Having recalled Hou Zi, Tang Doudou suddenly remembered the task she had entrusted to him. Wonder if he has finished carrying it out for her?!
Smacking her lips, a spirited light suddenly emerged in her clear eyes. Tang Doudou pulled Li Hong who was spacing out and pointed at the tall wall that encircled Plum Garden. “Look, isn’t that Hou Zi?”
“Aiyah, mah Alliance Head da ren. Look at this situation! How can you still have the mood to look at some monkey? In my opinion, I think we should just first…” After Tang Doudou slapped his shoulder, Li Hong started muttering a huge bunch helplessly. When he saw that slow-moving black dot along the wall clearly, his jaw immediately dropped. “Hou Zi, didn’t Hou Zi leave a long time ago? Why would he be in Plum Garden?”
This wall was the only feature separating the Plum Garden from the Alliance Head Residence. It’s unknown if it was because the Alliance Head Residence was poor or due to some other reason, but they didn’t have their own boundary wall and just used the Plum Garden’s unreasonably high wall as a barrier. At times, Tang Doudou would space out as she stared at that wall, thinking that the image of how the Alliance Head Residence was connected to the Plum Garden really made it seem like a small kitchen versus the main building.
Haa, this is another sorrowful story.
Tang Doudou retrieved her thoughts and pushed Li Hong, who was in front of her, aside. “Hou Zi was just helping me do something. Who told you he left?”
Li Hong scratched his head. “I saw him rush out that day so I thought he was the same as Syndicate Leader Xu…”
He hadn’t even finished speaking when Xu Tao cried out in pleasant surprise as if he had discovered the New World. “It seems like Bai gongzi has also returned?”
“What’s that? Xiao Bai has come back? Where? Where’s Xiao Bai?” When Tang Doudou heard this she felt that this was what a truly pleasant surprise was supposed to be like. She then looked left and right, up and down, and everywhere, but didn’t see a trace of that familiar white shadow. Hence, she slapped the back of Xu Tao head. “Da hell, you tricked me for fun!?”
Xu Tao rubbed the painful spot that Tang Doudou hit and said with a very grieved expression, “I wouldn’t dare to trick Alliance Head da ren. Bai gongzi has really returned. I saw a white shadow flit past the side just now and was about to look closer when I discovered Master pulling Li Hong over to look at Hou Zi!”
“So Xiao Bai has come back as well. Let’s just do this. You guys wait here. Once Hou Zi gets back, you guys just let him wait here a while. I’ll come out to talk to him once I’ve finished discussing matters with Bai gongzi.” Worried that Xu Tao and Li Hong would run off halfway, she continued to comfort them. “Bai gongzi’s already back, so what do you guys need to worry about? Just relax. We have to believe in Bai gongzi, he definitely has a plan!”
Bai Feiyun’s name was way more useful than hers. Once she mentioned Bai Feiyun’s name, Xu Tao and Li Hong clearly looked more relieved. Li Hong sat down on the stone steps behind the door and said, “Alliance Head da ren, you should go. Xu Tao and I will guard this place for you!”
Xu Tao spoke as well. “If the grand Alliance Head Residence can’t even take care of something like this, how is it supposed to continue standing stably in the Jianghu? Alliance Head, you should just discuss this properly with Bai gongzi and see if there’s any way to get Baili Yu to take back his decision? No matter what, two men getting married kind of offends public morals…”
“Xu Tao, what are you saying!? What do you mean it offends public morals?! It’s all Baili Yu’s fault for doing it on purpose. I believe that even if Alliance Head da ren had ten leopard guts, it still wouldn’t be possible for him to dare to bully Baili Yu. Not to mention, Baili Yu’s martial arts is not something that our Alliance Head can overpower!” Li Hong said indignantly. This was what he thought when he had first heard of this matter. It’s extremely strange, how could Alliance Head possibly have topped Baili Yu?!
Tang Doudou was also exceptionally speechless upon hearing the exchange between the two of them. She felt that what they were saying couldn’t be counted as praise so she waved and said, “Alright, I’ll head in first. I’ll leave this side to you guys.”
After she spoke, she didn’t wait for the two to reply. With a ‘swish’, she squeezed into the underbrush by the side and ducked left and right as she ran towards the back courtyard.
She didn’t really want to hide and duck like this. Who asked those women outside to be so outrageous? Some even liked to climb onto the wall in their free time to see if Tang Doudou had appeared or not.
In reality, they were also hesitating. They didn’t even know if Tang Doudou was really in the Alliance Head Residence.
Due to the fact that Tang Doudou react even a bit after so many days, everyone pretty much concluded that she had probably fled long ago. The reason they were surrounding the Alliance Head Residence was simply for the sake of venting the sadness in their hearts. Not matter who it was, it would still be hard to accept for a while for them to accept if their male idol suddenly released news that he was getting married, and it was even to a guy. For the sake of respecting and honoring the lost perfection in their hearts, there’s no doubt that venting it was the best choice.
Tang Doudou could understand this quite well. If this incident had happened to anyone else, perhaps she would have even stood out to publicly talk about righteousness and other things.
Collecting her random thoughts, she pushed open the doors to her room. Directly afterwards, she saw that trace of pure snow that caused people’s hearts to calm.
“Waaahwuuu, Xiao Bai ah! You’ve finally come back! To be able to see you again in this lifetime is practically the Old Heavens granting fortune in a burst of kindness!” Tang Doudou rushed over. As she looked at Bai Feiyun’s familiar warm smile, she almost smacked a kiss over. Her heart was finally settling back into its place having seen him.
“Don’t celebrate yet.” Seeing Tang Doudou’s ecstatic appearance, Bai Feiyun shook his head. The first thing out of his mouth was a blow to her.
The smile on Tang Doudou’s face froze when she heard this. “What happened? Could it be that the method you talked about won’t work anymore?”
“The method still works. It’s just that there’s a problem that needs to be resolved as quickly as possible. Otherwise, this matter will only become more complicated.” When the conversation led to the information he found out, Bai Feiyun started feeling a bit of a headache.
“What problem?” Tang Doudou continued to ask. As long as there’s a problem, there would be a solution. The worst situation would be when you can’t even find the root of the problem.
Bai Feiyun muttered to himself irresolutely for a while as if trying to figure out how to start telling her.
Seeing that he still didn’t say a single word after a long while, Tang Doudou started urging him, “Aiyah, Xiao Bai, don’t dawdle anymore. When I went out to take a look earlier, it seemed like the doors outside are on the verge of breaking from all the pounding. If you keep delaying, the only thing you can do for me later will probably be to collect my corpse!”
“There’s actually no need to worry about that. When I entered earlier, I saw that most of the women outside had already left. From the looks of it, they’ll probably disperse on their own in another two days. What we need to worry about right now is Baili Yu.” Bai Feiyun rubbed the area between his brows. He truly felt helpless from the bottom of his heart when the name ‘Baili Yu’ was brought up. That man was seriously way too hard to predict.
When he went to see the City Lord to notify him of this matter, the City Lord had been stunned for an entire ten minutes before he slowly expressed his opinion. “Xueyi’s truly not bad. He’s a person that does big things. Since it’s like this, then might as well take Baili Yu as a bride. In any case, we don’t lose anything from Xueyi marrying him!”
In reality, the City Lord and Baili Yu were very similar in many senses of the word. It was just that the City Lord tends to scheme against people straightforwardly while Baili Yu always liked to wear a harmless smile before silently, without warning, cheat* people until there’s not a single place left unharmed!
I had already previously defined the word 坑 to mean like cheat/fraud. However, Sigil brought up a better word which seems to fit perfectly: troll. But since troll is a modern word which shouldn’t exist in the ancient world, I probably won’t use it for anyone other than Tang Doudou. Lastly, I think the previous phrase was clear enough but in modern words it would be something like ‘troll people like there’s no tomorrow’.
To sum it up, they’re both cheats!
“Baili Yu? What did he freaking do again?” Presently, whenever Tang Doudou heard his name her entire body would feel uncomfortable due to the urge to rush over to Plum Garden and bite that bastard to death. It was just a shame. It wasn’t like she didn’t try to do so, but before she could even climb over the wall to Plum Garden, Ye Chuan would coldly pick her up and throw her back every single time.
“It’s hard to explain.” Bai Feiyun only threw out these four words after a long period of silent deliberation.
Tang Doudou placed her palm over her forehead. “Let’s not talk about this for now. Let’s just talk about what to do next? In any case, there’s no way I’ll take Baili Yu as a bride! I won’t marry him even if I die!”
Hearing her speak as if making a vow and seeing her huffing mad little face, Bai Feiyun’s smile became even gentler. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Just ask!” Tang Doudou sat at the side thinking through this matter’s entire development. For some reason, she felt that there was something strange about all of this. However, she couldn’t grasp what it was clearly. It seemed to be the crucial point of this matter, yet her brain simply couldn’t grasp the turn and could only continue running around in circles as she dazed out.
“Why don’t you want to take Baili Yu as a bride?” Bai Feiyun stared at her eyes, his expression a little serious.
Tang Doudou clearly didn’t understand why Bai Feiyun would ask this. Wasn’t the answer obvious?
No matter what she can’t take Baili Yu as a bride ah!
Bai Feiyun’s eyes lowered as he continued to speak. “Once you marry him, not only would your position as the Alliance Head become as strong as an impregnable fortress, even the City Lord would fear you a little. There’s no need to even detail the Imperial Household. Baili Yu has never worried about the Imperial Household. As long as he exists, you could decide the fate of all the lands below heaven.”
If these words came out from anyone else’s mouth, Tang Doudou would definitely send a palm over with a ‘huala’. She conceded that Baili Yu looked pretty awesome. However, no matter how awesome he was, he couldn’t be awesome to the point that the entire world was within his grasp, right?
Wasn’t that a little too exaggerated? What, could it be that those emperors and alliance heads were all here just to buy soy sauce? (aka play small useless roles)
This was Tang Doudou’s first thought. However, after seeing Bai Feiyun’s serious face and realizing that he wasn’t joking, she asked dimwittedly, “Xiao Bai, are you sure you’re not mistaken?”
Bai Feiyun sighed. “Looks like you’ve really forgotten everything of the past. In the past, you revered Baili Yu quite a lot. If it weren’t for the fact that there was the City Lord there to stop you, you would have already gone looking for Baili Yu long ago.”
It was the first time he had talked about Li Xueyi in front of her so Tang Doudou immediately became interested and questioned him closely, “That means we’re quite familiar with each other after all?”
Otherwise, how would he know of these things?
Bai Feiyun didn’t reply to her question but continued speaking. “The endless wealth that Baili Yu possesses is already enough to cause people’s eyes to turn green with envy. However, in addition to that, he also grasps the economic lifelines of several countries including Spirit Virtue Imperial Court and its neighboring countries. That’s why the Imperial Household simply doesn’t dare to touch him at all. Other than his shocking wealth, he even has several large powers that cannot be underestimated. The most worthy of mention are those three subordinates of his… Blood Fiend Jun Xin, Blade Demon Feng Long, Godspeed Yun Hai. Of those three, you’ve seen Blood Fiend Jun Xin before. Don’t underestimate him due to his young age. His martial arts is actually ranked first place on the potentials listing of Cloud City.”
When she heard that, Tang Doudou couldn’t hold herself back anymore. She really wanted to reach out and touch Bai Feiyun’s forehead to find out if he had a fever. Otherwise, why would he keep talking nonsense like this?
At most, that butt-aged brat just had a bad temper. How did he turn into some blood fiend? Just listening to this sounded really scary, alright?
There’s no way to link that with Jun Xin’s shotacon baby face!
“Even the City Lord isn’t clear on how strong Baili Yu himself is. No matter if it’s the Jianghu or the Imperial Court, they all feel extreme restrained fear towards him. However, they’ve never united to defeat him. Do you know why this is so?”
Tang Doudou dumbly shook her head. How the hell could she fricking know?
Bai Feiyun suddenly reached out and stroked Tang Doudou’s head, seeming to feel pity for her. “Because Baili Yu is sick!”
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