be back—or if I'll even make it back..."

Chen Ming thought for a moment, then said, "Then I wish my lady a smooth journey."

Seeing that he was still as dense as a block of wood, Zhong Shuyu flushed red with anger. Biting her lip, she finally mustered the courage to ask, "Do... do you want me to go?"

Wait, you're serious?

Chen Ming's scalp tingled. He forced himself to reply, "Whether to go or not should be my lady's own decision."

A gust of wind blew, sweeping away the tears clinging to the young woman's lashes.

Clang.

The longsword clattered to the ground as the girl turned and fled, covering her face.

Chen Ming watched her silhouette vanish into the night and sighed.

That was the second sword she'd left behind here. She really had money to burn.

Then he thought about how the only Ranked Martial Artist willing to spar with him had just fallen out with him, and a twinge of regret set in.

The next morning, Chen Ming sat down to breakfast with his elder brother, his sister-in-law, and his nephew and niece.

His niece Chen Lirong was nearly two years old now, still being fed meat porridge by her nanny.

His nephew Chen Lide, a year older, sat up straight and proper, managing to keep a calm face at the sight of the delicious food. But the way he secretly swallowed his saliva couldn't escape Chen Ming's perception.

Clearly, the kid was a born foodie.

Only after Chen Ming sat down did everyone else pick up their chopsticks.

After the meal, the two brothers went to the study.

Chen Rui spoke with some concern. "Erlang, I heard that Envoy Sun sent people over yesterday. Did things not go well between you?"

"Mm."

"Was it because of the Martial Hall Guild?"

Chen Ming felt a touch of relief. It showed that his elder brother was no longer as naive as he'd been a year ago—at least he understood the current crisis facing the family.

"So you already know, Eldest Brother. No need to worry. I have a way to handle it."

Seeing that Chen Ming had it under control, Chen Rui dropped the subject. "That's good."

He trusted that Erlang could manage things.

Just as they were talking, someone rushed in from outside, panicked. "Bad news! A group claiming to be from the Martial Hall Guild has barged in. They say they're here to demand an accounting from the Second Young Master."

They came fast.

Chen Ming was a little surprised. He said to his elder brother Chen Rui, "I'll handle this. You go keep your wife and the kids company."

Chen Rui nodded. He knew well that he couldn't help with matters involving martial artists. He headed back to the rear courtyard to reassure his wife.

"Come on, lead the way."

Chen Ming walked toward the door, a surge of boldness rising in his chest.

Over the past ten months, Chen Ming's main source of experience points had been the group of students he'd taken on—now twenty-eight of them. Plus the occasional sparring session with Zhong Shuyu. Altogether, over three hundred days, he'd accumulated eighteen thousand experience points.

Of those, eight thousand had gone into the Three Yang Body Forging Art, pushing his cultivation breakthrough to the Eighth Rank.

Seven thousand had gone into the Swallow Returns Swordplay. The remaining three thousand or so were held in reserve.

He'd lain low for nearly a year, biding his time and developing slowly. Now, at last, he could openly challenge the martial artists from other guilds.