Xu Fengnian opened his eyes and let out a sharp whistle. A magnificent falcon dove from the sky, landing steadily on the Crown Prince’s shoulder. Its talons hooked through his clothing, but the snow-white six-year phoenix nuzzled its master’s face affectionately. Xu Fengnian paid no mind to the minor pain, flicking a finger against his beloved pet’s scarlet hooked beak. He glanced sideways at the powder-faced beardless man preparing to strike, sneering: “One hundred Beiliang cavalrymen are climbing the mountain with crossbows loaded. Let’s see who kills whom.”

The freckled woman disguised as a young gentleman remained unafraid, as if provoked without reason, her face filled with anger. “You dare?!”

Xu Fengnian laughed wildly. “In Beiliang, there’s truly nothing this Crown Prince wouldn’t dare do.”

The Eastern Yue blade warrior frowned. The intelligence report had indeed noted that a hundred elite soldiers from the Phoenix Battalion were stationed at the foot of Wudang Mountain, equipped with a hundred Beiliang mechanical crossbows. These Beiliang-manufactured powerful crossbows were far more formidable than ordinary bows. Back in the day, Western Chu’s armored halberdiers had been slaughtered in droves by these weapons on the battlefield. A few dozen mechanical crossbows meant little in a battle, but if over eight hundred were gathered together, they could shake the very hearts of men.

Xu Fengnian pointed at his own nose, leering: “Hey there, little sparrow, come on—onto this Crown Prince’s big bed. Let’s have ourselves a proper fight, a good three hundred rounds. If you’re still a fledgling, even better. This Crown Prince is proficient in all eighteen martial arts. I guarantee you’ll climb the mountain full of spirit but descend with legs too weak to walk.”

The woman who called herself “this palace” ground her teeth, but before she could kick or curse, the man who stood like a ghost among the living took a single leap forward, closing to within five steps of Xu Fengnian. Bringing with him a gust of deathly wind, his voice pierced eardrums: “Unfilial wretch!”

In that moment, Xu Fengnian recalled the bitter cold of walking through that heavy snow. Old Huang’s thin frame had gone ahead, yet the wind still cut from all eight directions, the cold piercing to the bone.

Wang Chonglou positioned himself between the Crown Prince and the beardless man. His Daoist robes billowed and swelled like a ball.

He took the palm strike head-on.

With the old Daoist’s black shallow-soled cloth shoes as the center, a ring of earth sprayed outward, yet his imposing frame remained unmoved as Wudang’s great peak itself. The energy circulating within his robes not only didn’t diminish—it seemed to feast on the strike, swelling even further.

The powder-cheeked man quickly withdrew his hand, asking doubtfully: “Great Yellow Court? You’re Wang Chonglou?”

The old Daoist whom Xu Fengnian had once sprayed with tea truly lived up to his reputation for good cultivation. Without striking back, he smiled gently: “Indeed, this humble Daoist.”

The beardless man carefully retreated to his original position, bending to whisper a few words to the woman Xu Fengnian had mocked as “little sparrow.” Her expression shifted uncertainly as she struggled to restrain herself. Lifting her small hands clutching the matched Dragon Pearl and Phoenix Eye luminous pearls, she pointed at the Wudang sect leader and cursed: “Stinking ox-nose, you’re going to favor the man behind you? Aren’t you afraid of bringing disaster upon your entire mountain gate? That memorial arch at the mountain’s base—’Dark Martial Flourishes’—how many centuries has it been hanging there? It looks quite impressive. Believe it or not, I’ll smash it for you!”

The old Daoist chuckled, his hands hanging down as his naturally billowing sleeves gradually stilled. Without responding to the domineering woman’s insults, he simply turned his head to glance at the Crown Prince.

Xu Fengnian returned the favor with a wicked grin: “Oh my, sparrow sister, that little mouth of yours has quite the audacity. I like it! Want to smash the memorial arch? You’ll have to ask whether your future husband agrees first.”

The Eastern Yue lonely ghost smiled bitterly to himself. This Prince of Beiliang’s heir—his mouth was even sharper than his blade work. How did that limping Xu Xiao raise such an utterly shameless, unscrupulous son? Were his ears defective, unable to hear the words “this palace”? Or was he deliberately playing deaf, truly believing no one in the world could be the Great Pillar of State’s match?

The hundred skilled crossbowmen from the Phoenix Battalion who had dismounted to climb the mountain were already in position, their forms moving nimbly through the bamboo grove. They awaited only a single command from the Crown Prince to turn these three into pincushions. All under heaven knew that Beiliang cavalry recognized only the Xu-character King’s Banner. Beiliang’s fierce generals recognized only the Prince of Beiliang’s Tiger Tally.

The sky was high and the Emperor far away. Moreover, the Son of Heaven on the Dragon Throne seemed to have always placed considerable trust in this last remaining prince of a different surname. Years ago, he’d even intended to marry Princess Suizhu to the Great Pillar of State’s eldest son. One must know that even in the capital, rumors about the Crown Prince circulated widely. Whenever Lingzhou scholars achieved top honors in the imperial examinations and joined their [visit our site]colleagues or mentors in discussing Xu Fengnian, they invariably had countless jokes to share. Common people throughout the realm worried for Princess Suizhu entering the tiger’s den. The high officials and nobles in the capital who knew the palace’s inner workings, however, eagerly anticipated Xu Fengnian’s arrival in the capital—where the equally temperamental princess would beat him to death. Every time this Princess Suizhu snuck out of the palace to play, didn’t she torment a dozen pampered young masters half to death?

With the great Daoist master who’d been Wudang’s sect leader for thirty years before him and a hundred crossbowmen as backup behind, Xu Fengnian—seemingly emboldened with tremendous confidence—lifted Embroidered Winter to point at the three intruders, grinning savagely: “You, little sparrow, the woman. You, Eastern Yue stray dog, the man. And you, the neither-man-nor-woman who learned from women to powder his face—all three of you, forget about descending this mountain. Obediently stay here and work like oxen and horses. When you’ve restored the vegetable garden to its former state, we’ll see this Crown Prince’s mood. If my mood’s good, I’ll let you crawl back to wherever you crawled from. If my mood’s bad—except for the sparrow—I’ll chop you into pieces and feed you to the dogs! Sect Leader Wang, are there dogs on this mountain?”

The old Daoist observed his nose with his eyes, his heart with his nose, pretending not to hear, refusing to wade into these muddy waters.

From within the bamboo grove, the ox-riding Patriarch Uncle caught among the Beiliang crossbowmen called out: “Crown Prince, there are many wild dogs on the mountain. They howl terribly at night—probably haven’t eaten their fill.”

The old Daoist sighed in exasperation. Why was his junior martial brother joining in this commotion? Fanning the flames like this—one careless move and Wudang would be caught in an impossible position and burned clean through.

The beardless man flew into a towering rage. No one under heaven had ever dared insult him to his face like this!

The woman who’d inexplicably acquired a vulgar nickname tugged on her attendant’s sleeve, asking several quiet questions. The man’s expression showed considerable helplessness as he answered truthfully. Her imposing manner deflated like a punctured balloon. Glaring at Xu Fengnian, her words remained brash and bold: “How much can this shabby vegetable plot possibly be worth?!”

Xu Fengnian smiled. “If I say it’s worth a thousand taels of gold, then it’s worth a thousand taels.”

Mortified, her cloth-bound small chest heaving violently, she ground out through clenched teeth: “Fine! A thousand taels of gold it is, then!”

She raised her hand and threw one luminous pearl, hurling it at Jiang Ni, who had been standing silently [visit our site]in the vegetable garden all this time. “Here, take it!”

Perhaps unable to stomach her own unprecedented show of weakness, she threw the remaining female pearl from her hand with a tearful shriek: “Take them both!”

Unexpectedly, after she’d humbled herself in a manner as rare as the sun rising in the west, that girl—whose looks were merely passable and whose bearing was utterly rustic—not only showed no grateful tears but actually wore a slightly disgusted expression. She bent down to pick up the two mud-stained luminous pearls, one in each hand, and hurled them right back with even greater force, nearly striking her precious body. Fortunately, the powder-faced man caught the Dragon Pearl and Phoenix Eye. For her, retrieving something she’d given away was unthinkable. Suppressing her heartache, she darkly ordered her attendant to destroy the beloved matched pearls she’d played with since childhood, then glared at that ignorant girl. “You want to die?”

Jiang Ni said calmly: “I only want the vegetable garden. Restore it to how it was before.”

She repeated with added emphasis: “I only want the vegetable garden!”

Before Xu Fengnian could appreciate Jiang Ni’s words that so perfectly suited his own taste, seeing that neither-man-nor-woman creature about to crush the luminous pearls, he hastily called out shamelessly: “Wait! My maid doesn’t recognize treasure. Give me those pearls!”

Both the pearls’ owner and the maid Jiang Ni spoke simultaneously.

“You want them?”

“I don’t recognize treasure?!”

Xu Fengnian answered both princesses with a cheeky grin: “Little [noodles]sparrow, of course I want the pearls. If you’re giving them to me, we’ll call today’s mess settled.”

“Little mud figure, truth be told, these pearls are slightly more valuable than you think.”

The foreign woman forcibly saddled with a crude nickname seemed to seize upon a weakness, shooting her attendant a meaningful look. With a neurotic laugh, she said: “You want them? I won’t give them to you!”

The beardless man immediately ground both luminous pearls to powder between two fingers.

Xu Fengnian’s face showed genuine regret. It wasn’t that the palace lacked such treasures—on the contrary, there were quite a few. But what good thing in the world wasn’t better the more you had?

Jiang Ni persisted coldly: “Restore my vegetable garden.”

The woman countered sharply: “On what grounds?”

Jiang Ni quite shamelessly glanced sideways at Xu Fengnian.

Xu Fengnian felt somewhat helpless. This was little mud figure Jiang Ni’s shamelessness—killing him was a matter of heavenly justice, but when trouble arose, having him shoulder the burden was perfectly reasonable and proper.

The richly-dressed woman said with bitter sarcasm: “I’ve only heard of keeping a beauty in a golden house, never of keeping a beauty [noodles]in a thatched cottage. Xu Fengnian truly cherishes you so.”

Jiang Ni, with her exquisite insight, instantly pierced through that final layer of pretense. “Cherish? Hardly. At worst, it’s still better than refusing someone in marriage.”

The woman looked blank and bewildered. “What are you saying? I don’t understand.”

Jiang Ni extended her hand. “Restore my vegetable garden.”

This was already the fourth time.

Princess and princess.

Needle tip against wheat awn.

Xu Fengnian secretly found it amusing. Why does the princess have to make things difficult for her?