Flower Stealing Master

Chapter 1109: Between Life and Death

After a moment, Li Kexiu finally stepped out from the covered walkway. He regarded Song Qingshu with an expression caught between guilt and awkwardness. “Nephew — I never wanted things to reach this point. But your martial arts stand too far beyond anyone’s reach. We had no choice but to incapacitate you first.”

“Incapacitate me.” Song Qingshu’s voice carried a flat, cold contempt. “With the Heavenly Devil Flower. What a generous hand you’ve played.”

Li Kexiu gathered himself with some effort and said, with studied calm: “There is no need to worry, nephew. The toxin merely strips you of the ability to act. It will not take your life.”

Song Qingshu’s expression did not change. “At this point, why deceive yourself? The Heavenly Devil Flower is an absolute poison. There is no antidote anywhere under heaven.”

“What?” Li Kexiu turned sharply to Wan Qili. “Left Minister — is this true?”

Left Minister. Something clicked behind Song Qingshu’s eyes. He had the old man’s identity now — Wan Qili, the reigning Left Minister of the Southern Song court. And given how fiercely he had reacted to Wan Gui’s injury, they were clearly close in blood…

In response to Li Kexiu’s question, Wan Qili said mildly: “General Li — when a thing is done, it is done. Since you have already broken ties with this man, why show restraint? If we don’t finish him now while he cannot defend himself, are we to wait for him to come back and exact revenge?”

Li Kexiu felt a chill move through him. So this is the man who brought Yue Fei down. The ruthlessness is not exaggerated.

Song Qingshu’s brow was tight, but the question of whether Li Kexiu was playing a role had ceased to matter. Every scrap of his attention was turned inward, on the poison working through him — and what he found there was not encouragement. He had been attempting to force the toxin out, but with each moment that passed, his cultivation was not recovering — it was contracting further.

Wan Qili caught the subtle change in him and felt his certainty solidify. He raised a hand. “Three ranks of promotion and ten thousand taels of gold to whoever kills him.” He understood nothing of internal cultivation, but he understood enough to know that Song Qingshu could not be left in peace to expel the toxin.

Song Qingshu’s reputation had cowed the courtyard — and that single demonstration of sword Qi had cowed them further. But a sufficient reward has always been able to move men past their fear. Three ranks of promotion and ten thousand taels: several lifetimes’ worth of wealth. Eyes brightened around the courtyard. Men who had been hesitating found their hesitation dissolving.

Men die for wealth as birds die for food. A group of them came howling forward. Song Qingshu dared not spend more sword Qi — it cost too much of what little he had left. Instead he stripped the blade from the first man to reach him and broke into a ferocious sequence of saber techniques.

The courtyard saw nothing but flickering cold light, and despite themselves they could not help feeling a reluctant awe — that a man poisoned to this degree could still move with such precision and ferocity.

It did not last long. Song Qingshu came to rest with the saber planted in the ground to hold himself up, his body trembling faintly in the cold air. Around him, the dozen or so men who had charged first lay still in spreading pools of blood.

These were the best of the fighters Wan Qili had brought — men Song Qingshu would never have troubled himself with under normal circumstances. But killing them had spent the last of what he had.

A wet sound.

Something gave way inside him. He could not stop it — a spray of blood left his lips.

The sight of it ran like a current through everyone watching. The hesitation broke: “He’s poisoned through. He can’t hold much longer!”

Yet Song Qingshu’s residual presence still held them — no one was willing to be first to move, not after watching what he had just done. They circled at a distance, calling out to each other’s courage without quite acting on it.

Song Qingshu understood his own condition precisely. He had spent the last few minutes attempting to buy time, hoping the toxin could be forced out — but the evidence was clear. Time was not helping. His capacity for offense was shrinking with each breath. If he remained here, he would die among these lesser men.

He looked at Wan Qili and Li Kexiu with a long, cold gaze. “If I die today,” he said quietly, “I’ll take some of you with me.” He was already moving as he said it, directly toward the two men.

Wan Qili and those near him scattered backward in alarm, crying out: “Stop him, stop him!”

Their fighters converged toward their principals, and for a moment the encirclement fractured — a gap appeared. 

Song Qingshu closed half the distance, then sharply reversed, drove through the opening, and launched himself toward the outer wall.

He could no longer call on the Distance as Close as the Ends of the Earth — the toxin had consumed too much. Under ordinary circumstances he could have cleared the Commander’s compound in a single movement. Now he struggled to reach the wall at all.

He was nearly over it when archers appeared along the top, arrows already nocked and flying. He felt a stab of cold clarity: if they drove him back into the courtyard, there would be no surviving this night. He forced up a final thread of true qi — wrenched himself sideways through the air by nearly a full zhang, clearing the arrow storm — and was gathering himself to clear the wall when the qi simply stopped.

His body dropped back into the courtyard with a heavy impact.

“Ha! The poison has reached his heart — he’s finished!” Wan Qili’s face was bright with excitement. He ordered his people to close in.

They looked at one another. He had killed more than a dozen skilled fighters with what appeared to be ease — who could say whether a dying man would not take someone with him? The reward was attractive. Only if you survived to claim it. The ring held its shape, but no one took the step inward.

Song Qingshu gave a bitter inward laugh. That sideways shift through the air to dodge the arrows had burned through more than he could afford. In his current state — true qi stuttering and intermittent — that single expenditure had left him with nothing in reserve to bring up behind it.

After what had just happened, he could no longer hold the Heavenly Devil Flower’s toxin at bay. He felt it entering his organs.

He allowed himself a moment of quiet resignation. I came into this world at hell difficulty, and I climbed out of it. To die by the hands of men like these — what an ending. He gathered what he had left and fixed his eyes on Wan Qili. One last breath. Let’s see if it reaches him — for Yue Fei’s sake, and for my own.

Wan Qili felt the weight of that gaze and backed several more steps, finding some composure only when he had a solid wall of guards between them. The composure gave way quickly to furious embarrassment at his own fear.

His people were still hesitating. He turned on Li Kexiu with barely suppressed rage: “General Li — have your archers shoot this treacherous rebel down.”

Li Kexiu’s expression was complicated. “This—”

“There is no road back from here,” Wan Qili said sharply. “If Song Qingshu escapes this courtyard alive, neither of us will survive what follows.”

Wan Gui seized the moment to press: “General Li — the moment this man dies, you march north and absorb the Golden Serpent Camp’s territory. Combine forces with Wu Sangui and divide the Qing between you from north and south. You would become the paramount power in the Central Plains.”

Li Kexiu’s eyes lit with sudden resolve. His hand came up. “Archers—”

A cold wave passed through Song Qingshu. He was already calculating the angle, gathering the last ember of his true qi to throw himself at Wan Qili before the command could be finished — when a slender figure burst into the space between them, arms spread wide, facing Li Kexiu with a cry that cut through everything:

“Don’t!”