Chapter 4: Petite Guo Fu

“Guo’er! What are you doing?” Guo Jing asked anxiously when he saw Yang Guo’s strange behavior.

Yang Guo did not stop moving his hand and replied in panic, “I don’t know. It’s itchy. My hand is so itchy!”

Huang Rong gave a cold snort inwardly, then suddenly thought of something and cried, “It’s poison. Guo’er has been hit by Li Mochou’s Ice Soul Silver Needles. Once the poison flares up, the itching becomes unbearable.”

At that, Huang Rong could not help feeling ashamed.

So he was only itching. I blamed him wrongly.

A child, after all, what could he know?

Thinking that, her gaze toward Yang Guo softened considerably.

Yang Guo secretly let out a breath of relief. A child with an adult mind was innocent enough; once he’d been held close, he couldn’t help letting his hands wander.

Guo Jing took Yang Guo’s hand to examine it. Seeing the palm turn black, he said anxiously, “What are we going to do?”

Yang Guo knew he truly cared about him, so he comforted him: “Uncle Guo, don’t worry. Before, I ran into a strange man who taught me a method for driving out poison.”

He finished, and without caring that anyone was beside him, flipped upside down and used the technique Ouyang Feng had taught him to force out the poison. Before long, several more drops of black blood dripped from his fingertips.

But when he finished his inner power work, he felt a little dizzy. It turned out that the movement method Ouyang Feng had taught could not be practiced too much each day, especially when Yang Guo had not yet built a martial foundation.

Guo Jing immediately noticed Yang Guo’s odd condition and hurriedly supported him, asking with concern, “Guo’er, how do you feel?”

Being held up by Guo Jing made Yang Guo feel disappointed. Thinking of Huang Rong’s exquisitely beautiful, warm, supple body, his heart burned hot. He thought that one day he would pin Huang Rong beneath him and fuck her hard.

But out loud he said, “I’m fine, just a little dizzy.”

Meanwhile, the clever Huang Rong’s expression flickered as she remembered the Huashan Sword Tournament, when Ouyang Feng had stood on his head and seized the title of number one in the world. As for the poison from the Ice Soul Silver Needles, even Huang Yaoshi would need to expend considerable effort to cure it completely.

Yet now, with only a mental formula, even a common person like Yang Guo could force the poison out.

That made it more than likely that it really was Ouyang Feng.

At that thought, Huang Rong’s gaze toward Yang Guo grew even stranger.

Meanwhile, the honest Guo Jing did not have so many thoughts. Seeing that Yang Guo was all right, he asked, “Guo’er! Do you know who that strange man was?”

Huang Rong also looked at Yang Guo with faint expectation, wondering whether he would lie.

But Yang Guo described the stranger’s appearance without holding anything back. At the end, he even said that after hearing the eagle’s cry, the man looked a little flustered and said, “I don’t want to see them. I don’t want to see them.”

Hearing Yang Guo’s words, Huang Rong was now one hundred percent certain it had to be Ouyang Feng. Guo Jing, though honest, was by no means stupid. He looked at Huang Rong and blurted, “Rong’er, do you think the strange man who saved Guo’er was Ouyang Feng?”

“Ouyang Feng? He’s not dead yet!” Ke Zhen’e hated this man to the core in his lifetime; the moment he heard the name, his face changed color.

Huang Rong said, “Jing-gege and I are only guessing. After all, we didn’t see him ourselves, so we can’t be sure.”

Ke Zhen’e did not bother with Huang Rong’s words. Instead, he turned straight to Yang Guo and asked fiercely, “Speak. Where is Ouyang Feng?”

“Oh! He went that way!”

Yang Guo pointed off to the side, then suddenly realized and said, “Ah! I almost forgot you’re a blind old man.”

Then he drew back his finger and said, “That man went southeast. Go chase him!”

“Guo’er! Don’t be rude! You must call him Uncle Ke,” Guo Jing reprimanded.

“Oh!” Yang Guo nodded obediently and called out, “Uncle Ke, blind old man.”

Guo Fu, standing nearby, snickered. Guo Jing flew into a rage and raised his voice more than eight notches. “Guo’er!”

“Uh! My mistake!”

Seeing Guo Jing’s darkening face, Yang Guo gave in.

This rigid Uncle Guo really would hit people.

Even so, he still muttered, “He’s obviously old, obviously blind, and yet he won’t let people tell the truth.”

He said it very quietly, but Huang Rong beside him heard it. She should be very pleased!

By rights, Huang Rong had always disliked Ke Zhen’e.

Huang Rong smiled and asked Yang Guo in a low voice, “Guo’er, the direction you just pointed was fake, wasn’t it?”

Yang Guo flattered her by saying, “Aunt Guo is so clever. You even saw through that?”

Huang Rong was speechless. If she hadn’t seen through it, that would be stupid. The direction Yang Guo had pointed was the direction the two of them had come from. If it were real, they would have run into the man already.

“You little troublemaker!”

Ke Zhen’e, though blind, had sharp ears.

He could pretend not to hear what had been said before, but now that Yang Guo had tricked him, he could no longer stay calm.

His iron staff slammed hard against the ground, and just as he was about to erupt, he heard Yang Guo explain, “Uncle Ke, don’t be angry. I’m doing this for your own good. Look at you: you’re old, blind, and your legs aren’t nimble either. I didn’t tell you the right direction because I was worried about your safety. If you ran into that man, he might cut you into seven or eight pieces and throw you into the river to feed the turtles. Then Uncle Ke would be..."

“Big Brother! What Guo’er said is quite right.” At first Guo Jing even agreed with Yang Guo, but when Yang Guo went on and on, he quickly rebuked him: “Guo’er! Stop spouting nonsense!”

One moment he said I was right, the next he scolded me for talking nonsense. Uncle Guo really was...

Yang Guo swallowed the rest of the words and did not dare go too far.

Only Huang Rong had long since known that Yang Guo had no good intentions. She thought to herself that this child was clever and mischievous; who knew whether that would turn out to be a blessing or a curse in the future?

“Jing’er! You cannot let the deaths of your five masters go unavenged!” Ke Zhen’e’s face was full of grief. Knowing he lacked the power to kill the enemy himself, he could only pin his hopes on Guo Jing.

Seeing the sorrow on Ke Zhen’e’s face, Yang Guo could not help feeling pity.

This old man was stubborn and old-fashioned, but he was not necessarily a bad person. The fact that, just now, he had known he was no match for Li Mochou and still refused to back down was proof enough.

As long as this old fellow doesn’t provoke me in the future, I’d better not tease him so much.

“Big Brother!” Hearing the plea in Ke Zhen’e’s tone, Guo Jing felt very troubled.

Huang Rong said, “Big Brother, right now Guo’er has been hit by Li Mochou’s Ice Soul Silver Needles and needs treatment. Let’s go back to the inn first and discuss it there.”

“You adults can discuss adult matters. I’m still going to find a child to play with.” Yang Guo then walked toward Guo Fu.

Guo Fu glanced at Yang Guo’s blackened hand and said, “Your hand is so dirty. I won’t play with you.”

Yang Guo shook his head and said, “You’re the dumb one. It’s black because of poison. How can you call that dirty?”

“Poison? But you’re filthy all over, like a beggar.” Guo Fu wrinkled her nose and looked him over.

“Ha! How funny. The daughter of the Beggars’ Sect chief actually looks down on a beggar.” After laughing, Yang Guo added, “I don’t even want to play with you anymore. The things I know how to play, you’ve probably never even heard of!”

“What? Impossible!”

Guo Fu was bossy, but she was still young.

Raised on Peach Blossom Island since childhood, she had no playmates her own age.

Now that she had met Yang Guo, though she said she disliked how dirty he was, in truth she was no longer all that averse to him.

“Do you know Chinese checkers? Fight the Landlord? World of Warcraft? Aion?...” Yang Guo rattled off a long string of modern terms, and Guo Fu kept shaking her head.

Yang Guo found it amusing. He figured she would believe anything he made up.

“Teach me then!” Guo Fu was delighted and excited to hear something fun. As for the unpleasantness between her and Yang Guo earlier, she had already forgotten it.

Yang Guo heard the familiarity in Guo Fu’s tone and thought to himself that this girl was not beyond saving after all, though how was he supposed to teach her any of what he had said?

With a wry smile, he figured that since he was only half-grown himself now, playing with a little kid wasn’t a big deal.

If he kept putting on an adult face, that petty-minded Huang Rong might think he was calculating and deep after all.

So he said in a childish voice, “Those games can’t be played right now. How about rock, paper, scissors? If you lose, you call me big brother. If you win, I’ll call you little sister.”

“If you lose, you should call me big sister instead. That doesn’t sound right.” It seemed Guo Fu was not completely stupid after all.

Huang Rong turned her head and glanced at the two children, smiling as she let them make trouble.