Smiling Proud Wanderer Vol 02, page 33
“So it is Chief Blue, herself, who has come personally. It is certainly my lack of manners to have not greeted your gracious presence appropriately. May I ask what Chief Blue has to teach me about?” Yue Buqun cupped his hands together again to salute.
“I am completely illiterate. What can I teach you? Unless you mean you can teach me. See, the way you dressed does look like that of a schoolteacher. So you are thinking about teaching me to read, aren’t you? I am too thickheaded. You Han people are all too cunning. I doubt I’d be able to learn all that,” Blue Phoenix replied with a grin.
“Is she just acting dumb, or has she really no idea about standard polite greetings? Judging from the expression on her face, she doesn’t seem to be putting on an act,” Yue Buqun thought to himself. So he simply asked, “Chief Blue, why are you here?”
“Is Linghu Chong your apprentice brother or your apprentice?” Blue Phoenix asked.
“He is my apprentice,” Yue Buqun answered.
“Hmm, is it alright if I take a good look at him?” Blue Phoenix requested.
“But he is in poor health and a state of delirium at the moment, and would be unsuitable of coming out to pay his respects.” Yue Buqun wasn’t too fond of the idea.
“Pay his respects?” Blue Phoenix uttered in surprise, opening her big round eyes even wider. “I don’t need him to pay me respects. He is not a subordinate of my Five-Sylph Sect. Why would he need to pay me respects? Besides, he is that one…hehe…that one’s good friend. Even if he does want to pay me respects, I don’t deserve it. I heard that he drew his own blood to feed Old Man’s daughter in order to save her life. Such kind of passionate and affectionate man is the kind we Miao girls admire the most. That’s why I’ve gotten to take a look at him.”
“Well…well…!” Yue Buqun hesitated.
“I know he is badly wounded and have lost a lot of blood. You don’t have to call him out. I’ll come over myself,” Blue Phoenix suggested.
“We dare not request your gracious presence,” Yue Buqun said hurriedly.
“Whatever!” Blue Phoenix chortled, and with a gentle leap, she landed on the big boat carrying the Huashan school members.
Yue Buqun noticed the grace and ease she had displayed from the leap, yet nothing suggested that she had any extraordinary Kung Fu skills. Taking two steps back, he blocked the entrance to the cabin, feeling deeply troubled. He knew that the Five-Sylph Sect would make a very tough adversary, and when fighting with such unorthodox sects it would take a lot more than true Kung Fu skills to win the battle. That was the reason why he had been very polite toward Blue Phoenix from the very beginning. The two members of the Hundred-Toxic Faction had mentioned the previous night that someone had asked them to shadow the Huashan School. Birds of a feather flock together. Most likely it was the Five-Sylph Sect that had asked them to do so. Why would the Five-Sylph Sect be hard on the Huashan School? The Five-Sylph Sect was a large faction in the Martial World. When the chief of the sect came personally, logically he shouldn’t have blocked the way, but to let a person with all kinds of eerie poisons all over her body into the cabin was the last thing Yue Buqun would want. Figuring that Linghu Chong coming out to meet Chief Blue probably would be the best solution for now, he held his position steadily and shouted out.
“Chong! Chief Blue wants to see you. Come out, hurry!”
“Yes, Master!” Linghu Chong answered feebly. But since he had just lost a lot of blood recently, after hearing the calling from his Master, he couldn’t even sit up and had to give up trying after failing a few pathetic attempts.
“I heard that he was seriously wounded. How could he come out?” Blue Phoenix objected. “It’s very windy on the river. We don’t want him to catch a cold on top of everything he is already suffering from, do we? I’ll go inside to visit him.”
Blue Phoenix started walking toward the entrance of the cabin. Only after a few steps, she was already within four feet from Yue Buqun and the strong scent of fragrance filled Yue Buqun’s nostrils immediately. Turning slightly sideways, hesitantly, Yue Buqun spared enough room for Blue Phoenix to get through and watched cautiously as she entered the cabin.
The Peach Valley’s Six Fairies occupied the majority of the outer cabin, five of them sitting down cross-legged while Fruit Fairy lying on the bed.
“You must be the Peach Valley’s Six Fairies? I am the chief of the Five-Sylph Sect, and you are the Six Fairies of the Peach Valley. Sylphs are fairies, too. We are one of the same kind!” Blue Phoenix grinned joyously.
“Not likely! We are real and you are fake!” Root Fairy challenged mockingly.
“Even if you were real, we have six fairies, one more than what you have,” Trunk Fairy added.
“It wouldn’t be that hard to turn that around, you know,” Blue Phoenix beamed.
“How are you going to having one more than us? Are you changing the name of your sect to Seven-Sylph Sect?” Leaf Fairy asked curiously.
“We only have five sylphs, not seven. But we can reduce the six fairies to only four fairies, then naturally we would have one more than you guys, wouldn’t we?” A nasty grin flashed across Blue Phoenix’s face as she spoke.
“Reduce the six fairies to only four fairies? Are you saying that you are killing two of us?” Flower Fairy bellowed in fury.
“Kill or not, that’s all up to us, isn’t it? But I heard that you are friends of Linghu Chong, I guess we can let that pass. But you’ll have to stop boasting yourself and claim that you have one more fairy than my Five-Sylph Sect,” Blue Phoenix let out a triumphant smile.
“We love boasting ourselves. What’cha gonna do?” Trunk Fairy snapped.
All of a sudden, Root Fairy, Trunk Fairy, Leaf Fairy and Flower Fairy all leapt to their feet and each grabbed onto one of her limbs, but before they were able to lift her up, all four of them cried out and all let go of her simultaneously as though following an inaudible command, each holding out his palm and gazing at it in horror. Even Yue Buqun felt cold pricks all over his back when he took a quick glimpse of what the Fairies now had in their palms – two large emerald centipedes and two large spiders that had colorful stripes all over their bodies. The bodies of all four venomous pests were covered in long hairs, so disgusting that even a glance at them could make one sick. But the four venomous pests only moved slightly, and neither took a bite at the four Fairies. If they had bitten with their poisonous fangs, then the damage would have already been done, and they wouldn’t have appeared as frightening. Just because they were now all alerted and provoked, and any slight movement could have prompt them to bite down with the poisonous fangs, the Peach Valley’s Four Fairies dare not move an inch, and all froze right on the spot.
Blue Phoenix swung her arm conveniently, and the four venomous pests vanished all of a sudden. She must have put them away with the swing, but no one could tell where on her body did she store them. She paid no more attention to the Peach Valley’s Six Fairies and walked further into the cabin. Having been frightened completely out of their wits, the Peach Valley’s Six Fairies dared not speak another word.
Linghu Chong and the bunch of male apprentices of the Huashan School occupied the middle cabin. By then, Madam Yue and the many female apprentices had returned to the back cabin, and the clapboard between the middle cabin and the back cabin had been closed. After casting a casual glance at the many apprentices in the cabin, Blue Phoenix walked next to Linghu Chong’s bed and called out gently.
“Young Master Linghu! Young Master Linghu!”
The gentleness and the affection carried in her voice seemed to have reached the extreme. As the sweet sound echoed in everyone’s ears, each felt a soul-stirring sensation surging through his entire body, and almost couldn’t help but answer, as if she had been calling him, not Linghu Chong. After these two calls, over half of the male apprentices found themselves red in the face and their bodies quivering slightly.
“Who…who are you?” Linghu Chong opened his eyes slowly and asked in a barely audible voice.
“I am a friend of your good friend, so I am your friend, too,” Blue Phoenix answered tenderly.
Linghu Chong acknowledged with a slight groan and then closed his eyes.
“Young Master Linghu, I know you’ve lost a great amount of blood. But don’t worry, you won’t die,” Blue Phoenix said. But in his daze, Linghu Chong didn’t reply.
Reaching under Linghu Chong’s quilt, Blue Phoenix pulled his hand out and started checking his pulse, but soon her eyebrows knitted into a straight line. Suddenly, she stuck her head out of the window, gave a whistle, and then jabbered out many words, which neither one inside the cabin could comprehend.
A short while later, four Miao girls entered the cabin. All of them were about eighteen years of age, and all dressed in blue skirts in white flower patterns, with an embroidered waistband around each waist. Each of them held in her hand an eight-inch long square box made of bamboo strips.
Yue Buqun frowned slightly, thinking that whatever the things in the Five-Sylph Sect members’ hands were, they could not have been anything good. Just Blue Phoenix, by herself, already had many centipedes and spiders hidden on her. Now, when these four Miao girls carried these boxes into the cabin openly, all hell would probably break loose. But since they showed no sign of enmity, it would be inappropriate of him to stop them.
Walking over by Blue Phoenix’s side, the four Miao girls whispered something to her, and after getting a nod back, they opened the boxes. People in the cabin found their curiosity growing rapidly, all were eager to find out what kind of queer things might be stored in the boxes, except Yue Buqun, who was the only one who had seen the hairy venomous insects in Peach Valley’s Four Fairies’ palms, and only wished that he would never have to get a glimpse of the things inside the boxes. But suddenly, the strangest thing happened.
The four Miao girls rolled their sleeves high, exposing the snow-white arms, and then they also rolled their trouser legs high, until they were above their knees.50 The many male apprentices of the Huashan School were stupefied as they gaped at the unusual sight, their hearts pounding madly.
“Oh, no!” Yue Buqun thought secretly. “These girls from this heretical sect want to perform some kind of evil enchantment and use lust to tempt my apprentices. Just the voice of that Blue Phoenix, alone, was already utterly lascivious, if she performed any kind of black art on top of that, having not enough self-control, the many apprentices would undoubtedly fall for it.” He couldn’t help clutching the handle of his sword, determined to put a stop to it if these members of the Five-Sylph Sect were to undress themselves and perform any witchcraft.
After the four Miao girls rolled up their sleeves and trouser legs, Blue Phoenix also rolled her trouser legs up unhurriedly. Yue Buqun winked at the many apprentices, signaling them to retreat out of the cabin, so as not to be perplexed by the evil enchantment, but only Lau Denuo and Shi Daizi followed his command. Among the rest apprentices, some walked a few steps hesitantly toward the outside before returning to the original spot, and some others simply froze there, lost in trance.
Yue Buqun gathered his inner energy around his lower abdomen and loaded his “Divine Art of Violet Twilight.” Soon, a shade of violet color flashed across his face. He knew that the Five-Venom Sect had been entrenched in the southern region for over two hundred years, and their notoriety did not come by accident. Undoubtedly, they knew certain vicious and venomous sorcery. And when the chief, herself, was performing the sorcery, it was no trivial matter. If he didn’t guard his mind with the divine art, any slight oversight might have caused him to fall for her tricks. Seeing with his own eyes how these Miao girls exposed themselves in public, with no regard to dignity and having no sense of shame, Yue Buqun became more and more worried. To die of poison was one thing, but what he feared the most was to lose his clear conscience under the evil spell and bring shame to himself in the presence of everyone. If that ever happened, the reputation of the Huashan Sword School and the Gentleman Sword would have been completely ruined beyond redemption. He watched on as the four Miao girls each took something out of the box, something that wriggled back and forth in their hands. Just as he had expected, these had to be some kind of venomous worms. The four Miao girls placed these venomous worms on their exposed arms and legs, and as soon as the worms were set loose, they clung tightly to the skins.
Fixing his eyes on the worms, Yue Buqun soon realized that those weren’t venomous worms, but rather blood-sucking leeches that were quite common in creeks or lakes of the countryside, except that these leeches were twice the size of a regular one. One after another, the Miao girls took out more and more leeches from the boxes. Blue Phoenix also took outs some leeches from one of the bamboo boxes, and placed them on her own arms and legs. In only a few moments, the five girls’ arms and legs were completely covered by leeches; there were at least over two hundred of them in total. All the onlookers were dumbstruck, and neither had a clue as to what kind of strange scheme these five were up to.
Madam Yue had been in the back cabin, but after hearing the many cries of surprise uttered by the male apprentices in the middle cabin, she couldn’t help pulling the clapboard open and taking a glimpse, herself, and as soon as her eyes met the bizarre scene, she also let out a cry of surprise.
“Don’t be afraid. They won’t bite you,” Blue Phoenix comforted her with a smile. “Are you…are you Mr. Yue’s woman? I heard that you have outstanding sword skills. Is that true?” she asked.
Madam Yue squeezed out a smile, but didn’t answer. When Blue Phoenix had first asked if she were Mr. Yue’s woman, it sounded very crude. And then, when she asked about whether Madam Yue’s swords skills were truly outstanding, Madam Yue hesitated. If it had been someone else who had asked the same question, even if that person were hostile, she would have answered humbly. This Blue Phoenix evidently knew very little about conventions of Han Chinese; if Madam Yue had answered that yes, she did have outstanding sword skills, it would sound very arrogant; if she had answered that no, she didn’t have outstanding sword skills, perhaps this Blue Phoenix would have believed it, and would look down upon her. With these thoughts in mind, she decided to simply reply with silence. Blue Phoenix didn’t ask any further and simply stood there quietly.
In the meantime, Yue Buqun found himself on full alert. If the five Miao girls had any unusual action, he was ready to strike. To catch bandits first capture the ringleader. He would have taken Blue Phoenix down before anything else. By then, nobody in the cabin spoke another word; the only sounds were the heavy breathing from the many male apprentices of the Huashan School.
After a long while, the bodies of the many leeches on the five Miao girls’ arms and legs started to puff up and soon turned into a faint reddish color. Yue Buqun knew that as soon as a leech touched the skin of a person or an animal, it would make a tight grip using its sucker disk, and then start sucking blood, not letting go until it was completely full. When the leech was sucking blood from someone, the person would, at most, feel only a slight itch or numbness. When farmers worked in the paddy fields, they would often have leeches clinging to their legs, sucking blood out of them without their notice.
“Why are these witches using leeches to suck their own blood?” he muttered to himself. “Perhaps in order to perform their enchantment, the Five-Sylph Sect members must use their own blood. It seems that the time when these leeches have sucked enough blood will be the time they execute their enchantment.”
Blue Phoenix gently lifted up the quilt covering Linghu Chong’s body. Pulling a leech that was about nine tenth full off her arm, she placed it on Linghu Chong’s neck next to an artery.
“Hey, what are you doing?” afraid that she might harm Linghu Chong in anyway, Madam Yue yelled hurriedly. Unsheathing her long sword, she leapt into the middle cabin.
“No hurry! Let’s wait!” Yue Buqun shook his head.
Clutching her long sword tightly, Madam Yue gazed fixedly at Blue Phoenix and Linghu Chong. As soon as the leech was placed on Linghu Chong’s neck, it bit onto his artery and started sucking again. Blue Phoenix took out a small china bottle from her chest pocket and unplugged the lid. Using the pointed fingernail of the little finger on her right hand, she picked a little bit of the white powdery substance from the bottle and then sprinkled some onto the leech’s body. The other four Miao girls unbuttoned Linghu Chong’s robe and also rolled his sleeves and trouser legs up, then they started taking the many leeches off themselves and planting them next to the many arteries on Linghu Chong’s chest, stomach, arms and legs. Within a short moment, the over two hundred leeches had all been transferred onto Linghu Chong’s body. Blue Phoenix kept on picking more of the white powder and sprinkling a little bit of it on each and every of the leeches. Then, something very strange happened.
While clinging to the five Miao girls, the more those leeches sucked, the more they puffed up, but now, they all started shrinking little by little. Yue Buqun suddenly understood. Feeling much relaxed, he exhaled a long breath.
“Turned out that they are just using the leeches as the medium to transfer their blood into Chong’s arteries,” he thought loud. “I wonder what are these white powders made of. How can they have made leeches give out blood? How miraculous!”
Having figured it out, he gradually relaxed the grip on the sword handle. Madam Yue also returned her sword to its sheath gently as a smile crept onto her once tightened face.
Even though the cabin was still swept with silence, it was far from the tension-filled atmosphere just a minute ago, when fierce battle could have been triggered at any moment. And furthermore, even the Peach Valley’s Six Fairies were utterly amazed by what they saw, their jaws dropping and their mouths wide open. Since all six mouths were wide open and could not close because of the dropped jaws, naturally, neither of them could make any remark about it nor argue about it. This had to be a very rare occurrence.
