"Hiss... it's the Black Tiger Gang's second-in-command, 'Iron-Boned Yama' Lei Hu!"
Hidden behind a crack between the door panels, the Cloud Silk Shop's elderly shopkeeper's teeth chattered as he cried out to Xiao Ling'er through the gap:
"Third Miss, get on your horse and charge out of here! Lei Hu reached the peak of the middle stage of Ming Jin two years ago! His externally trained iron bones are impervious to blades and spears, and he has more than a dozen lives on his hands! Last year, the master of the Iron Fist Martial Hall in the south of the city traded three head-on blows with him, and that hundred-jin spiked club smashed him, fists and all, into meat paste on the spot!"
"I was wondering who had the damned gall to break ground over the local tyrant's head here in the west of the city and cripple my Black Tiger Gang's Beheading Blade!"
Lei Hu strode into the middle of the street, turned his wrist, and slammed the jet-black spiked club, weighing over a hundred jin, onto the bluestone paving!
Bang! Crack!
The hard bluestone street sank half an inch on the spot like fragile tofu, and spiderweb cracks spread wildly outward from the head of the club!
He first glanced down at the scar-faced Liu Heng, who lay in a pool of blood with his breastbone caved in, breathing out more than he breathed in. His great, bell-sized eyes abruptly narrowed. Then he slowly raised his head, swept his savage gaze up the steps, and fixed it instantly on the fiery-red figure standing beside Treading Snow!
"Mother of all ancestors! I've spent half my damned life hacking people down in Qingzhou City, but I've never seen a little woman so fresh and pretty, with so much fire!"
Lei Hu stared, utterly transfixed. He reached out with a palm-leaf-fan-sized hand and wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth, his bloodshot, bell-sized eyes scraping brazenly back and forth over the exquisite curves outlined by Xiao Ling'er's fiery-red fitted outfit. When he saw the dazzlingly white, full curves beneath her slightly open collar in particular, his Adam's apple bobbed hard, and he swallowed with an utterly obscene gulp:
"Take a good look, boys! Those long legs, that slender waist, and those two pale mounds of soft flesh in front... tsk, tsk, tsk! The pampered Third Miss raised in the Marquis of Zhenbei's Residence really is the finest beauty under heaven! If I could hold her under my covers for one night, it'd be fucking worth losing ten years of my life!"
"You've got a fine eye, Second Boss! Brother Liu Bazi took a fancy to this little bitch just now, but before he could get his hands on her warm flesh, that pretty boy in blue beside her ambushed him with a dirty trick!"
One of the thugs who had just fled back to report sidled up, nodding and bowing, and pointed at Chen Xuan as he screeched:
"Look, Second Boss! It's that household slave on a lifetime bond standing beside Third Miss! This brat used some filthy force-deflecting trick just now, and while Brother Bazi couldn't stop his blade, he sucker-punched him and shattered his breastbone!"
"How dare you!!"
At Lei Hu's filthy words, Xiao Ling'er's entire lovely face instantly froze over with frost! She flung off Chen Xuan's supporting hand, whipped the red-tailed snakebone whip from her waist, and took a sudden step forward. The fiery horse Treading Snow beside her seemed to sense its mistress's towering rage. It threw up its head and let out a long neigh that pierced clouds and split stone, raised its two snow-white forehooves high, and stamped down hard enough to shatter the bluestone paving before it. The foremost bladesmen paled in terror and stumbled several steps back!
"Are all you mongrels blind?! Take a good look at where you are!"
Holding her fiery-red whip, her almond eyes wide, Xiao Ling'er shouted with inviolable dignity:
"This property belongs to the senior branch of our Marquis of Zhenbei's Residence! Your Black Tiger Gang's vicious lackeys came here without cause to smash, loot, and plunder, and insulted me first! My personal guard was entirely justified in punishing them! Lei Hu, you've brought so many men to surround me today. Does your Black Tiger Gang intend to rebel and tear away all pretense with our Marquis of Zhenbei's Residence?!"
"Hahahahaha! Rebel? Tear away all pretense? Brothers, did you hear what this little bitch said? She's trying to scare me with the Marquis of Zhenbei's Residence!"
As though he had heard the funniest joke in the world, Lei Hu threw back his head and roared with deafening laughter. The fifty or sixty Black Tiger Gang ruffians around him slapped the backs of their blades and burst out laughing too:
"Hahahaha! Does Third Miss still think she's playing house in her residence's back garden?!"
"Why don't you piss a puddle and look at your own reflection? You brought just one barely weaned pretty-boy slave today, and you dare challenge our Second Boss in the western market district?!"
Once Lei Hu had laughed his fill, the slabs of flesh on his face twisted sharply. He lifted the hundred-jin spiked club in one hand and pointed it at Xiao Ling'er, leering with arrogant obscenity:
"Third Miss, I'll open the skylight and speak plainly today! If your father, the Marquis of Zhenbei, personally brought three thousand Northern Frontier heavy cavalry here, I'd kneel right down and lick his boots without another word! But today? With that delicate little body of yours and a pretty boy who only knows dirty tricks and sneak attacks, you think you can throw your weight around on my patch of land?"
"You... who put you up to this?!"
Xiao Ling'er's heart sank sharply, and a fine sheen of sweat seeped into the palm gripping her whip:
"Without someone inside our residence backing you and passing you information, how would a mere street gang like yours dare intercept me with such precision?!"
"Oh, Third Miss isn't just pretty-she's got a good head on her shoulders too! But the more you know, the worse your fate!"
Lei Hu stuck out his tongue and licked the dried blood on the club's spikes. His bell-sized eyes locked onto Xiao Ling'er's full chest as it heaved violently with anger, and he grinned savagely:
"The people above only told me to teach you a lesson in the western market district today that you'd never forget, so you'd never dare meddle with these two streets' accounts again! You crippled my capable man Liu Bazi, so we'll have to settle those medical expenses and emotional damages properly in bed!"
"You're courting death! You shameless, filthy dog! I'll whip that foul mouth of yours to shreds first!"
"Whip my mouth? Hahaha! How about this instead? Third Miss, be good, throw down your whip, and come spend three days in the dark room at Black Tiger Hall with me!"
The more Lei Hu spoke, the more excited he became. With lust written all over his face, he slapped his lean, dark belly and loudly joked to the gang members behind him:
"Once I've kneaded every bit of that rich young lady's tender flesh until it's thoroughly worked over and serviced you nice and comfortably, I'll make a few erotic pictures bearing your handprints of acknowledgment and send them back to your residence! Maybe once Third Miss has tasted how fierce us rough men of the jianghu can be, she won't even want to return to that cold Marquis of Zhenbei's Residence. She'll kneel by the bed every day, begging me to give her some loving!"
"You beast! I'll kill you!!"
When had Xiao Ling'er ever suffered such monstrous humiliation? Her whole body shook violently with rage, and the string called reason in her mind snapped completely. Rousing the blood and Qi of her middle stage of Ming Jin cultivation, she was about to lash out with her whip and charge forward to fight him to the death!
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