Lu Chunying stood by the window and saw a glamorous woman singing in the courtyard. The entire household had heard the singing, and everyone knew this woman had not come with good intentions.
The retainers quickly rushed into the courtyard and demanded to know where the woman came from.
The woman swept her gaze over them. The song did not change, only its volume rose slightly.
A sharp ringing pierced the ears of the retainers rushing in front; clutching their heads, they collapsed one after another.
The rest considered charging, but either lacked the courage or the strength, freezing in place where they stood.
Lu Chunying pulled a cord inside the room, setting off a chime of bells across the roof.
It was a warning for everyone to evacuate immediately. Lu Chunying knew full well that this woman was beyond the reach of anyone present; leaving the retainers to fight it out would be sending them to their deaths.
Hearing the bells, the retainers scattered for their lives.
Lu Chunying grabbed Xiao Yeci and sprinted toward the outside of the residence. Just as they emerged from the back gate, Lu Chunying suddenly sensed something was wrong—she caught the scent of flowers.
In the dead of winter, with neither winter plum nor narcissus nearby, where could such a heavy floral fragrance have come from?
Sensing danger in the scent, Lu Chunying did not run into the street. Instead, she took Xiao Yeci and slipped into a silk shop adjacent to the estate.
This silk shop was a business Lu Chunying ran herself. It did not make much money day to day, nor did Lu Chunying expect it to; the shop served another purpose entirely.
Hidden within were numerous traps, designed at great expense by high-tier artisan cultivators. Even if an intruder were an expert above the clouds, encountering traps this formidable, they would not necessarily escape unscathed.
Hearing the singing draw closer, Lu Chunying triggered all the mechanisms and led Xiao Yeci along a secret tunnel in the shop, fleeing into Yangjiaoyuan.
They thought they had fled far enough for the trouble to have passed, but after mother and daughter hid in the garden for a while, Lu Chunying faintly heard the woman's singing once more.
How had she tracked them here?
Xiao Yeci cried out in shock, "Nannan, could this woman be an acquaintance of ours?"
Lu Chunying had no time to ponder it. Pulling Xiao Yeci along, she kept running.
Bursting out of Yangjiaoyuan and onto the main street, Lu Chunying smelled the floral scent again.
Where on earth was this fragrance coming from?
Lu Chunying stood at the roadside and looked left and right. The shops on both sides were shut tight. There was only a vendor pushing a porridge cart, who looked as if he were about to pack up for the night.
Xiao Yeci whispered, "Nannan, there are no porridge vendors around Yangjiaoyuan! Something is wrong with this place!"
She often stayed up late reading, and when hunger struck, she felt bad disturbing the cooks and would go out to buy a bite herself. Near Yangjiaoyuan, there were vendors selling steamed buns, flatbreads, and mutton soup, but Xiao Yeci had never seen anyone selling porridge here.
"An illusion!" Lu Chunying gritted her teeth, realizing she had fallen victim to an illusion cultivator's technique.
At a time like this, running aimlessly was the worst thing to do. A single false step inside an illusion could lead to utter ruin.
Xiao Yeci incanted under her breath, "Heretical and unorthodox paths, be gone at once!"
She wanted to use Common Script, Shared Standards. In the understanding of literary cultivators, certain techniques of illusion cultivators, mind cultivators, and glamour cultivators belonged to heretical paths, and Common Script, Shared Standards was an effective countermeasure against the methods of those lineages.
The problem was that Xiao Yeci's cultivation was insufficient.
After joining the Lu family, there had been no shortage of medicine, money, or tonics, yet Xiao Yeci had only barely reached the fifth tier of a literary cultivator. Her Common Script, Shared Standards was completely incapable of breaking her opponent's illusion.
The singing came again, yet the street showed no sign of change. Lu Chunying drew a glass vial from her pocket and smashed it on the ground.
Inside were two grasshoppers, a gift from Lu Yuanxin to Lu Chunying.
The grasshoppers were not fighters, but they possessed great spiritual sensibility. They were unaffected by illusions and instinctively hopped toward thick grass.
Following the two grasshoppers, Lu Chunying retreated into Yangjiaoyuan. Enduring the woman's song, she plunged into a grove of trees.
This grove had originally been a forbidden zone in Yangjiaoyuan, because around the woods ran a Boundary controlled by the Defense Bureau. Once anyone entered the grove and the Defense Bureau activated the Boundary, no one could get out.
Lu Chunying knew that the Defense Bureau had completely lost power across Puluo Province, and the Boundary was no longer under their control, so she ventured into the grove without hesitation.
If their pursuer was familiar with Green Water City and had been to Yangjiaoyuan, she would not dare chase them into the woods recklessly.
The trees here had gone untrimmed for years, their branches gnarled and tangled, leaving no path for passage at all.
Relying on Sever the Path to Forge a Way, Lu Chunying cut through the woods. When she stepped back out onto the street, she saw Xiao Yeci nodding repeatedly, her mouth moving as if speaking.
What was she saying?
Lu Chunying couldn't hear.
She realized she couldn't hear anything at all.
Xiao Yeci couldn't hear either. She kept saying to Lu Chunying, "Nannan, this path is the right one! Let's hurry!"
Lu Chunying saw blood trickling from Xiao Yeci's ears.
She pulled Xiao Yeci along and kept running, sensing the danger still drawing near.
She thought of fleeing to Xiaoyaowu, but figured Ma the Fifth was probably still reclaiming land on his newland.
She thought of going to Chu Huaiyuan's residence to find Li Qi, but Li Qi was likely gone, and given Chu Huaiyuan's current condition, Lu Chunying couldn't drag her into this mess either.
For a moment, Lu Chunying had no idea where to turn. Dozens of places flashed through her mind before she settled on one destination: the Three Heroes Sect's Gold Seal Hall.
Arriving before the hall, the gate guards blocked their way. Lu Chunying forced her way inside, causing an uproar at the entrance, until Fatty Qin emerged with a coat draped over his shoulders.
"Miss Lu, what happened?"
Unable to hear, Lu Chunying pointed to her ears, then pointed behind her.
Seeing blood running from both of Lu Chunying's ears, Fatty Qin understood the situation instantly. "Miss Lu, go hide in the back courtyard first! Brothers, grab your weapons—some curs have come snapping at our door!"
Fatty Qin's wife, Feng Yuchiu, came to the gate and settled the mother and daughter inside.
Every man throughout the Three Heroes Sect's hall drew his weapons, ready for a fight, but none realized that the opponent they faced this time was cut from a different cloth.
"The moonlight is so hazy, the earth veiled in night mist... Oh, my dream lover, where are you?"
Accompanied by music, the woman continued to sing "Dream Lover," slowly closing in on the Gold Seal Hall.
Feng Yuchiu warned Fatty Qin, "Don't listen!"
Easy to say, but how could one avoid it? Even with ears covered, the song swirled through their minds. As long as the faintest trace reached them, no matter how soft, it felt as though their eardrums were tearing apart.
The woman relied on more than volume; the song's peculiar melody, coupled with her distinct vocal technique, was the true source of damage.
It was this woman's singing that had deafened Lu Chunying. If she were allowed to keep singing like this, everyone in the hall would soon be deafened as well.
Qin Tianjiu took a deep breath and roared toward the direction of the singing. His breath was long, his shout deafening, rattling everyone's internal organs until they seemed displaced, lasting a full minute before it ceased.
That minute was grueling. Fatty's voice went hoarse, sweat drenched his body, his clothes hung loose, and he lost more than a dozen jin of weight.
Those dozen-odd jin of fat were not shed in vain. The singing woman was shaken and injured; her melody and rhythm shattered completely, and her song came to an abrupt halt.
Not only had Fatty withstood the woman's song, but he had also pinpointed her position.
"On the roof of the meat-and-drink tavern across the street! Brothers, charge up and kill her!" Qin Xiaopang gave the order and led a crowd in a charge.
Feng Yuchiu reached the roof a step ahead of them and seized the singing woman in a grip.
Suddenly, the tavern roof transformed into a vat of boiling oil. Both Feng Yuchiu and the woman sank into it, oil frothing beneath their feet as scorching waves reeking of grease washed over their skin. Seen from afar, it looked as though the two were about to be fried to a crisp.
The singing woman looked at Feng Yuchiu with an indifferent expression. "You want to perish together with me here?"
Expressionless, Feng Yuchiu seemed not to see the vat of oil, nor feel any pain. With a sudden burst of force in her hands, she snapped the woman's arm.
The woman laughed. "Years of fighting on the battlefield make an injury like this nothing. Girl, if you don't leave soon, you'll be cooked through."
Feng Yuchiu grappled with her inside the vat of oil. She couldn't kill the woman, but neither did she give her any opening to sing.
Fatty rushed up and plunged headfirst into the vat of oil. Gulp, gulp, gulp—he drank down the entire vat.
Having downed it, Fatty spat. "Ptui! It was just a single barrel of oil all along, playing ghost tricks!"
The so-called great vat of oil was merely an illusion. On the roof sat an open tin barrel with a small fire lit beneath it; the billowing heat and pungent oily stench had all come from this barrel.
Now that Fatty had gulped down the barrel of oil completely, the illusion dispersed. Fatty and his men surrounded the singing woman.
Unfazed, the singing woman smiled and changed her tune: "Spring arrives, the willow tendrils grow long; beneath the window, the young maiden embroiders mandarin ducks..."
She had switched to "Song of the Four Seasons."
As she sang this melody, warmth seeped into everyone's hearts, their limbs grew limp, and their minds grew faint and hazy. Seizing the opening, the singing woman broke through the encirclement.
Only Feng Yuchiu was barely affected. She moved to pursue, but the singing woman's figure vanished in an instant, leaving not a single trace behind.
Qin Tianjiu stretched his limbs. "There's a high-tier illusion cultivator hiding in the dark, constantly stirring up trouble. Just where did these two come from?"
Silver Badge Yue Shucai hurried to call out, "I'll take the brothers and investigate immediately!"
Silver Badge Yun Yongcheng offered a word of counsel from the side: "Great Gold Seal, you should still ask Miss Lu. This is their family's business."
Qin Tianjiu returned to the hall to check on Lu Chunying, but trying to ask questions now proved difficult.
Neither Lu Chunying nor Xiao Yeci could hear a thing, and blood flowed ceaselessly from their ears.
Feng Yuchiu examined their injuries and said to Qin Tianjiu, "It's a sound cultivator's technique."
Qin Tianjiu instructed his men, "Hurry and fetch a doctor."
Feng Yuchiu shook her head. "A doctor can only treat external wounds. Even if healed, they won't be able to hear. If you want to restore their hearing, you must find a sound cultivator."
Fatty Qin did not know much about sound cultivators. Turning to the sect members, he said, "Whichever branch has sound cultivators, summon them all here!"
Feng Yuchiu stopped him. "You can't just summon anyone. Their tier must be higher than the woman from earlier."
"The woman who was singing?" Fatty was troubled. Her cultivation was at least above the clouds. Where could they easily find a sound cultivator above the clouds?
Watching everyone argue back and forth, Lu Chunying could not hear, but she guessed most of it. "Ninth Brother, can my ears not be cured?"
Fatty waved his hand. "Nothing of the sort. Rest here for now while I think of a way."
Lu Chunying looked lost. Feng Yuchiu wrote several words for her: "Don't be afraid. Get some sleep first."
That night, Lu Chunying and Xiao Yeci slept in the Three Heroes Sect's hall. Xiao Yeci held Lu Chunying tightly, murmuring endlessly regardless of whether she could hear:
"Nannan, don't be afraid. We'll get better. Mama will definitely find someone to cure you."
Lu Chunying gritted her teeth repeatedly. "This grudge—I will avenge it!"
The next day, Lu Yuanxin and Tan Fucheng brought people to the Three Heroes Sect; Duan Shaoxia and Zhang Xiuling arrived as well.
Learning that Lu Chunying and Xiao Yeci had been injured by a sound cultivator technique, everyone went looking for high-tier sound cultivators to break the technique for mother and daughter.
Yet sound cultivators were few in number to begin with, and the technique afflicting Lu Chunying and Xiao Yeci was of a high level. Finding someone to dispel it was no simple task.
Ma the Fifth and He Yuxiu took action upon hearing the news, and even Feng Daiku helped out. Over a dozen sound cultivators were brought in, but looking upon the two women's condition, they all shook their heads.
Most could not unravel the technique at all. One or two discerned the trick to dispelling it, but that required using sound while Xiao Yeci and Lu Chunying cooperated with the execution.
Now that neither could hear any sound whatsoever, how could they possibly cooperate?
At their wits' end, He Yuxiu shook her head and sighed. "We still have to turn to Old Seven for this. He knows the most high-tier cultivators!"
Fatty contacted Li Qi and explained the situation. Li Banfeng was rather intrigued—which sound cultivator expert had targeted Lu Chunying?
The Lu family was a prominent house in Puluo. Although their strength was nowhere near what it once was, there had to be plenty of people coveting their family estate.
Li Banfeng described the mother and daughter's symptoms to Zhao Xiaowan, who understood immediately upon hearing them.
"This technique is called the Celestial Symphony of a Thousand Springs. If this person's cultivation is above this humble servant's, I fear I would be unable to help either. But if their cultivation is below mine, a single tune from me will cure them."
Li Banfeng flattered her, "My Lady is a sound cultivator grandmaster. Whose cultivation could surpass yours?"
Zhao Xiaowan waved her hands repeatedly. "Husband must not say such things! This humble servant is not worthy of the title 'grandmaster.' Grandmasters of each lineage have pioneered breakthroughs on the path of cultivation; I have yet to reach such a realm."
Li Banfeng kissed Zhao Xiaowan's cheek. "Why must My Lady be so modest?"
Zhao Xiaowan brought out the blood-drenched pendulum and had it do her makeup.
Li Banfeng asked, "My Lady does not wish them to see your true appearance?"
Zhao Xiaowan nodded. "Meng Yuchun is merely a local deity of an outlying place; meeting her face-to-face was of no concern. But Lu Chunying is the eldest daughter of a prominent Puluo house, and this incident has stirred up a storm across the city. It would be inappropriate for her to see me."
My Lady told the pendulum to disguise her as ugly.
The pendulum replied, "Madam possesses beauty that could topple cities and states. How could you be made ugly?"
Zhao Xiaowan pinched the pendulum. "Little minx, quite the sweet-talker, aren't you? You think I fall for that?"
The pendulum sounded a bit aggrieved. "I speak the honest truth. Madam truly cannot be made ugly."
"Then make me look old."
The pendulum gave Zhao Xiaowan a head of white hair and a face full of wrinkles, making her resemble a seventy-year-old woman. Stooped and hunched, Zhao Xiaowan accompanied Li Banfeng to the Three Heroes Sect's Gold Seal Hall.
At a glance, the old woman seemed like an expert living beyond worldly affairs. After meeting her, everyone felt considerably reassured.
Zhao Xiaowan examined Lu Chunying and Xiao Yeci's injuries and nodded toward Li Banfeng. She could break this technique, and without much effort.
She had everyone leave the room, leaving only mother and daughter inside. First, she cleaned the purulent blood from their ears, then pressed her palms against their foreheads and began transmitting sound directly.
Though Lu Chunying and Xiao Yeci could hear nothing with their ears, an exquisite song surfaced in their minds: "In every sweet dream, I see you in my sleep; you are always softly calling me, wanting us to cling tight side by side..."
This song was called "Sweet Dream." After hearing it, Lu Chunying and Xiao Yeci drifted to sleep one after the other.
A few hours later, Xiao Yeci woke first. Seeing that the old woman was gone, she hurriedly called out to Lu Chunying, "Nannan, don't sleep! That master has left, but we still need treatment!"
Lu Chunying opened her eyes. Hazy and faint, she could hear Xiao Yeci's voice.
"Mom!" Lu Chunying called out.
Xiao Yeci turned her head. Though it was not entirely clear, she was certain Lu Chunying was calling her.
"Nannan! You're cured!" Xiao Yeci's eyes turned red with excitement.
Li Banfeng suddenly appeared beside them. "Not fully cured yet. You still need medicine."
Xiao Yeci gave a start. "Benefactor, when did you arrive?"
Li Banfeng handed a bottle of medicinal powder and a bottle of medicinal oil to Xiao Yeci. "Take the powder orally, apply the oil externally. Keep it up for a month, and you will essentially be fully recovered."
Mother and daughter were boundlessly grateful. Lu Chunying said, "Seventh Brother, now that I can hear, I'm heading home immediately to gather our men. Even if I have to turn Puluo Province upside down, I'll drag out that woman who harmed me!"
Li Banfeng gave her a thumbs-up. "Well said, that's the spirit. But you can't go home right now."
Lu Chunying asked, "Why can't I go back?"
"Because you can't beat her."
"I'll bring our whole family!"
Li Banfeng shook his head. "From what I know, this singing woman possesses cultivation beyond the clouds. Even if your entire family banded together, you still wouldn't be a match for her."
Lu Chunying felt profoundly dejected. She knew deep down that among all the prominent clans in Puluo Province, the weakest was currently the Lu family—weak to the point where they could barely sustain the standing of a prominent house.
To put this incident bluntly, the head of the Lu family had nearly been murdered, entirely powerless to fight back throughout, barely surviving thanks to the Three Heroes Sect.
Li Banfeng continued, "There is also an illusion expert among them who has yet to exert his full strength. Once both of them go all out to kill, the Three Heroes Sect won't be able to protect the two of you either."
Xiao Yeci shuddered. Only now did she realize something: the Lu family might be finished.
After entering the Lu family, Xiao Yeci had learned much about the rise and fall of Puluo's prominent houses.
Puluo Province had always been like this—prominent houses emerged quickly and vanished even faster. But she had never imagined that the Lu family would face total destruction.
Lu Chunying hung her head. "Is the Lu family just finished like this? Is this grudge not to be avenged?"
Li Banfeng shook his head. "The grudge must certainly be avenged, but first we have to figure out who the enemy is."
This was what baffled Lu Chunying most; she didn't recall offending any high-level sound cultivator.
"I've never seen that woman before," Lu Chunying shook her head repeatedly. "Seventh Brother, I truly don't know who she is!"
***
"Floating clouds disperse, the bright moon shines upon lovers; full and harmonious, let us be drunk today..." Lu Xiaolan sang "Full Moon and Blooming Flowers" as she applied makeup in front of the mirror.
The face in the mirror was flawless, so captivating that even she found herself mesmerized.
In her room stood a four-poster boxwood bed with draped canopies, the bedposts carved with lotus branch motifs, and a cloisonné lovers' knot suspended from the top of the canopy with lake-green silk tassels hanging down.
Beside the bed sat a drop-front writing desk with brass hinges. Its wooden drawer stood open, displaying an enamel-faced pocket watch, a fountain pen tipped in pure gold, theater tickets to the Grand Theatre, and an invitation to the Paramount's New Year Gala.
The furnishings in this room were identical to Lu Xiaolan's boudoir before she left for university in Yuezhou.
A man walked in. Glancing at the drawer of the writing desk, he found it somewhat untidy. "The fountain pen ought to be on the desk."
The moment the words left his mouth, the pen in the drawer vanished and reappeared beside the ink bottle on the desktop.
This place was actually an abandoned Western-style villa; everything in the room was an illusion created by the man.
Lu Xiaolan knitted her brows. "I prefer keeping the pen in the drawer."
The man raised an eyebrow. "I believe some things are better placed on the table, just as some words are best laid out on the table clearly. We came here to carry out an important mission; I hope you won't mix personal grudges into our assignment."
Lu Xiaolan turned her head to look at the man. "Attacking the Lu family was a plan we formulated together. You didn't object at the time, so why bring up personal grudges with me now?"
The man shook his head. "I reiterate my stance: attacking the Lu family was meant to lure out Li Qi. Yet to me, it seemed quite clear that you intended to kill the Lu family head."
Lu Xiaolan set down her eyebrow pencil. "I didn't kill her. She's still alive. I merely deafened her ears."
The man said, "Her ears have been cured."
Lu Xiaolan looked at the man with disdain. "I've heard about that too. The person who cured her ears was an old woman, not your so-called steam gramophone at all, let alone any Zhao Xiaowan!"
The man pulled up a chair and sat beside Lu Xiaolan. "Lord Yu has already thoroughly investigated the matter. That gramophone is Zhao Xiaowan. After passing through many hands, she ended up in Yaowanggou, and was ultimately bought by Li Qi.
"All these years, Li Qi has been stirring up storms in Puluo Province entirely because Zhao Xiaowan has been assisting him from the shadows. As long as we neutralize Zhao Xiaowan, Li Qi won't stand a chance.
"If we can kill Li Qi, Lord Yu will confer marquisates upon us. Consider the rank of a marquis and the fief that comes with it; compared to the petty property of the Lu family, which is weighty and which is light—you ought to see clearly."
Lu Xiaolan fiddled with the lipstick on her vanity. "Is Li Qi really that important? Isn't the person all of Great Shang wants most to get rid of the peddler?"
The man shook his head. "Getting rid of the peddler is far too difficult, but taking out Li Qi is much easier. Bring back Li Qi's head, and Lord Yu can reclaim Xiaodu.
"Xiaodu shelters a great multitude of runaway laborers. Return those bonded workers to their original masters, and Lord Yu will win back the hearts of the realm, allowing the New Sovereign and the New Cabinet to restore order to court and country. Do you understand now?"
Lu Xiaolan rolled her eyes at him. "Anyone can talk grand strategies on paper! You said yourself that Zhao Xiaowan has an exceptionally high cultivation and possesses both wisdom and valor. What do you have to deal with her?"
The man produced a silver dollar, twirling it between his fingers.
One side of the coin read "Illusion Cultivator," and the other read "Paragon."
"When the peddler gave me this silver dollar back then, I was so thrilled I couldn't sleep for days and nights. Even now, I can puff out my chest and say I am worthy of being the Paragon of this discipline."
Lu Xiaolan sneered. "Relying purely on illusions is enough to handle Zhao Xiaowan?"
The man leaned close to her ear and murmured, "There is something Zhao Xiaowan cannot look upon. Once she sees it, she won't be able to move."
Lu Xiaolan froze. "You mean the Great Totem? She dares not look upon the Great Totem either?"
The man nodded. "Just like you, she dares not look."
Lu Xiaolan looked at him, a flicker of dread surfacing on her face. "The Great Totem is so extraordinary. Can you even recreate it?"
"That depends on my skill." Slipping the silver dollar back into his pocket, the man left Lu Xiaolan's room.
PS: No wonder My Lady lost so many of her memories.
Chapter 803