Qian Chen, for his part, saw it clearly. Though the two brothers were a little quick with their tongues, they were not so thoughtless as all that. They had merely noticed the fact that Hong Sihai and Chan Master Kongming would not say aloud: with the Twelve Yuan Chen playing these tricks of feigned gods and ghosts, they were bound to muddy the waters of the righteous heroes — so a foremost leader of the righteous path like Hong Sihai could not let the heroes begin suspecting one another before ever crossing blades with the Twelve Yuan Chen face to face.
If they did, the Twelve Yuan Chen were certain to turn it to their use.
The Straight-Talking Brothers had seen through this, but they were forthright by nature and had no patience for all this hedging back and forth. Besides, their standing was not that of the righteous path's leaders, and everyone knew them for their smart mouths on any ordinary day. So it was most fitting that they should be the ones to point it out: it would put everyone on their guard, make any Yuan Chen hidden among the crowd act with care, and yet leave the heroes without resentment. It also let everyone brace themselves, in their hearts, for the betrayals to come.
Blunt though the two brothers were, they were no fools.
Qian Chen took his bedding from the book chest he carried and spread it on the floor; around him, Four Seas Hall disciples had already laid out small cots and quilts for those heroes who owned nothing of their own. He had scarcely turned his head when he saw Huang Yuhan standing at the door of the main hall, signaling him to come out.
Huang Yuhan led him to a secluded spot. The disciples guarding them on either side moved to stop them, but Huang Yuhan shook his head. "I trust this young brother... Just keep watch outside the door."
From within his breast he brought out a jade medicine box and said with a smile, "These are secret medicines stored in the estate — many of them the work of famous masters. I thought that since you are versed in medicine, young brother, yet carry nothing suitable on you, I would bring along some of the useless odds and ends put away in the manor — and, while I was at it, ask a favor of you."
Qian Chen accepted the medicine box. "Speak, Brother Huang."
"The Divine Physician Qi Qiuzi, who was to attend the birthday feast, for some reason never arrived — you saw it yourself, young brother. Just now the Hall Master's color was poor, and his right hand could hardly bear any strain. That rooster's ambush in the daytime wounded him badly after all, but to keep everyone's spirits steady, and with his hands full countering the Twelve Yuan Chen's schemes, he has never once had it seen to. So I would like to ask you to examine and treat the Hall Master!"
Qian Chen agreed without a second thought, saying to himself: It is just as well Qi Qiuzi never came. If he had, they would have asked the Mist-Riding Lord of the Twelve Yuan Chen to treat Hong Sihai's wound — and it would have been strange if nothing went wrong... It seems that without meaning to, I have spoiled yet another killing move of the Twelve Yuan Chen.
Huang Yuhan smiled. "I mixed the medicine rat you cured into the food of the other sick rats, and sure enough, the poisoned rats had all fully recovered! Brother Qian, this marvel of your medical art is matchless under heaven. I fear the heroes of Five Lakes Hall have still underestimated you, young brother."
Qian Chen's heart gave a thud. He understood what Huang Yuhan was driving at.
What Qian Chen had deliberately shown the assembled heroes of the martial world was a rigid, bookish medicine — like hunting a steed by its portrait, filling prescriptions strictly by the page — building the impression that, having by chance obtained the medical books handed down by the Dust-Forsaking Hermit, he was thereby able to stand against the Mist-Riding Lord, heir of the Five Poisons Cult. His poison-curing medicinal sachets, his prescriptions, were all of that sort... Only once had Qian Chen, carried away by his own cleverness, let his real skill slip.
That once was when he cured the swarm of rats. At the time, Huang Yuhan had worn the look of a man worldly-wise yet mediocre and unremarkable; to say nothing of anything else, the very picture of him — staking a fortune at a throw just for Four Seas Hall's face, insisting that even the rats be cured — had rather led Qian Chen to think little of him. And so, before his eyes, when Qian Chen feigned working out the method of the antidote, though he masked a good part of it, he inevitably lost some of his caution and left a few openings behind. The trick of using one rat to cultivate an antidote that cleared the poison from the entire swarm, for instance, drew on the Five Poisons Cult's own doctrine.
Who could have guessed that Huang Yuhan was a man hidden so deep? Earlier, when he directed the Four Seas Hall disciples and the hall's experts, everything had moved in perfect order — plainly a man meticulous to the finest hair. The tale Qian Chen had used to fool Master Kongming had shown its cracks before him in an instant. By now Huang Yuhan had most likely seen a fair measure of Qian Chen's true level: a master of the medical arts, the equal of Qi Qiuzi.
Beside Qian Chen's disguise, Huang Yuhan's performance was the truly watertight one. When he was not needed, he made himself seem beneath notice — so thoroughly that not even Qian Chen had seen it. And when he was needed, he could turn back the tide...
Huang Yuhan had always seemed no student of the martial arts, merely the grand steward who managed Four Seas Hall's everyday affairs. But with Qian Chen's eyes he had long since seen that the man's martial skill reached the Grandmaster level — an expert second to none of the famed Martial Dao Grandmasters of Five Lakes Hall... Only, Qian Chen's own standards were so high that he had thought such cultivation nothing remarkable.
Now Huang Yuhan was proving to him... that it truly was remarkable.
Amid all the tangled business of Four Seas Hall, he had trained a martial skill weaker than no one's. He could be meticulous to a single hair and command the hall's disciples as readily as his own arm and fingers. In prestige, in wisdom, in strength, he stood at the very top — and above all, when he played the pig, he had truly kept it hidden from Qian Chen, the tiger.
Huang Yuhan had seen that Qian Chen's origins were fishy, yet he had dared to meet Qian Chen alone, though it staked the whole hall's safety on this one man — itself an expression of trust. Such an attitude, like spring wind and rain that nourish without a sound, genuinely won Qian Chen's goodwill.
Qian Chen laughed openly at once. "A few petty tricks of mine — pray forgive the laugh, Brother Huang. But why not expose me, instead of risking so much to meet me alone? That hardly seems the act of a wise man!"
"Ha! This old Huang is no wise man — just the grand steward of Four Seas Hall. In everything else I am middling at best; only in judging people do I have some real confidence... Young Brother Qian, your talents are just budding, and you are no creature of a mere pond. And besides — you're a good man!"
Qian Chen shook his head, smiling. "How long have you even known me, Brother Huang, to know I'm a good man?"
"When you disguised yourself as the Mist-Riding Lord to lay your poison, you would not so much as harm the innocent — you used a swarm of rats and bedbugs instead... and you still say you're not a good man?"
At that, for the first time, Qian Chen was truly startled by this unremarkable-looking man!
Huang Yuhan suddenly stepped back and bowed to him with the utmost courtesy. "Young Brother Qian — Four Seas Hall is my home. That the Twelve Yuan Chen mean to destroy it, I will never allow. I see that you are a good man, so I will presume upon you this once... I beg you: help these innocent disciples of Four Seas Hall!"
Moved, Qian Chen said, "Brother Huang, there is no need for this!"
"When one begs a man for help, one ought to beg him so."
Huang Yuhan did not want even a trace of coercion about it, and so he did not wait for Qian Chen's answer.
"Well, then... we have talked too long. I fear those outside will begin to wonder!" Huang Yuhan said. "Wait a moment. I will take you, Brother Qian, to a quiet spot to treat my Hall Master's wound."
Qian Chen watched as Huang Yuhan summoned the Four Seas Hall disciples and saw to everything — a place for Hong Sihai's treatment and all the rest of the arrangements. Stroking his chin, he thought: Huang Yuhan is the true core and vitals of Four Seas Hall's defense. For the hall as a whole, his real worth may be even greater than Hong Sihai's. The Twelve Yuan Chen cannot possibly have overlooked this; even if they did not know before, after tonight's probing they must know it now.
To break Four Seas Hall, first kill Huang Yuhan!
So their side is certain to have schemes of its own... But whatever the Twelve Yuan Chen plot, I doubt they will imagine this man is hidden so deep. Huang Yuhan's martial skill has long been the match of any Yuan Chen other than the Dragon Head. If they think they can take him easily, I fear they are in for a heavy loss! I worried over this before — now it seems I worried for nothing.
Qian Chen smiled faintly. So he had made the acquaintance of an interesting man!
Chapter 18