The kick was fast and sharp, but Hu Shouxin seemed to have foreseen the whole thing. He flickered forward, dodged it, and bellowed, "Where do you think you're kicking?!"
Sun Lang shut the door, face blank. "Nephew? You straight-up bastard, daring to take advantage of me like that."
Hu Shouxin put on a wounded air. "How pitiful. I fed and cleaned up after this brat for six years, and he won't even call me Uncle once..."
Sun Lang seemed long since familiar with the man's thick skin and only sighed.
He walked to the window, pushed it open, and sat leaning against the sill, listening to the sounds drifting up from below... The earlier commotion had been no small thing, and given how bored and gossip-hungry the errants were, they'd probably have last night's events figured out with ease.
He looked down over this dizzying, lonely city, a sharp light in his cold eyes, and said in a low voice, "I've heard an awful lot of people talking about me. If this keeps up..."
The next instant, his expression turned glum and mournful, and he sighed. "If this keeps up, I'll end up on the Great Lecher Hunting List... You'd better think of something."
Hu Shouxin came over to the desk and sat down.
In this antique, incense-wreathed study, a strapping giant of a man crouched like a tiger and coiled like a dragon — broad-shouldered, thick-waisted, shaven-headed, fierce of aspect — forming a most bizarre contrast with the famous paintings and calligraphy on the four walls and the scholar's implements on the desk.
He drew out a pipe and patiently packed the bowl with tobacco. A light rub of forefinger and middle finger, and a flame appeared out of nowhere to light the costly leaf.
He opened his great maw, took a hard pull, then slowly exhaled a stream of green smoke with a look of pure enjoyment, and grinned. "Isn't this just fine? Looks to me like you're enjoying it."
"Enjoying your granny's leg!" Sun Lang glared, eyes round. "Who the hell's enjoying it? A woman so horny she's about to flood the place, clinging to you and begging for a lay — you think that's a treat?!"
The man was visibly startled by Sun Lang's aura of rage and grief, and stammered, "Well, uh... what's not to enjoy about that?"
Sun Lang regarded this top authority of the province's errants with utter scorn. "Heh. You reckless rake who knows not the height of heaven — careful you don't end up old and weeping over an empty [beep——]."
Hu Shouxin gaped, then caught his meaning and roared in fury, "You've got the nerve to say that to me? Back in the day, who was it that drooled over the busty beauties in the allied camp, always begging us to take you to the brothels, then chickened out at the last second every time? When asked, you'd put on airs about saving your first time for your wedding night, and the moment anyone teased you a little you'd draw steel and start hacking at people?"
Sun Lang said haughtily, "You said it yourself — that was back in the day! I was naive then, young, and therefore shallow and callow. The me of today has grown up!"
Hu Shouxin said flatly, "Ah. Grown from a pure young man who couldn't even string a sentence together in front of a woman into a great sex demon who can send an eighty-year-old crone to heaven with one finger."
Sun Lang flared. "You want a fight, you son of a bitch?"
Hu Shouxin slapped the desk too. "You blaming me, you son of a bitch? You're the one who caused this mess. That lady thief was just a small fry — there were any number of ways to deal with her, and you went and picked the lewdest one..."
Sun Lang sighed. "What choice did I have? The wench came charging at me out of nowhere, all openings everywhere — wasn't that goddamn awkward? I'd modified that boomstick a couple of days back, so its power's gone up a fair bit, and it's the spray type, no way to control where the shot goes. One careless pull and I'd have blown off her hands and feet... She stole something, sure, but she didn't deserve to suffer like that. Right?"
"Didn't deserve to suffer like that?" Hu Shouxin's eyes went wide. "I'd love for the fellows you've cut down to hear that one. Have you been keeping a vegetarian fast these two years? Did you go missing because the monks of Prajna Temple carried you off to listen to scripture for two years? And so all that ocean-vast lust of yours got worn clean away? If that's the case, those bald rascals actually did some good... But that skill of yours, the kind that'd send even the world's number-one lecher fleeing with his face covered — how'd you train that up?"
He pondered a moment, then said in shock, "Don't tell me those bald donkeys, while grinding away your lust, also forced you to study the Joyful Zen? Damn, that's a vicious bit of scheming!"
"Two years apart and your imagination's as fresh and otherworldly as ever..." Sun Lang sighed. "Forget it. I owe you thanks today, actually — if that girl had kept up her wild badgering, getting her to drop it would've been a real chore. No good. I need to think of something. Women are far too much trouble — can't hit them, certainly can't touch them. One little slip of the hand and the trouble's endless..."
"...This is an ability every man in the world would envy, you know." Hu Shouxin rolled his eyes. "Why are you so precious about it? Meat brought right to your lips and you won't eat? That little lady just now was pretty enough, with a fine figure too. In a few years she's bound to grow into a real beauty, and you're at the age to be starting a family, aren't you... And that lady thief last night, she's quite famous in Mingzhou, with plenty of men keeping her in mind. You just let her go like that?"
"Let me tell you, I've fought a hundred battles and seen it all." Sun Lang mused a moment. "What makes a good woman? To me, beauty of heart matters far more than beauty of face. Their hearts aren't much to speak of, and their looks are ugly besides. What reason do you give me not to let them off? I'm not so starved as all that."
"...What?" Hu Shouxin felt his ears must be playing tricks on him.
He recalled Zhang Yinluo's looks — the bright-eyed, white-toothed little lady, the heroic spirit between her brows, the noble air bred of high birth, the spiritual grace bred of Lingjiu Palace training, and the lovely budding charm of a maiden, plus a pair of breasts worth a thirty-point bonus — by any reckoning she looked like a beauty.
And the Qin Yu that Sun Lang had taken down was famed for her looks throughout Mingzhou; several big shots of the underworld kept that gorgeous rose in their thoughts...
So... ugly?
"That's right... I know judging people by appearance is shallow, but how to put it..." Sun Lang spread his hands. "If a crook-mouthed, cross-eyed woman with foul breath who sways three times a step appeared before you, brows full of spring, told you it was love at first sight, that she longed for conjugal bliss and asked only a single night's pleasure, that she'd never trouble your life again and only wanted to strike up a little beyond-friendship relationship with you... what would you do?"
"I'd boot her flying," Hu Shouxin said without hesitation. But then he rolled his eyes. "Except that Qin Yu's an outstanding beauty..."
"Beauty my foot... her eyes tilt up a little at the corners — one look and you know she's no demure type. Her bust line's poor, drooping a touch, probably from bouncing around too hard in training. From her gait she's also done riding, and doesn't take care of herself, so the skin on her inner thighs isn't great. These jianghu sorts sleep rough and eat in the wind — that's about all you can expect of their complexions. And another thing..." Sun Lang ticked the points off on his fingers in an unstoppable stream, and in no time had run the rose that the underworld bosses of Mingzhou couldn't forget down to a worthless weed. After a great heap of it, he reached his conclusion. "See? Her looks are nothing special, and her heart isn't proper either. A woman ugly outside and ugly within who still wants a beyond-friendship relationship with me — I won't go so far as to despise or insult her, but I absolutely won't agree to it. Right?"
"Now let's talk about that head constable..." Sun Lang looked up, only to find Hu Shouxin with tears welling in his tiger eyes and a complicated look on his face. It gave him a fright. "What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing. I just suddenly felt like crying. Those two women are pretty fine, you know — how do they become this in your mouth... So just what did you go through these two years, to set your standards this sky-high?" Hu Shouxin's lips trembled. He scrubbed hard at his face and gave Sun Lang a thumbs-up. "Young man, tell me your story..."
Sun Lang's expression went hazy as he sank into recollection. His look turned distant, as though his spirit had wandered tens of thousands of li away, transcending time and space, back into the past, dredging up something from the depths of memory...
Then he gave a violent shudder, and shook his head hard. "...Not telling!"
Hu Shouxin wasn't disappointed; he only shook his head.
He'd been reunited with this old comrade for some time now, and the questions he wanted to ask he'd already asked many times over, but the other man either played dumb or dodged.
What had happened in that final battle of the Tianyuan War, two years ago, had become nearly the greatest riddle of the whole Central Land.
The few who knew of it kept their silence, and the court was even more tight-lipped, going so far as to make the high-ranking generals in the know swear oaths never to leak the secret.
Even veteran heroes of the Tianyuan War like himself could not get a single thread of information... The old comrade before him had likewise been believed dead at Mount Dahuang, leaving behind only his sword.
But many didn't believe he was dead; no body had been found on the battlefield. Some old brothers had even hung up their armor and left the army to search everywhere for traces of him.
Hu Shouxin had run back to Mingzhou City to become a chief of errants harboring just such a hope... And yet, two years on, such thoughts inevitably fade.
Then, by a chance encounter, the man so many had agonized over had simply appeared before him.
He said slowly, "I won't ask what happened in that final battle if you don't want to say. As long as you're alive, that's better than anything... I just feel it's such a waste. The great war's over now; the dead have won posthumous glory, the living have made their names and won their fortunes, and yet you've got nothing... It's too unfair. After all... we feel we've rather let you down..."
Sun Lang was silent a moment, then shook his head and broke into a smile. "No need. My grudges and debts with the empire were settled two years ago — neither of us owes the other. The court needn't grant me high office and rich salary, and I want nothing more to do with them. All I want now is a peaceful life, to live like a human being..."
Hu Shouxin nodded. "Then at least go see them... A lot of people are looking for you. They'd be overjoyed to learn you're not dead."
"I still need a little time... let me settle down. Now's not the time." Sun Lang turned his head and looked out at the scenery beyond the window — the bright sky, the streams of carriages and horses, the smiling people, the bustling metropolis, the beautiful world... A faint smile surfaced on his face.
"I'm... a little out of step with it still."
Hu Shouxin nodded slowly. The bright firelight licked at the tobacco shreds, sending up a thin haze of smoke. He blew out a smoke ring and suddenly said, "You're not afraid they'll laugh at you, are you — that after vanishing for two years, you've gone from a peerless fierce general of unstoppable valor to a peerless sex demon of un-stoppable virility, able to take on ten thousand wenches single-handed..."
"Quit making up these nonsense nicknames for me!" Sun Lang howled. "And listen, the guild's probably already started spreading rumors about me — you've got to keep it under wraps! I only agreed to come be some damn errant for you because I fell for your dirty trick in the first place. If any more random women come knocking, you have to deal with them for me!"
Hu Shouxin said with great interest, "Looks like that woman who clung to you back then left you with quite the psychological scar... You still haven't told me how it ended."
Sun Lang sighed. That had been the very occasion of his reunion with Hu Shouxin two years on... because he'd had the bad luck to run into a truly difficult woman. "That woman — once she found out about my... ability, she clung to me day and night, clinging and clinging, wanting me to give her a go. She paid, she begged, she spied, she drugged me — every trick in the book. In the end I was so utterly fed up that I just..."
Hu Shouxin's eyes went wide. "...You gave her a hard, thorough banging?"
"Of course not!" Sun Lang denied loudly. "I just tied her up, threw her into a bathtub, and then..."
The big bald head's eyes showed signs of going bloodshot. "And then?"
"And then I gave her a serious, full hour of facial massage..."
"That's it?" Hu Shouxin's eyes went wide, his whole face saying you've got to be shitting me. "And then?"
"And then..." Sun Lang gazed at the ceiling, his tone world-worn, like a swordsman lonely as snow and unrivaled in all the world, carrying a touch of faint melancholy, and said placidly, "She was so moved she cried. And in the end she got dehydrated."