Chapter 86: The Charming Maiden
Wen Leyang was both surprised and joyous; he had not expected that there would be a strong poison capable of dealing with cultivators at home.
Ma Heshui’s expression had completely changed this time. His voice turned ferocious and was filled with murderous intent, “Wen family, do you really want to turn hostile in the face of the One Word Palace!” The two persons, one in red and one in green were both his good subordinates. Right now, one was lying severely injured on the ground after his treasured weapon was destroyed. The other had been poisoned by strong poison and his life now hung in the balance. The disciples of Wen Bucao were not as fragile or weak as he had imagined in the beginning and he still can’t figure out how his subordinate could have been poisoned.
Wen Tunhai chuckled and he spoke with an experienced tone of voice, “The two words of ‘turn hostile’ is a little heavy, isn’t it? The disciples of Wen Bucao cannot bear such a title but our family’s elders prefer a secluded life. The Nine Peaks Mountain is not for anyone to just scurry about. Still, since she is the precious daughter of the supreme leader of the One Word Palace, I think we ought to invite the respected supreme leader to personally come here and discuss! Your Excellency, please bring along your noblemen and kindly return to where you came from. Let’s not turn the discussion of such a joyous event into a mournful one.”
As the first uncle spoke, he sauntered in front of the green-shirted man and with hands as fast as lightning, he inserted dozens of bamboo needles filled with medicinal powder into the man’s vital acupuncture points. His five fingers moved like a wheel as he rapidly knocked along a few passages through which the man’s vital energy was circulating. After a short while, the green-shirt man’s body trembled once as the strong poison in his body was totally dissolved away. His face was ashen and his gait was weak as he stood up.
Ma Heshui’s eyes had a piercing gleam as he stared at the folks of the Wen family. Right now, it was clearly apparent that they were refusing to discuss anything further with him. If he wanted to start fighting again, Wen Xiaoyi’s big-muzzled weapon was still aimed accurately at him. Without his subordinates’ help, any movement he made would result in him being crushed into ash. He hesitated for a moment before he nodded, “Fine. This is farewell for now. We shall return in a few days’ time…”
Wen Tunhai completely disregarded his feelings by waving his hand to interrupt, “We will await your noble supreme leader to personally ascend the mountain, only then we will discuss anything else.”
Ma Heshui too no longer spoke nonsense and waved his hand once at Gou Changxi, “Follow me home… leave the chef!” The two persons from the Twelfth Moon lifted the Jampan over emotionlessly. Ma Heshui pulverized the Jampan with a kick in rage before he descended the mountain in great strides without objections.
Wen Xiaoyi waited until Ma Heshui’s group people had descended the mountain. Only then did she raise her elegant chin to look at Wen Tunhai with a puzzled expression as she asked, “First uncle, is he marrying the girl or not?” She was confused as the initial plan was to pretend to show interest in them to find out the One Word Palace’s scheme, but now they had all been blasted and chased off by them.
Wen Tunhai’s smile returned to its prior unrestrained affection, “We can’t be that straightforward either. Firstly, we the disciples of Wen Bucao will never be looked down upon by the others; secondly, now that we’ve shown that we are harsh and unreasonable, if the One Word Palace still proceeds with the betrothal which means that they have a bigger scheme! However, little girl, your shot earlier, that was really awesome! It really increased the reputation of our Wen family, merits to your extraordinary service! Tell me, what do you want?”
Happiness appeared on Wen Xiaoyi’s face. She then cocked her head to the side and pondered for a long while. Finally, she shook her head, “There is nothing much that I want, how about… you buy me one of these handbags.” She pointed at the ‘Hermes’ in Chang Li’s hand as she said that.
Therefore, it was proven once again that females’ fondness for branded goods was derived from their natural instincts. It was totally not related to their age, experience or knowledge. Wen Xiaoyi had utterly no idea about the concept of the ‘Hermes’ brand.
Chang Li made an ‘oh’ sound before she laughed in a crisp voice. She then stuffed the bag into the hands of the little girl.
Wen Leyang, on the other hand, ran in front of the family elders joyously and asked in excitement, “What was that…that poison earlier?
Grand Elder Wen chuckled as he looked at him, “So, you think you were the only one refining the poison recipe in the Red Leaves Forest while us old men were just sitting around idly?”
Third Elder Wen opened his mouth, which was an extremely rare sight, and spoke in a desolated tone, “As long as one is a human, then one can be poisoned, but it requires more effort and skills only!”
However, Fourth Elder Wen was not as satisfied and he frowned as he shook his head, “The poison took too much time before its effects could be seen. If we really plan to use it to deal with an enemy I’m afraid we might suffer losses.”
Ever since Wen Leyang had returned from Mount Emei, he had pushed forward on his journey to deliver a message to the Miao stockade village immediately without a stop. He didn’t know whether it had been the incident when the Sun Dynasty Palace had come for revenge on the mountain or the incident where the disciples of the Death Trademark had been taken captive by the monks on Mount Emei which caused the four grand elders of the Wen family to be deeply shaken up. The disciples of Wen Bucao too had only found out then that there was another valiant force hidden within the world: cultivators. The Wen family had been rampaging through the world for over two thousand years with their incisive method yet it was almost useless when they were faced with cultivators.
Wen Leyang was not the only one who was enlightened by this matter and took an interest in studying poisons capable of poisoning cultivators. The four elders of the Wen family also felt the same. They had not dwelled on anything else for the past year and a half as they spent every day gathered together and doing research on a strong, new poison.
However, their frame of reference was different from Wen Leyang’s. From the family elders’ point of view, a cultivator was like a thick layer of soil while the strong poison was like a stream of water. The soil can cover the water but there was always a limit – for example, in the face of a monstrous deluge, the common soil mound would become submerged and drowned.
The disciples of the Wen Bucao, for the past two thousand years, had learned from executing and using poisons in the direction that less and refined was better than more. They paid more attention to poisons like those from the venomous fangs of a poisonous snake; one tiny bite from the snake was enough to cause death. However, when dealing with cultivators, that small bite was weaker than a tickle. The life vitality force exerted by a cultivator could expel strong poison. Though the cultivator would still use up a small amount of vital energy in the process of expelling the poison, it was an almost negligible amount.
The four family elders and the first uncle then figured out an idiotic idea and used the concept of ants gnawing at an elephant – plodding away at a big job bit by bit. As long as the poison was more than enough, it was only a matter of time before the life vitality energy of a cultivator was depleted. But the poison would have to be painstakingly executed as the cultivators weren’t idiots. Once they sensed the poison in their surroundings, they would immediately leave the area. The four family elders had almost exhausted their ideas when they finally formulated a recipe known as the ‘Charming Maiden’.
Wen Leyang sniggered in joy as first uncle Wen Tunhai laughed in pride, “That is correct, I am the one who named the poison! For the poison named ‘Charming Maiden’, the strong poison is the pervert.”
The ‘Charming Maiden’ has no color, smell, or even an ounce of toxicity in it but once it came into contact and merged with the skin, it would immediately activate in its sole natural property: To madly absorb all the strong poison around it!
Wen Leyang nodded his head. He understood the rough idea of the situation; when First Uncle had tossed the severely injured red-shirted man to the green-shirted attendant, he planted the ‘Charming Maiden’ poison. When the green-shirted attendant started shuttling back and forth in midair to demonstrate his strength, the four family elders naturally had no bother but to release all the Poison of Wind on their hands.
The green-shirted man’s cultivation base was rude and unreasonable. As he was passing through the Poison of Wind, he had utterly disregarded the matter. However, just by the mere act of passing through the Poison of Wind, he had absorbed all the Poison of Wind in the sky into his body. It can be considered as two different concepts based on the quantity. For example, Ian Thorpe the swimmer could easily swim a few laps in the pool as a warm-up, but if he was to drink all the water in the pool… (Author’s note: I realized that this was not such a good metaphor after all, anyhow you get the rough idea right ^_^)
Finally, all the Poison of Wind were absorbed into nothingness by him and the life vitality energy in his body was depleted in the end.
The biggest advantage of using the ‘Charming Maiden’ was that the strong poison executed by the Wen family was guaranteed to be absorbed into the body of the enemy until not a single drop would be left.
The ‘Charming Maiden’ and ‘Szechuan Cuisine’ had different theoretical principles, the effects were different too but both were still the painstaking effort of the Wen family and were their tricks to deal with the cultivators. In comparison, the ‘Charming Maiden’ was slightly more traditional but the reasoning and experience it contained were exceptionally profound. It belonged to the old-school’s side while the ‘Szechuan Cuisine’ was a new and refreshing approach which belonged to the method of an opportunist.
Regardless of the method, should the Wen family have to deal with these cultivators again, at least they will stand a chance now. Whether it was the four family elders, the first uncle or Wen Leyang, their expressions were elated as the first uncle Wen Tunhai laughed and stuck out his tongue, “But you don’t say, that the green-shirted man has a high resistance towards poison, the portion he had absorbed alone was enough to destroy an entire village!”
The first grandfather too chuckled, “Poison, we the Wen family has an abundance of it, we are not afraid to satisfy his cravings! The One Word Palace will come over in another few days, we shall make some more preparations.” Upon saying that he led the three other old men away to prepare more poison.
The Luo family and the Second Mother too decided not to leave, they were bursting with energy to witness the interesting event which will take place in two more days. At the same time, their faces were eager with the urge to try as, not only for the Wen family, both the Qing Miao clansmen and the Luo family too suffered great losses under cultivators’ influence. They had also cultivated based on the Art of Mysticism passed down for two thousand years by their own family. When directed towards the abilities of cultivators, they had refined some crueler methods though they had no opportunity to practice those yet. Even though Ji Fei and Shui Jing were their ready-made white mice now, but they were still people on their side after all so everyone was too shy to try their newfound skills on them.
But after a few days, to the Wen family’s surprise, the One Word Palace didn’t arrive. Instead, it was the Great Mercy Temple who came.
The little stuttering divine monk Hope Voice has arrived here.
Wen Leyang, Wen Xiaoyi, and Mumu were under the tree shade near the village entrance. They had been chatting with Chang Li and the two elders of the other two families when they suddenly saw the little monk Hope Voice arrive. They were both surprised and joyous as they followed behind Chang Li and gathered around him.
Chang Li smilingly asked Hope Voice, “Little monk, why are you here?”
A worried look densely covered the little stuttering divine monk’s face. He had been stunned for a moment when he saw Chang Li. He then put his palms together devoutly and bowed his head as he said, “Fe-female Bodhi-Bodhisattva, hello.” Following that he raised his head and, unexpectedly, he no longer paid attention to the grand master grandmother of his but walked directly towards Wen Leyang. Chang Li’s radiant and enchanting eyes were filled with surprise; she was annoyed and amused at the same time as her eyes drifted to the little bald head’s movement.
Hope Voice walked in front of Wen Leyang and put his palms together devoutly once again. Wen Leyang quickly grabbed hold of him and laughed good-naturedly, “Last time, when I was trapped in the giant frog’s stomach, it was all thanks to the help of the divine monks of the Great Mercy Temple. We are all one family so you need not be so courteous okay…”
Mumu smiled and interrupted, “Hey there little monk, what brings you here? Why do you look so worried, do you want to have some meat?”
Suddenly the sound of a childish cheer was heard. Ah Dan came surging forward riding on the delicate pony with a pitter-pattering sound. He grabbed on to the little monk and babbled about for a long while before finally retrieving a brand new felt cap from his chest pocket cautiously. He was about to stretch out his hand to give it to the little monk when he retracted his hand back.
They were all still puzzled as Ah Dan removed the felt cap on his head. He then compared the two caps together in hesitation before he put the newer one on his head and stuffed the older one into the little monk’s hands. He then gestured around smilingly, hinting for Hope Voice to put on the cap.
Mumu laughed while she scolded, “You’re such a little moneygrubber!” As she was saying that she lifted Ah Dan and said to the little monk, “Don’t mind him, please continue!”
The little monk Hope Voice held on to the felt cap as he repeatedly put his palms together and stuttered, “One-one Word Palace is t-t-trying to achieve something remarkable. The master teacher is a-a-a-fraid that all of you… stand to lose… so he let me c-c-come here to…h-h-h-help you.”
Wen Leyang chuckled as he hastily conveyed his gratitude, “That must be a lot of trouble for the two divine monks of the Great Mercy Temple, the Great Mercy Temple too was aware of the incident between the One Word Palace and the Wen family?”
Hope Voice nodded, “Precisely n-n-not knowing what the One-one Word Palace is doing.”
Chang Li had her arms crossed on the side as she laughed lightly, “The two boys Bu Le and Shan Duan are not here personally so they feigned a pretentious manner by sending this little fellow here, hah.” Her slightly narrowed eyes were filled with arrogance.
The little monk Hope Voice peered towards her in a slightly strange manner but he only shook his head without saying anything. He then looked at Wen Leyang once again and asked heavy-heartedly, “Wen-Wen-Wen…”
Mumu stomped her foot from impatience as she spoke on his behalf, “Wen Leyang!”
It was as if the little stutterer had been relieved from a heavy burden as he hastily continued the other half of his sentence, “A-a-a-ask…” This time, the sound of sniggering came from next to him as Wen Xiaoyi, who had brought along pen and paper, stuffed it into the little monk’s hands.
The little monk was elated as he hastily received the items and scribbled a sentence on the paper: Ask you of a matter. Upon writing that he raised his head as he looked towards Wen Leyang.
Wen Leyang nodded his head, “What matter is that?”
As the little monk continued to write the next sentence, everyone there started staring in bewilderment all of a sudden. They looked at the little monk as if he was a monster and after a long while, their astonished gaze gradually turned into an expression of not knowing whether to cry or to laugh. The two little girls, Wen Xiaoyi and Mumu, straightforwardly held on to their stomachs and burst out laughing.
The little monk had written: Excuse me, do you have news about Grand Master Chang Li?
Wen Leyang too could no longer restrain himself as he burst out laughing as he held on to the note. He then pointed at Chang Li who was standing next to him and couldn’t decide whether to laugh or to cry, “She…she…”
“She knows?” The little monk did not stutter at all when he pronounced these words. He looked at them who were laughing in a mess with a puzzled expression.
“She is her!” Wen Leyang exerted immense effort to stop his laughter. “She is Grand Master Chang Li!” This time Wen Leyang finally understood why the little monk had acted so coolly as he met and attended to his own Grand Master halfheartedly. Of course, it had been because this little boy did not recognize her.
The little stutterer squalled an ‘oh no’ as he hastily pounced in front of Chang Li and immediately gave a firm kowtow, “Un-unable to reco-recognize you, m-m-merely f-felt that you looked familiar.”
Chang Li replied bluntly and she stretched out her hand to smack the little bald head before her eyes. Her loud and clear voice was taunting, “The poor little thing here who couldn’t recognize his ancestor, should I hit him or not!”
Unexpectedly, as she gave the slap, the little divine monk cried out aloud with a ‘boohoo’. Everyone present on the scene was taken aback by him. Ah Dan immediately struggled free from Mumu’s grasp and, like an old mother hen, he spread his arms wide and stood in front of the little monk as he looked at Chang Li shyly. He then braced himself bravely and refused to back down.
Chang Li did not acknowledge Ah Dan but spoke with a puzzled expression, “Don’t cry! What happened? Speak!”
“The Master and my senior disciples will all die soon. I plead for the Grand Master to save my Master and to save my senior disciples!” The little stutterer burst into loud sobs but the weird part was that his speech in the midst of his sobs was exceptionally fluent.
Even Chang Li, who showed no concern even if the sky had fallen was obviously surprised. Her body swayed once as she picked up the little monk who was lying on the ground crying loudly. She wailed, “Stop crying, what on earth happened… I think you ought to continue to speak as you cry.”
Previously, at n the Miao stockade village, the big and the small demon rabbits had returned with severe injuries. They had refused to disclose how badly they had been injured to the Wen family and their trusted subordinate, the little monk Hope Voice.
The little monk spoke and gestured as he sobbed. Everyone knew that this was an important matter so they shut their mouth and did not interrupt but waited patiently for him to finish speaking.
The two demon monks had suffered severe injuries. After they returned to the mountain they immediately started their recuperation in closed-door cultivation. They have the body of a demon, if they were to accidentally reveal their true selves when they were healing, they didn’t want the other monks to find out. So, they only allowed the little stutterer to attend to them by their side. The location where they were recuperating at was not in the temple but was at a desolated area in the depths of Mount Emei.
However, no one could have thought that not too long ago, at the crucial moment as they had almost successfully healed themselves, they were assaulted and they fought an earthshaking battle. They were able to defeat the enemy in the end but the two demon rabbits were injured to the extent of an incurable state. The three of them, masters and disciple, had no other choice but to return to the temple first and to depend on the Great Mercy Temple’s power to ward off the next assault of the enemy. It was only after their return to the temple did Bu Le and Shan Tuan find out that the cultivation world was bubbling with the big news that the One Word Palace wanted to be united in marriage with a disciple of the Wen Bucao. They immediately sent the little monk to rush over to Wen Bucao’s village as they simultaneously sent some other people to seek information about the One Word Palace.
When the little monk had departed, the two demon monk’s injuries weren’t healing but were instead gradually getting worse with time. Right now, both of the injured monks could no longer fully heal themselves using their cultivation bases. They needed a great demon to lend them a helping hand for them to carry on through the hard times and retain their lives and cultivation bases.
Within Chang Li’s beautiful eyes, an icy-cold murderous intent lingered and enshrouded. The smile on her delicate face went through some slight changes as two completely different expressions were mangled together in an awe-inspiring manner that sent chills down one’s back, “Who was the person who assaulted them?”
The little monk had a shameful expression and he sobbed as he answered, “The masters knocked me out cold… D-didn’t let me defend against the enemy.”
Chang Li frowned as she pondered for a moment as if she was trying to think of something. After a while, she said to the people around her, “I will first pay a visit to the Great Mercy Temple…”
Wen Leyang immediately agreed, “I will go too.” At the same time, the first grandfather’s voice also echoed, “Wen Leyang will go too!”
The elders of the Wen family had unknowingly arrived and they all looked once at Wen Leyang in approval. Chang Li still held the little monk in her arms as she looked at the four Wen family elders with interest, “I bet the One Word Palace will arrive any day now. Is it alright if Wen Leyang was not here on the mountain?”
The first grandfather’s expression lost its usual affectionate smile as he answered solemnly, “The two divine monks’ injuries were incurred because they had helped the disciples of Wen Bucao and Wen Leyang. Right now, the divine monks are in trouble so Wen Leyang must go to them regardless. If this young lad were to stay here on this mountain, even if he could help the family to crushingly defeat the people of One Word Palace, he would still be nothing but useless trash.”
First uncle Wen Tunhai chuckled, “The One Word Palace didn’t betroth their maiden daughter just because of Wen Leyang so it doesn’t matter whether he was to remain on the mountain anyway.” As he said that, he looked at Wen Leyang once again, “Since the One Word Palace wishes to become relatives with us through marriage, they will never be too cruel in this fight.”
Wen Leyang had the same thinking as the family elders – the two demon rabbits’ were injured because of him. The disciples of the Wen Bucao clearly recognized kindness and hatred for even if he was of no help, they must attend to this trip regardless. Moreover, Bu Le and Shan Duan were on the verge of death from their severe injuries yet they had not forgotten him and had sent the little monk to help him in his fight.
Now, between the Wen family and the One Word Palace, their fighting capacity only differed by some minor details. They were actually having a trial of efforts so temporarily there wouldn’t be too big of a conflict between them.
Chang Li smiled and her gaze was brimming with rare approval as she nodded at the four elders of the Wen family, “His descendants’ abilities may be awful but the way they conduct themselves is considered not bad.” After all, Wen Leyang was the First Man of the Nine Peaks Mountain right now, his departure at this moment would be slightly inappropriate.
The four old men and the first uncle were at a loss whether to cry or to laugh as they pondered in their hearts: Was their Grand Master grandmother praising them?
The Second Mother also took a step forward and said to Chang Li, “I will go too. The two divine monks may have met with some strange occurrence in the Miao stockade village back then, perhaps I can be of help to figure out the cause.” The monks had met with the mishap in her territory and though they were albeit there first because of Wen Leyang, yet they had also helped the disciples of the Miao Bujiao so Second Mother could not only just sit back and watch.
Chang Li, however, shook her head as she spoke briefly, “That’s not necessary as I think I’ve already got a rough idea as to what had happened.” Upon saying that, she did not speak nonsense anymore as she immediately set out to descend the mountain and rushed towards the direction of Mount Emei. The two monks Ji Fei and Shui Jing too shamelessly insisted on following them for the two of them were too afraid to stay back on the mountain without Chang Li and Wen Leyang around. Should the One Word Palace come again to display their superiority and power, the both of them would surely be targeted this time.
Chang Li did not mind and Wen Leyang too left the two dirty old men be.
Wen Xiaoyi, on the other hand, was sent back to the Red Leaves Forest by the Wen family. Though she was well-protected when Chang Li was around, now that she was gone, when the One Word Palace arrived on the mountain, they would certainly come up with a method to deal with the big-muzzled weapon no matter who was holding the weapon. The first thing the One Word Palace would do upon their arrival would be to destroy Wen Xiaoyi’s firebase.
Wen Leyang had thought that he would be flying with Chang Li to Mount Emei but unexpectedly, they traveled by car instead. Chang Li laughed as she cursed, “Other than those demon birds that had cultivated into human forms with supernatural powers, no other creature can fly such a long distance. Even though it was possible for one to cast a spell and dart around in the air during a battle, yet no one can sustain a flight of a long distance for almost a day. By the time one arrives at the destination one will have been exhausted to the point of death! Even for a bird, it will eventually stop and perch on a tree branch to rest after flying for some distance.” She wasn’t that worried about her two demon rabbits because as long as the both of them were not completely dead, just by depending on her cultivation base, she could still salvage their lives.
The fat monk Shui Jing complemented in a low muffled voice, “Us cultivators, even though we have far-reaching supernatural powers, yet it was still not almighty and omnipotent. We can’t just level the top of Mount Tai by waving our arms or flip over the Pacific Ocean by stomping our feet. If that was so, the sky would be falling and the earth would be cracking open from our powers already!
Wen Leyang looked at him smilingly, “The fat monk knows about the Pacific Ocean?”
The fat monk had a prideful expression, “I know about 3G too!” As he said that he pulled out his cellphone from his pocket and started to play the ‘Snake’ game.
Once they had arrived on Mount Emei, the little monk walked in front of the group to guide their way. The group of people walked with extremely fast paces and they soon reached the Great Mercy Temple in a short while. All the monks in the temple had not been aware that their abbot was on the verge of death from his severe injuries. They watched as the little monk led a group of folks into the temple. One was a charming and beautiful woman and two were sloppy monks who all appeared extremely peculiar. However, the little monk has a prestigious status in the temple so no one dared to stop the group.
As Chang Li walked into the abbot’s meditation room in the Great Mercy Temple, the two monks were seated facing each other as their eyes brimmed with tears. A plate of carrots has been placed in between them and the old demon rabbit was persuading the little demon rabbit, “My child, you can eat some if you want…”
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