THE SMILING PROUD WANDERER by Jin Yong

Seat Fighting Part 5

The young girl was about thirteen or fourteen years of age. She had a green blouse on. With skin as white as milk and a pretty little face, she looked adorable. The crowd in the hall all felt sympathy for her. A couple of the rougher members had already started shouting out, "Beat the bull-nose up!" "Kill the short priest!"

Yu Canghai was very embarrassed. He knew he had incurred the public wrath, so he dared not to say anything, and just said to the girl, "Little sister, don't cry. I am sorry. Let me look at your arm, see if it hurts." He wanted to roll her sleeves up, but the girl screamed, "No, no! Don't touch me! Mom, Mom, the short priest broke my arm."

While Yu Canghai was completely lost, a man in a purple robe walked out from the crowd. It was none other than Fang Renzhi, the smartest apprentice of the Qingcheng Sword School. "Hey, little girl, you're just pretending now!" he said to the little girl. "My Master's hand did not even touch your sleeve, so how could he have broken your arm?"

"Mom, another one is coming to hurt me!" the girl shouted.

Having been watching angrily by one side, Sister Dingyi stepped forward and tried to slap Fang Renzhi's face. "Big bullying the small, shame on you!" she yelled. Fang Renzhi tried to block with his arm. Dingyi extended her right arm quickly and grabbed his hand, and then pushed down on his elbow with her left arm. If she gave a solid push, Fang Renzhi's arm would be broken instantly. Yu Canghai poked his finger at Dingyi's back. Dingyi had to let go of Fang Renzhi and strike back with her hand. Yu Canghai didn't want to fight with her, so he jumped back two steps and said, "Excuse me!"

Dingyi held the little girl's hand and asked gently, "Good child, where does it hurt? Let me have a look. I will heal it for you." She felt the girl's arm but did not find any broken bones. That helped her relax a little. She rolled the girl's sleeve up. On the lovely white arm, four clear black finger marks could be easily seen. Dingyi's anger exploded.

"You liar!" she shouted at Fang Renzhi. "If your Master did not touch her arm at all, then who left the four black marks?"

"It was the turtle! It was the turtle!" the little girl said, pointing at Yu Canghai's back as she spoke.

Suddenly, everybody burst into loud laughter, some even spit out the tea from their mouths; some laughed till they doubled over. Laughter filled the entire hall. Yu Canghai had no idea why everybody was laughing so hard. He thought that the little girl had called him a turtle just like any kid would have after they got upset. What was so funny about that? But seeing everyone laughing at him, he still felt quite embarrassed.

Fang Renzhi jumped forward and peeled a piece of paper off Yu Canghai's robe, then crumpled the paper into a ball. Yu Canghai took the paper ball and opened it, then saw a picture of a big turtle on the sheet. Embarrassed and anguished, Yu Canghai suddenly realized that it must have been a trick. The picture of the turtle was drawn ahead of time of course. It must have been the girl who cried and screamed to divert his attention, and then stuck the paper onto his back. It would be impossible for anybody else to play such a trick behind his back. If that was the case, then there must have been adults behind the scene. He turned around and glanced at Liu Zhengfeng, thinking, "This girl must be a member of the Liu household, so it was Liu Zhengfeng who played all these tricks on me."

Liu Zhengfeng saw the glance from Yu Canghai and immediately understood that Yu had placed the blame on him. He took a step forward.

"Little sister, where are you from? Where are your mom and dad?" he asked the little girl.

By asking these words, first, he wanted to assure Yu Canghai that he had no clue as to what was going on, and also, he became suspicious himself and wanted to know who had brought this little girl here.