White Robe - Chapter 10
Why did it fall into the hands of Shang Shaozhang?
None of the people Shang Shaozhang wanted to kill have survived to this day.
Shang Shaochang said, "I am a very polite person, polite to myself and polite to others, so when I need to borrow something from someone, I will be even more polite."
On a small, gold-flecked note, the handwriting was neat and tidy:
Brother, please read:
I have heard that you possess a prized possession, which you cherish greatly and regard as a priceless treasure. I wish to borrow it from you for your enjoyment. I hope you will be so kind as to lend it to me. I will definitely visit you in three days, and I hope you will make room for me so that I will not leave empty-handed.
Shang Shaozhang has never returned empty-handed.
He managed to borrow everything he wanted. But most of what he borrowed was other people's lives.
Under his blade, there was truly only order of precedence, not seniority.
Xia Yanliang is a woman, but no one knows how old she is.
Some say she's a young girl, some say she's a young woman, some say she's an old lady...
Her medical skills often make people forget her gender and age.
Except for those who are completely dead, as long as they still have a breath left, Xia Yanliang can pull them back from the clutches of the King of Hell.
However, many people in the martial arts world would rather encounter Shang Shaochang than fall into Xia Yanliang's hands.
She won't get treatment when she's in a bad mood, nor when she's in a great mood. When she's in a neutral mood, she might say, "Today is a day for sleeping, not a day for treatment."
However, when she encounters a case that interests her, she will follow it to the ends of the earth, even sacrificing her own medication time, to cure it completely.
It is said that a prince, suffering from a minor typhoid fever, went to great lengths to find Xia Yanliang, a legendary healer, to treat him. Unexpectedly, Xia Yanliang readily agreed and was extremely humble: "The common people cannot fight with officials. I am but a humble commoner. The prince's illness is naturally my urgent concern. It is my good fortune that the prince has chosen me," and so on... With a flourish of his pen, he wrote down a prescription for typhoid fever combined with qi-tonifying herbs.
As a result, the prince's condition remained inconsistent after taking the medicine, fluctuating between improvement and relapse. Each time Xia Yanliang was asked to prescribe a new remedy, Xia Yanliang readily agreed and wrote a new one. However, after half a year of treatment for this typhoid fever, the prince was eventually bedridden. Desperate, the prince summoned a group of renowned physicians, but they all shook their heads, saying, "The prince initially contracted typhoid fever, but after Xia Yanliang's treatment, it has transformed into a strange illness that we can no longer cure." They all bowed and left. The prince was greatly alarmed and offered Xia Yanliang a large sum of money to treat him again. Xia Yanliang laughed and said, "This isn't my fault. I didn't know how to treat typhoid fever. How could I treat an illness I didn't know how to cure? So, I first disguised the prince's illness as tuberculosis, which I'm more familiar with treating. That way, I could treat the prince more effectively, wouldn't I?"
By the time the prince recovered and got out of bed, he had lost half of his original weight of over 200 pounds.
He never dared to ask Xia Yanliang for a "casual" medical check-up again, nor did he dare to cause Xia Yanliang any more trouble.
Yun Yiyang was chopping wood.
Others use axes, he uses his hands.
He joined his five fingers together and chopped down with his palm, splitting the dry, hard wood in two. A tall stack of such firewood had already been piled up on the right. The late autumn weather was getting colder, but Yun Yiyang's bare upper body was covered in fine beads of sweat. I sat on the woodpile, listening intently to his story. His face was dark red, and his eyes gleamed with excitement.
This wasn't because he was tired from chopping wood, but because he was talking about two legendary figures, Shang Shaozhang and Xia Yanliang.
"Hahahaha..." I laughed so hard that tears almost streamed down my face, and I barely managed to stop laughing: "Xia Yanliang... haha... her skill at pranking people is truly first-rate. I'd like to have a go at her sometime!"
Yun Yiyang laughed and said, "So many people are afraid that they will be diagnosed with an incurable disease and fall into Xia Yanliang's hands, and have no choice but to let her treat them, and even risk being left half-dead by her treatment. Sister Bai, you still said that you want to learn from her. That's what's really scary."
I frowned and slowly said, "But there is order, not age; the hardest thing to manage is the fickleness of human nature... This couplet..." Suddenly I chuckled and said, "Isn't the first one about queuing and the second one about catching a cold?"
Yun Yiyang also laughed and said, "I don't know who gave them that name, but those who fall into Young Master Shang's hands are really just waiting in line to be dealt with by him. And Xia Yanliang is really the most difficult to manage... However, I really want to meet that Young Master Shang! It is said that his sword is the best in the world, and his lightness skill is also the best in the world!"
"He's just an assassin, what's the point of seeing him?" I said dismissively, waving my hand.
Yun Yiyang quickly exclaimed, "He's no ordinary assassin! The people he kills are all heinous criminals. Legend has it that he chased his enemy across half of Jiangnan on horseback to avenge the massacre of a child's entire family, and in the end, he only took a single copper coin from the child. Such a chivalrous person may be an assassin, but in my heart, he is a hero!"
I laughed heartily and said, "Alright, alright, I hope one day you will meet the great hero and hero in your heart. By the way—" I tilted my head and thought for a moment, then said word by word, "Do you really have any so-called martial arts masters here?"
"Of course there are!" Yun Yiyang became excited when the topic turned to masters. He stopped chopping wood and strode over to me, saying excitedly, "My wood-chopping technique is kung fu, but I can't call myself a master. If we're talking about masters, Ye Zhi Qiu's subordinate, A Fu, is definitely one. His knife strikes are so clean and swift! When will I ever learn martial arts like that... hehe!"
I patted his head, which was still dazed from his reverie, and laughed, "Alright, go learn martial arts from a master, then forget about being the young master of Guiyun Manor." Yun Yiyang scratched his head and chuckled, "If I don't learn martial arts well, how can I protect Sister Bai!"
"Who needs a little brat like you to protect them?" I couldn't help but chuckle, then thought for a moment and slowly said, "Do you think the lightness skill in martial arts allows a person to stand on bamboo branches?"
"On a bamboo branch?" Yun Yiyang was taken aback! He stammered, "Standing on a bamboo branch?? This lightness skill... is astonishing... perhaps... perhaps... Sister Bai, have you ever seen someone standing on a bamboo branch?"
I was taken aback and quickly said, "No...of course not...I've never seen it before, I just thought about it occasionally." I stood up, patted my clothes, and said, "I'm going back to my room first. You should rest after you finish chopping the wood." Then I walked towards my own place.
My hands were playing with a bamboo flute, but my heart was surging like the ocean.
The flute music and the flute player from last night were almost like a dream, hazy and unreal, but the bamboo flute in my hand tells me that it really happened to me. The flute music of the man in the blue robe still seems to echo in my mind. Although Ye Zhi Qiu's flute playing was also good, it was cold and icy, while that man's flute music was full of a leisurely emotion.
I lay half-reclined on the bamboo chair with my eyes closed. The courtyard was still so tranquil. In the Song Dynasty, there was no modern pollution or chemical products, and my skin even seemed more delicate than it is today. The faint fragrance of grass and bamboo leaves drifted in from outside.
The scenery is just as it was last night, but the melodious flute music is gone.
Yun Yiyang suddenly rushed in, his dark face almost turning ashen. He nearly tripped on the sharp bamboo as he ran past the bamboo fence, calling out, "Sister Bai... Sister Bai... Shang... he... Young Master Shang!"
I slowly stood up and smiled slightly, "What's wrong with Young Master Shang? Haven't you always wanted to see him?"
But when Yun Yiyang tremblingly handed me a small note sprinkled with gold, my smile vanished without a trace.
The small, gold-flecked note bore elegant and unrestrained handwriting, but in our eyes, it was more terrifying than a death warrant:
To my esteemed friend in white:
I have heard that you possess a prized possession, which you cherish greatly and regard as a priceless treasure. I wish to borrow it from you for your enjoyment. I hope you will be so kind as to lend it to me. I will definitely visit you in three days, and I hope you will make room for me so that I will not leave empty-handed.
The signature was three characters written in a flamboyant style: Shang Shaozhang.
I couldn't help but smile bitterly, but Yun Yiyang couldn't smile at all; his face was as white as a sheet of paper.
I waved the small note in my hand, both annoyed and amused, and said, "Is this the great hero in your heart? I don't believe I've done anything immoral or heinous, so why would Young Master Shang ask me to eliminate evil and uphold justice?"
Yun Yiyang was so nervous that he could barely speak, stammering, "This...this...it must be...it must be..." He stammered for a long time, but couldn't come up with a coherent explanation.