He'd been spotted.
What to do?
Run?
...Why would I run?
Sun Lang smiled proudly, threw out his chest, and strode forward to meet her.
We are upright men, we walk straight and sit square, we've broken no law of the land and done no evil deeds — what's there to panic about!
...All right, that line's too dorky, and far too dumb.
Then let's switch the framing.
We are upstanding transmigrators, who should meet difficulties head-on: stomp on the troublemakers, smear the faces of the show-offs, discipline the spoiled brats, conquer the ones who are pretty and busty and well-bred — what's there to panic about!
Now that's the right framing!
Having spotted Sun Lang, Zhang Yinluo strode up too, wholly unaware that the errant across from her had just edified his lofty sentiments as a transmigrator once over.
She pointed at him, seeming to recall something, her tone a little frantic.
"Why did you tie it so tight?! We worked at it forever and couldn't get it off! Blades and saws were useless! I had to make a special trip home to fetch the Startled Swan Sword..."
Sun Lang promptly fixed her with a look reserved for idiots. "...You came all the way here to corner me over that?"
"No!" the head constable shouted. "Right when I went home to fetch my sword, that lady thief was snatched away by someone!"
Sun Lang nodded. "Ah, I see. Step right in, esteemed customer. Knowing full well how useless the Six Gates' constables are, we've recently launched a new service specializing in finding people. You've lost your suspect, so you must be very anxious — can't eat, can't drink, and even kneading dough has lost its old appeal. No matter; we errants will help you. Come in, fill out a form, and we'll go put up missing-person notices for you..."
"Yes, thank you so much... like hell!" Zhang Yinluo advanced two steps and pointed at Sun Lang, shouting, "We've determined you're a prime suspect in the case! Please come with us!"
"Eh?" Sun Lang put on a face of pure, witless innocence. "Why would I snatch that lady thief away? I caught her, then handed her over to you for the reward. Why would I go to the extra trouble of stealing her back? Come to think of it, why would I steal a lady thief away at all? What's my motive? What would I want with kidnapping her?"
"O-obviously to do something shameless!" Zhang Yinluo's face reddened, and she stammered, "Y-you-you wanted to do that kind of thing last night! You used some weird method to turn that Qin Yu all — all strange, then trussed her up in a shameless way and were taking off her clothes — you wanted to do something shameless! Then we caught you in the act, you handed her over for show, and afterward, sore about it, you followed us, and the moment I left, you revealed your ugly face, snatched the thief away, and — and — to her—"
"Little comrade, there's a serious problem with your reasoning... Now, you're busty, so I'll grant you the courtesy of hearing you out first, but if you keep spouting nonsense, I'll sue you all the same for being a busty airhead." Sun Lang spoke with earnest, weighty sincerity. "For someone like you to become a head constable of the Six Gates — it's a misfortune for the nation and a tragedy for the people. If I'd wanted to bang her right then, why would I do it in the street? If I'd wanted to kidnap her, why would I wait until you'd left to act? And let's get back to the most basic question: on what grounds do you assume I have designs on that woman? This is sheer slander, an accusation that turns black into white. It was plainly that woman who clung to me — how can you besmirch an innocent man's name out of thin air?"
"You-you-you-you-you-you-you..." Zhang Yinluo stamped her foot. "That Qin Yu got so strange — you must have done something to her!"
"Did your head get squeezed by your tits? Just because I caught that thief and she turned all strange, that means I did something to her?" Sun Lang said disdainfully. "By that logic, are you going to say that when you accidentally tore yourself while playing with the Mr. Horn I made one night, you'd pin it on me too and claim I ruined your virtue?"
In the empire — or rather, this world — the degree of women's intellectual liberation was nothing short of high, and the martial-minded ethos had bred an open public morality, so that anyone with a shred of common sense knew what a Mr. Horn was. A so-called Mr. Horn, friend to womankind, was a device that brought spiritual jolts and bodily comfort to lonely young wives keeping empty rooms and to clueless maidens in the throes of spring fever; the lewd among you know exactly what I mean... Zhang Yinluo's racket was no small thing, and though she hadn't come right up to the door, she'd drawn the notice of many errants.
The busybodies leaned against the doorway, listening to the free two-man comedy routine, and the moment Sun Lang brought up Mr. Horn, every one of them wore the lecherous grin all men understood, thinking, this newcomer's got real quality — sneaking a sideways jab at this Six Gates lapdog like that.
Only, seeing how young and impulsive in speech the little lady was, they figured she was some naive, innocent girl out of a great sect who probably wouldn't catch the meaning...
But they were wrong.
Hearing it, Zhang Yinluo leapt three feet in the air as if someone had stepped on her tail. "Shameless! Lecher! Pervert! Sex fiend!"
She'd actually understood!
The errants marveled inwardly.
Even Sun Lang was startled. "...You haven't actually used one, have you?"
"...Aaaaaah!" The girl finally noticed the crowd in this very public place, and caught the teasing looks of the several errants watching.
It felt as though someone had taken a blade to the top of her head, and a string in her mind snapped clean through. With a great shout, both hands turned to claws, she lunged at Sun Lang with a grappling-hand strike. "Submit and be bound!"
So the little lady had caught his dirty joke last night too. You couldn't tell to look at her — so pure on the surface, yet quite the honest mind underneath... Wind rushed at his face.
Sun Lang shrugged, his footwork shifting, and evaded her assault as casually as a stroll through a quiet garden.
Among the onlookers, those skilled in grappling watched a while, then quietly clicked their tongues: the head constable's grappling-hand was exquisite in technique and fierce in its variations, plainly well-honed, and yet she couldn't so much as snag a corner of his clothing.
The errant seemed thoroughly familiar with the grappling form, anticipating each attack and dodging with the utmost ease...
Sun Lang heard the bit players in the crowd murmuring about him in low voices, and his desire to show off was richly gratified. He even offered consolation: "Don't be angry, don't be angry. Even if you have used a Mr. Horn, it surely wasn't one of mine. Back when I was learning my trade I was bored, so I made a few on a whim — and the self-moving kind, expensive and rare, not for sale. I only gave them as gifts to a few loyal— ahem. Anyway, you couldn't afford one and couldn't buy one, so there's no way it'd be such a coincidence..."
At these words, the little lady's delicate frame trembled. The body poised to pounce froze as if pinned in place, stiff for several seconds.
She silently withdrew her right hand, then slowly drew the long blade at her waist and said to the several constables behind her, "...Take him down! This brute resists the authorities and toys with constables — seize him on the spot!"
"That, we can't pretend we didn't hear!" Seeing blades come out, the spectating errants strode without hesitation from the Tower of Loyal Valor to Sun Lang's side, arms folded, eyeing Zhang Yinluo sidelong. "Little girl, play is play, but you dare draw steel in front of us? If this turns into an armed brawl and the prefect comes down on us, can a piddling little head constable like you shoulder the blame?"
Seeing the lay of things, the head constable gritted her teeth. "You mean to shield a criminal?"
"Criminal? The Six Gates' head constables really do throw their weight around — with not a shred of evidence, branding a decent man a criminal." A deep, resonant voice rose from behind the group.
The errants broke into smiles and turned to look.
A mighty figure came striding with the gait of a dragon and the prowl of a tiger — none other than the leader of all Mingzhou's errants, a discharged hero of the Tianyuan War, surnamed Hu, given name Shouxin.
Zhang Yinluo's expression shifted at the sight of him. She sheathed her blade and saluted. "So it's Guild Leader Hu in person. I've heard you rose through the army ranks and govern your men strictly..."
"Enough, little girl, don't use those words to box me in." Hu Shouxin pointed unceremoniously at Sun Lang. "This lad is my nephew. I watched him grow up, and I'm easy in my mind about his character — he'd never do anything so morally rotten. If he says he didn't do it, then he didn't. Keep up this wild badgering and don't blame me for taking you down and making your superior come fetch you. You'll be the one disgraced — don't say you weren't warned!"
When had Zhang Yinluo ever been rebuffed so bluntly? Her fury turned to a laugh. "Guild Leader Hu..."
"I know you're the Zhang family's precious daughter, and I know you're a prized disciple of Lingjiu Palace. Oho, where's that hand going? And I know you're still carrying a half-baked Imperial Arm — the Startled Swan Sword, isn't it? A bit of scrap iron, and you'd flaunt it before me?" Hu Shouxin said coldly. "Good family, strong school, an Imperial Arm in hand... but in this matter, I, Hu, hold the right of it. Even if Fairy Wu herself came, I'd have words to say. Fairy Wu's cultivation is profound; I'm no match for her. But you also know I rose from the army ranks — the great war ended barely two years ago, and the old soldiers of Tianyuan haven't all died off yet!"
His gaze turned icy, the killing air of a hundred-battle veteran flashing past. "Little lady, do not bring this on yourself."
Busty though Zhang Yinluo was, seeing Hu Shouxin so unyielding, she knew today's affair could only be left at an inconclusive end. She shot Sun Lang a glare and said resentfully, "We're leaving!"
The fiercely arrived public-office monkeys of the Six Gates slunk off in defeat, and the errants naturally held their heads high, thoroughly pleased with themselves.
They hooted for a while, then turned their worshipful gazes on Hu Shouxin, who had routed the enemy in a few short words, and broke into loud cheers: "Mighty Boss Hu! Boss Hu's the man!"
"Beat it! A pack of idle-bellied rice buckets — get back to work!" One sweep of Hu Shouxin's eyes and the errants scattered like startled birds and beasts. Then, face blank, he beckoned to Sun Lang. "Come with me."
Sun Lang said nothing more, only nodded, and the two of them, one ahead and one behind, stepped into the Tower of Loyal Valor, the Mingzhou errants' headquarters, and climbed the stairs toward the second floor, leaving the gawking errants below with nothing but the sight of their backs.
Someone was whispering.
"He's not Hu the Big Cudgel's bastard son, is he..."
"Doesn't look like it. How could a thick brute like Old Hu sire something so fine-skinned and tender..."
"That lightness skill's not bad, though... and that little lady's grappling-hand was no joke, yet he dodged every bit of it. Got some real skill."
Low as these murmurs were, they still fell into Sun Lang's ears. The corner of his eye twitched, and he looked at Hu Shouxin's back ahead of him, his eyes narrowing slightly.
Hu Shouxin acted as though he'd noticed nothing, leading Sun Lang all the way up to the fourth floor and into the guild leader's private study.
The instant Hu Shouxin pushed the door open, Sun Lang's face went blank as he launched a flying kick straight at the esteemed guild leader's rear end.