25 The Martial World (6)
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After delivering the items, Lu Xiaofeng returned to Jiangnan and told Hua Manlou everything that had happened along the way.
Being as clever as he was, Lu Xiaofeng naturally understood that Hua Manlou had not sent him merely to deliver something. More than anything, he wanted news of the divine physician.
After all, Hua Manlou could not see her. This was the only way he could learn anything about her.
When Hua Manlou had finished listening, he asked, “What does Miss Yun look like?”
Lu Xiaofeng recalled the fleeting glimpse he had caught of her on the snow mountain. For a moment, he was rendered speechless. After thinking for a long while, he could come up with only four words:
“Unparalleled in all the world.”
Lu Xiaofeng had seen beauties as numerous as the clouds. For someone to deserve those four words, she had to be breathtaking beyond compare.
In truth, Hua Manlou had also asked his parents what Miss Yun looked like.
Everyone told him she was extraordinarily beautiful, yet he could not see her for himself. All he could do was imagine her endlessly in his heart.
He had drawn countless portraits of beauties. Each was different, yet each possessed the utmost grace and loveliness.
Whenever he heard some new tidbit about Miss Yun, the face in the drawing would change.
He showed all those pictures to Lu Xiaofeng, but not one of them resembled her.
Among countless thousands of beauties, not a single one was her.
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After leaving the snow mountain, Yun Yao casually chose a road and continued wandering the world.
Perhaps beautiful women were always easy targets for covetous eyes. When she checked into an inn, someone slipped a stick of soporific incense into her room.
Once the incense had burned out, a pair of hands pushed open the door, and a man entered with a lecherous grin.
In the next instant, several silver needles pierced his body. His hands and feet immediately went limp, and he collapsed to the floor.
When he looked up again, the beautiful woman with her hair loose around her shoulders was sitting on the edge of the bed, smiling brightly at him.
Moonlight bathed her pale, flawless face, making her resemble an epiphyllum blooming in the night.
And yet, for some inexplicable reason, the man shuddered.
With a smile, she asked, “How would you like to die?”
The man hurriedly begged for mercy. “Miss, spare me! I only wanted to steal a little money. I swear this is my first offense. If you let me go just this once, I promise I’ll mend my ways!”
Yun Yao merely smiled, as though enjoying his performance.
She took out another silver needle and said in the most casual tone, “Since this is your first offense, I’ll make it quick.”
The man was so terrified that tears and snot streamed down his face. He begged for mercy without pause, appearing to regret his actions to the depths of his soul.
Yun Yao listened for a while, seemingly moved by his pleas.
“Then I’ll give you one chance,” she said.
The man was overjoyed. He thought to himself that women truly had soft hearts; a little crying was enough to solve everything.
The next moment, Yun Yao produced three porcelain bottles.
“Only one of these is harmless. The other two contain poisons that will eat through your bowels. Choose.”
The man stared at her in disbelief.
Yun Yao continued to smile. Her gaze was like that of someone looking at a fish on a chopping block, as though she might gut him open at any moment.
The man felt as if he had fallen into an icy cavern. His body trembled like a sieve.
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He stared at the three bottles before him, unable to make a choice.
He had only a one-in-three chance of surviving.
Yun Yao’s patience ran out. “If you can’t choose, I can choose for you.”
The man’s face was bloodless, and cold sweat soaked through his clothes.
At last, he steeled himself. “I choose the white bottle!”
Yun Yao tossed him the white bottle, then pricked him with another needle.
“Since you’ve chosen it, drink.”
The man felt that he could move both hands again. Trembling, he picked up the bottle.
At that moment, his hand seemed to weigh a thousand pounds.
He opened the bottle and swallowed the pill.
Whether he lived or died was now up to fate.
One second, two seconds, three seconds...
Drops of sweat fell to the floor one after another. It felt as though millions of years had passed.
Nothing happened.
The man gasped for breath, a smile of survival spreading across his face.
Yun Yao lightly smoothed back a strand of hair. “Get lost.”
The man hurriedly crawled out of the inn. His movements were so comical that he looked like a turtle.
Once he had crawled far enough away, an expression of resentment appeared on his face.
He had simply been careless this time. Once he found a few brothers to help him...
As he was thinking about how to take revenge, the man suddenly began to tremble violently. He clawed desperately at his throat in agony.
Blood gushed from his mouth and nose. He writhed on the spot, but within moments, he fell silent.
It turned out that the poison had merely taken a little longer to act.
Meanwhile, Yun Yao estimated that the poison had already taken effect and smilingly put away the remaining two bottles.
What right did a man like that have to live? Naturally, all three bottles contained poison!
She was already being kind by not killing him inside the inn. She had even deliberately let him crawl outside; otherwise, the innkeeper would have suffered terrible bad luck.
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A swallow fluttered into Jiangnan and came to Hua Manlou’s little residence.
She was a young woman brimming with ambition and desire, intent on using Hua Manlou to set a trap and achieve her own ends.
Thus, she had deliberately sent people from the Green Garment Tower to pursue her, successfully drawing close to Hua Manlou.
Shangguan Feiyan deliberately put on the appearance of a homeless, helpless girl and remained in the little residence.
She was extremely confident in her own charm. After all, countless men had fallen at her feet. How difficult could it be to handle a man who had never known a woman?
Every day, Shangguan Feiyan pretended to be an innocent, guileless girl full of energy, lively as a swallow, while subtly seducing Hua Manlou.
But to her fury, Hua Manlou was completely unmoved.
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Instead, this aroused her competitive spirit. She was determined to win him over.
Shangguan Feiyan did her homework. She rose early and went to bed late, memorizing all kinds of knowledge about flowers so that she could appeal to his interests.
As a result, Hua Manlou’s favorable impression of her did increase—but apparently only in the realm of friendship.
Recently, there had been a Hundred Flowers Gathering. The two of them attended together, chatting merrily all the way home.
Just as they entered the little residence, Hua Manlou caught the familiar fragrance of medicinal herbs.
The scent was faint and had not yet dispersed.
His face lit up with delight.
“She’s been here!”
With that, he ran out of the little residence and searched everywhere, only to return in disappointment.
Shangguan Feiyan had stayed there for so many days, yet this was the first time she had ever seen him so agitated.
She asked, “Hua Manlou, whom are you looking for?”
“An old acquaintance,” he replied.
“Is she the woman you love?”
Hua Manlou did not answer, which amounted to an admission.
Shangguan Feiyan suddenly felt a pang of jealousy and anger.
She had exhausted every means to stir his heart, yet another woman had not even shown her face and had already thrown him into complete disarray.
She asked, “What does the woman you love look like?”
There was a trace of defiance in her voice. She refused to believe that the other woman could be more beautiful than herself.
“I have never seen her face,” Hua Manlou said.
Shangguan Feiyan looked at him in astonishment and confusion. “What?”
Hua Manlou told her what had happened on the mountain long ago.
At that moment, Shangguan Feiyan understood why he had never been moved by her.
The less one could see someone, the more one longed to see her, imagining her over and over again.
Beauty was limited, but imagination was infinite. A beauty who existed only in one’s imagination was naturally the most perfect woman in the world.
It was not merely that Shangguan Feiyan could not surpass such an image—even the woman herself might not be able to compete with it if she appeared before him.
What a masterful strategy. It had completely blocked every path available to her.
Shangguan Feiyan suddenly felt like a fish trapped beneath the ice. No matter what she did, she could not break through the other woman’s restrictions. It was a crushing defeat on an entirely different level.
Burning with resentment, she thought bitterly that the other woman must be grotesquely ugly. Otherwise, why would she refuse to let Hua Manlou see her?
Ugly woman! She had ruined her plans!
Since this path was blocked, Shangguan Feiyan could only take another:
Seduce Lu Xiaofeng.
She refused to believe she would fail again.