Book 58 Chapter 11 – The End of Winter Snow

Translator: Foxs' Wuxia

Kou Zhong suddenly woke with a start from the deepest sleep; from lying down he changed to sitting up, and opened his eyes to look.

A flowery pretty face was smiling happily at him.

Kou Zhong almost did not believe his own eyes, he wanted to rub his eyes, but the fragrance assaulted his nostrils. The beautiful woman, who was originally sitting in the chair, moved to the edge of the bed, her little mouth came to his ear and said, “Don’t make noise! Ziling is still searching for his good dreams, Ba Fenghan just left the room and went to the front hall.”

Kou Zhong drew out a mouthful of cold air, he said, “My Niang! Wan Meiren, how did you suddenly appear?”

Unexpectedly it was Wanwan, who nobody knew her tracks. Her movement had some kind of wordless and uncommunicative [idiom: without any noise] manner, like a ghost or a demon, making people unsure whether it was fantasy or reality.

Wanwan’s pretty face was suffused with pure and holy flawlessness, so that it was difficult to distinguish the righteous from the heretic, which made her beauty even more unusually glowing, a sign that her Tianmo Dafa had made progress and that she made another breakthrough.

Wanwan’s fragrant lips naturally kissed his sensitive earlobe, she even blew her briming-with-tantalizing-implication breath into his ears first, before speaking with soft voice, “This is the question that I should have asked you: Shaoshuai is coming to Chang’an, what should-not-be-exposed-to-light things are you doing?”

Aghast, Kou Zhong said, “Turns out all along you are still hiding in Chang’an.” He groaned inwardly, Wanwan’s destructive power might be greater and more thorough than Shi Zhixuan, because she knew the secrets of the Duke Yang’s Treasure-house.

Wanwan smiled and said, “What do you mean hiding? It’s really unpleasant to hear. Chang’an is Wan’er’s home! Hee …! I already guessed that you will come back dressing as ghosts and pretending to be horses, but I never thought that you would still be impersonating Furong Ye, this obsolete scheme that has been out-of-date for many years. Aren’t you afraid that Shi Zhixuan will expose you?”

Kou Zhong spoke dejectedly, “This matter is hard to explain in a few words. I will tell you the details later, tell me first, what are you going to do to us?”

Wanwan said, “What can I do to you? Hmm! I’ll think about it and tell you later. Your physique is really attractive.”

Kou Zhong’s scalp went numb, he looked down and looked at Wanwan’s right hand reaching inside his clothes, tenderly and passionately caressing his broad chest. Stunned, he said, “What are you doing? A man who just woke up is the most dangerous. If you go on, you will start my fire, your chastity is not guaranteed.”

Wanwan closed her beautiful eyes, put her cicada head on his shoulders, and moved her bare feet onto the bed, most of her body was pressed onto his flank, her left hand traced his eyebrows as she muttered dreamily, “If you like, you could take Wan’er’s chastity, I don’t mind at all.”

Kou Zhong exhausted all his strength to resist her brimming-with-demonic-power alluring charm, but her delicate hand stroking lightly carried some kind of enchanting feeling of comfort going straight to the bottom of his heart, making the contradiction in his heart extremely frightening; he wanted her to stop, but he also wanted her to continue.

Smiling wryly, he said, “Wan Meiren seems to look for the wrong target, your sweetheart is next door instead of here.”

It was nearly dusk, the sky was getting darker.

Wanwan spoke softly, “Shaoshuai and Ziling are both men who make Wan’er admire wholeheartedly, Shaoshuai don’t want me to transfer my love for Ziling completely to you, do you?”

Until this moment, Kou Zhong still did not understand why Wanwan barely showed up, unexpectedly she was so passionate and fiery toward him, taking the initiative to provoke him. He sighed and said, “Since you suddenly have a change of affection, shift of love [idiom] and fall in love with me, then you must not tease me even more. Don’t forget that your honorable sect’s women can only have joyful relationship with men whom you don’t like and with whom you don’t have any affection. Could it be that you are going to follow your lingshi’s [virtuous master] tracks [of a cart that overturned]?”

Wanwan lightly blew into his earlobe, she spoke tenderly and softly, “Oh, Shaoshuai! Please understand one thing clearly first, this taboo of our humble sect only applies to people who have not yet mastered the Tianmo Dafa. Wan’er already mastered the Tianmo Dafa, I no longer have any scruples, if I want to look for a man, naturally I don’t want to wrong myself.”

Greatly astonished, Kou Zhong said, “In that case, you should go next door even more. Now I am sure that you must have groped the wrong bridal chamber.”

Wanwan spoke in slight displeasure, “You really want me to go to another bed that much?”

Kou Zhong hurriedly smiled apologetically and said, “I just can’t help asking clearly, Ling Shao has less self-control than me, he can’t withstand the sting of this stimulation. Ay! You didn’t come here to find a man, did you?”

Wanwan straightened up her tender body, opened her beautiful eyes wide, withdrew the jade hand that made his heart galloping, his spirit washed away, shrugged her fragrant shoulders, rolled her eyes at him, and said, “Why not? Now it’s time to cultivate feelings so that you have enough psychological preparation, my request is very little, just one night of affection; afterwards, you don’t have to bear any responsibility, and you won’t tell anyone.”

Kou Zhong scrutinized her national grace, divine fragrance [idiom: an outstanding beauty] beautiful jade countenance. Overwhelmed with shock, he said, “Don’t scare me! You are teasing me, right?”

Neither confirming nor denying, Wanwan said, “You will know the answer later. Is it true that the Shao Shuai Army are sneaking into Guanzhong in batches, and the most elite of them will hide inside the treasure house?”

Kou Zhong hardened his heart. Having no choice, he said, “Your guess is only half right. We come here this time not to coordinate outside and inside offensives to take Chang’an, but to launch a coup d’état to help Li Shimin ascending onto the emperor’s throne. Now I have told you everything! It’s up to Dajie how to deal with it.”

Wanwan’s expression remained unchanged, she spoke indifferently, “I’ll consider you honest this time. If I had not figured out what ghost thing you are doing in Chang’an, I would have showed up to meet you early on. Shen Luoyan went to see Xiuning Gongzhu, and then Xiuning Gongzhu went out to visit Shen Luoyan. Anybody who is not stupid would know that the person she wanted to see is you. When she left, Xiuning Gongzhu seemed to have cried, and then for the next two days she was depressed. Ay! My Shaoshuai Ye, what makes you dare to see Li Xiuning? Why didn’t Li Xiuning expose you? With just one look, anybody with discerning eye would know that there is a big problem.”

Amazed, Kou Zhong said, “You know what happened in the palace like the back of your hand.”

Wanwan leaned forward to lightly kiss his lips, and then she moved back a little; revealing a charming sweet smile, she said, “The Li Tang Palace is such a key important place, how could it lack our people? This informer was placed personally by Xianshi [the late master], only loyal to Wan’er.”

Kou Zhong spoke in a heavy voice, “Li Shimin being the emperor, you don’t seem to have any antipathy?”

Wanwan reached out to stroke Kou Zhong’s cheek, she said, “What’s the big deal of who’s going to be the emperor? The more powerful the future empire is, the more Wan’er will be happy. Not only I will not betray you, but I will help you with all my strength. Ay! How can I have the heart to harm you guys? Are you afraid that you don’t loathe Wan’er enough?”

Hearing that, Kou Zhong was dumbstruck, he was completely unable to grasp her real intention; he only knew that the success or failure of this matter was completely in her control.

Wanwan retracted her jade hand, she spoke softly, “Say hello to Ziling for me, I will come back to see you later.”

Xu Ziling came and sat down on the edge of the bed, Kou Zhong was still in a daze.

Hard-to-tell-whether-he-was-crying-or-laughing, Kou Zhong said, “Wan Dajie was just here.”

His expression grave, Xu Ziling said, “The sound of you waking up with a start and sitting up also awakened me.”

Kou Zhong asked, “Did you hear our conversation?”

Xu Ziling said, “I only heard the last few words, which she deliberately said for me to hear, but I did not miss a word of what you said.”

Kou Zhong said, “What kind of his niang’s gongfa [skill method] is that? She did not even focus her voice into a thread.”

Xu Ziling said, “Not only she takes Zhu Yuyan’s place as the figure in charge of the demonic school, in the Tianmo Dafa, she is even the green coming out of the blue [but the color is deeper than blue]. If I did not guess incorrectly, her voice was limited inside the Tianmo field, hence it was not leaking out.”

Kou Zhong was baffled, he said, “She seems to be deliberately coming to tease and play around with me; logically speaking, she should look for Ling Shao and not me.”

Knitting his brows, Xu Ziling said, “Wanwan has become as unfathomable and terrifying as Shi Zhixuan. I have said before that she has her own set of methods to revitalize the demonic school. Ay! I am really afraid that she will challenge Feixuan to carry out the decisive battle between the demonic school and Jingzhai.”

Aghast, Kou Zhong said, “What should we do? With their current skills, no one can predict the outcome of the battle.”

Xu Ziling said, “You told her that we support Li Shimin to be the emperor. How did she react?”

Muttering to himself irresolutely, Kou Zhong said, “Not only was she not angry, she even said that the more powerful the future empire is, the more she will be happy, so that I am completely unable to see through what medicine she is selling inside her gourd.”

Smiling wryly, Xu Ziling said, “One day we will understand, let’s go out first and talk about it later!”

Ba Fenghan intercepted them at the garden’s half corridor, he said, “We have a guest inside, let’s talk in the pavilion.”

The three men came to the square pavilion that seemed to be in the snow-white freezing-over world, and sat down around the stone table.

Kou Zhong told him about the changes with Wanwan appearing suddenly first. Ba Fenghan said, “She must have been spying upon us from a distance, otherwise I would have generated a reaction.”

Xu Ziling said, “It’s hard to say, Tianmo Dafa’s bizarre changes are unfathomable. Kou Zhong only woke up and felt her when she entered the room and sat down. Moreover, she is not hostile to us, which makes it even more difficult for us to generate reaction.”

Kou Zhong asked, “What happened outside, why did you stop us?”

Ba Fenghan smiled and said, “The new business partner is here to present the first meeting gift!”

Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling looked at each other in dismay, they had no idea what he was talking about.

Ba Fenghan said, “This move is extremely super, fancy that they came up with it. This morning Pei Ji came to see our Furong Ye, saying that Li Yuan believed that the bank had to expand the principal to one million and two hundred thousand taels of gold, so he wanted to add Sha Tiannan and Dugu Feng [Peak], two business partners, each will contribute one hundred thousand taels. He also issued various rules and regulations to turn the Zhen Guan Bank into a corporation-style business, each year the partners elected the Chief Executive Officer in accordance with the proportion of the invested capital. Then, if Chi Shengchun obtains the others’ support, he could seize the control over in one fell swoop. Our Furong Ye has no choice but to agree.”

Kou Zhong laughed and said, “It’s really interesting, but I’m afraid that for Chi Shengchun, not only things will turn out contrary to the way he wishes [idiom], he will even have to vomit out the wealth accumulated by his Xiang Family. If I am guessing correctly, the money for Dugu Feng’s share should come from Chi Shengchun. If Dugu Feng is not short of funds, there is no need to sell the ‘Han Lin Qing Yuan’ to Chi Shengchun.”

Ba Fenghan spoke slyly, “For the time being, no need for us to worry about this matter. What’s rare is that Xiao Jun’s approach to dealing with people has become more and more sophisticated, clear and logical; he is able to assume personal responsibility, let alone there is Song ErGe by his side providing assistance.”

Kou Zhong laughed and said, “How’s our business?”

Ba Fenghan said, “Xiao Jie was fortunate enough not to fail his assignment, he found out the location of Chunxiang’s fragrant chamber in Shang Lin Yuan. Tonight, let me serve Er Wenhuan Daren with the severe punishment. I guarantee that afterwards, he will think that he collapsed because of excessive pleasure.”

Kou Zhong said, “The implications are profound, I will serve as your, Lao Ba’s pawn tonight, watching for the head and looking at the tail on the side, to look after you.”

Ba Fenghan cheerfully said, “Ziling is not going to take advantage of the excitement?”

Xu Ziling said, “I want to see Shi Zhixuan, while looking at Xibai’s situation in passing.”

Kou Zhong agreed, “We need to work separately,” he said.

“Should I tell Shi Zhixuan that this moment Wanwan is in Chang’an?” Xu Ziling asked.

Kou Zhong replied, “There’s no point in telling him, he is absolutely dying to harm Wan Meiren. You might as well tell him that Fu Qian is our man, in order to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings.”

Ba Fenghan said, “One more thing, Yuanji is back, and he reserves a banquet at Feng Ya Ge, wanting to enjoy the wind, flower, snow and moon tonight.”

Recalling the scene where he executed Dou Jiande, the murderous aura in Kou Zhong’s pair of eyes flaring greatly, he spoke fiercely, “Let’s see until when he can enjoy this kind of loose lifestyle?”

Shi Zhixuan was sitting alone in the small hall, from the inner courtyard Hou Xibai’s even and fine breathing could be faintly heard.

He did not show the least bit of surprise at Xu Ziling’s visit, as if his heart was dead and turned to ashes, nothing in this world could arouse the billows in the lake of his heart. When Xu Ziling stepped into the small hall, this kind peculiar feeling toward him grew in his heart.

Shi Zhixuan spoke softly, “Ziling, come and sit down by my side.”

Xu Ziling sat down across the small table by his side, he asked, “What is Xie Wang thinking?”

Tranquil, Shi Zhixuan replied, “Since my debut, no one has ever asked me what I am thinking? No one dared to ask me the thoughts turning in my head even more.”

And then he turned to watch at him attentively; as if nothing had happened, he spoke indifferently, “Why is Ziling always using Xie Wang to address me? Is it because subconsciously you are afraid to establish a close relationship with me, Shi Zhixuan? Qingxuan is, after all, still my, Shi Zhixuan’s daughter. This fact, no one, including heaven and earth, can change.”

Smiling wryly, Xu Ziling replied, “The relationship between us has never been stabilized. I never know whether in the next moment you will make your move to kill me or not? This is your, Xie Wang’s true nature. Why don’t you tell me how to deal with our relationship then!”

Shi Zhixuan kept his gaze forward, as if he was pondering over this question.

Xu Ziling could not help saying, “The moment I came in just now, I intuitively felt your lonely state of mind.”

Shi Zhixuan said indifferently, “Ever since I can understand things, I have already felt my loneliness, not a question of how many people are around me, but when you can see through everything that happens in this world, you will become a cool-headed observer. In my eyes, their obsession with gains and losses is just a foolish ignorance. You want to play this game between life and death? I, Shi Zhixuan, am more outstanding than any of them. I had hoped that religion could provide me with an exit from this trapped-in-a-cage life, but in the end, I realized that it was just another kind of self-poisoning-of-the-mind indulgent. When everyone else is drunk and I alone am awake is an incomparably lonely feeling. Does Ziling understand?”

The auspiciousness at the bottom of his heart, like a huge boulder, was thrown into the lake of Xu Ziling’s heart, stirring up the overflowing-the-heaven billows. Shi Zhixuan’s callousness, his not-amenable-to-reason – was not due to his natural character as a killer, or that he viewed destruction as an enjoyment, but because of his extraordinary intelligence, his ability to see through the essence of life, and thus it became a set of ways of conducting himself in society that was difficult for others to sway. Trying to move him with average person’s morality and proper human relationship concepts was like fishing using a wooden beam, it would not be the slightest bit effective.

However, Shi Zhixuan was willing to pour out the load on his mind to him meant that he was in some kind of an unusual state of mind.

Xu Ziling said, “Unexpectedly, it was because Xie Wang could see through the worldly affair that you feel cut off from the rest of the world and lonely. However, no matter how unworthy the world of the living is, we can still choose between hostility or kindness, two kinds of entirely different attitude. Besides, even though there are ten million things that are not right in this world, inevitably there will be beautiful things that can make our heart bewitched, our spirit intoxicated, that can make us forgetting sentiment and engross us, to make us feel that we have no regrets in this life.”

Shi Zhixuan sighed and said, “You forget my, Shi Zhixuan’s family background! Just like you, Ziling, belong to the Han ethnic group, with the Central Earth as our root, naturally we will rise vigorously and make a stand and fight against foreign oppression. Forget about how you want to live a simple life, because you are in the situation, you cannot escape. I once had a chance to stand aloof and come out from this boundless sea of ??bitterness, but I destroyed it with my own hand! To this day I don’t have anything at all. Were it not for the one asking me this question was you, I, Shi Zhixuan would disdain to answer even for half a word.”

Xu Ziling shook his head and said, “Xie Wang really is not not having anything at all.”

Shi Zhixuan showed a bitter expression, he said, “Are you referring to Qingxuan? Ay! Tell me what should I say? I practically do not have any qualification to see her. Before Xiuxin passed away, I mistakenly thought that I could be cold toward the life or death, honor and disgrace, joys and sorrows of the human world. It was only later that I learned how wrong I was! What kind of an idiot I was? Xiuxin was the only person in the world who understood me, all along she had been enduring it silently, waiting for it silently, ay!”

Shi Zhixuan rose up to his full height, walked over to the window on the right with his hands behind his back, and stared outside.

Appropriately, the flying snow chose this moment to sprinkle down from the sky, heightening the desolate and cold mood of Shi Zhixuan’s remorse.

Tranquil, Shi Zhixuan said, “This may be the last snow of this winter.”

Xu Ziling knew that he did not want him to see the glistening teardrops in his eyes; he sat still in his chair, and spoke heavily, “All along, your, the Senior’s conduct has always been done from your own point of view, was carried out according to your own likes and dislikes. This time, I wonder if you could make an exception just once, and give thought to Qingxuan?”

Shi Zhixuan shook his head and said, “It’s too late! No matter what I do, I can’t change Qingxuan’s gnashing her teeth to detest me! No one, including you, Xu Ziling, can change her deep-rooted thoughts. That was the reason I said that Ol’ Shi don’t have anything at all. Life is nothing more than a cruel game of whoever is superior wins and whoever inferior loses, but my game is quickly coming to an end, and I will prove to everyone that no one can beat Shi Zhixuan. Ziling, go home! Xibai is going to stay here for three more days, I’m standing on your side now. I hope the one becoming the king and proclaiming himself hegemon will be Kou Zhong and not Li Shimin. Ziling, no need to make superfluous words, no one can change my mind, because I know better than anyone else what I am doing.”

Xu Ziling secretly sighed in his heart. Rising up to his full height, he mused inwardly that if they let Shi Zhixuan, whose intelligence go through the heaven – see through that they were supporting Li Shimin and standing on Ci Hang Jing Zhai’s side, the consequences would be extremely unimaginable. Because without spending any effort at all, he would be able to destroy everything.

Without any better option, he said, “Fu Qian is our friend, in the assassination of Zhao Deyan, he might be a great help.”

Shi Zhixuan was silent.

Xu Ziling added, “Wanwan just came to see us, she has been hiding in the city.”

Shi Zhixuan finally reacted, he nodded and said, “I hope Ol’ Shi did not misjudge her, that one day, my, Shi Zhixuan’s unfulfilled wish will be accomplished in her hands.”

Inwardly Xu Ziling was severely shaken. A hard-to-understand fear grew in his heart. Shi Zhixuan’s way of thinking was virtually the same as what Wanwan personally said; what exactly was it?