Yang Ge: "Stop dawdling, lead me to some good food already. I’ve been gnawing on dry rations for days, I’m about to taste birds in my mouth!"
Yang Tiansheng: "Come on, come on, let’s go to my place. My mother’s cooking is second to none... But who did you lose to in the end? You wouldn’t have trespassed into Ziwei Palace, would you?"
He didn’t mind Yang Ge’s grubby appearance, and the two of them walked arm in arm towards the city, their light steps resembling schoolchildren returning home, much to the amazement of onlookers who gawked with wide eyes.
"Just talking about it annoys me!"
Yang Ge angrily said: "Didn’t the Five Poisons Cult try to poison me before? I couldn’t stand it, so from Lu Ting I marched all the way to Xiangxi, dragged that damn Sect Hierarch out of their den. When the old codger saw he couldn’t beat me, he fled. Thinking he might lead me to the real power behind the Five Poisons Cult, I followed. Then I did meet the person behind the cult, and after that... I didn’t win the fight..."
Yang Tiansheng: ...
Yang Ge: "Look, don’t say your godfather doesn’t dote on you, this is a toy your godfather brought back for you from Xiangxi."
He pulled out a sword from behind his back and handed it to Yang Tiansheng.
Upon seeing the precious sword, Yang Tiansheng swallowed his retort and excitedly took the sword: "Whose sword is this?"
Yang Ge: "Whose else could it be? It belongs to Yan Shijun, the sect leader of the Five Poisons Cult."
Before he finished his sentence, an itching-to-try Yang Tiansheng had already drawn the sword. The Sword Qi emitted as the sword left its scabbard brushed past his bangs and sliced a post thick as a man’s thigh in half by the roadside.
"Holy crap, what a sword!"
Yang Tiansheng’s eyes gleamed as he held the sword up and scrutinized it closely, and finally, on one side of the hilt, he spotted the engraved words "Severing Water."
He froze for a moment, then burst into laughter so loud that it seemed to rise three feet high: "Good heavens, good heavens, it’s the number seven Divine Weapon on the Jianghu Divine Weapons Chart, King Yue’s lost sword ’Severing Water’!"
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Watching him joyfully making a racket, Yang Ge’s mood lightened considerably... Making this goofball so happy made it worth the special trip back to pick up this "trash."
Moments later, at Yang Manor, in the Lotus Pond Pavilion.
"Come on, come on..."
Yang Yinghao was pouring wine enthusiastically while beckoning Yang Ge: "Erlang, start eating, try your auntie’s cooking... Xiuying, what are you waiting for, call someone, don’t you always ask when your second brother will visit?"
A fresh-looking young girl in a pale yellow scholar’s dress and an air of a daisy quietly sitting at the table, her cheeks blushing, didn’t dare to even glance at Yang Ge.
Sitting next to Yang Ge, Yang Tiansheng, who was lounging with a chicken leg in hand, mumbled to help his sister out of awkwardness: "Don’t be shy, don’t listen to the nonsense outside, the second brother is actually easy to talk to. Just use the same spirit you had when you chased me with a chamber pot!"
Yang Xiuying’s head shot up in disbelief at her own brother’s backstab, her face turning from pink to purple, as if steam was about to billow from her head.
Obliviously, Yang Tiansheng continued to move a dish of braised lion’s head from the center of the table in front of Yang Ge: "Second brother, taste this, this is my mother’s signature dish!"
Yang Ge: ...
Yang Xiuying stood up rigidly, gave Yang Ge a formal curtsy, and then walked out of the pavilion, picking up speed as she left.
Before long, Yang Ge could hear the gentle voice of Yang Tiansheng’s mother: "Eldest, come over here and give mother a hand!"
Yang Ge looked towards Yang Tiansheng with a look of sympathy.
Tossing away the bone he was chewing on, Yang Tiansheng grabbed a chicken wing and stuffed it into his mouth, speaking vaguely to Yang Ge: "Second brother, make yourself at home, no need to be polite... I’m coming!"
He dashed towards the source of the voice with joyous readiness...
Inside the pavilion, Yang Ge and Yang Yinghao both broke out in laughter.
Yang Yinghao lifted his cup: "I heard from Tiansheng that... you fought with someone behind the Five Poisons Cult?"
Yang Ge quickly put down his chopsticks, lifted his cup with both hands, and delicately toasted with Yang Yinghao: "Uncle, cheers to you."
He tilted his head and downed the wine in one go, then took the jug to pour Yang Yinghao a drink: "I did have a fight, but I lost."
With a beaming smile, Yang Yinghao forcefully grabbed the jug from his hand, pouring wine and asking the same question as Yang Tiansheng: "Who on earth is there that you can’t beat?"
Yang Ge sighed, with a touch of resignation: "Uncle, it’s one thing for Yang not to be aware of the latest Hero Ranking, but surely you know about it? The entire event at Louwailou was meant to target me, turning me into their shooting target!"
Previously, his money had vanished without a trace, and he had publicly pinned the blame on Louwailou.
While Louwailou wanted to avoid disaster by paying up, they also didn’t wish to appear weak to others, so they updated the Hero Ranking precisely then, announcing to the world: ’Even if you, Yang Erlang, are formidable, we at Louwailou still aren’t afraid of you!’
It’s said there is no first in literature and no second in martial arts.
With just the title "Number One in the World," enough to turn every Jianghu wanderer obsessed with making a name for themselves into his adversary, willing to use every trick in the book against Yang Ge!
If not for the timing of the update of the Hero Ranking closely followed by an encounter with a Grandmaster from the Five Poisons Cult who gave Yang Ge a chance to prove his strength, who knows how much trouble Louwailou’s move could have caused...
Moreover, do true powerhouses bother with rankings?
Take, for instance, those fellows from the Imperial Stables, why weren’t they on the Hero Ranking? Was it because Louwailou didn’t want to include them?
Royal family members?
When Yang Erlang made it onto the ranking, he was still an imperial envoy!
And the white-haired elder from Mount Longhu, was Louwailou unaware of his existence?