Book 2: The Infinite Heart
Chapter 4 – Beauty at the Lake Heart
In mid-air Meng Fuyao’s fingers flicked, and a piece of broadleaf grass she had picked previously was shot out, brushing past the water surface. With a flip of her body, Fuyao swept past like an eagle shearing the waves, and the tip of her foot had already landed on the broadleaf grass.
With such a cold day, only an idiot would actually go for a dive.
Fuyao’s foot stood on the leaf tip as she smiled and assessed the surroundings. As she expected, behind the fake mountain was hidden beautiful scenery. Before she could only see a corner of the pond water, but now she could see it was actually a quite large man-made lake. The lake water was clear blue like jade and reflected the exquisite, strangely-shaped rocks in the surroundings. Large swaths of sweet-smelling camellias blossomed with scarlet red, light red, pink, and white, intermixed with vividly blooming pure wintersweets, and tender and delicate azaleas. Vibrantly colorful and gorgeous, the scene drew in one’s eyes.
While in the heart of the lake there was a pavilion of white jade that connected with emerald green-colored long corridors. Upon careful inspection, those corridors were actually constructed with bamboo that were supported on top of the blue ripples. It was unknown how that quiet and beautiful pure blue color could be maintained; light green bamboo reflected in the crystal-like lake water, creating a very clean and soothing visual feeling.
Wind brushed past. The lake water folded with layers of elegant ripples, while from inside the white jade pavilion, the ding ling sounds of golden chimes sounded without end. The white silk drapes in the pavilion were lifted up by the wind, layer upon layer like a dream or mirage. There could vaguely be seen a human figure inside the curtains, who was currently playing a zither with their head lowered. The sound of the zither was clear and melodious, as if strings of jade pearls rolled and fell into the heart of the lake, yet it was not known from which beauty’s hands these sounds came from.
Meng Fuyao took in a breath, her chest immediately filling with the winter day’s refreshing air, intermixed with flowery fragrance. She couldn’t help but mumble a little. “So enjoyable!”
From her fingers continuously flew out broadleaf grass, and her person also neared the pavilion at the heart of the lake step by step. Halfway there she suddenly paused. She felt that there seemed to be killing intent in the surrounding air.
That kind of killing intent was formless and traceless, yet was omnipresent at the same time. It seemed to be hidden in plant life, hidden in the wind and moon; it followed the flowers and trees as they waved, followed as the wind blew and the moon shone, the force approaching little by little.
This place was clearly silent besides the zither’s sounds, there were no other sounds at all…
Meng Fuyao’s thoughts paused here all of a sudden. Right! Why was there no other sounds at all besides the zither? Where did the world’s natural sounds all go? Where did the wind blowing and grass moving, the night bugs chirping sounds go?
She swiftly flew up, yet her thoughts were a little sluggish. Her whole body’s senses spread outward, detecting that the surrounding killing intent was dispersed everywhere; only the person in the pavilion in front had no strange feeling, and they were the only gap in the midst of the ominous aura.
This one, she thought, must be the Crown Prince’s beautiful concubine who didn’t know any martial arts, right? Even though this xinggong didn’t have anyone in sight, it seemed like there was an ancient array set up; since she had stumbled into the array, then she could only exit from that gap. Meng Fuyao made up her mind and directly shot forward.
At this time the opposite person behind the veil seemed to have also discovered her. They slightly raised their head, their hands that were pressing on the zither strings suddenly pausing, then relaxing. In the air, a stream of faint zither music unfurled, its sound deep yet distant.
The killing intent in the surroundings suddenly dissipated. Meng Fuyao immediately felt her whole body loosen, as if some kind of binding was untied, and she felt completely relaxed. She couldn’t help but look towards that hazy shadow in the center of the lake while laughing obscenely. Beauty … you also know that I don’t have any malicious intentions towards you huh … he he.
She flung out her last piece of broadleaf grass and calculated the distance, it was exactly enough to reach the inside of the pavilion. Seeing graceful beauty behind the veil who was pressing the zither without speaking, as if they were lifting their eyes to look over at her, Meng Fuyao began to smile even wider.
Closer … closer…
The drapes were suddenly lifted up, yet it wasn’t the slender jade fingers of a beauty lifting the curtains, but a bundle of white fat. That guy waddled out, its claws hugging a super small slingshot. Heavily setting the sling against the pavilion bamboo railings, it used a foot claw to firmly press down on the slingshot, and a front claw to pull against the rubber band. Valiantly posturing, its white fur flowing, its eyes burning with hatred, it drew the bow!
“Pa!”
A piece of rock shot out, landing on that broadleaf grass and hitting it to spin round and round, yet because of water tension the leaf didn’t sink.
At this time, Meng Fuyao didn’t lift her head to look at the events in the pavilion. Her vision was currently n the process of lowering to prepare to land on that leaf tip. Unexpectedly, the grass was hit spinning, leaving the area of her calculations. Fuyao cursed loudly. “Which bastard is making trouble?” As her body flipped in mid-air she tried to land on the grass tip again.
She didn’t realize that the rock would actually be smeared with a strong corrosive poison. When the leaf contacted it, it immediately began to decay and shrivel, in a blink disintegrating into nothingness.
After Meng Fuyao’s somersault that grass tip she could land on was no longer found in her vision. In shock, with her true qi used up after flipping two times, she let out an “uh” sound, and splashed into the lake water with a “pu-tong”.
That certain Master on top of the pavilion instantly threw away its slingshot, holding its stomach with a joyful rodent heart, laughing with zhi zhi sounds. With a whoosh it slipped back into the drapes again.
A “hua la” sound. The completely soaked Meng Fuyao surfaced her head from the lake, her black hair wet and sticking to her forehead, while the yellow ginger juice on her face had already been mostly washed away. Amidst the water flowers she crazily made a ruckus like a water demon, her brows almost vertical as she shouted, “Which one? Which rat-faced scoundrel dared to scheme against me?! Come out! Come out!”
The rat-faced scoundrel laughed in a zhi zhi sound from inside the drapes.
Fuyao suspiciously perked up her ears, then splashed over. She held onto the pavilion railing and prepared to crawl up, when the drapes were suddenly lifted. A person chuckled. “Fuyao, why is it that every time I see you, you always cut such a sorry figure?”