A solitary Box (Part 3)

Dusk.

Inside the little restaurant, the fragrances of lard and stir-fry, the sweat of coolies and rickshaw drivers, the odor of hard liquor, hot peppers, leeks and garlic, all mixed together to create a strange, hard-to-describe smell.

Little Gao liked this smell.

He liked the smell of clouds floating past a mountain peak, and the delicate fragrance a cold wind passing through trees and leaves. And yet, he also liked this smell.

He liked the smell of noble and elegant scholars, but he also liked these sweaty men, who sat eating flatbread-wrapped leeks, garlic heads and fatty meat, and drank hard liquor.

He liked people.

This was because he had been alone for too long, and rarely saw people, only the green mountains, white clouds, flowing water and ancient pines. Three months ago he had finally returned to the world of men. And in three months time he had already killed four people.

Four local warlords with illustrious reputations, people who deserved to die, and yet couldn't be killed.

He liked people, and yet he killed people.

He didn't like killing people, and yet he killed them.

The world is filled with many things like this, things that leave you with no leeway to make any decision.

**

Chang'an. Ancient Chang'an. A grand city, filled with ancient history and the feeling of countless legends.

Little Gao didn't come to Chang'an for any of these reasons, though.

He'd come for a person—the forever invincible hero Sima Chaoqun.

He'd brought his sword with him, and his sword sat at hand next to him. It was forever at hand.

The sword was wrapped tightly in cloth.

Few people could see this sword. From the time it was forged until now, few people had even had the opportunity to see it.

This sword was not a sword for people to see.

**

Little Gao knew that someone was watching him.

The second day he'd arrived, he'd noticed. It was a very thin man, wearing very expensive clothing, with a pair of cold eyes that seemed like they would never contain an ounce of emotion. His eyes looked like they might be grey.

He had seen eyes like this before.

When he was eleven years old, he had almost been killed by a leopard. That leopard's eyes had looked exactly the same.

As soon as this person appeared, it seemed as if everyone in the little restaurant had stopped breathing for a moment.

Later, he found out that he was the trusted assistant of the top chief of the "Steward of the 39 Northern Roads Great Protection Agency," Sima Chaoqun. His name was Zhuo Donglai.

Little Gao slowly ate his bowl of boiled cabbage noodle soup, and he felt very happy.

He knew that Zhuo Donglai and Sima Chaoqun would definitely be suspicious of him, would discuss him, would guess about who he was.

He was sure they would never figure out who he was.

He was like his sword. Few people had ever seen him.

The sky slowly grew dark. Even though there was no lamp in the room, the lamplight from outside shone brightly.

A cold wind blew in through the cracks in the windows, and the faint sound of speaking and laughter could be heard coming from the courtyard outside.

Sima Chaoqun knew that the guests who had come without an invitation to observe the ceremony outnumbered those he had personally invited.

He also knew that everyone was waiting for him to appear, waiting for the chance to see him.

And yet he sat in his seat, not moving. Even when his wife entered, he didn't move.

He was extremely irritated.

Burning the incense, accepting a disciple, throwing a huge banquet, receiving guests… he thought all of these things were extremely irritating.

He just wanted to sit there peacefully and have a drink.

**

Wu Wan understood what he was thinking.

No one understood Sima Chaoqun better than Wu Wan. They had been married for eleven years, and had a nine-year old child.

She had come to urge him to go out as soon as possible.

She had opened the door quietly and entered. Now she left, closing the door behind her, not wanting to disturb him.

As she left, tears streamed down her face.

**

Sima poured himself another cup of alcohol.

He'd long since passed the first cup. This was the twenty-seventh cup.

What he was drinking wasn't wine, like Zhuo Dongli drank, but baijiu. Even though it was colorless and flavorless, when you drank it, it burned like a fire in your stomach.

But he didn't drink this cup.

The door quietly opened again. This time the person who entered wasn't Wu Wan, it was Zhuo Donglai.

Sima lifted his head and placed the cup underneath his chair. He looked at the shadow of Zhuo Donglai in the doorway.

"Is it time for me to go out?"

"Yes."

The outer courtyard was illuminated brilliantly and resounded with the clamor of voices.

Little Gao squeezed his way through the crowd. He wasn't one of Sima Chaoquan's invited guests, so he couldn't enter the main hall, where the lamplight shone even more gloriously.

People also packed the inside hall, but they were all famous, with status, positions and power.

In addition to these famous individuals, there were also several strapping men dressed in dark green gowns of satin and sheepskin. They were strong and nimble as they received the guests, and their eyes shone. They definitely would not allow anything improper to happen, no matter how small.

Suddenly the voices grew quiet.

The chief of the "Steward of the 39 Northern Roads Great Protection Agency," the most powerful person in the martial world, the forever invincible Sima Chaoqun, had finally appeared.

Sima Chaoqun walked out wearing a black and white garment, carefully tailored to make him look even more powerful and tall than normal, and younger than his actual age.

He greeted the guests in a forthright and honest fashion, and even walked to the stone steps at the front of the hall to wave at the crowd in the outer courtyard.

Amidst the ear-spliting cheering that followed, Little Gao wasn't paying attention to Sima Chaoqun, but two other people.

Their clothing and features were quite ordinary, but their eyes were cold and fearsome, filled with murder.

They didn't stand together, or even look at each other, but each of them had a group of eight or nine people close by, observing them, careful to maintain a suitable distance.

Little Gao smiled.

He could tell that these two people were here for Yang Jian, first class assassins dispatched by Zhu Meng.

He could also see that Sima Chaoqun and Zhuo Donglai had assigned him the same status as them, as there were people keeping an eye on him as well. Actually, there were a lot of people watching him. Zhuo Donglai must suspect him of being the most dangerous of them all.

"But Zhuo Donglai made a mistake this time!" Little Gao smiled to himself. "Assigning people to watch me is really a waste of manpower."

**

Two huge red candles sat burning on a long table in the middle of the great hall.

Sima Chaoqun sat in front of the table on a violet-red sandalwood chair, over which was draped a tiger skin.

A red felt spread out in front of the chair, upon which rested a violet satin prayer mat.

The grand ceremony was about to start.

The two men with the murderous eyes had already begun to move forward slowly. The men watching them followed, their hands reaching underneath their robes.

Obviously they had deadly weapons hidden in their garments.

If these two took any action, the men's hands would spring forth with weapons and slaughter them in a split second, before they even reached the great hall.

Little Gao was certain these two wouldn't succeed.

—There was definitely a third person, and this was who Zhu Meng had actually sent to assassinate Yang Jian.

It turned out Little Gao thought the same way as Zhuo Donglai. The only difference was that he knew the third person wasn't himself.

—Who was this person?

Little Gao's pupils suddenly constricted.

He'd caught sight of a person who normally wouldn't attract any attention, dodging through the crowd.

And an ordinary, old-fashioned box, which definitely wouldn't attract anyone's attention.

He wanted to push his way forward, but the crowd was too packed. The star of the grand ceremony had just entered the main hall.

**

Yang Jian's pale, sallow face wore a smile.

Six people escorted him in.

Little Gao didn't recognize these six men, but almost anyone who had any experience wandering in Jianghu would know them. Most of them were famous experts in the Protection Agency industry, but even more impressive was that one of them was "Cloudy Sky," the notorious bandit who in recent years had run amok on the Guanluo Road, which ran between Shaanxi and Luoyang.

Under the protection of six experts like this, who could possibly harm Yang Jian?

He had already reached the red felt, and stood in front of the violet mat prepared especially for him to bow to Sima Chaoqun and accept him as a master.

In that very moment, the outer courtyard burst into motion. There were already twenty people amidst the crowd on the ground, bleeding and screaming miserably.

The people who had fallen were not just Zhuo Donglai's subordinates. Many were just random innocents.

This was the plan set upon by Han Zhang and the Wooden Chicken.

They obviously knew people were watching them, so before they made their move, they would try to throw the crowd into chaos by shedding innocent blood.

Amidst the chaos, they would fly forward and pounce on Yang Jian.

Little Gao didn't even glance at them.

He knew that no matter what method they used, they wouldn't succeed. He kept watching the person with the box.

Except, this person had already disappeared.

**

Sima Chaoqun sat tall in the violet-red sandalwood chair. His countenance and facial expression did not change.

The assassins had already been contained outside of the main hall.

Yang Jian had already been whisked away by the six masters, out through a door in the back of the main hall.

Little Gao had already determined which direction the door faced.

The men following being distracted, Little Gao suddenly dashed forward into the main hall, and then used a strange and indescribable martial arts move to slide across the wall and out a window.

The window and the door both faced the same direction.