Martial King's Retired Life

“You could’ve just told me I needed to soak in the tub to heal my wounds. Why did you have to say all that nonsense…” Ling Jialan, submerged in the tub on the other side of the screen, spoke softer and softer for each successive word.

“Right…” With battle scars on his face, Ming Feizhen mumbled, “How should I have known you were going to wake up then? I was put on the spot.”

Ming Feizhen actually had a proper explanation in mind, but very advanced internal discipline progress was required to extract the poison, and he had no plans to show her too much of his skills. As a result, he couldn’t come up with anything on the spot. He realised too late that he could’ve just told her the drug expelled the poison.

The inn they were at wasn’t high end by any means, so it was natural for the tub to be small. In order to collect all of the poison, Artisan Ming stole three tubs from other rooms, then pulled them apart to one large enough for Ling Jialan to straighten her legs similar to the bathtubs he had enjoyed in the Western Regions. Since she was able to assume a relaxing posture, Ling Jialan shut her eyes and relax. Little did she know the true magic to her treatment was the celestial spider silk that Ming Feizhen used to drain out the poison from her body whilst nursing her wounds. Regrettably, he wasn’t able to even collect 30% of his original estimation since she preferred to remove her clothing.

“Was Bu Xusan good?”

Ling Jialan opened her eyes quickly. “How dare you ask me that after walking off?! Where did you go? I told you to back off, so you ran off?!”

“I’m a gentleman, so I’m a man of my word.”

“Gentleman, my foot!”

“I had faith in your abilities, did I not?”

“You are undefeated in Jiangnan. I have always respected your abilities. Staying behind would be insulting your abilities.”

“But… Bu Xusan is strong, too.”

“Would you have lost had he not resorted to poison?”

“Mm! But…”

“You need not be modest. Regardless of when and where, I would never believe Bu Xusan could defeat you no matter who said so.”

“Um… Thank you.” Ling Jialan dipped herself down lower, leaving just the top half of her face above the surface as she blew bubbles.

“Miss Ling, you have not answered the question. Is Bu Xusan good? What techniques did he use?”

“He didn’t use any techniques… besides the Dark Sword Prison you pointed out. Besides that, he was just fast. He appears proficient in swordplay. Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to care for it due to the poison. As you saw, the poison seems to distort the victim; even his eye colour was different. When he couldn’t defeat me, his eyes turned dim, and then he started roaring. His fingers became sharp like… claws. I couldn’t cut his fingers, and I started feeling dizzy. While I was feeling dizzy, he became significantly faster, and I eventually succumbed.”

“His eyes turned dim?”

“Yeah.” There was still lingering fear when Ling Jialan recalled the fight. “It seemed like a signal for change. He had a sudden substantial power boost, and his body transformed. I don’t know if the poison took control of him.” Seeing Ming Feizhen look serious for the first time, she asked, “Ming Feizhen, did you notice, too?”

“Notice what?”

“That Lian Hua and Fu Dalong are suspicious.”

Ming Feizhen titled his head. “What makes you say so?”

“They can’t have just gotten to know each other. I was observing them the whole time. Now that I think about it, the two of them were holding back when they got involved. They couldn’t have made it look so convincing if they weren’t familiar with each other’s abilities, yet they pretended to barely know each other at the pub. Perhaps they were trying to lure us when they fought at the pub.”

“Isn’t that what I said? As if it’d be so simple to find a trail. Hey, hey, you listening?”

“You heard why I fought Lian Hua. Don’t you think it’s fishy? All I did was tell him to bring a doctor. Even if I wasn’t too nice about it, he had no qualms leaving his brothers to suffer while he fought me. Fu Dalong watched from the sidelines when he is supposed to have a grudge with Lian Hua. Although he appeared to be neutral, he was waiting for an opportunity to work with Lian Hua to take me down. He made his move when you arrived because he was unsure how dangerous you were and was afraid you would ruin their plans.”

Ling Jialan wasn’t shrewd; she drew those conclusions simply from reflecting on the fights she had.

“Do you remember what Lian Hua said? He said, ‘I’m going to capture you and… something.’”

“Uh, ride you.”

“I know that!” Cheeks rosy, Ling Jialan continued, “He made up a reason on the spot since you messed up their plans so that my fight didn’t look out of place. Unluckily for them, I’ve realised their ploy. I haven’t known Lian Hua for long, but he doesn’t strike me as a lecher, yet he pretended to be lusting after me. That was when I started to suspect something wasn’t right, but I didn’t realise they were the odd ones until later. The two of them aren’t weak; I wouldn’t have an easy time beating either of them in a one-on-one match, so it makes no sense for Bu Xusan to have incapacitated them in one strike when I lasted so long.”

Ming Feizhen gave an applause. “Wonderful.”

“You agree?”

“You’re finally putting things together.”

“You knew it?” Though Ling Jialan’s intuition told her that Ming Feizhen had noticed something, she didn’t believe he knew everything.

Ming Feizhen shrugged. “Only you’d believe someone would fight you to save his brothers. Lian Hua is a properly trained man; he’s not someone who would go down in one of those blows and not be able to get up. If that was true, you wouldn’t have been able to block one palm attack. The old fox called for a truce as soon as he noticed you had a chance to escape in case you saw through their ruse. Why would someone so shrewd throw himself in the line of attack to protect you when he saw Bu Xusan? It’s as clear as day that they’re in cahoots in Bu Xusan and after us.”

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