Chapter 200
Chapter 200
Qiu Yao'er asked Shen Lang.
“Now that you have healed me, what reward do you wish for?”
‘I want Raging Tide City!’
Of course, Shen Lang could only say this in his mind, shaking his head with a smile. This was the most exemplary answer. To obtain the best, it was always most fitting to feign humility and claim to need nothing. If the other party were shameless, you ought to demand the most you could within their means, but Qiu Yao'er was a person of integrity, so there was no need. Seeing Shen Lang say he needed nothing, Qiu Yao'er gave him a look of approval.
“I owe you a debt. From this day forward, whatever you ask of me, I will do it, so long as it is within my power.”
Those words were familiar. Indeed, the Sword King Li Qianqiu had said the same. But Shen Lang had asked him to repay the debt as soon as possible, demanding that the Sword King swap a woman’s undergarments. As a result, the Sword King never wanted to associate with Shen Lang again, but he, too, was a man of integrity and declared that he would not consider that act as having fulfilled his promise. Perhaps the Sword King’s pride would not allow him to claim a debt was repaid by swapping a woman’s underwear.
Sigh! No matter how earth-shattering their martial arts, people of noble character were easy to bully. Qiu Yao'er then walked into the inner room and began to remove the long robe she wore for sleeping. She was uninhibited, even with Shen Lang and Xu Qianqian present. The female fiend would never allow any man to dare touch her body, but she had no such reservations in front of women. For this reason, it seemed everyone believed she preferred women.
With just a glimpse, Shen Lang’s heart began to pound as if it would burst. Perhaps because of her towering height of one hundred and ninety centimeters, her body was sculpted with a golden ratio that was incomparable to anyone else’s. From her impossibly long legs to the curves of her figure, she would make every woman in the world feel ashamed of her own body. Shen Lang couldn’t control his trembling heart and quickly averted his gaze. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to look, but that he couldn’t bear to look any longer. If the thing beneath his skirt grew unruly and revealed to Qiu Yao'er that he was a man, he would be instantly cut down.
But it was as if he were possessed. He turned his gaze away and tried to think of various things to calm his racing heart, but he still couldn't control his lower body.
‘No, no. I must sit down. Huang Feng wants to sleep with me. Huang Feng wants to sleep with me.’
Shen Lang chanted this inwardly, but unlike before, it was utterly useless; it had no intention of shrinking.
‘W-what is happening?’
It felt as if a flame were erupting from deep within him. It was a subtle flame at first, but it soon threatened to grow into a world-consuming blaze. In response, Shen Lang pictured an undressed Huang Feng trying to seduce him with coquettish poses. But his manhood did not shrink; on the contrary, it grew even more ferocious.
‘My God! I must be doomed. Since when did my tastes become so peculiar?’
In a moment, Qiu Yao'er returned, having changed her clothes. She had changed into her pirate combat attire. Shen Lang found it even more impossible to stand up.
“Do not leave. Wait here. I will be back soon. Of course, I may not return.”
Having said this, Qiu Yao'er prepared to leave the room for her duel without a moment’s hesitation. At the sight, Shen Lang was struck dumb, his expression frozen in shock.
‘You just had surgery! Your wound isn’t even bandaged! Besides, you just lost over a liter of blood. The hematoma in your head was removed, but the residual pressure on your cranial nerves still lingers and will take several days to dissipate completely!’
This meant that Qiu Yao'er’s head would be spinning, and her legs would be unsteady. Her martial prowess would be significantly diminished, and dueling in such a state was simply courting death. Of course, a valiant general would not retreat from battle over a minor wound, but her current condition was no different from a corpse that had just climbed out of its coffin attempting to continue a fight.
Xu Qianqian pleaded with Qiu Yao'er, her voice filled with sorrow.
“General, can’t you postpone this duel?”
Shen Lang’s gaze naturally shifted to Xu Qianqian.
‘Hey, Xu Qianqian. Speaking with such a desperate tone… you weren’t like this before. Have you truly been conquered by the female fiend? That’s not a good sign.’
“That would be a foolish thing to do.”
Qiu Yao'er left Xu Qianqian with those words, grabbed two ghost-headed blades, and walked out. The sight made the hair on Shen Lang’s neck stand on end. The blades were over a meter long, and each appeared to weigh over a hundred catties, yet Qiu Yao'er held them as if they were light. She was an incredible woman. Never in his life had Shen Lang seen such an invincible warrior. Perhaps it was only natural that so many women had fallen for her.
At that moment, Qiu Yao'er sensed something was wrong with her body. Her limbs felt weak, and a strange sensation she had never experienced before was rising from the depths of her heart. It was a deeply unfamiliar feeling, like a small flame burning within her. She had never in her life been fond of anyone, man or woman. Until now, she had never even considered herself a woman, so the feeling was utterly foreign. She did not recognize it as desire and simply assumed it was a side effect of her blood loss.
‘Sigh, I will either lose or die in the duel tonight.’
Qiu Yao'er thought this to herself but paid it no mind. If living brought no joy, what was there to fear in death? She casually slung the two-hundred-catty ghost-headed blades over her shoulder and strode outside. She would go to the beach, face Zhu Hongxue in a duel, and settle the matter of victory and defeat, of life and death.
But as if she were possessed, the closer she got to the beach, the hotter her body became. Moreover, her heart pounded and churned with increasing intensity, which was strange. The small spark within her began to burn ever more fiercely.
***
Inside Qiu Yao'er's room.
Shen Lang let out a long sigh. Qiu Yao'er was finally gone. In that instant, his tension drained away, and a certain part of him jutted out in a particularly undignified manner, making it look as if he had hidden something long beneath his skirt. Xu Qianqian glanced at him and felt her entire body go dry and hot.
“You shameless pervert…”
Though she cursed Shen Lang under her breath, Xu Qianqian felt an unparalleled emptiness inside, and the fire in her body grew stronger, becoming impossible to suppress. Her skin grew redder, and her body felt parched and hot. Strange scenes continuously flashed through her mind—the words and illustrations from *Boundless Wind and Moon*. Soon, an unwatchable scene began to play out in her head, and the male protagonist had Shen Lang’s face. Xu Qianqian shook her head desperately.
‘W-what’s wrong with me? Am I possessed?’
But when she opened her eyes and saw Shen Lang in a skirt, the fire in her heart was instantly extinguished.
‘The Shen Lang before me is irritating. He’s not as manly and charming as I just imagined. Ptooey! Ptooey! Ptooey! I take that back. Why am I using the word “charming” to describe Shen Lang?’
Xu Qianqian knew she couldn’t just stand there dazed; it could be dangerous.
“I’m going to wash up with cold water!”
After speaking, Xu Qianqian tried to go to the room behind her. But for some reason, her body swayed, and she nearly fell.
“I’m warning you, if you dare to peek, I’ll gouge your eyes out. I keep my word. My martial arts aren’t great, but they’re more than enough to handle you.”
Xu Qianqian went into the next room, locked the door, and began to bathe. What was she doing, washing with cold water in this chilly weather? Shen Lang felt something was off. The fire coiled within his own body was also growing more intense, showing no signs of abating. This was not normal. Qiu Yao'er was gone, and Xu Qianqian had disappeared from view. Feeling parched and hot himself, Shen Lang poured cup after cup of tea from the pot on the table and drank continuously.
***
Inside the castle of the Lord of Raging Tide City.
Qiu Tianwei was receiving a guest: the Count of Jinhai, Tang Lun. Qiu Tianwei asked with a greedy glint in his eyes.
“Have you confirmed that there is a gold mine on Vain Hope Island?”
Tang Lun had met Qiu Tianwei several times, but he could never get used to the man’s face and instinctively averted his gaze. His nose was too long and crooked. He couldn't understand how his women could stand to look at that face.
“Qiu Hal must be certain. Otherwise, how could the Count of Xuanwu’s Estate produce eight hundred thousand gold coins in such a short time? That’s an astronomical sum. No matter how wealthy my family is, we couldn’t produce even half that amount.”
Qiu Tianwei asked.
“Who knows, perhaps it was borrowed money? Or maybe they struck a deal?”
Tang Lun did not reply. What kind of deal could possibly yield eight hundred thousand gold coins at once? Even if Count Jin Zhuo sold all his manors and tens of thousands of acres of land, he could never raise that much money. And borrowing it? That was even more absurd. If Count Jin Zhuo had the ability to borrow eight hundred thousand gold coins, he would never have fallen into such a miserable state in the first place.
“Isn’t it strange? The gold mine didn’t appear sooner, nor did it appear later. Why did it have to surface now, of all times?”
Count Jinhai, Tang Lun, said.
“Perhaps they discovered the gold mine long ago and have been mining it for some time. It could be that Shen Lang only brought out the gold on the very last day of repayment just to slap everyone in the face.”
“What would be the point of that? Shen Lang might be a man of such schemes, but the Count of Xuanwu, Jin Zhuo, is not. He is a stubborn old turtle. Humiliating so many people would only invite resentment and bring disaster.”
At that moment, Qiu Xiao interjected.
“Father, there is another possibility. The Jin Clan always wanted to keep the existence of the gold mine on Vain Hope Island a secret, but time was too short, and they couldn’t borrow money from other families despite trying every means. Besides, even with a gold mine, minting eight hundred thousand gold coins at once is no easy task. They might have rushed to produce the coins and only managed to repay the debt on the final day.”
The Count of Jinhai, Tang Lun, agreed with the words of the pirate king’s heir, Qiu Xiao.
“That makes sense. Among the gold coins and bullion the Jin Clan used for repayment, there were some roughly minted coins that looked freshly made, and some of it was even unminted gold. From that, it seems time was extremely tight, and their family must have exerted all their strength to produce those gold coins at the very last moment.”
Qiu Xiao said.
“A few days before the Jin Clan repaid the debt, everyone clearly saw several hundred carts transporting grain to the Count of Xuanwu’s Estate. It seems now that they must have hidden the gold inside those carts. Moreover, those carts came ashore from the Jin Clan’s pier. They simply transported them west first before heading to the Count of Xuanwu’s Estate to create the illusion that the shipment came from the west.”
That sounded quite plausible. The Count of Jinhai, Tang Lun, nodded and said.
“Lord of Raging Tide, since we have already begun, why don’t we just seize Vain Hope Island as well? This time, why not use the guise of pirates again and slaughter everyone on the island?”
At Tang Lun’s words, Qiu Tianwei expressed his concern.
“If that happens, wouldn’t the King truly dispatch his army to Vain Hope Island? If I send my forces to take the island, won’t His Majesty send a great army to attack me and take it back? I do not wish for the rewards my men have earned through bloodshed and hardship to be handed over to someone else for free.”
“Lord of Raging Tide, rest assured. I will go and draw their attention.”