Clever Words Teased His Mistress, Black Tigers Encircled the Street

"Your subordinate deserves death! I know my crime! Please punish me, Third Young Miss!"

Chen Xuan bowed his head in contrition, his voice humble to the bone, yet his large, well-defined hands remained firmly clamped around Xiao Ling'er's slender waist, showing not the slightest intention of letting go.

Not only did he keep his grip, he used the angle of his lowered head to sweep his astonishingly bright eyes brazenly over Xiao Ling'er's slightly open, fiery-red neckline. The brocade of her riding outfit was already cut to fit her closely, and the commotion of dismounting and slipping had pulled the collar halfway open. Two breathtakingly full curves pressed tightly together, dazzlingly white, like fine mutton-fat jade freshly soaked in warm water, giving off the orchid-like fragrance unique to a young woman and a scorching heat.

"If you know your crime, why haven't you taken your dog paws off me?!"

Xiao Ling'er stamped her riding boots in fury, secretly gritting her teeth as she cursed in a lowered voice, both embarrassed and angry:

"Chen Xuan, you outrageously brazen dog of a servant! Holding on to me in broad daylight, in front of an entire street of commoners-do you really think I can't bear to whip you to death?!"

"I wouldn't dare! Even if I had ten times the courage, I wouldn't dare stake my worthless life against your whip, Young Miss!"

Chen Xuan put just the right measure of apprehension into his words, yet took the opportunity to bring his head another half inch closer to Xiao Ling'er's temple, his hot, heavy masculine breath spilling over her fair, translucent earlobe:

"I'm only afraid that if I suddenly let go now, you won't find your footing and will fall back onto these flagstones covered in foul black mud and water. Your precious person has skin of ice and bones of jade. If this filthy street water were to stain the hem of your clothes, or scrape even the slightest bit of skin from your delicate, creamy body, even dying ten thousand times on the spot wouldn't atone for such a monstrous crime!"

"D-delicate, creamy body?!"

Xiao Ling'er felt as though a red-hot coal had suddenly seared the roots of her ears, and a tingling heat unlike anything she had ever experienced shot from her tailbone straight to the crown of her head!

In all her seventeen years, what servant in the Marquis of Zhenbei's Residence had ever faced her without trembling, not even daring to breathe loudly? When had she ever heard a man dare to press close to her ear and describe her body in such frank, scorching words, carrying such overbearing aggression?

"You filthy scoundrel! Where did you learn such ear-burning nonsense?!"

Xiao Ling'er's heart pounded wildly. Forcing herself to maintain the dignity of the Third Young Miss, she pressed her whip handle against Chen Xuan's iron-hard chest and snapped, fierce on the outside but weak within:

"Who gave you permission to describe me with such vulgar words? Spout any more nonsense, and I'll cut out your tongue and feed it to the horses!"

"Heaven and earth bear witness! I've spent three years hauling water in the stables and barely know a handful of characters. What would I know about flowery words?"

Chen Xuan lowered his eyes to his nose and his attention to his heart, secretly laughing at how this proud little spitfire was a textbook case of saying no while her body said yes, while keeping an utterly earnest, devout expression:

"I'm a rough fellow. All I know is to honestly say whatever my eyes see. Just now, when I was close, I saw that your skin was a hundred times finer and more dazzling than the finest mutton-fat white jade displayed in our first branch's main hall. I couldn't help speaking the truth. Must I have my tongue cut out even for telling the truth?"

"Y-you still dare bring up sneaking looks at me just now?!"

His shameless logic of "I'm honest, so I'm right" left Xiao Ling'er speechless and flushed scarlet. Yet when she saw the blood still clinging to his knuckles from standing up for her earlier, the embarrassment and anger in her heart turned outright into sweetness and a sense of security. She could only shoot him a fierce glare and chide him:

"Stop trying to take advantage with that slick tongue! My ankles stopped slipping ages ago. Hurry up and help me stand properly! Do I have to ask you to let go?!"

"Yes, I obey. Please plant your feet firmly, Third Young Miss."

A covert smile curved Chen Xuan's lips, and only then did he leisurely release the arm around her waist. But the instant his fingers withdrew from that warm, soft waist, he imperceptibly curled his index finger and lightly scraped and stroked the exceedingly sensitive point at the small of her back through the thin layer of fiery-red brocade.

"Ah..."

Xiao Ling'er gave a violent shudder. The strength she had just gathered in her legs instantly melted halfway away again, and she cried out as she tilted to one side.

Quick of eye and hand, Chen Xuan caught her slender, snow-surpassing wrist and steadied her securely, asking with an utterly righteous look of concern:

"Careful, Third Young Miss! The spilled wine and moss all over the ground are terribly slippery. Be sure to hold tightly to my arm, and don't wrench your back again!"

"You bastard of a servant... You clearly did that on purpose!"

So embarrassed she wished she could crawl into a crack in the ground, Xiao Ling'er bit her red lips until they looked ready to drip blood. She was just about to kick his shin to vent her anger when Shopkeeper Zhou of the Cloud Silk Shop, who had been standing on the fabric shop's steps with his neck tucked in, watching which way the wind blew, suddenly rushed out, his face deathly pale. Pointing at both ends of the long street, he cried out uncontrollably:

"Third Young Miss! Guard Chen! Disaster! A large force from the Black Tiger Gang has sealed off the entire West Street!"

Rumble-!

Almost as soon as the old shopkeeper's words fell, a chaotic, savage thunder of footsteps erupted simultaneously from the eastern and western ends of the crossroads!

"Keep your damn eyes peeled and seal off this street, front and back! Today, never mind a person-not even a fly is getting through our Black Tiger Gang's blades!"

"Quick! Block every alley entrance, front and back! If anyone lets the bastard who injured Brother Bazi escape, the Second Boss will skin him alive!"

"Shut the doors! Hurry, shut the doors! The Black Tiger Gang's living King of Hell, Lei Hu, is coming in person with the inner hall swordsmen!"

Amid vicious roars, a full fifty or sixty burly men carrying demon-headed broadswords and wearing black tiger-and-skull waist tokens surged out from every direction! These were no outer-fringe street thugs carrying wooden clubs to make up the numbers like Liu Bazi's men earlier. Every one had bulging temples and a brutal face, their blades steeped in the chilling killing aura of years of bloodshed. In the blink of an eye, they formed two impenetrable walls of men, trapping Chen Xuan and Xiao Ling'er firmly in the open space before the Cloud Silk Fabric Shop!

The surrounding shopkeepers and residents, who had still dared to poke half their heads out to watch the spectacle, were frightened out of their wits. Bang after bang of doors slamming and locks falling rang out together. In an instant, the bustling long street in the west of the city fell utterly silent, leaving only the pungent stench of blood as the autumn wind swept over the pools of it.

"Move! Make way for the Second Boss!"

The Black Tiger Gang swordsmen in the front row parted to either side like a tide.

Amid footsteps as heavy as pounding war drums, a giant nearly nine feet tall, built like half a black iron tower, strode out with a swagger that acknowledged neither kith nor kin. His upper body was bare and covered in blade scars, and a blood-dripping black tiger descending a mountain to devour men was tattooed across his bronze chest. In his right hand, he carried a pitch-black refined-steel spiked mace weighing over a hundred jin, its head hanging down, with dark red scraps of someone's flesh still clinging to the tips of its icy iron spikes!