Chapter Eleven: Who Is the Greater Fool

Page 1/3

"Young lady, the Immortal Master is changing clothes and cannot receive guests right now!" In that moment of crisis, some unknown courage surged up within the young maid Ziju, and she suddenly shrieked at the top of her lungs.

After all, she was just a girl. Even though she lived in the Tang Dynasty and had not yet been poisoned by the rigid codes of womanly virtue, Miss Ren Yingying of the Ren family still lacked the courage to confront a naked man. She immediately halted, pointed her horse whip at the inner room's curtain, and berated, "Fraud! If you have the guts to do it, you should have the guts to admit it! Hiding behind your maid, what sort of man are you? Do you plan to wear clothes for your whole life? A true man of stature, and this is what you choose to do—you disgrace your ancestors! If I were you, I would long since have—"

"May I ask, Miss Ren, where is the fraud? And what exactly have I defrauded you of?" A voice, neither soft nor hard, interrupted her tirade. Regaining his composure, Zhang Qian lifted the curtain and strode out with his head held high.

"You..." Ren Yingying was caught off guard by the question and was momentarily speechless.

In the past, when her brother Ren Cong brought home charlatans to the manor, as soon as their identities were challenged, they either desperately tried to defend themselves or pretended to be inscrutable and kept silent. None, however, had ever been as bold and sharp-tongued as this short-haired fraud before her. And in her haste to rush here from the city, she hadn't even bothered to find out what exactly her brother had given up! At the moment, trying to produce evidence was more difficult than climbing to the heavens.

"Don't pretend to be crazy! You are the fraud! You know perfectly well what you've tricked Young Master Ren out of!" As the saying goes, it takes three stakes to build a fence; seeing Ren Yingying at a loss, another girl in green burst in from behind her, brandishing a horse whip at Zhang Qian's nose and loudly chiming in.

Both she and Ren Yingying were at the age of budding youth, tall and slender, with striking features, one dressed in red, the other in blue, making for a charming contrast. Yet Zhang Qian had neither the leisure nor the inclination to appreciate their beauty, nor would he let their loveliness excuse them from pinning the label of fraud on him.

Childhood memories of being bullied and falsely accused surged back, making his eyes redden and the short hair atop his head stand on end. "Shut up! You're the one pretending! If you want to catch a thief, you need the stolen goods; to catch an adulterer, you need both parties. Did I cheat you out of money, or did I seduce you? And here you come, biting me with wild accusations! Weren't you taught how to speak properly, or were you raised without any guidance at all?"

Though most of his words were spoken in a dialect quite different from the Tang vernacular, his fierce expression and violent gestures made his meaning and true feelings unmistakably clear.

"You..." The girl in green was so stunned by his rebuke that tears welled in her eyes and she staggered back in fright. Seeing this, Ren Yingying could no longer bother with reason. She swung her horse whip directly at him.

All his life, Zhang Qian had never accepted blame from the local bullies, and as a result, had been in more fights than he could count. Whenever the bullies failed to frame him, their first response was always to gang up and attack. His body had developed a conditioned reflex: before Ren Yingying's whip could fall, he had already grabbed her wrist, seized the whip, stepped forward, and with a deft motion of his elbow, sent her stumbling backward until her spine was pressed against the opposite wall.

Even so, this was only because, in realizing she was a girl, he had pulled his blow at the last moment. Otherwise, Ren Yingying's head would have had a much rougher meeting with the wall. Still, the impact left the young woman seeing stars, and in that instant, her scream pierced the air like ripping silk.

Page 2/3

"Fraud! How dare you resort to violence!" The girl in green, frightened out of her wits, waved her whip wildly in front of herself.

Zhang Qian shot her a cold look and tossed the whip he had just seized to the ground. "Put down the whip and don't force me to act again."

"Fraud, fraud! You swindled our money and now you dare to hit people!" the girl in green shrieked, though her movements faltered, unwilling to provoke the short-haired "ruffian" before her and risk being flung against the wall like Ren Yingying.

"Fraud, stop at once!" Four maids dressed much like Ziju crowded at the doorway, shrieking, "Someone help! The fraud is beating people! The fraud has struck our young mistress and the young lady from the Guo family!"

"Say 'fraud' one more time and see what happens!" Zhang Qian ignored the maids, glowering at the girl in green and threatening her in halting Tang dialect.

Terrified, the green-clad girl turned and fled, weeping, sending the maids at the door tumbling in her wake.

Zhang Qian made no move to pursue, turning instead to Ren Yingying, who was gathering her strength against the wall for a sneak attack. With a cold smile, he said, "If you know what's good for you, don't look for trouble. Just because others indulge you doesn't mean I will."

"Master, Master, it's all a misunderstanding!" The traveling physician Ren Quan, having heard the maids' cries, rushed in and positioned himself between the two. Bowing to both, he pleaded, "Master, our young lady only offended you because she was misled by scoundrels. Please, be magnanimous and forgive her. Young lady, the master is truly a man of great ability—he is nothing like those other charlatans!"

"Indeed, Master, it's all a misunderstanding!" Ren Wu and Ren Liu, covered in dust, also hurried in, their faces betraying their shock.

The reason the three had not intervened earlier was, firstly, fear of angering their own young mistress and suffering for it; and secondly, they were certain that with Ren Yingying's skills, plus her cousin Guo Shaolan—the girl in green—helping, Zhang Qian, for all his mysterious treasures, would surely be the one at a disadvantage, whether in an argument or a fight.

They intended to let Ren Yingying and Guo Shaolan teach Zhang Qian a lesson, then come in to smooth things over, making it easier to bring Zhang Qian to heel. At the very least, they wanted him to realize he was a guest in their home and wouldn't dare reclaim those "peerless" clothes and shoes so lightly.

Of course, if they could pressure Zhang Qian into handing over his backpack and the treasures inside for the manor to examine, so much the better. Ren Quan had seen Zhang Qian more than once take out some "precious item" from his bag and let it "absorb the essence of the sun." Though Zhang Qian never ate these items after sunning them, Ren Quan was convinced there was more to the ritual than met the eye.

Page 3/3

What none of them could have imagined was that this Master Zhang Qian, who was utterly dependent on their hospitality and lacked even proper identification, would actually dare to lay hands on the young mistress. Even more unthinkable was that, despite both young ladies being skilled in martial arts and backed by maids, they were disarmed and routed in the blink of an eye.

With no other choice, the men could only pretend to have just heard the cries for help and rush in to resolve the misunderstanding—lest they stand idly by while the uncouth Master Zhang beat their young lady black and blue.

"You, you..." Finally emboldened by support, the young woman in red was now both frightened and furious. She retracted her foot, tears streaming down her face.

"Why are you crying!" Zhang Qian, who had always hated being falsely accused, fixed Ren Yingying with a glare and demanded, "Do you think crying exempts you from reason? You say I swindled your brother—then produce your evidence! If you have any, I'll kneel and apologize to you this instant!"

"You claim to be some hidden master, promising to teach my brother swordsmanship, tricking him into taking all sorts of strange things, and swindling him out of money for your own extravagance!" Backed by her household retainers, Ren Yingying's courage quickly returned, and she shouted through her tears.

"When did I ever say that? Do you have a witness?" Zhang Qian gave her a cold glance and sneered. "What exactly have I swindled from him? Who saw it? As for money, I've been at your manor for five days—have I taken a single copper from you?"

Ren Yingying, accustomed to making baseless accusations, faltered under Zhang Qian's questioning and quickly looked to Ren Quan, Ren Wu, and Ren Liu, urging them with her eyes to step forward and accuse him.

To her great disappointment, all three immediately lowered their heads, none daring to speak out.

"You pin the label of fraud on me first, then fabricate evidence after—what's the point?" Zhang Qian, long used to the shameless tactics of false accusers, added with a cold laugh, "But now, I would like to ask Physician Ren: when will my clothes and shoes finally be finished washing? The oldest have been gone for four days, the newest for three—even if it takes ages for them to dry, surely they're ready by now?"