Chapter 29 – Ru City is Beautiful
Smack!
Zuo Yuesheng smashed a chair on the ground, sending wood chips flying.
Bang!
Monk Budu punched the wall, and a spiderweb of cracks instantly appeared.
Clang!
Chou Bodeng’s sword struck the Buddhist beads, sending sparks flying.
Ping, ping, pang, pang—
Thud!
Like a hurricane sweeping through, Elder Tao Rong’s meticulously arranged, elegant room was instantly reduced to ruins. Even a professional demolition crew couldn’t have been as efficient as this one fight.
“Ganging up on me isn’t very honorable!”
Monk Budu jumped up and down.
In the narrow room, he was simultaneously dodging Chou Bodeng’s sword, Lu Jing’s saber, and the chair Zuo Yuesheng was wielding. Chou Bodeng and the other two had lower cultivation, and Monk Budu’s spiritual energy hadn’t fully recovered, so for a while, they were actually evenly matched. After fighting for a bit, Monk Budu discovered that although the fatty surnamed Zuo’s cultivation was lacking, he was extremely agile at dodging. The smiling Chou Bodeng, who seemed to have the lowest cultivation, was actually the most ruthless. Only Lu Jing, who had the highest cultivation, was all for show. So he found an opening, abandoned Chou Bodeng and Zuo Yuesheng, and went straight for Lu Jing.
Seeing Monk Budu targeting him as the weak link, Lu Jing was both angry and alarmed. In a moment of desperation, he clutched something in his hand, threw it at Monk Budu, and at the same time shouted to Chou Bodeng and Zuo Yuesheng, “Quick, cover your ears!”
Hearing this, Monk Budu instinctively circulated his energy to protect his ears.
The next moment, a cloud of white mist exploded in mid-air. Monk Budu, who had already rushed in front of Lu Jing, was hit by a strange smell that was neither sour, nor stinky, nor spicy, nor bitter. It shot straight up his nostrils, and was immediately followed by a wave of dizziness. His legs went weak, and he knelt on the ground with a thud.
“You motherfucker!” Monk Budu broke his vows and cursed loudly. “Didn’t you say to cover our ears?”
“You actually believed him?”
Chou Bodeng and the other two, who had their noses tightly covered, waved their sleeves and looked at him as if he were an idiot.
“Who would seriously warn their opponent when using a dirty trick?”
“What now?” Lu Jing, who had been kicked hard a couple of times, limped back, staring menacingly at the monk on the ground. “Should we throw him directly from the flying boat, or give him a quick death with a saber?”
“Benefactor, think thrice before you act!” Monk Budu said in alarm. “A fight between the Buddhist Sect, Medicine Valley, Taiyi Sect, and the Mountain Sea Pavilion is no joke!”
“That’s not right,” Chou Bodeng said, squatting down beside Monk Budu with a smile, and patting his cheek affectionately with the sheath of the Taiyi Sword. “Right now, on this flying boat, you’re the only one from the Buddhist Sect. If we kill you and destroy the evidence, who do you think will inform your Buddhist Sect?”
“This humble monk repents, repents!” Monk Budu said hastily. “Benefactors, please don’t be rash. This humble monk didn’t come just to extort… I mean, to ask for alms. This humble monk was ordered by the Buddha, because a great calamity will soon befall Qing Province, to come and save the world!”
Zuo Yuesheng spat, “Pah! Stop with the nonsense. With my Mountain Sea Pavilion here, what great calamity could possibly befall Qing Province?”
“This humble monk is telling the truth…” Monk Budu was on the verge of tears. “It’s more real than real gold!”
Just as Zuo Yuesheng was about to say more, the room door opened.
“The flying boat is shaking… you all!” The newcomer’s voice suddenly rose to a screech. “What have you done?!”
Elder Tao Rong stood at the door, dumbfounded.
He had been tasting tea in the next room, cultivating his character. As he was cultivating, the wooden wall opposite him suddenly made a crack and a fist print appeared.
Elder Tao had a vague feeling that something was wrong and rushed over to see what was happening.
But he was one step too late.
As soon as the door opened, he saw the landscape painting had turned into a flurry of goose feathers falling from the sky. The jade stone screen by the window was shattered, the sandalwood table and peach chairs were in pieces, the plain walls were cracked, and the floorboards were dented… The room was so disfigured that even Elder Tao Rong, who had personally arranged it, couldn’t recognize it.
Lu Jing swallowed hard. Looking at Elder Tao’s gradually darkening face, he quietly took a step back, hiding behind Zuo Yuesheng, not daring to meet Elder Tao’s gaze.
“You… you all…” Elder Tao Rong’s hands trembled as he glared at them. “Young Pavilion Master, you tell me what happened.”
“Er…”
Zuo Yuesheng shrank his neck, not daring to speak.
“The Buddhist Saint insisted on discussing martial arts with us,” Chou Bodeng said calmly, secretly dropping a few gold ingots behind his back. “It was hard for us to refuse.”
Elder Tao Rong’s gaze shifted to Monk Budu lying on the ground.
“Yes, yes, yes.” Monk Budu hid the few gold ingots Chou Bodeng had dropped into his sleeve and took the blame with the air of a hero breaking his own arm. “The three benefactors are highly skilled. This little monk, seeing a chance, couldn’t help but ask for some pointers. I hope Elder Tao will forgive me! This little monk was reckless!”
“Highly skilled?” Elder Tao Rong laughed with anger, his few strands of goatee trembling as he glared fiercely at the group of young masters. “Fine. Since the Buddhist Saint Pudu is so keen on honing his skills, this old man will have a good talk with Zen Master Wuchen later and ask the Zen Master to give you more opportunities to train. With the Buddhist Saint’s talent, wouldn’t it be a waste to use it for climbing roofs and uncovering tiles?”
“Elder Tao, please wait…”
Monk Budu tremblingly stretched out a hand.
Elder Tao Rong snorted coldly and left with a flick of his sleeve.
“It’s over…” Monk Budu moaned. “Elder Tao knows my master… This time it probably won’t be the Eighteen Arhats, but the Seven Vajras. This humble monk has truly entered calamity with his own body. You three benefactors! You can’t turn your backs on me now!”
He wailed miserably. The other three, having been interrupted by Elder Tao, had also lost the heart to continue fighting.
“You reap what you sow.”
Chou Bodeng patted the wood chips off his clothes, held his nose, and quickly opened the door to leave.
As soon as he reached the long corridor, Chou Bodeng immediately leaned against the wall and started to dry heave.
He wondered if next time they fought, he should just throw Lu Jing into the thick of the enemy first. That guy was a talent for “killing a thousand enemies and losing two thousand of your own.” He would have to ask him later what kind of medicinal powder he had concocted; the strange smell was simply unparalleled in the world.
Lu Jing vaguely heard dry heaving from the corridor. “What’s wrong with him?”
Zuo Yuesheng laughed unkindly. “What else could it be? Young Master Chou’s nose is like a dog’s. He must have gotten a good whiff… Speaking of which, Lu Jing, what was that stuff you threw… Why does it smell a bit… a bit…” Off?
Before he could finish, Zuo Yuesheng, who had been so startled by Elder Tao that he forgot to hold his breath, followed in Monk Budu’s footsteps and fell to the ground with a thud.
Lu Jing shouted “Crap!” and ran for it.
He didn’t get two steps before he also collapsed with a thud.
After a moment of fighting back nausea, Chou Bodeng showed no intention of turning back to check on his companions and went straight back to his own room. After closing the door, the small wooden puppet slid down his sleeve onto the table and sat down properly.
Chou Bodeng rested his head on one hand and poked the puppet lightly with the fingertip of the other. His fingertips were very white, almost transparent.
The puppet was poked backward but quickly righted itself and sat up straight again.
Chou Bodeng watched it with lowered eyelids.
The thick lashes cast a clear, faint shadow on his pale face. The flamboyant and wanton air he had when ganging up on Monk Budu with Zuo Yuesheng and Lu Jing had suddenly vanished. Whether happy or angry, all vivid emotions were gone, like a handful of blood that had cooled in an instant, its boiling and heat just some self-deceiving illusion.
The room was silent.
“Heaven Beyond Heavens wants to kill you.”
Chou Bodeng said, then suddenly let out a silent, cold laugh.
He remembered how Monk Budu had just asserted that he would “ask my master to personally read your fortunes, guaranteeing that Taiyi will not break up a happy couple”… In truth, Chou Bodeng had no idea what his relationship with a certain person was, or even what he himself was thinking. Perhaps he just wanted to know if there was someone in this world who could really catch him.
No matter when, no matter where.
“The people willing to jump off a cliff with me could line up from east to west.”
Chou Bodeng leaned back, hiding his face in the shadow of the window lattice.
It was as if he were hiding another self that no one knew.
“So, don’t die.”
In the land of Qing Province, the miasma fog was thick.
A young man held a paper lantern, waiting quietly. The candlelight illuminated his face, his eyes like narrow, thin silver blades. It was unknown what he heard, but he suddenly looked up towards Ru City. The flame flickered, as if melting away some of the cold sharpness of the blade.
One torch, two torches…
Pinpricks of fire ignited in the darkness, forming a circle.
Shi Wuluo stood in the center of the circle, holding only a single lantern.
More and more torches appeared.
He seemed completely unaware, just slightly raising his head, lost in thought. After a while, Shi Wuluo lifted his hand and slowly wrote a sentence on the gauze paper of the lantern:
“Ru City is beautiful.”
Perhaps, you will like it.
***
Another day passed.
Chou Bodeng and the others were still in a deep slumber when they were woken by Lou Jiang’s frantic knocking.
They had arrived at Ru City.
“Seriously,” Lu Jing, his eyes still heavy with sleep, stood on the flying boat, yawning, “it’s so pitch black. Are we sure we’ve come to the right city?”
Zuo Yuesheng nodded in agreement.
They looked at Ru City in the distance, shrouded in miasma. The city walls were magnificent, several times higher than Fu City’s, but the light clinging to them was very faint, almost non-existent. The entire city seemed to be in a deep sleep. Logically, Ru City was a large city, and the divine light on its walls should have been far brighter than Fu City’s.
“It’s the hibernation season for the Red Ru Fish,” Lou Jiang explained. “It’s normal for the city’s light to be dim.”
“When does the hibernation season end?” Lu Jing asked casually.
“Probably in another month or two,” Lou Jiang looked at the thickness of the surrounding miasma and calculated in his head. “It’s a real pity. If we hadn’t arrived during the fish slumber season, we could have seen the sight of schools of fish soaring through the sky.”
Chou Bodeng was the last to come up. Hearing this, he walked to the very front of the bow and glanced down.
…How was this beautiful in any way?
Just as Chou Bodeng was about to look away, points of light suddenly lit up in the slumbering city. At first, they were like countless pearls scattered across the streets and alleys. Soon, they converged into upward-flowing streams of light. In an instant, tens of thousands of light streams began to swirl, forming an ever-growing vortex.
“That’s…” Lou Jiang, behind him, couldn’t believe his eyes. “It’s a school of fish! It’s the Red Ru Fish!”
Tens of thousands of Red Ru Fish swam in the air.
The metallic scales of the fish shimmered with various beautiful hues—like peach blossoms, crabapples, pomegranates, cinnabar, dan copper, and madder… At the moment the vortex reached its largest, they surged upward, their red scales like a rosy dawn, flowing like a torrent between heaven and earth.
Countless, indistinguishable points of light swept past the flying boat, illuminating Chou Bodeng’s pupils.