Chapter 8: West Lake Turbulence
It was already dusk when Liu Xunyi parted with Zhao Xin. The troubled Liu Xunyi did not rush back to Tianji Pavilion, but went to West Lake Langyuan alone. Although the name was unique, West Lake Langyuan was not the residence of the rich and powerful officials, but a small street full of teahouses and wine shops by the West Lake. Because there were often literati and poets who got drunk and wrote poems here, they took the elegant name "West Lake Langyuan" to show off their elegance.

Liu Xunyi often comes here to drink, because when drunk he can forget about fame, wealth, and right and wrong. For him, this is a good place to find peace in a bustling city.

As the sky gradually darkened, West Lake Langyuan was still brightly lit and full of noise.

Liu Xunyi sat by the lake, deep in thought. The waiter brought him a pot of wine and took away a few copper coins that Liu Xunyi had placed on the table when he left. From beginning to end, Liu Xunyi never looked at the waiter and the waiter didn't say a word. There was only one kind of wine here and it was only worth one price. This was the rule of West Lake Langyuan.

"There are green mountains beyond the mountains and buildings beyond the buildings. When will the singing and dancing in West Lake stop? The warm wind makes the tourists drunk, and they mistake Hangzhou for Bianzhou."

On the noisy street, a voice that was out of tune with the "Glass of Wine Poem" suddenly reached Liu Xunyi's ears, interrupting his meditation. Liu Xunyi looked in the direction of the voice, but saw a man in his twenties with thick eyebrows and big eyes in black clothes sitting by the window on the second floor of a teahouse built by the lake next to the wine shop, looking at the drunkards coming and going in the West Lake Langyuan with disdain.

This man definitely doesn't look like a scholar, so it is somewhat strange to hear this poem recited from his mouth. Liu Xunyi, like the people around him, cast a curious look at this man.

"Who are you? How dare you recite such poetry in Lin'an City?" Sitting at a table next to Liu Xunyi were three or five drunken scholars. One of them, a scholar in white, raised a paper fan and pointed it at the man in black in the teahouse.

The man in black seemed to be extremely disdainful of these scholars and snorted coldly before turning his head away and ignoring them.

The young man in white was not willing to give up. He shouted again: "Where did you hear such poetry and writings? How dare you speak nonsense here? You only see us drinking, but you don't know how it feels when we are sad and sad. We are drinking to relieve our sorrow, but you, a rough man, say that we are living a life of luxury. It is really infuriating."

"Brother, don't bother with this rough guy. I think he heard the poem from somewhere and is just showing off." Another young man in green clothes said. Hearing this, several people looked at each other and laughed, and then continued to sit around and drink.

"You are a bunch of playboys, how can you drown your sorrows in alcohol? I think you bunch of sickly people are just whining and pretending to be important." The man in black in the teahouse said sarcastically without any hesitation.

"Be bold!"

Upon hearing this, the young man in white immediately slammed the table and stood up, staring with drunken eyes and shouting: "Where did you come from, you dare to bark here? It's really hateful. If I don't teach you a lesson today, I'm afraid we will really be looked down upon by you."

"Teach me a lesson?" The man in black laughed instead of getting angry. He stretched out his right hand through the window and waved down a few times, saying provocatively, "You are all weak and have no muscles on your shoulders. You look more like women than women. I want to see how you teach me a lesson."

"You bastard, how dare you speak disrespectfully before the emperor? This is disrespectful. I will take you to the government to be punished!"

While they were talking, a few people led by the young man in white gathered the literati and drinkers nearby who shared the same hatred for the enemy. More than a dozen of them rushed towards the teahouse with a noisy attitude, and it seemed that they were determined to capture the man in black.

Liu Xunyi didn't expect that he would encounter such an interesting thing tonight. The depression he had felt during the day was almost half gone. He picked up a glass of wine and watched the show with great interest.

After a short while, the second floor of the teahouse was crowded with people, accompanied by shouting and cursing, and the sounds of tables and chairs overturned and tea bowls broken. However, the noise came quickly and went away even faster. In the blink of an eye, the originally noisy second floor of the teahouse had become quiet again.

Just as the people watching the excitement were whispering, they heard wailing sounds suddenly coming from the teahouse, and then they saw a dozen or so scholars who had just rushed into the teahouse, rushing out with bruised faces and noses. Some of them had their clothes torn to pieces. These scholars, who usually cared most about etiquette, now exposed their breasts, which was completely inappropriate and caused the crowd watching outside the teahouse to burst into laughter.

Liu Xunyi couldn't help but laugh upon seeing this, thinking: "These young men can't even lift a sword on a normal day, how can they challenge that burly man?" Just as Liu Xunyi was about to turn around and leave with a wry smile, there was a sudden cry of surprise from the crowd.

"Didn't you just say arrogantly that I underestimated you? Then why are you trembling now? Are you afraid?"

The rough voice attracted everyone's attention. Liu Xunyi looked in the direction of the voice and saw that the man in black was holding the young man in white by his right ankle by one hand, making him hang upside down in the air. Although the second-floor teahouse was only 30 to 50 meters high, the floor under the window was made of hard bluestone bricks. In addition, the young man in white was facing downwards at the moment. If the man in black suddenly let go, the young man in white would fall and his brain would burst.

At this moment, the young man in white had long lost his previous arrogance. His body, hanging upside down in the air, was shaking like a sieve. The area around his crotch had turned darker, as if he had been frightened to death.

"Just now...just now I was drunk and said something wrong...I hope...I hope that this brother will not take it to heart..." the man in white pleaded in a trembling voice.

"This kind of person is a dog that can't spit out ivory. Just now he called you a rough man, but now he calls you brother. He is simply bullying the weak and afraid of the strong. No need to say more, just throw him down and let him fall to death!"

Suddenly, a teasing female voice suddenly sounded from the teahouse, and then a tall, beautiful woman in red slowly appeared behind the man in black. Her fair skin was even a little crystal clear, with willow-leaf thin eyebrows, bright eyes and white teeth, and a cherry mouth with a playful smile under her straight nose. Obviously, she was in the same group as the man in black.

The woman's voice was as clear and crisp as an oriole's, and was very pleasant to the ear. However, the words spoken from such a pleasant voice were frightening. She actually instigated the man in black to throw the young man in white to death.

"Okay!"

The man in black smiled maliciously, and deliberately loosened his fingers while speaking. The body of the young man in white immediately slid down, and the people around the teahouse gasped in shock. Looking at the young man in white, he was so scared that he was paralyzed and fainted. "You dare to teach others a lesson with just this little courage?" The woman in red seemed to find it very funny. She poked the fainted young man in white with the sword in her hand, and couldn't help laughing out loud, "It turns out that you don't need to drink to relieve your sorrow, just turn yourself upside down. Haha..." At this time, the woman in red was still in the mood to laugh, which was embarrassing.

"Although this man was rude and reckless, he is not guilty of death." Just as the red-dressed woman was about to urge the black-dressed man to let go, Liu Xunyi suddenly said, "What's more, killing someone in the street in Lin'an City will probably cause this brother and this girl a lot of trouble." As he spoke, Liu Xunyi turned around and looked around the crowd, saying loudly, "Among the young masters you just taught a lesson, there are many nobles in the court. I expect they will definitely find someone to take revenge. I advise this brother to let him go early and leave quickly!"

"If you want revenge, just let them come. I will teach them a lesson no matter how many come." The red-clothed woman seemed extremely dissatisfied with Liu Xunyi's kind words and snorted coldly, "But you, where did you come from? How dare you meddle in my business? I advise you now, it's better to leave quickly!"

Although the atmosphere was quite tense, the woman in red's retaliatory move still made many people around her laugh out loud.

Liu Xunyi was not angry either. He had already concluded from the words and deeds of the red-dressed woman and the black-dressed man that they must be from the underworld. Because in a place like Lin'an where the rich and powerful are everywhere, only people from the underworld dare to be so unruly and ignore the children of the rich and powerful. More importantly, the black-dressed man's good kung fu is beyond the reach of ordinary people.

Liu Xunyi had a natural liking for people in the martial arts world. He smiled and said, "As the saying goes, saving a life is better than building a seven-story pagoda. I just want to turn hostility into friendship. If you hesitate for a moment longer and wait for the government officials to arrive, won't you two be in more trouble?"

"The government officials are all good-looking but useless. Their coming here is a good opportunity for me to stretch my muscles." The man in black sneered.

Liu Xunyi knew that people in the martial arts world always had a high opinion of themselves. Not only did they have no good feelings towards the government, they also looked down on people in the government, believing that most of them were mediocre. Little did they know that there were actually many experts hidden in the government, and their martial arts were probably not inferior to those of the masters in the martial arts world.

While he was talking, the woman in red suddenly swung her arms without warning, and with a whoosh, a silver light shot out, streaking across the air like lightning, and came straight at Liu Xunyi. Liu Xunyi was quick-witted, and he slightly tilted his body, and at the same time, he quickly stretched out two fingers of his right hand and gently clamped the hair-thin silver needle between his fingers.

Without waiting for the people around to cheer, Liu Xunyi suddenly swung his hand back, and the silver needle flew towards the woman in red again. The woman in red reacted just as quickly, and shook her head quickly. When she turned around, the silver needle was already firmly in her mouth.

The man in black stared at Liu Xunyi with deep eyes and said with a smile: "I see that you are also a martial artist. Since you want to save him, I will give you a chance."

"Oh?" Liu Xunyi asked back with interest, "What do you mean?"

"Let's see whether you are faster or I am faster!"

The man in black suddenly gave an order, and before he finished speaking, his five fingers had completely loosened. Then the young man in white fell towards the bluestone ground with a "whoosh". The onlookers burst into exclamations, and many people subconsciously closed their eyes, not wanting to see the tragic scene of blood flowing everywhere.

But after waiting for a long time, the crowd did not hear the sound of the young man in white falling to the ground. When they looked with bated breath, they saw that Liu Xunyi had been standing under the window of the teahouse at some point, holding up the unharmed young man in white with one hand, and looking at the two people upstairs with a faint smile.

"What a quick move!" the man in black praised. "I wonder which sect you are from? How did you come to Lin'an City?"

"I am..." Liu Xunyi was about to answer "Tianji Pavilion of the East Palace" as usual, but then he thought about how people in the martial arts world always rejected the government, so his tone faltered and he quickly changed the words to evade the question, "I am Liu Xunyi, a mere nobody and not worth mentioning. I haven't asked you yet..."

"My name is Lin Fangda, this is..."

"Lin Fangda, let's go!"

Before the man in black introduced the woman in red, the woman snorted unwillingly and interrupted Lin Fangda's words with a cold voice. She glanced at Liu Xunyi with displeasure, turned around and disappeared in front of the second-floor window.

"Brother Liu, we are not acquainted without fighting. I will treat you to a drink some other day! Haha..."

"Brother Lin, see you later!"

The man in black smiled heartily, bowed and said goodbye to Liu Xunyi hastily, then quickly chased after the woman in red.

At this moment, more than a dozen officers from the yamen hurried to the teahouse. Amid the chatter of the people around them, the officers sent people to guard the door of the teahouse, while the others rushed into the building to search. But when the officers rushed into the lobby on the second floor, it was already empty. Except for two cups of hot tea that were still placed on the table by the window, there was no trace of anyone.

Liu Xunyi took advantage of the chaos to leave the crowd, stood by the river, and looked up at a small boat going farther and farther away in the center of West Lake. Thinking of Lin Fangda and the woman in red, he first raised an envious smile. Suddenly, he thought of his own embarrassment, and the smile on his face gradually disappeared, and a layer of worry covered his brows again.

……

(End of this chapter)