After hesitating a long while, Duan Yu finally chose to gamble on Qin Zheng's character. He handed over every bit of money he had on him and pleaded earnestly, "Hero Qin, you must help me rescue Miss Zhong Ling!"
Qin Zheng counted the gold and silver in the money pouch, hummed his assent, and said, "Let's go. I'll take you to rescue her right now. Oh—do you still want that book on the ground?"
"This..."
Duan Yu's body went stiff. Torn, he glanced at the Sunflower Manual lying on the ground, but in the end he picked it up and tucked it into his robes. With a complicated look, he gazed once at the jade statue of "Fairy Brother" in the cave, then followed Qin Zheng out through another exit of the Jade Cave.
Before long, Qin Zheng brought him to the Shennong Gang's camp.
Seeing Duan Yu return, Sikong Xuan, leader of the Shennong Gang, hurried forward at once and asked in agitation, "Young Master Duan, have you brought back the lightning-mink venom antidote?"
Before Duan Yu could answer, Qin Zheng spoke first. "I've brought the antidote. Where is Zhong Ling?"
Sikong Xuan waved a hand and had the rope-bound Zhong Ling brought over. He thrust out his hand anxiously. "Give me the antidote at once!"
Qin Zheng swept a glance over the gang members behind him. "How many of you were bitten by the lightning mink?"
Sikong Xuan answered, "Counting me, twenty in all!"
Qin Zheng took out two pills and tossed them over. "Dissolve the pills in warm water. One small sip each will neutralize the venom."
Sikong Xuan hurriedly ordered his disciples to do as instructed. Not long after they took the antidote, the mink venom in their bodies gradually dissipated.
By then Duan Yu had already untied the ropes binding Zhong Ling. After the two had poured out their hearts to each other, she came before Qin Zheng, stared curiously at his face, and asked, "Did my parents send you to rescue me? Why have I never seen you before?"
Qin Zheng smiled. "Brother Duan hired me with silver."
Zhong Ling let out a startled cry. "Ah, then you..." Halfway through, she stopped short. Her large eyes stole a glance at Sikong Xuan and the others, and she lowered her voice. "That antidote of yours isn't fake, is it?"
At that moment Sikong Xuan burst into loud laughter and led a crowd of gang members to surround them.
Sensing that something was wrong, Duan Yu and Zhong Ling hurriedly hid behind Qin Zheng. Duan Yu poked his head out and shouted, full of indignation, "What are you doing? Didn't we agree? Give you the antidote, and you let us go!"
Sikong Xuan raised his right arm, the one with the severed wrist, and a vicious light blazed in his eyes. "What I promised was to release Zhong Ling, and I kept my word—I gave Zhong Ling back to you.
Now I've come to settle the score for my severed hand!"
Zhong Ling retorted, "You cut that hand off yourself. What has it to do with us?"
Sikong Xuan flew into a rage. "If you hadn't let the lightning mink bite me, would I have needed to cut off my hand to force the venom out?"
Zhong Ling was about to argue on when Qin Zheng raised a hand to stop her. With an amused look, he said to Sikong Xuan, "Gang Leader Sikong, after taking the antidote, haven't you felt that something is wrong?"
Sikong Xuan's expression shifted slightly. He hurriedly circulated his energy, trying to sense whether anything inside him was amiss.
A moment later his face turned as pale as paper, without a trace of color left. He cried out, "Where is my internal energy?"
The internal energy he had cultivated through years of painstaking effort had vanished in an instant!
Nor was that all. To his shock, he discovered that the Life and Death Talisman Tianshan Tonglao had planted in his body—the one that left him unable to live and unable to die—had vanished along with his internal energy!
At the thought that the man before him could even dispel a Life and Death Talisman, beads of sweat the size of beans rolled down his cheeks, and his voice trembled. "You... who exactly are you?"
With a face full of righteousness, Qin Zheng cupped his hands in salute. "I am Qin Zheng, a man fated to do great things!"
"Qin Zheng, Qin Zheng..." Sikong Xuan repeated the name, and a sudden flash lit his mind.
"Qin Zheng the Bandit King! Are you that Bandit King who commands every mountain stronghold across eight hundred li of Qinchuan?"
The smile on Qin Zheng's face froze at once, and his eyes gradually filled with anger. "What Bandit King? Who spread that title?
All I did was advise those bandits to mend their ways. They chose of their own accord to serve at my side. What was I supposed to do?
And I, the Great Hero of Guanzhong, received that title by formal decree of the Great Song court! Even if you won't give the Great Song court any face, and refuse to honor me as the Great Hero of Guanzhong, you ought at least to call me Hero Qin, shouldn't you?"
"Yes, yes, this humble one misspoke. Please don't take offense, Hero Qin. Those bandits all followed Your Venerable Self of their own free will!"
Sikong Xuan hurriedly nodded along. Not a word of dissent dared leave his mouth, but in his heart he smiled bitterly. Those who had not been willing to follow you probably went off to be reborn long ago, and would be five or six years old by now...
He had first heard the rumors about Qin Zheng five years ago.
Five years ago, thirteen-year-old Qin Zheng had single-handedly stirred thirty-six bandit strongholds into fighting one another. In the end he reaped the rewards of their conflict, taking every bandit across the eight hundred li of Qinchuan under his command and becoming the Bandit King in both name and fact.
The court of the Great Song followed a recruitment policy of "For every man enlisted, the court gains one soldier, and the wilds lose one bandit." It sent officials to recruit Qin Zheng, and after a round of negotiation conferred on him the title "Great Hero of Guanzhong."
Busybodies in the martial world set him alongside "Qiao Feng of the North, Murong of the South," calling him the "Central Prodigy," intending to praise him to his ruin and send Qiao Feng and Murong Fu to make trouble for him.
Later, after Qin Zheng ruined those busybodies' martial arts with poison and hung them from the flagpole of the Longmen Escort Agency to scorch in the sun for three days, no one in the martial world dared scheme against Qin Zheng again.
From what Sikong Xuan knew, this Qin Zheng was not to be underestimated in power or in methods. Ruthless and eccentric, he was no less formidable than Tianshan Tonglao, and absolutely not a man to provoke.
The moment Qin Zheng gave his name, Sikong Xuan could no longer summon any will to resist. With his internal energy entirely gone, he had lost the means to resist as well. He could only kneel with a mournful face and beg, "Hero Qin, this humble one failed to recognize a man of your stature and offended your friend. A great man is magnanimous—please spare me this once..."
Zhong Ling clapped a hand over her small mouth in shock and looked at Duan Yu with a questioning gaze, as if to ask: Does the helper you found have this great a background?
Duan Yu shook his head in a daze. Never had he imagined that this eccentric he had casually paid to hire, on nothing more than a desperate last try, would be so formidable—that merely giving his name could frighten Sikong Xuan into groveling!
"Who is so bold as to dare humiliate even the people of our Lingjiu Palace?"
A crisp voice rang out, and four women in green cloaks appeared before the crowd. Their cloaks were green from top to bottom, with a black emblem of a great vulture embroidered upon the chest.
They were precisely the envoys Tianshan Tonglao had sent to supervise the Shennong Gang.
Although the Shennong Gang was only an outer force absorbed by Lingjiu Palace, even when striking a dog one had to mind its master. To make trouble for the Shennong Gang was to stand against Lingjiu Palace.
So when these Lingjiu Palace envoys saw Sikong Xuan kneeling and begging for mercy, they stepped forward at once.
Qin Zheng swept them with a glance, drew a gilded invitation from his robes, and said, "So you've finally come out. I came to Dali this time for the express purpose of finding you. Take this invitation back to Tianshan Tonglao. She is sure to be pleasantly surprised."
One of the Lingjiu Palace envoys took the invitation and was about to open it.
Qin Zheng offered a well-meant reminder. "You had best not look. Otherwise Tianshan Tonglao will never spare you."
The envoy's hands paused. She asked with open hostility, "What trick are you playing?"
Qin Zheng said, "That is none of your concern. Just deliver the invitation into Tianshan Tonglao's hands, and say that I am seeing to a matter for her junior brother Wuyazi. She will understand."
The envoy fell silent. Because the matter concerned Tianshan Tonglao, she dared not attack Qin Zheng on her own, for fear of displeasing her. She could only say harshly, "If you dare play tricks and make a fool of our Granny, then no matter where you flee, to the ends of the earth, the people of Lingjiu Palace will come and take your life!"
"No need to go to the ends of the earth. You can look for me at the Longmen Escort Agency in Guanzhong. They will send someone to contact me."
Qin Zheng smiled and led Duan Yu and Zhong Ling out through the crowd. Seeing this, the disciples of the Shennong Gang tactfully cleared a path.
Once they had walked until not a trace of the Shennong Gang could be seen, Zhong Ling asked, brimming with curiosity, "What is that invitation you gave the envoy for?"
A glint of amusement flashed through Qin Zheng's eyes. "Wuyazi is holding a bride-seeking martial contest on Leigu Mountain, and sincerely invites the heroines of the world to take part. I'm helping him send the invitations."
Zhong Ling's expression turned strange. "Just how confident is this Wuyazi, to come up with a notion like a bride-seeking martial contest?
And that envoy called Tianshan Tonglao Granny. She must be very old, I should think. You invite her to a bride-seeking martial contest—won't she die of rage?"
Qin Zheng said, "Not at all. After all, Wuyazi is eighty or ninety himself. The two of them are quite well matched in age."
Zhong Ling's mouth fell open in shock. In disbelief, she said, "Eighty or ninety, and he still wants a bride-seeking martial contest? Doesn't he know the least bit of shame?"
Qin Zheng shrugged. "That I wouldn't know. Once I see Wuyazi, I'll tell him about this bride-seeking martial contest of his. Then we'll find out whether he's ashamed or not."
Zhong Ling let out an "oh," then her steps halted and she froze where she stood. "Wait. Even Wuyazi himself doesn't know he's holding a bride-seeking martial contest??"
Qin Zheng said with complete confidence, "Does a small matter like this need to be reported to him beforehand? I can handle it splendidly all on my own!"
Zhong Ling: "..."
You're a devil, aren't you!!
Chapter 2