Yin Bitong added very seriously: "Her father was an official in the court, but he was framed by a villain and imprisoned. Her mother was a woman of unparalleled beauty, but she was forced to become a concubine by the villain and committed suicide. She was rescued by a hermit and mastered unparalleled martial arts. After growing up, she returned to the capital and killed the villain to avenge her parents. Unfortunately, the villain was surrounded by many experts, and she failed to avenge them. Instead, she was framed and lost all her martial arts skills. Alone and miserable, she had no choice but to wander around."
The inn was completely silent.
Someone secretly wiped the corner of their eye when no one was looking.
Shui Wu'er gripped the corner of the table and coughed desperately.
She... had thought Yin Bitong would offer some profound philosophical insights.
The onlookers pulled the chopsticks out of their mouths and began to whisper among themselves.
"Have you heard? Four people died at the banquet of the seventeenth young master of the Rong family. They all died at the hands of Yin Bitong, the number one assassin of 'Traceless'. Even young master Rong was seriously injured."
"Outrageous! That scoundrel Yin Bitong dares to cause trouble in Luoyang! If he dares to show himself, I'll be the first to punish him!"
"Hey, look at that person, she looks exactly like the legendary Yin Bitong, both wearing green clothes and both as beautiful as fairies."
"Haha, Brother Zhao, the weather is really nice today..."
"..."
Shui Wu'er thought to herself, Rong Jufeng really did kill those beautiful young men who witnessed his crimes. Could he really so easily wash his hands of this whole affair?
However, Yin Bitong probably doesn't care about these things, so naturally she won't come out to clarify.
"Have you finished eating?" Yin Bitong didn't even look at the petrified waiter. She then carried Shui Wu'er to the inn's entrance like a bag of trash and threw her into a lavishly decorated carriage.
The carriage belonged to Mr. Yin, as evidenced by the smudges from Shui Wu'er's fingernails remaining on the felt inside the carriage.
But Mr. Yin was not in the carriage.
Shui Wu'er took a deep breath. There was nothing she couldn't tolerate, nothing she was curious about; her patience was always excellent. She searched every corner of the carriage, but there were no traps, no hidden Yin Zhangzhang, and not even any dismembered remains.
The carriage began to move.
If she doesn't speak up now, she might never have the chance to speak again.
So, Shui Wu'er calmly said, "You should be dead."
Yin Bitong was even calmer than her: "I was just lying to you. How could I die so easily?"
"What about Aunt Yin? I clearly saw her slap you."
Yin Bitong finally laughed: "That damned girl, Uncle Yin, has been trying to kill me for ten years, but when has she ever succeeded?"
"..."
"Speaking of which, that scene on the cliff really moved me to tears."
"..."
Shui Wu'er finally admitted that it was all her own fault. She was truly foolish to think that a martial arts master like him would need her to save his life; she was insane.
"Did you really expend your energy to save me?" She paused, but couldn't help asking again. She felt incredibly comfortable now, almost forgetting the strange sensation hidden within her body. If this wasn't thanks to Yin Bitong, what else could it be?
Yin Bitong remained silent.
On the speeding carriage, Yin Bitong, the driver, gave Shui Wu'er the illusion that she was riding on auspicious seven-colored clouds, a fairy in the distance.
Just when Shui Wu'er thought Yin Bitong wouldn't speak again, Yin Bitong suddenly whispered, "Shui Wu'er, have you fallen in love with me?"
Shui Wu'er bumped her head against the carriage door frame.
“If not, why would you rather become like that yourself than let me die? You even said you wanted to die with me…” As she spoke, Yin Bitong became somewhat embarrassed.
When did she ever say she wanted to die with him? Nonsense! That line wasn't in the chapter before last.
"I would be the same no matter who it is." Shui Wu'er calmly snorted, "I'm just very kind, very kind."
Yin Bitong fell silent. Shui Wu'er could almost see that he was deep in thought, pondering the very boundary between kindness and love.
"What did you do to Mr. Yin?" Shui Wu'er had no interest in paying attention to the assassin's budding emotions.
"She's gone. She said since she couldn't kill me, she'd try killing another thorn in her side, and maybe she could become the best at disguise in the world."
Shui Wu'er's chest trembled.
"Could it be that Mr. Yin's other thorn in his side is..."
"Black Jade Goddess Stone Mansi".
Shui Wu'er clenched her fists: "Shi Mansi's whereabouts are unpredictable, how could Uncle Yin possibly find her?"
Yin Bitong said in surprise, "You seem to know a lot about these stories of the martial arts world. It's true that Shi Mansi is not easy to find. But I heard that recently, Madam Yun of the Yin family in the capital, the one who had been asleep for three years, was awakened by Baili Hanyi. Shi Mansi grew up with the young lady of the Yin family. With such a thing happening, she must be in the capital right now."
"How...how could such a thing happen?" Shui Wu'er clasped her hands together in a panic, only then could she barely calm herself down. Her hands trembled uncontrollably.
Yin Bitong stared at her for a long time, but couldn't discern anything amiss. So he said quietly, "Wu'er, you are truly a strange woman. You are very intelligent, yet you lack curiosity and ambition. Aren't intelligent people usually very ambitious?"
Shui Wu'er remained silent.
“That brat Yin Zhangzhang, her lifelong ambition is to become the best in the world. But someone like me, having achieved the best, doesn't know what more I could ask for. And you? What is your lifelong ambition?”
Shui Wu'er snorted. Her life's ambition had long since died along with the lives of more than twenty people.
"No one," Yin Bitong changed her form of address tenderly, "Have you seen Baili Qingyi?"
"So what if I've seen it?" Shui Wu'er's mind was still preoccupied with the news she had just heard.
"Is Baili Qingyi really... more beautiful than me?" Yin Bitong asked shyly.
Shui Wu'er was speechless.
What did Baili Qingyi look like? Ordinary, plain-looking—she couldn't remember. With a heavy heart, she closed her eyes and dozed off in the carriage.
Yin Bitong's expression was cold and aloof.
"Wu'er, let's go to the capital and see what Baili Qingyi looks like." He flicked the reins, and the horse galloped forward even faster.
Shui Wu'er still did not answer.
Going to the capital? Is fate really pushing her back to the capital?
Or perhaps she owes someone a debt, and it's time to pay it back.
She is no longer the same person she was three years ago, yet she is constantly haunted by nightmares from the past, unable to escape them, and can only drift along with fate.
As the carriage jolted along, Shui Wu'er suddenly opened her eyes and said tenderly, "Yin Bitong, it turns out that I was the pure land in your life."
Yin Bitong's back suddenly swayed, then quickly straightened up, and then he shouted: "Giddy up!"
Chapter Five: Flowers Have a Delicate Fragrance, the Moon Has a Shade (Part One)
Shui Wu'er's current situation is that while she is indeed earthy, she is truly not pure.
Yin Bitong insisted that the primary condition for a Pure Land was purity. So he took Shui Wu'er to a place where she could bathe.
Shui Wu'er had called girls and begged for food in brothels, but she had never taken a bath in a brothel.
As a top assassin, Yin Bitong was naturally extremely wealthy, but to have so much money as to hire ten brothel girls to scrub Shui Wu'er's feet seemed more like a sign of insanity. Shui Wu'er looked at the top courtesan scrubbing his feet and sighed deeply. While Yin Bitong's thinking was certainly flawed, he couldn't blame him. Even with ten people, such a massive undertaking was still somewhat stretched thin.
After bathing, the brothel's bathtub was clogged, and the ten courtesans were exhausted. So Shui Wu'er tied her own hair into a braid, a neat and simple style.
When she came out and saw Yin Bitong, their eyes met, and both of them were stunned.
To Yin Bitong's surprise, this woman was actually still viewable.
It's not that she was particularly beautiful or stunning, but given the horrific impression she had beforehand, the fact that all of this woman's features were in perfectly natural positions was already shocking enough.
What surprised Shui Wu'er was that, under Yin Bitong's astonished gaze, she hadn't jumped into the lake. Clearly, her years of self-control hadn't been for nothing.
Yin Bitong thought about it again and realized that while it was surprising that Shui Wu'er was actually quite good-looking, he really couldn't accept the possibility that she would grow up to be a reincarnation of Xi Shi, or even worse, be an ugly duckling. With that thought, he readily accepted reality.
Shui Wu'er breathed a sigh of relief. She was already very grateful that Yin Bitong hadn't sweetly asked her to turn around and come see her.
The two remained silent for a moment, and each with their own ulterior motives, they set off on their journey.
Chang'an Avenue was still bustling with traffic. Although the Yunge Poetry Competition, a gathering of talented people, was not held today, it was still as lively and prosperous as ever.
The two found an inn and slept through the day. When night fell, Shui Wu'er woke up groggily and found Yin Bitong pulling her.
"It's time to go."
What are we going to do?
"Of course, we're going to see Baili Qingyi."
Shui Wu'er, holding her groggy head, remained silent for a while before saying, "Yin Bitong, that 'Records of Male Beauties in the Martial World' isn't actually an authoritative work. Maybe it's just the idle work of two infatuated girls. Why take it so seriously?"
Yin Bitong's white teeth were faintly visible in the darkness, but there was no smile in her eyes; she looked sinister.
Shui Wu'er felt a sudden lightness as Yin Bitong lifted her up by the back of her collar. She was filled with both sorrow and anger: "Don't you care about the decorum of a young lady like me...?"
Yin Bitong couldn't discern any decorum about this woman, but since she was dressed as a pure and innocent young girl, he felt he should give her some leeway. So he changed his posture, tossed her aside, hoisted her onto his back, jumped out of the window, and leaped into the long, cold night.
The Baili Prefecture in Jiangnan was the main base of the Baili Prefecture, while the Baili Prefecture in the capital was a place specifically for imprisoning criminals. Shui Wu'er noticed that the Baili Prefecture in the capital didn't exude any righteous aura; instead, it was filled with ghostly energy. In her hometown, there was a lantern every five steps and a pavilion every ten steps, but at night, the Baili Prefecture in the capital was like a sleeping cave, without even lanterns. If it weren't for the moon goddess's compassionate casting of its soft moonlight, the courtyard of the Baili Prefecture would truly be pitch black.
Although江湖人士 (jianghu figures) are not known for their formalities, which of the major aristocratic families doesn't have a large retinue of servants and live a life of luxury? The Qiao family, for example, controls half of the waterway trade in the Central Plains, making them incredibly wealthy. As for Baili Prefecture—
People in the martial arts world only see the four young masters of Baili Mansion traveling around all their lives, mediating disputes in the martial arts world, but no one knows how they make a living. Is it really true, as the rumors say, that Baili Mansion is actually dirt poor in private?
Yin Bitong led Shui Wu'er around Baili Prefecture. Apart from a few servants passing by occasionally, there was no one else around.
The two hid under the railing of a side corridor, listening to the passing servants laughing and whispering, "Which of these two Miss Yuwens living in our manor do you think will become the eldest young master's wife?"
Another, seemingly more mature, replied arrogantly, "I don't think it's that hard to say. With such a volatile temper, how could the eldest young master possibly be interested in that second young lady Yuwen? As for the eldest young lady Yuwen, since she's Master Qin's fiancée, the eldest young master naturally wouldn't even consider it."
"But I heard that Master Qin and Miss Yuwen have already broken off their engagement, haven't they?"
"You don't understand, do you? On the surface, it's about breaking off the engagement, but who doesn't know that Miss Yuwen doesn't like Master Qin's ugly appearance and only wants to marry our young master? Our young master is such a loyal and righteous person, so naturally he wouldn't marry such a woman and embarrass his brother."
The young servant sighed, "So that's how it is. It's really pitiful for Master Qin to live in our mansion with two women, seeing them every day. Doesn't he have to be heartbroken every day? Alas, if only the eldest young master could investigate the Yin family's case sooner and come back to live here."
With a "thud," it seemed as if the younger servant had been flicked on the forehead by the more experienced servant: "What do you know? The Yin family massacre is not so easy to investigate. Qiao Bang has been investigating for three years and still hasn't found out anything."
Shui Wu'er glanced at Yin Bitong. The young master in blue wasn't even in the manor; what beauty could he possibly be admiring?
This Baili Prefecture, though it appears to be a quiet and deserted mansion, its century-old reputation is ultimately just a rumor. Who knows what traps and ambushes await them beneath its calm surface? It's not worth taking such a risk just to see a beauty. Shui Wu'er wanted to say, "Let's go back," but before she could even open her lips, Yin Bitong covered her mouth.
Her eyes reddened, and she frantically turned her gaze, trying to find out what Yin Bitong was up to, but she was startled by the serious look in Yin Bitong's eyes.
She blinked and quieted down. Seeing that she didn't intend to make a sound, Yin Bitong released her grip.
Shui Wu'er watched Yin Bitong's retreating figure and smiled bitterly. Yin Bitong wasn't a good person, after all; how could she forget that?