Volume One The Youngest Among Three Hundred Chapter Eighty-Four The Restrictions of the Perfumed Courtyard

Chen Changan gazed at the familiar scene before him, at that door he had not pushed open in so long, and his scalp tightened involuntarily. He had clearly never formed any intention of entering the Fragrant Courtyard, so why had he...

Could it be that the mind-force he had used earlier in Stonebridge Town against those two dimwitted demons had a delayed effect? Or...

He made a rough guess in his heart.

“Well, since I’m here, how could I not go see Sister Peach Blossom?”

Chen Changan pushed open the door and walked into the little courtyard, one hand pressed to his chest.

From the first-floor pavilion ahead, Peach Blossom sensed his arrival and lifted her skirts as she stepped out. The moment she saw him staggering along, half-dead, she hurried over to support him. “What happened? You’re hurt?”

Her tone was sharp with concern.

“There, see... she’s fallen in love. She can’t help worrying now.”

Chen Changan coughed deliberately twice and waved a hand weakly. “No... no, I’m fine!”

Through that brief bodily contact, Peach Blossom had already checked his condition. She stamped her foot and scolded him, “And you still say you’re fine? All your internal organs are injured, do you understand?”

As she spoke, her eyes had actually grown faintly moist.

She pulled Chen Changan into the room, then at once drew three silver needles from a case and inserted them into different acupoints. They shimmered with a subtle flowing radiance and gave off a delicate fragrance.

Chen Changan, on the receiving end, could feel with perfect clarity the nourishing force carried within the needles. Warmth spread through every limb and bone, unfurling him, easing him, expanding through him.

His whole body felt as though it were bathing in a spring breeze, incomparably comfortable.

“Sister Peach Blossom, you know medicine too?” he asked while enjoying the sensation.

Peach Blossom curved her lips in a slight smile. “A little. Before, your internal organs, even your whole body, were on the verge of collapse from your injuries. Didn’t you say someone was going to treat you? Why are you still in the same state?”

“Ah, well...”

For a moment Chen Changan had no answer. What Peach Blossom meant was clearly the damage he had suffered in the Mao Ji Workshop when he fought that mysterious figure who practiced the art of dissecting life. Cao Wu had said that only after he formally joined the Black-Clad Guard and had Cheng Mulong, who was likewise in the Seventh Rank Life-and-Death Realm, help reconstruct him, would he be fully healed.

But...

Thinking of how Cao Wu and Cheng Mulong had nearly come to blows in Black-Clad Alley over him, he feared that plan was hopeless. So he said, “Sister Peach Blossom, there was someone originally, but later... some complications came up.”

Peach Blossom puffed out her cheeks in displeasure. “You said someone would treat you, so I left it alone. Since things are like this now, I’ll heal you properly myself.”

Before the words had even finished, three more silver needles shot into his body.

Chen Changan let out a long, wavering breath, half in agony, half in ecstasy.

The last time, he had not let Peach Blossom act, intending instead to wait for Cao Wu and Cheng Mulong, because he truly feared wasting a favor. But things were different now. Peach Blossom had already begun to change from the rather aloof woman she had been at first meeting into someone who would take the initiative to care for him.

Heh... why else had he entered wearing that dying, barely-hanging-on expression? To stir the softness in her heart as a woman.

A while ago, she might have ignored him completely. But now... when love arrives, one’s eyes and features no longer obey one’s principles.

“Oh, right, Sister Peach Blossom, I have a few questions to ask.” Chen Changan’s tone turned serious.

Peach Blossom moved over a small stool and sat elegantly across from him. “Go ahead.”

He stated his suspicion outright. “Can I only enter the Fragrant Courtyard while I’m within the borders of Chang’an City?”

“Yes.”

Peach Blossom answered crisply. “To be precise, it is not only the Fragrant Courtyard itself. The secret arts you carry out from here follow the same law. The farther you move from Chang’an City, the weaker their effects become.”

“What?” Chen Changan sprang to his feet. “No... that can’t be, Sister, then...”

Peach Blossom saw through his inner panic and encouraged him gently. “Of course, aside from entering and leaving the Fragrant Courtyard itself, the degree to which distance affects secret arts can be changed. It depends on your own abilities. Once you reach the pinnacle of this world’s cultivation, that weakening can almost be ignored.”

So the cheat was ultimately only an aid; the key still lay in his own effort. With that thought in mind, Chen Changan prepared to clear up two more doubts, but unfortunately the Water-Reflecting Sword was tied to the saddle and had not been brought in.

Three questions became two, and now two became one.

“There’s one more thing. On this trip to Stonebridge Town near Chang’an, I accidentally obtained half a skeleton... and it... it grew into my body. Sister Peach Blossom, do you know what it is?”

“A skeleton?”

“Where did it grow?” Peach Blossom’s beautiful eyes brightened.

Chen Changan pointed with his left hand to his right shoulder. “Here.”

Peach Blossom immediately placed her palm there and sensed carefully. After three or four seconds, she said in an astonished tone, “So it turned out to be him.”

“Who?” Chen Changan’s curiosity swelled.

Peach Blossom explained, “A thousand years ago, the demon race had four great emperors: Gouye, Huochang, Xiayu, and Xinglang. Later, in the great war among the races, most likely all of them perished and vanished from the world. The remnant bone that has lodged in your body was left behind by Xinglang.”

At that, she unconsciously lifted her head. “Come to think of it... Xinglang was an old acquaintance of Fourth Sister. That half-skeleton probably sensed on you the aura of the Fragrant Courtyard, one it has not encountered in a thousand years. Mistaking it for the body it once belonged to, it forcibly parasitized you.”

“It is actually a good thing. You have the Immortal-Slaying Talisman Sword to suppress it, so you won’t lose your true self, yet you can in turn borrow and use its power.”

“A relic left by a mighty figure of the demon race contains immeasurable hidden potential.”

“No wonder. I was wondering why those two demon idiots tearing apart the bridge turned and ran the moment the skeleton appeared. So it was instinctive suppression.”

“Mhm.” Peach Blossom did not ask for details of what had happened. She merely gave a simple reply.

When the silver needles had fully refined his body and healed all his injuries, Chen Changan and Peach Blossom sat facing each other, drinking tea and chatting. Resting her flushed cheek on a hand white as snow, she said, “I have already passed my medical arts on to you. If you run into trouble or illness outside Chang’an in the future, it will be easier for you to treat yourself.”

“Mending Spirit may be effective for injuries, but it relies more on the surrounding spiritual essence to strengthen vitality. It cannot repair limbs and organs.”

“Thank you, Sister Peach Blossom!” Chen Changan nodded repeatedly. Put in gaming terms, that was basically restoring mana but not health. Easy to understand.

After chattering and laughing together a while longer, Chen Changan prepared to leave. On his way back to Chang’an, he had been delayed far too long by one troublesome matter after another. He needed to hurry to the Black-Clad Guard and accept a new assignment, otherwise a low star rating and ugly ranking would be hard to bear.

Just before he left, their eyes met and seemed to spark. “Sister Peach Blossom, a kiss and a hug!”

Peach Blossom: “...”

Faced with such a heavily modern style of flirtation, she froze for several breaths. Then, without hesitation, she embraced Chen Changan. Their lips met lightly, and she even...

Even...

Even...

Until it ended.

“Goodbye, Sister Peach Blossom!”

Entirely satisfied, Chen Changan waved farewell, stepped out the gate, and opened the Record of the Fragrant Courtyard to the page that belonged exclusively to Peach Blossom.

Peach Blossom’s current favorability: 82.3333%!

Peach Blossom’s loneliness alleviated: 72%!

Gift obtained: Immortal-Slaying Talisman Sword!

Courtesan secret arts possessed: Peach Blossom - Peach Bewitchment; Flower Divination; Mending Spirit; Compendium of Herbal Principles.

Current time one may remain in the Fragrant Courtyard: 99 shichen!

Out of habit, he immediately began analyzing. The increase in favorability was not especially large, but the alleviation of her loneliness had multiplied geometrically. Mm, normal. The latter had more to do with emotion and spirit. He had appeared before Peach Blossom in a state of severe injury, on the verge of death, stirring in her concern, worry, and other feelings she had not experienced in a thousand years.

Those were the best means of filling emptiness.

As for the fourth line, the Compendium of Herbal Principles, that was presumably the medical art Peach Blossom had mentioned.

At that moment, a cool gust of wind blew by and flipped past Peach Blossom’s page to the second one. Chen Changan stared in surprise to find that there was content there now. Previously, it had always been blank.

He looked closely and saw:

Youwei’s current favorability: -2.3%!

Youwei’s loneliness alleviated: 0%!

Gift obtained: none!

Courtesan secret arts possessed: none!

Current time one may remain in the Fragrant Courtyard: 84 shichen!

Damn, a new character unlocked.

Chen Changan was thoroughly astonished. But what kind of nonsense was -2.3 favorability? Dislike? In that case, she might as well never have shown up at all.

Wait. He had not even pushed open the door yet, so how could this be displayed?

With that thought, he could not help turning back to look. In the dim night, he saw a wooden staircase rising straight from the ground, connecting to the second floor of the Fragrant Courtyard pavilion.

So that was it... appearing and being opened were two different things.

“So should I go back into the Fragrant Courtyard and meet this... Youwei... who dislikes me?”

“Conquer her with waist strength and change her opinion of me!”

So he turned, took a step, and had just crossed the threshold when he stopped again.

Peach Blossom had said before that the conditions for seeing a new girl were one’s own strength and the other party’s recognition. Her favorability was already negative... If he couldn’t push the door open and Peach Blossom happened to see, how awkward would that be?

After thinking it over carefully, he decided he might as well come back later, fully prepared.

At any rate, he would be able to open it before he turned into an old man.

So he let the matter go and returned in a flash of thought to Chang’an’s streets, to the horse’s back. Because time did not align between the two parallel planes, in the eyes of others it seemed that nothing at all had happened to Chen Changan. He was still riding alongside Jia Youcai, the merchant who had hired him as an escort.

They had just reached the point near the northern gate of Chang’an where Anyi Ward met Yanzuo Ward when suddenly a general in armor led a large city-guard force toward them and surrounded them at the center, sealing them in completely.

With a snort, the general reined in his horse so it reared upright, drew the cold long blade at his waist, and pointed it at Jia Youcai. “Still pretending, are you? My scouts already sent secret reports that spies had entered our Great Min capital of Chang’an to gather military intelligence. Men, seize him!”

“Yes, sir!”

Two ranks of spear-bearing soldiers rushed forward without another word.

At the same time, Jia Youcai, who from beginning to end had appeared frail, weak, and incapable of trussing a chicken, suddenly twisted into a savage expression. His fists slammed out with explosive force, knocking soldiers flying, and with reddened eyes he charged straight at the leading general.

“What the hell!”

Chen Changan was dumbfounded. His employer was actually a spy sent to probe Great Min’s military secrets? Then by escorting him all the way to Chang’an, didn’t that make him an accomplice too?

“Damn it, trying to drag me into this.”

Chen Changan lightly slapped the side of his horse. Hidden Name, tied to the leather saddle, sprang from its sheath in an instant, carrying a great metallic tremor that pierced straight through Jia Youcai’s heart.

“Y-you... you’re not his accomplice?” The general had still not calmed from the shock.

At once Chen Changan straightened proudly and displayed the token Cao Wu had given him, his voice ringing out loud and clear. “Chen Changan of the Black-Clad Guard, Black-Clad of the Mysterious Division, specially planted at this villain’s side.”

The general was immediately filled with respect. “So it is Lord Chen. All troops, salute!”

More than fifty soldiers clenched fists to their chests and rendered Great Min’s highest military salute.

“Mhm.” Chen Changan nodded symbolically in return, then tugged his reins and rode away, inwardly rejoicing that he had reacted quickly. Otherwise, he really might have been dragged down by that bastard and condemned for colluding with foreign powers and betraying Great Min.

Back where he stood, the general tapped his helmet until it rang brightly in the sun and looked at the men around him. “Among the Black-Clad Guard’s four Mysterious Division Black-Clads, I don’t recall any with the surname Chen.”

A soldier at his side replied, “Maybe he was just promoted.”

The general nodded. “That makes sense.”