But Now…I Want More.
The sound of clashing blades instantly woke Su Yang up completely.
Not caring about his current location, he immediately reached for his thin sword around his waist, drew his blade and slashed it above Gu Feidi, cutting the assassin.
With Su Yang joining the fight, the situation inside the room toppled in the blink of an eye.
Maybe from the dream’s influence, the fear in Su Yang’s heart made all his attacks merciless. Instead of worrying about killing, each of his attacks were clean with no trace of hesitation.
With the two working hand in hand, they broke the other side’s advantage in numbers. Just after a few blow exchanges, the assassins in the room ceased to breathe.
This was when Mei Shisan pushed open the door and entered. He held the door frame for support and panted, “Two escaped…”
“We can’t give chase with our small number,” Gu Feidi sighed. “Regardless, we need to move these bodies to the yard. Get some light for a body search.”
Mei Shisan accepted the order and exited the room to find anything to start a fire. With Gu Feidi, Su Yang dragged all the assassins’ corpses into the yard.
Their host closed all the doors and shut all the windows, and hid in the main room without uttering a word, so he would not get dragged into trouble.
When they lit a torch, Su Yang noticed that Gu Feidi was injured.
Tossing his task to search the assassin's identities out of the window, he grabbed Gu Feidi’s wrist and scolded, “Why didn’t you say you were injured? Leave the bodies for Shisan to handle, I’ll treat your wound.”
Mei Shisan, who was covered in equally decorated wounds: “...”
“This is just a flesh wound. Nothing serious,” Gu Feidi put aside Su Yang’s hands. He stated solemnly, “These people were here to kill you. It’s important to find who they are and the source of their information first.”
Su Yang with a gloomy expression. “But your…”
Gu Feidi quickly gave Su Yang a peck on his lips. “Be good.”
Su Yang stopped his tantrum.
They counted six bodies, including the two who escaped, a total of eight assassins who had come for Su Yang’s life.
These unwelcome guests’ skills were not bad, very obviously they were not well-known figures of their sects either, narrowing them down to soldier pieces willing to sacrifice their lives. Based on what Gu Feidi recalled, it was clear that the four he fought against were well-coordinated, therefore, it was a high probability that they had worked as a team and in similar operations for a long time.
Unfortunately, these people were dressed in simple black outfits with nothing that stood out. No embroidery, no token, and the weapons they used were brand new, leaving no traces behind.
Gu Feidi and Mei Shisan stripped almost everything on the assassins and searched them from top to bottom. Mei Shisan even sniffed the bodies but didn’t find any useful information.
In the fiery light, Su Yang crouched down beside a corpse and rummaged through the deceased’s cuff, to find a tiny feather stuck in the fabric.
The feather was dark black and blended easily into the black cloth, which was missed in the prior search.
“...Is this from a boreal owl?” Gu Feidi took the feather out of Su Yang’s fingers and examined it carefully. “A pure black pinfeather. With its size, I can’t think of anything but a boreal owl.”
Su Yang asked, “E’Luo Gui Factor’s birds fly in the Central Plains as well?”
Gu Feidi snorted and explained, “It’s true that the Central Plains has never seen white boreal owls before, since it’s not a snowy wasteland here, making the white boreal owls very conspicuous. But for black boreal owls…it’s very difficult to spot them at night, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist here. At the wasteland cliff, do you still remember the spies the Faction planted in the other three groups? Naturally, they needed to deliver information.”
“What you are hinting is these people must have something to do with the E’Luo Gui Faction.” Su Yang filled in the blanks. “I doubt we can find anything else. Let’s head inside and deal with your wounds.”
Gu Feidi was helplessly dragged into the room. He could only shout for Mei Shisan to join them in the room to treat his injuries.
Luckily, there were no serious injuries to the two. After cleaning the cuts, they applied medicine and recuperated with internal energy; the wounds were well on their way to recovery. After wrapping them with clean cotton clothes, they threw the corpses into the nearby mountain forest.
By the time they had dealt with everything, the sky started to brighten up.
Maybe because of the calm before the storm, the farmer opened his door, trembling with fear, and peeked out. Seeing Gu Feidi turned to look at him, he was frightened back into the room with a loud door slamming sound.
Gu Feidi ignored their host and continued to search for something on the ground.
“Did you lose something?” Su Yang asked. “Here, let me help.”
“It’s nothing,” Gu Feidi answered. “In fact…its not very valuable.”
“Then why are you still looking? If it’s not very valuable, then it must be important to you.” Su Yang’s eyes landed on Gu Feidi’s wrist guard, which was severed by a sword. He asked, “Is it something that was attached to the wrist guard? Something from your mother?”
Gu Feidi didn’t respond. He leaned over to pick up a piece of paper from the crack of the hinge of the door and held it in his hand.
Su Yang came closer. “What’s that?”
Gu Feidi said, “...Nothing.”
Su Yang: “...”
Nothing my ass!
The two searched from the outside of the house to the inside, where Su Yang quickly found a piece of paper next to a toppled over table.
The edge of the paper was charred, and although the writing on the paper was deformed by water damage, the words on them were still eligible—Calamity Phoenix’s Everlasting Fire.
Su Yang immediately remembered where it was from.
It was that time in the House of Jade, in order to provide hints of the whereabouts of the last volume of Path to Home for Gu Feidi. Without getting in the protagonist's good graces, he came up with this ingenious plan.
…But how did that have the opposite effect?
Su Yang didn’t understand.
“You…” He hesitantly looked at Gu Feidi. “You actually kept these?”
With a blank expression, Gu Feidi snatched the piece of paper from Su Yang’s hand. Then he was finally relieved. “This is the last one.”
“No,” Su Yang blurted in confusion. “Why did you keep these?”
Seeing that Gu Feidi smiled but didn’t answer, Su Yang narrowed his eyes and moved closer. “From what I see, Gu…I mean Shidi, could it be that you already had feelings towards me since that time…?”
“I didn’t expect that someone as old-fashioned as you would develop puppy love that early!”
“Hey, don’t you hide from me. Didn’t you hate my face at that time? Why did that change?”
“Shidi? My dearest Shidi, talk about your mental journey with your Shixiong…”
Gu Feidi was pestered by Su Yang so that he had no choice but to say smiling, “There was no love then.”
Su Yang pointed to the little notes in Gu Feidi’s hands with his chin and questioned, “Then why did you keep these?”
Gu Feidi looked down at the pieces of paper in his hands and whispered, still smiling, “At that time, I just felt that you were different from the Jianghu rumours, and sometimes felt you had some…lingering childish innocence. You hid your true self from us under your arrogant appearance. You did not attempt to make friends with us from the Central Plains Wulin, yet you tried to lead me to the location of Returning to the Nest. At that time, I really wanted to befriend you, I really wanted to…be closer to you.”
Su Yang raised his eyebrow. “Oh? Is that it?”
Gu Feidi grinned. “That was it at that time. But now…I want more.”
Su Yang immediately sensed danger.
Sure enough, Gu Feidi stepped forward and cornered him against the wall. He leaned forward. Their faces were inches apart.
Su Yang felt he couldn’t keep acting in a passive position.
So, with new determination, he gritted his teeth and closed the distance between him, giving Gu Feidi an intense kiss.
“That’s enough, let’s head out.” After the kiss, Su Yang lightly slapped Gu Feidi away and declared sternly, “With two assassins still out there, we have to be careful. Better not delay any longer.”
With his arms crossed, Gu Feidi stood beside him, grinning tenderly.
As expected, when the party walked along the valley’s riverbank to the next village, the news of the Evil Sect’s Young Master being sighted in the Central Plains had spread throughout all corners.
Fortunately, Gu Feidi’s identity had not been revealed yet. From word of mouth, the demon spawn was spotted with two petal retainers, and they were on their way to the Tengyun Pavilion. Rumour had it that it might have something to do with the Young Lord but was still uncertain.
In this situation, Gu Feidi didn’t dare to take Su Yang to an inn, so they took a rest in an abandoned house outside the town.
“We can go around villages and towns outside of the main road.” Gu Feidi murmured in concern. “But the Tengyun Pavilion is in Lanyang City, where the inhabitants are densely packed. That means we will pass more people. I’m afraid it’s impossible to travel out of sight completely. According to today’s rumours, a party of three would most likely draw more attention.”
This was indeed a problem, as the three exchanged a look, then lowered their eyes in thought.
Su Yang suddenly remembered that time he wagered a bet with a fan in his livestream and was forced to wear women’s clothes after losing. He also recalled that Mei Shisan had prepared a set of women's disguises before they set out from the Evil Sect.
So his eyes brightened as he suggested, “Why don’t I dress up as a woman?”
Gu Feidi: “…”
Mei Shisan: “…”
Gu Feidi had a complicated expression, lost for words.
Mei Shisan frowned and proposed, “Why doesn’t this subordinate be the one disguised as a woman?”
Su Yang studied Mei Shisan’s face in disgust and bluntly vetoed, “No one here is more suitable than me to dress up as a woman.”
With his delicate facial features, small cheekbones, and less visible Adam’s apple, he already had an ambiguous appearance without makeup. Adding a light layer of powder, trimming his eyebrows and changing into a new set of clothes. In this era, he bet no one could figure out he was a man disguised as a woman.
Gu Feidi frowned and reassured, “Su Yang, you don’t have to sacrifice yourself like this…”
Su Yang: “...”
He was just going to play dress up. How did it become self-sacrifice?
“Then what else can we do?” Su Yang crossed his eyes and raised his eyebrows. He gestured toward the two, “Then how about Shisan travel out of view? We can travel with just the two of us to avoid attention.”
“Young Master,” Mei Shisan respectfully declined, “The Sect Leader ordered this subordinate to protect the safety of the Young Master. This subordinate can’t be too far from the Young Master.”
Gu Feidi agreed, “It’s better to have Shisan with us. There is no regular pattern to your cold sickness. If the sickness triggers, at least we will have an extra layer of protection with Shisan here.”
Su Yang exaggeratedly rolled his eyes.
After a moment’s silence, Gu Feidi finally gave in. “Shisan, you take two horses to town and get a carriage. It may be worth a try…go buy some rouge powder and skirts, anything that could be added to the disguise.”
Mei Shisan went to the town alone, pretending to be a merchant, and bought a carriage for the two horses, cosmetics, a hand mirror, and a set of lady’s ready-made clothes. Then checked in to a single upstairs room at an inn.
Su Yang and Gu Feidi rode a single horse into the city together and found another inn to stay at. The next morning, they ran into Mei Shisan’s carriage by chance, entered the carriage, and began the transformation.
Now it was autumn, the temperature was chilly. Even in the warmer south, the pedestrians had already changed to their autumn clothes.
When Mei Shisan bought the clothes, he also bought a cloak with a rabbit fur collar, which was perfect for covering Su Yang’s body and neck. In addition, Mei Shisan also picked out a headband made of rabbit fur in the same colour. Not only would the headband cover Su Yang’s hair bun but also match the cloak. Su Yang was very satisfied with this.
Gu Feidi wove Su Yang’s shoulder-length hair into a bun with a dark ribbon. Adding hair ornaments as a distraction and cover. Now it was harder to tell the real length of Su Yang’s hair.
Su Yang applied makeup using the hand mirror. He swept the end of his eyes with rouge, covered his red mole, and trimmed his eyebrows thinner, making his facial features appear softer very thoroughly. He completed his transformation by applying the rouge to his lips. His whole face became bright and colourful. At first glance, he really looked like a woman.
Next, he folded a piece of cloth and stuffed it in his chest, so he was not fully flat-chested. Put on his dress and cloak that covered his figure and arms, as he quietly sat back down, he turned his face toward Gu Feidi.
“What do you think?” Su Yang asked.
“Although not charming, it's enough to pass off as genuine.” Gu Feidi’s eyes wandered over Su Yang’s face for a moment, completely startled. “You can really pass as a woman.”
Su Yang raised his hand and compared his height with Gu Feidi, then complained somewhat gloomily, “It’s just that I am a bit too tall. I will stand out as soon as I stand up.”
Gu Feidi soothed with a smile, “It’s no matter, it’s not like there aren’t women with tall stature out there.”
Then he picked up the rabbit fur headband and helped Su Yang fasten it around his head.
With Su Yang’s refined facial features, and his small face with makeup, after wearing the cloak and headband, his whole face was buried in fluffy fur, making him appear more soft and delicate.
Gu Feidi’s eyes were fixed on the current Su Yang, and there seemed to be a war inside his head.
“What’s wrong? Am I particularly beautiful?” Su Yang teased. “Are you lost looking into my eyes?”
Gu Feidi broke into laughter. “You need to remember to not open your mouth at all costs.”
Su Yang: “…”
The innocent playful rabbit x the cold hungry wolf.
Thnx fr the chapter ❤️