Suddenly several people appeared by the gambling table; they were all casino people, and Xiang Yushan was one of them. Next to him was a fat man wearing embroidered gown; he had broad face but small eyes, yet the pupil of his eyes flickered brightly, so that people know that he was not a character they would want to mess with. Both he and Xiang Yushan were sizing Shen Luoyan up and down with their gleaming eyes.
Shen Luoyan acted as if she did not even notice people were staring at her; she whispered in Kou Zhong's ear, "This time I am saving you once. Whatever big kindness, big enmity between us, we'll call it quits.”
Finished dealing the tiles, Ren Meimei cast a coquettish glance toward the fat man and said, "Xiang Ye [master] has come in person! Do you want to play a round?”
The man she called Master Xiang laughed aloud before plopping himself on an empty seat like a meaty pillar on an upside down golden mountain. He sighed and said, "It's rare that San Dangjia [see footnote] is willing to be the banker, Wagang Fort's Pretty Junshi Miss Shen is willing to play; how could I, Xiang Gui, refuse to play along?”
Ren Meimei's beautiful body trembled; she looked at Shen Luoyan and coldly said, "Turns out it is the Pretty Junshi Shen Luoyan; no wonder you talk big. But winning or losing, I, Ren Meimei, will accompany you play.”
Shen Luoyan laughed gracefully, her beautiful eyes darted back and forth between Xiang Gui and Ren Meimei. She said nonchalantly, "The two of you spoke too highly of me. I, Shen Luoyan, only run errands for Duke Mi; how could I talk big or talk small? This time I came here on Duke Mi's behalf only to recover two wandering prodigal children. I am asking a lot of forgiveness from the two of you, so that when Duke Mi attacks Pengcheng in the future and we meet again, nobody will talk a bad talk against each other.”
As the remaining dozen or so guests heard the name Wagang Army, they did not dare to tarry; they all left that not even one remained. Even the hundreds of guests in the other halls also left as soon as they heard what was going on.
But there was one person remained. This man wore a tall hat on his head, his countenance stiff like a dead person. He looked straight into Ren Meimei's eyes and spoke in cold manner, "Why haven't you throw the dice?”
The strangest thing was that his man was taller than average person, plus he was standing proudly with his hands behind his back, yet nobody even noticed that he was standing there until all gamblers scattered away and he opened his mouth to talk.
By this time, only three groups of people remained around the gambling table: Ren Meimei who was acting as the banker; Kou Zhong, Xu Ziling and Shen Luoyan; and Xiang Gui plus his son Xiang Yushan and two of their most competent men, who were standing behind him. All three groups immediately turned around with changed countenance.
Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling were the first who were spooked out of their mind; they shouted with cracked voice, "Ol' Die is here!”
The newcomer was indeed Du Fuwei. Besides, only he had the ability to appear out of empty air like shadowless rain.
He showed a surprisingly warm smile as he said tenderly, "These two sons of mine are really capable, even your Ol' Die was nearly deceived by you. But now that I see you are not inside the hungry wolf's belly, I am so happy that I am willing to forget your naughtiness.”
Shen Luoyan always did her homework in researching the other militia leaders; she was the first to recognize who he was. "Du Fuwei of River Huai!” she gasped.
Ren Meimei, Xiang Gui and the others were shaken; they were even more confused as to the relation between this old dad Du Fuwei and the two boys.
Du Fuwei still had his eyes fixed on Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling; without even casting any glance toward Shen Luoyan, he asked, "Zhai Rang has not been harmed by Li Mi yet?”
Shen Luoyan's beautiful body trembled slightly. "Du Zongguan is joking,” she replied in low voice.
Pompously Du Fuwei sat down; his gaze moved to Ren Meimei's face as he spoke indifferently, "Ol' Du has not seen ‘Demon Claw' Nie Jing for several years, is he still not happy if he does not have any woman every night?”
After knowing that the opponent was Du Fuwei, Ren Meimei immediately turned from fierce tiger to tame kitten. She replied awkwardly, "Da Dangjia [first master] is still like that.”
Seeing that as soon as Du Fuwei made his appearance all the men and horses of the opposite party immediately became docile, Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling were both happy and groaning inwardly, yet they were helpless to do anything. Whether in terms of martial art or battle of wits, they were far inferior to this old fox. Previously, it was only because of various circumstances, coupled with Du Fuwei grossly underestimated them and thus he was careless, that they had their chance. Right now the situation differed greatly; it would not be that easy for Du Fuwei to be fooled again.
Du Fuwei changed direction to Xiang Gui, "I heard you are one of the four martial art masters under the ‘smoking pipe' Lu Kangshou, with specific responsibility to find handsome men and beautiful women for Lu Kangshou; did you fancy my two inferior sons?”
Xiang Gui jumped in fright; he hastily replied, "Du Zongguan misunderstood; your esteemed sons are merely our casino's honored guests. We have nothing to do with each other.”
Du Fuwei nodded. "That would be best!” he said.
Everybody knew how vicious and merciless he was, how easy it was to kill; who would dare to speak up?
That day, when Yun Yuzhen, in her capacity as the leader of a Clan, plus she had Dugu Ce's backing behind her, confronted Du Fuwei, in the end she had to submit to him [orig. hang her hands down and called herself ‘your servant']. Now, unless Li Mi personally came, nobody even had the qualifications to stand on equal footing with him.
Du Fuwei's eyes returned to Ren Meimei's pretty face. "Why haven't you thrown the dice?' he prompted gently.
How could Ren Meimei dare to refuse? She threw the three dice in her hand onto the table.
At first the three dice were spinning rapidly, but when they were starting to slow down, they stopped abruptly, as if being controlled by some kind of invisible power. All dice had one dot facing up.
Everybody noted that Du Fuwei had his left hand pressed against the table. Needless to say, it was he who sent his internal strength via the table to control the number of dots on the dice. Merely this feat, everybody present asked themselves if they had the ability to imitate. Even Shen Luoyan who was hesitating whether she should make her move also immediately dispelled that thought.
She came this time, not only she brought about a dozen martial art expert under her command to come along, she also included Zu Junyan, who was of the same position as herself, so it was not because she did not have the strength to do an all-out battle.
Du Fuwei laughed and said, "So Ol' Du ought to pick the first tile.” He had just finished speaking, a stack of tiles slid across the table as if pulled by invisible hand and stopped in front of him, while at the same time flipped open. To everybody's surprise, one pair was ‘Heaven' [all sixes], the other was ‘Supreme' [one and two, and two and four], a winning combination.
Everybody watching felt their scalp turned numb, not only because of his internal energy that has reached perfection, but even more shocking was because he was able to see through the trick that Ren Meimei did.
Kou Zhong sighed and said, "Too bad Ol' Die did not place a bet. If you had put down a dozen his mother's ingots of gold, and share your winning with child, we would have struck it rich.”
Du Fuwei laughed and said, "I have already put down my bet. My wager is the two of you, unworthy sons. Come! We'll talk when we get home.”
Xu Ziling laughed aloud and said, "Please forgive your children for being unfilial. Since we have stepped out of the house, we will never come back. At most we will use the ‘snapping heart and artery' that Niang taught us. Once we are dead, then we will go home to have you, Ol' Die beat and scold us.”
As Shen Luoyan listened to their ‘dad' and ‘mom', she was even more confused; yet she knew perfectly well that they were not Du Fuwei's sons. Nonetheless, she admired their guts in standing up against Du Fuwei's valor.
Who would have thought that Du Fuwei did not think that they were being disobedient at all? He simply sighed and said, "Let's not talk about Die will never let you break your heart and artery, I will never believe your nonsense even more. But since the day you left, Die has been really concerned about you. Not only I cannot bear to scold you, I will even recognize you as my own sons, to bear my Du family name.”
How could the two boys believe him? But since he had seen through their ruse, they could not fight him, and they could not slip away either; momentarily they did not know what they ought to do, they were at their wit's end.
Right this moment, a peal of tender laughter came from the direction of the main lobby. "Du Zongguan, since your naughty sons are not obedient, why don't you hand them over to be disciplined by us?”
Everybody was greatly astounded; who in their right mind, after knowing that they were dealing with Du Fuwei, still dare to pick lice on the tiger's head?
Without even turning his head, Du Fuwei said, "Who's coming? State your identity and origin, let's see if you have enough qualifications to manage Ol' Du's inferior sons.”
Two women, one tall one short, appeared about three zhang away from Du Fuwei's back. One of them said, "Protector of the law Shan Xiu and Shan Yudie of Dong Ming Pai of Ryukyu are here to see Du Zongguan.”
Du Fuwei was greatly astonished, "Dong Ming Pai has always been specializing in weapons sale, and has never directly intervened the dispute internal to the Central Plains. I wonder what is the reason you came to care about my two children.”
Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling also ‘you looked at me, I looked at you'. They were both delighted and anxious at the same time. Delighted because they were finally found by the Law Protector Fairy [orig. xianzi - immortals] of Dong Ming Sect; anxious because they were afraid the women would not be a match for this old dad, who ought to be considered the most terrifying man in the world.
Whether in terms of facial feature, skin and physique, these two women were totally unlike the image of fairies in average people's imagination; however, although they were not standing by the foot of a beautiful hill like how the fairies are usually depicted, these women were definitely anything but ordinary.
Shan Xiu was lanky; so skinny that she looked like a layer of skin wrapped around bones, yet her height was comparable to Du Fuwei. Her hair was tied into a bun on top of her head, her eyes looked spirited, yet they also looked dull, her robe looked too big for her body. It would be strange indeed if people came across her in the middle of the night at a desolate area outside a town and did not think that she was a wandering ghost.
But she gave people the impression that she was clean and tidy, so clean and dry that she was immune to any plague that might harm her.