That night, Sun and Huang finished their "deal" with Master Shu and, after a few more rounds of drinks, returned to the inn.
The poison Huang Donglai had administered had surely not yet taken effect when they left.
But once they were gone, it began to work...
This poison was one of the strange toxins recorded in Gu Qiying's notebook, and it bore an especially trite name: "XiaoHun Powder."
A person who took XiaoHun Powder would show no sign of anything wrong for a while, but after an hour or two, the victim would begin to feel an unbearable burning heat and a desire he could scarcely suppress, and then he would stop at nothing to find someone to "release" it with.
Here came the cleverest part of the poison: if the victim could not find anyone to "release" it with no matter what—say he was locked alone in a secret chamber, and in the end had to take care of "business" himself—then he would actually be fine.
But if he did find someone to "release" it with, then the moment he began, within moments the blood would all rush to his lower body, leaving his brain and heart short of supply, and he would drop dead in the middle of it.
The manner of death... would be exactly the same as someone who died suddenly of a heart seizure brought on by overexertion in bed.
Whether you brought in the yamen's coroner or an expert from the jianghu, you would get the same conclusion. No matter who came, no one could tell it was poison.
In other words, no matter how much you suspected, the "facts" could only prove it was an accident, a coincidence.
So Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai were quite confident they would get away with it. They had even worked out how to act shocked and innocent when Master Shu's men came to investigate afterward.
Sure enough, in the small hours of the next morning, someone came.
Exactly how Master Shu's man got into the inn at such an hour, or how he got Sun and Huang out of bed, need not be dwelt on.
In short, by the Hour of the Ox the two were dressed again and being "invited" back from the inn to Qiliu Youran for the second time.
This time it was not the madam who received them, but one of Master Shu's men.
They were taken straight to an unfamiliar room, and the moment they stepped inside, they saw Master Shu, stripped stark naked, lying stiff on the floor, his face long drained of color, with not even a scrap of cloth to cover him.
"Ah? What's going on here?" The moment Huang Donglai saw the body, he put on a startled reaction.
"Brother, has Master Shu... died?" Peering at Master Shu's man, Sun Yixie asked a pointless question.
Watching these two perform, the man said nothing, merely standing where he was and looking on coldly.
Before long, another man came out of the inner room.
When this man appeared, Sun and Huang were genuinely shocked, because this man... was also Master Shu.
He looked exactly like the corpse on the floor.
Of course, there was only one real Master Shu, and there was no doubt which one it was—the one still alive. As for the one on the floor who had stopped breathing... or rather, the one who had drunk with the Twin Xies and negotiated with Zhu Jiaduan today, he was plainly a body double—the very man the real Master Shu had summoned and told to "carry out the plan" when Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai first arrived at Qiliu Youran.
"Do you need to think about it any further?" Master Shu looked at Sun and Huang and opened with that question.
"Huh? Brother Shu, you're not dead!" At that moment Sun Yixie suddenly raised his voice and rushed over with a face full of delight. "Hahaha! That's wonderful!"
"Hey, you little—" Master Shu quickly raised a hand to stop Brother Sun from coming closer, his face full of disgust. "...Have some shame, would you? Things are like this and you still want to slip through under cover of the confusion?"
Even Huang Donglai shot Sun Yixie a sidelong glance. "Brother Sun, that's overdoing it. The game's clearly up—do you really think they're idiots?"
Seeing that Master Shu wasn't falling for it, Sun Yixie curled his lip. "Ah, it doesn't cost anything to try. Never mind, never mind..."
Master Shu gave a dry laugh. "Heh... you two..." He shook his head and said, "All right, come with me."
With that, he clasped his hands behind his back, threw out his chest, and walked out of the room.
His man, looking at Sun and Huang, said, "Please," meaning for them to follow Master Shu.
At this point, Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai had no other choice. Since their murderous intent had been seen through and thwarted, they could only submit to others' control.
Following behind Master Shu, they soon reached their destination—the "Winter" private room.
Sun Yixie thought, This is bad: is Master Shu going to settle scores with Chu Xue and Shui Sheng because the two of them botched it?
Even as he thought this, Master Shu had already pushed open the door.
When the three entered, they found Chu Xue and Shui Sheng already in the room, as though they had been waiting a long while. Chu Xue's young maid was not there, presumably sent away.
Master Shu's man did not come in, but waited outside the door. So once the door was shut, only five people remained in the room: Chu Xue, Shui Sheng, Master Shu, Sun Yixie, and Huang Donglai.
"Don't bother sitting—stand and listen to me." Like the head of the academic affairs office who had summoned his students, Master Shu spoke as he found himself a stool and sat down.
"I am a fair man." Master Shu's thoughts were already clearly ordered, so he spoke without much deliberation after sitting down. "If I owe others, I repay them; but if others owe me, I will certainly collect." He glanced at Chu Xue. "You had better understand this clearly: the way I'm keeping and protecting this woman now... has nothing to do with Shui Sheng. I do it only because one day in the future I intend to take her as a concubine... This is what her father owes me, and she must pay it back."
Hearing his words, despair and pain showed on the faces of both Chu Xue and Shui Sheng, but neither dared interrupt.
"Men desire beauty, women desire strength—that is human nature," Master Shu said. "Do you think I keep Shui Sheng around because I enjoy tormenting him? Or to coerce him into working for me? Am I really so short of men that I need him?" He paused, then answered his own question. "I agreed to let Shui Sheng be a drudge here only to show Xue'er what kind of man this is—a man who will cast aside even his dignity for a woman is no man at all, and is nowhere near worthy of her."
"He's better than you—" At this, Xue'er muttered something under her breath; the second half was so soft that no one caught it.
Hearing her, Master Shu turned and glared at her. "What did you say? You may as well say it louder."
At this point, Chu Xue was ready to throw caution to the wind. She took a deep breath and met Master Shu's eyes. "In my eyes, Shui Sheng is a thousand times better than you! Ten thousand times!"
At these words, even Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai, watching from the side, felt their hearts tighten for her.
Master Shu's face changed color as well; he actually hesitated slightly at this, and then he gave a cold snort. "Heh... I thought you were a clever woman, but I never expected..." His hand unconsciously clenched into a fist. "Then let me ask you... what has this man, whom you think is millions of times better than me, actually done for you so far?" He paused for half a beat and went on in a measured tone. "When I took you from your home, he was beaten half to death by my men, and only because you knelt and begged me was his life spared.
"After his wounds healed, he came to Qiliu Youran with not a coin to his name, kowtowing like a pestle pounding garlic and begging me to release you; it was only because you begged me again and again that I did not throw him out, but instead made him a drudge here.
"When Zheng Mukai came, he did step in to protect you—but what came after? Because he was timid and short on wit, he dragged in irrelevant people like Young Hero Sun and Young Hero Huang, and that only stirred up bigger trouble...
"And now, as I berate him to his face like this, he doesn't dare let out so much as a fart, and you still have to speak up for him..."
What he said was all fact; Shui Sheng could not talk back, and Xue'er could not either.
"So what exactly do you see in him? Just that he's devoted to you with all his heart?" Master Shu was not finished. "But you must understand: with your beauty and talent, there are plenty of men in this world willing to treat you this well. He is nothing extraordinary, and he may not even be right for you."
Having said that, Master Shu turned to Shui Sheng and continued. "Shui Sheng, let me ask you something too... do you truly think a beauty like Xue'er—the kind that ruins men—is someone a man like you has the ability to protect and to keep?"
In fact, he did not really need to voice the question; everyone present already knew the answer.
"I... I..." The veins stood out on Shui Sheng's forehead, his whole body trembling, the words right on the tip of his tongue, but he could not force them out.
For to say them would mean losing everything for him—even losing his reason to go on living.
"Young Hero Sun, Young Hero Huang." Master Shu did not wait for Shui Sheng's answer at all. Having said what he wanted, he turned his head and addressed the two of them. "You two, I must say, I admire... Lei Buji is your brother, and you came to probe my Qiliu Youran for his sake—that is loyalty; but Xue'er and Shui Sheng are nothing to you, and yet you dared to scheme against me to stand up for them... that is chivalry. But..."
His words were only halfway out when suddenly something happened that no one expected.
Then Xue'er, who was standing in Master Shu's blind spot, suddenly pulled a pair of sharp scissors from her sleeve and raised them high...
"Hey!"
"Don't!"
Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai were facing that direction, and their first reaction on seeing this was to assume that Miss Xue'er was about to make a surprise attack on Master Shu, so they quickly shouted to stop her.
But...
The scissors in Xue'er's hand did not go toward Master Shu at all...
She turned them on her own face.
In the blink of an eye, Xue'er had cut several deep, long gashes across her own face.
Shui Sheng, closest to her, had been left dazed by Master Shu's words, and it took him several seconds to react; by the time he wrenched the scissors from Xue'er's hand, it was already too late...
Blood gushed down Chu Xue's face, neck, and wrist. Her cheeks and forehead, white as jade, bore at least four or five irreversible, shocking wounds.
"Xue'er!" Shui Sheng roared, gathering the now limp Xue'er into his arms.
Master Shu, turning back to see this, was so startled that he lost his composure. He had thought his words had sealed the coffin on the two of them, making them give up all hope—he had not expected that Xue'er's will and resolve were far less fragile than he imagined.
"You..." Master Shu rose to his feet as well and took two steps toward Xue'er. Looking at the peerless beauty whose face was now covered in blood and disfigured, he felt a jumble of emotions. "Why must you do this to yourself..."
But Xue'er smiled, even with a hint of triumph. "You're right, Master Shu—I'm a foolish woman, and now I'm a foolish and ugly woman as well... So the me of now ought to be a match for Shui Sheng."
Master Shu's expression froze, and he even took half a step back without realizing it.
Before today, he had not really cared much for Xue'er; he had merely thought that a stunning beauty like her ought to be the concubine of a strong man like him—that was only natural. But at this moment, he fell in love with this woman whose face had been ruined—he felt that to marry such a woman would be the greatest blessing.
"Ah... what a pity..." After a moment, Master Shu sighed.
At first hearing, he seemed to be lamenting Xue'er's self-disfigurement, but in fact he meant something else.
"Take her and go," Master Shu said to Shui Sheng once he had finished sighing. "You owe me nothing now. Get as far away as you can, and don't let me see you again."
Even if he had not said it, Shui Sheng had already meant to carry Xue'er off to find a doctor, so before Master Shu had even finished speaking, he scooped Xue'er up and ran out.
"Don't stop them—let them go." As Shui Sheng opened the door, Master Shu called out to the man waiting outside, telling him to clear the way for them.
After that day, the top courtesan "Chu Xue" of Qiliu Youran vanished, and in the jianghu no one ever saw or heard news of her again.
Of course, that was exactly what she and Shui Sheng had hoped for.
After the two had left and the man had shut the door again, Master Shu sat back down.
His gaze fixed on the drops of blood left on the carpet, and he fell into a daze.
After a while, it was a bit of flattery from Huang Donglai that brought him back to his senses. "Master Shu is truly a dragon among men, a modest gentleman—this junior admires you..."
"This junior, too, is left prostrate in admiration for Master Shu's lofty character, humbly conceding defeat," Sun Yixie chimed in at just the right moment.
Master Shu raised his eyes to Sun and Huang, and after a moment he said in a low voice, "My two young friends... what makes you say that?"
"The gentleman fulfills others' wishes; the petty man steals what others love," Huang Donglai said. "Since Master Shu would rather give up what he loves to fulfill Xue'er and Shui Sheng, that is surely the deed of a remarkable gentleman."
Both he and Sun Yixie could naturally see through everything that had just happened; the only difference was that Sun Yixie couldn't put those thoughts into such high-flown language the way Brother Huang did.
"Hmph..." Master Shu finally smiled again, but there was a trace of bitterness in it. "Your temperament and your scheming—it really doesn't seem like you're only seventeen or eighteen..."
A man like Master Shu could not easily show his feelings; when he did not like Xue'er, he did not, but precisely because he had come to like her... he had to fulfill others, and then the bit of bitterness in his heart he carried alone.
Now that someone understood his painful effort, it both gave Master Shu a little comfort and stirred some killing intent in him...
He was just such a contradictory man—most of the time he seemed a great villain, but sometimes he seemed to have the heart of a bodhisattva, immeasurably generous and merciful.
"Master Shu flatters me," Huang Donglai said. "The jianghu is a treacherous place; my brother and I are merely cautious in everything, thinking things over carefully."
"That's right," Sun Yixie said. "Compared with Master Shu's scheming, we're only minor sorcerers before a great one. Haha... Well, it's getting late, and now that everything is settled, Master Shu must be eager to go have a few drinks alone to ease his gloom, so we won't disturb you any longer. We'll be on our way..."
Chattering away to himself, he began to stroll toward the door, trying to slip off under cover of the confusion once again.
"Don't be in such a hurry to leave!" Unexpectedly, the next second Master Shu's voice suddenly grew loud, and the look on his face returned to its usual composure and dominance. "One thing at a time... the accounts between the three of us aren't settled yet."
Chapter 81