Flirtatious - Chapter 2 (completed)

Chapter - 2

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When others asked about Bu Zhi and how he ended up on the pleasure street with Ho Laosan, Bu Zhi only explained that it was an accident. His master punished him severely for this incident, but when the master saw the bruises on Bu Zhi’s body during the punishment, he realized there was more to the story. However, Bu Zhi insisted that they had simply taken the wrong path and ended up in the willow alley.

“A monk must not tell lies, and this principle is for a reason. I know you wouldn’t lie for no reason, but you must understand that even a kind lie is still a lie. Lies are empty, and they bring disaster. So, I will still punish you. I hope you will learn from this,” the master said, gritting his teeth, and gave Bu Zhi a severe beating.

Bu Zhi didn’t want to lie, but the truth was they had been set up and were led to the pleasure street. However, he had promised Ho Laosan not to mention Li Xiucai, and he had promised to lie. Telling lies was a violation of his vows, but breaking a promise was also a violation. Bu Zhi was in a dilemma.

The master was right, and soon disaster did come. But the disaster didn’t fall on Bu Zhi; it fell on Ho Laosan. The young and well-behaved Huo Laosan Gongzi, once renowned throughout the land, gradually became the notorious lecher Huo Lao San.

People said that Ho Laosan had tasted the pleasures of women at the brothel and became infatuated, climbing over the Wu family’s wall and ruining the reputation of the Wu family’s Miss...

But there was no such thing as "the pleasures of women." Bu Zhi had been there, and what happened was that they were led into a luxurious restaurant by a man they didn’t know. Then Li Xiucai suddenly appeared, pointed at Ho Laosan, and scolded him, “You shameless little pervert! You’re about to marry Miss Wu, and yet you come to a place like this! How can you face her?”

Ho Laosan was stunned.

Bu Zhi was dumbfounded—damn it, this was the "pleasure district" his senior brothers had been talking about? The place with all these scantily clad women?

While they were still frozen, Li Xiucai somehow gathered a group of people and was about to drag Ho Laosan to meet the heads of the Huo and Wu families for a confrontation.

“So why are you here?” Bu Zhi, furious, stopped them from getting near Ho Laosan and angrily asked Li Xiucai.

The righteous Li Xiucai blushed and said, “I followed you here! Otherwise… how could I have come to a place like this?”

“But… didn’t you come down from upstairs? You’ve obviously been here for a long time,” Bu Zhi said, but before he could finish, he felt a sharp pain in his back. Someone had hit him with a stick.

He heard someone shout, “Who do you think you are? Do you have a right to speak here?”

Then Ho Laosan’s voice rang out, “Who are you to hit someone?”

Li Xiucai repeated, “Let’s go, the most important thing now is to meet with Lord Huo and Lord Wu, so they can see your true face.”

Bu Zhi, dizzy and just managing to stand up, staggered toward Ho Laosan. After taking just a few steps, he was suddenly pushed hard, causing him to fall to the ground.

"Bald donkey!" Ho Laosan's anxious voice.

Bu Zhi heard the loud sound of a teapot shattering, followed by Ho Laosan shouting loudly—honestly, Bu Zhi had never heard Ho Laosan speak so loudly before: "Madam! Come here! I'm your guest here, and they want to do something to me—don’t you have anything to say?"

The madam, who had been shrinking in the back, came up while waving her handkerchief: "Oh, dear gentlemen, please, let's not be so stern, let's talk things through. Why resort to violence?"

"Oh, Li brother," Ho Laosan changed from his anxious and angry tone to one of mockery, "Our family is all business people. Coming to a place like this is no big deal. But you, from a scholarly family, coming here—tsk, tsk, it's really quite improper." He continued, "I know what you're after. I've heard from classmates at school that you're interested in Miss Wu San. But marriage is arranged by the parents, you think Mr. Wu really cares about me? He’s after our family’s wealth. We have money, our family is rich."

Ho Laosan waved his hand, calling the madam closer, and casually pulled out a silver note: "Here’s fifty taels, a greeting gift for you, Madam. This is my first time here, I hope you’ll take care of me. Look, these people are bothering me and trying to drag me away. They even hit my friend. Isn’t that disrespectful to you and your brothel?"

The madam glanced at Li Xiucai, then at the silver note in her hand, and quickly put on a smiling face: "Oh, distinguished guest! Why didn’t you call for me earlier? How could I let these people bully you on my territory?"

The madam pushed the people who were about to drag Ho Laosan out the door: "You all, if you’re not here to have fun, don’t waste my time. Get out, get out..."

Later, Ho Laosan found a relatively empty room for a girl and had Bu Zhi lie down for a while. He applied some medicine for bruises, and after a while, Bu Zhi regained his strength and finally woke up.

Huolao San thanked the sister who provided the room, and the two of them supported each other, limping as they left the brothel.

After this visit to such a place, Bu Zhi couldn’t tell what kind of "taste of women" Ho Laosan had experienced, but he had definitely tasted "the bitterness of men."

As for the so-called wall-climbing and peeping, he really did climb over.

Bu Zhi still remembered that after Miss Wu married—she should now be called Lady Li—one day, Lady Li came to the temple to pray to the Goddess of Children. Bu Zhi overheard her maidservants saying: "That Ho Laosan is too much. Peeping at our young lady’s beauty is one thing, but when caught, he even said our young lady was ugly. How could our master and madam let that pass? Even if they don't mind, our young lady can’t take it. Our young lady is the third most beautiful woman in the city, and that pervert actually dared to say she’s ugly..."

Bu Zhi secretly glanced at Lady Li. She wasn’t ugly at all. Maybe... his eyes were a bit blind, to have fallen for that Scholar Li.

But, it’s said that love is blind.

So everyone is blind.

It’s rumored that because his first engagement was called off by the Wu family, Ho Laosan was heartbroken and became cynical.

One day, he would be interested in a young lady from the Jia family, and the next day, he’d be flirting with a maid from the Yi family.

The worst part was, Ho Laosan didn't discriminate between men and women! He would not only flirt with girls but would also tease any handsome young man he came across.

In less than half a year, he snatched a maid from his own uncle to make her his concubine. It’s said that after tormenting her for two months, she was no longer recognizable as a person. And when the poor girl was on her deathbed, he cast her out of his house—claiming that she was no longer "fun" and that her body was no good.

What a cruel heart....

Later, when Bu Zhi went to a small village and found that the girl was still alive, he was surprised to see her happily spinning thread.

In less than half a year, Ho Laosan made another big move—this time, he took a handsome young pharmacist back to his house. Later, on a dark, windy night, Ho Laosan went to the mountain to pray, and the young pharmacist took the opportunity to escape. When Ho Laosan found out, he was furious, tearing up the young man’s contract and saying he didn’t want to look for him anymore, even threatening to let him starve to death outside.

After a brief period of peace, Ho Laosan once again flirted with the concubine daughter of the Sun family. The next day, when Ho Laosan took her to the temple to show off his new beauty to Bu Zhi, the young girl put on an act, threatening to kill herself rather than marry Ho Lao San... and then immediately ran into the arms of her true love.

Ho Laosan, watching others pair up, was seething with jealousy and frustration. He spent two months in Bu Zhi’s temple. He claimed to be chanting sutras to calm down, but in reality, he spent his days reading novels and playing with the temple's big yellow dog.

Bu Zhi knew that Ho Laosan would likely go away soon.

On the third morning of Ho Laosan’s stay, during breakfast, Ho Laosan was stealing buns from Bu Zhi when a servant rushed in to report: “It’s bad, young master, it’s bad! Qian Gongzi is missing!”

“Oh?” Ho Laosan, seizing the opportunity while Bu Zhi was distracted, grabbed a bun that Bu Zhi had already bitten, and dramatically changed his expression, suddenly pounding his chest and crying out, “What? Missing? How could this happen?”

Bu Zhi: “...” Ho Laosan’s act was so over-the-top that Bu Zhi couldn’t even bring himself to say a fake condolence like “sorry for your loss.”

“Master, we will send people to look for him immediately,” the servant said, doing his best to reassure Ho Laosan.

“Find him! Find him quickly!” Ho Laosan demanded.

“Don’t worry, young master. As soon as I noticed he was gone, I sent people to search for him. We’ll definitely find him before nightfall,” the servant said quickly, afraid of being blamed for not keeping an eye on the beauty.

“Very good! Go ahead!” Ho Laosan said, sitting back down to continue his breakfast. “This Qian Gongzi has an old lover, a swordsman, they say. His martial arts are impressive, especially his lightness skills—he can walk on walls and water without leaving a trace. No wonder he’s so popular... and Qian Gongzi doesn’t like me.”

“Ho Laosan, forcing things never ends well. You should avoid pursuing good women... or good men against their will,” Bu Zhi advised.

“Actually, I’ve always thought this saying doesn’t make sense. Whether a melon is sweet or not has nothing to do with how you pick it. If it’s sweet, it’s sweet. If it’s not, it’s not. Sometimes, even if the melon is ripe and sweet, it’s hard to pick. You must wait for the right time, but by then, the melon might be overripe…”

“Ho Laosan, you’re just nitpicking.”

“No, I’m playing word fight with you, Bu Zhi,” Ho Laosan replied.

About a month after hearing that Qian Gongzi had escaped from Ho Laosan’s grasp, Ho Laosan was nearly driven mad with longing. It was said that, after this blow, Ho Laosan stopped seeking women and focused on running his family’s business.

He seemed to be turning a new leaf.

People began to say that when Ho Laosan tried to settle down, his old problems came back to haunt him.

This time, he threw himself into the brothel, spending day and night indulging in pleasure. Eventually, one day, he was carried out, unable to stand.

A doctor examined Ho Laosan and sighed deeply. “Young master, your excessive indulgence in sexual activities has left you physically drained.”

Ho Laosan’s father and mother were furious with their son’s behavior. Just look at his messy hair, his yellowish complexion, and the dark circles under his eyes…

Realizing his mistakes, Ho Laosan bowed his head and confessed to his parents, “Father, Mother, I know I’ve been wrong. I’ll control myself from now on and never go near women again.”

“Ah, what a disgrace!” Ho Laosan’s father muttered angrily.

“Father, I know of a place in the eastern suburbs. I’m willing to go live there in seclusion. I’ll never chase after women again. I don’t seek to marry and start a family, but I want to atone for my mistakes and never bring shame to the Ho family again.” Ho Laosan, weak and frail, knelt before his parents, pleading for forgiveness.

Ho Laosan’s parents, feeling they had no better alternatives, agreed. If their son would just stop chasing women, it was already a blessing.

At the same time, on the mountain, Bu Zhi requested to descend.

When his master saw him, there was a spark in Bu Zhi’s once-empty eyes. Bu Zhi was no longer a monk.

His master said, "If the karmic ties are not yet severed, then go ahead."

The grass path led into an abandoned garden, and the Bu Zhi knocked on the door beneath the moonlight.

Ho Laosan, who was using a cane to open the door, was pleasantly surprised. "Oh, isn’t this Master Bu Zhi? What brings you here?"

"I’m here to exorcise demons," Bu Zhi replied harshly. Seeing Ho Laosan's weary appearance, Bu Zhi was so angry he wanted to hit someone. "It’s said that for half a month, you changed women every day, living carefree and happy."

"Heh? Only one woman a day? Shouldn’t it be at least three women a day to start with?"

"..."

"Heh heh, well, it hasn’t even been half a month—at most, less than ten days. I haven’t even gotten much sleep... and this is how I ended up..."

"Not sleeping, what were you doing?"

"I was drawing portraits for the pretty sisters. Don’t believe me? I’ll take you to see. They’ve got all my drawings hung up in their rooms now."

"...I don’t have a good impression of brothels. Last time I went, I got beaten up so badly, just thinking about brothels makes my back hurt."

"Hahaha, well, that’s fine. Later, I’ll draw you a picture to show you how much I’ve improved these past few days."

"Spare me. Just sleep properly for now."

"Okay, okay, well... How about we sleep together.."

Later, the legend spread that Master Bu Zhi, with his daily chanting and devotion, had transformed Ho Laosan, the notorious womanizer, into someone who sincerely respected Buddhism. From then on, this bully, who used to oppress both men and women, began to show genuine changes in his character.

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