The guardians of Yumen said they are going to have a meeting in an orchid garden, but Jinshui was not taken to a garden. In fact, he did not even see a single orchid anywhere. He found the lakeside of Xuanwu was filled with tall grass, it was dark and gloomy at night.
There was a raft at the lakeside, someone waited for them there. When Moying pulled Jinshui to the raft, the three Chailang, Xiezhang, and Baigu were already gone without any sound. Jinshui looked around for a while and he did not find their shadow.
"Master, they…."
"They have someone to pick, will return soon."
Jinshui didn't ask. The raft he was on moved a bit unexpectedly on the water. The boatman didn't need to drive since Moying used his inner energy to push the raft through the water, making the water wavy for a while. Jinshui tried to keep his leg on the raft, he didn't want to splash into the lake.
The boatman was a lot shorter than Jinshui, a small figure covered with a woven grass jacket. The face was hidden in the wide hat of similar material. It was a normal appearance for an ordinary boatman's child. However, the child didn't wear any footwear, making it clear that it was a young woman's feet.
Jinshui did smell some kind of flowery fragrance since he got on the raft, and he soon realized the boatman was a girl. He looked away, his grandfather told him that it was rude to stare at a girl.
The raft soon approached a small ship floating in the middle of the lake. Moying hold Jinshui's hand and took him there. The raft girl followed with light movement, jumped once to show her qinggong, then landed without making any sound. Jinshui accidentally looked at her feet again. Under the light of the paper lantern on the ship, he saw a pair of small white smooth girl feet, which made him look away once more.
"What you looking at?" the girl knew Jinshui looked at her weirdly. Her long bamboo oar moved toward Jinshui's face, almost hitting him.
Moying stepped back, he clearly didn't want to fight a young girl. Jinshui caught the oar with his hand successfully, but the girl attacked him with other bare hands, playing swiftly with sparrow movements. Jinshui let the oar off his hands, dodging the attack by rolling on the wooden floor. The oar hit his head, but at the same time, he managed to grab the girl's foot and made her fall to the floor.
"Qingyi, I told you not to have a fight here," a new voice was heard, yelling at the young girl. Someone else was already there on the ship. Jinshui found a woman figure, aged around thirty or forty years, wearing a simple village dress, with a single hair bun and a face with no makeup. The face was covered by wrinkles, but what was left of her youth beauty can be seen clearly still. She came near elegantly.
"Menggui (Dream Angel)," Moying called her, "it's been a while. Is this young lady your daughter?"
"Go pick up the guests," the lady Menggui loudly gave the order to the girl Qingyi. Her daughter said nothing, she grabbed her oar and jumped to her raft, paddling it away quickly.
"My daughter is useless, she has no enough talent to learn all my ability," the lady spoke again, "but I already have a disciple learning martial arts since he was young, he is stronger, a good candidate for our future course."
A young man aged around fifteen came out from the ship cabin. Menggui introduced him as her disciple, named Qin Liangjie.
Jinshui was glad to see the young man. He thought he was going to see the rest of the eight guardians with their weird appearances, but he didn't just see old people. There was Menggui's young disciple, and her fierce daughter, at least they were better than some demonic old masters. Jinshui had never met other children for over two years, and he wish he can make some friends.
"Moying Shibo (Uncle)," Qin Liangjie bowed to Moying, but when Jinshui was about to do the same ritual to Menggui and call her aunty, the lady rejected it.
"You may call me shishu (Aunt), but you don't have to bow to me," said the lady, "laoniang don't really like traditional rituals."
Her words were no match to her disciple's exceeding politeness. Jinshui didn't say anything and just nod once.
"Huling (Fox Spirit) is here," Moying said as they heard a water splashing sound.
Jinshui then saw a human figure look like flying on the water. He guessed another guardian had arrived without Qingyi's raft taking him there.
The name Huling didn't fit for male, but the one coming was in fact an old man. He had a long thin face with a slight mustache and small foxy eyes indeed looked like an old fox. The old man's hair was all white, and he wore an uncommon fur hat, with a rather feminine white cloth.
The old man carried someone on his shoulder he brought down when he reached the ship dock. It was a ten-year-old girl, her face was white and pretty, and she was still in her unconscious state.
"You told me you plan to take the Mr. Han's son as your apprentice, but why did you end up bringing a little girl here?" Menggui asked the foxy man. "Did you take the wrong child?"
"The wife of that Mr. Han was really bitchy, she won't accept my good intention to take her son as my disciple. I'm afraid she will break her son's arm and leg if I continue to do so, and the son will be too disabled to do future duty," the foxy man babbling continuously, his speech was rather funny. "I have no choice but to let that talented boy get some useless master, and then I took this young lady as a replacement."
"Whose child is she?" asked Moying.
"Baique's father is Zhu Zixing, one of the Fuxing Dao Jian brothers. I'm pretty sure you all know his father hates us Yumen people, once acted hero saying he will beat us up."
"I just gave him a slap this afternoon," Moying said, "if only I knew this man had a such big mouth, I might break his leg and arm."
Jinshui looked down silently, realizing the last sentence was indirectly addressed to him. He defended the Fuxing Dao Jian brother from his master, apparently upsetting the old man.
"Zhu Zixing had left his family for quite some time to do some business with his brother Zhu Zifu, he doesn't care about his wife and child at all, and possibly doesn't even know he'd already had a young girl," Huling spoke again. "A year ago, his wife was really sick, she then took her daughter to Haitang Temple, and gave her up to become a disciple there. I found this child has good talent, then I trained her."
"You choose her as your descendant?" asked Menggui.
"The leader of that Haitang temple has several disciples, including this child," the old man Huling laughed silly while pointing at his unconscious disciple with his thumb. "You can imagine what will happen if his father, who did abandon her, finds out that his own daughter is taken by us heretics and will be trained to fight him. He will be so pissed."
"Her father is already killed by Liangshan Liu Mo," Moying told him, "the second of those demons already put a price on him, and you know he enjoys torturing people to half dead, there's no way Zhi Zixing is still breathing now."
Moying's statement startled Jinshui. "Master, is that true?" he asked. "then, we saved him earlier, we did not really save him?"
"We cannot save them," said his master.
Jinshui turned sad, but he knew he could not do anything. He realized that these Yumen guardians were neither heroes nor good people who will help others in need. Meanwhile, he was just a boy with limited ability.
Qingyi returned with her raft a moment later. Another old man came, with a young man aged around eighteen years with him. The young man was introduced as Li Qian, and the old man dressed like a healer with a small hoe and basket on his back was Ducao (Poison Grass).
"I have to admit Shuiyao's proficiency this time," the old man was babbling though he was not as cheerful as Huling. "She did manage to successfully invite some important people having talented children there in her husband's place. She did give a chance to us eight guardians to have a meeting here and introduce our descendants."
"I heard there will be five important guests coming," said Menggui, "they are having a bouquet now. Tonight after everyone is drunk and asleep, then we can have our guardian meeting and discuss our next step."
"Is the head of the no-hero association coming as well?" asked Huling, "I heard our poison grass brother already killed the remaining half of their twenty-four assassins. I think we should take down their leader too."
"You killed the remaining guards of the Yongjun Hui (Everlasting Association)?" Moying asked Ducao.
"No, I did not take their unworthy lives," Ducao laughed. "My nickname is poison grass, so I just asked them to eat some poisonous grass. Those twenty-four assassins had slaughtered many of our brothers and sisters in the battle. The remaining half of them were mostly injured, some had lost arms or legs. I fed them some grass first, and made them in the same shape after."
Moying cleared his throat, and reminded him that there are children here, they should not mention their vicious work in front of the young.
"Lao Hu, why did you knock your student unconscious?" Ducao asked Huling, diverting the topics.
"It wasn't me," said Huling, "she was bullied by the student of our bloody palm brother, that Lin boy who was allergic to girls."
"I know that boy," said Ducao. "He knows someday he will be forced to marry some random girl by this father, it develops his new habit to bully any girl. I will ask Xiezhang to teach him some lessons later."
Jinshui heard their discussion, and deep in his heart, he grew dislikes to the Lin boy, the student of Xiezhang. His grandfather taught him to pay some respect to ladies, but the Lin boy was really rude.
The young girl Qingyi returned with her raft again. She brought with her the old man Jinshui saw earlier, the hunchback Xiezhang, now bringing his naughty Lin boy student with him.
Jinshui had not clearly seen that boy's face when he saw Qingyi suddenly plunge into the water. The boy by Xiezhang's side laughed and clapped his hand in joy on the raft before his master dragged him to the ship. Jinshui did not think twice, he jumped into the water and tried to find Qingyi there.
But the little girl was a really good swimmer, while Jinshui wasn't any better. Moying stood still at the dock, while the others did nothing to help the children as they witnessed Qingyi pull Jinshui out of the water and took him to the ship.
"Hey," the young girl threw her grass hat away. He shook Jinshui's body and pumped the water out of his stomach.
"The helper becomes the victim," babbled Huling, "Moying, where did you take this boy from, why is he so silly? We eight guardians already made a promise, we should take talented children, because in the future, they will have huge responsibilities, and they also…." He didn't finish his sentence. Moying, Menggui, Xiezhang, and Ducao all stared at him sharply.
Ducao knocked Huling's head, and whispered something to his ear. The babbling fox suddenly shut his mouth, his face turned pale all of sudden just as he saw some ghost.
Jinshui had gained consciousness. He found the old men amusing, yet he wondered what Ducao said to Huling to silence the babbling fox.
"Are you okay?" he asked Qingyi.
"I'm the one who should ask you the question," the young girl replied. "Who told you to play hero? I'm a raft girl, there's no way I will be drowned to death just because someone pushes me to the water."
This young girl was just nine years old, she was really pretty and attractive with her strong personality and spicy voice. She did hit Jinshui for he accidentally stared at her bare feet, but now after Jinshui almost helped her, she changed her heart and became soft.
"That Lin boy pushed you," said Jinshui innocently. "I saw you plunged into the water, and you didn't come out."
"I dove into the water and planned to have my revenge on that boy by turning the raft. If it wasn't for his master pulling him up and you didn't jump to the water, I would had had him drown."
"You can do that?" asked Jinshui unadorned.
"You cannot trick me like that," the Lin boy replied curtly. He hid behind his master's back.
"Qingyi," Menggui called before Qingyi stood and chased the naughty boy. Qingyi jumped back to her raft to pick up another guest.
Moying pulled Jinshui, and put his palm on the boy's back, sending his inner energy through a certain acupuncture point. Just a few seconds later, Jinshui didn't feel the cold lake water and he was amazed. The water was evaporated from his body and clothes, and he was covered in some light smoke for a while. Moying's inner energy was the best compared to other guardians, Jinshui forgot the Lin boy Lin Jixuan for a while.
Shortly after, the raft returned with Qingyi bringing the white boney corpse and his student Liao Xian, a young boy who looked pretty much alive, totally different from the inanimate master. He was ten years old, and his face was handsome and bright, with rather pink cheeks like a girl's. However, his body language was a bit stiff, making him similar to his master.
The last guardian to arrive was Chailang, the wild wolf. He came with the strangest boy Jinshui ever met. His eyes were chilly, his lips showed a faint smile all the time, and he looked mysteriously hiding something. The boy was just a year older than Lin Jixuan, only nine years old. He was introduced as Huang Yu.
There was only one guardian who did not appear until the night fell and Menggui asked Qingyi to tighten her raft and bring the ship to another side of the lake. The one called Shuiyao.