That Fair-Faced 'Sage' {Completed}

49. Multicoloured Robes!

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The next day had not dawned fully, when an uproar went round the entire training grounds.

By the time it was light outside, all the disciples had come out, frustrated that, apart from what they had been wearing the previous day, all their clothes were now several shades of bright colours!

"Disciple Zhao! What did we ever do to you?!" Shuǐ JunHo complained, decked in robes that were a cross between bright yellow and shades of pink and peach.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" LanFen genuinely apologized to the disciples around her, who were her usual followers. She herself was wearing robes with patches of maroon and a strange dark yellow hue.

Since the guest disciple robes were night blue, the colours weren't as bright, but that just made them look more sickly!

"None of you were my targets," she explained "but if I spared you, wouldn't you be accused of being accomplices?"

She had been laughing since morning, especially when she saw Chao Zhi Hong and his cronies.

"Disciple Chao! 'Look at that! I have no idea how so many colours got on all your clothes'! However, I must say, you put me in mind of a rare, wild peacock!"

"You-!" Chao Zhi Hong fumed and stormed away. LanFen had treated his case specially, so even though his robes were night blue, she had soaked in at least five different colours!

"My main target will reveal himself, when he can finally bare to step outside!"

The disciples only understood what she was saying, when Fènghuáng-Jun refused to come out of his lodge till high noon, when he couldn't hold back his anger any more!

Shuǐ ChénLín's fury was practically rolling off him. "Disciple Zhao!!!"

"Pfft!" LanFen was trying hard not to laugh. Shuǐ ChénLín's robes looked like a marvelous mix of all the flowers of spring!

LanFen knelt without hesitation. "Fènghuáng-Jun! Truthfully, I don't know how things turned out this way! In the dead of night, a strange ferret came and played around in the clothes!"

"Come with me!" he ordered before storming off, his jade pendant gleaming in the sunlight.

As punishment, Shuǐ ChénLín made LanFen carry double the weight of the original weight talismans, up the mountain. But he certainly never made her do the laundry after that.

LanFen's technique to conquer the weight talismans, had not been as successful this time, as she was carrying double the weight.

She had ended up using almost two days to climb the mountain, and had slept for another two days, after that.

"If Fènghuáng-Jun wants to kill me, wouldn't a direct approach be best?!" LanFen bitterly complained, after waking up.

"Tsk! Did you or did you not do wrong?" Lu FengHo was transferring qi to her. "Rather than repent, you've made it so Shuǐ Chén would have to wear colourful robes for a week!

"He couldn't even teach properly yesterday, because the disciples kept suppressing laughter!"

Both of them burst out laughing at that, and a comfortable silence followed.

LanFen sighed after a while. "In truth, I'm not sure why d did it, but I was angry... From day one, Fènghuáng-Jun didn't want to be in charge of me.

"He won't take jokes, always drawing a line and taking things too seriously. To him, I'm just the unruly Zhao LanFeng, who became his duty overnight.

"Seeing his reaction a month ago, he must have been worried that, if anything happened to me, it would harm his perfect record, right? He even tried to attack me at once!"