Nightfall

Upon hearing these words, the female Talisman Master bowed her head and looked at the white dress on her lap. It seemed that the lace was very beautiful. But in fact, there was nothing on that plain white dress.

The horse carriage was still moving and the wind on the Wilderness lifted the carriage curtains away. Morning sunshine sprinkled in and reflected on the black and white interior decorations inside of the carriage, falling on her black hair and white face so as to be separated into several rays of light. A calm and certain voice was uttered slowly from her lips. “I think I already have someone that I like.”

The morning sunshine also fell on Ning Que’s body. He did not expect that his habitual way of speaking would make her misunderstand him. He had an embarrassed smile, which looked very mild in the morning light. “I like a lot of people. I often use ‘like’ to express my goodwill. I hope it didn’t make you feel too brusque.”

The Wilderness land was blown dry and hard by a cold wind. The wheels running above the land were shaken upwards from time to time. The horse carriage was not big and two people sat opposite at a close distance. With the ups and downs of the carriage, their knees were about to touch together.

Ning Que moved backward and leaned against a cotton pad beside the window. His sore body finally found a supportive point so that he could not help making a pleasant sigh. He looked at the girl’s beautiful face that was close to him and said, “This world just runs like this. You don’t need to be unhappy about those disgusting things.”

Yesterday, he put on makeup for Mo Shanshan and tied her waterfall-like black hair behind her head. When she woke up this morning, she still retained the hairstyle, you could not tell if she was not concerned about these things or if she felt Ning Que’s craft was really good. So, she went to touch her bangs as usual, only to find that her slender fingers touched nothing.

She seriously asked, “Liking and hating are both emotions. How can we suppress them?”

Ning Que leaned against the window and slightly squinted for the morning light sprinkling from a curtain’s edge. After a short moment of silence, he said, “I didn’t mean to suppress this mood, but we should not be affected by this emotion. Getting angry is to use others’ mistakes to punish ourselves. It is not worthwhile.”

Mo Shanshan slowly furrowed her eyebrows as black as ink and persistently said, “But I’m just angry.”

Ning Que looked at her eyebrows and suddenly wanted to use his finger to touch them. But he retracted his hand back to his sleeves and said, “Since you’re angry, of course you should use the fastest speed to vent it. So I support you to go to the palace. But have you ever wondered what you will do once you have met the cavalrymen of Divine Hall or the noble in the palace?”

Mo Shanshan blankly shook her head. Her intuition told her that she should go to the palace and find those cavalrymen of Divine Hall and those people on the meadow, seeking justice for those dead sisters and brothers as well as the soldiers and common people of Yan Kingdom.

Ning Que seemed to guess her thought. So he looked at her and seriously said, “Justice has never existed. Even if your strength and identity are strong enough, sometimes you’re not necessarily able to seek justice. So a thing like venting has nothing to do with justice, but with fairness. What’s fairness? When others hit us, we hit them. When others scold us, we beat them. When others try to kill us, we kill them first.”

Mo Shanshan looked at him with her eyes open. It seemed that she did not expect that a lot of things coming from his mouth could become so simple and presumptuous. She wrinkled her brows and asked, “You… the Tangs all view things like this?”

“Most of us.” Ning Que laughed and said, “We were educated like this from the moment we were born.”

Mo Shanshan stretched out her hand to lift up the curtain of the window beside her. She watched the wild desolate view of the Wilderness that was gradually moving backward and a few lonely birds in the faraway sky. She thought of the person in the horse carriage on the meadow yesterday and said after a short silent moment, “What if I reach the palace and can’t kill those people?”

The cavalrymen of Divine Hall and the noble they protected naturally could not be killed easily, even if the killer was a world-known Calligraphy Addict. Ning Que looked at her blank facial expression, vaguely guessing that the status of those people on the meadow might be very high.

“Who were those people on the meadow yesterday?”

Mo Shanshan turned to look at him and whispered, “Revelation Institute students and White Tower Temple monks. If you want to ask about the person in the horse carriage, she is the Princess of Yuelun Kingdom as well as the favored one in the Revelation Institute.”

Ning Que’s frowning brows gradually stretched out. The change of his facial expression did not mean that he had relaxed, but showed that he was a bit surprised. Then he said, “Flower Addict Lu Chenjia? What did this legendary person come to do in the Wilderness?”

Mo Shanshan looked at him and suddenly laughed. Her somewhat stiff expression suddenly became vivid with this rare smile. Especially her indifferent cold eyes, which actually instantly became a little lovely.

“You don’t know that Mo Shanshan is a Calligraphy Addict, but do know the name of Flower Addict.”

Ning Que smiled and thought that if this person was that Flower Addict, then it was really wishful thinking for them to go to the palace to seek justice. His smile gradually converged and he looked at Mo Shanshan to say, “You can not kill, but want to vent. Maybe I can offer you some ideas. For Flower Addict Lu Chenjia, what does she like the best or value the most?”

“She’s a Flower Addict. Of course she likes flowers the best.”

Mo Shanshan confusedly looked at Ning Que’s face as if seeing an idiot. She said, “In addition, people all know she crazily fell in love with Prince Long Qing. In fact, she is a very lofty person.”

After a moment of thought, Ning Que said, “Venting is nothing more than bullying people. If you want to go to the palace for venting, you’d better start with two things—flowers and loftiness.”

Then he began to seriously make plans for Mo Shanshan. Once they met Lu Chenjia in the palace, they should use any kind of way to vent the anger of the Black Ink Garden disciples and not cause a too big sensation.

Mo Shanshan listened to these almost childish tricks, but felt that they were really some insidious ideas after careful thought. She slightly furrowed her brows and looked at Ning Que’s smile under the morning light. She watched his fresh little dimples, suddenly feeling that his smile was so evil as well as so cute.

Bullying people was Ning Que’s favorite thing. He even liked bullying the strong by being weak more than he liked having sex. He secretly thought he had bullied Prince Long Qing in advance one time and did not know how Flower Addict thought of him after she knew this. When he was just excitedly imagining this scene, he suddenly found Mo Shanshan was intently looking at him. It was not until then did he find that he had overacted, so he could not help but awkwardly smile.

…

…

Ning Que asked, “Are you familiar with Flower Addict?”

At this time Mo Shanshan was grinding an inkstone and stretching some paper. In order to keep a distance from Ning Que, she tried her best to make her waist and buttocks that pressed against her calves lean against the window. She replied, “A few years ago she had been to Mogan Mountain, I spent dozens of days with her.”

Ning Que leaned against the carriage board and looked up at the net decorations inside the carriage. He slightly tilted his brows and asked, “What kind of person is Flower Addict? Beautiful? Does she love flowers like a legendary flower addict?”

Mo Shanshan suddenly stopped her right hand holding the brush and looked back at him. She asked, “Are you very interested in her?”

Ning Que said smilingly, “I am really curious what Prince Long Qing’s fiancee looks like because I have always wondered, is there a woman in this world who won’t feel inferior when she sees Prince Long Qing’s perfect face?”

Mo Shanshan gently put the brush on a shelf and turned around by touching the board with her hand. She slightly tilted her head to look at him and asked, “Have you seen Prince Long Qing?”

“Even if I have not seen him before, I have heard of him. Everybody knows that His Highness is the most beautiful man in the world.”

After finishing this sentence, Ning Que found that the young girl was still staring at him. He knew that she did not believe this. So he had no other choice but to raise his hands and said smilingly, “Well, I admit that I did see him.”

Mo Shanshan quietly looked at him and secretly thought of something. Her eyesight, which had been quiet like a rippling lake in autumn, suddenly became bright. She slightly moved her lips and wanted to ask, but finally did not do it. She seemed to be a little uneasy.

Perhaps in order to hide her uneasiness in the previous moment, she slightly bowed and slightly blinked her eyelashes. Then she put her hands on her lap to sit back and spoke about another thing. “You have analyzed that the target of that Horse Gang wasn’t forage, but me. In fact, their goal should have been you.”

She looked up at Ning Que as if looking at the Wilderness view outside of the window behind him and seriously said, “I very clearly saw the picture behind the fire wall. They have prepared to kill you.”

She still did not ask the question that she had wanted to ask. But Ning Que knew she had long been suspicious of his identity. It made him feel a little grateful when she did not directly ask this question. However, at this time he still hesitated when to tell those Great River Kingdom girls about his true identity. So he did not know how to answer her.

When they mentioned the fire block in the battle yesterday, he remembered that horrifying hollow that the Half Divine Talisman had stricken on the fire wall. He said, “At that time I thought it was the last burning Fire Talisman you could display and later you would be too exhausted to display the simplest Talisman Taoism. I never expected you had hidden your last magical attack.”

Mo Shanshan suddenly leaned her body forward and very seriously bowed to him. Then she whispered, “Thanks to Senior Brother for your fighting advice the day before yesterday. Shanshan appreciated it very much.”

Ning Que was startled and remembered a few days ago that he had very severely reprimanded her by saying that she was a woman who did not understand fighting and did not know about leaving the most powerful forces for the most crucial moment. At that time, he had not completely guessed her identity. At this moment, when he thought he was actually teaching a Calligraphy Addict how to fight, he could not help feeling somewhat proud.

“Anyway, thanks to your Half Divine Talisman, we could survive.”

At that time, he had been in a critical situation and had not had a clear feeling about that earth-shattering Divine Talisman. However, he thought deeply and thoughtfully last night, and he found this female Talisman Master opposite him to be more and more amazing.

It was not a remarkable thing to cultivate in five states and cross states to challenge others. As Chen Pipi had said, based on his cultivation qualification, even if he entered the Knowing Destiny State, he was also the weakest one in the Knowing Destiny State in history. If there were no other tricks, any strong man in the Seethrough State could try to cross the state to challenge or even kill him.

However, the state was the state. Mo Shanshan actually still stayed in the state of Seethrough. At that time, however, she was actually able to display Infinitive Talisman that only a Divine Talisman Master could exert. This fact made Ning Que deeply shocked and extremely puzzled.

Master Yan Se judged that he was the world’s most hard-fought Talisman Taoism genius. But when Ning Que looked at this white-clothed girl in front of him, who was quietly kneeling with her hands on her knees as well as her beautiful calm cheeks, he unexpectedly had an unconfident mentality.

“Master, didn’t you choose me for knowing that the world’s most talented Talisman Taoism successor was taken away by the Master of Calligrapher? What you have done only makes your disciple shameful.”

Of course, Mo Shanshan could not guess Ning Que’s psychological activity at this time and even did not know that he was complaining about one of the most respected Divine Talisman Masters and bemoaning his own fate. She held her hands together to bow and conscientiously asked, “Senior Brother Zhong…”

Ning Que woke up and carefully corrected her. “I said you could call me Thirteen.”

Mo Shanshan was startled and thought this name sounded somewhat awkward. After a moment of hesitation, she shyly said, “Senior Brother… Thirteen, I want to ask you something.”

Ning Que saw her serious and conscientious facial expression. He did not know what she was about to ask, but he set his mind and greeted her with a bow with hands folded in front. He said, “Go ahead, please.”

Mo Shanshan said, “When I was young, I followed my teacher to a mountain for Talisman Taoism cultivation. For more than 10 years, I only contacted two things—calligraphy and the talisman. I would like to invite Senior Brother to teach me how to fight and how to win.”

Ning Que looked at her conscientious expression and understood that it must have been the battle yesterday that made this naive but well-known female Talisman Master suffer a certain impact of her view of the world. Therefore, she had this kind of request.

Regarding the cultivation state, he knew his mediocrity compared with Senior Brothers and Sisters of Back Mountain, Prince Long Qing, and this female Talisman Master opposite him. But when it came to fighting, he had been struggling for his life and dancing on a blade since childhood. His whole life was non-stop fighting, which made him very confident.

“Fighting is a very simple matter. That is how to make your opponent lose his ability to hurt you under the premise of protecting yourself. Therefore, we must first understand what kind of strength we have and what kind of strength the enemy has.”

Ning Que pointed at the horse carriage roof above them and said, “We must first know how high it is from the roof to the floor, and then know our height so as not to stand up to hit our heads. Of course, maybe we would pierce the roof. But I don’t think many people would want to measure the hardness of the roof with their own head.”

He used very simple words and metaphors to clearly describe the preparation before a battle.

When Mo Shanshan was thinking, her eyes became more blank. He completely did not know where she was looking. She whispered softly, “How can we judge that the opponent has lost his ability to hurt us?”

Ning Que most liked answering this kind of seemingly foolish but very important question. He leaned against the cotton pad beside the window, waving his hand in the air, and then replied. “Breaking arms and legs is the most commonly used means of making others seriously injured. But if you need to make sure that the opposite side loses all his combatting power, keep in mind one sentence: You’re only safe when you’re dead.”

Upon listening to these words, Mo Shanshan’s eyes looked a bit confused. It seemed that she did not understand why Ning Que always directly talked about death every time it came to fighting. In her childhood, she studied from Ink Lake teachers that, in the cultivators’ contest, did not necessarily have to win by putting others to death.

Ning Que looked at her facial expression and realized this Calligraphy Addict was really a pure white lotus born in Ink Lake. Before she came to the Wilderness, she had actually been completely ignorant of the world’s suffering. He could not help patiently saying, “If you cultivate in Ink Lake, of course you don’t need to think about these matters. Just like me, if I hide in the Academy to study at this time, all I would need to do every day is to play chess, hit iron, and listen to songs. What a happy life I would have. But outside the small building, the world is full of dangerous wind, snow, rain, and swords. Since you have set foot in it, you have to understand how the word ‘sinister’ is written.”

Mo Shanshan listened to his sincere words, nodding to show that she had understood him. At the same time, she gratefully glanced at him. But unfortunately, her gaze was still very casual, which did not make Ning Que feel her gratitude clearly.

“Senior Brother Thirteen, if the strength of the opponent is far beyond yours, how do you beat him?”

“Hill Master…”

“Senior Brother Thirteen, you can directly call my name.”

“If the others know that, they will inevitably feel that I am not respectful.”

“Please call me Sister Shanshan.”

“Sister Shanshan, the question you just asked… basically has no solution. If anyone can answer this question perfectly, then he is the most powerful person in this world. Because he has more ways to defeat the person more powerful than himself.”

Mo Shanshan slightly furrowed her brows and seriously asked after a long moment of silence, “Senior Brother, your words… are ironic?”

Ning Que stared at her and found an uncomfortable fact from the bank of this dark blue lake that, in addition to Sangsang, there was someone who finally appeared to be able to beat him numerous times in the world.

“Sister, you can think it is ironic. But please do not think too much. I often use irony in my speech to deepen the listener’s impression. Because this is a very important matter.”

Mo Shanshan nodded and continued to ask, “Then how can we defeat the enemies that are more powerful than us?”

Ning Que seriously answered, “When we encounter a far stronger enemy than ourselves, I insist that we have only one choice.”

Mo Shanshan slightly raised her small face and asked with an expected look, “What choice?”

Ning Que said, “Escape.”

“… ”

“No need to be speechless. Escaping is also a kind of fighting. Because when facing an opponent far more powerful than yourself, you might not escape even if you want to. If you want to, I can start to teach you from the escape.”

“Senior Brother, it is indeed of very good character to consider failure before talking about success. But I still want to learn how to win first.”

Mo Shanshan sat on a small window sill with her hands holding an ink brush, and was ready to carefully record.

When Ning Que looked at this picture, he could not help feeling a little proud, recalling that, like her, he had carefully recorded every word of Mr. Lu’s on paper with an ink brush in the horse carriage coming back from the Wilderness in the spring of last year. He had a lot of complicated feelings and carefully said after calming down,

“Your thought is correct too, there are not many other people in the world whose cultivation state can surpass yours. I believe most of the time the opponents you face are like the Horse Gang yesterday, far weaker than you.”

He said seriously, “In the face of opponents weaker than ourselves, we should not be sympathetic and compassionate, or proud and arrogant. We should treat opponents as the most powerful enemies, rather than weak.

“But you have to remember that in the attitude of war, you can’t despise your opponent but should tactically choose the right fighting method. When you’re strong and your enemy is weak, you should be as tough as a tiger to hunt him with your full power. Using your full power like a tiger is not really to use all the power in your palms to kill the weak rabbit, but to focus on your mind so you don’t give the weak rabbit any chance of escape. A direct hunt for the rabbit can help you avoid chasing until exhaustion and entanglement so you can save your strength. If a hunting tiger appears, hundreds of rabbits don’t dare to move.”

Mo Shanshan recorded those words and looked up at him to ask, “What if two tigers meet?”

Ning Que said, “You can pretend to be hurt and beg for mercy by saying that you have silently loved him for 10,000 years, trying your best to weaken his mind. You can hit his mother, kill his family, slap his children in the face, and try every way to anger the opposition. If you wear shoes, go to a thorny land. If you wear thick clothes, choose a bitterly cold place. Try everything possible to create a suitable background for your fighting. If he has great power and you have sharp claws, you can fight while running to cut his skin and make him continue bleeding. If he has sharp claws and you have great power, you can quietly wait and allow him to slightly harm you. Then you choose the perfect opportunity to kill him. All in all, try your best to hide your shortcomings and grab the best fighting chance.”

Mo Shanshan listened to his endless comments on various situations. She became more and more absentminded in her eyes and she subconsciously muttered, “It sounds like it’s very complicated. Where can I find so many methods?”

“If nothing works, you just have to remember the last one.”

Ning Que looked at her and seriously said, “When two tigers meet, the brave one wins.”

Mo Shanshan seriously looked at him with her eyes open. After a long period of silence, she fully understood the meaning of his words. Then she softly said with lament, “Senior Brother, you know so many things.”

Ning Que felt that her gaze always seemed to be focused elsewhere. Upon listening to this praise, he could not help feeling a bit weird. He said, “Sister, you have countless admirers in the world. If you often praise me, I’ll feel a bit overwhelmed.”

Mo Shanshan furrowed her inky eyebrows and puzzledly asked, “Senior Brother, how do you know so many things?”

Ning Que adjusted his sitting position and said smilingly, “The Academy teachers have taught us a sentence: Genuine knowledge comes from practice. Sister, if you had been fighting since childhood just like me, you’d naturally understand so many things.”

Mo Shanshan looked more and more confused on her face. “Brother you’ve fought so many… Were you very naughty in your childhood?”

Ning Que felt his body slightly stiffen and felt it really hard to talk with this white lotus of Black Ink Garden.

Mo Shanshan asked, “Senior Brother?”

Ning Que exhaustedly waved his hand and said, “Sister, I also have a question to ask you.”

Mo Shanshan asked, “What question?”

Ning Que looked at her eyes and asked, “Why do you never look me straight in the eyes?”

Mo Shanshan looked at him and puzzledly asked, “When?”

Ning Que felt that she was looking at the Wilderness outside the window and sighed, “Anytime, anywhere. For example, now.”

Mo Shanshan suddenly thought of one thing and her expression became slightly stiff. After a short moment of silence, she quietly explained. “I was fond of calligraphy since childhood and have copied too many sections. So my eyes are not very good.”

Ning Que slightly opened his lips and did not know what to say. Then he realized that the well-known Calligraphy Addict was actually short-sighted. Besides, from her eyesight, did she still have astigmatism?