Chapter 67 - Papaya Flavored Senior Brother Gong (5): Lord Gou: Only a Mr. Perfect could match this Lord
Translator: KunLin
After a hospitable stay at the Jiang Manor, Gou Liang and the group escorted the grandfather and granddaughter pair and left Dragon Island.
The journey was full of excitement, as predicted.
The waves of attack made up of Demonic Cult fodders were easily handled by them. He Cong deemed it safe enough and loosened his tight rein on Tang Nuo so he could get some practical practice. Yue Qian guarded Gou Liang and Jiang Suxi who sat inside the carriage and never moved from his station from start to finish. He only leaned against the carriage and threw out occasional pointers to Si Tubai.
They encountered two consecutive besiegements today which delayed their journey. Seeing they were unable to make it to the next town by nightfall, the group found an open area that was difficult to ambush and set up camp there.
The hot weather caused their rations to spoil despite being restocked yesterday.
Gou Liang had a picky palate but rejecting food was not in his nature. On the contrary, it was Yue Qian who blanched at the thought of having the rancid food touch Gou Liang’s good-looking mouth. He personally went out and caught some wild game, roasting them over a fire.
Living alone for 3 years in the desert forced him to learn some cooking know-how. He intended to use his skills to earn some brownie points with Gou Liang, but he saw the latter scrunching his brows.
Then, as if full of disdain for him, Gou Liang stripped him of his position and overtook the duty of head chef instead. Under his hands, the pheasant, hare, and fish roasting over the fire on the spit was made to emit a tantalizing aroma.
Zhu Fengyi was never much of an eater yet he couldn’t resist looking over. Needless to say, Tang Nuo had already squatted by the fire and was swallowing buckets of his own saliva.
“So good!”
“Mis Ye, your cooking is amazing!”
“Indeed, Miss Ye is full of virtues, so my Senior Brother will have blessings to enjoy in the future!”
“Miss Ye is not only elegant, she is also good-hearted, and capable. Junior Brother Yue, you make this Senior Brother envious.”
Everyone’s mouth glistened with oil and praised with gusto.
Even Elder Jiang hopped in on the fun, “What a lucky lad you are! When will this old man get to drink your wedding wine? Haha.”
Yue Qian looked at Gou Liang, but the other seemed completely unaffected while he himself was feeling at a loss for words. Gou Liang quirked his lips, his eyes revealing clear desires to tease the other more, “What are you looking at me for? Do you want me to take you in as the wife instead?”
This successfully made Yue Qian blush, causing everyone to laugh.
At the moment, they didn’t know that their night was just starting.
Besieged by Demonic Cult members, Yue Qian could no longer afford the luxury of standing by. He picked up his sword and said to Old Jiang, “Elder, I’ll have to trouble you to take care of Ye Gui.”
Old Jiang naturally agreed.
Jiang Suxi was a ball of naivety. She clutched her grandpa’s arm and hid behind his back but her eyes never left Yue Qian for a moment. Her eyes couldn’t keep up with his movements, but members of the Demonic Cult would fall wherever he passed through, their lives reaped before they could make a sound.
“Yue Qian Ge-Ge is amazing!”
She praised enthusiastically but stopped abruptly and gave Gou Liang an apologetic look.
Old Jiang smiled, “Bai Xiaosheng gave no empty praise by saying there are shooting stars in the South and berserk swords in the North.The Yu Jian Alliance is made up of majors sects from the Northern and Southern regions, but the top spots undoubtedly belong to the Southern Sword Sect with a lightning fast style, and the Northern Sword Sect with their domineering swordplay. Yue Qian’s sword is called “Moving Jianghu”, and it’s fast enough to be on par with Brother Si Tu and ruthless enough to match the Northern Sword Sect. He is actually quite suited to learn the Northern Sword Sect’s techniques as well. Because of this, Sect Master Xia has been green with envy towards your Uncle Si Tu for some time now.”
But from the looks of it, Yue Qian had improved even more than he had expected over the last 5 years.
Gou Liang smiled and his face was full of nostalgia as he watched Yue Qian wield his sword.
But fast as Yue Qian’s blade may be, he still couldn’t fend off the never-ending waves of Demonic Cult members.
Old Jiang laughed coldy, “The Demonic Cult sure thinks highly of this old man to be so extravagant!”
He was forced to join the mayhem but was encumbered by the two people behind him that he needed to guard. Suddenly, the Left Guardian who had remained hidden all this time saw an opportunity and lunged towards Jiang Suxi! Old Jiang hastily pulled his granddaughter back in alarm, but moment later, he realized belatedly that the other’s aim was Gou Liang all along!
“Ye Jie-Jie!”
Jiang Suxi cried out in fright when she saw Gou Liang being carried away.
At this moment, a ray of light flew over and dozens of Sword Qi brimming with murderous intent forced the Left Guardian to release his hold. Gou Liang somersualted in mid-air and landed safely on his feet.
Yue Qian encircled his waist and pulled him closer. Gou Liang had filmed countless scenes like this before but there were no slow motion cameras in reality to make things dramatic. By the time Gou Liang raised his head to meet Yue Qian’s eyes, he had already stabilized himself. Yue Qian asked anxiously, “Are you hurt?”
Gou Liang shook his head, and Yue Qian let out a sigh of relief, but his arm remained around him with no intention of letting go. He wasn’t going to let him leave his side for even half a step.
When the Demonic Cult ceased their attack, Si Tubai and the others took the chance to regroup. Yue Qian raised his sword, “Left Guardian, do you still intend to hide like a coward? Are you that afraid of losing your head since you got your ass beat last time?”
The Left Guardian revealed himself and sneered, “If I wasn’t drained of internal force at that time, do you think your ambush would succeed? If you have any senses at all, you’ll hand over that girl! If you do so, I promise that the Demonic Cult won’t trouble the Jiang Clan again, and I’ll let you leave here unharmed.”
He Cong and the others were shocked. It turned out that the Demonic Cult was after Gou Liang and not the “Score of Resonance”.
Yue Qian laughed, “Since when was the Demonic Cult known for keeping their promise? The Left Guardian sure knows how to tell a joke.”
The Left Guardian avoided Gou Liang’s gaze and said, “Refusing a toast only to drink a forfeit, do you really think I have no way to deal with you?”
He waved his hand and a whistle sounded, causing slithering noises to sound in the area.
Old Jiang’s expression changed, “This is bad, it’s the Myriad Poison Sect’s Myriad Snake Formation!”
Zhu Fengyi blew into his flute and a harsh note countered the whistle. However, he hadn’t been the Head Disciple for long since it was only a few years since Xia Xinya’s first husband, Ye Yu, the previous Head Disciple, passed away. He had yet to achieve mastery in any of the advanced sound techniques, and his capability was only to the extent of temporarily interfering with the effects of the whistle. Afterwards, the poisonous creatures continued close to in on them.
The group huddled together, but to their surprise, the poisonous creatures stopped three feet from them and looked too afraid to get any closer.
The Left Guardian was perplexed and looked at Gou Liang—he must have done something. A bad premonition rose in his heart.
Gou Liang leaned on Yue Qian’s chest, and chuckled at the Left Guardian, “Are you using poisonous creatures against me? Do you want to die that badly?”
This was the first time he had spoken since the start of the fight. His drawl was full of mockery, making unpleasant memories surface in the Left Guardian’s mind. The original host has left an scarring impression on him; he couldn’t stop the growing feeling of horror in him.
“Running away?” Gou Liang’s smile stretched wider, “It’s too late for that.”
He plucked a leaf from the air and placed it by his mouth.
He began playing.
A flat-headed viper seemed to have been stimulated. It raised its head and its tongue flickered rapidly.
The whistle controlling the vipers came to an abrupt stop and a wretched scream sounded from the crowd. The Demonic Cult members recoiled when they saw the viper wrap its body around the snake charmer’s neck and the blood bleeding from the lesion. Then, to all of their horror, the vipers that were supposed to attack Gou Liang’s group began attacking them instead!
“Scatter!”
The Left Guardian fled without scruples after giving the order.
Gou Liang raised his brow at Yue Qian. The latter understood his intention and reminded him to be careful before chasing after the Left Guardian.
Gou Liang lowered the leaf and glanced at the Demonic Cult members that were tightly constricted by the vipers. The vipers kept their mouths open to bare their poisonous fangs, but they never bit down the entire time.
Gou Liang smiled, “If memory serves me right, this Jiangbei district belongs to the Harmonious Sect. What business does the Myriad Poison Sect have here?”
A snake suddenly licked one of the hostages’ nose. The person stared at the snake until his eyes crossed. Scared witless, the person could only manage to answer in a quivering voice, “M-miss, have mercy. I was simply following the Left Guardian’s order, I d-didn’t mean to harm you intentionally.”
“Oh right, I remember now. The Harmonious Sect never liked the Left Guardian because of how ugly he looks. You, do pass on to that Nian Nujiao that she should steer clear of the Jiang Clan. The entire way here was full of pesky fleas that disturbed my meals and rest. Should she ever catch me in a bad mood, I’ll cut off the things from her precious male pets and let her experience herself what it feels like to be unable to sleep at night.”
Gou Liang looked at him when he finished speaking, “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Y-yes!”
“Then why are you still here? Get lost.”
The person couldn’t wait to run after escaping the tiger’s den. He gathered his people and was about to leave when he heard Gou Liang say, “Leave the King Viper behind. You should look after your pets better. If it roams free and scares the children, retribution will come.”
The person’s heart was bleeding, but he had no choice but to leave the King Viper behind.
The Demonic Cult members and the vipers were gone and the danger was neatly resolved. Everyone was shocked over this kind of development and even Old Jiang was struggling to process what had just happened.
Jiang Suxi was pale when she saw Gou Liang playing with the King Viper that was as thick as a person’s arm. She whimpered, “Y-Ye Jie-Jie, t-this snake…”
Gou Liang smiled, “Don’t be afraid, the King Viper is poisonous, but its flesh is a delicacy. What we ate tonight was too oily so it’ll make the perfect stew to cleanse our palate.”
His smile made everyone tremble.
Gou Liang was a man of his words and really slaughtered the King Viper. As he was removing the viper’s gall, Yue Qian returned with a heavy expression, “He managed to get away!”
“Come over here.”
Gou Liang beckoned him.
“S-senior Brother!”
Si Tubai cried out and Yue Qian looked over in confusion, but when Si Tubai saw Gou Liang glancing at him with an eerie smile, he closed his mouth again.
Yue Qian walked to Gou Liang’s side while teasing his Junior Brother, “What are you so worked up for—mph? Mph!”
Gou Liang slipped the snake gall into Yue Qian’s mouth and patted his chest to help it go down. Yue Qian swallowed it out of relex and scrunched his face.
“W, what was that, cough, cough, cough!”
Gou Liang’s finger was drenched in blood and it left a red streak on Yue Qian’s lips, “It’s a supplement. How’s the taste? Is it good?”
Yue Qian quickly fetched some water and gurgled his mouth several times. Gou Liang watched him with a smile tugging the corner of his mouth. Yue Qian touched his lips and furrowed his brows, “It tastes disgusting, yet it’s somehow familiar, like I’ve eaten it before?”
Gou Liang stopped teasing him and his expression became gentle, “The Myriad Poison Sect painstakingly raised this King Viper with medicine and poison. Eating its gall will grant you immunity to a hundred poison and in the future, all poisonous creatures will feel a natural sense of fear towards you.”
Yue Qian’s expression lightened after hearing this. He walked towards him and asked, “Shouldn’t you save it for yourself?”
Gou Liang lifted his hand, and Yue Qian fetched water for him to wash his hands before taking initiative to go clean the viper.
Gou Liang wiped his hands and replied, “It’s not necessary for me.”
Yue Qian saw that he seemed to be telling the truth and laid his concern to rest. Instead, he asked what happened to the Demonic Cult members.
Tang Nuo jumped into the conversation, “Miss Ye released them! Miss Ye, you could’ve ended them in one swoop, so why—”
“Junior Brother!”
He Cong’s rapprochement caused Tang Nuo to remember that Gou Liang wasn’t one to be trifled with. He hated himself for having a big mouth and hid behind his Senior Brother, pretending to be mute.
Yue Qian, confused, asked Si Tubai to recount what had happened. After he finished listening, Yue Qian momentarily felt that it was a waste, but he didn’t question Gou Liang’s action.
Gou Liang wagged his brow, “Do you think it’s a pity that I didn’t kill them?”
Yue Qian shook his head and smiled, “Not really, but I really thought you would’ve killed them while laughing.”
He then gave Old Jiang and the others a brief summary on Gou Liang’s background based on what Gou Liang had told him before. When they learned that Gou Liang’s clan was also a victim of the Demonic Cult, they were full of sympathy and felt a sense of camaraderie.
Old Jiang said seethingly, “Those bastards in the Demonic Cult will meet their retribution sooner or later!”
Similar to Yue Qian and Gou Liang, he had also had a vendetta against the Demonic Cult. They had murdered his only son and he hated the Demonic Cult to the core of his being.
Jiang Suxi rubbed her grandpa’s back to comfort him and asked in confusion, “Ye Jie-Jie, then why didn’t you kill them to avenge your family?”
She herself had a poor aptitude for martial arts and only learned some basic moves for self-defense. If it weren’t for this limitation, she would’ve personally killed some of them to appease her father’s spirit in heaven. She really couldn’t understand Gou Liang’s actions.
“Bao Shi is dead and the Left Guardian is all that remains of the original culprits of my clan’s massacre. Are those small fries worth hating?” Gou Liang threw the viper into the pot and said, “I don’t like killing. Even if they are Demonic Cult members, don’t they also have parents and relatives back at home? If you kill them, what’s stopping their kins from exacting revenge on you?”
Tang Nuo: “How is that the same? Every single person in the Demonic Cult is a criminal! Think about many people they have killed in the past years just to rob secret manuals! Naturally we should retaliate, otherwise should we wait like sitting ducks?”
Gou Liang: “That’s for people like you in the righteous faction to worry about, how is it any of my concern? I can’t be bothered with those people, but if I kill them, I’ll have to dig them a grave. How troublesome is that?”
The group was stunned by his logic and felt a little embarrassed.
Old Jiang muttered, “Miss, your surname is Ye and going by your age, this old man is reminded of 20 years ago. The only victim at the time was the eldest son of the Tang Clan…but this old man faintly remembers that the child born between the Tang and Ye Clan was a young master. So, Miss, you are…?”
Hearing this, Tang Nuo and his Senior Brother as well as Zhu Fengyi revealed shocked expressions. They seemed to be seeing Gou Liang in a different light.
The matter that year involved the Fan Yin Pavilion and the Nine Underworld Tower, so they naturally paid mind to it.
Gou Liang smiled, “It’s all in the past, there’s no point in talking about it now.”
Zhu Fengyi: “Miss, the technique you used, was it my Fan Yin Pavilion’s secret art— ‘Blossoms of Rue’?”
“Blossom of Rue” starts with engulfing the opponent’s attack with one’s own sound and returning the attack by two-fold.
50 years ago, Fan Yin Pavilion’s previous Sect Master created this technique in a bout of inspiration after fighting the Myriad Poison Sect and had used it to suppress the Myriad Poison Sect’s charm music, making the poisonous creatures under control attack their controller. However, since the passing of the late sect master, even his own Master had made little progress with the technique as it was too profound. He never thought that he would see his Sect’s secret art appear here today.
Gou Liang didn’t have an iota of interest in what he was saying and only concerned himself with simmering the soup.
He Cong: “Miss Ye doesn’t have any internal force, how is she able to use sound techniques to repel such a high-level snake charming tune?”
Yue Qian quickly intervened when he saw Gou Liang’s temper slowly climbing upward, “Alright, don’t ask too much about Ye Gui’s personal matters. The snake stew is almost done—Third Junior Brother, go get the bowls. The food tonight was greasy so a refreshing bowl of snake stew would be just the thing.”
Before he even finished speaking, Si Tubai had already turned tail and fled. Tang Nuo dry-retched and the others had a terrible expression on their faces.
The scene where tens of thousands of snakes swarmed them seemed to have no impact on Yue Qian’s at all. He accompanied Gou Liang in drinking the pot of King Viper stew clean to the bottom. Perhaps the medicinal effects of the King Viper were too outstanding, but Yue Qian felt his internal force roiling. He quickly sat down in a meditating position and circulated his internal force to absorb the medicinal effect. When he was done, he discovered that his internal force had become even more condensed.
When he saw that Si Tubai was standing guard for the night, Yue Qian returned to Gou Liang’s side.
Although he was careful, Gou Liang still roused from his sleep. When he saw that it was Yue Qian, the killing intent in his eyes faded and he looked groggy with sleep. He laid on Yue Qian’s lap and hugged his waist and soon his breathing became barely audible.
Yue Qian’s heart held too many questions for sleep to come. His finger’s unconsciously stroked Gou Liang’s temples and after moments of hesitation, he asked using a voice transmission: Is the Tang Clan that Old Jiang spoke of your…?”
Disciples of the righteous faction were educated in the evil doings of the Demonic Cult as part of their curriculum. Before the Yue Clan was destroyed, Yue Qian once heard his Master mention the massacre from 20 years ago that shook the entire Jianghu.
The romance between the eldest son who was also the head disciple of the Nine Underworld’s Sect Master and the second daughter of the Fan Yin Pavilion’s late Sect Master seemed like a match made in heaven and their story was widely circulated.
After their wedding, they spent every day immersed in each other’s affection and soon, a child was born between their union.
The child came into the world with a golden spoon in his mouth. From what Yue Qian had heard, the child had an outstanding physique that was not inferior to his own and from the moment he was born, he was regarded as a precious treasure by both the Fan Yin Pavilion and the Nine Underworld Tower. Both Sect Masters wanted to take the child in and raise him under their own tutelage, and for this reason, the two Sect Masters had even fought with each other on several occasions despite their many years of deep friendship.
But no one expected that the child was only fated to live until two before meeting demise under the Demonic Cult’s hands along with his parents.
The others were in the dark, but he knew clearly that Gou Liang was a man. After hearing what Old Jiang said, Yue Qian was almost certain that Gou Liang was the descendant of the Tang Clan’s brilliant Head Disciple.
He was supposed to have grown up under the love and expectations of everyone. Instead, who knows what he had gone through to survive after going missing for all those years…
When Yue Qian thought of this, his heart ached with distress.
Gou Liang snuggled against his stomach and rubbed it with his face, muttering, “Be quiet…”
But he didn’t deny what Yue Qian said—he “coincidentally” used the “Blossom of Rue” today, and Yue Qian “discovered” the original host’s true identity. The outcome was perfect.
Si Tubai witnessed his Senior Brother being intimate with Miss Ye. He recalled how his younger sister back home had solemnly vowed to marry his Senior Brother and felt a headache coming. Moreover, Miss Ye had a strong personality and had no qualms about acting as she pleased. However, seeing his Senior Brother’s whipped appearance, Si Tubai could only swallow the worries in his heart.
In the middle of the night, Zhu Fengyi groggily opened his eyes and saw two figures nestled close together.
He slowly closed his eyes again.
—It seems like there is a need for his Master to personally make a trip to this time’s Martial Arts Conference.