"Hahaha! What an honor to have both Master Lu and Master Ding grace me with your presence. Please, after you." The moment Fang Zeyan saw the two arrive at the entrance of Drunken Flower House, he stepped forward to welcome them.
Wei Yuefu kept a stiff expression, while Lu Hanmo exchanged pleasantries with ease. "Young Master Fang invited us, so naturally we had to attend."
For all of Lu Hanmo's outward warmth, without that offering, he wouldn't have spared Fang Zeyan a second glance.
In dealing with scions of prestigious clans, if they treated you as a resource, you naturally had to treat them as a stepping stone.
If anyone actually tried to trade genuine sincerity for sincerity with them, they would be cheated to death without ever knowing how it happened.
Fang Zeyan then led the way, and the three of them entered a private room inside Drunken Flower House.
Before long, wine and dishes were served, and Wei Yuefu took up his chopsticks without standing on ceremony.
He quickly realized this spread was truly out of the ordinary—it was actually medicinal cuisine.
Though its effects fell short of great medicine, as a whole it far surpassed ordinary food.
"It seems Master Ding takes quite a liking to Drunken Flower House's Flower Cluster Feast." Watching Wei Yuefu sweep across the table like a tempest clearing clouds, Fang Zeyan was not in the least annoyed. Instead, he smiled and called out, "Someone, bring another spread!"
What he had feared was Wei Yuefu sitting there like a clay idol after arriving; a man immune to both soft and hard approaches was the hardest to handle.
"Shoucheng was starved for too long by that old bastard Meng Wei," Lu Hanmo chimed in. "Young Master Fang, you have no idea.
"After roll call on his first day, even Officer Tian was shocked to see him eat like that."
His words were a hint to Fang Zeyan, letting him know that Tian Muchuan also thought highly of Wei Yuefu, and that Wei Yuefu's aptitude was far from poor—he had merely been suppressed.
"Master Ding truly has remarkable ability. Bring two more spreads!" Fang Zeyan immediately caught Lu Hanmo's drift—more money needed to be put on the table.
"I've caused Young Master Fang great expense." Seeing that the man had grasped the message, Wei Yuefu took the opportunity to speak. "As long as you haven't come to lobby on behalf of Sifang Martial Arts Hall, everything is open for discussion."
"If Master Ding graces us with his presence, what does expense matter? It's an honor to host you," Fang Zeyan flattered.
The moment Wei Yuefu spoke, Fang breathed a sigh of relief, knowing the matter was settled.
Sometimes giving gifts was not about whether one could afford them, but about having the right channels and whether the recipient would actually accept.
"I hear Shen Qianjun is returning," Wei Yuefu suddenly remarked.
Hearing this, Fang Zeyan was taken aback. He hadn't expected Wei Yuefu to know.
Wei Yuefu didn't actually know; he was merely fishing with a casual bluff. If he guessed right, he could make preparations in advance.
If he guessed wrong, so what? There was nothing to lose.
"I'm not too clear on that. We haven't been in touch since he left for the prefectural capital," Fang Zeyan replied impassively, feigning ignorance.
Fang Zeyan did have mutual business interests with Shen Qianjun, but he himself had only learned of Shen's return this very afternoon.
He couldn't help muttering to himself: it seemed this 'Ding Shoucheng' was truly locking horns with Sifang Martial Arts Hall, even deploying the Windwhisper Bureau to look into Shen Qianjun.
To be able to dig up even this was quite something.
"Looks like he's doing well in the prefectural capital," Wei Yuefu said, then stopped there.
Saying too much made it easy to expose one's hand; leaving things ambiguous gave the other party plenty of room to overthink.
"Hey, why talk about an outsider?" Seeing the atmosphere stiffen, Lu Hanmo cut in to smooth things over. "Let's keep drinking and eating.
"Let troublesome matters be."
With him changing the subject, the mood quickly returned to normal.
After they had drunk and eaten their fill, Fang Zeyan proposed a second venue, but Wei Yuefu flatly refused.
A second round was rather harmful to the body. Ding Shoucheng was already malnourished; losing any more protein would interfere with his martial arts practice.
Wei Yuefu still had this much self-discipline.
In the end, because of Wei Yuefu's refusal, the second round was called off.
On the way back, Lu Hanmo split fifty taels of silver with Wei Yuefu, and Wei took a detour to retrieve the twenty taels he had hidden earlier.
"Tsk. Fifty taels just for sharing a dinner." Wei Yuefu could only think of the saying: behind the vermilion gates meat and wine go to rot, while along the roads lie the bones of the frozen dead.
Ding Shoucheng's painstaking efforts to scrimp and save twenty taels looked thoroughly clownish in comparison.
And this was only the beginning.
Before parting ways, Fang Zeyan stated that he would pay a visit tomorrow, strongly implying he intended to deliver further gifts.
The more it went like this, the more Wei Yuefu sensed an ill omen.
Could an uprising break out in Songyang County...?
There wasn't one now, but that didn't mean there wouldn't be one later.
If an uprising erupted anywhere nearby, Songyang County would almost certainly follow suit.
However, Wei Yuefu soon cast the thought to the back of his mind.
With his meager abilities, he had no way of dealing with such things. Rather than dwelling on it, he might as well figure out how to complete his mission.
After all, if an uprising really broke out, he could just run.
With his little brother around, he might not control all of Songyang County, but fleeing without danger was well within reach.
-----
"Finally made it to Songyang County." Yuanxiang found an abandoned, dilapidated temple to rest for the time being.
"What a mess this is." He could not help sighing, feeling utter helplessness. "Who knows when the contact will arrive?
"And this thing is dreadfully heavy."
As he spoke, he looked toward a Buddha statue inscribed with text.
Yuanxiang knew his own aptitude very well: he could never master the Eight Treasures Golden Body. The only reason he had done what he did was to stay alive.
In fact, his being wanted and hunted had little to do with the Eight Treasures Golden Body.
The primary reason was... he had slept with the Emperor's woman.
Previously, the Emperor had summoned eminent monks across the realm to the imperial capital for a grand Buddhist assembly. Dayun Guangming Temple naturally attended, and he accompanied them as a warrior monk.
Later, he hooked up with a lonely imperial concubine in the inner palace, and the affair was exposed.
The concubine was put to death; had he not run fast, he would have shared her fate.
After fleeing back to Dayun Guangming Temple, the monastery naturally had no intention of shielding him over his inability to keep it in his pants.
Instead, they seized him on the spot, intending to send him to the capital for the Emperor to deal with.
Because this was an imperial palace scandal, it naturally could not be publicized, and witnesses had been silenced, which was why no news had leaked.
Dayun Guangming Temple wasn't stupid either; trumpeting such a scandal would be courting death.
Just when Yuanxiang was in despair, someone rescued him and offered to give him shelter.
However, if he wanted to join them, he first had to present a pledge of loyalty.
Thus, he had to kill his master, betray his sect, and deliver Dayun Guangming Temple's Eight Treasures Golden Body to a contact in Songyang County, after which they would grant him protection.
Naturally, Yuanxiang had been unwilling at first. Who knew whether their promises were true or false?
Yet when pushed to the brink of life and death, he ultimately chose his own life.
By now, he could also be sure that this group truly possessed remarkable capability. His ability to repeatedly slip away from the Six Doors—those government hounds—had relied entirely on their help.
Otherwise, there was no way he could have reached Songyang County alive.
This forced Yuanxiang to suspect that they had their own people inside the imperial court.
"Word came that the contact changed. I wonder what happened," Yuanxiang muttered, feeling unsettled.
For now, he could only take a rest.
Chapter 10