WJ Chapter 18

The Flowing Waters of Yang (2)

That single sentence struck like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, plunging Ah Ku into an icy abyss.

He couldn’t help but reveal pleading eyes. “Young lady…”

Yun Chanjuan said with a smiling expression. “Hurry up. Otherwise, this young lady will go tell Sect Leader Brother that you were disrespectful to me… Oh my, who do you think Sect Leader Brother cherishes more—you, or his own younger sister?”

Ah Ku’s face turned deathly pale, cold sweat dripping down. He couldn’t utter a single word.

Miss Chanjuan was the Sect Leader’s only sister, while he was merely a lowly medicine person. How could he compare? When it came down to it, he had the fate of a slave. For a master to expel or even execute a servant with a single word—wasn’t that the most ordinary and reasonable thing?

Seeing that Ah Ku had been completely frightened, Yun Chanjuan felt secretly pleased. She suddenly blinked mischievously and scratched at her own hair ornament several times, making her golden hairpins droop and her hair strands disheveled.

“Or I could tell Brother that you bullied me, that you put your hands all over me…”

Immediately after, her jade-like hand pressed against her collar, clearly ready to tear it open at the slightest provocation. “If it comes to that, how many more hours do you think you could stay in the sect?”

“Young lady!?” Ah Ku was utterly terrified. His status was lowly, and being bullied and made difficult for at the branch hall was not uncommon. But this matter now involved whether he could remain in Xifeng City—he couldn’t help but feel his very soul was about to shatter. His knees bent, about to kneel down. “Don’t, I beg you…”

“—Young lady.”

The sudden interruption of a clear, resonant voice made the haughty young lady’s face instantly darken.

Yun Chanjuan resentfully turned her head, and sure enough, saw that outfit of ink-plum red robes that she despised day and night. A dozen steps away, Guan Wujue leaned back against the white stone railing, arms crossed over his chest in a very leisurely and comfortable posture. With a half-smile, he raised his eyebrows. “What’s this? Bullying me, the Four Directions Protector, isn’t satisfying enough for you, young lady? Now you have to frighten even a mere medicine person?”

“Oh, didn’t you just hear what he said?” The beautiful young woman returned a cold smile, suddenly reaching out to grab Ah Ku and pull him stumbling forward. Ignoring his startled cry, she forcibly dragged him toward Guan Wujue. “This young master is no longer a medicine person—he’s the Zhuyin Sect Leader’s new favorite.”

Actually, Guan Wujue was absolutely right. She had originally just been amusing herself on a whim, wanting to frighten this newcomer who was “Sect Leader Brother’s old flame.”

However, this casual attitude of playing around for fun transformed into bone-deep hatred the moment she saw the enemy who had caused her brother’s death, making all the blood in Yun Chanjuan’s body boil with heat.

She walked up to Guan Wujue and forcefully pushed Ah Ku in front of him. “Hey, surnamed Guan. I just asked this medicine person a question, but now this young lady finds it boring. I want to change to a more interesting question—you answer it!”

“Tell me… does Sect Leader Brother cherish you more, or does he cherish this slave more?”

Guan Wujue answered without hesitation, so quickly it was as if the words came out of his mouth without passing through his brain. “Naturally, the Sect Leader likes Ah Ku. He once told me this personally—how could it be false?”

“Oh…” The young woman mockingly curved her lips, her beautiful water-like eyes blinking repeatedly, but the words that came out carried a kind of deliberately innocent malice.

“Then tell me, if Sect Leader Brother saw you bullying this fellow, would he take the Bone-Crushing Whip to you again?”

Before the words had finished falling, Yun Chanjuan suddenly flicked her sleeve, and an exquisite short sword inlaid with red agate slid into the young woman’s delicate hand. Without the slightest pause, the short sword silently left its sheath. Sunlight rolled across the blade’s tip in a blindingly bright flash, bringing killing intent as it thrust straight toward the completely defenseless Ah Ku.

“—!” Guan Wujue had thought Yun Chanjuan’s targeting and resentment were directed at himself—he hadn’t expected her to make a move against Ah Ku. At this critical moment, with quick eyes and hands, he grabbed Ah Ku’s shoulder and yanked him back forcefully. The sword edge grazed past Ah Ku’s chin, leaving a small trail of blood.

In the next moment, Guan Wujue used his other hand to push upward with force, flinging Ah Ku’s entire body over the railing.

“Ah…!” The former little medicine person’s heart cavity had been injured to begin with. This time his back solidly struck the hard stone tiles, and he could only let out a single pained whimper before curling up, unable to move.

“Young lady! Everything has its limits—you’ve gone too far.”

Guan Wujue spoke with a chilling expression. He had no time to check on Ah Ku and was about to step forward to first disarm Yun Chanjuan of her sword. But unexpectedly, Yun Chanjuan withdrew the short sword into her sleeve and instantly put on an indignant face, pointing at him and crying out loudly:

“Guan Wujue! Isn’t it enough that you caused my Brother Danjing’s death? Now you want to harm the sweetheart that Brother Changliu finally found again, and you even want to attack this young lady!? I see you’re truly tired of living!”

Guan Wujue’s movement suddenly froze.

He turned his head as if sensing something.

Through the columns and railings standing in the winding corridor, Guan Wujue saw Yun Changliu’s tall and refined figure.

The Sect Leader’s face was indifferent and expressionless, but his ice-cold gaze was fixed unwaveringly on him.

Clear as a mirror in his heart, the Protector immediately understood everything. From Yun Changliu’s angle, he couldn’t see Yun Chanjuan holding the short sword, but he had more than enough view of the scene where he flung Ah Ku over the railing. This Miss Chanjuan must have learned these inferior tricks from some jianghu storybook. Still, this sowing discord scheme was executed rather convincingly.

After two or three breaths of eye contact, Yun Changliu shifted his gaze away from Guan Wujue, swept his snow-white wide sleeves back behind him, and walked straight in this direction.

“Brother Changliu!” Yun Chanjuan seized the timing to rush out, her layered soft skirt corners flying up like a pink butterfly. The hair ornament she had disheveled while threatening Ah Ku earlier remained unstraightened, and with such a pitiful tone, she truly seemed to have suffered a great injustice. “Do you know what just happened—”

Yun Changliu raised his hand, stopping his sister’s words, and said calmly, “No need. This lord saw everything.”

He had already walked over, but first bent down to help Ah Ku up, frowning slightly with concern and asking in a low voice, “Are you alright? Does it hurt badly?”

“Sect Leader!” How could Ah Ku dare let the Sect Leader help him up? He hurriedly grabbed the nearby carved railing to stand. He looked back helplessly and saw Yun Chanjuan, from an angle Yun Changliu couldn’t see, shake her index finger at him threateningly and make a throat-slitting gesture.

—Dare to tell the truth, and you’re dead.

Ah Ku swallowed with difficulty, his mind instantly buzzing into a blank.

He was truly terrified that the young lady would hold a grudge against him, making it impossible for him to have a place in the main sect. But even more, he was unwilling to be ungrateful and deceive the Sect Leader against his conscience.

However, Yun Changliu gently patted Ah Ku’s shoulder, as if seeing through all the fear and helplessness in his heart, and said calmly, “You don’t need to speak either.”

Then Yun Changliu stood up and looked toward his Protector.

The Sect Leader took a step forward and asked in a low voice, “You speak?”

Guan Wujue leaned casually back against the column behind him, composed and calm. “Since the Sect Leader has already seen everything, what more is there for this subordinate to say?”

Yun Changliu looked deeply at Guan Wujue, nodded once, and walked over with steady steps. As he passed by the Protector’s side, he reached out and seized—

—He pulled away the Pixing sword that Guan Wujue wore on his left side, complete with sword and sheath.

The Protector hadn’t expected this. “Sect Leader…”

Yun Changliu acted as if he hadn’t heard, walking before Yun Chanjuan.

“Bang!” came a dull thud!

The sheathed longsword struck heavily on the young woman’s back.

“Ahhh!!”

Yun Chanjuan immediately let out a scream. The force on her back pressed down until her knees buckled and she heavily knelt on the ground. Her small face turned deathly pale, and tears of pain immediately began pattering onto the ground. “Bro…Brother Changliu!?”

Guan Wujue sighed inwardly.

Although he had guessed it would be this result, still…

His sword was truly not light in weight. Using it to strike the young lady—it seemed the Sect Leader was truly enraged this time.

Indeed, Yun Changliu had used a full seventy percent of his strength in that strike. His fingers gripped the Pixing sword’s sheath so tightly that veins bulged, clearly already at the extreme of anger. He scolded coldly. “Utterly absurd! Utterly foolish!”

“You, the grand young lady of the Zhuyin Sect—is this how you bully the weak!?”

“And who gave you the audacity to dare frame a sect Protector!?”

Yun Chanjuan’s face was ashen, unable to respond.

She couldn’t understand why Yun Changliu, who clearly hadn’t seen what happened, seemed to know everything!?

By nature, Sect Leader Yun was absolutely someone who spoke little and acted much. Having scolded these few sentences, his hand naturally didn’t spare her either. Three or four consecutive strikes had his own sister crying out in anguish.

With Yun Chanjuan’s delicate skin and tender flesh, how could she endure such beating? She wanted to escape but couldn’t break free from Yun Changliu’s restraint. She began sobbing in fits and starts, tearful and pitiful. “Stop hitting me, Brother Changliu, stop… It hurts so much, I’m in pain!”

Guan Wujue helplessly shook his head, using his hand to vault over the railing to watch the show.

Ah Ku still had a dazed expression on his face. The Protector, seeing this, felt both annoyed and amused. He lazily leaned over and whispered, “Young Master Ah Ku, although our young lady is somewhat foolish, the Sect Leader is not foolish at all. Next time, don’t be silly enough to let someone intimidate you like that.”

“Can the knees of someone at the Sect Leader’s side bend so easily? If I see it again, I won’t forgive you.”

“Yes, yes…” Ah Ku, his soul just barely settled, looked at Yun Changliu with eyes full of incomparable reverence and gratitude. He was completely unaware that the Four Directions Protector was very wickedly demanding that he “not be intimidated by others” while simultaneously threatening him with “won’t forgive you.”

He asked Guan Wujue in a small voice, “But how did the Sect Leader know…”

Guan Wujue pointed at the small trail of blood on Ah Ku’s chin left by the short sword. “That sleeve sword of the young lady’s was a gift from the Sect Leader himself—how could he not recognize it?”

Ah Ku instantly understood.

He carefully touched the wound, recalling the gentle force with which Yun Changliu had reached out to help him up. His heart suddenly flooded with a warmth that moved him to tears.