Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
King An was around forty years old, but he looked like an old man in his sixties or seventies. Lying in bed, he was unable to sleep. Every time he was about to fall asleep, he would see visions of an army breaking into the royal palace of the An Kingdom, and soldiers with sabers and swords were coming after him, who was the real king.
He was concerned because there was an increasing number of people who didn’t regard him as the true King An.
His mother, a Central-Plains princess whose parentage was ambiguous, had selected someone else to be the new king with the support of the Dragon King. He had thought that this was just a temporary setback, but things didn’t go the way he wanted. The Dragon King’s armies grew stronger with each passing day, and it seemed as if his exile would never end.
King An once again dreamed of being killed and he abruptly woke up in a cold sweat. Even as he tried to console himself, he suddenly discovered that someone was crouching down beside the window. He rubbed his eyes and confirmed that it was indeed a living person who was peeping outside, their back to him.
King An felt his heart stop beating and even his blood felt like it had coagulated.
“Don’t… Don’t kill me. I surrender… ” These few words cost King An all his strength.
“Shh.” The figure below the window turned their head back and signaled him to be quiet.
King An immediately recognized her. She was that eccentric woman who had recently taken up residence in his mansion. “Han… Han Xuan? Is that you?”
“I told you to be quiet. Why aren’t you listening?” Han Xuan said impatiently, as if she were rebuking a disobedient child.
King An was a little afraid of her. Whenever he saw someone who dared to look him in the eye, he would think of the lost throne: when he had been powerful, nobody dared to look at him in this way.
But now, people wouldn’t respect him even in his own bedroom.
Han Xuan kept peeping outside. King An lay quietly in bed, attentively opening his ears. It was totally quiet outside. He couldn’t help but ask in an extremely low voice, “What’re you doing here?”
A thought flashed across his mind. ‘Is this a sexual encounter?’ But he soon discarded this speculation. He was in exile and held little appeal for women. Han Xuan was also not his type. ‘If she were the other woman who’s staying here… ” King An thought for a moment before he hurriedly restrained his wild thoughts.
Han Xuan sighed in annoyance. She turned around, slowly walked to the side of the bed, and whispered, “I’m trying to hide from someone.”
King An’s heart lurched. He instantly forgot about his former two reservations: Han Xuan was not pretty, but neither was she too ugly. If he ignored the impolite look in her eyes, she would become even prettier. As for his exile – if King An was not in exile, then a common woman wouldn’t even have had a chance to seduce him.
‘I still have a chance to take back what used to belong to me.’ King An, who had been shivering in fear all this time, suddenly became highly confident. ‘Hasn’t Waning Moon Hall promised this to me? Han Xuan doesn’t even count as a visionary woman. She must’ve have heard something in advance.’
King An stretched out his arm. He had already thought of an excuse to give afterwards: he was the king, and she was a maidservant. He would miss her and take care of her, but he couldn’t bring her into the palace.
Too many thoughts were flying through his head so his reflexes became slower. It was not until King An grasped out for the third times that he discovered that his wrist had been firmly grabbed by Han Xuan. His hand was only several inches away from the target, but it couldn’t move any closer.
“What are you doing?” Han Xuan asked, feeling that King An was acting very strangely tonight.
“Don’t be shy. I’ll make a princess of you.” King An instantly forgot the excuse he had just come up with. Even as his wrist was tightly under her control, he suddenly felt that Han Xuan was very charming.
“I’m not shy,” Han Xuan said. After thinking for a while, she had finally understood what “make a princess of you” meant.
Han Xuan was indeed not shy. King An believed that he was about to succeed, but then he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his wrist and his genital area. A piecing shrill shriek had just crawled out of his throat when it was blocked by Han Xuan’s other hand.
King An’s mouth was firmly covered, and he felt that his right wrist being bound by an iron hoop. His other free hand clutched his crotch as his body curled into the fetal position. He burst into tears, as this was the only way he could vent the great pain.
King An stopped twisting. Han Xuan loosened her grip and asked, “Do you still want me to be your princess?”
As if waking up from another “dream”, King An shook his head. “I don’t.”
“Um. Just lie here quietly. Someone’s out there.”
King An instantly sat up but Han Xuan pressed him down at once.
“Wh–Who?”
“Someone tough.”
Han Xuan felt this King An was very troublesome, so she took the folded clothes at the end of the bed and used them to gag his mouth and restrain his hands and legs.
King An was totally powerless to resist and he started crying again, but this time it was because he felt humiliated. He missed the small An Kingdom on the southern shore of Xiaoyao Lake even more.
Han Xuan returned to the window, but that strange feeling was gone.
She had an inexplicable intuition towards sensing Waning Moon Hall disciples, and this intuition had always enabled her to detect their existence before she saw them. A hour ago, she had felt this familiar feeling, so she sneaked out of her room to take a look. After sneaking around the mansion, she found that King An’s bedroom gave the best signal.
‘It is all King An’s fault,’ she thought. ‘This brainless old man ruined my premonition.’
But she still fixed her eyes on the courtyard, especially the room opposite this one. That was Shangguan Shaomin’s room, and Shangguan Shaomin was the one she was protecting with all her strength.
Her own lady was not around, so Han Xuan had shifted her desire of protecting someone onto Shangguan Shaomin.
Her intuition of a close by disciple of Waning Moon Hall never came back. Eventually, Han Xuan gave up. She was not as patient as a killer. Ignoring King An’s begging, she pushed open the window and went straight outside.
The courtyard was not big, and if Han Xuan used her lightness skills, she could make it to the opposite side in just a couple of leaps, and that was what she did. But when she took the second leap, her intuition resonated again, and it was very intense, as if the courtyard was full of Waning Moon Hall disciples.
She raised her head, and to her surprise, she saw a woman flying underneath the moonlight.
That woman landed before her. She was tall. The smile on her face was vague but so tender that Han Xuan felt like her heart was about to melt, and she even felt the urge to run into her arms.
“I’ve been looking for you for a very long time. Come with me.”
Han Wuxian stretched her arms out. This time, Han Xuan didn’t decline. She also stretched her arms out and slowly walked towards Han Wuxian. A low voice in her mind was warning her that this tall woman was not trustworthy, but she just couldn’t stop herself; she felt that a woman with a smile this tender would never hurt her.
The moment Han Wuxian’s hand touched Han Xuan’s, she poked Han Xuan with her left hand at lightning fast speed.
Han Xuan passed out immediately. She didn’t even realize that she had been attacked.
Carrying Han Xuan in her arms, Han Wuxian stood in the middle of the courtyard with a smile. She had finally regained control of the Female Gu that she had spent so much time nurturing. ‘But what about the trap? Where’s Lotus? Things won’t go this smoothly.’
Two hidden weapons shot towards her and landed several steps ahead of her with a clear sound.
The hidden weapons were actually two heads which used to belong to Han Wuxian’s two bodyguards. They were supposed to be on guard outside.
Han Wuxian burst into a wild laughter, her eerie voice resounding around the mansion. She scorned her hidden opponent. “Han Wuxian is here! Show yourselves, traitors!”
The raucous laughter woke up all the people in the nearby rooms and there was a commotion. After a short while, the mansion went quiet again. Someone lit a candle but it was put out as soon as the light was seen.
Ten figures appeared on the rooftops around, silently looking down at Hall Leader Han who was standing in the courtyard.
“Where’s Lotus? Does she not dare to come and get me herself?”
Nobody answered. Two figures leaped onto the ground, one on her left side and the other on her right. They were both masked and each of them held a sword. One of them said, “Please surrender, Hall Leader Han.”
The speaker was a woman, and the voice was polite and strange. Han Wuxian peered at her curiously. “You’re not disciples of the Waning Moon Hall.”
“We are,” the former speaker replied. “Hall Leader’s been away from home for too long.”
“Ha-ha. So it turns out that you’re Lotus’ Poison Seedlings. Show me what you’ve got, then. How many secret arts and medicine have you learned?”
“Just a little. How dare we perform them before Hall Leader? We also learned some swordsmanship. We’d appreciate it if Hall Leader offers us some advice.”
It suddenly dawned on Han Wuxian that Lotus knew that she was no match for her in terms of secret arts and poison, so she was relying on her kung fu to defeat her.
Smiling, Han Wuxian shook her head. “Swordsmanship? I’m afraid I don’t know much about it.”
Before she finished talking, she made her move. With Han Xuan in her arms, she leaped towards the opponents and kicked out several times, the hem of her dress flying.
Kung fu was indeed not Han Wuxian’s forte. Although Old Man Mu had helped her improve her kung fu skills a long time ago, Waning Moon Hall’s kung fu still couldn’t be considered top-notch. And this was the very reason why Han Wuxian had tried so hard to steal the Daoless Divine Power Manual.
The two disciples of the Waning Moon Hall attacked with their swords, and they made a great team. Both of them were actually outstanding kung fu experts, but they didn’t dare to get too close to Hall Leader for fear of her secret arts.
After exchanging over ten moves, Han Wuxian loudly said, “What’re you waiting for? Come at me together. It won’t be that easy for you to eat Han Wuxian’s flesh!”
Suddenly, Han Wuxian threw Han Xuan at them. The Waning Moon Hall disciple moved aside to dodge, but she lost her balance and nearly fell. She slashed with several sword blows, but her target was neither Han Wuxian nor Han Xuan, and it even seemed like she was fighting against with an invisible opponent. “Watch out for her hair,” the swordswoman hoarsely reminded her companion, backing off by six or seven steps. Obviously, her throat had been wounded.
Another four disciples of Waning Moon Hall leaped down, each holding their own sword. They joined the former two disciples and surrounded Han Wuxian.
Han Wuxian had just thrown Han Xuan forward when she immediately rushed over and caught her again. As she evaluated the six enemies around her, she said with a smile, “Lotus is not too bad. Let’s have a competition today and see which one’s better – her swordsmanship or my secret arts.”
With Han Xuan in her arms, Han Wuxian started spinning on the spot, her speed continuously growing faster and faster. Suddenly, the bun on top of her head unraveled and spread through the air like strands of grass.
The six Waning Moon Hall disciples wielded their swords and tried to parry. Among the six people, even the closest to Han Wuxian was over seven steps away from her, and they normally wouldn’t even be able to touch the tip of her hair. However, all of them were highly vigilant, as if they were facing a formidable enemy, and they spared no effort to fight with an enemy they couldn’t even touch.
Outside the courtyard, Old Man Mu was a little anxious. He had been waiting to watch a good show, but he could only hear the sounds.
The four Waning Moon Hall disciples on the rooftops were the only people he could see. Before long, they also leaped down and joined the fight.
‘The Dragon King should show up soon. This is the only way to lure the killers of Golden Roc Castle out.’
What surprised Old Man Mu was that another group of people did indeed show up, and they also leaped onto those rooftops. They numbered over twenty and their leader was not masked. Although he didn’t have a very good view because of the dark night, Old Man Mu was pretty sure that the leader was good girl Shangguan Ru.
A signal flare shot up into the sky in the distance. This was a signal for Old Man Mu, Chu Nanping, Shangguan Fei and Dog Butcher’s teams to attack.
Ignoring the five helpers behind him, Old Man Mu shot to the highest position of King An’s mansion with two or three leaps and happened to see Tie Linglong rushing out of a room along with several killers.
‘The Dragon King must be in that room too,’ Old Man Mu thought. Then more and more figures appeared from all sides. Only a small proportion of them were the Dragon King’s killers, and most of them were genuine Golden Roc killers.
Old Man Mu didn’t join the fight right away. He was looking for the Dragon King’s “unexpected army.”
