Chapter 269: Miss Jiang

Jiang Lanting wore a look that said: "I know what you’re thinking."

"They tone up the body, replenish blood and qi, improve the skin, boost your energy, and slow aging. The effects are all long-lasting."

Senior Sister doesn’t need her skin improved, but the other effects would help her a lot. The xun grass pill’s beautiful complexion keeps one young forever, but only for the skin... Harmonizing yin and yang is no use to me now. If I ever need it, I can buy it from Fourth Jiang at a hefty price... Ding Songyan said to Jiang Lanting with a smile, "Please give me one of those yin-nourishing, beautifying wonder pills, Brother Jiang."

"Sure. I’ll have a Jade Bloom Body-Nourishing Pill delivered to Prince Kang’s estate for you." After agreeing, Jiang Lanting teased, "Which of your lady friends is it for?"

"My senior sister." Ding Songyan did not hide it.

"Not Twelfth Madam Luo?" Jiang Lanting looked surprised.

Huh... How do you know about Twelfth Madam? You only visited Prince Kang’s estate once... Ding Songyan was taken aback too.

That’s not right!

Has the rumor about me and Twelfth Madam reached even someone who only passed through once?

Or does the Yin-Yang Order have designs on Prince Kang’s estate and secretly gather gossip from the nearby streets?

Ding Songyan had a good sense of his own worth and did not for a moment consider that Miss Jiang admired him and had quietly looked into his affairs.

"Twelfth Madam and I are innocent. Where did you hear that we’re a couple, Fourth Jiang?" Ding Songyan glanced at the constables cleaning up the scene and asked.

Jiang Lanting’s skin was fair and fine, and in the candlelight beside them seemed brushed with a warm glow. He said with a grin, "Didn’t I come deliver the Tiger-Leopard Dragon-Concealing Pill last time? The moment the gate guards heard I was looking for you, they lowered their voices and told me, "’Miss, I don’t mean to badmouth anyone, but that Second Ding is a notorious playboy. He’d been at the estate only a few days before he started hooking up with Twelfth Madam Luo at the Cheap Wine Shop in the back alley. He goes there every day and comes back at midnight. They’ve been seen going in and out together many times, and the watchtower guards joke about it all the time. A beauty like you, a woman that can topple empires, mustn’t be fooled by a rake like that. There are plenty of honest, family-minded men out there who know how to treat a lady.’

"Second Ding, even the estate’s gate guards talk about you like this. How can you still say there’s nothing between you and Twelfth Madam Luo? Innocent, you say, and you call her Twelfth Madam?"

Great, they ditch a friend for a pretty face and tear me down behind my back. One look at a beautiful girl and they’re badmouthing me. Thank goodness it was Young Master Jiang who came, not Senior Sister... Ding Songyan smiled wryly.

"They were bewitched by your looks, Miss Jiang, and lost their heads. They’re jealous of me, so they exaggerated on purpose. Sigh, say something often enough and people believe it. Look what my reputation has come to...

"Twelfth Madam and I are friends, but we each have someone else in our hearts, and there’s nothing improper between us."

True, he was occasionally taken in by the charm Twelfth Madam let slip now and then, but that was only human. Few men in the world could stay as calm as still water in such a situation, and probably few women either. Snapping out of it quickly, keeping control of himself, and maintaining a proper distance was already about as good as it gets, and enough to count as a decent gentleman.

Ding Songyan didn’t say that he and Twelfth Madam had nothing between them. They really did share the bond of half-teacher and student.

Jiang Lanting chuckled.

"Only after the two guards finished did I give my name and say I was Young Master Brightstream. They were stunned."

The peerless beauty’s eyes turned, and he said with a smile in his gaze, "I’ll prepare two Jade Bloom Body-Nourishing Pills for you, one for your senior sister and one for Twelfth Madam Luo. A real man can be dashing and carefree, but he can’t be cold and heartless, and as long as you haven’t broken up with someone, you must never play favorites."

So you just ignored everything I said earlier? If I actually gave Twelfth Madam a Jade Bloom Body-Nourishing Pill, I’d get a stone thrown at my head... Ding Songyan did not argue with Young Master Jiang. Once people had made up their minds, there’s no moving them.

Getting a second Jade Bloom Body-Nourishing Pill was a good thing anyway.

He noticed that Jiang Lanting was not entirely calm after the assassination attempt. He was clearly unusually excited right now, even saying a nonsense line like "give myself to you."

It’s part lingering fear and trembling at nearly being hurt, and part pride and elation at having just entered the Dharma Realm and blocked an Earth-class assassin and nearly taken him down. These mixed into a seemingly normal excitement... Ding Songyan roughly grasped Young Master Jiang’s state.

Just then, the constables finished with the scene and signaled that Young Master Brightstream was free to go.

After this commotion, with people injured, The Legend of Madam White Snake would have to be staged another day.

Leaving Liangyuan Wazi, Jiang Lanting and Ding Songyan walked along the Hengbo River toward Golden Pool.

As they walked, Young Master Brightstream gradually fell silent and his excitement faded.

Ding Songyan glanced at him and said with a smile, "After this fight, Fourth Jiang, your rank on the Orchid Fresh List should climb another notch."

He had both entered the Dharma Realm and driven off an Earth-class Ghost Yu Way assassin.

Jiang Lanting gazed quietly at the moonlit surface of Golden Pool, sighed, and said with a self-mocking smile, "The Ghost Yu Way also misjudged my strength. If the assassins tonight had been two Grandmasters instead of one Dharma Realm and one Great Proliferation Realm, then even with my lifesaving tricks, I might not have held out until help arrived."

What he left unsaid was that Brother Ding could stop a Great Proliferation Realm fighter, but against a Dharma Realm Grandmaster there was nothing he could do, and how far the lifesaving tricks could go depended on how the other side played it, since this was the force most skilled at assassination.

Three Earth-class assassins would have the same outcome, unless they were all in the top twenty... Since I’m here tonight, I won’t let anything happen to you, Fourth Jiang... Ding Songyan reminded Jiang Lanting gravely, "This time the Ghost Yu Way had its own problem and misjudged your realm. There’s probably a third attempt coming."

The winter night wind blew across the lake, stirring Jiang Lanting’s sleeves like an immortal’s. He gripped the Flickerlight Sword, was silent for a moment, pressed his lips together, and said proudly, "Then I’ll be waiting."

Seeing Ding Songyan look over, the Young Master Brightstream smiled lightly.

"Martial arts isn’t an academic pursuit. Without the nerve to fight to the death when it counts and the courage to face every kind of danger, why venture into the jianghu at all?

"My master told me before: if all you want is the Dharma Realm, he’ll go to Xinfu City himself and settle things with that Black Third Master. But if you aim high, treat this as a trial. If you get through it, you’ll go further. If you don’t, you die here.

"I chose the latter."

Hearing this, Ding Songyan studied Jiang Lanting for a moment and said with a laugh, "Before, I looked at you the way one looks at the Peerless Beauties of the Jianghu, no—the Martial World’s Jade Tree Rankings. From now on, I’ll treat you the way I would anyone at the top of the Orchid Fresh List."

"You talk as if you’re a Dharma Realm Grandmaster yourself..." Jiang Lanting muttered.

Then he glared at Ding Songyan in mock anger,

"You mentioned the Peerless Beauties of the Jianghu on purpose, didn’t you?"

"Yes." Ding Songyan did not deny it.

That’s just how disreputable friends like that were.

Jiang Lanting glared at him for two breaths, then broke into a smile.

"After I embraced my female side, I actually did think about putting on women’s clothes, changing my name, and using the Boundless Forms Art to emulate another art so I could get onto the Peerless Beauties of the Jianghu under a disguise and be on both lists. Too bad I made such a splash before, and too many people know this face."

"If you’re going to play a prank like that, you have to do it early," Ding Songyan said from experience.

Jiang Lanting had recovered and no longer stayed as quiet as before. As he walked, he looked toward the Golden Pool, where many pleasure boats still blazed with light:

"After I get through the Ghost Yu Way’s third attempt, I’ll have been remade, both in martial arts and in mind.

"After that, there shouldn’t be a fourth. There never has been, whether they succeed or fail."

"The third will surely be even more dangerous. I’ll keep an eye out for news on that, and you’ll have to use the sect’s own power too," Ding Songyan reminded him again.

Jiang Lanting nodded solemnly.

After walking and chatting a while, Jiang Lanting pointed with a smile at a small boat heading toward a pleasure boat.

"Look, isn’t that Li Linquan?

"Which courtesan is that martial fanatic going to see now?"

Seeing Ding Songyan look puzzled, Jiang Lanting explained with a smile, "Li Linquan is devoted to martial arts. He says he won’t even talk about romance until he’s accomplished something. When he really has needs, he goes to the pleasure houses, and plenty of courtesans have fought over him."

"To each his own," Ding Songyan said, unwilling to pass judgment. Instead, he teased Young Master Jiang. "Didn’t you say that after all your thinking, Li Linquan was the only one who suited you? Aren’t you going to go say hi?"

Jiang Lanting laughed in dismay.

"I meant that if I had to pick a man, Li Linquan is the only one I’ve seen who’d do. But if I’m choosing among beautiful girls, there are far more. Miss Jiang likes beauty too."

At this, Jiang Lanting let out a breath.

"Unlike many of my fellow disciples, Young Master Jiang and Miss Jiang are one and the same for me, and which I am depends purely on my mood. I can be whichever I want. For all those years I was a young master, and maybe later I’ll live fully as a girl for a while. Only then will I feel I owe myself nothing."

Ding Songyan couldn’t relate to this and had no opinion to offer, so he fell back on a well-worn line.

"Everyone is full of contradictions. I am, and so are many Heaven-Man Supreme Masters. Fourth Jiang, yours are just more vivid and easier to see. There’s no real difference. Accepting our own contradictions is an important lesson on the road of cultivation."

Jiang Lanting nodded lightly, fell silent for a while, then said with a smile, "Call me Miss Jiang today."

"Miss Jiang, you really unleashed your power today. How many days have you been in the Dharma Realm?" Ding Songyan asked with a smile.

"I became a Grandmaster on the third day after the last attack," Jiang Lanting recalled.

Talking and laughing, the two arrived at the Yin-Yang Temple on the north shore of Golden Pool.

Ding Songyan asked casually, "Miss Jiang, you say you’re fourth in the family. Your clan must be big?"

"By the genealogy, yes," Jiang Lanting said, stopping. "My own immediate family is just a handful."

"I’ve never heard of other Jiangs," Ding Songyan said with a laugh.

Jiang Lanting smiled.

"They’re not jianghu people. Some are merchants, some farmers, some scholars, some run workshops, some work as clerks."

Ding Songyan nodded and said to Jiang Lanting, "Miss Jiang, go back and talk things over with the elders of the sect."

"Why are you so long-winded?" Jiang Lanting spat.

She turned and went into the Yin-Yang Temple with light steps.

Ding Songyan strolled back to the estate. The next morning, just after he got up and finished his morning practice, his Master Granduncle Wang Zhou walked into the side courtyard.

"The Martial Prohibition Bureau has caught a batch of people and asked us to check whether any are Demon Seed Two-Faced," Wang Zhou said with a laugh and a sigh. "They just follow procedure, and don’t care whether we can tell."

The Martial Prohibition Bureau is efficient... Ding Songyan marveled and agreed.

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