Flower Stealing Master

Chapter 48: The hero meets a bully

The treasure of Dagong Lane in Jinling City was easy to find, and unlike other treasures, it was not even natural born. The treasure of Dagong Lane was very likely to be discovered by other minor plot characters.

In order to avoid the treasure falling into the hands of others, Song Qingshu decided to go to Jinling immediately, so just now he deliberately fooled Mu Wanqing to come to Jiangnan, maybe there would be a possibility of them seeing each other soon.

"The cool breeze is changeless, the autumn moon is ceaseless, and my melancholy seems to never end…" Song Qingshu remembered Zhou Botong and Qiu Qianren fighting all the way and rushing for thousands of miles. Now he also had his own movement technique, so on a whim, he decided to cross thousands of miles from Huashan to Jinling. He didn't even ride a horse or ride a carriage, but only relied on his pair of legs to perform his movement technique. (Yah, translating a poem is quite hard, but I think I did a good job here. I enjoyed the poem though.)

At the beginning, he ran quickly with the movement technique of Traceless Sand Treading Steps. After running for dozens of miles, he became too tired to continue. Song Qingshu was quite shocked. He knew that his internal strength was already considered to be quite strong and abundant. It was not a problem to travel a hundred and eighty li, but he could not go further than that with the Traceless Sand Treading Steps. It seemed that Wei Yixiao was only good at short-distance running.

After running for a few days, Song Qingshu suddenly had enlightenment in his heart, and began to pay attention to the efficiency of his internal energy utilization. Due his meticulous planning, the limit of a rapid rush broke through a hundred miles.

Later, Song Qingshu only continued to improve. After running with the Traceless Sand Treading Steps, he often took a stick of incense time to change to ordinary movement technique, and used that opportunity to adjust his internal energy. After that, he continued to use Traceless Sand Treading Steps again. The level of his stamina began to get longer and longer.

And after many days of extreme movement technique challenges, Song Qingshu's internal strength had also greatly improved, even faster than the growth rate of his usual martial arts practice. Song Qingshu was aware of the surging true qi in his body, and knew that he had reached its limit. Once he solved the problem of coexistence of Divine Brilliance True Qi and Nine Yin True Qi, he would be able to achieve a state of blending water and milk. His inner strength will surge, and it will never be exhausted.

After five or six days, Song Qingshu finally reached the foot of Jinling City and secretly sighed, ‘Two thousand miles, it took five or six days by myself, which is much slower than the train in my previous life.’

In fact he didn't have any idea about his own speed. He didn’t realize just how terrifying this kind of traveling speed was in this world. Lu Yi, the world’s fastest circulator of information, used all the power of a country to let their men ride the best horses, ring bells during the day, raise fires at night, and kill people. They had to shop for horses from several shops for their people, and travel in rain or sunshine, day and night. But even then the fastest transmission of the so-called one hundred thousand urgent information was only five hundred miles a day. But Song Qingshu had reached nearly four hundred miles a day with just his own two legs!

‘If I can harmonize the yin and yang in my body, and always maintain the ultimate speed of Traceless Sand Treading Steps, I am afraid it will not be much slower than the plane from my previous life.’ Song Qingshu dragged his tired legs into the city, secretly thinking about his speed. The more he thought, the more excited he became, "This is quite good considering it is in ancient times, but this travel speed is still too slow. And I don’t even want to think about riding a carriage. It's so slow that it can make people vomit blood."

After staying in an inn in the city, he quietly asked about the location of the Dagong Lane from an inn's employee. After a full meal, washing and cleaning up, when it was late at night, Song Qingshu quietly slipped out of the inn and walked through the secluded and dark places, and soon came to Dagong Lane.

"Huh, why is it deserted?" Song Qingshu had a bad feeling in his heart, and he hurriedly jumped inside the building and walked to the firewood room where the treasure was located.

After carefully searching, he quickly found the entrance to the cellar from the pyre. He pulled the plank aside, covered his whole body with true qi, and quietly jumped in while being on guard.

With the help of the light from the torch, Song Qingshu discovered that the entire room was empty. He thought there could be another hidden room, so he looked around, but found that the surrounding walls were solid. Song Qingshu sat down on the ground with a dejected expression, and finally noticed some clues left on the floor. There were a lot of marks left from wooden boxes. At first glance it was clear that the boxes were filled with heavy objects and placed on the ground for a long time.

"Who moved these treasures?" Song Qingshu finally gave up and returned to the inn with a heart full of doubts.

The next day he ran to the lobby of the inn and ordered a few dishes, pricked his ears and listened carefully to the conversations of the surrounding guests. This place was a mixture of fish and dragons. The inn had always been one of the fastest circulators of information. Maybe he could get to hear some useful news from the conversations of drunk guests.

Sure enough, he suddenly noticed a table where some people were talking,

"I heard that Yuan Chengzhi's Golden Serpent Camp has become so powerful in Shandong recently that even the Manchu emperor can't do anything."

"Master Yuan really brought honor for us Han people. Now that the Han people have fallen to the north of the Yangtze River, it is really rare to have such a great hero bravely resisting the Qing Dynasty."

"Didn't the Manchu and Qing Dynasty send envoys to form an alliance with our Song Dynasty? Will this affect the relationship between the two countries?"

"Yuan Chengzhi is a survivor of the Ming Dynasty, and he is not the son of the Great Song Dynasty. How could it affect the relations between the two countries? Speaking of this alliance, I am angry. We have shed a sea of ??blood and are filled with hatred. But, I really can't figure out why the emperor would form an alliance with the Manchus."

"Brother, this is what you don’t understand. Now Mongolia is strong and has the potential to sweep through the world. We fought fiercely with Mongolia in Xiangyang and Sichuan. The Manchu’s also fought Mongolia for a long time. The enemy of an enemy is a friend. Of course, the emperor must seize this opportunity to form an alliance against Mongolia."

"Hmph, I still feel unhappy in my heart. I don't know when my Han people will be able to recover the past glory. The saints are currently blindly guarding the city. Instead, I feel that Yuan Chengzhi is more discerning and the hope of the Han people may fall on him!"

"Shhh! Your words are a crime of decapitation…" The speaker deliberately lowered his voice, and suddenly asked curiously, "Why do you think so?"

"Yuan Chengzhi led the Golden Serpent Camp and repelled the encirclement and suppression of the Qing soldiers several times, which shows his talent as a strategist. He is the number one in the wulin of Shandong, which shows his reputation and charm. Last time he used tricks and schemes to make great achievements. He even managed to acquire the treasure of Jinling city. This shows his wisdom and it also made the prefect of Jinling really angry, haha…"

Hearing this, Song Qingshu’s heart felt cold. The treasure of Dagong Lane has been taken away by Yuan Chengzhi! That's right, his military expenditures at the Golden Serpent Camp are huge, and he created such a mighty force in Shandong in such a short period of time. It would definitely not work without astronomical military expenditures.

Song Qingshu became very depressed, and was no longer interested in listening. He dropped a few pieces of silver and walked out dejectedly.

"Am I destined to not be the protagonist of this world?" Song Qingshu was wandering blindly on the street, thinking that his plan was failing everywhere and he also failed to get the treasures here. From this, it was easy to infer that other treasures might also be taken due to various reasons. He was coming out empty handed for all kinds of strange reasons, and the more he thought about it, the more frustrated he became.

"Get out of the way!" Accompanied by the crisp sound of bells, two horses galloped past him.

Usually, Song Qingshu would stop to teach the people who came to the city center with horses to cause trouble, but he was very sad at this time, and he was not in the mood to be a chivalrous man. With a few quick steps, he barely managed to escape the two galloping horses.

It's a pity that the people in front of him didn't have this good luck. "Fu*k! Who the hell dares to hit this Grandaddy?" Hearing this arrogant voice, Song Qingshu thought that he would have a good show to watch. So he looked up with interest.

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