Chapter 19: Contrarian Temperament
Liu Tong covered his injured arm, staring in shock at the bailiff who had raised his saber against him. “Why?”
“Blame only yourself for knowing too much!” The bailiff’s eyes were fierce as he slashed at him again.
“Ugh!” The sharp blade sliced a long gash across Liu Tong’s belly, causing him to shrink back in pain and turn to run.
Xie Zhiqiang had somehow gotten behind him and kicked him hard, sending him crashing into the prison cart.
The prison cart shook, and Lu Chengjing opened his eyes as a bright red blood bead fell from his long lashes.
“Xie Zhiqiang, I thought of you as my best brother, yet you want to harm me!” Liu Tong grabbed the prison cart and stood up, angrily questioning him in disbelief.
Xie Zhiqiang sneered coldly. “Brother? When Lord Li appreciated and promoted you, did you think of me as your brother? All that ‘share fortune and hardship’ was fake!”
“It’s not fake.” Liu Tong explained, “Lord Li has already promised me that in two days he will transfer you to his side, to be his left and right arms together with me.”
“Hypocrite!” Xie Zhiqiang snorted coldly and thrust his saber at Liu Tong.
He didn’t need Liu Tong’s false concern. As long as he killed Liu Tong, Lord Tian would promote him to constable and give him two hundred taels of silver.
His luck was yet to come!
Heat surged in Xie Zhiqiang’s heart, and the saber in his hand swung faster and faster. Liu Tong could only draw his saber to barely cope, blood visible all over his body.
While the two fought, the bailiff held his saber, opened the prison cart, and dragged Lu Chengjing out.
Lu Chengjing fell heavily to the ground. Under the heavy shackles, the numbness in his body suddenly intensified, almost suffocating him.
He coughed again and again, his thin back heaving as if he were about to cough up his lungs.
The bailiff dragged him over and took out the key to unlock the shackles on him.
“Cough cough cough…” As the pressure on his shoulders and neck eased, Lu Chengjing gradually caught his breath, and the coughing weakened.
Just as he tried to prop himself up, a foot in a black boot stepped hard on his shoulder, pressing him face-down into the dirt, nearly suffocating him.
Almost instinctively, Lu Chengjing struggled fiercely.
When he thought he would be smothered in the dirt, someone suddenly yanked him up and punched him in the stomach.
He immediately coughed up a mouthful of blood foam, his vision going black.
The bailiff grabbed Lu Chengjing by the hair and pulled him up. Seeing that Lu Chengjing had passed out, he satisfactorily let him down and turned to look toward Liu Tong and Xie Zhiqiang.
Liu Tong was almost a blood-soaked man now, standing only supported by a surge of hatred.
“Bang!”
Xie Zhiqiang knocked the official saber from Liu Tong’s hand and stabbed into his abdomen. The silver-white blade instantly turned red, blood dripping down the tip.
Xie Zhiqiang yanked the saber back hard. Liu Tong spat out a mouthful of blood with a “puff” and collapsed softly to the ground.
Xie Zhiqiang kicked Liu Tong once and saw his chest still rising and falling, then said to the bailiff, “Alright, take that kid away—dodge!”
He shouted in alarm and ran toward the bailiff, but it was already too late.
A saber pierced through the chest. The bailiff only had time to look down before dying with eyes wide open.
Lu Chengjing’s face was covered in gray dirt and mud, but his eyes were strikingly bright, like a hungry leopard lurking in the night for prey.
He gasped heavily, staggering as he yanked the saber out with force. Fresh red blood splashed on his body and face, but he laughed freely, a terrifying madness in his eyes.
A small porcelain bottle rolled half a circle at his feet.
Lu Chengjing immediately bent down to pick it up, carefully wiping the mud off the bottle with his bloodstained sleeve, then treasured it away into his bosom.
Xie Zhiqiang was so shocked he forgot to react.
Was this still that immortal-like, gentle-as-jade Third Son Lu?
The one before him was clearly a demon crawled out from hell.
A chill swept through his body, and Xie Zhiqiang couldn’t help shivering, his face then turning gloomy.
He was just a scholar without the strength to truss a chicken, and a long-ill one at that—yet he was trembling in fear.
His hand tightened on the official saber. Xie Zhiqiang raised his full guard and charged at Lu Chengjing.
Lu Chengjing raised his saber to meet him.
But he was already at the end of his strength; that earlier burst was only thanks to the spiritual medicine in the small porcelain bottle.
From the moment the three people escorted him out of the prison cell, he had been waiting for the opportunity.
He pretended to pass out. The bailiff had his back to him, fully focused on Liu Tong and Xie Zhiqiang’s fight, completely off guard against him—he knew the chance had come.
The water in the porcelain bottle was colorless and tasteless, but drinking it gave him a burst of strength for a short time, and the pain in his body lessened greatly.
Pick up saber, kill, draw saber—all in one breath.
He thought his hand would shake, but it didn’t; it was as steady as when writing or painting.
He thought he would feel guilt, but no—his heart was calm as a mirror, not a single ripple.
Perhaps his mother was right; he really was a monster.
Monsters shouldn’t be cared for, shouldn’t be loved, and shouldn’t come into this world.
Now everything was over.
The slender hand could no longer hold the bloodstained official saber. Lu Chengjing closed his eyes, awaiting his own fate.
Xie Zhiqiang had gained several wounds, furious to the extreme.
Clearly just a scholar, yet he had wounded him like this!
Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!
Red threads appeared in his eyes as he slashed fiercely at Lu Chengjing’s neck with the saber.
Suddenly, a figure in green appeared like a ghost between them, gripped the long saber, and with a gentle bend, the fine steel long saber snapped inch by inch into a pile of useless fragments.
Xie Zhiqiang stared in shock, his eyes wide. Breaking a blade barehanded—what kind of monster was this woman?
Before he could think of the answer, Shang Wan slapped her palm coldly on his head, knocking him out.
“Tsk tsk, really pathetic.” Shang Wan squatted down, pinched Lu Chengjing’s chin, took out a handkerchief, and gently, bit by bit, wiped the blood and mud from his face, asking with interest, “Whose blood is it?”
“All of it.” Lu Chengjing’s body ached as if it would shatter. He half-opened his eyes powerlessly to look at the person before him.
Clearly the same face, yet different in every way.
“Not a bad deal.” Shang Wan was barely satisfied and pried open his mouth to feed him spiritual spring water.
Lu Chengjing thought Shang Wan was pouring from the bottle into his mouth. The familiar liquid entered, and he swallowed it all with a roll of his throat.
Shang Wan placed her hand on his pulse, felt it regain strength, then stood up, planning to check on the man over there who was covered in blood but still breathing.
A slight pull came from her hem, and Shang Wan stopped, looking down.
A bloodstained, pretty hand was clutching her hem. Because its owner had no strength, only two fingers lightly hooked it—as if she took one more step, the hand would be left behind.
“Want me to stay with you?”
The hand’s owner didn’t answer, but the fingers gripped so hard the knuckles turned white.
“Alright.” In Shang Wan’s heart, her own pretty vase was naturally more important.
She unhesitatingly squatted down again, poked Lu Chengjing’s damaged half-face with her finger, a bit displeased.
Lu Chengjing’s long lashes trembled slightly, and he completely passed out, unable to hold on.
“Contrary temper.” Shang Wan muttered, scooped him up horizontally, and went together to see Liu Tong lying in the pool of blood.
Witnesses, naturally the more the better—her vase couldn’t go back to the prison to suffer.
