Chapter 433: Aggression

For the next two days, Song Qingshu stayed in seclusion, devoting himself to adjust his mental and physical state to its peak, and waited for the Golden Serpent Conference to begin.

The Golden Serpent Conference would be held at the main peak of the Golden Serpent Camp. A square platform several feet in perimeter was set up in the middle, which was probably where the candidates were meant to fight.

There was a circle of seats far around the platform, which would be used to accommodate the many sects and martial artists who had come to watch the event. There was a safe distance between the seats and the platform, so that the guests on the seats would not be accidentally injured by the competition in the ring. And it also prevented the martial artists watching the ceremony from affecting the competition in the ring.

Wulin has always been a community where people were ranked based on seniority. Naturally, the top positions were reserved for famous sects such as Shaolin, Wudang, Beggar Gang, and Chongyang Palace. For some reason, Xia Qingqing deliberately arranged Song Qingshu’s position among these leaders.

As the nominal leader of the Golden Serpent Camp, it was naturally inconvenient for Xia Qingqing to be in a public relationship with Song Qingshu due to her status as the widow of the former Golden Serpent King. However, she was unwilling to be too far away from Song Qingshu, so she used her influence for personal gain and kept Song Qingshu close to her.

The other faction leaders knew that Song Qingshu was nominated by Xia Qingqing, so they naturally turned a blind eye. They even had the intention of waiting for Song Qingshu to make a fool of himself. After all, it was a bit of an eyesore for a stranger to be among the giants such as Shaolin and Wudang.

Song Qingshu arrived very early, and there were only a few people sitting in the venue. Most of the martial artists were still entering the venue.

As a former Ming dynasty princess, Ah Jiu’s status was very sensitive, so her face was covered with a thin veil, revealing only a pair of beautiful eyes. Wherever she passed, everyone speculated who this fairy-like figure was.

Seeing Zeng Rou follow behind Ah Jiu with a cautious look, Song Qingshu laughed, “Rou’er, don’t be so restrained, Ah Jiu is not an outsider, you don’t have to act respectfully as if you are serving your master. “

The girl’s mind was always quite preoccupied about gains and losses, so Song Qingshu wanted to lighten her mood.

Noticing the change in her title, Zeng Rou blushed slightly and gently smiled, “The Ninth Princess is a powerful in martial artist, how could she have a disciple with such mediocre qualifications?”

Ah Jiu took her hand and said, “I am no longer a princess, not to mention that we will be a family in the future, so we will treat each other as sisters from now on.”

Zeng Rou lowered her head and hummed, obviously feeling a little excited.

“Speaking of disciples, I actually have a disciple as old as Sister Rou.” Ah Jiu suddenly remembered something and covered her mouth with a smile.

“Then wouldn’t that make the person about the same age as you? Who is so stupid enough to do that…eh, it can’t be a man, right?” Song Qingshu’s expression turned dark. In his opinion, the only explanation was that the person was a man. He fell in love with Ah Jiu, and then took advantage of the opportunity to become her disciple to get close to her.

“What nonsense are you thinking, of course she is a woman,” Ah Jiu’s face turned red, “And she is a beautiful woman. I’ll introduce her to you next time I see her.”

Song Qingshu was stunned, “Why does it sound a bit weird? When did you become a pimp?”

“You are the pimp!” Ah Jiu couldn’t help but snap back, “My apprentice has a special status, so I really can’t say who she is…”

An thought flashed in Song Qingshu’s mind, and he blurted out, “Your apprentice is Ah Ke, right.”

“How do you know?” Ah Jiu was surprised.

It turned out that Ah Jiu was angry that Wu Sangui was seeking glory from himself and betrayed his country, so she sneaked into the Pingxi Palace in Shanhaiguan to assassinate Wu Sangui.

However, Wu Sangui knew that he was the public enemy of all the Han people in the world, and the defense of the palace was like an iron fortress. As a result, Ah Jiu couldn’t find any opportunity to get inside. When she was about to retreat, she accidentally met a beautiful young girl in the palace.

Ah Jiu had met the world-famous Chen Yuanyuan in the past, and this little girl and Chen Yuanyuan were almost carved out of the same mold. She knew without asking that this person must be Wu Sangui’s daughter.

Ah Ke, who had been imprisoned in the palace since she was a child, has always been full of yearning for the outside world and martial arts. When she saw Ah Jiu falling from the sky in white clothes, she was immediately shocked and wanted to become her disciple.

Ah Jiu, who was originally planning to kidnap her, was at a loss. But seeing the innocent look of the little girl, she couldn’t make up her mind to take action. In the end, she ended up accepting the girl as her disciple.

However, after some thought, Ah Jiu remembered the identity of her parents, and she really couldn’t be kind to Ah Ke, so she carelessly taught her some third class material art and then drifted away.

Because Ah Jiu was so good at Qinggong and Ah Ke had always kept it secret, except for the two of them, no in Prince Pingxi’s palace knew about this relationship. Naturally, Ah Jiu was curious as to why Song Qingshu knew about it.

After a moment of mental turmoil, Song Qingshu couldn’t help but smile awkwardly. He couldn’t fool her with a lie, as she would come to know eventually.

“Actually, I know Ah Ke, she was the who told me.”

“Do you know each other?” Even though her expression was covered by a veil, Song Qingshu could still feel that Ajiu had a strange look on her face, “Is there any beautiful woman in the world that you don’t know?”

“Yes, like the one over there.” Song Qingshu smiled and pointed at a girl with an excited look not far away.

Ah Jiu followed his gaze and saw a girl wearing a light red luoyi dress, with a string of pearls hanging around her neck. Her face was as white and tender as cream, as if it was about to drip water, her eyes were sparkling, and her eyebrows were long and slender. 

Even though Ah Jiu was proud of her beauty, she had to admit that this girl was extremely beautiful and not at all inferior to her.

Song Qingshu was also a bit surprised. The seats at the top were meant for either envoys from famous sects or candidates nominated by the faction leaders of the Golden Serpent Camp. How could this little girl, who was only a teenager, be here?

‘This girl’s facial features seemed to be a bit familiar. Where have I seen her before? But this is obviously impossible. My memory is not so bad, how can I fail to remember such a beauty?’

Seemingly noticing Song Qingshu’s gaze, the girl turned around and glared at him. She couldn’t help but snort, but when she noticed the two women beside him, she couldn’t help but freeze.

As the girl snorted coldly, the two teenagers surrounding her seemed to have received a signal and asked, “Where are you from?”

Song Qingshu laughed and without any explanation, he directly found his seat and sat down. With his current martial arts realm, he naturally wouldn’t bother with such a junior.

“Hey, which sect are you a disciple of? How can you sit here?” The girl couldn’t help but feel a little angry when she saw that he was ignoring her. She had never cared about proper etiquette. In fact, she didn’t mean any harm by asking, she just wanted to know Song Qingshu’s identity. However, when she talked, it sounded more like she was questioning Song Qingshu for not being qualified to sit here.

Ah Jiu frowned, and even Zeng Rou looked at the girl walking over with annoyance.

“Do I need your approval to sit here?” Song Qingshu smiled lightly.

“Of course. What if you are a spy from the Qing invaders?” the girl replied matter-of-factly.

Even the two companions beside her were a little confused about the girls remark. They thought, ‘Which spy would be so stupid enough to choose this eye-catching position?’

The girl tilted her head and continued, “I have some impression of the famous disciples from famous orthodox sects, but I have never seen you before.”

“Oh, so have you seen all the disciples of famous orthodox sects?” Song Qingshu said amusedly.

“Of course!” The girl puffed up her chest, like a proud little rooster, “My dad is…”

Before the girl could finish her words, she was interrupted by a cold male voice, “It’s been so long. Yet you are still so arrogant, showing off your parents every chance you get. You haven’t made any progress at all.”

 The girl’s face suddenly turned red, she turned around and was about to curse, but when she clearly saw the appearance of the person, the girl seemed as if she had seen a ghost, and her originally fair and rosy complexion suddenly faded away, turning extremely pale, “Ya…Yang…”

Song Qingshu had long known that a master was coming over. His breathing stable and for some reason his footsteps were a little heavy. So he also took the opportunity to look back, and saw an extremely handsome man, with sword-shaped eyebrows and phoenix eyes. However, the man’s face was pale and rather haggard. There was a dark heavy sword strapped to his back, and the empty sleeve on his right arm was especially eye-catching.

Who else could have such obvious characteristics besides Yang Guo?

Song Qingshu also suddenly understood the identity of the girl. She was beautiful and aggressive, but she behaved like a mouse seeing a cat when meeting Yang Guo. Of course, she could only be Guo Fu.

‘No wonder she looked familiar…’

Song Qingshu had met Huang Rong before at Ling Tuisi’s house in Jiangling. The mother and daughter looked almost alike, but nowadays Huang Rong seemed more like a charming mature woman, compared to her daughter Guo Fu, who was more youthful. 

‘They look similar but have completely different temperaments. No wonder I didn’t realize it before.’

After his meridians recovered, he went to the Valley of the Divine Condors in order to find the inheritance of the Nine Swords of Dugu, which was one of the hidden wonders in the martial arts world. Unfortunately, the heavy sword was gone, so he could only take the Wooden Sword.

‘Now that the heavy sword is in Yang Guo’s hand, it seems that Yang Guo’s hand was cut off by Guo Fu at that time last year…’

‘Yang Guo is indeed handsome. I am known as the Jade Faced Mengchang, but I am still somewhat inferior to him…uh, he has the kind of temperament that can make moths fly into a flame.” Song Qingshu sighed and called to the two women around him, “Ah Jiu, Rou’er, do you think this man is handsome?”

Zeng Rou’s face turned red and she bowed her head in silence. On the contrary, Ah Jiu raised her eyebrows, “Why are you asking us that? Do you think we are the kind of woman who changes her mind when she sees something attractive?”

In fact, Song Qingshu was just joking, but when he saw her violent reaction, he realized that this world attached great importance to chastity, ethics, and so on. Just when he was about to apologize to her, he saw an embarrassed smile appear on her face, “But he is indeed good…good-looking.”

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