This Lady Is Trying to Kill Me - Chapter 76

Chapter 76: Meeting of the Wind and Clouds

Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

Rustle, rustle, rustle..

Outside the window, the rain was pouring. There was a commotion outside, and it was buzzing like a busy market.

“Don’t dawdle!”

“Hurry up!”

Ye Jingtang opened his eyes and pushed open the side window in his cabin. The first thing he saw was a large ship filled with goods. There were a few stewards of merchant families on the ship, instructing the laborers to cover the goods. It looked like the wind at night had blown open the oilcloth.

He leaned out of the window to take a look. He could see that the merchant ship had already docked. On the right was the dock’s riverbank. It was raining, but the dock was still crowded with people. Carriages and ox carts full of goods were almost blocking the traffic. Behind the dock was a large town.

Looking up the river, he saw that the scene was even more magnificent. Thousands of sails gathered by the river under the light rain. The masts and sails blocked his entire view. He was clearly on the river, but he couldn’t see the river at all. At a glance, he saw no less than a thousand ships of various sizes moored on the river bank.

Ye Jingtang wasn’t surprised by the prosperity. After all, this was the mouth of the ‘Gold River’, and West King Town was on the shore.

There were many rivers in Great Wei, and three of them flowed into the sea. They were the Daliang River, Clear River, and Wu River.

For the sake of shipping, all the dynasties had been building a waterway system. They had slowly built the two large canals, the Gold River Canal and the Wuxi Canal, to connect the three rivers completely. By boat, one could travel from Ye Jingtang’s hometown, Red River Town, to the estuary of Jiang Province on the other side of Great Wei’s territory.

The intersection of the two great canals was the mouth of the Gold River under their feet. Anyone who traveled from the north to the south or vice-versa almost always had to pass through this place. Although it was only a small town, its scale and prosperity were not inferior to those of any large city. The people of Jianghu usually treated this place as the gateway to the capital.

The Red Flower Pavilion’s annual meeting was held here. First, it was because this place was where the various ship gangs had formed the alliance to establish the Red Flower Pavilion back then. Second, there were too many people coming and going between the south and the north. If the hall masters of the Red Flower Pavilion came here in a low-key manner, they wouldn’t attract attention.

They arrived at their destination without accident along the way. Ye Jingtang felt relieved.

Scanning the river surface, he didn’t find the small cargo ship with the ‘Zhang’ banner. It had probably arrived and unloaded elsewhere.

Ye Jingtang put away his thoughts, tidied his clothes, and walked out of his cabin. He saw Li Jian and the others standing on the shore, communicating with the port steward about trivial matters such as loading and unloading.

In the cabin next door, Third Lady had already tidied up. She was wearing a dark purple dress, and her bun was very dignified and mature. She looked like a smart and capable shopkeeper.

The bird was still lazing in bed, lying on the windowsill with its limbs spread out and a handkerchief covering its stomach. It looked like it was sleeping.

Last night, Ye Jingtang and the bird had kept watch in shifts. He didn’t wake the bird up. After washing up in the cabin area, he put on his bamboo hat, took out an oil-paper umbrella, and headed to town with Pei Xiangjun.

The flow of people in West King Town was immense. There were no less than 100,000 people gathered in the town, and the streets were always blocked. Even though it was raining, they could see merchants and Jianghu people running around.

Ye Jingtang walked along the street while looking around. Before they arrived at the inn, he suddenly heard the sound of horse hooves in front of him. The carts, carriages, and pedestrians on the street moved to the sides.

Tread, tread, tread…

“Get out of the way!”

Ye Jingtang frowned. He protected Third Lady and retreated to the side of the street. He looked up and saw a convoy approaching.

In front of the convoy were eight sabermen in embroidered robes, bamboo hats, and straw raincoats. Even the clothes of their horses were expensive.

Behind the eight sabermen was a wide carriage. The door was closed, and the people inside couldn’t be seen. Behind the carriage were a few stewards and servants on horses.

West King Town was full of people from Jianghu. Someone who could make everyone avoid them must have an extraordinary identity.

Ye Jingtang took a closer look and saw that the eight sabermen all had tokens hanging on their waists. They were carrying large sabers on their backs, and the sabers looked extremely heavy. He estimated that they weighed no less than 25 kilograms.

Jun Mountain Terrace… Ye Jingtang recognized these people from the shape of their sabers and frowned slightly.

Before his foster father died, he had left a will asking Ye Jingtang to look for the person who had crippled him if he had the chance in the future.

And this enemy was the patriarch of the Jun Mountain Terrace, ‘Saber Chief’ Xuanyuan Chao. The people of Jianghu usually called him the Divine Marquis of Jun Mountain.

Xuanyuan Chao was among the Eight Chiefs and had reached the peak of Jianghu. He had also been conferred the title of Marquis of Jun Mountain by the Imperial Court. It could be said that he had reached the peak of both the underworld and lawful society. Even at its peak, the Red Flower Pavilion had to be polite.

Ye Jingtang understood the gap between them. He wasn’t in a hurry to run up and look for trouble. He pretended not to see them and continued walking.

But to his surprise, when the carriage passed by, the window curtain was slightly raised, and someone looked out of the carriage.

From the corner of his eye, he could see the middle-aged man sitting in the carriage. He was dressed in an aristocratic brocade robe and looked serious and handsome, with eyes like an eagle’s.

Ye Jingtang didn’t recognize this person, so he didn’t turn his head to look at him. After the carriage left, he asked, “Third Lady, who was that person?”

Pei Xiangjun looked at the shops on the street and replied unhurriedly, “Xuanyuan Hongzhi, the second son of Xuanyuan Chao. He runs around all year round and is in charge of socializing. He’s probably planning to go to the Zhou family’s birthday banquet.”

“Why did he look at me?”

Pei Xiangjun gestured to the Hornless Dragon Saber at Ye Jingtang’s waist. “The Dragon Slaying Decree of the Jun Mountain Terrace slaughters the Hornless Dragon. As a saberman, when you saw them carrying sabers on their backs, didn’t you take a few glances at them?”

Ye Jingtang immediately understood. He raised his hand and put away the saber at his waist. “In the future, when I’m outside, I’d better wrap the saber.” “Yeah.”

Clomp, clomp…

The carriage drove through the streets under the rain. The noise outside the window was endless, but it was very quiet inside the carriage.

Xuanyuan Hongzhi was sitting upright, his gaze still outside the window, his brows furrowed.

Sitting beside him, his son, Xuanyuan Zhe, was slightly puzzled. “Father, what were you looking at?”

After a long silence, Xuanyuan Hongzhi shook his head and sighed. “Kuang Yazi has been dead for decades, but there are still people in Jianghu using the Hornless Dragon Saber. Alas…”

When Xuanyuan Zhe heard this, he immediately understood why his father sighed. At the end of the previous dynasty, Kuang Yazi had been the Saber Chief, and the Hornless Dragon Saber had been extremely popular in Jianghu. His father was in his fifties. He had been born at the end of Kuang Yazi’s domination of the saber world and had personally witnessed the rise of the Dragon Slaying Decree and the decline of the Hornless Dragon Saber. So his feelings for this saber were far deeper than those of contemporary martial artists.

Then Kuang Yazi’s successor, Zheng Feng, had been crippled by the Xuanyuan family because of his aunt’s affairs. But the family didn’t eliminate the root of the problem, causing his father to have a knot in his heart. He was always worried that one day, someone would come to him with the Hornless Dragon Saber to settle the old and new grudges.

“Father, you’re thinking too much. Zheng Feng himself deviated from the saber technique, and the Eight-Steps Frenzied Blade has long been lost. Even if he has a disciple, so what if a saber technique that Grandpa broke decades ago appears again?”

Xuanyuan Zhe looked at the martial artists on the street outside the carriage.

“As for the Hornless Dragon Saber, there were too many of them in the past. You can see one every few days. Most of them are ancestral sabers or old sabers bought from the market. They’re very common…”

Xuanyuan Hongzhi shook his head. “Jianghu is Jianghu. Yesterday, there was a cause, and today, there is a result. No matter how invincible you are, no one can escape the karma of Jianghu. Back then, I advised your grandfather to eliminate the root of the problem, but your uncle insisted on caring about that trivial chivalry of his and obstructed us. In the end, this hesitation has been exchanged for thirty years of paranoia…”

“Why don’t I send people to investigate the new saber users in Jianghu?”

“There are thousands of saber users in the world. How can we find them?”

Xuanyuan Hongzhi retracted his gaze and returned to his unsmiling expression. “Let’s go to the Zhou family first. The Zhou family has occupied the ancestral property of the Red Flower Pavilion. If the Red Flower Pavilion doesn’t appear to ask for an explanation at this birthday banquet, it means that the situation is over. The Clear River Wharf is the main port of the Yun and Ze provinces. Without our Xuanyuan family’s approval, the Zhou family won’t be able to eat such a huge piece of fat…

“So what if the Red Flower Pavilion appears? In my opinion, people should decisively let go of what they can’t hold, lest they suffer the consequences. The Red Flower Pavilion is an old hand in Jianghu.. Why can’t they even understand this logic…”