Book 9 Chapter 12 – Underground Collection

Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling sat side-by-side on the low stonewall by the pavilion on the back mountain, facing the precipitous cliff towering in the sky; below their feet was precisely the hundred-zhang deep abyss where the falling water rolled on endlessly.

After Kou Zhong finished listening to Xu Ziling’s latest generation of lies he told Shang Xiuxun, Kou Zhong wiped the cold sweats from his forehead and said, “Fortunately I said I was in a hurry to go to the bathroom; otherwise the beautiful Changzhu might grab me and ask questions, and then we would have to jump down this ravine.”

Craning his neck to look down into the rapids at the bottom, he wondered aloud, “Based on our martial art skill, if we jump down, would we die or not?”

Xu Ziling smiled slightly without saying anything, but his eyes seemed to penetrate the deepest part of Kou Zhong’s heart.

Finally Kou Zhong surrendered, “Why didn’t you ask me what happened between Li Xiuning and me a moment ago?”

Xu Ziling sneered and said, “Didn’t you say that the martial art from the ‘Secret to Long Life’ has turned you more and more cold-hearted? You also said that for the sake of vying for the world, you would do anything by hook or by crook, and that you’d sacrifice everything you valued in your life? Since that is the case, do I still need to beg for an answer from you?”

Kou Zhong slapped his thigh and said with a sigh, “Ling Shao, this time you are wrong. The fact is that I am extremely vexed right now, because I could not help asking her if she was married to that muddled egg Chai Shao [Translator’s note: I feel that ‘muddled egg’ is funnier than scoundrel,

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or @$$hole …]. Just think! Ling Shao! Supposing her answer was ‘I’m not married yet’, how would I handle her? I was fully aware that by asking that question I was spinning a cocoon around myself, yet I still asked her. Tell me, why did I do that?”

Xu Ziling’s response was tepid, “So what did she say?”

Grieved, Kou Zhong replied, “She said that although she has not officially married, but there’s not much difference with a married woman.”

Xu Ziling smiled wryly and said, “That is akin to saying that the one she loves is Chai Shao. That answer is indeed very difficult to bear, and also made me feel for the first time that you deserve sympathy. So what are you going to do? The moves you make in the battlefield of love will give you more headaches than the moves in the life and death’s confrontation, plus the battlefield of love will leave both sides wounded.”

Kou Zhong coolly said, “Hence the reason I turned grief and indignation into strength; I told her I did not care in the slightest, and I thanked her for giving me the taste of grief for losing my love. With great difficulty I resisted the intense urge to kiss her and stormed out of the door. With my back against her, I felt so much pain that my entire body went numb.”

Xu Ziling casually remarked, “So did you go to the latrine to hide while weeping in bitter tears?”

Stunned, Kou Zhong turned his head to stare at him, “Don’t you have any sympathy toward the poor me?” he asked.

Xu Ziling coldly replied, “Because the one deserving my sympathy is not you, but Li Xiuning.”

Kou Zhong had his eyes fixed on the cliff across the canyon; he mumbled as if he was talking to himself, “I was indeed a bit out of line, but at that time I really had a feeling that the more hurt her, the happier I would be. That was a completely out of control emotions, I know in my heart that I’m still holding tight on her.”