Chapter 52 (1/2)
The crowd now circled around Lin Xiao and Meng Chen, giving them more space to move while also spectating the upcoming sparring match. Not long after, a guard handed him and Meng Chen a wooden sword. Lin Xiao received it and swung it several times to measure its weight and to have a feel on how the wooden sword will cut through the wind.
Meng Chen watched Lin Xiao’s action and could not help the smirk that formed on his face. “If you want, I can let you have some time to get used to it. I know that a young master like you probably haven’t even—”
“No need. Let us start, ba. Or is it that you need more time to get ready to have your pride trampled down to the ground?” Lin Xiao didn’t let Meng Chen finish his sentence and even shot a question to the other, questioning the other’s confidence.
“You!”
“Again with ‘you’. I believe that you seriously need to brush up on your vocabulary, ah! Don’t you know that in battle, no matter how strong you are, it’s useless if you only fight blindly,” Lin Xiao said as he pointed the tip of the wooden sword towards Meng Chen. “Come at me now. I’ll be sure to teach you a lesson so that in the future, you’ll learn to shut your mouth when you need to.”
“Y–!” Meng Chen was about to say ‘you’ again when he caught himself and bit back the word. In his anger, he quickly brandished the wooden sword and rushed forward, trying to get the first strike on Lin Xiao.
Unfortunately for him, this was all part of Lin Xiao’s plan. A riled-up opponent is always easy to deal with compared to the calm and collected one. Lin Xiao raised the wooden sword in his hand to meet with Meng Chen’s diagonal slash. He then slightly shifted the wooden sword, guiding the other’s sword away from him before he shot his leg out and trip the other to the ground.
With Meng Chen on the ground, General Bing lets out a roar of laughter. “Meng Chen, did you underestimate your opponent? Only people without eyes would do what you did before. Be careful, your General Bai is also here to spectate! If you make him lose face, who knows what punishment awaits you, ah!”
Bai Chenyi who heard what General Bing had said just raised an eyebrow as he glanced at the tough-looking general. Although Meng Chen is indeed one of his men, he did not know what the correlation between Meng Chen losing and him losing face was. If Meng Chen loses, the one losing face would be Meng Chen alone. It should not affect him even in the slightest.
‘Of course, if Meng Chen lose, it means his training is not enough. Maybe I should prepare another training manual for him to follow… now that I won’t be around His Majesty, Meng Chen should at least be capable to protect His Majesty,’ Bai Chenyi thought to himself.
“Also, there are some officials who have stopped to watch you two fight. If you lose in front of these officials, words will spread and when that happens, let alone getting married, they won’t even let their daughters come near you again!” General Bing continued jokingly as he added more oil to the fire.
Hearing this, Meng Chen’s face turned ugly and he quickly got up to face Lin Xiao once more. Gritting his teeth, he made his second move, in which, Lin Xiao only had to move his body slightly to avoid the attack. A light swing from Lin Xiao’s hand and the wooden sword found its mark, hitting Meng Chen on his backside.
“If this were a real sword, you would either die or become heavily injured. If this is the strength of the guards in the Imperial Palace, I worry for His Majesty’s safety, ah!” Lin Xiao said in a mocking tone. “This level of strength is exactly just like a mountain bandit.”
“If you’re that great, how about we fight with a real blade then?!” Meng Chen roared out in anger, to which Lin Xiao only shook his head.
“My apologies. But I do not think that you are worthy of it,” replied Lin Xiao with a smile on his face. “This sword is being lent to me by Shizun. It is worth more than you can think of to me,” Lin Xiao added as he swings the wooden sword to parry another of Meng Chen’s attack.
While the two continued to spar, a shadow guard of the Emperor that was sent to look after Lin Xiao had rushed back to the Emperor’s side to report on what had just happened. Qin Yijun had been working on his memorials when he heard that Lin Xiao is currently having sparring match with Meng Chen.
“Bai Chenyi is letting this happen?” Qin Yijun asked.
“Yes, Your Majesty. It seems that General Bai is also curious about Lin Xiao’s strength,” the shadow guard replied.