Chapter 164: Strike First to Gain the Upper Hand

The group shot rapidly into the forest and fled at full speed beneath the cover of the mountains.

That was precisely why Niu Youdao had chosen this direction.

Without wooded mountain terrain to conceal them, escaping across open ground would have been far more difficult.

At that moment, several figures skimmed across the river.

Tang Yi and the others landed in the forest on this side and searched the surroundings, but Niu Youdao’s group had already vanished.

Two more cultivators flew over and landed beside them.

Seeing the three had stopped searching, the newcomers exchanged a glance.

There was little they could do.

The mountain forest stretched endlessly before them. The two had no idea which direction Niu Youdao had fled or where he might be hiding.

Searching such a vast mountain with so few people was hardly practical...

Night fell.

In the small riverside city, lamps were beginning to glow.

Shao Pingbo temporarily moved into a courtyard in town.

Inside the hall, only after the local officials withdrew did the cultivators who had returned from the search step forward to report.

“Eldest Young Master, we do not know where they went. With night already fallen, finding them again will probably be difficult.”

Shao Pingbo had seen the man waiting off to the side without reporting and already knew the search had failed.

“Heaven is vast and Earth is broad. People who can come and go through the air cannot be found by searching blindly without a direction. Recall everyone.”

“Two things.”

“First, know yourself and know your enemy. We cannot fight someone without even knowing who he is. That leaves us far too passive. Find a way to contact Zhuge Xun’s side and determine exactly what sort of person this Zhang San is.”

“Second, send a group to the capital. Have them wait outside the city gates like hunters beside a tree stump. If they spot him, show no courtesy. Find a way to eliminate him immediately.”

“Yes!”

The cultivator beside him accepted the order.

The lights of the small city gradually thinned into the night.

Tang Yi and the others, who had searched the mountains thoroughly, only returned after dark.

Once they had been settled at an inn, a Moon Butterfly fluttered down and landed on the table.

Tang Yi slowly sat beside it, a trace of melancholy on her face.

She had not expected Niu Youdao to leave so decisively.

Still less had she expected him to set the restaurant ablaze before he went.

From that, she had sensed a streak of ruthlessness in him, something unlike the lazy, mild-mannered youth she remembered.

Because of everything the Shangqing Sect had done to him in those years, she had always carried guilt toward Niu Youdao.

Now that they had finally met again, she had wanted to compensate him and make proper arrangements for him.

Who could have imagined he would simply leave like this?

One hurried meeting, and then he ran.

Beyond guilt, there was also that nominal bond of husband and wife between them.

It was not something she could simply decide meant nothing.

She was a woman, after all, and could not entirely escape the worldly moral expectation that a woman remain faithful to one husband.

That bond had inevitably left a faint knot somewhere in her heart.

Tang Yi herself could sense the subtle change it had created in her attitude.

She remembered how close the two of them had stood while speaking in the kitchen.

Normally she would never stand so close to another man.

She would instinctively keep a proper distance to avoid suspicion.

But facing Niu Youdao, she had somehow never even thought of avoiding suspicion.

She had forgotten the idea entirely.

Only afterward did she realize how close they had leaned while whispering together.

The previous time they had been that close seemed to have been when they drank the wedding wine in the bridal chamber.

Back then, Niu Youdao had not even been as tall as she was.

He had still been a young boy.

When they lowered their heads and crossed arms to drink, even she had found the whole scene absurd.

This time, standing shoulder to shoulder at close range, she had finally realized that the boy had grown up.

He was taller than she was now.

He had become a man.

Perhaps all the words they had exchanged during five years at the Shangqing Sect did not add up to as much as they had spoken this time.

And then he had simply run.

Not even a word of farewell.

Even if he did not hate her, he probably felt no affection for her either.

She could understand that.

The wounds the Shangqing Sect had given him back then were real.

But he was grown now.

He had become a man.

Would he meet other women outside?

Women he liked?

Women who liked him?

If he took another woman, then what was she?

And what right did she have to say anything?

The Moon Butterfly cast gentle light.

Beside it, the woman at the table was more delicate than flowers, sitting in a daze...

Niu Youdao’s group had no horses.

They did not dare travel the official roads.

Wherever the terrain was most remote, that was where they went.

Black Peony and the others still could not understand why Master Dao seemed so wary of Shao Pingbo.

The key was that they had seen nothing especially remarkable about the man.

Why fear him so much?

That night was one long stretch of desperate travel.

They kept flying through the mountains until dawn began to break along the horizon.

Only then did the group stop inside a forest.

Every one of them was exhausted like a dead dog.

At that moment, even a Qi Refinement cultivator might have been able to wipe them all out in one attack.

Traveling this way was actually extremely dangerous.

If they happened to pass through a mountain forest where some hidden demon, ghost, or other strange thing had made its lair and attracted its attention, the trouble could be severe.

“They should have no chance of finding us now. Everyone recover as quickly as possible.”

Niu Youdao waved a hand and sat cross-legged.

Black Peony and the others dropped down one after another, took out spirit pills, swallowed them, and hurried into meditation to recover.

Only when the sun was high in the sky did everyone gradually return to full strength.

Their spirits recovered.

But after looking around, none of them had any idea where they were.

They had run all night through darkness, with no sense of how far they had traveled or what place they had reached.

They split up to search and eventually found an official road.

After stopping a traveler, they learned they were approaching a place called Qin’an County.

They opened the map and estimated their position.

Measured as a straight line on the map, they had covered more than eight hundred li in a single night.

Inside the forest beside the road, Niu Youdao stared at the spread-out map, seemingly considering something.

Black Peony asked, “Master Dao, where do we go next?”

Although one complication after another had arisen during the journey, they had all realized by now that Niu Youdao had been heading north the entire way.

None knew what he was trying to do.

He had never revealed his final destination.

“Next, we split up.”

“Split up?”

Duan Hu reminded him, “Master Dao, the Shao family commands its own troops. Although they submitted to the State of Han, their relationship with the State of Han is hardly close. And the Shao family has only been independent for a few years, so their foundations are not deep. Their influence should not extend beyond Beizhou.”

“We are already far from Beizhou, and they do not know which road we took. There should not be any problem now, should there?”

His meaning was obvious.

Was Master Dao perhaps being a little too wary?

The others nodded.

They all felt splitting up was unnecessary.

“You’re thinking too much,” Niu Youdao said. “I have something for you to do.”

So there was a task.

The group looked at him and waited for instructions.

Niu Youdao, however, closed his eyes, apparently thinking something through.

Once he seemed to have decided, he opened his eyes and turned toward an open patch of ground.

With a sweep of his sleeve and a surge of spiritual power, he cleared the surface flat.

Then he touched the tip of his sheathed sword to the ground and began writing.

The others stared at the characters appearing beneath the sword and slowly read them aloud.

“King of Beizhou, King of Beizhou, one piece of candy, one piece of candy...”

They reached that point and fell silent.

What the hell was this?

Then more words appeared.

They continued reading, though their voices no longer matched one another.

“Above has no answer, below has no way, two pieces of candy, two pieces of candy.”

“Yun is false king, Bo the true king, three pieces of candy, three pieces of candy.”

“Bo-Ping-Shao, Bo-Ping-Shao, halls full of gold and barns full of silver!”

Niu Youdao seemed to have finished there.

He stared at the words on the ground, humming something under his breath while keeping rhythm with one hand, apparently adjusting the cadence.

At first, the others had not understood what he was writing.

Once the whole thing was visible, however, the meaning was not difficult to grasp.

Who was the “King of Beizhou”?

Obviously Shao Dengyun.

Above Beizhou was the State of Han.

Below it was the State of Yan.

“Yun is false king” meant Shao Dengyun was merely the false king.

“Bo the true king” meant Shao Pingbo was the one truly ruling Beizhou.

And “Bo-Ping-Shao”—was that not simply Shao Pingbo’s name reversed?

Read another way, it suggested that Bo could bring down Shao.

Once they understood the layers of meaning and connected the whole rhyme together, the general message was clear enough.

Shao Dengyun meant to set himself up as king in Beizhou.

The State of Han above could do nothing about him.

The State of Yan below had no way to restrain him.

And Shao Dengyun himself was only a front.

The person truly ruling Beizhou was Shao Pingbo.

The man capable of bringing down Shao Dengyun was Shao Pingbo himself.

Once they understood, the others broke into a faint sweat and exchanged looks.

What exactly was Master Dao planning with this wicked little verse?

Niu Youdao, however, seemed to have settled the tune.

Facing them, he began chanting it in a light, cheerful rhythm.

“King of Beizhou, King of Beizhou,
one piece of candy, one piece of candy.
Above has no answer, below has no way,
two pieces of candy, two pieces of candy.
Yun is false king, Bo the true king,
three pieces of candy, three pieces of candy.
Bo-Ping-Shao, Bo-Ping-Shao,
halls full of gold and barns full of silver...”

He repeated the rhyme several times.

The cadence was genuinely catchy.

After hearing it once or twice, the others felt they could already sing it themselves.

After several rounds, Niu Youdao asked, “Remember it?”

Black Peony did not know whether to laugh or cry.

“I remember it. It rolls right off the tongue and is easy to memorize. But why does it sound like a children’s rhyme?”

Niu Youdao smiled. “Clever. That is exactly what it is.”

“And that is exactly what I want you to do.”

“Once we split up, each of you find ten counties. Think of a way to teach the local children this rhyme and have them sing it through the streets and alleys.”

“...”

The others suddenly understood what he intended.

If this children’s rhyme spread back to Beizhou, how awkward would it become when the Shao father and son faced one another?

They stared at Niu Youdao as though looking at a monster.

How could he even think of something this poisonous?

He was trying to bury Shao Pingbo alive.

The others sighed inwardly.

Of all the women Shao Pingbo could have taken a liking to, why did it have to be Master Dao’s woman?

This retaliation was vicious, insidious, and cruel.

The old saying was right.

Since ancient times, beautiful women had always brought disaster.

Shao Pingbo had really landed himself in serious trouble this time.

Black Peony reminded him, “Master Dao, if we really do this, we will offend Shao Pingbo to the death.”

“He may become our mortal enemy.”

“Is it necessary to create an enemy like that?”

“You think we’ll be fine so long as we don’t offend him?”

Niu Youdao replied, “Even if I do not trouble him, he will come trouble me.”

“Since that is the case, we may as well strike first to gain the upper hand.”

“Even if we cannot kill him, we should cripple part of his strength first.”

“Bind his hands and feet.”

“Create restraints around him so he cannot exert himself freely.”

“That will reduce the threat to us.”

“In short, Shao Pingbo’s ambitions are not small.”

“How should I put it... some things can be understood but not easily explained.”

“I cannot make you understand everything in a few words.”

“Perhaps later you will see it for yourselves.”

“There is no point saying more now.”

“Just do as I instructed.”

“Open the map.”

Niu Youdao had them spread the map out again.

He divided the territory into areas where the rhyme was to be spread and let each person choose his own region.

There was no need for anyone to haggle over better or worse assignments.

They casually pointed out separate areas.

“Good. Then it is settled.”

“We split into four routes.”

“We rendezvous at Jiuling County to the north. Same meeting procedure as before.”

Niu Youdao pointed to a location on the map.

Then he looked around at the group.

“One of you stay and travel with me.”

Duan Hu, Wu Sanliang, and Lei Zongkang all pointed at Black Peony almost simultaneously.

Black Peony froze.

Then she burst out laughing.

Niu Youdao was speechless.

It seemed everyone had decided there was something going on between him and Black Peony.

[End of Chapter 164]