Chapter 96 What can't you do? I can't play chess, girl, teach me...
He said.
Qing Guiyu's head buzzed with anger, and he felt like throwing the bowl of porridge on his pretty face.
When you are blind?
How did a blind man accurately unbutton her soaked clothes, and how did he put on this thing that was a perfect fit and made of slippery material for her without any error?
She, Qing Guiyu, was a wanderer, not a brothel worker. Even if she was the most popular prostitute in the south of Yuzhou, she probably couldn't come up with such an outrageous excuse.
How could this fool anyone? She had personally cured him at the bottom of that freezing pond, and yet this man had a thousand tricks up his sleeve, able to bring the dead back to life.
Yet, Young Master Jin Sheng simply said this. Perhaps he felt that this was enough. He was so calm, so matter-of-fact, and even had a hint of innocence on his face, as if to say, "I've tried my best to explain, please don't embarrass me any further."
The pair of eyes that had just regained clarity were now covered with a thin layer of mist because of her question.
"Miss Qing," he said softly, his tone gentle as if he was trying to comfort her, "I couldn't see clearly at the time, and I didn't have much control over my movements. If there's anything inappropriate, please tell me and I'll..."
His eyes had long been clear and bright, even now looking at her so gently. The blush at the corners of his eyes had not yet faded, and far from looking embarrassed, he looked as if he had just been loved and cherished, and his color had been enhanced.
If you ask me again, I will cry in front of you.
A beautiful poisonous snake that not only knows how to bite people, but also knows how to coil up immediately after biting people and pretend to be a pitiful little water snake.
Qing Guiyu threw the quilt and pillow aside fiercely.
"Okay." She smiled wryly. "You're awesome. You're the best in the world."
She threw back the quilt and tried to get out of bed. Having exhausted herself at the bottom of the pool and been stricken by the cold poison, she felt a chill running through her limbs as she moved. She stumbled and nearly fell.
"Miss Qing!" An arm reached out from the side in time, supported her steadily, and brought her back to the couch.
"You changed it for me too." Seeing that she was really angry, Shen Juansheng hurriedly added, his voice lowered, as if afraid that she would not believe him, "When we were in the medicine house."
He made the statement "I am a bastard" seem extremely serious and pitiful.
"I'm a doctor!" Qing Guiyu suddenly raised his voice, "Is that you?"
In the eyes of a doctor, there's the disease, not the self. She'd changed his clothes that year out of necessity, a doctor's open and honest heart. But what about him? He was a troublemaker, full of schemes and scheming. He was taking advantage of someone's misfortune, stealing from the inside, and...
She hadn't thought of a fourth suitable insult yet, but Shen Juansheng seemed to be stung by her questioning this time.
"No." Shen Juansheng shook his head, lowered his eyes slightly, avoided her gaze, and did not dare to look her in the eye.
"But you taught me."
He paused, as if he felt that what he said was not enough, and added softly, his face flushed again.
"I can also... use Miss Qing's golden needle a little bit."
That’s absolutely right, Young Master Jin Sheng is very capable. The floating corpse of Jiao Tang with a needle stuck in his heart on the river in Yuzhou City is all evidence of this.
It was indeed what she had taught her back then. Qing Guiyu was so angry that she pounded the bed door twice.
If I ask any more, he might lead me into even more outrageous situations like "Although I can't see, I have a telepathic connection with you, and Miss Qing's figure has long been engraved in my heart", "Miss Qing also wiped my body in the medicine house back then, and this time I'm just revisiting the past and learning something new."
By then, she will be the one who is so angry that her heart meridians will reverse.
How lucky is she to be served by Master Jinsheng, a man of great eloquence and talent who wants to split the country, all day long?
Qing Guiyu had no choice but to stop arguing with him. She felt around and took out the jade slip from her incredibly luxurious silk skirt. Finally, she found the most important thing at the moment.
The jade slip was still there and had not been taken away by him.
Qing Guiyu weighed the jade slip, then looked at the seemingly well-behaved young man, feeling a little suspicious.
Finally, she glared at him and slammed the jade slip on the couch.
The young man in black seemed to have noticed that she was very angry, so he did not use any clever words, but just quietly stepped back a few steps.
He took the empty bowl of porridge away for her, poured a cup of warm water and placed it next to her, then sat down on the couch opposite her, looking at her silently across a low table.
The jade slip was still as warm and cool as ever. She unfolded it and saw the meridian diagram and writing inscribed in cinnabar, exactly the same as those on the black ice wall.
However, on this jade slip, there were several lines of annotations that she had never seen before. The handwriting was extremely fine, but the tip of the pen was sharp, as if it had been engraved with the tip of a needle.
"The Yin Qiao is the base, and the Xuan Ji is the top. This is a retrograde method, extremely dangerous."
"If there is no external force to guard the three gates of the heart, they will be devoured by the cold air and the meridians will be severed."
"If we can attract external forces to help, perhaps... we can bring him back to life."
This annotation was obviously added by someone later. Every word and sentence reveals a desperate effort, a desperate struggle against fate.
Qing Guiyu took a quick look at it, confirmed that it was correct, and then put the jade slip away again.
"It's mine." She said simply, wanting to find a time when he was not around to study it carefully.
"Hmm," Shen Juansheng nodded, showing no concern for this secret book that contained peerless martial arts and life-saving methods.
"Miss Qing likes it."
Qing Guiyu couldn't deal with his docile appearance, and almost fled, wrapped herself in the quilt again, turned over, and faced him with her back.
Then I heard a light, restrained sigh from behind me.
But he said nothing more, and did nothing more. The room fell into an odd silence, broken only by the occasional rustling of snow sliding down the cedar trees outside.
*
This place, about two hours' journey from the Cold Prison, was likely used for the excavation of black ice in the early years. Rather than a stronghold, it's more like a building hollowed out from half the mountainside, a work of art beyond belief. The caves are paved with polished, smooth boulders, and high windows carved into the walls bring in natural light, illuminating the entire room.
Qing Guiyu stayed in the Tianji Pavilion stronghold deep in the snow-capped mountains to recuperate, anxiously waiting for his internal strength to recover.
Although the internal force of the Qing Nang Jue is moderate and peaceful, the feeling of being in the black ice cold pond is really unpleasant. After all, the vitality has been damaged and he needs to rest for two days.
For her, these past two days have felt like years.
She was a restless person, constantly on the go, and now she had so many things to do that being confined to this room was more unbearable than killing her. Furthermore, there was a walking source of trouble following her around all the time.
Shen Juansheng took care of her meticulously, and that kind of meticulousness still made people's scalp tingle.
Her internal energy hadn't fully recovered yet, and every morning when she woke, there was always warm medicinal porridge on the bedside table. She'd simply mentioned the dryness of the northern land, and in the afternoon, a delicate copper kettle appeared in the room. A slow fire burned inside, and the gentle steam filled the room with warmth and the bitter medicinal aroma she loved.
This is not recuperation, this is clearly raising pigs.
On the third day, Qing Guiyu felt that if he lay down any longer, he would almost have to undergo surgery and bleed.
Although she had sealed the cold poison in the pond water with the tortoise breathing technique, its residual power was still there, and there was still a sense of stagnation in her meridians. She was unable to move, and out of boredom, she could only stare blankly at the furnishings in the room.
On the treasure chest on the wall inside the room, there is a chess set. The chessboard is a good chessboard, made of nanmu with fine texture, and the chess pieces are warm and cold colored jade, polished to be round and cute.
The young man in black clothes stood by the window, flipping through a book. Daylight streamed in through the high windows, casting a faint, ethereal, milky halo that blurred the black, making it seem as if it were melting. His figure was elegant and upright, like a slender bamboo leaning against the window.
The more Qing Guiyu looked at it, the angrier he became.
This person is good, he can see with his eyes, but he can only count the beams while lying down.
He was flipping through the book, but he wasn't reading it at all. His eyes, like lonely stars, were always fixed on her.
There was no blatant aggression or calculation in his eyes. Instead, he looked like a poor man who had dug up an antique from under a dilapidated house. He was greedy but also fearful, afraid that the treasure would grow wings and fly away in the blink of an eye.
"Chen Tianji." She couldn't stand his weird staring at her anymore and finally couldn't help but speak.
The young man in black clothes by the window immediately raised his head and looked over with his clear peach blossom eyes. The red mark at the end of his eye looked even more gorgeous under the sunlight.
"Miss Qing," he walked over slowly, his voice gentle, "but what's wrong with you?"
"I feel very uncomfortable." Qing Guiyu leaned up, pointed to the nanmu chessboard placed on the treasure chest in the room, and patted the empty space beside him.
"I'm almost bored to death. Come here and play chess with me."
She spoke briskly. This man was the best at calculating people's hearts, and his skills on the chessboard must be superb. Although her chess skills were not very good, she had at least learned a few moves from Master Chen under the pretext of strengthening her mind. Now, losing was not shameful.
More importantly, he was unwilling to leave at all if that was the case.
——It’s better than two people staring at each other in this room, each one more awkward than the other.
Shen Juansheng was slightly startled when he heard this.
He was silent for a moment, turned sideways, put the scroll in his hand back on the table, and turned around to take the nanmu chessboard from the treasure box.
"Miss Qing," he walked over to sit opposite her, handed it to her, and said hesitantly, "I... don't know how."
Qing Guiyu took the chessboard, his hand stopped in mid-air.
"You what?"
I thought I heard it wrong.
"I can't." He whispered, even more embarrassed, his face burning.
"You can't?" Qing Guiyu looked at him suspiciously, trying to find some trace of lying on his overly handsome face. "You are the Master of Tianji Pavilion, who knows everything in the world, and you tell me you can't play chess?"
This is even more outrageous than him saying that he can't read.
"Hmm." Shen Juansheng lowered his head and repeated it again, but he seemed to be starting to feel uncomfortable all over, as if she had seen through some huge mistake. He could only whisper, "I don't know how to play chess."
Qing Guiyu stared at him.
If this gets out, wouldn't it be a huge scandal in the martial arts world? Would he still be able to maintain the reputation of his Tianji Pavilion?
"I've read some chess manuals and know the rules," he said hurriedly, as if he saw through her thoughts, "but I used to think..."
"Black and white play chess, attacking from both ends, with numerous fixed patterns. It's not interesting, so I never cared about it."
Qing Guiyu held his breath and was about to retort him, but Young Master Jin Sheng sighed first.
"A gentleman's dispute follows rules and regulations. But in this world, most of the time, there are no rules."
When she heard him say this, she turned her head and thought about it carefully, and the mockery in her heart suddenly dissipated a little.
Yes.
This man's life began at the age of four, in the cold pond. To him, everything in the world, including chips and chess pieces, is not a "game."
Years of solitude in the cold pond, followed by the flashing of swords and the shadow of conspiracy. I'm afraid that in his eyes, everything in this world is divided into only two categories: "useful" and "useless".
From the very beginning, he classified the leisurely and elegant hobby of Go as "useless".
And who has been chatting with him over the past decade?
Seeing that she was silent, Shen Juansheng hurriedly spoke again.
"...If Miss Qing wants to..." Those beautiful eyes were filled with cautious anticipation.
"I can learn."
She said this as if she was some kind of enlightenment mentor.
"Very soon." He added hastily, pushing the chessboard towards her, as if afraid that she would not believe him.
"Miss Qing, teach me." Shen Juansheng placed the chessboard between the two of them, raised his eyes, and looked at her again.
She felt a little sad after hearing what he said. She really owed him in her previous life.
Qing Guiyu sighed inwardly, thinking that there might be something wrong with him.
"Okay." She moved forward and picked up a white piece. "I'll give you nine."
Shen Jiansheng also sat up straight next to her, his body straight, his black sleeves slipped down, revealing his wrists wrapped with gold wire.
"Yes," he replied, "I'll listen to Miss Qing."
This game of chess made Qing Guiyu feel extremely anxious.
Shen Juansheng learned very quickly, and almost as soon as she finished speaking, he understood everything.
But he really just knew the rules.
The hand holding the chess piece always feels a little awkward. Those slender and beautiful fingers, holding the cold chess piece, hover over the chessboard, always seeming to hesitate about where to place it.
"Here," Qing Guiyu couldn't bear to watch any longer, so he reached out, grabbed his wrist, and guided him to place the black dot next to Tianyuan. "This is called 'Xiaomu'."
Her hands were still cold, her knuckles distinct and her wrist bones thin, but they were warm from the nourishment of her inner strength.
"Yes," Shen Juan replied in a low voice, with a barely discernible tremor, "I've made a note of it."
He played the game very seriously. Before placing each piece, he would stare at the chessboard for a long time, frowning slightly, as if he was trying to decipher some unique formation of the Tianji Pavilion.
It's terribly slow.
After only twenty moves, his black pieces were scattered all over by her without any order.
Qing Guiyu initially harbored some competitive spirit, wanting to kill him without a single mortal left, so as to teach him that there was always someone better than him. But he appeared so focused and clumsy that she became puzzled again.
She had no choice but to start letting him win intentionally or unintentionally. Sometimes he would make a bad move, forcing her to give him some impatient advice.
"If you move here, your big dragon will die." She grabbed his hand that was about to make a move.
"Yeah." Shen Juansheng obediently moved the chess piece to the position she pointed, then raised his head and gave her a beautiful smile.
Sunlight streamed in from the high window. The young man leaned in a little too close, and the cool, crisp fragrance from his body was evaporated by the sunlight, lingering around him in strands.
The game ended with her narrowly winning by half a piece.
She felt guilty about her win, but Young Master Jin Sheng looked as if he had won a huge prize, and his brows and eyes relaxed.
"Miss Qing is an excellent chess player." He praised sincerely.
Not high enough.
She raised her chin and looked at him.
He lost, and she won with a guilty conscience and shortness of breath.
If he won... No, how could he win? He looked so cautious, as if every move he made was a test on her heart, afraid that she would lose her patience at any moment, overturn the chessboard, and ignore him forever.
"Can we play with Miss Qing again?" Shen Juansheng's face flushed when she looked at him like this. "It's... interesting."
The word "interesting" dissipated some of the awkwardness Qing Guiyu had felt after letting him go. This person, for the first time, felt like something was done purely for "fun."
Anyway, it can be considered as doing good deeds.
So for the next two days, Qing Guiyu was raised in this strange atmosphere. She played a game of chess every day, starting with giving away nine stones, then seven, and finally five.
This guy learns things so fast that he's almost inhuman.
Her mediocre chess skills were soon stretched to the limit, and she had to rack her brains every time to barely beat him, but her wins were utterly meaningless.
And the better he played, the more he pondered before making his move, as if each move was related to some huge secret. He had to push her to the brink of despair and give her just one step so that she could win in a thrilling way.
Qing Guiyu cursed him thousands of times in her heart, but she had to pretend to be oblivious on the surface.
It's really like raising an ancestor.
But the days of recuperation were boring after all. As her internal strength recovered almost completely, her anxiety grew day by day.
The Queen Mother of the Northern Dynasty, Master Yaowanggu, and Chen Yan were all bound to find Junior Senior Brother for the Pulse Cleansing Technique. None of them could be delayed. The longer she lay here, the more uncertain things would become.
On the afternoon of the fourth day, she finally couldn't help herself and threw the chess piece on the chessboard.
"No more!" She crossed her arms and glared at the young man in black clothes sitting upright opposite her.
"Chen Tianji, what exactly do you want to do? Are you going to trap me on this snowy mountain and use me as your chess partner for the rest of my life?"
Chen Juansheng raised his head when he heard this, and his happy expression seemed to be frightened away by her scolding.
"Miss Qing," he put down the chess piece in his hand, as if a little sad, "don't be anxious."
"How can I not be anxious?" Qing Guiyu turned her head and saw him picking up a jade comb from the side, pretending to comb her long hair which was a little messy due to lying down for a long time.
"What are you doing?" The hairs on her body stood up and she subconsciously wanted to dodge.
This is too much.
Qing Guiyu pushed him aside and said, "I can do it myself."
Young Master Jin Sheng was pushed away by her and just sat there quietly. The golden threads on his black robe were dark, and his whole body was shrouded in a gloomy shadow.
After a moment of silence, he stood up and took a thick stack of files from the desk beside him.
"The intelligence from the Tianji Pavilion will be delivered here every hour."
He said with a smile, spreading out the files in front of her one by one.
Qing Guiyu was stunned.
That wasn't organized information, but rather the most original intelligence from the Tianji Pavilion. The handwriting on the file was dense, all written in code, but alongside it, someone had patiently annotated each note with a red pen into ordinary text that she could understand.
"I'll comb your hair for you," he said softly, pressing her shoulders gently. "You can check everything yourself. It won't delay us."
"You are...very good at serving people." She said sullenly.
"Yeah," he replied, unable to hide the smile in his tone, "I have learned it."
There was a slight pause in the engraving sound, but his hands did not stop moving, and his voice became lower, as if he was talking to himself.
"I thought about it many times when I was at the Cold Pond. If... if one day, I could see Miss Qing again..."
He didn't say anything else, but just picked up a few strands of her long hair, wrapped them around his fingertips, and slowly let go.
Qing Guiyu only felt a chill slowly creeping up along his spine.
This is Master Jinsheng's conspiracy.
He entrusted all his journey to her and shared all his secrets with her. In this most candid way, he wove the most flexible and strongest net.
Then he puts himself in the brightest and most natural position.
If she wanted to save Lu Guiyan, the best way was to get the information from the Tianji Pavilion. If she wanted to find out the truth behind all this, the quickest way was to investigate the people involved.
He turned himself into her best option.
Qing Guiyu looked at him, looked at his gentleness, and the touch of emotion that had just emerged in her heart was instantly suppressed.
She said, how could this poisonous snake really turn into a docile cat.
This young man is a gambler, a chess player, and the most dangerous political strategist in the world.
A man who cut off all her escape routes one by one with gentle planning.
A clever confinement, a huge lie made of trust and honesty.
Qing Guiyu opened the intelligence reports, which were all sealed with fire and had various dragon seals of the Tianji Pavilion painted on them.
From the daily life of the Northern Dynasty emperor to the family affairs of the Southern Dynasty prime minister, from the internal struggles of the major martial arts sects to the grain prices in a small border town, the details are so detailed that it is shocking.
He didn't even shy away from the most confidential details. The secret agents of the Tianji Pavilion in various places, their dealings with other forces, all the shady secrets and plots, were all laid out before her eyes along with the lines of handwriting.
Qing Guiyu was shocked, but he also saw it clearly.
Shen Juansheng hadn't lied to her. The Tianji Pavilion was indeed doing its utmost to search for the whereabouts of the Warm Jade Needle. The news spread from Baxia Tower had already attracted many peculiar individuals with hidden treasures to converge on Dragon City.
At the very top of the file, there was all sorts of news about the Nuan Yu Needle.
"The Northern Dynasty Empress Dowager sent her trusted spies south in three groups, searching for talented individuals. One group headed to Southern Xinjiang, the second to Xinglinwu in the south, and the third... headed straight for Yaowang Valley."
"After the news spread in Longcheng, seventeen warm jade needles appeared in the martial arts world. Twelve of them were imitations of colored glaze, three were made from ordinary jade, and two were made from dead human bones soaked in a potion."
Given the high reward offered by the Northern Dynasty, many in the martial arts world were drawn to the opportunity. Some claimed to have seen the Warming Jade Needle, some produced forged blueprints, and some even attempted to use a similar jade needle to deceive the public.
The annotations follow each piece of news clearly, distinguishing its authenticity, analyzing its origin, and thoroughly investigating the background of those charlatans.
At the end of the file, there were a few pieces of letter paper as thin as cicada wings. The handwriting on them was familiar to her, the secret code of Yaowang Valley.
"The disciples of Medicine King Valley have split into four groups. One group is heading to Yuzhou, one group is exploring the Snow Mountain, and two groups are in Longcheng and its surrounding areas, secretly searching for ancient books and doctors related to the Warm Jade Needle."
Every piece of information pointed to a complicated direction. And Shen Jiansheng actually laid out these secrets that were enough to stir up the world in front of her so openly.
The news came one after another, and each one was filled with the bloody smell of impending storm.
Young Master Jin Sheng didn't care at all. When she came to her senses, she felt something heavy at the end of her hair. He had actually used a strand of gold thread to braid several exquisite braids for her with her combed long hair. The gold thread was intertwined with her black hair, shining with fine and gorgeous light.
"All right," he said softly, looking quite satisfied.
Qing Guiyu slapped his hand away and picked up a piece of paper with Chaofenglou's signature on it.
"Wait a minute," she cried, "what is this?"
"Isn't this matter already settled?"
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