Ysabel, Anh, Jaya, ycb, you are welcome. DongBin, I noticed Gu Long had a few of those, but I simply translated it as is. Perhaps next time I'll add '(sic)' so you'll know it. lawwoo, due to the time difference, technically, this is my first post of 2014.
Chapter 10 – Breaking gold fish bowl.
(Translated by Foxs)
(One)
If it said ‘To find the root [seed] of fish, break the fish bowl’, it would make sense; even if not even a shadow of fish could be found inside the fish bowl.
But ‘To find the root of disaster, break the fish bowl’, the sentence was completely outrageous.
Yet making such a big kite was not an easy matter at all; and then writing those eight big characters in phosphorous ink would require not a few amount of phosphorous ink, and phosphorous ink was not very cheap.
Who would want to spend such big effort just to play a ridiculous joke to mock people without any benefit to self?
Not only Lu Xiaofeng did not show the slightest bit of sign that he was amused, his expression became very serious.
This joke was not a joke.
Immediately he went over to the goldfish jars, eight goldfish jars with similar size, shape, material, color and luster. They were also similar to the goldfish jars that he often saw in the Capital. The only difference was that these jars were as dry as the old granny’s face, as if they were all wrinkly.
He carefully inspected all eight jars, inside and outside. Other than they were covered in sandy soil and dust, nothing was out of ordinary.
Gong Ping practically did not come over; she merely picked a stone from the ground, and threw it hard.
In a way, sometimes women were much more direct and effective than men.
‘Bang!’ a goldfish jar shattered into pieces.
When an empty goldfish jar shattered into pieces, what can you see? Oftentimes the only thing you discovered was that you should not have broken the goldfish jar in the first place.
Lu Xiaofeng let out a wry laugh. He shook his head, “Women are like that, they always thought that they are so smart and divinely brave. If there was any woman who is able to do something that men would admire, perhaps that woman was not a woman.”
Gong Ping did not retort him, she did not even cast a single glance at him, as if she simply did not hear him at all. All along her attention was fixed at the goldfish jar that she had just broken.
What’s so special about an empty goldfish jar that was already broken?
Moon.
At first it was not there. But now it suddenly appeared.
The goldfish jar shattered, the jar’s bottom suddenly sank down, revealing a hole.
Gong Ping slowly turned her head toward Lu Xiaofeng. She looked at Lu Xiaofeng, who was swallowing his saliva, with her pair of big eyes, as big as ginkgo fruit, and asked, “What did you just say?”
“What I just said? I didn’t say anything.”
Lu Xiaofeng’s eyes also grew big. “Just now, I seemed to be farting.”
(Two)
Naturally the hole at the bottom of the goldfish jar was the entrance to a secret tunnel. It was either Gong Ping’s luck was particularly good that she found the entrance in just one shot, or there was such an entrance at the bottom of every goldfish jar. Because although the hole was small, going down, the place was very spacious, just like a small living room built with stone masonry.
It’s just that there is nothing in this living room, except a door. A copper door.
Pushing the copper door open, there was an equally-sized room, with another door. Except that other than the door, there were also some very ancient torture instruments. There was even a ‘burning frame’, which was considered the most cruel torture instrument from the era of King Zhou Jie [? Not sure about this].
Some of these instruments only existed in legends or hearsay, Lu Xiaofeng had never thought that he would be able to see them.
His vision was really not bad. But he really wanted to throw-up; although it was only instrument without anybody being tortured, he still felt like he was going to throw up.
Unexpectedly when he tried to push the door, it did not open. Fortunately there was a sign above the door. There were also eight characters written on the sign, ‘If you are a gentleman, please knock.’ [若是君子, 敬请敲门]. Thereupon, Lu Xiaofeng knocked the door.
In a way, sometimes Lu Xiaofeng could be very obedient. When told to drink wine, he would drink wine, when told to knock the door, he would knock the door; especially if the door belonged to a pretty young girl, not only he would knock even quicker, he would also knock it harder.
This time it was the same. As soon as the door was knocked, it opened. The one opening the door was, unexpectedly, really a beautiful girl. At least twenty years ago she must be a pretty young girl.
The one opening the door turned out to be the lady boss.
(Three)
Lu Xiaofeng’s jaw dropped.
This time he was not scared by the lady boss, rather, he was scared silly by what was inside the stone room.
Whoever saw this kind of situation would stare blankly like an idiot.
The first thing Lu Xiaofeng saw was precisely that little b@stard.
He would never expect right now the little b@stard was acting like a big master, splaying across a couch with his legs stretched out, his left hand held on to a head, his right hand also held on to another head.
Not even in his wildest dream would Lu Xiaofeng ever imagined that these two people would have their heads caught under this little beggar’s control.
These two people were surprisingly the rich and powerful Sha Dahu and the one whose name shook the Jianghu in the past, the ‘Three-hand Goddess’ Xu Ba, Old Lady Xu.
And that was not the only strange thing.
Even stranger was that the coffin shop boss Zhao Xiazi, the grocery store boss Wang Dayan, and the exiled imperial concubine Gong Susu were all here as well. Just like Sha Dahu, they all sat below the little beggar as his prisoners.
Lu Xiaofeng knitted his four eyebrows; if he had eight eyebrows, he would knit all eight eyebrows as well.
“What’s going on here?” He could not figure out.
This matter was actually very simple.
The little beggar was only laughing. He did not open his mouth. The lady boss was the one who spoke, “Liu Chengfeng was not only your friend, he was also our friend. There was too much injustice in his death; just like you, we want to find the murderer who killed him and avenge him.”
By ‘we’, obviously she meant Gong Ping, the little beggar and she. Obviously, the rest of these people were, in their opinion, suspects in this murder case; at least one of these was the murderer.
“Sha Dahu, Zhao Xiazi, Old Lady Xu, Gong Susu, and this husband of mine who does not live up to expectations, all are possible suspects to be Liu Chengfeng’s killer.” The lady boss told Lu Xiaofeng, “Today you saw me in Sha Dahu’s bed, it was because I always wanted to get clear information from him.”
She sighed, “I am sure you understand that to trap a man like Sha Dahu, I must climb onto his bed first.”
Actually, Lu Xiaofeng did not understand anything, until now. Now he started to understand bit by bit.
The little beggar finally opened his mouth, “By going to bed, ten thousand things will be blown clear, even Sha Dahu has fallen into the trap, much less those b@stards?” He pointed to Gong Susu and Xu Ba.
“Although the way I dealt with these two grannys is a bit different, to some extent we still use a bit of handsome-man scheme.”
Lu Xiaofeng laughed.
Just as he started to laugh, he could not continue laughing anymore. Because he suddenly discovered two lethal weapons were striking two vital points on his body. One was the lady boss’ hand, the other was Gong Ping’s leg.
The lady boss’ ten slim fingers, ten sharp fingertips, each fingernail was encased in some kind of thin copper finger cap, each one was as sharp as a sword.
Gong Ping’s feet were wearing arrow boots [this is a literal translation, not sure what it is, but I think we can imagine]. One kick was able to crush stone into powder.
These two kinds of weapon were specific weapons used by women, just like some women’s hearts, poisonous and fierce, and totally unpredictable.
If Lu Xiaofeng was not Lu Xiaofeng, most probably his death was already decided.
If Lu Xiaofeng was not Lu Xiaofeng, he did not have to wait until today to die. Up to date, he would have died three hundred seventy eight times.
That’s why a lot of people believed Lu Xiaofeng could not die.
A long time later Lu Xiaofeng was still saying, “Honestly speaking, in all my life I have been going through a lot of dangers, many times I was this close to being finished. But the most dangerous situation was still that particular time.” He said, “Because at that time I did not expect Gong Ping and the lady boss would kill me. Even more unexpected, their move was so vicious.”
Lu Xiaofeng said, “If now you want me to rate the women in Jianghu whose martial art skill was the highest, the most terrifying, I would still consider them to be one of those women. Because right up to the present, there are indeed not many women in Jianghu who can surpass them.”
He was telling the truth.
That time he escaped those two deadly attack, it was indeed a ‘danger shaving his head’.
But the one more shocked than Lu Xiaofeng that time was the lady boss.
Her martial art skill was the result of hard training. Because of training martial art, the palm of her hands and the sole of her feet developed calluses. Because she wanted to look pretty, so that men would like her even more, she spent a lot of time using lotion to remove these calluses.
Indeed she suffered not a few of hardship. Therefore, whenever she made a move, she had high confidence in herself. Although she knew that Lu Xiaofeng was a man that was very difficult to deal with, she was very confident of her own skill.
But she soon found herself to be wrong.
Because her strike was originally aimed at the small of Lu Xiaofeng’s back, using the thin-as-blade finger caps on her five fingers, to scratch Lu Xiaofeng’s xiaoyao [lit. laughter waist] acupoint. But the one she scratched was the waist of Gong Ping’s pants.
It was not clear what technique Lu Xiaofeng has used, but suddenly he already slipped five, six chi [Chinese foot, about 1/3 of a meter] away.
The waist of Gong Ping’s pants was ripped open, revealing a pair of legs.
A pair of slender, firm, and elastic legs. A pair once-a-man-sees-it-he-will-never-forget kind of legs.
Lu Xiaofeng had seen this pair of legs.
At the rear couryard of Zhao Xiazi’s coffin shop, beneath the flying violet long skirt. The legs he saw were precisely this pair of legs, he was absolutely sure about it.
He stared blankly.
Any man who suddenly saw this kind of legs, who saw the legs suddenly appeared behind a ripped pants, he would certainly stare blankly as well. It’s just that the reason Lu Xiaofeng was staring blankly this time was a bit different to the great majority of other men in the universe. This time he was dumbfounded, because ever since he knew Gong Ping, he had never expected that the old lady who wanted to kill him, whose legs exposed underneath the violet long skirt, could be Gong Ping.
Emotions sometimes can blind you, oftentimes it could cover the eyes, so that we cannot see what we ought to see.
The fortunate thing was that now he has seen it. The unfortunate thing was also now he has seen it.
Between the fortunate and unfortunate, oftentimes there was a blank space.
During this blank space, one could stare blankly.
The period when one was staring blankly, oftentimes it was other people’s good opportunity.
Suddenly, all those people who were not supposed to move began to move. Sha Dahu, Zhao Xiazi, Wang Dayan, Gong Susu, and Xu Ba were clearly being immobilized, but in that instant all started to move. Not only that, their movement was very fast, very accurate, very vicious.
This kind of fast, accurate, and vicious move, definitely was not something that people who grew up in this kind of desolate place were capable of achieving.
If a person was able to move this fast, this accurate, and this vicious, it does not matter which criteria is being used, this person would definitely be considered one of the best martial art experts in Jianghu.
‘Fifty’. It seems to be a large number. But if you counted how many people there were mingling in Jianghu, how many people were struggling to make their names in Jianghu, and how many actually managed to ‘make it’ in Jianghu?
In Jianghu, every day, every night, every moment, how many people were involved in decisive battle in order to seek survival, to preserve their lives? How many were actually defeated, how many met their death, and how many actually achieve victory?
If you could think about these things, then you will know that the matter of life and death, the matter of victory or defeat, are tied up to some extent with a delicate split second.
In such a delicate split second, Lu Xiaofeng fell.
If in such a split second, after receiving so much well-planned all-out attack by so many martial art experts, one person was still able to stand, then nobody in this world could fall.
To a person who had mingled in Jianghu for many years, who had been famous also for many years, making friends in countless number, and becoming enemies with also countless people, falling down could only mean one thing: death.
How could Lu Xiaofeng die?
(Four)
No one believed Lu Xiaofeng could die. Even if someone saw with his own eyes that someone else has chopped Lu Xiaofeng’s neck, he still would not believe that the Lu Xiaofeng, who could not die, would actually give up his ghost and return to the western paradise.
Yet this time Lu Xiaofeng really gave up his ghost and returned to the western paradise.
What’s going on here?