Chapter Three: The Scorpion Keeper

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My apologies—this book has been reset. I am truly sorry! I hope you’ll like the new story! Of the first two chapters, only the first has been kept; the rest are all changed. I’ll try to update more quickly!

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Lu Zhou finally met Chao Jin’er.

At last, he understood what that phrase “she’s struck another one” meant.

She wore a gown of pale goose-yellow; her demeanor was cool and aloof, her eyes clear as limpid spring water, her gaze gentle and serene. There was an indescribable purity in her smile, fleeting as the ephemeral flower of the world.

She was the very woman who had cast the Ziyang Heavenly Thunder Technique outside the city.

“Brother Lu, you’re here…” Chao Jin’er hurriedly said, then lowered her head and returned to her room.

“That girl…” Chao Lu shook his head with a wry smile. “Lu Zhou, don’t mind her. Over the years, Jin’er has been spoiled by her mother and me. She’s lost all sense of decorum.”

Lu Zhou truly didn’t mind. After all, it had been years since they’d last met. The neighbor’s girl had grown up; it would hardly do for her to still cling to him as she did in childhood.

Besides, seeing her command the Ziyang Heavenly Thunder Technique with such ease, he thought it best to keep his distance.

Chao Lu cleared his throat. “You watched her grow up. She’s always been wild, but fortunately the sect leader accepted her as his last disciple. After years of strict tutelage, she’s learned restraint. She’s only just left the mountains, yet she’s already among the top ten on the Azure Cloud Ranking. More than a few young talents have come to propose marriage, but none has caught her eye…”

Lu Zhou had never paid much attention to the Azure Cloud Ranking.

Though all cultivators under a hundred were eligible, to him, the list was too dazzling, not at all in line with his own persona.

Chao Jin’er, seventh place on the Azure Cloud Ranking.

She had cultivated for only twenty-eight years, yet had already reached the ninth grade of the Return to Void stage, just a step away from the Tribulation Crossing stage. As soon as she left the mountains, she challenged Shen Changbai, the son of Shen Ruoxu from the Southern Zhou’s Zhengyi Academy, and made her name in a single battle.

Coupled with her striking beauty and cool temperament, she quickly became an object of admiration among young cultivators.

Lu Zhou had never imagined that this Chao Jin’er was in fact the daughter of Uncle Chao Lu.

He simply hadn’t cared to notice; he’d overheard the other disciples gossiping out of professional habit. If Chao Lu hadn’t brought it up himself, he would never have connected the Azure Cloud Ranking’s Chao Jin’er to the girl he knew.

“To think she’s ranked seventh now. Uncle Chao, you are truly blessed.”

“Blessed? This month she’s already struck—”

Before Chao Lu could finish, a clear voice called from the side room.

“Father, it’s time to eat.”

Lu Zhou turned to see Chao Jin’er standing at the doorway, now dressed in a pale green gown, her hair freshly arranged, even her lips touched with a hint of rouge.

Lin Suyun ordered the servants to bring out the dishes and set the table.

The wine, of course, was what Lu Zhou had brought.

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Lu Zhou took his seat, and Chao Jin’er sat beside him. Only when she drew near did he realize how tall she had grown, nearly matching his own height.

“Lu Zhou, I’ve called you here today because I need your help,” Uncle Chao said solemnly.

Lu Zhou laid down his chopsticks and looked up at him.

“My intelligence network has suffered severe losses in recent years. The remnants of the Zhou Dynasty have been trying to mount a counterattack, constantly infiltrating the Thousand Oxen Guard. Inside and out, they’ve already compromised several of my strongholds.”

“I know you are meticulous and have long kept to the Lingyun Pavilion. No one from the Zhou Dynasty would recognize you, so I wish to send you to secretly establish a new intelligence post.”

“Will you help me?”

Lu Zhou’s brow furrowed slightly. “It’s not a question of willingness…”

A sense of unease pricked at him. The mission he’d received just last night was to infiltrate the Inspectorate, and now Chao Lu wanted him to set up an intelligence post. The timing was too coincidental.

He never believed in windfalls; he preferred to think that those who stumbled upon them choked to death.

“Just tell me, will you or won’t you?” Chao Lu repeated.

Lu Zhou sighed. “I am at your service, Uncle.”

He had no choice—he could only move forward and see what came.

Lin Suyun placed some food in Lu Zhou’s bowl. “Lu Zhou rarely comes home. Why talk business now? Eat first—you can discuss it later.”

Chao Jin’er glanced at Lu Zhou, then at her father.

“Father, I want to go too.”

Crash—

Lu Zhou heard Chao Lu’s wine cup hit the floor.

“Nonsense!”

…

…

Dusk settled over the eastern side of Shenzhou City.

Beside the river, on a quiet street a bit off the beaten path—a place always deserted by day.

The pleasure quarter here only came alive at night.

Lu Zhou walked along the flagstone road, turning over recent events in his mind. Had he made any mistakes? He reviewed the past three years at Lingyun Pavilion, right up to the meal at Chao Lu’s house today, yet found nothing amiss.

Where had things gone wrong? Was Chao Lu’s arrangement a coincidence or deliberate? Did he truly need the intelligence network, or was Lu Zhou just bait?

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Lu Zhou stopped and looked up at the sign above the house before him. The characters read: Spring Beauty Parlor.

The scent of cosmetics wafted out.

The name left no room for misunderstanding; it made no attempt to disguise itself. Candidly, it told Lu Zhou that this was a brothel.

He chuckled, surprised that Chao Lu would choose such a place for an intelligence post.

He lifted his foot and stepped through the door.

“You’re early, sir. We’re not open for business yet.”

No sooner had he entered than a gentle, refined voice greeted him—utterly devoid of the vulgarity common to women of the trade. Lu Zhou looked up to see a woman in red, lounging against the stair rail, gazing at him with calm detachment.

“I know you’re not open. I’m here to see someone.”

“Everyone comes here saying they’re here to see someone, man or woman.”

“The person I seek raises scorpions,” Lu Zhou said with a smile. “Scorpions with only heads, no tails.”

The woman smiled as well, and in that moment, the Spring Beauty Parlor seemed to shed its air of tawdriness.

“What color does the person you seek prefer to wear, sir?”

“The one who sent me said he could only wear yellow,” Lu Zhou replied with a sigh. “But compared to gold, yellow seems so cheap.”

The woman regarded him. “Yellow has its own virtues. And your name, sir?”

“My surname is Lu, and my given name is simply Zhou.”

“The person you seek may not be easy to find. Please come with me to the back courtyard and wait a moment.” She smiled.

Lu Zhou smiled too. “Very well.”

He knew all the code phrases matched. The woman before him was his scorpion keeper, and for a long time to come, he would be the scorpion head of this intelligence network.

A scorpion head without a tail.

This place had been abandoned as an intelligence post, leaving only the woman to hold the fort. Only when the scorpion head arrived would it truly be activated.

“Is anyone here?”

Lu Zhou hadn’t reached the back courtyard when a clear voice floated in from the entrance. For some reason, it sounded strangely familiar.

“I’m looking for someone—a person who raises scorpions.”

The clear voice rang out again. Lu Zhou already knew who it was. Yet, inexplicably, he felt as though the place was about to go out of business before it had even opened.