There Was a Girl (Part Two)

"Romance filled the eye amid flowers deep; a desolate shrine held a Daoist's heart. At sunset by the humble gate, water flowed in vain; spring came to ancient trees, their green shade spreading~"

The song ended.

A servant trimmed the candle by the window, her lovely silhouette swaying.

Inside the wooden house, a beautiful woman wore a silk skirt and brocade stockings, with a light touch of rouge. The years had left no traces on her, only adding to her bloom. Resting her fragrant cheek on her hand, she leaned sideways in a wooden chair, her figure supple, and sighed softly.

Year after year, the bright moon remained the same; year after year, the bright moon was different.

She was thirty-seven this year, yet time seemed to have stopped forever in the year she turned seventeen.

Back then, Li Qingluo had still been a kindhearted young girl. With a sword bag on her back and a yellow horse by the reins, she had left the cold Western Xia palace and the desolate desert sands without looking back.

She had not wanted to be like her mother, trapped by love all her life, left in the end with nothing but a hollow lust for power to fill the emptiness within. So she had resolved to find the place of her dreams.

And so, she had first gone to Mount Wuliang in Dali, where her parents had once lived in seclusion...

In the end, the more she wished to avoid something, the more it came her way...

But she had ultimately been more decisive than her mother, finding an honest man surnamed Wang in Jiangnan to take over the mess.

A birthday falling on the seventh day of the seventh month could carry many lovely meanings, something countless people longed for in vain. Now, however, it seemed a curse. Perhaps it had been a curse all along: the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, separated by the Milky Way, meeting only once a year...

Madam Wang smiled bitterly and shook her head helplessly, finally uttering a single word: "Reward."

"Thank you, madam. Thank you, madam..."

The blind girl gathered up her pipa and bent in a bow, her face filled with delight.

She was a performer who did not sell her body at Suzhou's Wondrous Sound House, skilled in playing and singing narrative ballads. Mantuo Manor had paid handsomely to invite her, and she had originally been overjoyed. Only after experiencing this terrifying half a night did she understand what sort of place she had come to.

The Wondrous Sound House stood amid the bustling streets, where fish and dragons mingled among those who came and went; it, too, called itself part of the jianghu.

But compared with the deeper jianghu, where people truly "killed while chatting and laughing," it was merely a little puddle as clear as water.

The moon shone faintly; the grass and trees grew thick.

Fifteen or sixteen ranked martial experts lay concealed in the darkness around the wooden house. Even the heights of the ridges on either side were occupied by guards. Only some time after the pipa player had left did Madam Wang address those outside.

"What was it you wanted to say earlier?"

"Reporting to you, miss: the fires throughout the manor have all been extinguished. We found no trace of villains causing trouble. We feared it was another scheme to lure the tiger from its mountain, so we hurried back to protect you."

The Sun and Moon Twin Staffs waited outside. They had been back for some time, but Madam Wang had been deeply moved just then, and had barred them at the door with, "Unless someone's life is at stake, don't interrupt my listening. This comes only once a year."

Madam Wang's voice remained cold. "Lure the tiger from its mountain? How many times has this been now? What can you do besides frighten yourselves?"

"Your rebuke is quite right, miss."

The two women outside exchanged a glance, hesitation on their faces. In the end, Granny Sun spoke.

"I thought it over again just now. The villains must have a reason for deliberately laying this maze of deception. Since all is well here with you, miss, could they... be after the young miss?"

"She's just a green little girl who hasn't left the women's quarters. Who would..."

Madam Wang's voice faltered slightly. Another possibility suddenly occurred to her, and after a moment's thought, she spoke.

"Granny Moon."

"Miss?"

"Go to the waterside pavilion at once. Turn the iron wheel inside it, three turns left, three turns right..."

"Yes."

Granny Moon had the finest lightness skill. She bounded as though flying, like an ape, and soon vanished into the night.

Only Granny Sun remained outside. She lowered her head and looked at the soil. The relationship between the miss and the young miss had always been delicate: though closest kin, they were not close; though bound by affection, they were also without it. In short, they seldom met. Others did not know why, but the few of them did.

It was the same reason the miss had not returned to the Western Xia palace to visit their old mistress all these years.

She feared seeing her future self, and she feared seeing her past self.

"Go take a look at Wutong Courtyard."

"Yes!"

At last, Granny Sun heard the words she had been waiting for. Carrying her iron staff, she drove her lightness skill to its utmost and raced toward the manor.

In the little Wutong Courtyard, moonlit shadows lay scattered.

"It's all my fault, Mama Chen. I'm the one who did this to you..."

Wang Yuyan stayed beside Chen Ping, whose breath hung by a thread, sobbing too hard to speak coherently. She looked at that familiar steel spade. Over the years, it had spent far more time helping her dig soil and plant flowers than being used for martial practice.

"Miss, are you still unwilling to take me to the Langhuan Jade Grotto?"

Yan Ruhua grew agitated. She lifted her iron staff and suddenly thrust it forward.

Thud, thud, thud!

Blood sprayed amid several muffled groans, and the courtyard fell silent.

The three burly women lying on the ground howling had their skulls smashed open one after another. The iron staff struck heavily, backed by the internal force of a second-rate expert. Never mind human skulls-it could punch a hole through metal or stone.

Wang Yuyan turned to look, shocked and furious.

"Watch closely! I won't treat you the way Chen Ping does. This old servant has strength and methods to spare!"

Yan Ruhua strode forward. Her iron staff, smeared with brain matter, hooked the silver belt. With a lift of her wrist, she hoisted Wang Yuyan into the air in an instant, as though she had caught a weightless butterfly on something sticky.

"You're a precious young lady. You've never been to the flower-fertilizer room, have you? Heh heh, do you know why the manor's camellias bloom so brilliantly? What fertilizer is mixed into that blackish-green soil?"

"Hahaha~"

Wang Yuyan did not struggle. Bobbing up and down, she watched the short, fat old woman, who looked possessed by madness, with clear, tranquil eyes.

"Heaven brings forth all things to nourish mankind, yet mankind has nothing to repay Heaven. Better to enrich the soil with one's own body, liver and brains smeared across the earth! Hahaha..."

Yan Ruhua shrieked with strange laughter, reversed her iron staff, and swung it down hard. Wind whistled past Wang Yuyan's ears. When her head was three feet from the ground, she was lifted up again.

Yan Ruhua was somewhat surprised. She had thought that even if the girl did not wet herself in terror, her little face should at least turn deathly pale. Yet although Wang Yuyan looked frightened, her breathing had not quickened in the slightest. Unless she practiced martial arts, how could an ordinary person manage that...

Unable to understand it, she could only attribute it to the Langhuan Jade Grotto. She released her hold with the iron staff and turned toward Chen Ping instead.

"You don't care whether you live or die, miss. Do you not care whether she lives or dies either?"

At the brink of life and death, she had given Chen Ping the antidote to the corpse poison. Perhaps it had been because of their affection in years past. Even a heart as venomous as snakes and scorpions had a moment of softness. Only... that moment had long since passed.

"You're willing to die for the miss, yet she begrudges you the Wang family's collection of martial arts. Sister Chen, I truly feel it isn't worth it for you."

This time, the raised iron staff held not the slightest hesitation. Wrapped in a fierce rush of wind, it smashed toward Chen Ping's head.

"I'll take you!"

The iron staff stopped dead, its serpent's head barely three inches from Chen Ping's nostrils.

Wang Yuyan, who had fallen into a seated position on the ground, slowly rose. "Give Mama Chen another one of those antidote pills."

She had no experience of the world, but she was exceptionally clever. Yan Ruhua had a perverse, violent disposition. Had she readily agreed from the beginning, Yan Ruhua might not have been willing to give her more antidote. Besides... she would most likely have grown suspicious.

Now, everything followed naturally.

"Hmph."

Pleased that her scheme had succeeded, Yan Ruhua stuffed another antidote pill, fragrant with camellias, into Chen Ping's mouth. She nodded slightly and said with an affected air, "At least her kindness to you hasn't been wasted."

Wang Yuyan felt a little reassured and said softly, "Good is repaid with good, and evil with evil. That is all."

Yan Ruhua's brows knitted at those words. She found them utterly childish, beneath even a rebuttal.

"Miss, can you tell me now?"

"The entrance to the Langhuan Jade Grotto..."

"Where is it? Tell me!"

Wang Yuyan turned slightly and, with a little hesitation, looked toward the west wing, which remained as tranquil as a spectator.