TWWDS - Chapter 30

Chapter 30

Yan Kaixian carried a bamboo box on her back and said to Chao Qingxiu, "Since you have finished getting ready, Miss Chao, we can set out now."

Chao Qingxiu glanced at the sky and nodded. "Time had slipped away; it was mid-afternoon already."

It was only 3:30 p.m., not late for a martial artist who stayed up late but rose early. But Chao Qingxiu had just arrived and wanted to get her bearings in the city first.

Yan Kaixian had no idea what the Gang Leader was thinking. Otherwise, she would certainly have concluded that her new superior was a young person with a real knack for getting by in the martial world...

The south of Huashui City was quite lively. Fragrance from fruit and flowers drifted through the air, and pleasant music from strings and pipes echoed along the streets. Chao Qingxiu naturally headed toward the crowds.

Yan Kaixian saw this and decided that the Gang Leader had a youthful disposition and naturally enjoyed the bustle when she went out. An involuntary smile touched her face. Far from urging her on, she followed quietly in her wake.

Shops stood shoulder to shoulder along the street. Many restaurants hung different menu boards at their doors according to the season, using them to attract customers.

Chao Qingxiu rarely traveled far from home. Though she was not exactly shocked, she found everything fresh and intriguing. As she walked and looked around, she discovered that Huashui City had a rich variety of music and dance. Two tall taverns rose over the busy district, called Chunhua Pavilion and Qiuyue Tower. Their paired names made them sound like a chain of establishments. Both were lavishly decorated, and their splendor matched the finest buildings in Gaofang Prefecture. Many passersby discussed them.

Someone noticed that Chao Qingxiu was looking toward Chunhua Pavilion and said with a smile, "You look unfamiliar around here. Are you from out of town?"

"As a matter of fact, I live nearby. I simply seldom come this way. I heard of Chunhua Pavilion before, and today I came to see for myself. It truly lives up to its reputation."

Yan Kaixian followed behind her, finding the exchange very amusing.

The Gang Leader was not lying. She lived in Gaofang Prefecture, and since both places were in Shizhou, it could indeed count as nearby. Her claim to have heard of Chunhua Pavilion before was true as well. Martial artists had keen senses; Chao Qingxiu had genuinely overheard the people around her before she reached the vicinity of Chunhua Pavilion.

The stranger seemed pleased by her praise and said cheerfully, "It is already late. If you go to Chunhua Pavilion now, you will not see any of the good performances. You might as well look in at Qiuyue Tower. The performances there run from morning till night."

After listening for a while, Chao Qingxiu quickly learned that Chunhua Pavilion and Qiuyue Tower had the same owner, and why that owner had felt compelled to open two establishments with such similar offerings.

Qiuyue Tower was larger, and its music and dance went on from morning till night, so any customer who came in for a meal could watch. Chunhua Pavilion, by contrast, used a special-order system: a guest had to pay to request a performance. The standard of its entertainments was exceptional. Musicians from Shouzhou or the Capital Region often came to perform there, but only during set hours, from 7:00 to 11:00 in the morning and from 1:00 to 5:00 in the afternoon.

In other words, Chunhua Pavilion did not stage performances every day. From time to time, however, a wealthy patron would order several consecutive days of music and dance and open them to the public. Other customers could watch for free and, while they were at it, flatter the person who had paid.

It was already 3:45 p.m. Even if Chao Qingxiu went to Chunhua Pavilion now, she would see only the end of the performance.

After exchanging a few casual words with a passerby, Chao Qingxiu turned her attention away from the taverns and joined the people heading north.

It was early summer, when fruit was plentiful. Seeing someone selling small cherries, Chao promptly went over and bought a handful.

The vendor called out, "Thank you, kind customer!" Then they briskly poured the cherries into a cone of rolled leaves, handed them to her, and added a handful of wild fruit.

Chao Qingxiu turned back to Yan Kaixian. "Would you like one, Sister Yan?"

"I can do without it." Her nature was cautious, and she was even more watchful in the open. Seeing that the Gang Leader was young and playful, she focused all her attention, making certain no one sprang a surprise attack along the way.

Yan Kaixian gazed at Chao Qingxiu's back and felt that her leader was rarely showing the cheerful openness natural to her age. At headquarters, Chao Qingxiu had always been composed, often seeming deep in thought. To set her worries aside now and wander freely through the marketplace was no bad thing.

Huashui City was not large, but there were plenty of snacks along the streets. Chao Qingxiu stopped at a small shop selling crispy fried grapes. To make them, the grapes were coated in flour, sugared, and deep-fried. Grapes were still scarce at that time of year, so they were not cheap, costing two copper coins apiece.

Chao Qingxiu was not especially familiar with local haggling techniques. Fortunately, the shop was doing brisk business, so she capitalized on the haggling the previous customer had done and bought seven pieces for ten copper coins.

Yan Kaixian had brought a bamboo box when they set out, originally intending it to hold the medicine prepared by Dr. Zhou.

However, it now seemed more sensible to use it for the Gang Leader's snacks.

At least that way, when they called at the house, Dr. Zhou would not question the professionalism of the Zizhuo Gang's bodyguard unless his sense of smell happened to be especially acute.

Besides, by the time they reached Huashui City, it was already late. If they arrived any later, they might even get a free dinner at the house, so Chao Qingxiu did not hurry. She stopped and started along the way, and it took a long while before they reached Northwest Long Street.

The north was plainly more desolate than the south. Because other parts of the city still needed repairs, only one main road remained open. Few shops stood around it, and only one teahouse offered a place to rest. Thinking that any establishment able to keep its doors open where customer traffic was such a disadvantage must have something special about it, Chao Qingxiu went in and ordered two bowls of tea.

Yan Kaixian did not ask why the Gang Leader had chosen to rest when they were nearly at their destination. Chao Qingxiu had bought plenty of snacks along the way, so wanting some water now was perfectly normal.

Inside, there were few customers. The people at the two tables nearby were plainly local residents, chatting about family matters. One asked, "How was the harvest this year?" while another said, "The scenery south of the city is lovely."

Huashui and Gaofang Prefecture lay close together, and the people of both spoke in much the same way, with the soft cadence peculiar to the water towns of Jiangnan.

Without the coming and going of traveling merchants, the north of Huashui City had an air of bleak desolation. Several houses near the teahouse were dilapidated, and some had long been left empty.

No wonder so few people came there. Only someone like Dr. Zhou, who did not have to go out to see patients and merely stayed at home to prepare medicine, could live there in peace.

The teahouse owner brought over a teapot and two tea bowls, attentively poured tea for them both, and bowed. "Please, help yourselves. If you need anything, simply call for me."

The tea was clear, with a fresh aroma. It was not especially fine, but it would quench her thirst.

Chao Qingxiu lifted her tea bowl and took a sip.

Inside the teahouse, some people were playing cards, with sunflower seed shells scattered across the floor. Someone else sat cooling off with a book. They had been drinking tea for most of the day, and the owner did not chase them away.

Fifty paces away, two idlers huddled beneath the eaves, in shadow, and chatted. They gazed silently at the lights to the south. One turned to the other and said, "It is getting much too late. In another forty-five minutes, it will be 5 p.m., and the performance at Qiuyue Tower should be nearly over."

Amid the warmth and bustle of everyday life, Chao Qingxiu quietly set down her tea bowl.

In summer the sun sets late, and the sky was still bright. Yan Kaixian watched Chao Qingxiu sitting upright and at ease across from her, yet felt as though a shadow lay across the Gang Leader's brow.

A soft breeze stirred, and leaves rustled.

A sharp smile suddenly flickered across Chao Qingxiu's serene face. She lowered her gaze, looking for all the world like a martial artist moving through the dark of night, a blade held silently behind her back.

Her sleeve swept past, like a white cloud drifting from among the mountain peaks, blocking the line of sight of everyone nearby. Yan Kaixian felt the Gang Leader use a finger as a brush to write in her palm.

Yan Kaixian's pupils contracted sharply, but she made herself keep looking straight ahead.

Chao Qingxiu at her side glanced at her and gave a slight nod.

Yan Kaixian rose without hesitation and walked toward the abandoned house nearby. She boldly planted herself in front of the two idlers and said, "Friends, I have something I would like to ask you."

As she spoke, she appeared to raise her hands in salute. To anyone with a trained eye, however, it was clear that in the same motion she had already brought every acupoint on both men within the range of her next strike.

The idler's body snapped taut. In the next instant, like a live fish on a chopping block, he sprang from the ground and rammed Yan Kaixian without hesitation. But just before they collided, her solid, towering frame seemed suddenly to grow slight. Her back had become impossibly light, light as a leaf, and she flashed past like the wind.

Her movement was swift beyond measure, and she crossed the space in a single leap without the least flourish, landing behind both idlers.

The first idler spun around. As he turned, his upper body arched like a cooked shrimp and he jerked backward. At the same time, he drew a water-splitting spike from beneath his clothes. With a sweep of his long arm, he drove it toward Yan Kaixian's chest like a venomous snake. The other spread his arms, vaulted into the air like a roc, and pounced toward Chao Qingxiu.

The man before her proved stronger than Yan Kaixian had expected. Seeing through their tactic, she vented her strength outward and struck him dead without hesitation, but she was already too late to stop the second man from rushing toward the Gang Leader.

At that moment, Chao Qingxiu was still seated where she was, her expression gentle and composed, wholly unruffled. She had only turned from facing the teahouse to facing the street.

The airborne idler brought a thick shadow with him, and it covered Chao Qingxiu in the blink of an eye. At that instant, the sleeve hanging at her side swept upward, as though two white rainbows had suddenly spanned the sky. In a flash, both palms shot together from her sleeves and slammed into the man's breastbone with the force of iron hammers.

Chao Qingxiu did not try to defend against the attack. The moment both palms struck the man's chest, the clear crack of shattering ribs rang out.

At the same moment, a sharp sound of something cutting through the air rang out.

In her moment of urgency, when Yan Kaixian saw someone attack the Gang Leader, she raised her hand and hurled her single saber at the attacker.

A cold flash gleamed through the air. The saber's blade had already driven through the idler's chest from behind, and another surge of force poured from Chao Qingxiu's palms, blasting the man she had just struck away.

With his breastbone shattered and his back pierced, the idler finally breathed his last. He had no strength left to fight.

From the moment Chao Qingxiu had signaled to Yan Kaixian to the moment everything was over, only a few breaths had passed. The customers drinking tea around them still had not worked out what had happened before they saw two corpses lying across the long street.

When Yan Kaixian returned to the teahouse, she saw an unnatural tide of color rise in Chao Qingxiu's cheeks. She knew it was caused by circulating energy too quickly; unless Chao Qingxiu regulated her breathing properly, she risked internal injury. Yet moments later, the color began to fade from her face, clearly showing that she was not seriously harmed.

She glanced down at the body of the "idler" beside her and saw that his upper body had twisted into a strange, wizened posture. She realized that the Gang Leader's martial arts must be stronger than she had estimated. She also reflected that the Gang Leader had clearly sensed something wrong from the start, yet had continued sitting in the teahouse, waiting at ease while the enemy wore itself out. That spoke for considerable courage and confidence.

No one knew that Chao Qingxiu's inner strength was built upon Qingxin Formula. This martial art lacked power, but its great virtue was how rarely it led to internal-energy imbalance. She had chosen not to move because her lightness technique was only mediocre; had she truly retreated, she would have exposed a weakness all the more easily. Her palm technique, however, came from Yuxuan Taiyin Scripture, and the meridians in her arms had already been opened. If she met the attackers head-on, her chances of winning would actually have been better.

After Chao Qingxiu had finished regulating her breath, she turned toward Yan Kaixian and said gently, "Speed is vital in war. If you head there now, you may still arrive in time."

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