Chapter 4
The Man Called “Lucky”
Though the unwillingness was written all over his face, Long Ming also had no room to negotiate. “Alright, you all wait here. After the time it takes a stick of incense to burn we’ll make the transaction.”
With that, he walked slowly toward the doorway…
Nangong Xue steeled herself and was ready to bite her tongue off and kill herself when suddenly Long Ming cried out and staggered back, holding his chest!
“Who are you?” Poison Eighteen helped steady Long Ming and glared at the person who slowly walked into the room.
This person was around 27 or 28, wearing light blue tightfit clothes made from the finest material and tailored in the newest style. A large robe was draped over that. At a glance one got the feeling of carefree nonchalance. He might not have been as handsome as Poison Eighteen, but his every move betrayed an ineffable manly air.
He casually strolled over to Poison Eighteen and smiled. “I’m her neighbor.
“Neighbor?” Poison Eighteen sized him up.
“Yes,” he said calmly. “I’m staying in the room next door.”
“Why did you hit me?” Long Ming glowered at him as he rubbed his chest.
“No,” he said, shaking his head, “I merely gently pushed you. If I hadn’t we would have run into each other. You seemed to have forgotten to take your eyes with you when you were walking, or else how did you not see me about to enter?”
“Bull-fucking-shit!” Long Ming glared. Lately he’d had the worst luck. A string of unfortunate events had given him a bellyful of anger with nowhere to vent it. Now, with Poison Eighteen and the Three Wolves of Taihu’s backing, he had a bit more courage. Anger plus courage made him insufferably arrogant, and his voice was so loud it could burst one’s eardrums. “I don’t care who you are, kneel down at once and apologize to your Big Daddy, then tuck your tail between your legs and scram, and don’t ever let me see you again!”
“I’m afraid that will be difficult.” The man spoke slowly and unperturbed, a cynical smile on his lips. “A man kneeling is as precious as gold. If you want me to kneel, I’m afraid you couldn’t afford it; if you want me to tuck in my tail and and scram, are you telling me you can’t see that I have no tail? If you don’t want to see me again, that’s easy, just become a blind man, then won’t you be unable to see anything?”
Nangong Xue couldn’t help but want to laugh.
Long Ming though was so mad his face turned the color of pork liver. He bellowed, “Foul little brat, watch me rip your mouth off and feed it to the dogs!”
As he said this, he pounced!
“Hold on!” Poison Eighteen suddenly grabbed him. He rebuked him in a low voice, “Long Ming, why can’t you calm down a bit?”
“Well said.” The man seemed to want to get Long Ming riled up even more. “A barking dog usually doesn’t bite.”
Long Ming was so mad he was almost bawling, but he was held back by Poison Eighteen. Poison Eighteen was a coolheaded person. After all, he had seen a lot more than Long Ming had. He calmly said, “By the looks of you you’re one of us, so you know that those who run around in the jianghu value candid straightforwardness and detest hemming and hawing. Why don’t you just get to the point about why you’re here?”
“Very good, all my life I’ve always preferred to deal with frank, straightforward people.” The man smiled. “I want you all to let that young lady go.”
“Why?” Poison Eighteen grunted.
“No reason,” the man replied plainly.
Anger glided across Poison Eighteen’s eyes. “You want to poke your nose in and play the hero?”
“Play the hero, no,” the man said with his hands leisurely clasped behind his back, “but poke my nose in, yes. Everyone has different hobbies, wouldn’t you say?”
“It certainly is a refined hobby.” Poison Eighteen regarded him coldly. “In this world, people who poke their nose into others’ business usually don’t live long. Don’t you know that?”
Poison Eighteen’s mind was racing as he said this. According to his experience and intuition, the person before him was by no means a simple person. He knew that most people who liked to meddle were people of some ability. If someone didn’t have guts, how could they dare join Mount Liang?1
Now he knew why this person was here, but he still didn’t know who he was, and that didn’t square with Poison Eighteen’s jianghu principles. He never fought with anyone he didn’t know. That’s how extremely cautious and careful a person he was, he went about things steadily and struck sure blows.
“I’m Poison Eighteen, these three are the Three Wolves of Taihu, and this is Xiong Batian’s first disciple, Long Ming.” Poison Eighteen was ostensibly introducing everyone, but actually he was revealing the names to gauge the other’s reaction. After all, Poison Eighteen was somebody in the jianghu, and he had five against one superiority. He hoped this person would realize the situation and retreat. He asked, “And you? We still don’t know Your Excellency’s honorable name. If we were to just fight like this, wouldn’t that be too muddled? If I should die, how could I report it to King Yama?”
The man looked at Poison Eighteen and suddenly sighed. “Now I know how you have survived until today. There’s probably not a person in the world who’s more cautious and careful than you, Poison Eighteen.”
He paused slightly, then with a forced smile said, “In fact, a person as intelligent as you ought to be able to guess who I am. Why don’t you think about it carefully?”
Just then, Big Wolf. standing beside Poison Eighteen and silent up to now, suddenly leaned over and whispered a few words into his ear, and Poison Eighteen’s face suddenly sank and he looked at the man stupefied.
Suddenly, he and the Three Wolves of Taihu desperately beat a retreat and rushed out the door and were gone in the blink of an eye.
Long Ming never expected that to happen. After a moment of being dumbstruck, he called out, “Hey, hey, why are you all running away?”
The man eyed him coldly. “Because they are all intelligent people, so they ran. If you don’t go too, the biggest fool in the world will be you.”
“I’m not one to be taken in, what are you some evil spirit or monster with three heads and six arms or something?” Long Ming already had a bellyful of anger, how could he take this ridicule. Anyhow he was going to have to fight it out with him.
He struck as he spoke, five punched and three kicks with a whooshing sound, quick and relentless, enveloping the man’s whole body!
Long Ming’s martial arts was actually not bad. At least he was Xiong Batian’s most favored disciple, and his move “Through the Pass to Behead the General” was executed brilliantly so that one had to inwardly praise it.
But he suddenly stopped his offensive, because he realized the man wasn’t there. He turned and saw the man standing there in perfect condition behind him, and with a dispiriting smile on his face.
So mad he nearly fainted, Long Ming howled and pounced like a ferocious tiger seizing a sheep, and he let loose with his one move with five patterns, “Hot Pursuit, Fierce Attack”, executing it as smooth as quicksilver.
This move indeed was ferocious and ruthless. The unfortunate thing was, it went just like last time, and he once again lost the man.
This time the man wasn’t standing behind him, but at some point hat seated himself in a chair by a round table. What enraged Long Ming was that he calmly raised the teapot from the table and poured himself a cup, then leisurely took a sip…
Long Ming, like Xiong Batian, had the temper of an irascible mule, but after all he wasn’t an idiot. If he was, how could Nangong Xue have fallen into his hands. Since he wasn’t an idiot, of course he wasn’t going to overreach himself and hang around. He was already rushing out the door…
Now, Nangong Xue could finally breath a sigh of relief.
X X X
But she didn’t look happy, she just looked at him coldly and asked, “Who are you? Why did you save me?”
The man must have thought she would say some words of thanks, but instead her attitude was so cold and with an air of hostility, so he couldn’t help but look at her dumbly with a wry smile. “Meddlers are always thought disagreeable. Seems that saying is not wrong at all.”
Nangong Xue kept quiet, her eyes fixed on him like a leopard’s, with a look like she was on guard against an ill-intentioned hunter.
The man seemed unimpressed but also seemed to find it funny. He couldn’t help but give another wry smile. “Even though I don’t mind if you don’t say thanks, at the very least you could be a bit more friendly. I did drive those people off for you, didn’t I?”
Nangong Xue really ought to thank him. If not for his timely rescue, the situation she’d be in right now was too unbearable to think about. But Nangong Xue did not at all hide her hostility toward him. She was practically glaring at him. It was really rude.
Fortunately, the man didn’t seem to mind. He sipped his tea and mumbled to himself, “Actually that’s how it ought to be. In the jianghu, one can’t just casually trust strangers.”
Nangong Xue had her reasons. It was because of doing Poison Eighteen a favor and allowing him to sit with her that led her to fall into his trap. Even though she had killed Xiong Batian, it wasn’t intentional. Long Ming’s desire to avenge his master was certainly no cause for criticism, but he also should have stopped to low-class trying to violate her. Poison Eighteen and Long Ming were both good-looking men, and the man before her was also quite eye-catching, but Nangong Xue firmly believed that all good-looking men were full of ulterior motives, full of filth!
And from her mother’s and her master’s miserable fates she was convinced that men were the world’s most heartless animals.
So even though this person had saved her, she still believed he was up to no good.
Even so, the man hadn’t done anything bad. He actually propped his feet up on the table and rocked his chair back and forth till it creaked, eyes closed, as if he were really comfortable.
Nangong Xue still said nothing. She hoped to keep it that way. She knew that just one more double-hour or so and the poison in her system would disperse and then she would have nothing to fear.
“in fact,” the man mumbled to himself, “If a person were a bit more careful they’d know that if the tea or wine had an odd smell to it then there was a problem, because most poisons were fragrant and sweet. If not, a bitter and foul-smelling poison would not likely be able to kill too many people.”
Nangong Xue actually already knew that, it was just that at the time her attention was on the Three Wolves of Taihu, so she lost sight of the cup of tea, but the main reason was that she was not on her guard against Poison Eighteen. Now she knew that even if he looked like a gentle, urbane, courteous gentleman, you still couldn’t slacken your vigilance.
But the man before her seemed careless and casual. Was he harboring unfathomable motives like Poison Eighteen had been?
The man spoke again, eyes still closed, rocking his chair. “To call you unlucky is actually fortunate. If he had used a bowel-penetrating poison, I’m afraid not even old man King Yama’s grandad could save you. Long Ming is to thank because he wanted you captured alive, so Poison Eighteen didn’t use a fatal poison. No need to worry, after about another double-hour, the poison’s effectiveness will wear off.”
Nangong Xue was somewhat astonished and couldn’t resist saying, “How do you know so much about it, are you one of them?”
“There’s a lot of coincidences in the world,” the man said slowly, leisurely. “They were waiting there a long time for you to show up, I just happened to be eating at the table next to them.”
“So you overheard their plan?” Nangong Xue asked.
The man gave a light chuckle. “That’s the advantage of those with sharp ears. You often hear things people don’t want anyone to know about.”
Nangong Xue was silent. Suddenly she asked, “Since you already knew, why didn’t you save me when Long Ming first appeared?”
“Finally you’re convinced I was saving you.” The man clicked his tongue twice. “If I had saved you then, would you have trusted me?”
Nangong Xue was struck dumb.
The man was right. If he had come out to save her right at Nangong Xue’s most perilous moment, she wouldn’t have trusted him. If he had come out right when Long Ming first appeared, wouldn’t she be even less likely to trust him?”
Once bitten by a snake, one shies at a well rope for ten year. Nangong Xue still didn’t trust him. “For me to trust you my internal strength has to recover first.”
The man smiled faintly, “I’ve been sitting here just waiting for your martial arts to recover. You really think I like endlessly grinding down my teeth arguing with a woman like you?”
An insulted indignance welled up in her. She gave him a cross look, glaring. She hmphed and asked, “What kind of woman am I?”
The man said casually, “You belong to a kind of woman I will never like.”
Nangong Xue was taken aback. She didn’t expect him to say something like that so bluntly to a woman. She was about to go off but didn’t. After all they had nothing to do with each other. Even though what he said angered her, it was still way better than those men who say one thing and mean another with their honeyed words.
Nangong Xue gave a cold hmph. “Men are just like dogs, always like hearing themselves bark and blow their own horn.”
Those were offensive words, but the man didn’t mind a bit. He actually nodded and said, “You’re right, men sometimes do like to hear themselves talk, but many woman are like a female dog, they like men who talk big.”
Nangong Xue glared. “I’m not that kind of woman!”
The man smiled. “Then what kind of female dog are you like?”
Nangong Xue was so mad she couldn’t speak.
She suddenly felt she was really dumb. Why was she talking about this with him? Why get angry over him?
When it was clear she wasn’t going to say anything, the man quieted down as well.
Finally, it was still Nangong Xue who broke the silence, “Does a man like you have a name?”
“Of course, even dogs usually have names, much less people,” the man replied languidly. Right now he was a lot like a lazy dog sunning itself in the winter sun, so relaxed and carefree and lethargic.
Nangong Xue couldn’t resist. “Your name’s not Lucky, right?”
People always liked naming dogs Lucky, Lil Flower, Blackie…etc. Nangong Xue was obviously mocking him.
Surprisingly, the man didn’t take offense but instead smiled sweetly. “Excellent, that’s a good name. Just call me Lucky.”
Nangong Xue blurted out, “You’re really called Lucky?”
X X X
Time always passes quickly when people are chatting. Before they knew it, a double-hour had passed.
Nangong Xue had completely recovered her internal strength.
Now she wasn’t afraid of anything, and she was convinced that that this man called Lucky had really sincerely saved her.
Nangong Xue jumped off the bed. “I’m good now.”
“Lucky” stood up, said, “Thank heavens,” and headed for the door.
“You’re leaving?” Nangong Xue was a bit surprised.
Lucky blinked. “Why shouldn’t I leave? Should I stick around for you to give me a drubbing, then leave?”
Nangong Xue seemed somewhat embarrassed. “Anyway, you saved me one, so I ought to thank you.”
“No need,” Lucky said, not even looking back. “You need to save your energy and think about how to deal with Silver Sabre.”
As Nangong Xue watched him leave, a thread of uncertainty crept in.
Silver Sabre, was he really coming?
