Flower Stealing Master

Perhaps because the Heavenly Devil Flower’s toxin was so absolute in its nature, Di Yun’s face was entirely preserved — not a mark of decay on him, looking as though he simply slept.

“Senior Brother!!!” At the sight of that familiar face, Qi Fang’s voice broke. She moved instinctively to throw herself forward, and was caught by Lan Fenghuang and Zhou Zhiruo on either side.

“Senior Brother, it was I who brought this on you.” She sank to the ground and wept quietly.

“Stay with her — I’ll be back shortly.” Song Qingshu gave the instruction and was gone, a streak of shadow toward Lin’an.

“Please — grieve as you must…” Zhou Zhiruo was herself moved by the depth of what had passed between the two childhood companions. She stroked Qi Fang’s hair and said what little could be said. Lan Fenghuang knelt down beside her and murmured her own quiet words of comfort.

Before long Song Qingshu returned, a heavy wooden coffin across his shoulders.

“Di Yun can’t be left out here in the open. Let’s see him properly into the ground.” He set it down gently. Qi Fang, eyes red and swollen, nodded and stepped aside.

When Song Qingshu reached into the earth to lift Di Yun’s body, Zhou Zhiruo went pale. “Careful!”

“Don’t worry.” He shook his head. “The Heavenly Devil Flower holds no danger for me now. And this is the least I can do — to see Di Yun off myself.” Di Yun had been living quietly back home in Maxipo when Song Qingshu had brought him into all of this. If he had never been drawn out of that peaceful life, none of this would have happened. The thought sat heavily on him.

Seeing him lift Di Yun from the earth without flinching from the filth or the danger, Qi Fang said through her tears: “Thank you.”

Song Qingshu sighed quietly. He cleaned Di Yun with care, dressed him in fresh clothes, and laid him gently inside the coffin. He was considering where to find a suitable burial ground when Qi Fang spoke.

“I want to take my senior brother’s coffin back home for burial. He… he would want to go back to Maxipo. I know he would.”

Song Qingshu had been about to suggest something else — but her last words stopped him. His throat felt tight, and he let it go. “You’re right. Coming home to rest — it’s as it should be. But you have the child to manage on your own…”

“I’ll be all right. I know the wulin, and Sister Zhiruo has taught me the Emei arts.” Qi Fang pressed her lips together.

Lan Fenghuang spoke up. “I came to Lin’an with several of my sect-sisters. I was going to send them back to the Yunnan headquarters on some business anyway — it passes right by Maxipo. They can accompany Miss Qi. She’ll have company on the road.”

Qi Fang started to decline. Song Qingshu decided for her: “That settles it perfectly.”

“Thank you… and thank you, honoured leader…” The events of the night had wrung Qi Fang out completely. With the tension gone, the world went dark in front of her eyes and she fainted. Song Qingshu caught her before she fell.

Zhou Zhiruo and Lan Fenghuang both looked to him anxiously. He felt her pulse and answered: “She’s all right. The emotions were simply too much. Sleep will restore her.”

Both women exhaled. Lan Fenghuang said: “My lodgings are not far outside the city. We can go there and settle things properly.”

Song Qingshu’s eyes moved to the coffin. “Good. This is too conspicuous to move through Lin’an easily.”

And so they went: Song Qingshu with the coffin over one shoulder, Zhou Zhiruo carrying Kongxincai, Lan Fenghuang supporting the unconscious Qi Fang, moving silently out of the grove. The household guard who had been brought along to lead them there — Song Qingshu’s questioning had established he was among those who had helped destroy Di Yun — was left in the same pit Di Yun had occupied, where he would remain permanently.

“How did Wan Gui manage to capture you?” Song Qingshu had finally found a moment to ask.

“Please don’t call me honoured leader — if she heard that, I’d never hear the end of it.” Lan Fenghuang laughed softly. “Just call me Fenghuang’er. We don’t need to stand on ceremony.”

Song Qingshu understood — she meant Dongfang Muxue, and Lan Fenghuang had been her closest companion. There was no reason to maintain a formal distance. “All right, Fenghuang’er — how exactly did that happen?”

The new address made her visibly brighten. Then the question deflated her. “Because of you, you troublesome man.”

Song Qingshu caught the veiled edge in Zhou Zhiruo’s smile beside him and laughed a little awkwardly. “Careful what you say, Fenghuang’er — words can be dangerous.”

Lan Fenghuang glanced at Zhou Zhiruo and curled her lips. “I mean my lady, of course~ When she heard you’d been hurt, she killed a few eunuchs in her fury…”

Song Qingshu’s brow creased slightly at that. Dongfang Muxue’s instincts in that direction were something he had never fully made peace with — but then she had spent years as leader of a sect where killing was ordinary as breathing.

“She wanted to come south herself,” Lan Fenghuang continued, “but right now the court is locked in fighting against the Three Feudatories, and if she left, the whole side would lose its centre of gravity. Wu Sangui would take the opportunity to grow too powerful, and everything you’ve all built these years would be thrown away. She said — she said you were resilient enough that you wouldn’t die easily, and if you came back safe to find she’d abandoned the strategic position, you’d have cause to blame her.”

Song Qingshu nodded. “She was right to stay. If she had truly thrown aside the larger picture for my sake, I’d be the one in tears now.”

Lan Fenghuang laughed. “My lady said as much — that you’d understand. Oh, and Qu Feiyan that little creature cried and made a fuss about coming to find you, but she’s become my lady’s right hand, and with the fighting as intense as it is, far too much depends on her. Since I was comparatively free, and I know something about poisons, my lady sent me south — to look for you and see if I could find any cure for the Heavenly Devil Flower.”

The thought of Qu Feiyan — that odd, lively girl — stirred something warm in him.

“I reasoned that since the Heavenly Devil Flower had originally been Wan Gui’s to use, if any antidote existed it would most likely be traceable through him. So I slipped into the Minister’s estate after dark. What I hadn’t counted on was the little wretch having his bedroom rigged with mechanisms — I was careless and walked straight into the trap. The rest you saw.” Saying it still made her seethe. In the wulin, the very mention of her name made people cautious — and she had been caught by a pampered young idler. If Song Qingshu hadn’t appeared when he did, her honour might have been beyond recovery. She genuinely wasn’t sure she could have lived with that.

Watching her sulk with pursed lips, Song Qingshu had to smile. “One more thing — you’ve just come from Yanjing, so you’ll know the current situation there. What’s happened with the Golden Serpent Camp since I was struck down?”

This was what worried him most. Li Kexiu was no fool — he would not have wasted the opportunity presented by the Camp being leaderless. In all likelihood he had already moved forces north to press for the Shandong territory. The question was whether Qingqing and Ah Jiu had managed to hold things together.

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