Chapter 8: For Another Chance
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Wu Yang instantly went into action, knowing such a thing shouldn't get too fierce, and most of all, having no woman skills to speak of (guqin is more of a male's instrument, as one of the four arts of an educated gentleman), how could he compete with her? Just let him get back to work again! Why must he fight with a woman?
He quickly ran forward to bow to the ice beauty. "You're right, this servant has nothing better than her excellency, you're not only more beautiful, but also have talent, kindness, and strength, there is no one that can match the great missus, this humble servant knows he isn't worthy, it is only because of the foolishness of the young master that I dared come. My master is very wild and foolish, and is definitely not of the same station as the beauty and gracefulness of the lady! Please don't lower yourself to fighting for a man so below your class!"
Bo Longwei felt incredibly affronted, but one look at his mom nodding in agreement, he resolved himself, and went to stand in a corner, depressed. Was he that bad?
Wu Yang continued to bow before the icy beauty, until with a final "Harumph! You better compensate the Palace appropriately for this offense!" Turned around and left with her attendants.
Wu Yang walked back to stand behind Bo Longwei.
"So..." Min song turned to her son. "You actually found one. congrats. I'm really happy that you lost your engagement to the Hua palace miss. not like I was trying for years to make it happen. I'm definitely not sad in the least."
Bo Longwei immediately excuse himself before his mom burst. "Well, I should get out of here, with my manservant real quick!"
However, right then, his hand was caught by Min Song. "Manservant? what is this?"
Wu yang immediately came forward to bow before the mistress. "This humble servant was lucky enough to be picked up by the young master today to serve him."
"...and you're a dude."
Wu yang smiled politely. Why did it seem like he'd done something wrong?
Bo Longwei started laughing nervously, taking Wu Yang away. "Hahaha, let's talk more about this later, bye!"
"Bo Longwei!!!!" came a shout behind them, but they were already gone, Wu Yang getting dragged by the collar by Bo Longwei.
After getting new clothes that suited a male servant of the Young Master of the dragon palace, Wu Yang definitely looked good only..."Why did I have to make myself look so young!!!!" complained Wu Yang, working on his face in the mirror again. Sure, looking young was good for looking inconspicuous, but it was annoying since no one treated you with respect. He sighed, finishing smoothing up the lines of a permanent face mask and went around his business, attending to his new master.
He didn't like it.
His previous young master was one that he could made out with like every ten minutes, whereas this one, already had tons of attendants and liked women, so there was no where to release for his pent up yin energy, and also very little to do. Luckily, this also meant Bo Longwei quickly forgot about him in less than a week, busy searching for some fugitive, and Wu Yang quickly found a time to slip away.
It was night time, as Wu Yang melted into the shadows of his room, appearing in Bo Longwei's room and grabbing a certain plaque, then appearing in an information library, reading through a couple papers, before appeared in the hall.
You couldn't go long distances with the shadow art, unless you knew the place well, it was nighttime, and you had lots of spiritual energy. So Wu Yang had to make do with just short jumps between the shadows of trees and rocks, until he finally arrived at his destination.
The black market. Not only did it move around constantly, but it was hard to access, unless you were rich, had connections, and wanted to go on the underside of the law. However, there ended up being a lot of those folk in this world, so the market was still full, even as Wu Yang arrived at the entrance. It was an entrance into one of those suspicious palaces you go to do naughty things, but once you showed your plaque, a waypoint gate would unlock at the door and going through it, you'd enter into the black market. The real black market was located somewhere underground in the mountains, no one could quite determine where it was, because there wasn't even a physical entrance or exit in the market, just teleportation gates, so everyone there had no intentions to find out either.
Many people also hid their identities, to make sure that their coming here, was untraceable. Wu yang himself did so as well, wearing a random mask he'd bought at the market place to exchange for his cloth one. It was a simple black on, covering the top half of his face, with a nice dragon design on it. This was so that he could eat comfortably (his money came from his current salary of 50 coppers a day).
First thing was first, he needed his own plaque, so that he could access this place at will, like he had with Bo Longwei's plaque, then, he'd need an organization to hire him. It was always easier to work with an organization than freelancing in this work, when you didn't want to have to do paperwork. Plus, get a good enough employer, he wouldn't have to even get a plaque anymore, or revenge from victims. They would take all the blows for him.
To find a good employer, it is all up to luck, so Wu Yang headed to one of the various restaurant haunches. You could literally order almost anything. Wu Yang almost ordered human heart, but finally did a soft pass. Although it tasted good, the guilt it brought from eating it wasn't small. After much deliberation, he finally just got himself a cup of fermented tea, since he'd already had a good dinner earlier that day anyway.
He sat down on the second floor, enjoying the performance of the dancers below. His eyes glistened, not because of the beautiful women, but because of what was going in behind the scenes.
A girl, dancing, her fingers flashed, and the robe went up, flowing with each of her movements, but at just the right angle, Wu Yang had already seen the glimpse of a small secret in the sleeve. He smiled, watching the scene in excitement, as someone sat down across for him.
"What puts you in such a good mood?" Asked the man, clothes a deep green, his hair flowing without a tie, just a small golden clip hanging on the side.
He also ordered some tea, turning to the side to watch the performance, his mask covering about three quarter's of his face, but not his lips, similar to Wu Yang's, but gilded with gold.
Wu Yang smiled at him, taking in the man's good clothes and thinking he might be a potential sponsor, immediately took the invitation to chat.
"The scene downstairs will get very messy soon, it is fun to watch.
"Oh? How soon?"
"In about 5,"
"Five what?" the stranger with a gentle, but powerful bearing asked.
"4," Wu yang smiled wider, not even looking down at the scene below anymore. His eyes fast on his conversation partner. "3," the dance continued, four girls whirling around each other, in perfect sync with one another. "2," the flute trilled, and a girl leapt into the air in a magnificent spin, her ribbons trailing behind her. "1."
Suddenly, the little girl's hand flashed, a silver streak flew out, completely obscured by the silks around her, no one noticed, until it was already too late a silver dagger imbedded in the rich man's head. The girl quickly leapt away, to escape out the doors of the restaurant, but the man's men acted quickly, as his brother barked orders. Sure enough, the entrance was sealed, and the girl changed directions, heading back over the stage, but by then, the guards had surrounded her. She fought back valiantly, but her martial prowess wasn't as good as her dancing, and they quickly subdued her. The brother of the rich man walked over to stand over her, getting ready to beat her to death.
Wu Yang turned to the man across from himself. "Are you interested?"
He smiled in response, leaning back. "A little, but women like her, you can probably find many here."
Wu Yang scoffed at him. Did he really not see it?
The man looked offended, "What was that for?"
"Eyes that only are looking for a performance, will never see the knife in the dance." With that, he leapt over the stage.
His feet flew to the ground, landing gently in between the man and the woman who'd killed his brother. Wu Yang smiled gently at him. "This girl, I want her."
The man glared at him. "She killed by brother, who are you to take her?"
Wu Yang just sniffed, and then, he moved, so fast, no one could even see it, appearing behind the man, holding a small blade. He turned to walk back, passing the man, as his head fell to the ground, completely severed.
He wiped the blade, handing it back to the girl, still kneeling on the floor.
"Thank you for this." he said, making sure to give back his dues, he looked at a waiter nearby, gesturing toward the limp bodies. "Please prepare a dish with this man's and his brother's heart for me and bring it upstairs.
Everyone just stared at him in shock. Wu Yang smiled. He didn't need to hide his identity when a mask covered his face, he no longer had to hold back when fighting. and most of all,
"Who are you to do such things?" Screamed one of the guards, shocked and enraged by what he'd just done.
Everyone looked to Wu Yang. If he was just a nobody, with good martial arts, he'd be locked up by the higherups for causing unnecessary chaos and mess in the black market. You could steal, rape or kill, but doing so too blatantly, will obviously cause you to get kicked out. Especially just blatantly cannibalizing other customers.
Wu Yang laughed lightly. "Right, I forgot about that. Here," he took out the plaque he had on him, showing it to the guard, and thus, the rest of the room. "Is that enough?"
Everyone went silent. Who didn't recognize that plaque?
That was the plaque of the Black Market's owner!!!
***
An Ice beauty walked into a large hall, bowing before the Master of the Palace.
"You called, Palace master?" she asked.
"Yes," Replied a woman, clothed in bright pink, but with eyes that would scare you so bad, you couldn't hardly meet them. "Your sister was finally able to successfully return, thanks to the heat coming of our backs by some 'Hua Yuwang' person."
"That's right!" Suddenly Hua Binghuang was assaulted from behind by another girl, her arm thrown around her shoulders. "Sis! aren't you so happy to see me!!!" Her red hair was wild and untamed, and you could see a furnace's burning fierceness in her eyes. however, right now she was just kinda cute.
"get off me." Hua Binghuang curled her lip in disgust.
Hua Chongxiu immediately backed off. "okay, okay, sis, it's okay, are you perhaps in a bad mood because that dumb Bo guy turned you down??? Don't be! If you need a Yang body, I'm right here, sis!" She gestured at herself with confidence
Hua Binggong just sneered at her and turned away. "Like you count, get out my face."
The Palace Master looked down at her two Daughters. They couldn't be more different and yet completely similar. Originally, she had triplets in her stomach, unfortunately, something went wrong while in her stomach, and he two girls sucked up all the nutrients of the boy child, he coming out still born, and with the girls being an ice constitution and the other a pure yang.
The two sister's temperaments were vastly different, but both were so headstrong, that she'd been wondering if she could actually get either of them married. She had planned to marry one of them out and keep the other there to inherit, the Red Dragon Palace just so happened to be looking for a girl with strong Yin to pair with their son, who had a pure yang body. Who knew, that after trying to set it in stone, Hua Binghuang would return, saying things like how 'she was much to noble and graceful for a waste like Bailong.' She didn't know who'd put these thoughts in her mind that the Hua Palace was that much better than the mighty Red Dragon, but now that she had it stuck in her mind, it was almost completely impossible to remove it, and she could let it be only, if she wasn't going to marry out, to prevent inheriting problems then...
"Hua Chongxiu."
"Hmm? Yeah, mom?"
"Call me Palace master."
"Whatever, mom, the 'palace master'."
She felt like punching her. "Don't you think it's about time to find yourself a man already?"
Hua Chongxiu shook her head. "I'm already going strong with someone!"
"You sleep with a different man or woman every night!"
"Can I help that I have high libido? I'm a yang!" shrugged Hua Chongxiu, unrepentant.
"Is your 'someone' okay with this?"
"He seems alright with it, I've done stuff with people in front of him, and all he asks is, 'Is someone home with you again, Chongchong?'"
The palace master slammed her fist down on her throne. "He's literally blind and deaf, are you sure he even knows the half of it????"
Hua Chongxiu looked to the side awkwardly scratching her head. "Well...All my others eventually split up cause they don't want such an open relationship, I don't care if they sleep around, why do they gotta care if I do?"
The palace master rubbed her stress point between her eyes, sighing. One of her daughters felt everyone was below her, so didn't make out with any one, the other made out with anyone, sex, size or other, didn't matter.
She moved on. "Anyway, since you could finally make it back here, Hua Chongxiu, do you have the item?"
Hua Chongxiu smiled, reaching into her robe to take it out. Everyone in the hall's eyes widened at the sight.