The old fox still knows best—especially in the jianghu.
Tian Boguang left late at night but didn’t head straight out of Zhengzhou. Instead, he found another house with a half-closed door to stay the night. Secret prostitutes all operate on the sly; their homes double as brothels, looking no different from ordinary households, perfect for hiding one’s trail.
This was a real headache for Zhong Lingxiu, who could only sneak into the neighboring butcher’s house. The lady of the house had just cooked some pork knuckles, the aroma making her stomach grumble loudly.
Too hungry to resist, she took the chance while the mistress was still asleep and quietly gnawed on a leftover chicken leg from the night before.
The lady of the house cursed at the rats outside the door for a long time.
“Sorry, I’ll pay when I leave…” Zhong Lingxiu silently pressed her palms together in apology and switched to another household by noon.
Rats were a common nuisance these days, and Tian Boguang didn’t care much. After staying alert for two days with no further disturbances, he pondered for a moment, then paid a confidant to buy horses and provisions, disguising himself as a traveling merchant to avoid drawing attention and left Zhengzhou.
A powerful outsider can’t always crush a local strongman. He didn’t take Tiedan seriously but didn’t expect to be constantly harassed by someone spoiling his plans.
This troubled Zhong Lingxiu greatly.
How could a human’s speed compare to horses? Was she really going to let him go just like that?
No way.
She gritted her teeth, paid off her debts to the neighbors, then got ahead of him out of the city. Near the courier road, she hid in the woods, waiting for the red light to approach, then immediately struck to intercept.
A flash of sword light descended from the sky, catching Tian Boguang off guard.
Thinking there was an ambush, he instinctively parried two strikes and tried to escape. After a moment, seeing no one else appeared, he realized he was mistaken. Embarrassed and furious, his killing intent flared, and the blade’s light suddenly turned sharp and cold.
This brief change all happened within seconds—too short for a full assassination. But Zhong Lingxiu’s goal was never to kill.
She had feigned pursuit of Tian Boguang to get close to his horse, then slashed the horse’s hind leg in one swift move.
By the time Tian Boguang reacted, ready to counterattack, she pretended to panic, clumsily blocking two moves. After he slashed her clothes, she immediately retreated, taking three quick steps into the forest and escaped skillfully.
Tian Boguang chased two steps, furrowing his brow and looking up.
It was a cloudy day; heavy black clouds weighed on the horizon. It was late spring, and the forest was lush, letting through only scattered patches of light. The ground was dry, leaving few tracks to follow. The trees were crooked, marked with one or two slash marks.
He reached out to touch the bark, which still felt damp—probably from early morning.
The sword and knife marks were chaotic and varied in depth. They looked like signs of a fight, but only at first glance. Tian Boguang’s experienced eyes swept the area and immediately saw the marks made no sense, impossible to reconstruct the fighters’ moves. It was clearly a deliberate attempt to confuse.
He rubbed his chin, forming a vague guess: the kid was probably alone, so hurriedly faked the traces then came out to stop him, fearing he might get away.
Hua Mountain, Qingcheng, Tai Mountain, or… Heng Mountain? Tian Boguang didn’t jump to conclusions. Given the trouble he’d caused, any of those places were possible.
“Consider yourself lucky,” he snorted coldly and turned to leave the woods.
The wind blew, carrying two or three cold raindrops.
After a stick of incense’s time, he mysteriously reappeared in the shrubs.
The drizzle soaked the soil, ants and insects emerged from their nests, busily transporting food and leaving behind long, thin trails. Birds perched on branches, preening their slightly damp feathers. A few broken feathers fell to the ground, then were swept away by the growing wind.
Tian Boguang carefully studied the rain-soaked traces and, after a while, nodded slightly. “Looks like they really got away.”
He didn’t have the time to hunt down some wet-behind-the-ears kid. But if the kid was foolish enough to stay around, he wouldn’t mind teaching him what the jianghu’s true dangers were.
Too bad—they escaped quickly.
He shook off the water droplets from his clothes and left calmly.
The rain grew heavier.
Zhong Lingxiu lightly leapt down from the treetop, thought for a moment, then turned back toward the city.
She hurried back to the inn at her fastest pace, grabbed her luggage, bought some provisions in a rush, then set off into the countryside wearing her straw hat.
Good luck!
Just as she predicted, the heavy rain made travel inconvenient, so Tian Boguang was staying in a rundown temple on the outskirts.
Having a hidden advantage was truly useful—no more fear of missing the target.
Zhong Lingxiu easily sneaked into the woodshed, climbed onto the straw bed, and resumed surveillance.
The rain stopped in the latter half of the night. She leaned against the window, peeking at the guest room. Seeing no movement from the red light, she went back to sleep. Early the next morning, the sounds of doors and windows opening woke her. She sprang up at once—it was him.
Tian Boguang had been a thief all his life and moved cautiously. At dawn, he set off.
Zhong Lingxiu followed a bit later, “purchasing” two steamed buns from the kitchen, then tracked him at a safe distance.
Honestly, at first she wasn’t confident, too scared to fall too far behind and lose the target, yet too afraid to get too close and expose herself. Getting killed out in the wilderness was one thing, but dying without even managing to do so—or worse, facing something terrifying in her final moments and having her spirit shattered—was her greatest fear.
But after three tense days, nothing happened.
Curious, Zhong Lingxiu continued tailing him while trying to analyze his mindset.
Why hadn’t Tian Boguang noticed her?
Her tracking skills were mediocre. Initially, she crept sneakily behind him, causing passersby to grip their weapons with wary expressions. The rain had been coming and going, leaving clear footprints. She ate dry food and drank cold water, got an upset stomach, and had to borrow the inn’s toilet.
By chance, Tian Boguang, drunk out of his mind, also came out to use the same toilet—they were separated only by a thin wooden door.
A public dry latrine, filthy with feces and urine, flies buzzing everywhere, gathering countless unknown things—anyone who’s been there knows.
Zhong Lingxiu used to wonder why martial artists insisted on grinding their horse stance. Now she understood.
Only with a solid horse stance can one stand steadily on a dry latrine even with a weak stomach!
She nearly fainted inside the latrine, exposed her scent several times, yet never aroused suspicion.
Was it because Tian Boguang underestimated her, thinking she couldn’t keep up? Or did he feel their combat gap was obvious enough that she wouldn’t dare follow alone?
Perhaps both.
Thinking this, Tian Boguang was quite “confident” in some ways.
Confident in his lightness skill for traveling alone, confident in his disguise.
Now Tian Boguang no longer looked like a merchant—he had grown a beard, wore a square scarf on his head, hid his knife in a bundle, looking like a failed scholar. Without displaying any martial skills, it was hard to identify him.
The hidden advantage was a huge help as well.
Zhong Lingxiu reflected on her experiences and gained a lot of confidence.
The next five days were just travel, travel, and more travel.
She quickly grew from practice.
She learned what bandits were like, observed Tian Boguang’s sword techniques, saw how skillfully he buried corpses and handled stolen horses, and even discovered a tavern where he fenced stolen goods. No wonder this guy had money to visit brothels—he often cheated and stole. Even low-quality horses sold for decent money, and the stolen silver was split fifty-fifty with the shop owner.
She learned plenty of jianghu slang. For example, when Tian Boguang reached Runing and wanted to commit crimes, he had to gather intel on which family’s daughters were beautiful and easy to target before making a move. But who would ask about respectable women openly? Anyone overhearing would be killed on the spot, so he had to find the right informants first.
His method was to go to a teahouse, pretend to be wealthy, and attract local con artist gangs. When they sent someone over to approach him, he would feign being fooled, then beat them half to death in a secluded place, forcing them to reveal information about the city.
Of course, he wouldn’t admit to being a flower thief; he claimed he was short on money and wanted to borrow some.
These con artists operated in the city all year round and knew the wealthy families well. Under his threat, they told him everything—the Bai family in the east of the city was in the grain business and quite wealthy. Unfortunately, they had a prodigal son addicted to gambling, visiting brothels, and cockfighting, making them easy marks.
Tian Boguang also asked about the family members and learned the Bai family had a precious daughter, only fifteen, beautiful, and rarely seen.
Someone had tried to use a male opera singer to seduce her and blackmail the Bai family, but the young lady hated opera and the plan failed.
Such a sheltered young lady was Tian Boguang’s favorite target.
He asked a few more questions, then slit the throat of the con artist in his hands and dumped the body in the river, leaving no trace.
During the day, he drank casually, and at night he scoped the Bai residence.
After confirming his target, Zhong Lingxiu immediately found a place to rest.
It had been half a month.
A full fifteen days. She had been living rough, never sleeping through a full night, hardly using the toilet—not just because there was nowhere in the wild, but because she hadn’t brought enough toilet paper. She’d lost weight and carried a strange stench.
She couldn’t wait to stay at an inn, ordered two buckets of hot water to bathe and change, then ate a hot bowl of noodles and collapsed to sleep.
Perhaps from constantly circulating her internal energy on the road, though her body was tired, she woke refreshed.
Without delay, Zhong Lingxiu found a security escort agency and wrote a letter to Hengshan using paper and ink.
Then she went shopping for supplies.
She had once thought the most essential things for traveling the jianghu were money, weapons, and physical strength. But after truly experiencing it, she realized the most important were toilet paper, soap, and salt and sugar.
Out in the wild, drinking untreated water often caused diarrhea.
Luckily, she carried seasonings to replenish electrolytes in time. Otherwise, dying from diarrhea right after entering the jianghu would truly shame her as a martial heroine.
Even so, Zhong Lingxiu had no regrets.
“One bowl of three-flavor stewed noodles,” she ordered loudly at a simple roadside noodle stall, gazing at the embroidered tower of the Bai mansion in the distance. “Add two eggs and a chicken leg.”
“Right away!”
The steaming bowl arrived, accompanied by a glossy, juicy chicken leg. Zhong Lingxiu’s mouth watered as she buried her face in the noodles.
The warm spring sun hung high in the sky, making her sweat all over. She sipped the soup and wiped the sweat from her cheek. Though her internal energy was exhausted, it still flowed slowly and steadily. Perhaps it was an illusion, but fifteen days of continuous travel seemed to have squeezed more potential from her body.
Her stomach was warm and the noodles and chicken leg soothed her weary soul. Strength surged anew through her limbs and bones.
Zhong Lingxiu clenched her fist.
She was still young, and she had plenty of strength left.
“Thank you, boss, I’m done,” she said, putting down her chopsticks and wiping her mouth as she stood.
The dirt road crunched beneath her feet. Her footprints were shallow, with only the wheel ruts clearly visible.
She scraped the soles of her shoes, as if wiping off some dirt, while her peripheral vision discreetly swept over a nearby peddler.
He walked lightly with a straight back. Though dressed as a peddler, he never looked down, openly scanning the surroundings, judging the competence of the escorts: heavy steps, nearly no vigilance, weapons untouched but kept far away.
Tsk, not very impressive.
For someone in the jianghu, this was an extremely easy target.
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