"Very well then, Miss Zisu."
Li Qiuchen called her Miss Zisu, then turned to look at Qingqing. "Why haven't you gone to get the rolling pin yet?"
Qingqing stared blankly.
"You're actually serious?"
"You don't have one at ho?"
"We do, but what exactly are you planning?"
"Get it first and we'll discuss it afterward."
With Qingqing sent off in a state of complete bafflent, Li Qiuchen turned back to Zisu and said with a serious expression, "Miss Zisu, what was your occupation when you were alive?"
Zisu gave a delicate laugh. "What does scholar an by that? I'm a living woman lying right here with you. How can you speak of when I was alive?"
"Qingqing already told . This is a haunted house and all of you are female ghosts."
"That little piece of trouble, desperate for a man, just blurts out everything without a second thought!"
The mont she heard that Qingqing had given the ga away, Zisu's composure cracked completely.
"She was deceiving you. Scholar, if you don't believe , just reach out and feel for yourself. My chest is warm."
"Corpses are cold. You said yourself you're not a corpse."
"Scholar's tongue might as well be dipped in poison."
"So back to the point. Miss Zisu, what was your occupation when you were alive?"
Zisu let out a sigh and said with a wistful air, "Nothing but coming and going with certain n. Not much worth talking about."
"Is it that you can't rember, or that you don't know how to explain it?"
"Does it really matter?"
"It matters very much."
Li Qiuchen said seriously, "It would help
determine whether you were a celebrated entertainer on a river pleasure boat, or a female knight-errant who traveled the martial world."
Zisu's expression shifted. After a brief silence she said softly, "How did scholar co to think that I don't seem like soone from that kind of profession?"
"You're wearing too little."
"???"
Li Qiuchen explained patiently. "Stripped down, everyone looks roughly the sa. What essential difference is there? The whole purpose of selecting an entertainer is to maximize how much money the guests spend. The guests' ultimate goal is to get the entertainer to remove her clothing, but before reaching that final goal, they want her to find elaborate pretexts to extract money from them gradually, one step at a ti."
"Miss Zisu, you went straight to the last step. That alone shows you have no experience with receiving clients."
"So scholar has considerable experience in this area himself?"
"I've read quite a lot of books."
Li Qiuchen hadn't forgotten what he had co here to do.
Compared to the deliberately infuriating trap of Embracing Stone Academy, the Five Lotus Manor scenario wasn't beyond the scope of what he had studied.
At its core, it was a test of the practitioner's Dao Heart through the temptations of human desire.
Essentially the sa question type as when Guanyin had tested the Tang Monk.
The substance of this question clearly wasn't about engaging in an endless struggle with beautiful young won.
Even if Lord He genuinely was generous with his benefits.
Qingqing had given away too much information, and from the very beginning had even revealed the haunted house's secret. That made Li Qiuchen recognize this was not a puzzle-solving question but a true-or-false question.
The information they provided was not guaranteed to be accurate.
Take their identities, for instance.
Qingqing was dressed as a little maidservant and spoke as though the mistress and the young miss were separate, superior figures.
But was she really a maid? Could a maid really compete with the manor's mistress and young miss for a guest?
Rember that in the story she told, every soul in the manor aside from the five lotus flowers had been used as a ritual offering.
And then there was Miss Zisu.
Despite performing as a completely shaless woman of easy virtue, she had been far too eager.
Li Qiuchen didn't know much about Xinghua Pavilion, but he understood comrce.
He had never heard of an entertainer who deaned herself this aggressively.
"It seems scholar doesn't read particularly respectable books."
"You say you're a celebrated entertainer. Then do you know what activity requires a rolling pin?"
Zisu finally went quiet.
"Since I don't want to ask this a fourth ti, Miss Zisu, what was your occupation when you were alive? If you won't tell the truth, I'll have to let you experience what the rolling pin feels like."
"I was an escort guard at Jinwei Security Agency. I used to specifically protect the female mbers of wealthy households when they traveled."
"Mm. I could tell."
"How could you tell from where?"
"You have a very healthy pair of excellent legs."
Li Qiuchen explained, "Your movent was too fast. The mont Qingqing opened the door, you were already launching yourself at . That ans your footwork is exceptionally practiced. Legs that healthy and long aren't developed on a pleasure boat. If you were really an entertainer, why bother with all this when you could dive into a river and outswim anyone trying to catch you?"
"Relative to your lower body technique, your upper body work is clearly underdeveloped. Otherwise you wouldn't be unable to break free from my hold."
This was understandable, of course. No woman with that kind of front could properly train her striking technique.
Zisu smiled. "Scholar is hardly a weak-limbed scholar himself. An ordinary person might not have even reacted in ti."
"Why did you try to force your way into Qingqing's room? Don't you have rules here against competing for another's man?"
"I wasn't forcing my way in..."
"Refusing to leave and pressuring Qingqing to open the door amounts to the sa thing."
Li Qiuchen said with a serious expression, "Qingqing and I are already husband and wife tonight. That status can't be given to you. Beyond that, what else do you want?"
"I only want to spend the night with scholar..."
"My body is also unavailable."
"Why should that be?"
Zisu imdiately beca agitated. "Open your eyes and look. In what way am I inferior to that little maid? Does scholar have not even the slightest feeling for ?"
Li Qiuchen nodded. "Miss Zisu, your perfect figure is genuinely my preferred type."
"Then you..."
"But I am a person who keeps his promises. I will not go back on what I pledged to my wife."
Li Qiuchen turned toward the doorway, and t the bright eyes of the young girl who had been peering in from outside.
"Did you find the rolling pin?"
"I found it!"
Qingqing ca in grinning, carrying a rolling pin three feet long and two inches thick.
"I knew my husband was a man of his word."
The mont she saw the rolling pin, Zisu tensed considerably. "Scholar, let's talk this through reasonably. There's really no need to bring that into it..."
"Miss Zisu, have you ever eaten candied haws?"
"I have... what?!"
Zisu's eyes snapped wide open. "What are you planning to do?"
"I want to hear you tell a story. Your own story."
"I have no story!"
"Do you enjoy candied haws?"
"Yes, yes, I have a story! Plenty of stories!"
Seeing Li Qiuchen pressing down on her lower back while Qingqing stood to the side looking eagerly ready, Zisu panicked.
"What do you want
to tell?"
"Just the story of how you, Miss Zisu, were deceived into Five Lotus Manor. How does that sound?"
"What is there to tell about that."
Zisu said coldly, "I only have myself to bla for being blind and weak-minded enough to believe that scoundrel's lies. He told
the manor's master had t with misfortune, and the mistress and the young miss were struggling to maintain the household, so they wanted to hire
to protect the mistress. It was only after I entered the manor that I realized sothing was wrong, but by then I had already been given a sedative and could not escape. He cut open my chest and removed my heart, feeding my flesh and blood to nurture the lotus flowers. It was not until a hundred years later that I regained my consciousness."
"And why do you draw yang energy from n?"
"Without drawing yang energy, how does one's cultivation grow?"
"And what do you need to grow your cultivation for? The man who killed you is already dead."
"Who knows whether he's truly dead or rely pretending?"
Zisu ground her teeth. "They say the good die young but the wicked live a thousand years. That scoundrel practiced immortal cultivation. Who knows how many hundreds of years he could survive. If he suddenly appeared one day, should we sisters simply allow ourselves to be humiliated by him again?"
Li Qiuchen asked with genuine curiosity, "Have you no way of confirming whether that person is dead or alive?"
Zisu shook her head helplessly.
"There is a way!"
Qingqing, standing to one side, suddenly spoke up. "There is a way!"
Zisu looked up sharply, and saw two of Qingqing's fingers holding a copper coin that looked utterly ordinary.
"This is a wayfaring coin. It can perform a simple divination. You simply speak your question to it, sothing like asking whether that cultivator is now living or dead, and then toss the coin. You'll receive an accurate answer."
Zisu stared fixedly at the coin in Qingqing's hand, words forming on her lips but not quite coming out.
Qingqing said with seriousness, "Azi, let's make a trade. You agree to stop interrupting my husband and , and I'll give you this wayfaring coin that my husband gave
as a token of affection, to resolve the deepest fixation on your heart."
"Agreed!"
Zisu agreed imdiately, afraid Qingqing might change her mind. "But I don't know how to use this thing. Show
how!"
Qingqing pinched the coin and called out clearly, "Is the cultivator who killed Azi alive or dead today? Heads for alive, tails for dead. Heaven, earth, and spirits, show
the way!"
She flicked the coin high into the air. It beca a streak of pale light, spinning rapidly in midair, and after a mont expanded suddenly to the size of a palm and hung still in the air.
Tails.
The coin slowly faded away. Zisu stared blankly, her expression hollow and lost.
Even when Li Qiuchen released his hold, she made no further attempt to cause trouble. She stood, stumbled, and walked out the door.
The mont she left the room, Qingqing rushed over, slid the bolt back into place, then ran back and held out her hand to Li Qiuchen.
"What for?"
"I rescued husband from deep peril, and wasted a precious wayfaring coin on Azi's behalf. Isn't husband going to reimburse ?"
"Of course."
Li Qiuchen nodded, produced a second wayfaring coin, and placed it in Qingqing's hand.
"Hehehe. Then let's go back to sleep, husband!"
With the coin in hand, Qingqing was all smiles, tossed aside the rolling pin, and bounced onto the bed.
This ti it really was just sleeping.
The two of them pulled up the covers, closed their eyes, and stopped talking.
After a short while, Qingqing turned her head and asked in a small voice, "Husband, are you asleep yet?"
"Not yet."
"I want to tell you sothing."
"Go ahead."
"Even though I'm not as large as Azi, I do have sothing."
"Yes, I noticed."
"Husband, don't you feel like your hands are a bit cold?"
"They're all right."
"What if you just..."
At precisely this mont, a woman's voice ca from outside the door.
"The Mistress invites the scholar to co for tea."
Qingqing sat bolt upright, irritated. "Who drinks tea in the middle of the night? Don't people need to sleep?"
The woman outside said nothing. The bolt in the door simply slid out of its place on its own.
Qingqing's face went completely pale.
The rules that were supposed to hold had just been broken.
"It's all right."
Li Qiuchen reassured her. "I'll go and et this Mistress, and see what she's about."
[NEXT CHAPTER]
Reviews
All reviews (0)