Flower Stealing Master

Song Qingshu’s question left Qi Fang momentarily at a loss. On one hand, she deeply resented Wan Gui for abandoning her and plotting her death to climb higher — on the other, years of marriage left some feeling that couldn’t simply be declared absent.

After a long internal struggle, Qi Fang raised her eyes to him. “Do you… want me to go?”

Song Qingshu smiled gently. “That’s for you to decide.”

“I’ll do whatever you think best.” Her face coloured as she said it. These past weeks had made her comfortable leaning on this man.

“Then let’s go together. A clean break from the old life might be exactly what you need.” He turned to Zhou Zhiruo. “Zhiruo — this is still the Minister’s estate. If things turn violent with the guards, Kongxincai could get hurt. Take her outside and wait for us.”

Zhou Zhiruo was reluctant, but she saw the logic clearly enough. Sending Qi Fang out with the child while her martial arts were still limited was too risky — if the Minister’s household got hold of them it would constrain everything. Taking the child out herself was the safer choice. “Fine. Be quick once it’s done.” She touched a toe to the ground and vanished into the night, the child in her arms.

“Shall we?” Song Qingshu noticed Qi Fang staring after the direction Zhou Zhiruo had disappeared, and laughed quietly. “She’s not going to run off with Kongxincai.”

Qi Fang went pink and looked away. “Wan… Wan Gui’s rooms are this way.” She set off at a brisk trot that suggested she didn’t trust herself to walk slowly.

Song Qingshu followed at an unhurried pace. Before long they arrived at a small inner courtyard.

Coming back to this place she had lived in, Qi Fang felt a storm of mixed feelings, uncertain how she would face the cold-hearted man she had once shared a bed with.

While she was still steeling herself, a man’s startled curse and a woman’s light laughter drifted from the rooms ahead. Qi Fang’s expression changed and she moved to go forward — then a steady hand settled on her shoulder.

“Easy. Let’s look first.” Song Qingshu drew her gently by the waist, and the two of them rose silently to the roof above the room from which the sounds came. A lifted tile gave them a clear view of everything below.

Wan Gui sat on a stool in ordinary clothes, clutching his hand with an expression of acute pain, his face twisted as he directed words at someone Song Qingshu couldn’t immediately see. Following his gaze, Song Qingshu found a large net suspended from the central beam of the room — not a fishing net, but the kind used in the wulin to capture people.

Caught in the net was a young woman. Because of the angle, Song Qingshu couldn’t see her face — only that she wore a blue-cloth jacket and trousers printed with white flowers, a brilliantly embroidered apron from chest to knee blazing with colour, and at her ears a pair of very large gold rings the size of a wine cup’s mouth. The style was plainly not that of a Han Chinese woman.

Perhaps because the net confined her to a small space, her naturally full and shapely figure was all the more conspicuous — she looked like a ripe, tender peach, the kind that seemed as though the lightest touch might bring juice to the surface. In particular, a colourful sash drawn close around her waist set off its softness and the generous fullness above to remarkable effect.

Song Qingshu frowned slightly. He had the feeling he’d seen this style of dress before, but couldn’t quite place it.

The blue-clad woman in the net gave a tinkling laugh. “Young Master Wan — how did you find the taste of my Spotted Poison Scorpion?” Her voice was soft and winding, the kind that moved through a man and wouldn’t quite leave.

Even without seeing her face, that figure alone was the kind to set the imagination working — but the moment one heard the voice as well, it ceased to matter what she looked like.

‘That’s her.’ The voice triggered recognition — Song Qingshu knew at once who this was. Lan Fenghuang, leader of the Five Poisons Sect.

He had met her once before, on Black Wood Cliff — when, in the course of rescuing Dongfang Muxue from the Ming Cult’s Zhang Wuji, his inner energy had been scattered by a blow, and Dongfang Muxue had brought him to Yunnan to recover under Lan Fenghuang’s care. He had lived among the Five Poisons Sect for a time.

But Lan Fenghuang had been Dongfang Muxue’s exclusive domain, and Song Qingshu had kept a respectful distance. That was why, seeing only her clothes and figure at first, he’d felt the familiarity without being able to name it. But Lan Fenghuang’s voice — soft and winding in a way no other woman’s quite matched — was impossible to forget once heard. The moment she spoke, he had it.

‘What is she doing here?’ Encountering a familiar face — especially this one — left him simultaneously startled and pleased. He didn’t yet understand what was unfolding below, so he stayed quiet and listened.

“You little —!” Wan Gui clutched his swollen hand, visibly fighting the urge to cry out. He would not show weakness before a woman. Sweat stood in drops on his forehead.

Lan Fenghuang took his cursing without any particular reaction — this was evidently not her first time in such a scene. She sighed with great delicacy. “I did give you a chance, you know. All you had to do was manage to remove my clothes, and I said I’d be yours. Whose fault is it that you weren’t up to the task? Tee hee~”

“You scheming woman — you did this on purpose! You hid a scorpion in your clothes!” Wan Gui’s inflamed desire had entirely cooled, and the pieces were clicking into place.

“I forgot to mention — I’ve loved keeping little pets since childhood. Venomous snakes, scorpions — they’re like my heart’s own treasures. I can’t bear to be parted from them for a moment, so I always carry them with me.” Lan Fenghuang’s smile faded, and her voice went cool. “Whose fault is it that some people are so bold as to think that because they’ve caught me in a net, I’ll simply lie there and let them do as they please?”

Wan Gui’s eyes moved quickly, and he changed his manner entirely, bowing with careful deference. “So it is the honoured leader of the Five Poisons Sect. This one failed to recognise you — I have offended, and beg your pardon. Please overlook this small man’s presumption.”

He was a man of the wulin. The Miao woman’s dress and her obvious mastery of poisons were enough to identify her.

“Old woman?” Lan Fenghuang pressed her fingers to her cheek and let out a quiet breath. “Am I really that old?”

“Not at all — not the slightest bit. You look like an immortal,” Wan Gui said quickly.

Qi Fang, on the roof, had given up entirely on Wan Gui — and yet watching him grovel like this to save his skin still filled her with contempt.

“Do I really?” Lan Fenghuang’s expression shifted to pleased. “I hear your wife is also a noted beauty in these parts. Between the two of us, who would you say is lovelier?”

Wan Gui answered without a moment’s hesitation. “The leader of the Five Poisons Sect, naturally. My wife is a plain and wilting thing — reeking of rural backwater — nothing to compare to the leader’s thousand charms.”

On the roof, Qi Fang trembled. She was not a woman who gave much thought to her own looks or compared herself to others. If Wan Gui had said such things out of desperation, she might not have minded. But there was nothing forced or reluctant in his voice — it was the unguarded expression of what he actually thought.

‘So this is all I’ve ever been to him.’ Her lip was close to bleeding where she was biting it. She was by nature a deeply traditional woman, and even knowing that Wan Gui had moved against her first, the guilt of what she had done with another man had never fully left her — particularly in moments when she recalled the years of their marriage. That guilt had sometimes felt heavier than she could bear.

In this moment, she suddenly found it quite laughable.

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