Chapter 232: Capsized in the Gutter

Lu Shengzhong sat cross-legged at the stern while Shao Liuer swam through the water. Their gazes met as the boat continued drifting downstream, carrying them farther and farther apart.

Seeing that he could only sit there and dared not move, Shao Liuer knew her trick had worked. She finally relaxed a little, turned back, and swam with all her strength toward Tan Yaoxian, whose head still surfaced now and then amid frantic splashing.

She pushed the goatskin bladder toward him. The instant one flailing hand caught the netting wrapped around it, Tan Yaoxian clung to it as though to a life-saving straw. His head finally broke the surface. He desperately tried to climb on, slipped off, climbed again, slipped again, frantic to survive and frantic for air, swallowing mouthful after mouthful of water in the process.

"My dear Tan! My dear Tan..." Shao Liuer shouted beside him, trying to make him calm down. She dove beneath the surface, wrapped her arms around his legs, and pushed him upward.

After a great deal of struggling, Tan Yaoxian finally managed to sprawl across the bladder. His face shifted between green and white. He lay over it like a dead dog, coughing up water from time to time.

Shao Liuer gripped the bladder's netting and steadied it so it would not roll over in the current and dump Tan Yaoxian back into the river.

Wet hair clung to and whipped around her pretty face. Her soft, slender body fought through the water as she pulled the bladder behind her and swam toward shore.

From the stern, Lu Shengzhong watched them struggle for survival and ground his teeth in fury. He had dealt with Tan Yaoxian before. He knew the scholar did not possess this sort of cunning and could not have hidden it from him anyway. He had fallen for Shao Liuer's trick.

He had thought the girl was foolish, easy to lure out and easy enough to coax into giving herself to Tan Yaoxian. Who would have imagined she had been playing the pig to eat the tiger?

She had said she could not swim. Did that scene of her rescuing someone in the river look like a woman who could not swim? She had clearly been plotting from the moment she boarded.

Had she fought to do the chores because she was virtuous and capable? No. She had been looking for an opportunity to poison them.

She had deliberately acted weak all along, lowering his guard until he drank what she served him. She had even tricked his weapon right out of his hands.

She truly deserved to be Shao Pingbo's full-blooded younger sister. She was just as ruthless. The fact that she had decisively drugged the servants around her should have put him on guard. Suspecting the boatman might become a threat, she had promptly dealt with him too. That only proved the point.

Lu Shengzhong could do nothing but watch that damned pair drift farther and farther from him. The more he thought about it, the more stifled his fury became. He had actually capsized in the gutter!

Worse, he had to forcibly suppress that anger, steady his emotions, and focus on circulating his spiritual power to purge the poison.

Tan Yaoxian finally recovered enough to lift his head from the goatskin bladder. He looked at his surroundings, hugged the bladder tightly, and did not dare move too much for fear of falling off again.

He looked at Shao Liuer laboring through the water, then back at the boat drifting away and called, "Liuer, everything was fine. Why did you push me into the water?"

Shao Liuer looked back as she swam. "I wasn't simply pushing you into the water. Couldn't you tell we were escaping for our lives?"

"Escaping for our lives?" Had anyone else said it, even a man as mild-tempered as Tan Yaoxian might have lost his temper. Instead, his face twisted between tears and laughter. "We nearly did lose our lives! Liuer, you obviously can swim... What exactly are you doing? Did you regret it and decide you don't want to leave with me?"

Shao Liuer said, "My dear Tan, wherever I go with you, I won't regret it. But that Brother Li of yours is no good man. He wasn't helping you. He was harming you."

Tan Yaoxian cried out, "How could that be possible?"

Shao Liuer said, "He's no scholar at all. He's a cultivator from the cultivation world. The way he sat cross-legged just now to circulate his power proved my judgment. There are some things you wouldn't understand even if I explained them now, but I can tell this much: he wasn't helping you. He was trying to lure me out so he could use me against the Shao family. In the end, we'd certainly have fallen under their control. If that happened, what meaning would there be in our escaping Beizhou?"

"This... how could that be possible?" Tan Yaoxian still looked unable to believe it. "If he's a cultivator, how could the two of us possibly have escaped him?"

He did not know what had happened, much less what Shao Liuer had secretly done.

Shao Liuer did not want him to know that the boatman was probably not going to survive either. She feared Tan Yaoxian would have trouble accepting how ruthless she had been. She suddenly looked back and, still swimming hard, asked, "My dear Tan, don't you believe me?"

Tan Yaoxian nodded without the slightest hesitation. "I believe you!"

Shao Liuer smiled. This man could be truly foolish sometimes, but she liked that about him. She did not want the man she married someday to be someone like her eldest brother. Simpler was better. Though exhausted, her heart was full of sweetness.

"My dear Tan, I'm already your woman. If I'm going to elope with you, that's between you and me. Whatever consequences come from the choice I made, whether you treat me well or badly in the future, I should bear them myself. I can't be so selfish that I bring a great disaster upon the Shao family because of my own choice. That's why I took the risk of pushing you into the river. Don't blame me!" Shao Liuer was breathing hard as she spoke. She was tired. Her swimming ability was not actually very good.

"Liuer, I'll treat you well for the rest of my life."

"I believe you. And even if you don't, I'll accept it. I chose this road myself, and whatever comes of it is mine to bear."

"I swear to Heaven: if I ever betray Liuer, may I die a miserable death!"

"Don't say such things. You'd better live properly!"

Despite those words, Tan Yaoxian, sprawled over the goatskin bladder, kept looking back at the black speck of the distant boat. Deep down, he still found it difficult to believe Brother Li had meant him harm. But just as the two were nearing shore, a thunder of hoofbeats sounded ahead. Tan Yaoxian raised his head from the bladder. Shao Liuer's expression changed.

More than a dozen riders charged to the riverbank and reined in. The people on horseback did not look like men from the Provincial Provincial Inspector's Residence. Shao Liuer recognized none of them. Except for two people, every rider wore black clothing and a black painted-face mask. Could they be Brother Li's people? Just as her heart sank, a sharp eagle cry rang out overhead.

She looked up and only then noticed three enormous flying mounts circling in the sky, descending in widening loops. They soon landed on the riverbank.

Six people jumped down from the three mounts. Five wore black cloaks. Shao Pingbo was the exception. He stood at the riverside with his black cloak snapping in the river wind, staring coldly at his younger sister as she struggled toward shore while towing another person behind her. The look he gave Tan Yaoxian was even colder, indifferent and chilling. Shao Liuer immediately looked guilty. There was nothing she could do now. Escape was impossible.

Tan Yaoxian, sprawled over the goatskin bladder, saw that the Eldest Young Master of Beizhou had personally come. He was not merely guilty; he was nervous and afraid. In particular, the imposing sight of Shao Pingbo descending from the sky at the head of so many people made Tan Yaoxian feel impossibly small.

At last they reached shore. After helping Tan Yaoxian onto land, Shao Liuer pointed toward the river. "The man who lured me out may still be on that boat."

Shao Pingbo followed the direction of her finger. Beside him, Su Zhao immediately made a sound of acknowledgment and turned. Four people swiftly leapt onto two flying mounts. With a violent beat of their wings that whipped up a gale, the mounts shot into the air and raced away.

"Elder Brother..." Shao Liuer called weakly. Wet strands of hair clung to her cheeks, water dripping steadily from them.

Smack! Shao Pingbo swung his hand and slapped her hard across the face. "You still have the face to call me Elder Brother? Have you ever treated me as your elder brother?"

Shao Liuer bit her lip and said nothing. She truly could not bring herself to resent him for the blow. She knew what she had done was wrong and that she had disregarded her family's feelings.

Shao Pingbo's anger had not abated. He swung his hand to slap her again, but a hand reached out from the side and caught his wrist.

Su Zhao held him back and sighed. "She's safe. That's what matters."

"Cousin?" Shao Liuer seemed to recognize Su Zhao's voice.

Su Zhao pushed back her hood, looked at her, and sighed while shaking her head.

Tan Yaoxian, meanwhile, finally summoned his courage and stepped in front of Shao Liuer. "This has nothing to do with Liuer. If you have a grievance, take it out on me."

Shao Liuer tugged at him and whispered, "This has nothing to do with you. Move aside." Anxiety filled her heart. She was afraid he would anger her elder brother. This was hardly something Tan Yaoxian could shield her from.

Tan Yaoxian, however, stubbornly refused to move. He stared at Shao Pingbo and kept himself between the siblings.

"Chen Guishuo," Shao Pingbo said coldly.

Chen Guishuo, who stood beside Song Shu, immediately hurried forward to receive his orders. Su Zhao had come in haste. Three flying mounts could carry only so many people, so after arriving in the area she had called in some of the organization's local manpower as well.

During the search, Shao Pingbo had also worried that they might lack enough people. He did not dare alert Dachan Mountain, while the Shangqing Sect was inconvenient to use. Nor did he feel secure with none of his own people at his side, so he had brought the comparatively reliable Song Shu and Chen Guishuo along.

Shao Pingbo said slowly, "Drag him away. Chop him into minced flesh and feed him to the fish!"

"Yes!" Chen Guishuo stepped forward, seized Tan Yaoxian, and began dragging him away.

Shao Liuer instantly went wild. She lunged forward, grabbed Chen Guishuo's arm with both hands, and sank her teeth into it.

Chen Guishuo grimaced in pain but did not dare do anything to her. Wrestling and tugging with Shao Liuer was hardly appropriate either, so he quickly released Tan Yaoxian.

Shao Liuer immediately spun around and shielded the now-pale Tan Yaoxian behind her. "I'm already his woman. Whoever dares touch him will have to fight me to the death!"

Shao Pingbo's fists clenched. "What did you say?"

Shao Liuer stated it outright. "I've already given myself to him. For all I know, I may already be carrying his child. I won't marry anyone but him. Let anyone who dares kill my man try!"

"You... you..." Shao Pingbo pointed at her and roared, "Have you no shame at all?" Immediately afterward he began coughing violently again, doubling over until he was bent like a shrimp.

Su Zhao hurried to his side and circulated her spiritual power to calm his breathing... Lu Shengzhong might have drifted some distance downriver on the boat, but there was no chance he could outrun flying mounts.

Still sitting cross-legged at the stern and purging the poison, Lu Shengzhong saw two flying mounts sweeping toward him through the sky. His face filled with a bitter smile. He knew he probably would not escape.

He had taken an antidote pill and treated the poison quickly enough that his life should not be in danger, but in his present physical condition he could not remain hidden underwater for long.

Even so, he let himself topple sideways into the river and dove beneath the surface to hide. Even the faintest chance was still a chance.

Two figures shot down from the approaching flying mounts, one after the other, splashing into the river as they dove in pursuit.

One of the mounts swooped low. Its pair of savage claws tore into the black canopy. With a ripping crash, the canopy was shredded apart under the tremendous force. The inside of the boat lay completely exposed. No one was hiding there.

A person dropped from the other flying mount as it hovered on beating wings overhead, landed aboard, and searched the entire boat again.

Boom! Water exploded from the surface. Lu Shengzhong burst out spitting blood. More precisely, someone had hurled him out of the river. The first flying mount immediately swept toward him. Its claws, hard as adamant, slammed into Lu Shengzhong.

"Ah!" Lu Shengzhong screamed in midair. Blood sprayed from his back as the talons pierced flesh and locked around his spine. The pain nearly knocked him unconscious on the spot.

[End of Chapter 232]