Chapter 178: Melee (3)

Chapter 178: Melee (3)

Le Wuya answered Xiang Zhijie with a flick to the forehead so light it made no sound, then, without waiting for a word, took his hand and led him down off the boat.

Le Wuya was, after all, the true center of the entire gathering.

The slightest move from him caught the attention of the nearby soldiers.

No sooner had he set foot on the landing plank than Lu Ming, a low-ranking soldier who had long since declared himself Le Wuya's devoted follower, hurried over eagerly: "Sir, what's wrong?"

The plank was unsteady, still swaying a bit.

Xiang Zhijie's eyes were cast downward, his posture as ramrod straight as ever.

But because he was holding his hand, Le Wuya could clearly feel his body trembling so faintly it was barely noticeable.

Le Wuya tightened his grip on the cool palm, hopped across the plank in two or three quick steps, and called out loudly: "Let's do a grand finale—show you all what real skill looks like!"

Before Lu Ming could react, Xiang Zhijie looked up first and gave Le Wuya a serious look.

Xiang Zhi lifted the crystal curtain of the pleasure boat with his fan, letting out an exasperated laugh: "Didn't you hear? Your master thinks the little performers on stage are just putting on a flashy show of empty moves—he's going to put on a grand show for you himself!"

Lu Ming was instantly at a loss for words.

A master was, after all, an official, and performers were, well, the lowest of the low...

Before he could finish his hesitation, Le Wuya let out a hearty laugh, snapping him out of his worries: "What's the big deal? People rarely live to a ripe old age—that's why they say 'seventy years is a rare thing.' Giving an old man birthday wishes is a matter of soaking up good luck. What do rank and status matter?"

Le Wuya pulled Xiang Zhijie along, striding forward briskly, and shot Lu Ming a wink: "Boy, if you live to seventy, I'll not only throw you a grand celebration, but I'll slap on full makeup and perform 'Beating Cao with Drums' for you! I guarantee it'll be a hundred times livelier than the day you came asking for your pay."

Lu Ming scratched his head, grinning sheepishly.

"What are you grinning at? Show the honored guest the way." Le Wuya pretended to kick him. "Where's the backstage?"

Asking him to dress up was merely an excuse to whisk Xiang Zhijie away in plain sight without spoiling everyone's fun.

The troupe of about twenty or so performers was crammed into a small building behind the stage.

Because they were performing at the home of a high official, each of them behaved themselves and dared not bicker and shout as they usually did.

By now, the performance was nearly over, and the young performers were gearing up to collect their tips, never expecting that the Prefect himself would show up in person—not only generously handing out tips but also announcing he'd do a number himself.

The junior steward took the money and scrambled to arrange for someone to apply Le Wuya's makeup, but he declined, asking only for a hairdresser to simply style his hair like a military commander—no helmet, just a headband to tie his hair back.

When the hairdresser saw the young master in person, before he could even utter his usual blessing, he froze for a moment before letting out a deeply impressed "Ooh."

He dearly wished to praise the master as a flawless beauty, but after thinking it over, he figured a performer's compliment didn't mean much—and if he flattered the wrong way, it'd backfire. So he kept his mouth shut, held his breath, and quickly styled Le Wuya's hair into a simple, dashing style.

Le Wuya had no intention of getting too fancy. He gave his face a light dusting of powder and considered himself ready.

Glancing into the bronze mirror before him, he saw that Xiang Zhijie had quietly claimed a small stool and sat down to regulate his breathing—no trouble at all.

He called out to Xiang Zhijie: "Hey. What brought this on?"

Xiang Zhijie, eyes half-closed, gave a gentle shake of his head: "I don't know."

"Really don't know, or just pretending?"

This time Xiang Zhijie opened his eyes and said in all honesty: "I really don't know."

Le Wuya studied him through the mirror for a long moment, finding that he could no longer read him at all, and finally withdrew his gaze: "Is it water you're afraid of, or boats?"

Xiang Zhijie shook his head once more.

"Why not take a swim and find out? I'll teach you." Le Wuya bragged, "When I was a kid, I was a great swimmer. My brother used to call me the moat's famous water monkey—I loved diving under and grabbing his legs, like a water ghost."

That brilliant metaphor was classic Second Brother Le.

Xiang Zhijie wanted to laugh, but with his head still spinning, the mere twitch of his lips made his face go even paler.

Le Wuya stopped talking to Xiang Zhijie then, letting the hairdresser finish his work quickly, and gave a quick rundown to the stagehand: he wanted a light set of armor and a spear, and asked him to tell the drum and music ensemble to keep it simple—no complex rhythms, just play it by ear.

The stagehand, hearing this, could tell the gentleman knew what he was doing, and departed to fetch what Le Wuya had requested.

While he changed clothes, the hangers-on withdrew on their own.

Now it was just Le Wuya and Xiang Zhijie.

As he draped the theatrical armor over himself, Xiang Zhijie was feeling a bit better, and he rose to lend a hand.

Xiang Zhijie pressed his lips together and asked in a soft, offhand tone: "Master has been quiet all this time—what are you thinking?"

He wanted to draw Le Wuya's full attention to himself, yet at the same time feared being seen as weak and not up to the job.

Even before his imperial father, Xiang Zhijie had never had such worries.

A real dilemma—a genuine catch-22.

Le Wuya noticed his lips were pale, picked up an unused sheet of rouge paper, and pressed it between his lips.

"I'm thinking that when you take the throne someday, not being able to take a boat down to Jiangnan will save you a ton on travel." Le Wuya held the rouge paper between his lips while tugging at his pauldrons. "And I'm thinking it's a pity you can't sail down south to Min and Yue to eat lychees. Ah, why can't lychee trees just grow in the capital?"

Xiang Zhijie watched his lips turn as red as lychees while he chattered on about nonsense, and his expression grew ever more serene and tender.

Le Wuya tossed the rouge paper aside without a care, used his fingertip to smear the color evenly over his lips, then turned to pick up the spear.

The moment his hand closed around the shaft, his whole demeanor changed subtly.

Le Wuya waved at Xiang Zhijie: "I'm off! Get some rest here!"

Xiang Zhijie hummed in reply, and after Le Wuya strode away, silently picked up the rouge paper that had drifted to the edge of the table.

He raised the paper, held it up to the light for a long moment, then pressed it gently to the center of his forehead.

The spot between the brows is the Yintang—the Palace of Fate among the twelve palaces, where destiny and fortune, good and bad, all reside.

The warmth at his brow was the leftover warmth from Le Wuya's lips.

Xiang Zhijie gave it a solemn, reverent little tribute, then carefully tucked the scrap of paper into his sleeve.

Such lecherous, degenerate behavior—he pulled it off with total ease, like a proper gentleman.

...

Xiang Zhi was practically fuming over Le Wuya's favoritism toward Xiang Zhijie.

Ever since Le Wuya had left the table, he had been bad-mouthing him for a good long while.

Yet when Le Wuya truly stepped onto the stage, he was also the first to go quiet.

Le Wuya didn't bother with a single operatic croon—he went straight for the spear and started his routine.

A flash of icy steel, and the spear lunged forward like a silver dragon or white serpent, lashing out viciously—only to halt at the last possible instant, stopping on a dime.

Then came a sky-splitting, earth-shaking sweep that cut in every direction!

Chop, thrust, point, slice—every move ferocious, yet all strung together in one fluid, seamless flow. The supple white waxwood staff could barely take the punishment, shaking and quivering violently.

Le Wuya pulled off a theatrical flourish, sliding his hand along the shaft, holding the spear across his body in a killer pose.

The soldiers below froze for a second, then erupted in a roar that shot straight up to the sky!

Le Wuya's spearwork combined hardness and softness—sometimes blazing like fire, sometimes flowing like water—every thrust landing true, no wasted motion.

Earlier, Xiang Zhi had deliberately talked him up, but he'd accidentally hit the nail on the head.

The performances that had come before on that stage now looked like pure flash and empty show next to Le Wuya's display.

Any real expert could tell at a glance: this spearwork was the real deal—a genuine killing art, through and through.

Watching him train on stage, you could almost see the ancient battlefield—clanging armor, shield walls, smoke rolling across the field.

The crimson tassel, the red headband, the red sandalwood beads strung in his hair.

He was a blaze of fire, burning with total abandon, so mesmerizing you couldn't look away—only watch him from a distance in awe.

Xiang Zhi's gaze followed him without pause, not straying a single inch.

With the wounds of his past life gone... so this was who he really was.

Wen Ren was busy shelling pine nuts, stealing glances now and then, a calm smile on his face.

Xiang Zhi caught it out of the corner of his eye and frowned, disapproving: "You're not watching?"

"He's always like that." Wen Ren glanced toward the stage, then lowered his head again, adding, "He taught me this spear form. I can't pull it off half as well as he can."

Xiang Zhi's throat tightened, like someone had grabbed him by the neck and poured vinegar down his throat. His face went dark as he turned away, toes itching to kick Wen Ren under the table.

On the other side, Yuan Zijin was completely dumbfounded.

He grabbed Zhong Piaoping next to him and blurted: "The Le Family Spear!"

Zhong Piaoping nearly got yanked clean off his folding stool: "What?"

"The Le family's most closely guarded secret." Yuan Zijin slapped Zhong Piaoping's thigh over and over, practically vibrating with excitement. "That Le family!"

When Yuan Zijin was a kid, Le Qianzhang of the Le family still had some dealings with his old man.

Once, Le Qianzhang came to the Yuan residence for a banquet, got completely plastered, and in high spirits announced he wanted to spar with Yuan Weiyan.

Yuan Weiyan agreed readily while frantically sending someone to drag both his sons over, telling them to come broaden their horizons.

In Yuan Weiyan's words: the little brats were born at the right time—they'd probably never see a real battlefield in their lives, so with fine goods like the Le Family Spear on offer, what were they waiting for?

Zhong Piaoping's face had gone white from all the slapping.

But he'd been through life's wild ups and downs, and now, no matter what happened, he kept his cool like nobody's business.

He didn't know much about the Le Family Spear.

As a born-and-bred Nanting local, he'd only heard that both the Le and Pei families had been stationed there at some point.

Zhong Piaoping hazarded a guess: "Isn't the master pretty tight with General Pei, Pei Mingqi? Could this be something the general taught him?"

At that, Yuan Zijin wasn't so sure anymore.

Right—now that he mentioned it, the Pei and Le families had always been close...

Yuan Zijin's suspicion temporarily subsided.

Meanwhile, Zhi Jie's dizziness had let up a bit. He leaned on the wall and slowly made his way to the "exit" side of the stage.

The curtain at the exit had come a little loose at the top hooks from all the performers coming and going.

He couldn't see the full scope of Le Wuya's fiery performance, but through the half-slipped curtain, he caught flashes of his figure streaking by.

Zhi Jie had often thought that, steeped so long in the incense of quiet contemplation, his heart had long since become still water.

Even the sages said: the five colors blind the eyes, the five tones deafen the ears, the five flavors dull the palate, and the chase of the hunt drives the heart wild.

Sound, color, flavor—these were all things to be renounced.

He ought to believe in the supreme good being like water, benefiting all things without contending.

Before meeting Le Wuya, he had executed this principle with perfect order.

But the moment he saw his teacher, his heart uncontrollably turned to flowing water, surging toward him in torrents.

He had thought this would place an undue burden on his teacher.

Little did he expect his teacher enjoyed being a water monkey.

Amid the thunderous applause filling the hall, Zhi Jie closed one eye and reached forward with an open hand.

Le Wuya, burning like a flame, seemed to dance in the palm of his hand.

Zhi Jie smiled gently.

Author's note:

In the "Biography of Wen Ren" from the History of Yu Officials... when his attendant Lu Ming turned seventy, he composed "Beating the Drum and Cursing Cao" as a congratulatory piece—the breath control and delivery were utterly free-flowing and unrestrained.