16 Ning Que, the Wood-chopper of Shubi Lake (2/2)
Looking at Ning Que's immature face, the bodyguard captain, suppressing his shock, asked in a husky voice, ”Lad, I'm very curious, where did you learn the ability to kill others?”
Scratching his head and keeping silent for a while, Ning Que replied with a smile, ”The ability to kill others, certainly, is learned from killing.”
Of course, he couldn't tell the leader that he had already known the name of Xia Hou since he was four. And that, all the time, he had been making some preparations to kill, or be killed by, Xia Hou.
Xia Hou, a powerful Tang general, had no idea that there was a lad, in a distant town of the frontier fortress, assiduously practicing fighting skills, analyzing the battling styles of all the mighty subordinates of Xia Hou, and summarizing countless countermeasures every day.
Therefore, for Ning Que, the death of the three assassins in black was just an inevitable result of his painstaking practice that he did for over a decade. If the enemies were not Xia Hou's subordinates, for example, the bodyguard captain in front of him, he couldn't have achieved such a satisfactory victory.
In today's battle at the entry to the Northern Mountain Road, Ning Que, after all these years, finally met with the subordinates of General Xia Hou for the first time. Maybe it was just an accident or an arrangement of fate. Anyway, Ning Que's podao and archery, full of vengeance, had begun to show cold-bloodedness.
The bodyguard captain, pressing his wounded chest, looked with confusion at the fearless lad and mumbled, ”You're only about sixteen years old, is it possible that you have killed more people than I have?”
”If you count animals, then I really have killed a lot,” Ning Que replied, smiling.
”I'm referring to human beings,” the bodyguard captain asked with emphasis, and then he explained at once, ”I'm not interrogating you, and it's just out of curiosity.”
Ning Que, rubbing his face and looking at the leader, after a short silence said, ”The major income source in the border towns is from killing the Horse Gang—usually we called this activity 'chopping wood'. During the past few years, it was I who led others to kill the Horse Gang in the City of Wei. Thus, regarding killing people, I did slay a lot.”
A grassland barbarian, who was standing behind the bodyguard captain and also wanted to know about Ning Que and to express his thanks, turned around and left without a word after hearing Ning Que's answer. His steps were a little hurried with his shoulders trembling.
A grassland companion asked with confusion, ”Dumu, what's the matter with you?”
Dumu slumped down beside the bonfire, lifted up his wounded arm with difficulty and, slapping his numb cheek out of fear, said, ”That lad... should be the well-known wood-chopper from Shubi Lake.”
This statement caused four grassland barbarians around the bonfire to acutely change their expressions. Nobody talked anymore. Someone sneaked a look at Ning Que and then quickly lowered his head, as he was afraid to be discovered by the lad.
Before being subdued by Her Princess, the barbarians were Horse Gang members in the grassland, famous for their violence and toughness. However, for them, the Tang's mighty military border forces were the real Horse Gang. In every change of season, when the logistics supply was short, the Tang cavalries in towns of the frontier fortress would conduct an extra wealth-gaining looting operation on the grassland Horse Gang.
The border forces of Tang Empire called it wood-collecting. The Horse Gang described the bloody battle as wood-chopping, and they referred to the most ferocious cavalry leaders as wood-choppers. In particular, the wood-chopper of Shubi Lake... was the number one of all the wood-choppers. That was the reason why the color of Shubi Lake turned red. He was the nightmare of the grassland Horse Gang and he was the horror story told beside the bonfire.
But before tonight, however, they had never thought that the wood-chopper of the Shubi Lake was so young.
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