781 Pinch the Sword (2/2)
”Take them alive!” someone shouted.
”Take them alive!” another one shouted back.
The tangled fighting continued, but most of the people were moving towards the back of the inn.
The owner, waiters and prostitutes had all seen fights before, but none of those fights had been as widespread as this one. There were figures flying everywhere and there seemed to be hundreds of them. The ones who had quick reflexes immediately returned to their rooms and hid behind their bed, while those with slower reflexes were killed before they could identify the fighters.
Old Man Mu was extremely excited. He wielded his sword freely and chipped one of the table corners. The table and the chair both fell over simultaneously, along with the gold, but he didn't care about the gold at all. He yelled at Dog Butcher, ”What did I say? The kung fu experts were just hiding. Dog Butcher, this time you call the shots. Do we kill them or not?”
Dog Butcher was no less panicked than the waiters of the inn. He had set the bait and lain in wait for half of the night, disappointed, but in the end, unexpectedly, a big fish he never could have imagined took the bait. He leaped beside Old Man Mu in a single step, and whipped out the saber he had just bought. ”They said 'take them alive.' Do you think that they were referring to us?”
”Mostly you. People with sharp eyes could tell in a single glance that I was just bait because I appeared in public; you, the one that was stealthily hiding are the true mastermind behind this. So it's your call. If you decide to kill, then we can start right way and have some serious fun, and you can explain it to the Dragon King afterwards. If you decide not to kill, we'll surrender, lure the snake out of the hole, and find out who the big boss is.”
More and more people were jumping into the courtyard. Some of them were fighting in pairs, and some others were fighting in groups of four or five. Yet all of them were solidly surrounding the two old men.
Dog Butcher felt it too difficult to make a decision, and the stress caused the color of his face to alternate between red and white, ”Old Man Mu, how about you… eek, this guy's using the Kunlun Sect's swordsmanship, and that guy's using the Taishan Sect's swordsmanship – there really are people from the Central Plains here!”
Their tactic had worked. Dog Butcher became delighted, and in a loud voice he yelled out, ”I'm Dog Butcher from the Kongtong Sect. Everybody please listen to me…”
Two sabers and one sword stabbed at him simultaneously. Dog Butcher wielded his saber and defended himself and then resumed talking in a urgent tone. ”I'm also from the Central Plains. We can talk about this…”
”Or we can let our sabers talk,” Old Man Mu interjected as he finished Dog Butcher's sentence for him. He wielded his sword and started attacking the other two. During their fight, he spared a glance at Dog Butcher. ”Moron, what did I tell you? Use deadly blows from the onset, use your unique skill without hesitation! What are you waiting for?”
At this moment, the two who were originally fighting each other both turned to attack Old Man Mu. Their attacks were ferocious, indicating that they were clearly not normal sabermen. Old Man Mu concentrated on the fight and even stopped talking – a rare sight.
Dog Butcher kept defending and retreating for six or seven consecutive moves only to find that the opponent really didn't seem to treat him as a compatriot and that there were no signs of mercy in the opponent's attacks, so he made up his mind and yelled, ”I'm going to make some violent moves.”
But Dog Butcher didn't have any chance to ”make some violent moves.” Hardly had he finished speaking his last word that a resonant voice came out from the rooftop of one of the inn's rooms in its eastern part. ”All sects of the Central Plains, retreat!”
And then, another voice came from the rooftop opposite, ”Tianshan Sect, stop!”
Standing outside of the wall, Gu Shenwei was very surprised. The Tianshan Sect was a secret organization consisting of the blacksmiths and wandering sabermen of Jade City, and it was an enemy of the Golden Roc Castle as well as a former ally of the Dragon King's – his former subordinate Lin Xiaoshan was from the Tianshan Sect.
Gu Shenwei clearly recalled that there were no remarkable kung fu experts in the Tianshan Sect. Yet judging from the fighting he had seen, the two sides were equally-matched -the Tianshan Sect was, surprisingly, powerful enough to compete with a famous sect of the Central Plains.
The two people who had issued the orders were obviously of high status. The two sides of the entangled battle soon separated and started retreating eastwards and westwards.
Only two people were unable to follow the order – they were struck in a fight with Old Man Mu.
Old Man Mu was enjoying the fight. His swordsmanship was very special. Although his moves were unorthodox and erratic as if he were a rookie who had just started practicing the sword several days ago, his moves were very effective and Old Man Mu was solidly blocking his two opponents' escape route. He gradually gained the upper hand and even managed to have enough space to talk. ”Interesting, interesting.”
Dog Butcher tried to persuade him by saying, ”Stop, Old Man Mu. The people from the Central Plains have come. Let's talk to them.”
Old Man Mu didn't want to stop at all, and he said in a seemingly surprised tone, ”It's not me who doesn't want to stop. You see? It's them.”
The two were indeed fighting with their full strength. Every time one of them tried to speak out, Old Man Mu would immediately stab at their vitals and forced them into defending. Thus the two had no chance to speak and it seemed as if they were tacitly agreeing to Old Man Mu's accusation against them.
Two men simultaneously jumped down from the east and west rooftop respectively. Dog Butcher turned his head and gave a glance. On the west side, there was a tough man. He was not tall but had wide shoulders and a strong back, his physique reminiscent of a solidly filled sandbag, with a single saber fastened to his waist. On the east side, there was a middle-aged man about forty years old. He was dressed in white, and even his sword sheath was white. He looked handsome and graceful, like a noble young master from some prestigious family.
Dog Butcher didn't recognize the tough man, yet he had certain impression of the man in white, and called out, ”Aren't you the Luo Village…”
The man in white smiled and joined the fight, and the tough man opposite him also rushed into the fight as if they had made some sort of prior agreement. The two freed their own men from the fight.
Old Man Mu had lost his targets and was furious. He wielded his sword and started attacking the two newcomers at the same time, without even thinking about whether their kung fu skills were better than his.
The tough man didn't back off and instead advanced. Without even unsheathing his saber, he thrust a palm attack at Old Man Mu, who felt the resulting piercing wind even when the palm was still four or five feet away. Old Man Mu was startled and forced into a hurried retreat. He changed the direction of his sword and stabbed at the man in white.
The man in white didn't use his weapon either. He raised his right hand and pinched the tip of the sword with three fingers before calmly asking, ”Will you stop now?”
Old Man Mu was even more startled by this. He pulled on his sword harder and harder, but the sword refused to move at all, so he abandoned the sword, quipping, ”Take it.” Then he backed off by three steps, only to find that the sword was still in his hand, and that the man in white had already lowered his hands and was smiling at him.
This was the first time that Old Man Mu had wanted something to say, but couldn't find the words for it; it was also the first time that he had felt that he would be no match for the man before him even if he were at full power.
The entangled battle stopped. And it was at this moment that Gu Shenwei spotted a familiar figure – one-handed, with a narrow saber. The ephemeral figure appeared for a brief instant and then quickly vanished. They had once chased each other in the ruins for a whole day and a whole night. Towards Wild Horse, Gu Shenwei had an almost instinctive reaction and he instantly recognized a suspicious movement: Wild Horse was protecting someone, and he wasn't alone.
There was only one person who could order Wild Horse to be a bodyguard, but Gu Shenwei had never found any signs of her presence. Soon, the sound of another entangled fight came from the courtyard.