“Turn around and face the wall,” Qi Buyan commanded, scanning the main room and choosing a spot for He Sui’an to stand. “Count the number of apricot flowers in the painting on the wall and tell me later.”
Obediently clutching her bundle, He Sui’an quickly walked over and turned her back to everyone in the main room.
Red and silver snakes crawled behind her.
The soldiers who wanted to step forward hesitated. At General Li’s command, they had no choice but to raise their spears and stab at the back of her head.
He Sui’an tried her best to dismiss distracting thoughts, not thinking about what they were going to do next. She lifted her head to count the flowers in the painting, but miscounted in the blink of an eye, so she pointed at the flowers as she counted.
One, two, three…
The spears didn’t even touch a strand of He Sui’an’s hair, and the soldiers fell one after another.
The heavy thud of bodies hitting the ground interrupted her counting.
She took a deep breath and continued counting.
The soldiers who wanted to kill He Sui’an were bitten by the snakes and, in no time, their skin turned blue, and they foamed at the mouth. The snakes slithered over their still-warm corpses, hissing as they started to feast.
General Li’s face twisted in a grimace. He threw down his light sword and took up his usual broadsword.
The blade’s wind was fierce, and the cold light was chilling.
The room was filled with murderous intent, and the clash of blades and swords was constant. Perhaps it was because he was old and no longer as strong as the young, General Li was panting and sweating heavily after only a few moments of fierce fighting.
At this point, General Li had no way out.
He was determined to kill this insolent young Gu poison master from Miaojiang’s Tianshui Village today, to eliminate any future threats.
General Li, with incredible strength, lifted his broadsword, almost as heavy as a load of grain, and swung it fiercely at Qi Buyan. The blade wind brushed past the young man’s face. Qi Buyan flicked his fingers and threw a small bell at General Li’s wrist.
Clang.
It hit.
A tiny bell, yet it made General Li’s muscles and bones go numb, giving the illusion that his bones were about to shatter. He almost lost his grip as his wrist twisted under the impact.
The broadsword’s edge grazed past Qi Buyan.
He smiled at General Li.
Cold sweat poured down General Li’s face like water as he glanced at the agile, ghost-like youth.
Outside, more soldiers tried to rush in. Qi Buyan threw something towards the door. It was nearly transparent, like silkworm threads, with insects at each end, sticking to the beams and pulling out a web.
In their haste to rush in, they didn’t see it and stopped in their tracks when they ran into it.
General Li turned around and angrily shouted.
“Stand…”
The only response he received was the sight of his personal guards’ bodies, cut into pieces by the Heavenly Silk, with fragments of white bones still attached to bits of flesh falling to the ground.
Blood stained the Heavenly Silk, and the insects hanging from the beam slid down to suck the blood droplets. The plump Heavenly Silkworms quickly drank all the blood from the silk.
General Li was horrified.
The Heavenly Silk still firmly blocked the door.
The other guards did not dare to act rashly. They tried to use objects to remove the Heavenly Silk.
They tried to pierce it with long spears, but the spears broke; they tried to cut it with scimitars, but the scimitars shattered. The Heavenly Silk seemed as impenetrable as a wall of copper, no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t get through it. They could only helplessly watch from the outside.
Qi Buyan twirled a small bell between his fingers, suppressing his delighted gasps, his fox-like eyes curving into a smile as he laughed.
General Li realized he could no longer confront this head-on and slowly lowered his broadsword.
He said, “Young Master Qi.”
Qi Buyan replied, “What’s the matter?”
General Li felt it was necessary to have a good talk with this young man. “May I ask why you are determined to kill me?”
If he relented, there might still be room for negotiation.
“You’re mistaken.” Qi Buyan shook his head. “As long as you fulfill your promise, I don’t intend to kill you today. I would only plant a small Gu poison in you, allowing you to live a few more days.”
Qi Buyan also knew that relenting provided room for negotiation, but he never needed it.
It’s best to do things as agreed.
He said gently, “Because I want to take the most important thing from you. In your heart, the most important thing isn’t your son, nor your title as a general, nor gold and jewels.”
“It’s your life.”
Before the Gu was lifted, General Li did not know that the price was his life. Otherwise, he would rather have his son die than agree to it.
General Li neither admitted nor denied it. “How are you so sure?”
Qi Buyan leaned against the pillar and thought for a moment.
“You seem very afraid of death.”
In fact, there was another reason: on the same day that General Jiang of Weicheng died, his wife, Madam Shen, gave her most important possession to Qi Buyan, asking him to fulfill a wish for her.
That wish was to kill General Li of Jincheng. Madam Shen had hysterically accused General Li of colluding with the Hu people to breach Weicheng.
Qi Buyan certainly didn’t care about these matters.
Even if the Great Zhou was destroyed by the Hu people, it had nothing to do with him. He had always only cared about transactions.
He wasn’t particularly interested in hearing Madam Shen’s reasons for claiming that General Li colluded with the Hu people to breach Weicheng, but Madam Shen happened to possess something he wanted.
So he agreed.
He agreed very readily.
However, Qi Buyan had a rule when making deals with others: if it didn’t involve Gu poison, he wouldn’t directly help Madam Shen kill General Li. But he could place a lethal Gu on General Li.
This time, Qi Buyan’s actions could be considered as completing two Gu-related transactions at once: one was to remove the Gu from General Li’s son, and the other was to place a lethal Gu on General Li for Madam Shen.
If General Li wanted to kill him,
then the situation would be very different.
At that point, Qi Buyan could directly counterattack. He could also secretly place a Gu on General Li, but since it was a transaction, both parties had to know the cost for it to be considered a deal.
So, this morning, Qi Buyan got up, went to the main hall, had a cup of tea with General Li, and amiably said to him, “I am going to place a lethal Gu on you. This is your payment for our transaction.”
Unsurprisingly, General Li disagreed.
A normal person wouldn’t agree.
But Qi Buyan wouldn’t stop just because General Li disagreed. Transactions couldn’t be left unfinished.
When General Li heard Qi Buyan mention General Jiang’s wife, Madam Shen, a malicious glint flashed in his eyes, and he angrily cursed, “That venomous woman!”
He Sui’an, who was counting apricot blossoms, froze in mid-action, caught off guard.
Was the breach of Weicheng related to General Li?
How could he do such a thing?
So many people died in Weicheng, corpses were strewn everywhere, and the people were destitute. The reason wasn’t that General Jiang failed to defend the city but that someone had colluded from within.
What could be General Li’s reason for doing this? She couldn’t understand.
He was the general sent by Great Zhou to guard the border. Not only did he fail to protect the people of Great Zhou to the best of his ability, but he also colluded with the Hu people, causing Weicheng to fall into such a tragic state.
He Sui’an felt increasingly terrified by the darkness of human nature.
She wanted to look back at General Li but feared seeing the corpses all over the ground, so she restrained herself.
General Li still wanted to negotiate with Qi Buyan.
But Qi Buyan didn’t give him that chance.
A red and black beetle, with patterns on its back, flew out from Qi Buyan’s wrist guard, moving at a speed that no ordinary person could avoid.
As soon as the beetle touched General Li’s skin, it burrowed in, causing only the pain of a mosquito bite.
On any other day, he wouldn’t have cared.
But today was different. General Li knew that this slight pain meant a Gu had entered his body, and he was naturally terrified, frantically scratching at the affected skin.
Even though he scratched it raw, he couldn’t remove the Gu that had entered his body.
No, he didn’t want to die.
The Gu seemed to take effect, and General Li’s hands and feet went weak and numb. He couldn’t stand and fell to the ground.
Abandoning his general’s dignity, he spoke incoherently, “Young Master Qi, that venomous woman, no, Madam Jiang misunderstood. The real traitor isn’t me; I was just following orders.”
Qi Buyan tilted his head slightly, and the bell at the end of his hair made a clear sound.
The young man bent over in laughter.
He slowly crouched down, resting his left hand on his knee, his palm supporting his chin, looking down at the quickly paralyzed General Li.
Qi Buyan murmured, “Is that so?”
General Li, thinking there was hope, showed a glimmer of expectation in his eyes.
But Qi Buyan’s next words dashed him to despair: “Who the real traitor is has nothing to do with me. I don’t care. I only need to fulfill my transaction with her.”
He appeared to offer a sincere suggestion, as if he genuinely pitied and sympathized with General Li, but the corners of his lips curled upwards: “Perhaps you can explain it to her in the afterlife.”
“Sorry, I can’t help you.”
With that, the young man pressed the Gu, which had already scurried to General Li’s face.
The lethal Gu wouldn’t kill immediately. The afflicted person would die on the fourth day after enduring excruciating, bone-eroding pain.
The pain would start now and last until death.
Soon, he wouldn’t even be able to speak.
General Li tried to reach out to grab Qi Buyan, but his hand wouldn’t move.
Qi Buyan stood up, as if nothing had happened, and asked He Sui’an, “My business is done. You should have finished counting by now. How many apricot blossoms are there in this painting?”
She trembled, “I forgot.”
She had lost count while listening to their conversation.
He, looking as compassionate as a Bodhisattva, lightly traced the bloodstained wooden table with his finger, “It’s alright. I’ll tell you how many there are: one hundred and forty-four. I counted while drinking tea.”
Qi Buyan walked over and touched one of the apricot blossoms in the painting with his fingertip, leaving a red mark as he smiled innocently, “So beautiful.”
He Sui’an wasn’t mentally prepared to turn around and look behind her, so she kept her gaze fixed on the wall painting.
Qi Buyan stood beside her.
“Do you still want to keep looking?” he asked.
He Sui’an stole a glance at his profile, stained with a few drops of blood. The boy’s butterfly tattoo extended just below his neck. His skin was so fair that most of the butterfly was hidden under his clothes, but its wings were still visible.
In the bright and clean hall, the butterfly’s blue, vibrant and brilliant color was even more noticeable.
She looked for only a moment before averting her gaze. “Do people from your place all have butterflies?”
“Yes, the colors and shapes just vary.”
“Why do you have them?”
“Do you want one too?”
The boy laughed, “It’s easy. Just throw someone into a pit of snakes for a day and a night, and when they come out, their body will have butterflies. But you’re so afraid of snakes, you definitely couldn’t handle it.”
Qi Buyan touched He Sui’an’s soft, white cheek with his blood-stained fingertip, smudging her.
A blue wrist guard clasped his elegant wrist, and seven small silver bells from Tianshui Village dangled from a chain, swaying and brushing against her.
They were cool to the touch.
She could also smell the strange fragrance mixed with the scent of blood on him.
Qi Buyan added, “It’s not impossible for people outside Tianshui Village to have butterflies temporarily. According to the elders of Tianshui Village, it happens if you mate with someone from Tianshui Village.”
