Keeping the Courtesan Company and Talking About Life

"Fuck!"

"A country bumpkin, and he dares mock us!"

"What a nouveau riche! Get out of the capital!"

"Fairy Qingxuan, this man is utterly vicious. You must be careful!"

In the first-floor hall, Li Ziye's single remark set the crowd boiling again. The young masters of the great clans wished they could get up and hack this nouveau riche from Yuzhou City to death.

"Heh!"

Li Ziye answered them with nothing but an outrageously arrogant, disdainful laugh, thick with mockery, then turned and headed upstairs.

In the first-floor hall, everyone gnashed their teeth in hatred. Only Fairy Qingxuan's presence kept them from getting physical and losing their dignity.

Upstairs, Li Ziye walked straight over, lifted the beaded curtain, and entered the private room.

Their eyes met. Looking at the youth before her, Yu Qingxuan actually felt a trace of nervousness rise in her usually unruffled heart.

She had been searching all along for the person behind that pipa score. She had never expected to meet him here.

"Ambush from Ten Sides" was a pipa score, not a guqin score. Only the person behind the score would know that, because she had modified it to make it suitable for the guqin. Thus, over all these years, even those well versed in music had failed to recognize it.

The private room was very quiet. Yu Qingxuan's eyes betrayed her nervousness.

Li Ziye, however, was not nearly so interested in the woman before him.

He had come here to find his second brother.

If this woman had not called out to him in front of so many people, he would never have come upstairs.

"Hey, babe, what do you want with your lord here?"

Unwilling to get too entangled with the woman before him, Li Ziye opened his mouth and displayed all the refinement befitting a wastrel as he asked.

Yu Qingxuan froze, then quickly recovered and bowed gracefully. "Please forgive me for taking the liberty of inviting you upstairs, Young Master Li."

"No need to apologize."

With his nose in the air, Li Ziye said, "What is it? Speak."

Yu Qingxuan found the youth's attitude rather difficult to get used to, but she maintained her composure and asked softly, "Young Master Li, how did you know that the piece I just played was a pipa score rather than a guqin score?"

"A wild guess."

Li Ziye grinned.

Could he say that he had written out the score of "Ambush from Ten Sides" from memory?

Of course not!

He already stood out so much that some deranged freaks had begun to suspect he had invented the Li Family's strange novelties. If this score were now confirmed to have come from him as well, even a hundred mouths could not clear his name.

It was best not to expose his identity as this plane's favored son.

He understood that the tallest tree caught the most wind.

"Young master, I mean no harm. I only wish to find the person behind this pipa score and thank them in person," Yu Qingxuan said earnestly.

"Then you've got the wrong man. Your lord here doesn't know the first thing about music."

Grinning like a thug, Li Ziye said, "But I know plenty about life. Babe, the night is long, and sleep holds no appeal. Want to talk about life together?"

Yu Qingxuan frowned, studying the youth before her, hoping to read something from his face.

But she was disappointed.

There was nothing on Li Ziye's face but a sleazy grin.

"Young Master Li."

Yu Qingxuan tightened her hands slightly, suppressing her discomfort. "Please conduct yourself with dignity. I am not the sort of person you imagine."

"What a shame!"

Li Ziye looked the woman before him up and down. He had to admit, she looked quite passable.

Feeling his invasive gaze, Yu Qingxuan grew even more uncomfortable. "Young Master Li, it is getting late. Please leave."

"Leave? No."

Li Ziye immediately shook his head and said with a rather strange smile, "It hasn't even been fifteen minutes. That's too quick. I'm not that quick. I absolutely can't go out now. It'd be humiliating."

"Then what do you propose, Young Master Li?"

Naturally innocent, Yu Qingxuan failed to catch the lewd meaning in his words and asked with a slight frown.

"Let's talk about life."

Li Ziye made himself at home at the table, poured himself a cup of tea, and grinned. "We've got nothing else to do anyway. We have to last at least two hours. Otherwise, where would that leave the dignity of the Li Family's third young master?"

Leaving aside whether he was quick, the main problem was the crowd downstairs. If he went out like this, those fellows would eat him alive.

He would let Little Red Riding Hood fend off the crowd's fury for him first.

Watching his shameless behavior, Yu Qingxuan's opinion of him worsened further. Forcing down her anger, she said, "If you won't leave, Young Master Li, then I will."

With that, Yu Qingxuan picked up her guqin and prepared to leave.

"Help! I'm being molested!"

Seeing this, Li Ziye set down his teacup and shouted at the top of his lungs.

Yu Qingxuan trembled. She stared at him, her almond-shaped eyes wide with anger and her face filled with disbelief.

How could this man be so shameless?

"Sit down and chat."

Li Ziye grinned. "Otherwise, I'll keep shouting."

Yu Qingxuan shook with anger. After a long while, she barely managed to suppress her fury, set down her guqin, and sat.

Li Ziye smiled without saying anything else, drinking his tea and passing the time.

He planned to wait until the people downstairs lost patience and most of them left before going out.

He just did not know whether he would still have a chance to see his second brother.

He had really miscalculated tonight. He had not expected this woman to disrupt his plans.

With Li Ziye silent, the atmosphere grew quiet again. Yu Qingxuan sat there, her expression shifting several times.

She had never imagined that the Li Family's third young master would be such a brazenly shameless person.

If that was the case, then the pipa score certainly could not have been written by the person before her. She believed that someone capable of writing such a stunning pipa score could never be a frivolous lout.

Time trickled by. Neither of them spoke in the private room, and the scene grew increasingly awkward.

Li Ziye had finished the entire pot of tea on the table, yet not much time had passed. Downstairs, there were still just as many people.

Unexpectedly, although the night outside had grown very late, the scions of the powerful downstairs remained just as persistent, waiting in the hall with bloodshot eyes and gritted teeth.

They were waiting for the Li Family's country bumpkin to crawl out so they could flay his skin and pull out his tendons!

Upstairs, Li Ziye could clearly feel the resentment rising from below, making him even less inclined to leave. Seeing that he had finished the tea on the table, he looked at the woman before him and grinned. "Any more tea?"

"No!"

Yu Qingxuan answered, secretly gritting her teeth.

"Babe."

Li Ziye opened his mouth and was about to continue when he felt the murderous intent in the woman's gaze. He immediately changed his form of address. "Miss Yu, right? Look, you called me upstairs and made me the target of every arrow. You ought to take some responsibility, shouldn't you?"

"What do you want, Young Master Li?"

Yu Qingxuan spoke, almost unable to suppress her anger.

"Hmm..."

Li Ziye thought for a moment. "Do you have a king of medicines?"

"No!"

Yu Qingxuan answered through clenched teeth.

"Any ten-thousand-year cold iron or anything like that?"

Li Ziye continued asking.

"No!"

Yu Qingxuan snapped angrily.

"How come you don't have anything?"

Li Ziye spoke with a disappointed expression.

At his words, Yu Qingxuan's chest heaved with anger, her teeth clenched tight. The last thread of reason in her heart was about to snap.

"How about this? Give me ten thousand stalks of great medicine, and I'll forgive you!"

Li Ziye spoke very casually.

Bang!

Finally unable to endure it any longer, Yu Qingxuan slapped the table and stood, trembling violently. "You-you!"

Li Ziye jumped. "Why are you getting so worked up? If you don't agree, you can bargain! Isn't business all about asking for the sky and bargaining down to the ground? Why get so angry?"

Yu Qingxuan closed her eyes and drew several deep breaths. "Young Master Li, farewell. May we never meet again!"

With that, Yu Qingxuan picked up the guqin beside her, turned, and left through the door at the back of the private room.

"Fairy, don't go! Hey! Ah, where are your manners?"

Li Ziye called after her a couple of times, then shook his head helplessly.

Forget it. Let her go.

"Isn't that... Fairy Qingxuan's carriage! Fairy Qingxuan has left!"

Just then, someone in the first-floor hall saw Yu Qingxuan's carriage leaving the Flower Cultivation Garden and cried out.

"Fairy Qingxuan!"

At once, everyone in the first-floor hall chased outside, their faces filled with disappointment.

"Old Bai! Let's go!"

Seizing the rare opportunity, Li Ziye immediately rushed downstairs, grabbed Bai Wangyu, and slipped out of the Flower Cultivation Garden amid the confusion.

"Li Ziye!"

Amid the chaos, someone spotted the two and shouted angrily, "Don't let him get away! Everyone, grab him!"

At these words, everyone noticed the pair and chased after them like mad.

And so a farcical scene unfolded beside the Xiangshui River. Li Ziye dragged Bai Wangyu along as he fled desperately in front, while a large crowd pursued them furiously, an endless stream of foul language ringing out behind them.

Li Ziye was not one to take a loss either. As he ran, he turned back and traded insults, taking on the entire crowd alone.

Then the crowd pursuing them grew even more frenzied, each chasing desperately as though injected with chicken blood.

The Xiangshui River, which had already quieted down, suddenly became extraordinarily lively.

As the night deepened, Li Ziye dragged Bai Wangyu through street after street. Behind them, fewer and fewer people could keep up.

"A bunch of country bumpkins, thinking they can catch me! They ought to weigh themselves first and see how much they're worth."

After crossing another two streets, Li Ziye saw that no one was keeping up anymore. He finally stopped, bent over, and gulped for breath.

They've run Daddy half to death!

"Brother Li."

Beside him, Bai Wangyu also took a deep, panting breath and said with lingering fear, "We'd better not go to that sort of place again."

"This time was a mistake. Next time, I'll make sure everything is properly arranged for you. Fuck, they're still chasing us!"

Li Ziye straightened and patted his chest in promise. But just as he finished, he caught sight of the end of the street out of the corner of his eye. His expression changed, and he grabbed Bai Wangyu and took off running.

Behind them, a dozen or so people came charging after them in a mass, carrying wooden sticks they had picked up somewhere.

By the time Li Ziye and Bai Wangyu shook everyone off and returned to Li Garden, it was nearly dawn.

After fleeing for most of the night, both were thoroughly bedraggled. Even Bai Wangyu, the Confucian School's senior disciple, had lost all semblance of dignity, his tied-up hair disheveled and his face covered in sweat.

Without even exchanging farewells, they each returned to their own rooms.

In the inner courtyard, Li Ziye had just pushed open his door when he saw a young man in a loose silver-gray robe and cloak sitting quietly at the table.

"Second Brother!"

Li Ziye froze, then hurriedly shut the door. "Why did you come in person?"

"Weren't you looking for me?"

Li Qingzhi said evenly, "Since you don't want to draw attention, why did you go and provoke that Yu Qingxuan?"

"It was an accident."

Li Ziye rubbed his nose and said awkwardly, "I didn't expect a score I casually wrote down years ago to end up in Yu Qingxuan's hands."

Li Qingzhi nodded and did not dwell on the matter, changing the subject. "You were looking for me to ask about the Yin Clan, weren't you?"

"Yes."

At his words, Li Ziye grew serious. "Second Brother, has everything gone smoothly with Yin Kuang?"

"He has already been placed within the Yin Clan."

Li Qingzhi said calmly, "However, what you want is in the Yin Clan's treasury. With his current status and abilities, it will be difficult for him to get it."

"If only we could enter the Yin Clan too. Then we could coordinate from inside and outside, and our chances of success would be much higher," Li Ziye said gravely.

Li Qingzhi considered it. "It's not as though there's no way to enter the Yin Clan."

"You have a way, Second Brother?" Li Ziye asked in delighted surprise.

"In a few days, the Yin Clan's old patriarch will celebrate his sixtieth birthday. Yu Qingxuan will be going there to perform."

Li Qingzhi said calmly, "If you want to enter the Yin Clan, you can ask Yu Qingxuan for help."

"Cough, cough!"

At these words, Li Ziye immediately choked on his own saliva and began coughing violently.

Why didn't you say so sooner? Why didn't you say so sooner!

He had thoroughly offended Yu Qingxuan last night. Never mind helping him-Yu Qingxuan probably did not even want to look at him now!