Chapter 336: Living Off a Woman

Shao Pingbo asked not because of anything else, but because he truly had not received much news about Niu Youdao lately. Dachan Mountain did not care about his personal grudges. They would protect his personal safety.

What more did he want?

Dachan Mountain's thinking was simple. Last time, the affair had escalated until Shao Pingbo had even turned murderous methods against members of his own family, nearly dragging Dachan Mountain down with him. Had he still not caused enough trouble? They did not want him and Niu Youdao continuing this endless struggle. They did not want to see him stir up another disaster. So Dachan Mountain had essentially stopped passing him any information about Niu Youdao.

They had even imposed a certain degree of information blockade, afraid he would start thinking up schemes again. They wanted him to focus his energy on governing Beizhou and manage the province properly for them. As for Su Zhao, she had acted against Niu Youdao without following his instructions, effectively hiding the operation from him. Naturally, she had not been sending him much information about Niu Youdao either. Shao Pingbo was extremely busy, but he still kept Niu Youdao in mind.

Ever since Niu Youdao entered the State of Qi, however, his flow of intelligence concerning the man had almost completely dried up.

Several times he sent messages to Su Zhao asking about the warhorse operation and, in passing, asked about Niu Youdao's situation. Every reply from Su Zhao merely said they were keeping watch.

From one perspective, Su Zhao remained unwilling to let the matter go and was still searching for an opportunity to strike. Unable to obtain reliable news about Niu Youdao, Shao Pingbo constantly felt uneasy. He had the persistent sense that something was about to happen. The stronger that feeling became, the more cautious he grew.

Once again he reined himself in and warned Su Zhao not to provoke Niu Youdao before the warhorse matter was fully settled. He even stated it bluntly. That man was difficult to deal with.

She was not his match!

Strictly speaking, it was somewhat inappropriate to mention Niu Youdao in front of Tang Yi. But the unease in Shao Pingbo's heart had never disappeared. Niu Youdao had gone to the State of Qi to arrange warhorses, yet things had become far too quiet. That very quiet felt abnormal. In the end Shao Pingbo could not keep himself from asking. Tang Yi fell silent briefly, then shook her head.

"I haven't paid much attention to his situation. I haven't heard anything recently."

In truth, Dachan Mountain had already warned her side as well. Shangqing Sect had been ordered to keep its mouth shut.

Even she doesn't know?

Suspicion piled higher in Shao Pingbo's heart. What exactly was Niu Youdao doing? After the incident involving Ice and Snow Pavilion, Dachan Mountain had placed him under tight control. It had become difficult for him to contact other cultivation factions.

Dachan Mountain feared he would send another outside force to stir up trouble, and even the smaller sects within Beizhou had been warned. He wanted to send Song Shu and Chen Guishuo out to investigate. Unfortunately, the two men currently had to watch the sea route. That was the important matter at hand.

After thinking it over again and again, he finally decided to go against Dachan Mountain's wishes and have Shao Sansheng secretly find a way. Once he made that decision, he turned his head toward Tang Yi. The woman's features were exquisite, her delicate profile beautiful enough to stir something in his heart.

"Tang Yi," he called.

Tang Yi turned. Their eyes met. Shao Pingbo reached out to take her hand. Before his fingers could touch her, Tang Yi quickly pulled away.

"First Young Master, please conduct yourself with dignity!"

Anger showed on her face. She was not Guan Fangyi. From childhood she had been raised under orthodox moral teachings. She had never experienced relations between man and woman, and she restrained her own desires severely. She could not accept casual impropriety in such matters and would never behave wantonly. Ordinary ambiguous remarks from Shao Pingbo were one thing. But now he actually dared reach out and touch her. What did he take her for? To Tang Yi, this was humiliation. It genuinely angered her.

Shao Pingbo found himself in an awkward position. He smiled.

"My apologies. For a moment, I couldn't restrain my feelings."

Tang Yi said, "I am a married woman. I hope First Young Master will never say such a thing again. It is an insult to me!"

The moment the words left her mouth, her own heart darkened. Niu Youdao was supposedly about to marry another woman. When that happened, would she still be able to say such a thing? Shao Pingbo was wary of Zhao Xiongge. If he truly caused trouble, even Dachan Mountain would have to kneel before Zhao Xiongge. He did not dare force Tang Yi so far that even a cornered dog had to leap the wall. He turned back toward the canal.

His eyes narrowed slightly, and a trace of gloom surfaced within them... Inside a pavilion atop an artificial hill, Linghu Qiu and Hongxiu looked into the distance. They watched helplessly as Niu Youdao and Guan Fangyi returned together from another outing and disappeared into Guan Fangyi's courtyard. In the blink of an eye, a month had passed. Guan Fangyi stayed far too close to Niu Youdao. Linghu Qiu's side had been unable to find even one opportunity to act.

Seduction would only work if Guan Fangyi were absent. With Guan Fangyi there, even if Niu Youdao had a thief's heart, he would probably have to put away the thief's courage.

"Sir, if this drags on any longer, we can explain things to the higher-ups, but we won't be able to keep stalling Niu Youdao over Wei Chu," Hongxiu said quietly.

Linghu Qiu frowned. At first, the plan to have the two women seduce Niu Youdao had left a knot in his heart. As time slowly wore away at that reluctance, however, his feelings had faded. Now he was becoming anxious because the two women still had no chance to make a move.

"Do this. Report the situation again. Have the higher-ups set up a scheme and choose a suitable day to lure Guan Fangyi out."

They had originally wanted to devise some pretext themselves to lure Guan Fangyi away. But Guan Fangyi had already washed her hands in a golden basin. She no longer accepted business and barely met with clients. It was genuinely difficult to draw her out. There was another problem. Even if they lured her out, they needed enough time for the sisters to act. Otherwise, Guan Fangyi might return and catch them in the middle of it.

Simply getting her out of Fufang Garden for a short while would not be enough.

"All right." Hongxiu nodded.

In a courtyard beneath the shade of a tree, Niu Youdao lay back in a reclining chair with his eyes closed as though dozing. His thoughts, however, were turning over the latest news from Gongsun Bu. On the island at sea, the ships were probably nearly finished being modified. While his thoughts moved through one possibility after another, he suddenly heard movement. His eyes opened. He whipped his head around. A small pouch flew toward him and landed on his abdomen.

Guan Fangyi approached with a round fan in hand, her supple waist swaying. She had thrown the pouch. Niu Youdao picked it up, opened it, and looked inside. It was filled with Spirit Essence Pills sealed inside wax pellets. There were quite a few. Guan Fangyi nudged a round stool with her foot, sat beside the reclining chair, and lazily waved her fan.

"One hundred."

Niu Youdao looked at her suspiciously.

"What's this supposed to mean?"

Guan Fangyi said, "I've noticed you never use Spirit Essence Pills when you cultivate. You've been relying entirely on your cultivation art to absorb spiritual qi the hard way. It pains me to watch, so these are for you."

At the mention of cultivation, Niu Youdao had been considering the same problem. Another of the Transmission Protective Talismans inside his body had been consumed. Only five remained. He estimated that before too long, he too would have to start relying on Spirit Essence Pills to cultivate. The only problem was that his cultivation speed would probably slow considerably. Thinking about it left him somewhat regretful. If only Dong Guo Haoran's entire cultivation could have been transformed into Transmission Protective Talismans and passed to him.

Then he could have cultivated rapidly all the way to the Golden Core Realm. But that was only a pleasant fantasy. It was not realistic.

If Dong Guo Haoran's cultivation had still been intact, he would probably have been perfectly healthy and would never have needed to transmit his cultivation to Niu Youdao in the first place. Niu Youdao lifted the small pouch in his hand.

"I don't have money to pay you."

Guan Fangyi scoffed. Her round fan tapped him twice on the chest.

"Put your hand on your conscience and tell me: every time we've gone out to enjoy ourselves, who paid? This old lady did. Have you ever taken out even a single copper coin? I never saw you mention money then. Now you're talking to me about money?"

"Haha!" Niu Youdao laughed dryly twice.

He apologized.

"It's a misunderstanding. I've never had the habit of carrying money on me."

If she had not mentioned it, the thought truly would not have occurred to him. Whenever they went wandering around the capital, he simply walked away after eating, drinking, and enjoying himself. It never even entered his mind that someone needed to pay. Whenever people were around him, he genuinely had no habit of handling money himself. This really was a misunderstanding. When Black Peony and the others left, none of them had even thought to leave him money.

They had all grown accustomed to the same arrangement. So he had remained in the capital with empty pockets. Before that, his food and daily needs had been handled by Linghu Qiu and the others anyway. Thinking about it now, he really had been freeloading lately.

Guan Fangyi said, "Don't worry. I don't care about that. I'm used to it. Over the years I've thrown plenty of money at pretty young men. One more doesn't make any difference, and one less wouldn't either."

Niu Youdao did not know whether to laugh or cry.

"So I've become a man living off a woman? I'm not used to that kind of soft living."

He tried to hand the pouch back. Guan Fangyi blocked his hand with the round fan.

"It isn't living off me. Put it on account for now. Later you can repay me with principal and interest. My source of income has been cut off, so you'd better remember to support me from now on. Just don't turn your face and pretend you don't know me when the time comes."

She could speak like this now because spending day after day together had allowed her to understand him better. Guan Fangyi had spent her life reading people.

After living beside Niu Youdao for more than a month, she had gradually begun to understand what kind of man he was. Huyan Wei might seem careless and rough, but he was not stupid. Just as he had told Yuan Gang, there was a certain charm about Niu Youdao. He was someone worth befriending. Guan Fangyi had begun to sense the same thing. The man she now spent every day with was unlike every other man she had known before.

At the very least, compared with every man who had ever entered her room, he truly was different. There was no deliberate affectation in him. He did not perform for her. Certain things and qualities had settled deep into his bones. It was the force of character. What surprised her most was something she had learned only after probing indirectly.

Niu Youdao had personally sent away all the people around him rather than let them remain and take the risks with him. He had stayed behind alone to maneuver through the danger. That genuinely astonished her. And Niu Youdao himself had never mentioned it. From that moment onward, she realized she had encountered a bad man worth investing in. At Guan Fangyi's mention of losing her source of income, Niu Youdao fell briefly silent. A single Spirit Essence Pill cost one hundred gold coins.

One hundred pills meant ten thousand gold coins. For an ordinary cultivator, that was no small sum. More importantly, Guan Fangyi had now cut off her source of income while still supporting several dozen people. Beyond their daily expenses, there were the resources required for cultivation. All of it consumed enormous amounts of money.

"Hongniang, how much money do you still have?" Niu Youdao asked.

In truth, Niu Youdao himself had not brought much money on this trip either. Most of what he had earned before had already been spent. And Tianyu Sect would not loose the hawk until it saw the rabbit. They still had not given him his share of the liquor profits.

As for buying warhorses, Tianyu Sect had promised to provide the money as long as he could actually obtain the horses. Guan Fangyi immediately reacted as though he had asked something outrageous.

"What? You tricked this old lady out of her person, and now you want to trick me out of my money too?"

Niu Youdao said, "Look at you. I was only asking."

"Personal secret. I refuse to answer!"

Niu Youdao chuckled.

"Looks like all those years working as a broker weren't wasted. You really did put away a respectable fortune."

Guan Fangyi leaned sideways against the reclining chair. She waved the round fan over him, fanning him while also sending her own fragrance drifting his way.

"If you want to scheme for my fortune, that's not impossible. I said years ago that if I ever willingly married a man, everything I had would belong to him, including my wealth. Why don't I suffer a little grievance and let you properly marry me?"

"Aiya! I'm tired. My head's all foggy. I'll sleep for a while."

Niu Youdao tipped his head sideways and closed his eyes, rejecting the proposal in the most direct way possible. Guan Fangyi's teeth clenched. She reached out, pinched the flesh of his arm, and twisted hard. Niu Youdao played dead like a dead pig that feared no boiling water. He did not move at all. No matter what, he refused to open his eyes. He would rather die than answer that question...

[End of Chapter 336]