Chapter 6: 6

Chapter 6

A Name in Exchange for a Nose

The first thing Ironhands said once they had left Xi Family Village was, “Tang Shijing wants to kill Xi Xiaofeng.”

Coldblooded was surprised. “How do you know?”

Ironhands said, “Xi Xiaofeng said so himself. When he said, ‘Diaochan was born with a sweet tooth, Zhang Fei and Zhang Yi lost their way together, Tang Sanzang recited sutras at the temple of Guanyin, there’s no medicine left in the pot, Heaven gave man the myriad things, man had nothing to give Heaven, both can be killed, in this broad and level Divineland there is only me…’”

Coldblooded mulled this over, then his eyes shone. “The last word of each sentence…”

Ironhands nodded. “It’s homophonous with ‘Tang Shijing wants to kill me.’”1

Coldblooded said, “Tang Shijing wants to kill him?”

Ironhands said, “That’s what he said.”

Coldblooded said, “Looks like this matter with Xi Xiaofeng is not so simple.”

Ironhands said, “Xi Xiaofeng himself is not so simple.”

Coldblooded said, “Tang Shijing is not an easy person to deal with.”

Ironhands smiled. “He’s not.”

Coldblooded said, “Despite Xi Liangwu’s efforts to pass himself off as an old fox, Xi Yingming is even more slick and shrewd… But Tang Shijing simply won’t let people be hostile toward him, and he is never at all hostile toward anyone else.”

Ironhands nodded. “A person like this, even if faced with an enemy, he would still make his opponent not feel any hostility.”

Coldblooded said, “So it’s really not easy to be this kind of person’s ‘enemy.’” He added, “Luckily we’re not his enemy.”

Ironhands smiled. “Though I don’t know if the person following us is an enemy or not.” After he said that they heard a hmph, like a spoiled grumble from a spoiled, willful big miss who didn’t get her way. Coldblooded turned back to look and saw it was just such a woman.

The woman was pointing at Ironhands.

She wasn’t using her finger but a sabre, a thin, light, yet longer than average sharp sabre.

The woman had an oval face and a tall nose, bright eyes, her red lips glistened, even the gold hoops in her snow-white earlobes shone, as if no matter where she stood she stole the light from everywhere around her.

So her little mouth pouted, making her thin displeasure even more charmingly beautiful.

Whenever Coldblooded saw a girl like that his head felt like it was suddenly 65 catties heavier.

Actually, whenever Coldblooded saw a girl he was anxious to raise his ever-heavier head and get out of there. Lifesnatcher once teased him saying that when Coldblooded saw a girl, if it was a friend then he wouldn’t know what to say, and if it were an enemy then Coldblooded wouldn’t be able to go all out, so when Coldblooded saw a girl it was like an elephant seeing a mouse. He had met his nemesis.

Of course, given Coldblooded’s appearance and talent, he was popular with the ladies, and as a matter of fact Coldblooded’s first time running away was when he was chased by a girl called the Black Eye Maiden.

The woman now was pointing at Ironhands with her sabre, nearly touching his nose. Ironhands smiled wryly. “Miss, Do you know what that is you’re holding?”

The girl answered crisply. “A sabre.”

Ironhands forced another smile. “Do you know what… what profession I’m in?”

The girl replied even more candidly, “A constable.”

Ironhands could only say, “I’m a constable, and you’re holding a sabre. Normally, if I encountered someone on the street holding a sabre and pointing it at someone’s nose, I’d…”

The girl actually asked, “You’d what?”

Ironhands put on a ferocious expression, “I’d capture him using a tendon separating acupoint pressing grappling technique, press his seven numbing and immobilizing acupoints, and use a big sixteen-catty iron chain to fetter him and taken him back to the yamen and then put a 32-catty cangue on him and take him to a filthy, so dark the sun never shines on it, stinking prison cell with snakes and rats scurrying about maggots crawling around.” Saying that, he looked full on the tall, slender girl.

The girl shook her head, dissatisfied.

“No good,” she said. “If it were me, who’d dare manacle me? I’d slice his nose off first with my sabre, then cut off both his ears and stuff them in his mouth so that he couldn’t call out, then I’d use ten nails to pin his ten toes to the ground so he couldn’t move, then I’d have him use his right arm to cut the flesh off of his left, then put salt on it and dip him in sugar and wait for the ants to swarm on him and be done with him.” She naughtily asked Ironhands, “What do you think, is my method better than yours or not?”

Ironhands’ eyes were wide. “Who are you?”

She extended her sabre another fingerwidth closer. “A nose.”

Ironhands cocked his head. “Miss, your name is ‘Nose?’”

“Screw you!” The girl was really cursing without a trace of a blush on her face. “If you want to know who I am, anyone who asks my name, the price is a nose.”

Ironhands’ nose couldn’t help but tickle. He asked, “What are you going to do with someone’s nose? Fry it? Sauté it? Pickle it? Or do you envy a big elephant’s nose and want to collect them to denounce them?”

The girl gave him a frosty look and was about to stab him with her sabre. But Coldblooded couldn’t hold back from saying something now. One sentence.

“What is this, a woman holding a sabre and pointing it at someone’s nose on the street?” As soon as he said this there was a sabre pointing at his nose!

The sabre had been in the girl’s right hand but it instantly switched to her left. The sabre had been pointing at Ironhands’ nose, but now it was pointed at Coldblooded’s nose.

Coldblooded said, “I don’t want to know your name.”

The girl stared with her large, round eyes and shouted, “What thing are you?”

Coldblooded said, “I’m not a thing.”

The girl snickered. “So you know you’re nothing.

Coldblooded said grumpily, “Of course I’m not a thing, I’m a person.”

The girl tsked, and intentionally said with disdain, “what Four Great Constables, what Coldblooded… you’re nothing to this girl!”

Coldblooded asked coldly, “How did you know my name?”

The girl curled her lip. “What’s so amazing about knowing your name? All down the streets and alleys everyone knows. Before you all came, when you were on Straddling Tiger River in your boat, this girl, hmph.” Saying this, she raised her pretty, handsome nose. “I already knew.”

Ironhands and Coldblooded quickly looked at each other.

Coldblooded suddenly said, “I have my own habit.”

The girl was actually taken aback. Coldblooded said, “If someone knows my name, then that person has to pay a price.”

The girl’s large round eyes were wide, as if she’d never considered there could be someone else in the world more unreasonable than her.

Coldblooded said, “I don’t want your nose, your nose is like an eggplant. I just want one slap. Show me the left side of your face and let me slap it once. One slap is enough.”

The girl’s sabre trembled. Of course it trembled not because she was scared but because she was so angry. Though she had never really cut off anyone’s nose, she had also never met anyone more unreasonable than she.

When she heard this she couldn’t restrain herself, ans she stabbed at Coldblooded’s left ear.

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She wasn’t going to cut off his ear, but anyway she was going to at least put a hole in this awful person’s ear… Like the little hole a girl gets when she gets her earlobe pierced.

Thinking this actually made her happy. Because she wasn’t putting a small hole in her adversary’s ear but a large one—then let’s see if he dares talk to her like that again.

Of course she didn’t want to kill him, and she didn’t have any grudge or grievance against him—however, if he were wounded by her Panic-Stricken Sabreplay, her adversary would lose his power of resistance, and then give him a few slaps upside the head!

She stabbed and Coldblooded seemed to move but also seemed not to move at all. She thought she had got him, but when she looked, her sabre was against Coldblooded’s right cheek. It hadn’t stabbed him.

—Damn it.

The girl raised the sabre and stabbed again and Coldblooded seemed to move and the sabre stabbed air again.

This made the girl annoyed. She raised the sabre and swish swish the tip kicked up five or six gusts of wind and in a split second she had stabbed five or six times, either at his left ear, his right ear, his nose, his left nostril, or his right nostril, she stabbed at them all.

Coldblooded seemed to move five or six times and each thrust of the saber brushed against his cheek but never stabbed him in the slightest.

Coldblooded raised his voice, “Alright.”

The girl wanted to retract her sabre and not stab but chop instead (What was wrong with this guy? Need to wake him up and jostle him a bit!), but she found that the tip of her sabre was caught between Coldblooded’s neck muscles and his chin, and no matter how hard she pulled the sabre seemed to be glued there and she couldn’t pull it out.

The girl said, “You’re asking for it…”

Ironhands suddenly said, “Miss Xi.”

The girl was stunned. “How did you know my surname was Xi?” That question was tantamount to admitting her surname was Xi.

Ironhands smiled. “I not only know your surname is Xi, I also know that Miss’ redolent name is Meihong.”

Xi Meihong’s red lips slightly parted, revealing snow-white bunny teeth. “You…”

Ironhands said, “Fourth Brother Leng provoked you into attacking to test your martial arts. Your sabreplay is good, no wonder, even though you attacked out of anger, you just poked at his nose and ears but didn’t kill him. You’re not as mean as your mouth would suggest.”

He smiled and continued, “We had no choice. A woman calling out by name us who work for the government, if we couldn’t be certain of even a girl’s background, that would be a failure on our part… Couldn’t be helped, we had to test you, please don’t blame us, Miss.”

Xi Meihong was so mad her jade face was red. Coldblooded smiled, cocked his head to the side, and bowed slightly and stepped back. Xi Meihong was still worried her sabre would be snatched away, so while she was busy being mad she was also fighting to pull her sabre out when suddenly she pulled and it gave and she nearly cut herself with her own sabre. Now she was angry and embarrassed and she stamped her foot and nearly cried.

This time Coldblooded didn’t know what he should do.

Ironhands hurriedly said, “Miss, your sabreplay is excellent, and you have a good heart, it would be even better if you smiled. In the future you will certainly give birth to a darling baby!”

She had wanted to cry, but when she heard that she also couldn’t help but want to laugh. Annoyed, she said, “Who wants to have a baby?”

Coldblooded saw her looking annoyed and slightly scowling and he didn’t know why but he thought of some things that made his blood and qi surge and his face actually started flushing.

Xi Meihong saw him and was angry all over again. She stamped her foot and said, “This person is bullying me… And, and he also wants to hit me—“ She sent a slap flying his way.

Actually, Xi Meihong’s Panic-Stricken Sabreplay was already three tenths mastered, already enough to give her a stable footing in the martial world, it’s just her martial arts was a far cry from Coldblooded’s, so she had given him a few stroked eliciting her true ability, but she never expected that her palm would land solid and true and crisply on Coldblooded’s face, leaving a five-finger handprint on his handsome, imposing face.

This time, all three of them were startled, because none of them expected that.

Xi Meihong never imagined she could actually give that unpredictable thing whose martial arts was so strong a good clean slap to the face. The slap left him feeling embarrassed. It didn’t hurt but his face was a red through and through. Ironhands of course never imagined Coldblooded wouldn’t be able to dodge it.

Xi Meihong gasped after slapping Coldblooded in the face and hid her hands behind her back. But she saw the red handprint rapidly appearing on his right cheek.

Coldblooded was stunned, his other cheek red as could be.

It was Ironhands who recovered the quickest. He smiled. “Ah, that makes us all even. Fourth Brother Leng took your slap, so Third Miss Xi don’t be angry. Instead why don’t you tell us why you were following us.”

Xi Meihong was unexpectedly a bit embarrassed. It was as if she didn’t want Coldblooded to be too embarrassed that she quickly cut in, “Yes, we’re all even.”

Actually, the more she tried to smooth things over, the more Coldblooded found it difficult to recover. Ironhands could only ask, “Miss Xi, why were you following us?”

Xi Meihong pouted her lips, “Today I heard what the guard Xi Hu said, but I knew Head Steward definitely wouldn’t let me see guests, so I didn’t come out. I waited till you left and Second Steward mentioned you to me, so I followed the direction you went when you left and sure enough I caught you!”

Ironhands smiled. “How fortunate for us that Third Miss was in the mood to follow us two numskulls… But I wonder why?”

Xi Meihong smiled, revealed two bunny teeth. “You all, you actually aren’t numskulls, but being public runners, this annoyance, there must be some reason for it…”

Saying that, she pouted her lips and her large eyes shifted. “I knew long ago that you two had come. On Straddling Tiger River I told Big Brother that the two famous constables’ boat was nearby and asked him if I should invite you all over…”

Ironhands asked, “What was you brother’s response?”

Xi Meihong looked like she had been wronged and she pursed her lips. “He… By then his mind was already a bit… He pulled a long face and was silent for a while, and… and he scolded me for no reason. I really wanted to cry. When Dad was alive Big Brother never treated me that way. Head Steward advised me to go ashore to avoid his temper… leaving only Second Brother with him on the boat. At the time I didn’t… I didn’t know that Big Brother would become so crazy to do that to Second Brother and… and harm Miss Little Pearl…”

From the expression on Xi Meihong’s face you could see how wronged this Third Miss felt for being scolded “for no reason”.

“So then, Third Miss, how did you know we had come to this area?” Ironhands asked. Coldblooded really wanted to know this as well, but he acted natural.

Xi Meihong smiled.

“Guo Qiufeng!”

This time, Ironhands and Coldblooded understood.

After that bloody battle in the mountain azaleas by Straddling Tiger River, Ironhands had rescued the wounded Coldblooded, but they didn’t want to alert the officials and be subjected to a pointless banquet and drinks, and it was inconvenient to put up at an inn because a wounded person would rouse people’s suspicion, and they also couldn’t sleep out in the open air in the mountains or in an old temple in the wilderness and make his wounds worse, so there was only one place they could go.

Guo Qiufeng’s nickname was “White Cloud Soaring”. His lightness skill was third or better in this region, and he was forthright and bold, a rare master of the Sixleaf.

Guo Qiufeng was friends with Ironhands and Coldblooded mainly because during one case, Ironhands saved his life and Coldblooded fought alongside him.

Since Guo Qiufeng was a Sixleafer, Coldblooded’s wounds naturally wouldn’t alarm him, and it would be more convenient to get metal wound medicine and boil medicinal concoctions and call for a doctor.

Plus Coldblooded seemed to be made of iron.

Add to that the good conditions for recuperation, and wounds that would have taken someone else 30 days to heal only took him three days to be back to seventy or eighty percent.

During those three days, in addition to Ironhands’ attentive care, Guo Qiufeng also went to a lot of trouble.

But Guo Qiufeng was young.

Even though he was a young man working for the government, he was still inevitably impulsive.

Plus Guo Qiufeng admired pretty girls, and Xi Meihong was so pretty and alluring.

Ironhands couldn’t help but sigh. Looked like Guo Qiufeng, who normally knew how to keep his mouth shut, had turned around and spilled the beans, but it seemed a pardonable reason for it.

Xi Meihong laughed clear and charming like a silver bell. “You all are world-famous, so I wanted to see for myself what you were like. Turns out you’re no more than…” She just smiled and said nothing.

 

NOTES

There’s no way to translate this so that it could make sense. But in Chinese the last word of each of the six sentences in Xi Xiaofeng’s ravings, when put together, are: 糖(tang)失(shi)經(jing)藥(yao)殺(sha)我(wo). The characters put together this way make no sense, it would be literally translated something like “Candy lost sutra medicine kill me”, but the pronunciation is the same in Chinese as “Tang Shijing wants to kill me”.

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