Chapter 227: Messages of Love

Those words had only been meant to encourage and coax him along. In truth, even Lu Shengzhong himself did not think much of the prospects between Tan Yaoxian and Shao Liuer. The gulf in their backgrounds was simply too great.

That vast divide could not be bridged by whether they liked each other. Their horizons, experience, and knowledge were different; so were their standards of living and daily habits. Passion could cover those differences at first, but once life settled into the ordinary, every sort of conflict would surface. The two were fundamentally mismatched. Unless Tan Yaoxian could improve himself quickly, they were simply not suited to one another. The Shao family undoubtedly saw this very clearly, and their opposition was not necessarily nothing more than despising the poor and favoring the rich.

But Tan Yaoxian wiped away his tears with his sleeve and stared blankly at Lu Shengzhong. Those final words seemed to have awakened him. Meeting his gaze, Lu Shengzhong gave him a slight nod, encouraging him to act.

Light gradually returned to Tan Yaoxian's eyes. He clasped his ten fingers together before his chest and paced rapidly back and forth through the hall, anxious and excited.

Yet courage came quickly and departed just as quickly. Before long, he slowly sat sideways beside the table again, one hand gripping its edge as he lowered his head. "I understand what the Shao family means. But what use is my willingness? If the Shao family refuses, what can I do? I'm afraid I won't even have a chance to see Liuer."

Lu Shengzhong cursed inwardly. If you know you can't stay in Beizhou any longer, why are you still clinging on here instead of leaving? Isn't it because you still have hope?

He strode over, bent down, and said, "If the Shao family won't let you see her, why don't you think of a way to see her yourself?"

Tan Yaoxian looked up. "The Shao household is tightly guarded. They won't let Liuer out. How am I supposed to get in?"

Lu Shengzhong said, "You can exchange messages through fallen leaves, can't you? You may not be able to get in, but you can have Miss Shao think of a way to come out!"

Tan Yaoxian said, "Her family watches her and won't let her leave. How could she possibly get out?"

Lu Shengzhong said, "If she could come and go easily, would we need to sit here thinking of a solution? Contact Miss Shao first. Ask what difficulties she's facing, and we'll see whether they can be solved. If they truly can't be solved, there will still be time to sigh and lament afterward. You shrink back before you've even tried. Is that the conduct of a real man? Is Brother Tan a coward, or was Miss Shao blind to give you her true heart?"

His words stirred Tan Yaoxian once more. He stood up again, only to wilt almost immediately. "Even if Liuer manages to come out, what use would it be if the Shao family simply refuses to let us be together?"

Lu Shengzhong was speechless. He truly could not stand this sort of indecisive scholar who worried about everything before and after. Nothing had even begun, yet the difficulties had already tied his thoughts into knots.

He sighed. "If Miss Shao can come out, getting the Shao family to agree will actually be the easy part."

Tan Yaoxian looked up at him and said earnestly, "Brother Li, please teach me!"

Lu Shengzhong said, "Elope with Miss Shao! Go somewhere the Shao family can't find you. Naturally, the two of you can stay together for the rest of your lives."

"That... that doesn't seem proper, does it?" Tan Yaoxian looked embarrassed, yet also somewhat tempted. He fidgeted and said, "I'm afraid Liuer wouldn't agree either."

Lu Shengzhong said, "Then cook the raw rice into cooked rice first. Once Miss Shao becomes your woman, naturally she'll be willing to leave with you. Even if she refuses to elope, once what's done is done, the Shao family will have no choice but to accept reality, won't they? Every difficulty will resolve itself."

Tan Yaoxian looked deeply embarrassed. "That is not the conduct of a gentleman!"

Unable to endure this pedantic fool any longer, Lu Shengzhong turned and walked away, intending to get some air in the courtyard.

Tan Yaoxian thought he truly meant to leave. It had not been easy to find someone unafraid of the Shao family who could actually offer him ideas. Growing anxious, he hurried after him and caught Lu Shengzhong by the arm. "Brother Li! Let me think about it some more."

Lu Shengzhong stopped and looked him up and down. Knowing he had already been tempted, he asked, "Do you want to betray your own heart and play the hypocritical gentleman, or do you want to be with Miss Shao?"

"This..." Tan Yaoxian was too embarrassed to say it aloud. In the end, he nodded.

Lu Shengzhong wanted to ask what exactly that nod was supposed to mean, but on second thought, the man's skin was thin enough already, so he spared him the embarrassment. He pried Tan Yaoxian's hand from his arm and nodded. "Good. Then contact Miss Shao as soon as possible. Ask what the situation is on her side and see what would be needed to help her get out. If we coordinate from inside and outside, there may be an opportunity."

That was his true objective. He knew stirring up trouble here was dangerous, but Niu Youdao insisted that he do it. What choice did he have? If he wanted to return, he at least had to produce one or two accomplishments to account for himself.

But the Shao family had already been alerted—the snake had been startled by the grass being struck. It would be very difficult to breach their defenses again. Now that he had finally found something resembling an opening, of course he had to see whether he could pry it open.

If he could open that breach, if he could abduct Shao Liuer, and if he could get Shao Liuer all the way to Qingshan Commandery, then he would no longer need to keep risking himself here. He would also have something to show Niu Youdao. At that point, it ought to be Niu Youdao's turn to do something about his standing within Wuliang Mountain. Truth be told, Lu Shengzhong himself was growing tired of this sort of work.

Sometimes, thinking back on it, he felt he had only himself to blame. Back when he served Wang Heng, Wang Heng had many Golden Core Realm cultivators around him. Lu Shengzhong was merely a Foundation Establishment Realm cultivator, so if he wanted to establish himself, he had no choice but to display his abilities in other areas as much as possible.

And the result? Winning Wang Heng's appreciation had been all well and good, but from then on, whenever this sort of task appeared, Wang Heng sent him to handle it.

The attempt to assassinate Niu Youdao in Canglu County was a perfect example. Even the other Golden Core Realm cultivators had no confidence in succeeding, yet Wang Heng ignored that and insisted on forcing him to go.

That was how he had fallen into Niu Youdao's hands. Presumably Niu Youdao had also noticed his abilities in this area, and now he too was forcing Lu Shengzhong to deal with Shao Pingbo.

Lu Shengzhong truly was tired of it. Constantly wandering along the edge of danger had frightened him as well. He knew that if this continued, sooner or later something would go wrong.

Tan Yaoxian looked at the sky outside. "It's not time yet. It has to be around dusk. I also need to make some preparations."

Lu Shengzhong immediately asked, "Prepare what? Do you need my help?"

"No need." Tan Yaoxian shook his head, hurried into the courtyard, and picked up seven or eight leaves from beneath a tree.

Returning inside, he fetched a sewing needle, sat at the table with a leaf cupped in one hand and the needle raised in the other, and deliberated for a while. Then he suddenly asked, "Brother Li, what should I write?"

Lu Shengzhong said, "Just tell her you want to see her and ask whether she has any way to come out."

Tan Yaoxian shook his head. "I've said that before. She has no way to get out."

Lu Shengzhong said, "Then tell her you're leaving Beizhou and want to see her one last time. Ask what makes it difficult for her to get out, and say the two of you can discuss whether there's some way to solve it. Mm. Something along those lines."

Tan Yaoxian looked as though he wanted to object, but after Lu Shengzhong's repeated persuasion that day, he finally summoned a man's courage. At last he hardened his heart and decided to risk it.

He laid a leaf on the table, bent over it, and began pricking rapidly with the sewing needle in his hand. In the blink of an eye, tiny characters appeared across the leaf one after another.

This technique...

Lu Shengzhong stared from the side, almost dumbfounded. It was truly a marvel to behold. He had thought pricking characters into a leaf would be troublesome. Only now did he discover that this bookish fool was astonishingly practiced, his hands swift and sure. Clearly, he had trained at this. He really was a scholar...

What left Lu Shengzhong even more speechless was that he could not understand the characters on the leaf. They had actually used a cipher, one Tan Yaoxian and Shao Liuer had obviously agreed upon in advance. No wonder the man did not mind letting him watch.

Lu Shengzhong had hoped to learn the details of the communication site so that, if necessary, he could impersonate Tan Yaoxian and contact Shao Liuer himself. Now it appeared that unless he obtained the method for deciphering their code, that would be impossible. For the moment, he could only marvel at how much thought these two young lovers had put into everything...

Once the materials were ready and the proper time had nearly arrived, Tan Yaoxian fetched a book before leaving and tucked the inscribed leaves between different pages.

With the book in hand, the inscribed leaves were concealed along with it. He said to Lu Shengzhong, "Brother Li, it's about time."

Lu Shengzhong instead sat down and chuckled. "It's a secret place for sending messages. Better that I don't see it. Brother Tan can go on your own. I'll wait here for you to return."

There was no chance he would openly walk through the streets beside Tan Yaoxian.

"All right!" Tan Yaoxian nodded. He was also too embarrassed to let someone else watch these furtive little tricks of his.

After seeing him out the door, Lu Shengzhong's head appeared above the courtyard wall. He glanced in the direction Tan Yaoxian had gone, then quickly vaulted over the wall on the opposite side...

Channels brought water into the city from outside, and many residents drew their daily water from them. People washed clothes and vegetables along the banks; children played in the water; pedestrians streamed along both sides; bridges crossed the channels. Beneath the setting sun, it made a lively scene.

In a quieter stretch upstream, a branch channel had been cut away from the main waterway and ran directly into the Provincial Provincial Inspector's Residence. The water wound through the residence and later flowed back out from another outlet. The surroundings here were quiet and elegant, precisely the sort of place scholars often frequented.

When Tan Yaoxian arrived, other scholars were already there. Some walked while reading from books held before them. Some clasped books behind their backs. Others wandered about reciting aloud. Tan Yaoxian strolled among them as though he were simply one more member of the crowd.

He merely had one small refined habit: he liked to pluck a leaf from beside the road and idly wave it while reading. After looking at his book for a while, he would casually toss the leaf away without seeming to notice. Later, just as casually, he would pluck another.

Whenever he crossed the little stream leading toward the Provincial Provincial Inspector's Residence, he would unobtrusively draw a leaf from his book and let it fall into the water.

He did not release all of them at once. He waited a while between each leaf. If he sent them all together, the person waiting at the agreed place might miss them.

This works too? Lu Shengzhong, secretly watching from around a distant corner, could only marvel inwardly. To ease the pain of longing for one another, this man and woman had practically trained themselves into spies...

Inside the Provincial Provincial Inspector's Residence, Shao Liuer, dressed in a pink gown, held a book of her own as she wandered through a grove beside a murmuring brook in the garden.

The guards stationed discreetly nearby would occasionally glance toward the graceful figure moving through the trees, but they paid little attention. Everyone knew this was the Eldest Young Miss's habit. Unless it rained, she came to this quiet grove to read at around the same time every day, so no one disturbed her.

Book in hand, Shao Liuer walked back and forth. From the corner of her eye, she glanced at a leaf drifting along the brook and secretly rejoiced. She knew her beloved's message had arrived.

Once she saw the first leaf, she knew there would be a second. She walked to a stone beside the stream and sat down.

When the second leaf drifted near, she leaned down slightly and picked it from the water. She did not hurry to read it. Instead, she held it loosely between her fingers as though it were merely something she had idly picked up to play with. Only after concentrating on her book long enough to finish a passage did she slowly rise and leave. No god or ghost would have known what had happened...

By the time the sky began to darken, Tan Yaoxian had returned home. He pushed open the courtyard gate, quickly shut it behind him, and hurried into the hall, where he found Lu Shengzhong sitting with a smile as he waited.

"Done?" Lu Shengzhong asked, despite already knowing the answer.

Tan Yaoxian looked somewhat embarrassed and nodded. "It should be."

Lu Shengzhong immediately asked, "When will there be a reply?"

Tan Yaoxian said, "Probably tomorrow morning."

Lu Shengzhong teased, "Looks like Brother Tan will be going out to read again tomorrow morning."

Mortified, Tan Yaoxian cupped his hands in surrender and begged him to stop.

[End of Chapter 227]