Smiling Proud Wanderer Vol 02, page 27
Watching Linghu Chong drinking one cup after another by the side, Trunk Fairy was bursting to give it a try himself. “Let me have these two cups!” he pleaded and reached out for the seventh cup.
Zu Qianqiu waved his folding fan and smacked it at the back of Trunk Fairy’s hand.
“Patience! Patience!” he urged with a grin. “You’ll have to wait for your turn! Everyone will have to drink all eight cups in sequence to really appreciate the ultimate true taste of wine.”
Trunk Fairy could tell that the smack from Zu Qianqiu’s folding fan had carried a tremendous amount of force. If it had landed on the target squarely, the force probably was powerful enough to smash his bones. Flipping his palm over, he grabbed at the folding fan and shouted at the same time.
“I’d rather drink this one first! What are you going to do about it?”
Zu Qianqiu’s folding fan had been folded into the shape of a short stick, but when Trunk Fairy’s hand was just about to touch the fan, it suddenly opened up abruptly, and the edge of the fan shot swiftly toward Trunk Fairy’s index finger. That caught Trunk Fairy by complete surprise. He drew his hand back hastily and the shot barely missed his finger, but numbness still came from his index finger as the force carried by the fan swept by. Crying out loud in shock, he took a step back.
“Brother Linghu, hurry up with those last two cups of wine!” Zu Qianqiu urged hurriedly.
Giving it no more thoughts, Linghu Chong also drank up the last two cups of wine. Neither of the two cups of wine had that stinking odor. But one was so spicy that it almost felt as if someone was slicing Linghu Chong’s throat with a knife, while the other one had a very strong smell of herbal medicine. How could these be called wine when their flavors were even stronger than the strongest medicinal herb in the world?
Seeing the strange expression on Linghu Chong’s face, the Peach Valley’s Six Fairies burst with curiosity! “How does it taste after you drink all eight cups?” they asked eagerly.
“Eight cups all together, taste the ultimate wonder of the Heaven. That’s recorded in ancient scripts,” Zu Qianqiu rushed to answer before Linghu Chong had a chance.
“That’s baloney! What ancient scripts?” Trunk Fairy rebuffed.
All of a sudden, four shadows leapt forward and each grabbed onto one of Zu Qianqiu’s limbs. Nobody had a clue as to what kind of odd signal Trunk Fairy must have given out that had prompted the sudden attack. The techniques of the Six Fairies were lightning fast yet utterly strange. When they suddenly charged at Zu Qianqiu completely out of the blue, even though Zu Qianqiu had excellent Kung Fu skills, himself, he still couldn’t escape. Within a fraction of a second, the Peach Valley’s Six Fairies had already lifted Zu Qianqiu off the ground by his four limbs. Having witnessed the terrifying scene when the Peach Valley’s Six Fairies ripped Cheng Buyou into pieces, members of the Huashan School couldn’t help but cry in terror. In the split second, an idea suddenly flashed by Zu Qianqiu’s mind like a lightning. He shouted out loudly.
“The wine is poisonous! Don’t you want the antidote?”
The four Fairies that had grabbed onto Zu Qianqiu’s four limbs all had quite some wine. At the words “the wine is poisoned,” they were all seized by surprise.
That brief hesitation from the four Fairies was exactly what Zu Qianqiu needed. “Farts! Farts!” he cried out loudly.
The four Fairies only felt that something all of a sudden started to slip away from their grips. A loud exploding sound followed immediately after. The next thing they know was that a big hole suddenly emerged in the boat’s mat roofing and Zu Qianqiu had escaped through the opening. Both Root Fairy and Branch Fairy found themselves empty-handed while Flower Fairy had a stinking sock and Leaf Fairy had a stinking and muddy shoe in their hands. The Peach Valley’s Five Fairies also moved speedily. Everyone on the boat only saw a blur and the five had already leapt ashore. But Zu Qianqiu seemed to have vanished into thin air. Just when the five Fairies were about to chase after him using their Qing-Gong techniques, they heard somebody yelling from the far end of the street.
“Zu Qianqiu, you god damned rascal! Give me back my pills! If any pill is missing, I’ll rip all your tendons out and skin you alive!” the man yelled loudly as he dashed closer.
Hearing someone trashing Zu Qianqiu like that, the five Fairies felt great satisfaction and all decided to give up the chase, so they could take a good look at this man who would truly deserve to be called a friend. Standing still, all five of them stared toward the newcomer curiously.
A meatball rolled toward them, panting heavily along the way. Only after it finally rolled almost right next to the five Fairies were they able to recognize that the meatball was actually a man. The man was too short and too fat. It would be even generous to call him a human. He had no neck. His broad and oblate shaped head just sat on his shoulders directly as if somebody had smashed his head with a hammer at the time when he was born, which squashed his head down and stretched his cheeks, mouth, and nose horizontally.
No one could help but laugh inwardly, thinking, “That Ping One-Finger is also a short fatty, but he would certainly pale into insignificance by comparison with this fellow.”
Ping One-Finger was short with an ultra-broad shoulder, but this man also had ultra-thick chest and back. And on top of that, his arms and legs were so short as if he only had the lower arm but without the upper arm and the belly without the underbelly.
The man walked in front of the boat with arms akimbo and then asked arrogantly as if he had the ultimate seniority, “Where is Zu Qianqiu the dirty rascal hiding?
“That dirty rascal ran away. He surely runs fast! I bet you won’t be able to catch up with him rolling so slowly like that,” Root Fairy answered with a grin.
The man shot a glare at Root Fairy with his small and circular eyes and let out a grunt. But suddenly he started yelling again.
“My pills! My pills!”
Giving the ground a hard stamp, the meatball sprang onto the boat and then rolled into the boat’s hold. He first sniffed around a little before picking up an empty wine cup on the table and then put it next to his nose to breathe in. Suddenly, his complexion changed dramatically. Not very complementary to start with, now after the change, his face had transformed into something completely grotesque and impossible to describe in words. Apparently his grievance had reached the extreme. He picked the rest seven cups up one after another and gave each one a good snuffle before murmuring, “My pills!” After he said “my pills” eight times, the sorrow on his face looked so sad that no one could even bare to look into his face. Suddenly he flopped down onto the floor and burst into loud cries.
The Peach Valley’s Five Fairies became even more curious. They gathered around the man in a circle and all started talking at once.
“Why are you crying?”
“Did Zu Qianqiu bully you?”
“Don’t feel bad. We’ll find this dirty rascal and rip him into four pieces to vent your anger.”
“My pills are gone. He blended my pills in his wine and drank all of them. Even if I could kill…kill this dirty rascal, it’s already…already…too late,” the man replied in sobs.
Linghu Chong suddenly thought of something. “What kind of pills are they?” he asked.
“It took me a total of twelve years to collect the thousand-year old Ginseng, Tuckahoe, Glossy Ganoderma, Pilose Antler of young stags, Polygonum Multiflorum, Bear Gallbladder, Pseudo-Ginseng, Muskiness, and other precious medicaments. Then after nine steps of braising and nine times of solarization, I was finally able to refine those “Life-Extending Eight Pills” that had the power of bringing the dying back to life. But who had expected that god damned Zu Qianqiu would steal them from me and then blend them in the wine for a drink?” He shed some more tears.
Linghu Chong was astonished. “Do these eight pills of yours taste the same?” he asked.
“Of course not. Some had a stinking odor, some tasted extremely bitter. Some were so spicy that you’d almost feel like a knife had just slit your throat, and some had a strong flavor of pungency, so strong that you’d think you were on fire. If anyone takes the ‘Life-Extending Eight Pills,’ then no matter how bad his internal wounds or external wounds are, for sure he would come back to life,” the man explained.
“Oh, no!” Linghu Chong cried as he struck his thigh with his palm. “That Zu Qianqiu stole your Life-Extending Eight Pills, but he didn’t take them himself. Instead…instead…”
“Instead what?” the man asked.
“Instead, he blended them in the wine and then fooled me into drinking all of them down with the wine. I had no idea that the wine had contained precious medicinal pills. I actually thought he had poison in the wine,” Linghu Chong replied.
“Poison in the wine? Poison my ass!” the man cursed in fury. “Did you really take my Life-Extending Eight Pills?” he asked, his eyes blazing.
“Zu Qianqiu filled eight cups with good wines for me to drink. Some did taste very bitter, and some did have a terrible odor, some surely felt like somebody slit my throat, and some did have a burning sensation. But to be very honest with you, I didn’t see any pills at all,” Linghu Chong explained.
The man shot a nasty glare toward Linghu Chong and his fat face twitched again and again. All of a sudden, he uttered a loud cry as he sprang onto his feet and then charged at Linghu Chong.
Ever since the man put a wicked look on his face, the Peach Valley’s Five Fairies had been watching out for him. So as soon as he sprang off the floor, four out of the five Fairies had reached their hands out in blazing speed and each grabbed hold of one of his four limbs.
“Don’t hurt him!” Linghu Chong shouted out in a hurry.
But the strange thing was that after the four Fairies had grabbed onto his two wrists and two ankles, his four limbs actually retracted toward his torso and he looked even more like a meatball. In great surprise, the four Fairies gave a loud shout and then pulled harder. The more they pulled, the longer the man’s four limbs extended, and soon his upper arms and thighs all extended out from within his body just like when a tortoise’s four limbs were extending out from within the shell.
“Don’t hurt him!” Linghu Chong shouted again.
The Peach Valley’s Four Fairies relaxed the pulling a little bit. The man’s four limbs immediately retracted back and he became a meatball, once again.
“This is so interesting! This is so interesting! What kind of Kung Fu is this?” Fruit Fairy shouted out loudly while still lying on the stretcher.
The Peach Valley’s Four Fairies gave it a good pull, and the man’s arms and legs again went a few feet longer. Yue Lingshan and the bunch of female apprentices simply couldn’t help but giggle by the side.
“Hey, don’t you think you look more handsome this way when we stretch your arms, legs, and your body longer?” Root Fairy joked.
“Oh, no!” the man screamed.
“Why?” the Peach Valley’s Four Fairies asked in shock, and naturally their grips relaxed slightly from the distraction.
The man suddenly pulled hard and his limbs slipped out from the four Fairies’ grips. In the echoing of a loud bang, he had cracked open a large hole in the bottom of the boat and escaped into the river. Everyone cried in astonishment, and water instantly gushed out of the hole and into the boat.
“Get the luggage and jump ashore,” Yue Buqun shouted the order.
The hole on the bottom of the boat was about four feet long and four feet wide. Water gushed in very quickly and only moments later, the water in the boat’s cabin had already risen to knee’s high. Fortunately, the boat was next to the bank and everyone made it ashore safely. Watching the boat sink slowly under the water, the boatman didn’t know what to do and only froze there looking dreadfully worried.
“Don’t be troubled. How much is your boat worth? We’ll pay you double that,” Linghu Chong comforted him. In the meantime, he was deeply puzzled, “I have never met Zu Qianqiu before. Why would he steal these precious medicinal pills and then trick me into taking them?” He tried to slightly redirect his inner energy. A warm feeling rose from his lower stomach, but the eight energy streams still roamed about inside him uncontrollably.
Lao Denuo found another boat to hire and directed people to load the luggage onto the boat. Linghu Chong took out a few of the silver ingots, the ones he had received earlier and had no clue as to who they had come from, and then gave them to the boatman who had lost the boat.
Yue Buqun found himself full of unease at what had happened. It seemed that there were simply too many eccentrics around here. None of the people who had visited had been very frank with them, and accidents just kept happening one after another. It would be the best for them to leave this troubled place as soon as possible. But since it was completely dark already, and it would be too risky to sail in the torrential river at night, he had to temporarily hold on to that thought and rested in the boat for the night.
And as regard to the Peach Valley’s Six Fairies, having failed twice to secure their prisoners and letting Zu Qianqiu and the Meatball Man escape one after another, they certainly had a hard time. This was something that had never happened to them before. So being the Peach Valley’s Six Fairies, the six brothers kept blowing their own trumpet and tried hard to prettify themselves from the incidents. After some great efforts and still failing to justify themselves, very unhappily, they drank some wine and finally went to bed themselves.
Chapter 15: Medicine
Translated by Lanny Lin
The girl was about seventeen years old. Her bloodless face rested on the pillow, and her long hair spread over the blanket. "Dad!" said she in a dim voice, yet without opening her eyes.
Yue Buqun lay in the cabin. Sound of the river waves beating the shore echoed in his ears as his many thoughts also whirled around in his head. Slowly, he fell into a state of ooziness when suddenly something caught his attention – the sounds of footsteps coming closer and closer from ashore. Sitting up from his bed, he looked out through a crack of the window. Under the misty moonlight he could vaguely see two shadows running towards the boat from afar. One of them raised his right hand, and at that signal, both of them stopped, still dozens of feet away from the boat. Knowing that the two of them would undoubtedly be talking in whispers, Yue Buqun started loading his “Divine Art of the Violet Twilight”, and instantly his sense of vision and hearing sharpened dramatically and the distance he could see and hear increased considerably.
“That’s the boat,” one of the men whispered. “I made a mark on the mat of the boat earlier. Right after that old fellow from the Huashan School hired the boat. It’s gotten to be it.”
“That’s great! Let’s report back to Uncle-Master Zhu then. Senior apprentice brother, when did our ‘Hundred-Toxic Faction’ start a feud with the Huashan School? Why is Uncle-Master Zhu going through so much trouble to intercept them in such a big way?” the other one asked in whispers.
As soon as Yue Buqun heard the words “Hundred-Toxic Faction,” his heart skipped a beat as a slight chill shot down his spine. Because of the slight distraction, the power of the “Divine Art of the Violet Twilight” decreased, and all he could pick out were pieces of words from the conversation.
“…not intercepting…Uncle Master Zu owed someone a favor, and that someone has asked him to inquire about somebody…it wasn’t…” the previous one replied.
The man spoke in such a low voice that Yue Buqun could only hear fractions of the sentence and couldn’t put the meaning of the words together. By the time he reloaded his “Divine Art of the Violet Twilight,” all he heard were sounds of footsteps descending further and further. The two men had faded into the darkness.
“How did our Huashan School start a feud with the ‘Hundred-Toxic Faction’?” Yue Buqun thought to himself. “That Uncle-Master Zhu they mentioned most probably is the Head Master of the ‘Hundred-Toxic Faction.’ This man has a nickname called ‘Non-lethal Man.’ It is said that this man possesses outstanding skills in the art of poisoning. To kill someone with poison is simple. Anybody can achieve that easily. But when this man poisons someone, the victim won’t die, instead, he will feel such great torment as if he has been cut thousands of times or as if there are tens of thousands of bugs chewing and feasting on his flesh. The misery is going to be so immense that the victim would have been better off dead, yet he won’t even have enough strength left to commit suicide and would have no other choice but to suffer more. Together with the ‘Five-Sylph Sect’ in Yunnan Province, the ‘Hundred-Toxic Faction’ has been named the Ultimate Two Poisonous Clans in the Martial World. Although it is said that the ‘Hundred-Toxic Faction’ is still inferior to the ‘Five-Sylph Sect,’ it is certainly no trivial matter. Why would this Master Zhu give me trouble in a big way? Who has asked him to do it?”
Yue Buqun pondered the question over and over but could only come up with two explanations: number one, Feng Buping of the Sword-Branch must have asked the Hundred-Toxic Faction to give trouble to him; number two, among the fifteen assassins Linghu Chong had blinded, someone must have been friends with the Hundred-Toxic Faction.
Suddenly a girl’s whispering voice from ashore caught his attention.
“Does your family really have that whatever ‘Evil-Resisting Sword Manuscript’ after all?”
It was the voice of his daughter – Yue Lingshan. Yue Buqun didn’t even have to listen on to figure out whom she was talking to. It of course had to be Lin Pingzhi. They must have sneaked ashore earlier sometime. Yue Buqun suddenly realized that his daughter’s feelings towards Lin Pingzhi had been growing day after day lately. The two dared not show their affection during the day, afraid that people would make fun of them; so instead, they went ashore for a date late at night. If it weren’t because he had detected enemy coming ashore and used his “Divine Art of the Violet Twilight” to spy on them, this would have certainly slipped by him. To load the “Divine Art of the Violet Twilight” would exhaust a good amount of inner energy. He wouldn’t have used it under ordinary circumstances. He certainly didn’t expect to find his daughter’s little secret together with the origin of the enemy? Then he heard Lin Pingzhi’s voice.
