Book 22 Chapter 13 – Conditions of Forgiveness
Under cover of the arrows, the five units of cavalry on Kou Zhong’s side swept through the enemies, who failed to cross the river, like five fiery dragons, sparking an intense battle on this side of the river.
Naturally Kou Zhong and his horse were always at the front. The Moon in the Well’s cold ray flashed, the blade never missed, there was always someone screaming miserably and fell to the ground. The killing was so intense that the sky dimmed and the earth darkened, the sun and the moon lost their light. In a short while the enemies, who had lost their will to fight zealously, were smashed that they also lost their will to care of each other, and were utterly defeated.
Under the huge pressure, one after another the enemies jumped into the river, hoping to escape the purgatory of the human world, to cross the border of massacre.
He had just hacked an enemy and sent him flying, when Luo Fang by his side cried out, “Xiang Baxian!”
Kou Zhong halted his hand to look at the direction Luo Fang was pointing. He saw several hundred thieves with a fat and short man on horseback wielding two steel-toothed rings on the lead, opening up a path to break the siege and escape toward the lower reaches of the river.
Kou Zhong ordered Luo Fang to lead their troops for him, and then letting out a long whistle, he soared from the horseback and thundered, “Xiang Baxian, where do you think you are going? Kou Zhong is here!”
These words carried powerful inner strength, unexpectedly it completely drowned the shouts and cries on the battlefield, just like a crashing thunder on the plains.
When the soldiers of his side heard this, none did not have his fighting spirit redoubled. When the enemy soldiers heard this, they were scared out of their wits, and fell apart even faster.
Traversing nearly eight zhang of empty air, Kou Zhong suddenly took a breath, and flew five more zhang horizontally. In the blink of an eye he arrived in front of Xiang Baxian. As soon as his feet touched the ground, he whirled around, while brandishing his saber. One after another six enemies had their weapons broken, their blood splashed, and their bodies flew out. With this one saber strike he succeeded in intimidating the enemy around him, so that everybody ran away in all directions, away from this demon personifying pestilence, as if they agreed to grant him rarely-appeared empty space on the battlefield.
It was only this moment did Xiang Baxian realize that he was standing face-to-face against Kou Zhong, with nothing in between; hastily he reined his horse to stop. He was going to order his underlings to charge forward to dampen the opponent’s acute spirit, but then he realized that the men following behind him have scattered away that not a single one remained.
Kou Zhong revealed a brilliant smile, but his tiger-eyes shot a shocking divine light, as if he was able to see the opponent through. “Injustice master has always been injustice master!” he shouted loudly, “Normally it is hidden, but when facing death, it can be seen clearly. Xiang Baxian, since you can make not even a blade of grass grows [his nickname, see Book 9 Chapter 7], have you ever thought that a day like today would come?”
Xiang Baxian swept his gaze around; he knew at once that his big momentum has gone, but contrary to expectation, he decided to give it all. He made a flip off his horse, struck his rings to each other, creating a clear ringing sound, and said with a nasty laugh, “Others are afraid of you, this kid Kou Zhong, but I, Xiang Baxian, see you as just a little pig-dog. I’ll get rid of you first, and then I’ll find the others to settle the debt.”
While speaking, his eyes opened big and round, and with odd footwork he swiftly approached Kou Zhong, his pair of rings launched a lightning strike.
With a roar Kou Zhong took the strike head-on, his saber moved at lightning speed, it completely blocked the two steel rings, which cut down from the most crafty angle like two clumps of cold cloud. The moment the saber collided with the rings, the sound lingered incessantly in the ear.
A dozen or so ring-strikes later, Xiang Baxian already lost his will to continue; swiftly he traversed sideways.
In this ‘the other diminish, I increase’ situation, Kou Zhong’s saber momentum suddenly flared up, while at the same time he followed the opponent traversing to the left. The Moon in the Well entered the opponent’s line of defense through the gap between the two rings. It was actually an ordinary move, but because his footwork could change something rotten into something magical [idiom], it became extremely overbearing.
Xiang Baxian had never imagined Kou Zhong would have such a strange move; his beautiful dream of slipping sideways to regroup and then launching a counterstrike was immediately shattered. Abruptly his double rings closed in, hoping to clip the opponent’s long saber, afterwards he would jump into the river to escape.
Who would have thought that at the last moment Kou Zhong took a breath, the Moon in the Well momentarily stopped in the air?
This stop was the beauty of the move, which sealed Xiang Baxian’s fate.
‘Dang!’
The two rings struck each other.
The Moon in the Well moved powerfully again, like an urgent thunder violent lightning hacking down on the contact point of the two rings.
Violent power burst in. At first Xiang Baxian felt like he was struck by lightning, the pair of rings was jolted by the enemy’s saber, as well as was shaken toward him. But when he wanted to retreat, a bloodstain appeared on his chest.
Pulling his saber back, Kou Zhong shouted, “Xiang Baxian is strung through and filled with evil, he is executed as a lesson to others.”
Like a crash of thunder, his shout reverberated into every nook and corner of the battlefield.
‘Dang! Dang!’
One after another the pair of rings fell off his hands.
With disbelief on his face, Xiang Baxian looked at the blood spreading rapidly on his chest. He screamed, and then fell on his back to the ground.
Xu Ziling straddled the horse that his man took to him, and then with another group of a hundred or so men, all wielding sabers, pursued in the direction Cao Yinglong and his men were escaping.
The big earth swiftly moved on the opposite direction to his left and right.
On the plains, Cao Yinglong had only around fifty men remaining, they ran desperately away toward the mountain area southeast of the river.
Because both in terms of power and shenfa Cao Yinglong and Fang Jianding were far more superior than the other men, they were more than ten zhang ahead of everybody else, hence were very easy to recognize.
When the thieves saw that Xu Ziling was leading his men to pursue, they knew that his interest was on the thieves’ chiefs, Cao and Fang, two men, hence they took the chance to run away in all directions, hoping to preserve their own little life, putting their thief nature on full display. There was no loyalty and righteousness to be said.
Naturally Xu Ziling could not possibly pay attention to these insignificant soldiers; seeing they were still more than ten li away from the mountain area, he deliberately slowed down his horse, maintaining a distance of three, four zhang behind the two, as if he was driving a flock of sheep, looking at their difficult situation, while also exacerbating their wear and tear even more.
From time to time his men shot arrows from the horseback, forcing the two to dodge to the left and evade to the right, so that they were battered and exhausted even more.
After seven, eight more li, Cao Yinglong finally realized Xu Ziling’s trick. Roaring in anger, he stood with his spear held horizontally across his chest and shouted, “Jianding! We fight him to the death.”
Who would have thought that Fang Jianding regarded his words as the wind past his ear? He ran away even faster.
Xu Ziling filled the pomegranate stick full of his true qi, its power broke out suddenly, as if it was a living creature, unexpectedly the pomegranate stick rapidly spun away from his grasp, without making any noise it flew pass over Cao Yinglong’s head, and continued toward Fang Jianding as if it was able to recognize him. If it were under different circumstances, although the pomegranate stick was flying, propelled by its own spinning power, and thus did not create any gust of wind, but with Fang Jianding’s skill as an established martial art master, he would definitely be able to sense the stick’s presence.
However, currently he was like a stray dog; forget about several days of exertion, merely the escape in panic just now has already consumed large amount of his true power, so his reaction was far less sensitive than usual.
Also, if Cao Yinglong had warned him, he ought to be able to avoid the deadly disaster in time.
But Cao Yinglong hated him to the bones because he ran away; how could he be willing to help him?
While everybody was staring blankly, like a powerful arrow the pomegranate stick continued flying, rapidly closing in on Fang Jianding. It broke through the true qi protecting his body, and pierced through his back.
With a violent scream Fang Jianding fell forward, the pomegranate stick stood on his back like a pillar pointing to the sky; it continued spinning for several revolutions before it started to slow down and finally stopped. The scene was bizarre to the extreme point.
The torches were burning brightly. The Shaoshuai Army fanned out, everybody has a bow and an arrow in his hands, aimed at the sole target.
Xu Ziling flew off his horse; fixing his gaze on Cao Yinglong, he said with a cold laugh, “if you swear not to run away, I am going to give you a chance to have a fair duel; otherwise these arrows will fly, and I will add finger wind and fist power to it.”
This chief of bandits of this generation had his face underwent a number of changes, from gloomy to clear, indeterminately. It was quite some time later that he let down his hands and spoke in distressed, “I admit defeat. If you are willing to let me go, I wish to deliver to you the entire sum of riches gathered over many years. Plus I swear I will never set foot on Jianghu anymore.”
Shaking his head, Xu Ziling said, “That kind of ill-gotten wealth is stained with the blood of God knows how many innocent people’s blood. Even if you sent it to me unconditionally, I would not want it.”
Cao Yinglong angrily said, “How could you, this person, be so stubborn and old-fashioned? This wealth can make thousands upon thousands of people live in peace and work happily, and to restructure their homes. Even if you don’t want it, it can always be used for charity. Xu Xiong, please think thrice.”
Letting out a long laugh, Xu Ziling said, “Well said! Why don’t I capture you alive and bring you back? Let’s see if you, this greedy-for-life, afraid-of-death disciple, can endure the taste of torture. Perhaps, other than your wealth, you’d also draw a map telling us how to find your hidden treasure as well?”
Cao Yinglong spoke heavily, “Greedy for life and afraid of death is human nature. But if I knew that I would be humiliated in vain, I would definitely not let you capturing me alive. How about this? On top of the wealth, I can also give you another secret information. If after you hear it you think the information is valuable, you will let me go.”
Laughing involuntarily, Xu Ziling said, “Cao Yinglong, if you are thinking of using this to stall for time, to restore your true energy, you are definitely wasting your scheming.”
“You must not misunderstand,” Cao Yinglong anxiously said, “The first information is pertaining Yang Xuyan’s past history and origin. If you refuse to heed my warning, Shi Qingxuan will be caught in a bad situation with no hope of reprieve.”
Shaken, Xu Ziling said, “How do you know I knew Shi Qingxuan?”
“So you know I am not spouting nonsense,” Cao Yinglong said, “What do you think? Would you agree to this business deal?”
Xu Ziling’s eyes shone with sharp light.
Cao Yinglong repeated, “Only after you hear it and you think the information is valuable will you let me go, so basically there is no need to be afraid I would lie to you.”
Xu Ziling sighed inwardly. In that moment he really did not know whether he should listen to Cao Yinglong and let this disciple, who have committed ten thousand evils, to struggle on whilst at death’s door.
One after another Kou Zhong and Shang Xiuxun crossed the only remaining pontoon bridge to rendezvous with Xuan Yong.
This time, although they achieved total victory with only a few thousand bandits managed to escape, the casualties on their side was quite heavy. The Ranch lost nearly one thousand warriors, Shaoshuai Army’s casualties also reached five hundred men, not including those who are wounded.
This was the price of war.
After sweeping her gaze around, Shang Xiuxun asked Xuan Yong, “Where is Xu Ziling?”
Xuan Yong respectfully replied, “Xu Ye led his men to pursue and kill Cao Yinglong and Fang Jianding.”
“What direction did he take?” Shang Xiuxun anxiously asked.
Xuan Yong pointed to the southeast.
Under the morning light, the grassland stretched out as far as the eye could see.
Shang Xiuxun spurred her horse and galloped away, while calling out tenderly, “We must go quickly to help.”
Kou Zhong stared blankly for a moment, and then he pursued closely behind her horse; a bittersweet feeling of equal proportion welled up in his heart.