Book 24 Chapter 4 – Persian Maiden
After four consecutive sonic booms, Hou Xibai’s outer robe disintegrated. ‘Bang!’ his raised hand blocking above his head met the last lotus power pressing down on him head-on. Exposing his inner blue-green tight-fitting warrior outfit, Hou Xibai followed the shattered roof tiles to fall down into the house’s rear courtyard. Were it not for the occupants inside the house were all outside on the street enjoying the Lantern Festival in the city, the noise and the disturbance would definitely wake them up from their beautiful dreams.
From An Long’s perspective, however, not even in his dream did he ever imagine that this kid from the younger generation could borrow the roof tiles disintegrating and the robes infused full of true qi to break his must-kill ‘Lotus Ring at the Center of the Sky’. Only now did he understand that ‘using solid in place of empty’ mean putting back the secretly amassed true qi inside the fan into the body, to make the robe swelling full of qi power, and use it to ingeniously block An Long’s ultimate move.
But regret at this moment was already too late; after executing five rings in succession he was very much nearing his limit. If he failed again, he would have to find a place to hide and would not dare to come out to see people until he was fully recovered. Upon self-examination, under present circumstances, would he dare to take the risk?
One somersault, An Long’s fat body, in an ingenious, relaxed posture, which would make people stare in dumbstruck, landed on the grassy area in the courtyard. Both of his hands moved, sometimes in a punch, sometimes in a chop, suddenly changed into a claw, suddenly became palm strike, he unfolded a set of ingenious and exquisite technique to attack Hou Xibai, who, upon landing on the ground, was staggering slightly – like a gale sweeping the dead leaves off the ground, combined with his fat body staggering and tumbling indeterminately – sometimes heavy, another time light, in ever-changing movements. Just for this set of skill, he deserved to be ranked among the ‘Eight Major Martial Art Masters of the Demonic Way’.
This time, he wanted to kill Hou Xibai with his heart and soul; each move was an attack, completely opposite to his previously defensive strategy. Immediately showing off the other side of his prowess, he heavily enveloped Hou Xibai inside the wind generated by his fist and palm, while also continuously narrowing the limit of Hou Xibai’s movements. The moment Hou Xibai found it difficult to move would be the moment he killed the enemy.
Hou Xibai was beginning to sweat profusely in dealing with An Long’s killer attacks, simply because it was the first time he ran into this kind of set of techniques. Flustered, he was unable to use the Eight Moves to Break The Lotus to its fullest potential; inwardly he knew that An Long developed this set of techniques in recent years as his secret skill, hence even Shi Zhixuan was unaware of it. In critical time, he used his life-saving move, the ‘zhe hua bai shi’ [a hundred styles of snapping flower]. Folding the fan and withdrawing it, he took a defensive position, while actually hiding a killer move within.
An Long’s murderous intent flared up; laughing aloud, he said, “Although Xianzhi can block Long Shu’s ‘Lotus Ring at the Center of the Sky’, inevitably your meridians will sustain injuries. If Long Shu is willing to let you regulate your breathing for a little while, it will not be this bad.”
Both his hands had the fingers put together like a saber chop; while breathing and speaking, fast as lightning, he continuously stabbed forward six times, fierce to the extreme point.
Qi power filled the atmosphere, not a single one was not a sinister move meant to take the opponent’s life.
Although Hou Xibai was caught in a completely passive position where he simply had to take the beating and painstakingly defend himself, yet the Fan of Beauty, whether it was closed or open, whether it was blocking up or intercepting down – was always able to perfectly parried An Long’s toppling-the-mountains-and-overturning-the-seas palm chop, each one attacking from unexpected angle. However, each time he blocked, he had to take half a step back. By the time the sixth strike arrived, his back was already against the house’s external wall.
The Fan of Beauty suddenly slowed down.
Seeing this opportunity, An Long simply had to take it. Both palms pushing out, qi power rolled over toward the enemy, while from below his leg flew out, ferociously kicking Hou Xibai’s genital area.
Hou Xibai laughed aloud and said, “Long Shu has fallen into a trap!”
The folding fan opened, it cut down on An Long’s kicking fat leg, while his left hand, filled to the brim with stored up energy, punched out.
‘Boom!’
Qi power collided.
As An Long’s two palms met Hou Xibai’s left fist, he only felt empty sweep without any strength behind it; while he was crying ‘Not good!’ inwardly, the wall behind Hou Xibai cracked open. Just as An Long was thinking about retreating, Hou Xibai’s fist turned solid. Letting out a miserable grunt, An Long flew about a zhang or so backwards, his fat face alternated between red and white indeterminately, obviously his qi was in extreme suffering.
Hou Xibai was feeling uncomfortable as well; while panting continuously, he thought that unless he could obtain the ‘Immortal Print Scroll’, he could forget about killing An Long, ever.
An Long suddenly broke into a big smile; raising his thumb up, he praised, “Xianzhi is indeed outstanding. Shi Dage painstaking effort in training you was not in vain; you have really mastered the Hua Jian Pai’s secret skill of xushi xiangsheng [what is true and what is false engender one another]. If we stopped at this point tonight, I wonder where would Xianzhi go to admire the full moon?”
Hou Xibai groaned inwardly, all because Xu Ziling has not shown any movement yet; it appeared that the situation was rather bad.
The instant before the pit of Xu Ziling’s stomach touched the ground, Cao Yinglong, who was about to slam onto the wall, suddenly changed direction; he suddenly dropped down to the ground, but from under his body, fast like a flash of light, lithe like cotton wadding, a young woman flew out swiftly; the tip of her feet tapped the ground, she made a somersault, and flew across the empty air above Xu Ziling’s back. It all happened in one fluid motion, in some kind of seamless, moving clouds and flowing water’s grandeur, very pleasing to the eye.
At long last Xu Ziling was able to catch a glimpse of the opponent’s looks.
The most dazzling to the eyes was her chestnut-colored beautiful hair and brown eyes, which, as soon as one met her face-to-face, one would be able to tell that she was not a Central Earth woman at all. Her skin-tight nightwalker outfit caressed her beautiful body in such a way that the lines were completely exposed, full of vitality and liveliness, giving out the impression that the blood flowing inside this bewitching flesh must be wild in nature, that she would never yield easily to any man.
The lines on the woman’s face were even more prominent. Deeply embedded under a pair of beautifully curved eyebrows was a pair of bright eyes, like two deep pools of fragrant, cold and raw liquor, brimming with astonishing sex appeal, attracting wild and fanciful thoughts. Under her tender, perfectly crafted, bridge of her nose was a pair of warm, soft, and brimming with character, red cherry lips, adding a little mischief on her, like a decoration to something that was already perfect [orig. adding flowers to brocade].
But looking at her left and right, top and bottom, she did not look like a vicious and merciless evil person who would take life on a whim; it’s just that the finger currently jabbing toward his back was indeed ruthless.
She finally made a mistake.
As early as before he was falling, relying on the fantastic true qi he obtained from the ‘Secret to Long Life’ and the ‘Jade Annulus of He Clan’, Xu Ziling already drove away the strange energy invading his body, and thus he already recovered his strength; falling down was just a tactic to lure the enemy.
Xu Ziling cheered inwardly; when the exotic beauty’s jade finger was only about three cun away from his back, suddenly, like a leopard cat twisting its waist, his back bent, the four limbs of his body, as well as his head folded inward, by using his spine he took the initiative to meet the opponent’s fingertip. Not only the finger attack missed the vital acupoint on his back, a sharp, fine-tipped vortex of qi shot out and into the opponent’s finger with equal harshness, in a swift and severe counterattack.
The beauty’s tender body was jolted like she was being struck by lightning; however, while Xu Ziling thought that she was going to be thrown toward the ceiling, she simply made a somersault in the air and escaped in the direction of the exit, while letting out a tender moan, which would move any man’s heart.
Although her ability to meet a contingency was beyond Xu Ziling’s expectation, his reaction was of a first-class, one-of-a-kind, speed. His two hands pushed the ground, his bent body shot up, perfectly straight, off the ground, and spun midair using both hands as the axis, his bear [animal] waist swung, his two legs swept across the air, and just before she flew outside his range of attack, he swiftly swept the side of her completely-springy-like-cookie-dough buttocks.
The spiraling energy moved from slow to fast, like a swarm of bees it bored into her touching body. Although his choice of target was a bit indecent, in this moment of life and death battle, anybody would find it difficult to argue too much.
The beauty’s moan has not finished, a miserable grunt followed. Although she was outstandingly tough, it was still difficult to withstand a succession of offensive; her escaping plan was frustrated, her leg, being hit, changed direction, she was thrown horizontally across toward a corner.
This time around Xu Ziling sprang up, like a shadow following the body, he pursued closely. This woman’s martial art was strange; her internal energy was of a different approach even more. No one would dare to guarantee that she would not be able to recover as fast as Xu Ziling did; and if that did happen, who would emerge the victor would be difficult to guess.
‘Bang!’
The beauty’s back crashed heavily against the wall, immediately crushing three or four memorial tablets.
Xu Ziling suddenly halted his steps and spoke in horror, “What are you doing?”
The woman held a sharp, gleaming short dagger with both hands, the tip of the dagger was pointed at her own throat. She stared fiercely at Xu Ziling, her erect and delicate breasts were heaving up and down continuously, with her seductive voice she spoke Chinese, yet with foreign accent, “You take one step further, nujia will immediately kill myself, your friend will never recover.”
Looking at this, Xu Ziling’s scalp went numb. Just by seeing the strange move of how this woman, while she was thrown against the wall, was able to promptly pull the dagger, he knew that she was crafty and brutish, and was not easy to provoke.
For most people, this threat of suicide might not worth a sneer, but toward Xu Ziling, it was very effective. He could only smile wryly in response; going down on one knee, he shook his head and said, “Miss and I have no grievance in the past, no enmity in the present, why must we fight each other strenuously? How about we make a deal? You let me save my friend, after Miss take us out, you may recover your freedom.”
He was fully aware that she would recover her strength soon, yet he was still at a loss on how to capture her.
The beauty’s long eyelashes followed her eyes, staring and flickering as she scrutinized him for a moment; suddenly she revealed a smile, seemingly very pleased with herself, her manner was lovely and moving. “Turns out you are a good man,” she said, “Fortunately you did not force nujia to kill myself, otherwise Die and Gandie [adoptive father (traditional adoption, i.e. without legal ramifications)] will never let you off. Although your martial art is not bad, you will surely die.”
Xu Ziling did not know whether he should be happy or amused. Feeling a big headache, he said, “Does Miss have any thought on my proposal?”
The beauty’s eyebrows were knitted deep; as if nothing had happened, she put the dagger back into its sheath, which was tied on the side of her thigh. Sitting cross-legged, she asked in amazement, “Am I not beautiful? Why do you seem to urgently want to drive me away? What’s your name? Han people seldom look like you, tall and handsome.”
Xu Ziling knew she had recovered, and cried ‘Not good!’ inwardly, and was afraid even more that someone might come down, and then he would be the turtle in a jar that they could catch quite easily. He wanted to make his move, but did not have ample confidence that he would be able to subdue her. Besides, she reminded him of the beautiful Tujue maiden Chunyu Wei. His heart softened, he said, “I am called Xu Ziling. Miss, what’s your relationship with An Long?”
The beauty rolled her eyes; giggling blissfully, she spoke with naiveté, “Turns out you are one of the people I’d like to see the most in the Central Plains; how about your good friend Kou Zhong? Where is he?”
Her demeanor has awakened the memory of his first encounter with Dong Shuni, but this woman greatly differed from both Chunyu Wei and Dong Shuni, it’s just that momentarily he could not tell what the difference was. Apparently, the moment she rolled her eyes, he caught a glimpse of her innocent and unaffected, unrestrained and carefree heart and mind behind her external beauty. Take her last few sentences for instance, not only she skirted his question, she inquired Kou Zhong’s whereabouts instead.
Xu Ziling grew up on the streets, since childhood he had mingled with seventy-two heretical schools of opinion outside the orthodox way; he had come into contact with thieves and swindlers. For the last several years, he even dealt with countless old foxes and extremely sly people. This moment his heart was already set, he would not easily reveal the cards in his hands. Playing it down, he said, “Naturally he is outside providing support for me. Miss has not answered my question.”
‘Creak!’ the chest lid at the entrance of the cellar opened, a high-pitched voice called out, “Rou Gongzhu [princess], is it convenient to come down? Mei Gongzhu is here!”
The beauty’s stare meeting Xu Ziling’s gaze became deeply bright and sharp; without blinking she responded, “Mei Jie, please wait for me upstairs, I am coming up immediately!”
‘Bang!’ the lid of the chest was dropped down.
By now Xu Ziling was seventy-, eighty-percent sure that this young woman called Princess Rou was the kind of person who would do anything, by hook or by crook, to accomplish her goals. The key was in the four words, ‘I am coming up immediately’ [li ji bian lai].
If she had the intention to make up with him, she would have said a few words to stall for time, and then saved Cao Yinglong by waking him up. But she was so eager to seize the opportunity to leave from the only exit, even without any explanation, Xu Ziling knew that she was harboring unfathomable motives. He would be trapped inside this danger spot; unless someone came to rescue him, he could forget about escaping with his life intact.
However, whatever thought flitted across his mind, it did not show on the outside at all.
His pair of tiger-eyes instantly radiated sharp light all around, as he spoke heavily, “I don’t know what Miss is thinking, but Ol’ Xu already made up my mind; if Zaixia cannot take the awake Cao Yinglong out of this place, I will not let Miss leave safely.”
Princess Rou revealed an astonished look; she asked quizzically, “What are you doing? Why suddenly became so harsh? I though we are talking amiably with each other?”
Intentionally or otherwise, her demeanor, the tone of her voice, revealed tenderness and naiveté that made other people’s heart beating faster and their spirit galloping away, that made other people really want to believe her.
But Xu Ziling remained unmoved; not the slightest bit. He spoke coldly, “Miss, please tell me how to wake Cao Yinglong up.”
Princess Rou’s eyes flashed with murderous intent, but the tone of her voice was exceptionally calm; she said, “Do you really have the confidence that you can make me stay here? I only have to make some noise, the people outside will come down immediately. When that happens, Cao Yinglong will become your biggest burden. You just missed the golden opportunity, and now you can only follow my arrangement. Ay! How can I make Xu Xiong believe that I have no enmity toward you? You are wasting your time on this issue, people upstairs will be suspicious.”
She was speaking using both gentle methods and force, it was hard to distinguish between what’s true and what’s false; it was indeed not easy to parry.
Xu Ziling calmly laughed; as if he was scrutinizing every cun of her fair, young skin, which was different from Central Plains’ women, he spoke indifferently, “I am not afraid you are calling people down at all; since our side has the capability to intercept An Long, we also have the capability to storm in when the situation warrants it. Miss must not forget, a trapped beast will fight the hardest; Ol’ Xu might do everything in my power to prevent Miss from leaving this place alive. The one wasting your time is Miss.”
Princess Ruo gave him a hard stare; suddenly she stood up.
It appeared that Xu Ziling already knew that she was going to stand up; his tiger-body straightened up, he stood right in front of her, the distance between them was no more than three chi, and Princess Rou’s back was against the stone wall, so that if they fought, Xu Ziling was already occupying the favorable position, he could force the opponent into a desperate fight as the only way to escape.
Princess Rou stomped her feet and angrily said, “I was going to wake Cao Yinglong! Are you or are you not going to make way for me? I have already answered your question, even if you want to give Cao Yinglong to me, I am not interested. Our Western Tujue people have no interest in becoming your and Kou Zhong’s mortal enemy even more. Let An Long takes care of An Long’s problem, we take care of our own problem; don’t you understand?”
Inwardly Xu Ziling was shaken. He finally remembered which side’s figure Princess Rou was. That day he listened to Ba Fenghan’s account on Tujue people, Tujue was a political power composed of nomadic peoples, with the strongest among them became the king. Because economically they were scattered over many regions, plus they kept moving around and did not stay in one particular area, power struggle among them never stopped. During the Sui dynasty era, they were divided into two major khanates, east and west.
East Tujue’s current Khan was Xieli, with his trusted junshi [military counselor] a Han man by the name of Zhao Deyan [see Book 12 Chapter 4]. The ‘Cyclone’ Tuli Khan was his nephew. One of the world’s three major martial art masters, the ‘Wuzun’ Bi Xuan belonged to the East Tujue people.
The Sui dynasty declined, militias sprang up everywhere, among them were Liang Shidu, Liu Wuzhou, and so on who ‘go up north to align with the Tujue’, the Tujue in question was precisely the Eastern Tujue.
Comparatively speaking, the West Tujue was more low-key. This might be due to their geographical proximity. But now their ‘devil palm’ has finally reached the Central Plains.
The Western Tujue Khan was called Tong Xie Hu [lit. unifying, harmonizing protector]. Under assistance of a Persian called ‘Yun Shuai’ [lit. cloud commander], their prestige was pressing straight toward the Eastern Tujue. Yun Shuai’s daughter was called Lian Rou [lit. lotus soft/supple], regarded as his own daughter by Tong Xie Hu, and he extremely doted on her. She ought to be the woman in front of Xu Ziling now.
Recalling that she was a beauty from the distant country, Xu Ziling could not stop strange feeling from appearing in his heart; no wonder her martial art was so unfathomably strange.
Noticing him staring blankly at her, even Princess Rou herself did not understand why her pretty face was burning hot; sticking out her silky breasts out, she said, “Are you going to let me pass or not?”
Xu Ziling’s mind was racing at the speed of light; he asked himself, if she did not personally help him, would he have the confidence that he could wake Cao Yinglong up? This time, he would not even lay a bet. Fiercely clenching his teeth, he swiftly backed off toward the stone stairs, taking a ‘please save him’ attitude.
Lian Rou revealed a charming smile of victory. Nobody saw how she moved, but she was suddenly standing by Cao Yinglong, who was crouching on the ground, and starting to kick randomly, but the targets were various fatal acupoints on Cao Yinglong’s head like baihui, fengfu, guanhui, shenting, and so on. Watching this, Xu Ziling’s ‘heart was alarmed, his body leaping’, which made him did not understand even more, why would he care about a big thief head whose entire body was covered in crime?
Cao Yinglong moaned and regained his consciousness.
Fuming with rage, Lian Rou cast Xu Ziling a sidelong glance; her expression clearly showed that she was still angry and resented that she was wronged by him. And then she stepped aside and said, “I have saved him! You are not going to let me out?”
Xu Ziling was a bit embarrassed as well. Abruptly raising a mouthful of true qi, he readied himself to rescue Cao Yinglong out of there. Right this moment, he heard a barely perceptible abnormal noise from the direction of the chest lid, which was the sound of the true qi flowing in the meridians when someone was amassing his power. Were it not for his own qi was coursing through his own body, plus the empty cellar was acting as an audio amplifier, he would not be able to hear it.
In that instant Xu Ziling suddenly understood everything; he knew that the three people outside already knew what was going on inside the cellar, so he could not help scolding himself for being too careless. A while ago he was able to hear the sound of Cao Yinglong’s breathing from above; obviously there was a ventilation hole from the cellar to the rear hall of Qingyang Si, therefore, the fighting noise and the speaking voices from downstairs had already alerted the people upstairs.
Looking at Lian Rou’s pure expression, graceful, clean and honest outward appearance, Xu Ziling was bitterly disappointed.
Cao Yinglong let out another groan.
Pretending that nothing had happened, Xu Ziling said, “I am Xu Ziling. Cao Xiong, can you hear me?”
Just to slightly nod his head, Cao Yinglong seemed to be struggling. Sitting up, he looked around with blank expression on his face. His gaze swept past the Persian beauty Lian Rou, completely ignoring her, but as it reached Xu Ziling, his eyes began to focus. His face showed a pleasantly surprised expression, he seemed to remember his own situation.
Lian Rou suddenly turned her tender body around to face the wall, appearing to show off her innocence and her unwillingness to intervene in Xu Ziling’s effort to rescue Cao Yinglong.
Were it not for the fact that Xu Ziling already knew something was amiss, he might really fall into the trap and believe her. But now, since she was trying to hide it, she made it more conspicuous instead, hence Xu Ziling was already in a full-alert mode.
What other trick might she have in her sleeves?