Chapter 9: with translation of chapter title

I want him! Actually it's nothing—I just wanted to ask what martial arts he knows, then have him hand them over. How about it, you gonna compensate me? Zhou Shuo stared at Wei Zhuang's icy face, his eyes twitching. This was him planning compensation; indeed, as the future chief of the Quick Sand, he's generous!

"Let's go, come with me to the Purple Orchid Pavilion." Wei Zhuang didn't respond, just threw out that sentence.

"Hey, speak clearly! Besides, this guy, hurry up and carry him on your back—I—I'm talking, can you hear me?" Zhou Shuo watched the guy turn and walk away, unable to react in time, hurriedly chased after him, shouting, "You damn it, speak clearly!" But before he could finish, Wei Zhuang's body flashed, he leapt onto the wall and then onto the roof.

Watching Wei Zhuang lightly tap his toes and gracefully fly up onto the roof, Zhou Shuo wanted to curse but held it back; however, after he landed on the roof, Wei Zhuang glanced into the distance, then suddenly darted off into the night. Seeing this, Zhou Shuo felt he could no longer tolerate it.

"Wei Zhuang, I'll curse your grandpa! I'm carrying a person here, and you're actually comparing lightness skills with me?!" Zhou Shuo swore, with a running start he leapt onto the wall, then a flying lunge over the roof's edge, sprinting along the ridge. Though he lacked Wei Zhuang's soaring leaps, he still wall-ran and roof-hopped, steadier and faster than a cat, closely tailing Wei Zhuang.

Wei Zhuang's intention was definitely not to compete in lightness skills; even if he were, he would have greeted beforehand and certainly wouldn't have let Zhou Shuo chase while carrying a person. Zhou Shuo, carrying a person, followed behind him and quickly reached the Eastern District, where from afar he saw several black figures standing on the rooftops, shooting bows at a window tower.

Seeing the archers, Wei Zhuang drew his sword without a word and flew up. Zhou Shuo, observing the situation, leapt, carrying a living person as he glided across a stretch of roof, then jumped into the window tower under a hail of arrows. However, what met his eyes was a blinding white, a fragrant scent, and a chilling chill.

Zhou Shuo instinctively drew his waist sword to block the incoming chill, only to see it was a chain sword made of linked red soft scales, writhing like a spirit snake; upon contacting his blade, it immediately clung and slid toward his wrist, startling Zhou Shuo so that he spoke while shaking his hand to fling the chain sword away.

"Stop, stop, I'm not your enemy, I'm with Chief Wei, I really saw nothing." Zhou Shuo deflected the opponent's attack while shouting loudly, but something felt off; after the opponent's attack paused momentarily, it intensified, a thin, soft chain sword lashing back and forth, its blade slicing the air with a hissing sound.

"Keep this up and I'll turn hostile—damn, I've seen it all." Zhou Shuo, one hand holding the person, the other gripping his sword, batted away the chain swords attacking from all directions, but the chain swords, like spirit snakes, could dodge with a flick and strike again from the side; fortunately the assault wasn't lasting, and after Zhou Shuo declared "I've seen it all," the opponent gritted their teeth, flicked their wrist, and the chain sword whipped up a long table, flying it toward him before they flickered and vanished into the inner room.

"What a crazy woman." Zhou Shuo watched the slender figure sway into the inner room, used the flat of his blade to support the flying table, then turned his wrist to set it down steadily; while admiring the opponent's figure, he gazed into the room where a person sat on the floor, wearing jade pendants and purple robes, eyes locked on him—a handsome young man.

"What are you looking at?" Zhou Shuo placed the half-dead old man on the table, stared at the youth whose gaze was fixed on him, and raised an eyebrow.

"No, nothing!" The youth, seeing Zhou Shuo stained with black ash and looking somewhat disheveled, twitched the corner of his mouth.

"What's your name?" Zhou Shuo glanced at the ragged old man who had just barely caught his breath, then turned to the youth and asked.

"Han, Han Fei." The youth dared not hesitate.

"Oh, you are the renowned Ninth Prince of Han." Zhou Shuo sized up the youth from head to toe, hm, indeed he had a bit of the charm of a troubled-world handsome prince, but unfortunately he was far from the historical Han Fei who had synthesized the Legalist school, though his knowledge should not be lacking compared to that.

"I don't deserve that." The youth looked at Zhou Shuo, who was sizing him up without restraint, his gaze sweeping over the chaotic room, he scratched his head, feeling extremely embarrassed; before Zhou Shuo could speak, he heard the rustle of clothes, turned his head, and saw Wei Zhuang leaping in through the window.

"How is it?" Wei Zhuang looked at the chaotic room and at Han Fei, still sitting awkwardly on the floor, and couldn't help asking.

"Looks like no one died, but there's a faint smell of blood in the air, hm, also a fragrance—that girl is taking a bath, huh, no, wait, a woman bathing, what are you doing here, kid?" Zhou Shuo twitched his nose, stared at the basin of bathwater amid the room's wreckage, then fixed his gaze on the embarrassed Han Fei on the floor, tsking, "The Ninth Prince of Han with a peeping habit."

"I, I suddenly remembered something—I came to find Miss Zi Nu." Han Fei looked at Zhou Shuo, who could reconstruct the pre‑fight scene just from smell, and jumped up, waving his hands in panic.

"I believe you." Zhou Shuo looked at the Han royal scion who had risen, waving his hands, nodding repeatedly to show his trust; faced with that trust, Han Fei felt a mix of laughter and tears, wondering why he would rather not have such trust.

"What did you figure out?" Wei Zhuang looked at Zhou Shuo, whose demeanor had suddenly become much more humorous, and scanned over to Han Fei.

"Some clues, concerning the Hundred Yue, and a gap in the Liu Yi murder case." Han Fei looked at the stern-faced Wei Zhuang, nodded repeatedly to offer his findings, saying they were clues to the murder of Left Sima Liu Yi.

"Alright, let's not talk here—come to the quiet room!" The sliding door was pushed open; the woman had already donned a white dress, her purple hair coiled into a topknot fastened with a silver hairpin, a few downward purple lines at the corner of her left eye, her expression tinged with indifference, her gaze sweeping twice over Zhou Shuo without leaving a trace.

"I need to wash my face and change my clothes." Zhou Shuo looked at the woman covertly scanning him, raised his right hand, feeling wronged; he had originally planned to go out and see the excitement tonight, even wearing new clothes specially, but ended up making a mess of things.

"Follow me." The woman looked at Zhou Shuo, whose clothes were smeared with black ash and who had raised his hand in request, narrowed her eyes to a slit, uttered three words, then turned and led the way.

"Then leave him to you." Zhou Shuo turned to Wei Zhuang, jabbed his chin toward the old man placed on the table whom he had carried all the way back, then without looking back followed the purple‑haired woman, under her guidance went to the quiet chamber to change out of his dirty clothes and wash away the grime on his body.

From beginning to end, the purple‑haired woman never spoke a word to Zhou Shuo, and Zhou Shuo felt too embarrassed to speak; after cleaning himself up and changing his outer garments, he followed her past the corridor corner to a quiet chamber, where Han Fei and Wei Zhuang were sitting opposite each other on a low platform, while beside the platform knelt a disheveled old man—the very one he had rescued from the poison‑scorpion sect's dungeon.

"Brother Zhou." Han Fei, seeing Zhou Shuo led in by Zi Nu, instinctively rose to his feet.

"We already know each other, no need for pleasantries—have you finished handling things here, Ninth Prince?" Zhou Shuo glanced at the utterly disheveled old man, chuckled as he stopped Han Fei from rising to greet him, then naturally found a seat at the table and sat down.

"We've just finished handling things, but this excitement is only just beginning—we still need to go out once more." Wei Zhuang lifted his wine flask, drained it in one gulp, then abruptly rose to his feet.

"We still have to go out again—you're treating me like a laborer, I just changed my clothes!" Zhou Shuo looked at Wei Zhuang as he stood up and couldn't help twitching his mouth.

"Didn't you say you wanted to see the excitement?" Wei Zhuang stepped out of the house, came to the corridor, and turned back to look at Zhou Shuo.

"But this isn't fun at all." Zhou Shuo looked at the old man kneeling on the ground, rose to his feet, this excitement was not at all as enjoyable as he had imagined; had he known, he wouldn't have opened his mouth—he only wanted some combat experience, but now all he encounters are small fry, worthless for fighting, and even these ordinary skirmishes are tangled with too much intrigue and power struggle, which is not what he wants.

"This time we'll compare lightness skills—see who gets to Liu Manor first!" Wei Zhuang's form flickered, he shot out through the corridor's window lattice, while the old man kneeling on the floor, hearing that, couldn't help but change his expression.

"But the problem is I don't even know where Liu Manor is!" Zhou Shuo closely followed Wei Zhuang's silhouette.

"There's no absolute fairness in this world." Wei Zhuang looked at Zhou Shuo following him and sped up.