Flower Stealing Master

Chapter 1121: Take Off Your Cl0thes

After the experiment with the needles, Song Qingshu understood clearly that the trace of relief he had felt from the Jade Bee Needles was barely perceptible — had he not been concentrating all his attention on sensing it, he might have missed it entirely. The toxicity in three needles was nowhere near sufficient to counter the ‘Heavenly Devil Flower’s venom. He would need to follow Zhou Botong’s method: vast numbers of bees, overwhelming the poison through sheer quantity.

“All right.” Xiao Longnu uncorked her jar of honey, then channelled her inner energy to carry its fragrance further out into the night air. After a short while, a faint droning sound drifted in from the cave entrance.

Song Qingshu’s face brightened. He promptly removed his clothing until he stood bare.

“You — what are you doing?!” Xiao Longnu glanced once, then turned sharply away, a note of sharp annoyance entering her voice. In truth, when Zhou Botong had used the bees to fight poison with poison in exactly this fashion, he had stripped the same way — and at the time, she had observed it with perfect composure, not a ripple of feeling. Yet seeing Song Qingshu’s body now brought her an acute and inexplicable discomfort.

Song Qingshu blinked, then explained quickly: “I need the bees to be able to sting as much of my skin as possible — clothing would get in the way.” He would never ordinarily have been so thoughtless; but he had just walked back from the edge of death, and every scrap of his attention was fixed on the problem of purging the poison. The finer points of propriety had simply not registered. The irritation in Xiao Longnu’s voice brought him back to himself.

Xiao Longnu knew his reasoning was perfectly sound. The impact of a young man’s powerful, unclothed form was, however, rather more than she had anticipated. She set her jaw. “Then turn around.”

Song Qingshu nodded and turned, fixing his gaze on the cave entrance with an expression of hopeful anticipation.

Xiao Longnu’s art of commanding bees proved as remarkable as ever. Before long, wild bees drawn by the honey’s scent began to arrive in numbers. Using a series of precise whistles, she directed them toward Song Qingshu, intending for them to sting him and drive their venom into his body.

The wild bees had never encountered Xiao Longnu before, yet under the influence of her remarkable technique they oriented themselves obediently toward Song Qingshu’s position.

Song Qingshu spread his arms wide and opened himself completely, like a man offering himself to a baptism.

Xiao Longnu watched this display with a faint flush rising in her cheeks. A flicker of pique passed through her, and she directed the bees with rather more severity than strictly necessary, thinking: ‘sting him well — he deserves it.’

At first the swarm moved exactly as commanded, driving straight toward Song Qingshu — but when they came within several metres of him, they suddenly halted. They circled him at that distance, buzzing intently, and went no further.

Xiao Longnu frowned. She assumed these wild bees, unaccustomed to her direction, were simply less responsive than the jade bees of the Ancient Tomb. She redoubled her efforts, pressing the command with greater force.

Under her sustained effort the swarm did advance another few feet — but at one metre from Song Qingshu, they stopped completely. No matter how insistently she pressed the command, not a single bee would move closer.

Song Qingshu opened his eyes and looked at Xiao Longnu with a puzzled expression.

Her cheeks warmed. She thought: ‘could he not at least cover himself in some places? This is… entirely improper.’

For all that Xiao Longnu had grown up apart from the world, the difference between men and women was something she understood with perfect clarity.

Left with no alternative, she tried issuing a direct command for the swarm to close in, telling herself she would retreat into the deeper part of the cave the moment they surrounded him.

What happened next was entirely unexpected. The swarm received the forceful command, agitated for a moment — and then, as one, turned and flew out of the cave. In an instant every last bee was gone, leaving a man and a woman in the cave staring at each other.

“Could your honey have gone off?” Song Qingshu’s expression was a study in complicated feelings. He couldn’t very well question her mastery of bee-commanding and risk embarrassing her — so he offered her a way to save face.

“Honey doesn’t spoil in a few years,” Xiao Longnu said, shaking her head. Genuine puzzlement showed in her eyes. “The wild bees seemed to be frightened of something. Could it be the ‘Heavenly Devil Flower’s venom on you?”

But she quickly dismissed her own idea. “No — the Five-Coloured Snow Spider’s poison was far more formidable than that, and the wild bees weren’t frightened of it at all.”

A thought flashed through Song Qingshu’s mind. “I know. It must be the Rhino Horn Earth Dragon Circulation Pill.”

He gave a wry, self-deprecating smile. “Its greatest property is repelling all poisons — keeping venomous creatures from approaching. Now that I’ve swallowed it, the bees can sense something in my presence and won’t come near.”

“Oh.” Xiao Longnu’s lips parted slightly. “It’s my fault for feeding it to you. If I had thought of using wild bee venom against the ‘Heavenly Devil Flower first, none of this would have happened.”

In Song Qingshu’s current state, tens of thousands of bees would probably be needed to have any chance of countering the ‘Heavenly Devil Flower’s venom within him. But thanks to the Rhino Horn Earth Dragon Circulation Pill, the bees would not go near him. Had their only remaining option just been cut off?

She could, in theory, slowly extract bee venom and charge it into Jade Bee Needles — but producing needles was no simple matter, and the number required to counter the ‘Heavenly Devil Flower would be astronomical. By the time enough were ready, the poison would almost certainly have surged back again.

Seeing the self-reproach written across Xiao Longnu’s face, Song Qingshu hurried to reassure her. “If you hadn’t fed me that pill when you did, my bones would already be cold. I owe you gratitude I haven’t finished expressing — how could I possibly blame you?”

Xiao Longnu glanced at him sideways and turned away with a trace of unease. “Since the bees can’t approach you anyway — please… put your clothes back on.”

Song Qingshu quickly retrieved his clothing from the cave floor and dressed, offering an apology as he did: “I’m sorry for, ah, offending little martial sister’s eyes.”

Xiao Longnu made a faint sound of acknowledgement and said nothing more. The cave settled into an odd, charged stillness.

Song Qingshu was about to break it with something when Xiao Longnu’s expression shifted suddenly. She moved swiftly to the cave entrance and looked out.

Without the ability to channel his inner energy, Song Qingshu’s hearing and sight were far below their usual reach. He felt a chill in his chest at the sight of her expression. “Have the pursuers come back?”

“Yes.” Xiao Longnu nodded, her face grave when she turned back. “And their numbers… are very great.”

Song Qingshu exhaled slowly. “The ones you let go earlier must have reported back and brought reinforcements.”

Xiao Longnu felt a quiet pang of regret — but if she could turn back time, she knew she would not have cut them down. It simply was not in her.

“There are too many of them,” she said. “I may not be able to manage.”

Song Qingshu, as both a master of the ‘wulin’ and a man tempered by true battle, understood something that most martial artists did not: against a real, organised military force, the advantage of individual skill counted for far less than one might suppose.

On a battlefield, enemies came from everywhere at once, blades and spears driving in from every angle — all the footwork and evasion techniques a fighter had spent years perfecting became largely useless. Ah Jiu and Zhou Zhiruo were among the finest fighters the ‘wulin’ had to offer, yet in their clash with the Qing imperial forces, their martial arts had availed them little — a small squad of well-drilled ordinary soldiers had proven more effective. In the original ‘Divine Condor Heroes’, Zhou Botong, Huang Rong, and a gathering of the ‘wulin’s very finest had attempted a rescue from a Mongol encampment, and nearly been wiped out by a few companies of a hundred men apiece.

Only the exceptional few could hold their own: those with Qinggong so transcendent it simply defied encirclement — Song Qingshu himself, Dongfang Muxue; those protected by poison — Ouyang Feng; those born with the constitution of a war god — Guo Jing, Xiao Feng; or those whose absolute power simply overwhelmed all opposition — Zhang Sanfeng, the Nameless Monk. For anyone short of these heights, being surrounded by a disciplined military formation meant death. Xiao Longnu’s swordplay was extraordinary, but she had plainly not yet reached the level where an army was beneath her notice.

“Take off your clothes,” Xiao Longnu said suddenly.

“I beg your pardon?” Song Qingshu stared at her, momentarily speechless. ‘Surely she doesn’t think — knowing we can’t escape — that she wants to… before we die…?’