After being thrown around all night, YangYue was very sleepy, thus while yawning he was getting ready to go back to his room to rest. He was about to step in when he was pulled by Jinxia who was behind him.
“What’s wrong with you again?” He turned around to look at her. Jinxia was not sleepy nor tired, her eyes were bright and sharp now.
“Shhh… I want to go underwater to take a look!” Jinxia whispered in a low voice in his ear.
YangYue did not even think about it, and quickly shook his head: “Father’s already said he doesn’t want us to interfere.”
“You don’t remember what he said, I could only speak flattering words, not even completing the task. Think about who he is, the staff general of Qiu Luan. Qiu Luan builds and manages the horse market, but the chaos caused by it makes the Heavens angry, they are no good!” Jinxia patiently explained one by one, trying to persuade him: “We’ll secretly dive underwater and sink the birthday gifts, even if he can’t find them, he won’t dare to cause trouble and just quietly swallow his anger.”
Even though YangYue was also upset by Wang Fangxing’s words, he remained untempted and kept shaking his head: “No way, father already said…”
“I know, Master’s words, I heard them, I heard…” Jinxia interrupted him, “Master does not allow us to interfere in this matter, I don’t plan on it! I just want to give him a lesson, a fox with thousands of years of expertise which we have never met [they’ve met all kinds of people], he’s nothing!”
“I don’t think so, it’s better to reduce the problem than adding to it.”
Jinxia looked closely at YangYue, saw that he was still hesitating, then pretended to say: “…Nevermind, I will go alone, I won’t drag you in this.” While talking, she walked away.
Despite knowing that she intentionally behaved like that, YangYue could only sigh helplessly and catch up to her: “My swimming skills are not good, you know that.”
“Calm down, you don’t need to go in the water, you only need to be on the boat and provide assistance.” Jinxia warned him repeatedly, “most importantly, don’t get caught by others.”
“…We’re clearly government officers, yet act like thieves.”
YangYue continued to shake his head, not having the slightest idea how to deal with her.
At this time the sky was starting to light up a bit, YangYue looked at the cold river water and shivered, he tried to advise Jinxia: “In my opinion, let it go, just because of this case you want to jump in this cold water? It’s not a good idea.”
“I can’t, I have to let him swallow this suffering [practically teach him a lesson].”
Jinxia chose a quiet place on the edge of the ship and quickly took off her shoes and outer robe. With only the inner robe on her, she hadn’t entered the water yet but was already sneezing.
“Tell me, why do you have to do this?” YangYue tried persuading her again.
“Shhh..”
Jinxia gave him a silent hand signal and made a simple gesture to warm the body. Her back was leaning on the railing of the ship, then only a soft splash was heard: she had successfully entered the water.
Knowing her swimming skills were good, YangYue wasn’t too worried, only afraid she would be caught by Wang Fangxing’s people who were on the ship; he was nervous and couldn’t stop observing the movements on the ship.
The river water was a bit murky and the morning sun was starting to shine, so that under the water the light was dim, the shadows looked faint and wobbly, and changing shape. Jinxia’s vision below the surface of the water could only reach less than two feet, so she had to rely on her memory and swim toward Wang Fangxing’s ship.
The shadow of the courier ship quickly appeared before her eyes, Jinxia swam towards the ship, slowly circling it. Not seeing anything strange, she finally clung to the hull, carefully checking the side of the ship and often floating to the top of the water surface to take a breath.
At the bottom of the ship there were a total of eight waterproof compartments. As the term implies, each space was sealed so that the water could not enter, even if the water had entered any of the spaces, the compartments would have guaranteed the water not to flow into other rooms. The most important function was to maximise the safety of the ship, so that if in any of the compartment the water entered, the whole ship would not experience any danger, it would only need some repairs once the ship would be anchored.
When Jinxia touched the fifth position of the compartment in front of her, she found that something was wrong. The ship’s board was not sealed at all and as she reached it out, for a moment she could feel water coming in and out through the gap.
“It’s here!” Jinxia immediately realized, “These people, in order to avoid getting caught, they hide the birthday chests in the waterproof compartments.”
After taking a breath, she dived in again: because the light in the water was too dark, she could not find the engine button to open the door, she could only proceed by groping while hanging on the gaps of the ship’s board.
“There are no engine buttons?”
She frowned, her hands gripped the edge of the board at the bottom of the ship, trying to pull it out, but the board did not move at all. After looking back, it turned out that it had been nailed to death with bamboo nails since the beginning.
“What are a bunch of rude people! Immediately nailed to death, can’t you do it in a finer way?”
Jinxia continued to curse, regretting not bringing the dagger down, using her legs as hard as she could to kick a few times but there was no movement at all. There was no other way, she thought of turning back and asking YangYue to throw down the dagger so that she could gouge the plank. She was about to turn around when she saw a black shadow approaching her direction. She did not know since when it had appeared, it was too blurry and unclear to see what it really was.
She had her back pressed to the hull, continuing to watch the black shadow, thinking nervously: If this person is one of Wang Fangxing’s men, is it better to run away or fight?
Not having enough time to think about which action to take, the black shadow already realized that she had acknowledged him, the river water surging as the black shadow was approaching, his face slowly becoming clearer: it didn’t seem to be one of Wang Fangxing’s men, but someone who was more difficult to deal with – Lu Yi!
His entire body was wrapped in an azurite-green uniform, his face was like cold jade, his hair like black ink.
Did he also guess that the birthday chests were hidden under the ship?
Jinxia couldn’t say anything, looking at the situation she didn’t know what to think, because Lu Yi was swimming toward her. Lu Yi’s martial arts skills were surely not below his father’s, even some of her beautiful punching and kicking moves were no match to him; if they were to fight, she would not be able to beat him. Lu Bing and Yan Song had a good relationship, thinking about it, he belonged to the Yan group, while Qiu Luan was considered to be evil. Rather than trying to be honest with him, she had to think about how to escape.
“Lu Daren, you are a man with great talents, swimming in the morning is good for your health.” She thought to herself that she would have a casual conversation, but when she opened her mouth, unexpectedly from the inside of her mouth a long series of air bubbles glided out, just remembering that she was in the water. She signaled her finger up, meaning she was about to take a breath.
Without waiting for Lu Yi’s answer, she paddled her hands upward and she was only halfway pedaling when she felt her left arm being held so strongly it felt like she was gripped by copper iron, her body tilted as she was pulled down by a strong force: in front of her, Lu Yi codly looked at her.
“Hmm…hmm…”
She kicked her hands and feet from suffocation.
Lu Yi inclined his head slightly, as if he was watching some kind of show, not letting go of her hand in the slightest, he didn’t even blink even if Jinxia was suffocating to death.
Seeing his facial expression like that, Jinxia immediately stopped her movements and looked at him.
Only after that, Lu Yi let go of her hand, he swam to the place where Jinxia had tried to open the board on the side of the hull, carefully looking at it. He suddenly hit it with his fist, Jinxia looked at him in shock.
The water rippled waves, the ship’s board broke into pieces making a large hole in the hull.
She didn’t even see him warming up or anything, yet that punch was full of strength. Jinxia secretly admired him in her heart, it seemed like this person was not someone you could provoke and surely needed to be cautious with.
After the rest of the ship’s board was torn down by Lu Yi, the five watertight compartments appeared before them with eight black zhangmu chests lining up.
Lu Yi gave Jinxia a hand gesture, asking Jinxia to help him move the chests together.
She didn’t know where he wanted to move these chests, did Lu Yi intended to embezzle these items and put them in his house? Or to return them to Wang Fangxing in good condition? Jinxia had many doubts in her heart but she couldn’t ask anyway, she could only swim and help move the nearest chest.
The two of them carried one chest each and swam home. Jinxia slowly followed him from behind. After reaching the side of their courier ship, Lu Yi’s hand held on the wall of the ship for support and used his strength to lift his body out of the water while holding the chest. He jumped on the courier ship, leaving the stunned looking Jinxia alone in the water. On regular days, she would have fought with JinYiWei’s people a little, they usually showed impressive abilities, but the number of people who were truly good at martial arts could be counted on fingers, especially those who had true martial arts skills like Lu Yi.
His dad grew up with the emperor with whom he had a close relationship and he was also the supreme commander of JinYiWei. Lu Yi’s status as Lu Bing’s son, who came from a wealthy and respectable family with a luxurious life and had been able to practice Kung Fu seriously, was very rare.
Jinxia pulled the chest that floated on the surface of the water: it was very heavy and hard for her to pull it up even with all her strengths, so she raised her head and called YangYue for help.
She waited for a while and still YangYue was not coming… Above her head, someone threw down a rope, then she heard Lu Yi’s voice: “Tie the chest with the rope!”
Jinxia followed his order.
Lu Yi dragged the chest up, carrying water droplets with it, then the rope was thrown down again and Jinxia heard Lu Yi’s voice once more: “The rest of the chests, move it up.”
Being soaked with cold river water while the wind blew, it made her freeze and tremble, yet she had to listen to his words. Jinxia was stunned and really wanted to shout angrily, secretly cursing: “This Master is a LiuShanmen, not JinYiWei, what right does he have to order me to do something?”
After Lu Yi gave the one-sentence command, his voice was no longer heard, let alone the shadow of the person.
Jinxia, who was still in the water, became furious, thinking that Lu Yi had surely left in a hurry to take a hot bath and change into dry and clean clothing. She was replacing him to do this manual labour, the more she thought about it, the more it made her even more enraged.
At this moment, YangYue poked his head out, his face expression indicated that something bad had happened. He said to Jinxia: “Hey, this incident was discovered by Lu Yi!”
Looking at this person, who was as always half a step late, her simple and honest friend, she said to him: “I know, do you see the rope? You hold the other end, and after I yank the rope three times, you’ll pull it hard.”
YangYue immediately nodded his head, seeing Jinxia dive back into the water.
Luckily the rope wasn’t long, Jinxia held onto the rope and dived into the watertight compartment, tying the chest well and pulling on the rope three times. YangYue, standing in on the ship began to pull the rope up, she followed the chest with one hand holding the rope as support, this method saved a lot of energy. After going back and forth a few times, they finished moving all of the chests onto the ship. Jinxia, feeling drained and exhausted, crawled back onto the ship’s deck.
Seeing her lips turning pale for having been in the cold water, YangYue quickly gave her an outer robe to wear; as soon as the breeze hit her, Jinxia immediately trembled and sneezed loudly.
“This master is cold…I followed his instruction, but we’re LiuShanmen’s not JinYiWei’s people…” Jinxia wrapped herself in the outer robe, feeling angry and dissatisfied.
“My Master Xia, you should quickly go back to your room and change.” YangYue urged her and said, “I’ll immediately cook ginger soup for you, don’t fall ill before you arrive in Yangzhou.”
Appearing from elsewhere, Lu Yi, who had changed into a dry and clean outfit, stepped out, with the corner of his eye he saw Jinxia’s miserable look, but with a plain face he slowly gave the order: “These chests, move them to my room.” He turned and walked away after he finished talking.
“…He really doesn’t consider us as strangers…” YangYue said.
Jinxia resentfully glared at him, her eyes followed his figure while sneezing again.
“Let me move these chests, Master Xia, you quickly go change your clothes.” YangYue rushed her in.
Jinxia really couldn’t stand the cold, even though she was upset, she was shivering as she returned to her room.
After being thrown around all night, YangYue was very sleepy, thus while yawning he was getting ready to go back to his room to rest. He was about to step in when he was pulled by Jinxia who was behind him.
“What’s wrong with you again?” He turned around to look at her. Jinxia was not sleepy nor tired, her eyes were bright and sharp now.
“Shhh… I want to go underwater to take a look!” Jinxia whispered in a low voice in his ear.
YangYue did not even think about it, and quickly shook his head: “Father’s already said he doesn’t want us to interfere.”
“You don’t remember what he said, I could only speak flattering words, not even completing the task. Think about who he is, the staff general of Qiu Luan. Qiu Luan builds and manages the horse market, but the chaos caused by it makes the Heavens angry, they are no good!” Jinxia patiently explained one by one, trying to persuade him: “We’ll secretly dive underwater and sink the birthday gifts, even if he can’t find them, he won’t dare to cause trouble and just quietly swallow his anger.”
Even though YangYue was also upset by Wang Fangxing’s words, he remained untempted and kept shaking his head: “No way, father already said…”
“I know, Master’s words, I heard them, I heard…” Jinxia interrupted him, “Master does not allow us to interfere in this matter, I don’t plan on it! I just want to give him a lesson, a fox with thousands of years of expertise which we have never met [they’ve met all kinds of people], he’s nothing!”
“I don’t think so, it’s better to reduce the problem than adding to it.”
Jinxia looked closely at YangYue, saw that he was still hesitating, then pretended to say: “…Nevermind, I will go alone, I won’t drag you in this.” While talking, she walked away.
Despite knowing that she intentionally behaved like that, YangYue could only sigh helplessly and catch up to her: “My swimming skills are not good, you know that.”
“Calm down, you don’t need to go in the water, you only need to be on the boat and provide assistance.” Jinxia warned him repeatedly, “most importantly, don’t get caught by others.”
“…We’re clearly government officers, yet act like thieves.”
YangYue continued to shake his head, not having the slightest idea how to deal with her.
At this time the sky was starting to light up a bit, YangYue looked at the cold river water and shivered, he tried to advise Jinxia: “In my opinion, let it go, just because of this case you want to jump in this cold water? It’s not a good idea.”
“I can’t, I have to let him swallow this suffering [practically teach him a lesson].”
Jinxia chose a quiet place on the edge of the ship and quickly took off her shoes and outer robe. With only the inner robe on her, she hadn’t entered the water yet but was already sneezing.
“Tell me, why do you have to do this?” YangYue tried persuading her again.
“Shhh..”
Jinxia gave him a silent hand signal and made a simple gesture to warm the body. Her back was leaning on the railing of the ship, then only a soft splash was heard: she had successfully entered the water.
Knowing her swimming skills were good, YangYue wasn’t too worried, only afraid she would be caught by Wang Fangxing’s people who were on the ship; he was nervous and couldn’t stop observing the movements on the ship.
The river water was a bit murky and the morning sun was starting to shine, so that under the water the light was dim, the shadows looked faint and wobbly, and changing shape. Jinxia’s vision below the surface of the water could only reach less than two feet, so she had to rely on her memory and swim toward Wang Fangxing’s ship.
The shadow of the courier ship quickly appeared before her eyes, Jinxia swam towards the ship, slowly circling it. Not seeing anything strange, she finally clung to the hull, carefully checking the side of the ship and often floating to the top of the water surface to take a breath.
At the bottom of the ship there were a total of eight waterproof compartments. As the term implies, each space was sealed so that the water could not enter, even if the water had entered any of the spaces, the compartments would have guaranteed the water not to flow into other rooms. The most important function was to maximise the safety of the ship, so that if in any of the compartment the water entered, the whole ship would not experience any danger, it would only need some repairs once the ship would be anchored.
When Jinxia touched the fifth position of the compartment in front of her, she found that something was wrong. The ship’s board was not sealed at all and as she reached it out, for a moment she could feel water coming in and out through the gap.
“It’s here!” Jinxia immediately realized, “These people, in order to avoid getting caught, they hide the birthday chests in the waterproof compartments.”
After taking a breath, she dived in again: because the light in the water was too dark, she could not find the engine button to open the door, she could only proceed by groping while hanging on the gaps of the ship’s board.
“There are no engine buttons?”
She frowned, her hands gripped the edge of the board at the bottom of the ship, trying to pull it out, but the board did not move at all. After looking back, it turned out that it had been nailed to death with bamboo nails since the beginning.
“What are a bunch of rude people! Immediately nailed to death, can’t you do it in a finer way?”
Jinxia continued to curse, regretting not bringing the dagger down, using her legs as hard as she could to kick a few times but there was no movement at all. There was no other way, she thought of turning back and asking YangYue to throw down the dagger so that she could gouge the plank. She was about to turn around when she saw a black shadow approaching her direction. She did not know since when it had appeared, it was too blurry and unclear to see what it really was.
She had her back pressed to the hull, continuing to watch the black shadow, thinking nervously: If this person is one of Wang Fangxing’s men, is it better to run away or fight?
Not having enough time to think about which action to take, the black shadow already realized that she had acknowledged him, the river water surging as the black shadow was approaching, his face slowly becoming clearer: it didn’t seem to be one of Wang Fangxing’s men, but someone who was more difficult to deal with – Lu Yi!
His entire body was wrapped in an azurite-green uniform, his face was like cold jade, his hair like black ink.
Did he also guess that the birthday chests were hidden under the ship?
Jinxia couldn’t say anything, looking at the situation she didn’t know what to think, because Lu Yi was swimming toward her. Lu Yi’s martial arts skills were surely not below his father’s, even some of her beautiful punching and kicking moves were no match to him; if they were to fight, she would not be able to beat him. Lu Bing and Yan Song had a good relationship, thinking about it, he belonged to the Yan group, while Qiu Luan was considered to be evil. Rather than trying to be honest with him, she had to think about how to escape.
“Lu Daren, you are a man with great talents, swimming in the morning is good for your health.” She thought to herself that she would have a casual conversation, but when she opened her mouth, unexpectedly from the inside of her mouth a long series of air bubbles glided out, just remembering that she was in the water. She signaled her finger up, meaning she was about to take a breath.
Without waiting for Lu Yi’s answer, she paddled her hands upward and she was only halfway pedaling when she felt her left arm being held so strongly it felt like she was gripped by copper iron, her body tilted as she was pulled down by a strong force: in front of her, Lu Yi codly looked at her.
“Hmm…hmm…”
She kicked her hands and feet from suffocation.
Lu Yi inclined his head slightly, as if he was watching some kind of show, not letting go of her hand in the slightest, he didn’t even blink even if Jinxia was suffocating to death.
Seeing his facial expression like that, Jinxia immediately stopped her movements and looked at him.
Only after that, Lu Yi let go of her hand, he swam to the place where Jinxia had tried to open the board on the side of the hull, carefully looking at it. He suddenly hit it with his fist, Jinxia looked at him in shock.
The water rippled waves, the ship’s board broke into pieces making a large hole in the hull.
She didn’t even see him warming up or anything, yet that punch was full of strength. Jinxia secretly admired him in her heart, it seemed like this person was not someone you could provoke and surely needed to be cautious with.
After the rest of the ship’s board was torn down by Lu Yi, the five watertight compartments appeared before them with eight black zhangmu chests lining up.
Lu Yi gave Jinxia a hand gesture, asking Jinxia to help him move the chests together.
She didn’t know where he wanted to move these chests, did Lu Yi intended to embezzle these items and put them in his house? Or to return them to Wang Fangxing in good condition? Jinxia had many doubts in her heart but she couldn’t ask anyway, she could only swim and help move the nearest chest.
The two of them carried one chest each and swam home. Jinxia slowly followed him from behind. After reaching the side of their courier ship, Lu Yi’s hand held on the wall of the ship for support and used his strength to lift his body out of the water while holding the chest. He jumped on the courier ship, leaving the stunned looking Jinxia alone in the water. On regular days, she would have fought with JinYiWei’s people a little, they usually showed impressive abilities, but the number of people who were truly good at martial arts could be counted on fingers, especially those who had true martial arts skills like Lu Yi.
His dad grew up with the emperor with whom he had a close relationship and he was also the supreme commander of JinYiWei. Lu Yi’s status as Lu Bing’s son, who came from a wealthy and respectable family with a luxurious life and had been able to practice Kung Fu seriously, was very rare.
Jinxia pulled the chest that floated on the surface of the water: it was very heavy and hard for her to pull it up even with all her strengths, so she raised her head and called YangYue for help.
She waited for a while and still YangYue was not coming… Above her head, someone threw down a rope, then she heard Lu Yi’s voice: “Tie the chest with the rope!”
Jinxia followed his order.
Lu Yi dragged the chest up, carrying water droplets with it, then the rope was thrown down again and Jinxia heard Lu Yi’s voice once more: “The rest of the chests, move it up.”
Being soaked with cold river water while the wind blew, it made her freeze and tremble, yet she had to listen to his words. Jinxia was stunned and really wanted to shout angrily, secretly cursing: “This Master is a LiuShanmen, not JinYiWei, what right does he have to order me to do something?”
After Lu Yi gave the one-sentence command, his voice was no longer heard, let alone the shadow of the person.
Jinxia, who was still in the water, became furious, thinking that Lu Yi had surely left in a hurry to take a hot bath and change into dry and clean clothing. She was replacing him to do this manual labour, the more she thought about it, the more it made her even more enraged.
At this moment, YangYue poked his head out, his face expression indicated that something bad had happened. He said to Jinxia: “Hey, this incident was discovered by Lu Yi!”
Looking at this person, who was as always half a step late, her simple and honest friend, she said to him: “I know, do you see the rope? You hold the other end, and after I yank the rope three times, you’ll pull it hard.”
YangYue immediately nodded his head, seeing Jinxia dive back into the water.
Luckily the rope wasn’t long, Jinxia held onto the rope and dived into the watertight compartment, tying the chest well and pulling on the rope three times. YangYue, standing in on the ship began to pull the rope up, she followed the chest with one hand holding the rope as support, this method saved a lot of energy. After going back and forth a few times, they finished moving all of the chests onto the ship. Jinxia, feeling drained and exhausted, crawled back onto the ship’s deck.
Seeing her lips turning pale for having been in the cold water, YangYue quickly gave her an outer robe to wear; as soon as the breeze hit her, Jinxia immediately trembled and sneezed loudly.
“This master is cold…I followed his instruction, but we’re LiuShanmen’s not JinYiWei’s people…” Jinxia wrapped herself in the outer robe, feeling angry and dissatisfied.
“My Master Xia, you should quickly go back to your room and change.” YangYue urged her and said, “I’ll immediately cook ginger soup for you, don’t fall ill before you arrive in Yangzhou.”
Appearing from elsewhere, Lu Yi, who had changed into a dry and clean outfit, stepped out, with the corner of his eye he saw Jinxia’s miserable look, but with a plain face he slowly gave the order: “These chests, move them to my room.” He turned and walked away after he finished talking.
“…He really doesn’t consider us as strangers…” YangYue said.
Jinxia resentfully glared at him, her eyes followed his figure while sneezing again.
“Let me move these chests, Master Xia, you quickly go change your clothes.” YangYue rushed her in.
Jinxia really couldn’t stand the cold, even though she was upset, she was shivering as she returned to her room.
