Chapter 234: Born with a Rebellious Bone

The wooden cage was hauled back onto the bank and opened.

Tan Yaoxian tried to crawl out, but Shao Liuer wrapped both arms around him from behind and refused to let him leave. "Don't go, my dear Tan. Don't be afraid. He doesn't dare do anything to us."

Tan Yaoxian struggled to pry her arms loose, but Shao Liuer held on with all her strength. In the end, they collapsed together inside the cage, drenched from head to toe, clinging to one another and sobbing.

Shao Pingbo stood before the cage, expressionless. "Drag him out!"

Chen Guishuo immediately stepped forward, seized Tan Yaoxian by the arm, and hauled him bodily from the cage.

"No!" Shao Liuer screamed. She clung desperately to Tan Yaoxian's other arm and refused to release him, so the two were practically dragged out together.

Shao Pingbo stepped forward, caught his sister by the wrist, and twisted hard. Pain forced Shao Liuer's fingers open at once.

He was not a cultivator, but he had been born into a military household and had trained in martial arts. He might not have possessed any great skill, but he was still stronger than Shao Liuer. With a sweep of his arm, he flung her stumbling toward Su Zhao, who immediately caught hold of her.

"Cousin, please..." Shao Liuer pleaded through streaming tears.

Su Zhao sighed. "Liuer, your brother truly is doing this for your own good. Staying with him will only harm him. Let him go."

Shao Liuer struggled again and pointed at Shao Pingbo. "Shao Pingbo, whom I marry is my own affair! Whether I live well or badly, I'm willing to bear it. What does it have to do with any of you? Let me go. I'll leave with him. Whether we live or die, the Shao family doesn't need to concern itself with us!"

Su Zhao held her firmly and thought, What nonsense. You're a daughter of the Shao family. How could the Shao family simply ignore you? Even if they wanted to, they couldn't. Why else would Lu Shengzhong have targeted you?

"Fine! I'll give the two of you a chance." Shao Pingbo suddenly shouted.

Shao Liuer stopped yelling. Tan Yaoxian, still weeping miserably, slowly raised his head as well.

Shao Pingbo lifted his chin toward Tan Yaoxian. "Give him one hundred gold coins."

Song Shu took out a gold draft worth one hundred and stepped forward to hand it to Tan Yaoxian. Tan Yaoxian shook his head and refused.

Shao Pingbo said, "Take it. If you truly want to marry Liuer, if you truly have the ability to marry her, then I'll give you three years. I'll have Liuer wait for you for three years. Three years from now, if you can turn those one hundred gold coins into ten thousand, or if you can make something of yourself in any trade at all, I won't demand that you achieve anything extraordinary. You need only show the Shao family some area in which we can support you. Then you may come openly and honorably to marry her, instead of sneaking around and eloping with her, instead of dragging her into danger and hardship with you!"

"My dear Tan, don't listen to him!" Shao Liuer cried.

Shao Pingbo spun toward her. "What? Even with conditions this generous, you don't believe he can do it? Then what exactly do you expect him to accomplish? Do you also think he's a useless coward? Do you have no confidence in him either?"

"..."

Shao Liuer was left speechless. She even froze for a moment. After her elder brother put it that way, she thought about it and realized she genuinely did not know what Tan Yaoxian was capable of doing well.

"Take it." Song Shu pushed the gold draft toward him again.

Tan Yaoxian slapped it aside. He raised a dripping sleeve, wiped the tears from his face, and shouted toward Shao Liuer, "Liuer, wait for me for three years!"

Then he turned and ran. He ran madly, ran in heartbreak, and ran with his pride intact. He did not take the hundred-gold draft.

He ran while crying, tears blurring his vision. A stone caught his foot, and before everyone's eyes he sprawled face-first onto the ground. He scrambled back up and kept running. His chin had split open and was bleeding, and from time to time he raised a sleeve to wipe at his tears.

"My dear Tan..." Shao Liuer screamed herself hoarse, but Tan Yaoxian never looked back. At last, all strength left her and she collapsed at Su Zhao's feet.

"Move!" Shao Pingbo watched until Tan Yaoxian had disappeared, then swept his cloak around and turned away.

Flying mounts rose into the air. Warhorses thundered away. The entire group departed on the return journey... Under the night sky, Tan Yaoxian had long since lost the strength to run. He wandered aimlessly along the riverbank beneath the moonlight. His clothes were still wet and had not dried. He was cold, hungry, and had no idea where he was.

Starving, he had just dropped to the riverside and gulped down river water to fill his stomach when the thunder of hooves suddenly approached.

Tan Yaoxian stood and looked up. Under the moonlight, a mounted patrol of more than a dozen men came racing toward him and swept past. The riders glanced at him as they went by.

A short while later, the patrol wheeled around and returned. One after another, the riders pulled bows from their saddles and nocked arrows. Bowstrings thrummed. Arrows hissed through the night. Puff! Puff! Blossoms of blood burst across Tan Yaoxian's body.

"Liuer..." Tan Yaoxian murmured. More than a dozen arrows protruded from him. His face filled with sorrow as his body toppled stiffly backward.

With a splash, he fell into the river... Outside Beizhou Prefectural Capital, inside a residence, Lu Shengzhong lay facedown on a couch. He had not suffered much torture, because he had been remarkably cooperative and confessed everything he was supposed to confess.

Only now did the people here understand that Shao Liuer had devised the method of saving herself. Otherwise, if Lu Shengzhong had managed to take her hostage, matters truly would have become troublesome.

Su Zhao secretly sighed over it. The girl had always seemed so innocent before. She had never imagined Shao Liuer possessed this kind of mind.

She could not help glancing at Shao Pingbo and wondering whether it had something to do with their mother's bloodline. Su Zhao herself was hardly stupid, and the son and daughter born to her maternal aunt were no fools either. At the very least, both were much cleverer than Madam Ruan's sons had been.

Only now did they also learn that luring Shao Liuer out had been entirely Lu Shengzhong's own plan. Secretly instigating Madam Ruan and her sons had likewise been his work alone. He had essentially handled everything without relying on much outside support, accomplishing the whole affair by himself.

"You went to assassinate Niu Youdao. How did you end up working for him instead?" Shao Pingbo asked.

Lu Shengzhong did not conceal anything. He explained how a poem had caused his assassination attempt to fail and led to his capture.

Su Zhao nearly laughed aloud. This fellow truly was unlucky. His luck seemed to have been poor from beginning to end.

Then again, on second thought, perhaps it was not fair to call him unlucky. He had simply chosen the wrong targets. The people he had gone after one after another were no simple figures. Niu Youdao went without saying. The failure with Madam Ruan and her sons had unquestionably been tied to Shao Pingbo. As for Shao Liuer, even Su Zhao had not known the girl possessed such methods. Lu Shengzhong lowering his guard and failing there was not particularly strange.

Shao Pingbo studied Lu Shengzhong, his gaze flickering faintly. He seemed to understand why Niu Youdao had sent this man to make trouble.

After leaving the room with Su Zhao, he paced through the courtyard and asked, "What do you think of Lu Shengzhong?"

Su Zhao guessed some of what he was thinking and suspected he wanted to recruit the man. After considering it, she said, "He's failed repeatedly, but not because he lacked ability. In a certain sense, he is a talent."

Shao Pingbo sighed. "Unfortunately, the man was born with a rebellious bone. He betrays people too easily. He's difficult to control."

Su Zhao smiled. "If you truly want him for your own use, I have a way to control him. I guarantee that afterward, even if he wants to betray you, he won't dare. Leave this matter to me. You shouldn't stay away from the dungeon too long. Better return quickly."

"Very well. I'll leave Lu Shengzhong to you. Make sure you dig out the people Niu Youdao planted inside the Prefectural Capital as soon as possible."

"All right, I know what to do. Wait for my news."

Song Shu and Chen Guishuo had no idea when Shao Pingbo left. Nor did either of them know that Shao Pingbo had a separate secret tunnel for entering and leaving the city.

After the two returned to the city and reached the rear gate of Lingbo Residence, Chen Guishuo said, "Martial Uncle, I'll go buy some wine and food."

Song Shu grunted in acknowledgment. "The Shangqing Sect is here in Beizhou, so it isn't suitable for us to show our faces too much. Go and return quickly."

"All right." Chen Guishuo cupped his hands and hurried away, heading directly to a restaurant near Lingbo Residence.

He ordered wine and dishes. When the waiter finished wrapping them and handed everything over, a folded slip of paper silently passed into the waiter's hand. Carrying the food and wine, Chen Guishuo left the restaurant and headed back, worry weighing on him the entire way...

Inside a large estate, in an upper room of a pavilion, Wei Duo sat cross-legged in meditation in the darkness. From time to time, he opened his eyes and glanced through the unshuttered window.

Suddenly, of the two lanterns hanging beneath the eaves of a house outside the estate and directly opposite his window, one went dark. Wei Duo immediately ended his meditation, rose, and left.

After descending from the pavilion, he wandered toward a corner of the wall. His gaze found a ball of paper lying on the ground. With a pulse of spiritual power, he drew it into his palm. Back upstairs, he opened the paper and decoded the secret message. His expression changed drastically.

He quickly wrote another secret message, then lit a lamp and placed it at the window. After that he hurried downstairs again, strolled back toward the same corner, checked the surroundings, and casually tossed out a paper ball.

He returned to the pavilion. Only when both lanterns beneath the house's eaves had gone out, signaling that the other side had received his message, did he relax slightly. He extinguished the lamp on his windowsill and wrote another secret message. Before long, a Goldenwing flew out through the window.

In one corner of the courtyard, inside a pitch-black storage room, Su Po and Tu Han stood at the window and watched the shadow of the Goldenwing sweep away through the night.

Su Po sighed softly. "There's been no end of trouble in Beizhou City lately. I wonder whether it has anything to do with that man... It seems he still refuses to acknowledge Tang Yi as Sect Leader. She is his master's daughter, after all."

Tu Han said, "He only recognizes his master's final command and follows the sect rules. That isn't wrong."

Su Po shook his head. "The problem is that he still has no real feeling for the Shangqing Sect. I suspect he doesn't care about the boy's life at all. Even if the boy is exposed, it may not matter to him. Or perhaps he deliberately wants the Shangqing Sect and Shao Pingbo to develop some friction. Is he trying to make sure the Shangqing Sect has nowhere left to stand in Beizhou as well? Ah. Keep a closer eye on the boy for him. If necessary, give him some cover."

"Mm." Tu Han nodded.

Lu Shengzhong returned to the city. He had washed himself clean, and there was nothing unusual visible on him. Once again, he went to the same restaurant he used as a contact point.

As before, he bought wine and food. As before, when the goods changed hands, a folded paper slipped into the waiter's palm.

Lu Shengzhong carried the food out. In a corner of the restaurant, a diner had been secretly watching the waiter's reaction the entire time. In an alley off the street, Su Zhao paced back and forth while attendants stood motionless to either side.

Lu Shengzhong arrived and sighed. "I did exactly what you told me."

Su Zhao said nothing. She continued pacing.

Before long, a man dressed like an ordinary commoner hurried over and reported in a low voice, "Incense Master, the waiter left through the restaurant's rear door."

Su Zhao stopped. "Stay on him. Don't alert the snake by striking the grass. Keep the flying mounts ready to pursue at any moment in case they use a Goldenwing to transmit a message. Follow the line all the way through."

"Yes!" The man accepted the order and quickly left again.

Lu Shengzhong spoke up once more. "Eldest Young Master Shao won't go back on his word, will he?"

"Of course he won't." Su Zhao turned and smiled faintly, then lifted a hand in signal.

When the two attendants beside her closed in, Lu Shengzhong's expression changed. "What are you doing? I... mmph!"

The two had already pinned him. His spiritual power was suppressed, and he was still badly wounded. He had no strength to resist. His mouth was forced open, and a pill was shoved down his throat.

[End of Chapter 234]