In this marsh, grabbing a handful of soil could coat your hands with mud; if someone lived here too long, they would catch rheumatism.
As a natural formation, it was least afraid of fire attacks, because fire simply couldn’t ignite; even if forced to catch fire, it would only produce thick smoke and extinguish in no time. Unless a dozen barrels of fire oil from the Western Regions were brought in and poured along the river, the oil, being very light, could float on the water’s surface.
However, that fire oil from the Western Regions was black and foul-smelling, and one could smell it from a distance; there hadn’t been a hint of it in the wind before.
Ayanpuka said sharply, “No shouting or running around, Feircha, you go check.”
A young man responded and immediately leaped out of the window.
The river path deep in the marsh was narrow; when the escaped civilians built houses on the slightly elevated sandbanks, they also dug soil elsewhere to slightly raise the riverbanks, and found relatively flat stones to create steps by the water, allowing three sculling boats to dock.
Now the boats had vanished without a trace; one of them had already been found, lying in a flower field and emitting flames.
The boat’s hull had been broken into four sections, and at the broken points, flames were roaring.
There was a wooden shelter in the flower field, built to block the rain; now the frame of the wooden shed was also ablaze, flames licking along the wooden slats. The ground was scattered with chunks of black, smoking charcoal, which had originally been good charcoal for winter warmth. The Xiliang people had gone to great lengths to smuggle it in, adding it to the furnace during autumn and winter to prevent opium from freezing to death. As a result, all this charcoal had been thrown out and was now ignited; if not for the wet soil and wild grass, this place would have turned into a sea of fire.
The young man named Feircha was so angry that his eyes turned red; he shouted and kicked apart the burning wooden shed.
The fire was small, yet the smoke was thick.
“Who set the fire?” Feircha asked, grabbing a Xiliang man who was busy trying to put it out.
“I didn’t see; it was so dark, I only rushed over when the flames flared up.”
The Xiliang man was both surprised and angry, exclaiming, “Could it be those slaves causing trouble?”
Feircha slapped him and shouted, “They can’t even fill their bellies; how could they have the energy to set a fire? Where are the guards for the flower field?”
Feircha was highly skilled in martial arts and was a leader among the younger generation. Although the Xiliang man he slapped also came from an influential family of the Eight Major Clans, who didn’t have distinguished ancestors here? Even several royal descendants had mingled among Han commoners, squatting in this damp and cold place where the chill could penetrate to the bones.
Feircha had large fists, and most people feared him.
“If it’s not the slaves, then it must be an outside enemy?” The slapped man, feeling wronged, picked up a bucket and went to save the fire.
In fact, the Xiliang people here didn’t know much about opium’s origins; they only heard Ayanpuka say it was a disturbing magical item from the Six Desires Peak’s holy medicine, which could be fine if only smelled, but once refined into a pill, those untrained in cultivation would be enchanted by the demon, falling into the Avici hell.
The Xiliang people believed in gods and Buddhas and had witnessed the tragic deaths during Ayanpuka’s drug testing, which made some fear opium, while others crazily idolized these red flowers, revering them like the Sri Lankan palm leaf scriptures or the magical implements brought by merchants from India.
This was not a worldly item!
Furthermore, as the “Zanpu” leader, Ayanpuka cherished and valued opium greatly. There had been slaves who accidentally broke flower branches while watering and lost their lives immediately. Now that the flower field was a wreck, with one unknown wooden boat tossed in, people felt fear amidst their anger, fearing Ayanpuka’s wrath, so they hurriedly tried to extinguish the fire, hoping for minimal losses.
But upon entering the flower field, they found that most of the plants were toppled, and flowers had been violently torn off, scattered in the soil.
Feircha’s vision darkened.
“Ah—” A Xiliang man screamed, even daring not to step forward.
From a distance, chaotic shouts echoed, and water was also leaking from the granary.
The granary was not on the same piece of land as the flower field; one had to take a boat and navigate three bends to see it, and they could only see distant flames lighting up.
This was absolutely not a commotion that slaves could stir up.
Feircha’s expression changed abruptly; he took a step back and quietly hid into the shadows.
—Because he was young, capable, and highly skilled, Feircha often went out, bringing back some people from the martial world to test drugs, while also “supplementing” the assassination at Piaoping Pavilion, he had heard rumors related to Meng Qi and knew that the legendary top expert, Ancestor Qingwu, had possibly perished at the hands of Master Meng.
He was not stupid; not even the high monks of the Mojie Temple could stop a Meng Qi. What was he?
Feircha cautiously dodged while running towards the room where the discussion had just taken place. Only Ayanpuka, who had mastered the highest martial arts of the Mojie Temple, could possibly defeat the renowned Master Meng.
“Zanpu, Meng—”
Just as he was about to step over the threshold, his urgent words had barely begun when he felt a strong wind rushing from behind, followed by an immense force that yanked him up onto the rooftop.
He struggled desperately, and those who rushed out only saw Feircha kicking his legs and the distorted syllable of “Meng” escaping his lips.
“Whoosh.”
Several roof tiles fell, and Feircha disappeared without a trace.
It was Meng Qi!
Meng Qi had come!
The white-haired Xiliang elder inside the house rolled his eyes and fainted.
“Stay calm, retreat along the river path.” Ayanpuka had to stabilize the crowd, speaking in a deep voice, “I’ll hold them back.”
The crowd felt as if they had been granted amnesty; in their panic, they grabbed their weapons, and instead of going through the door, they all jumped out of the windows.
Ayanpuka didn’t even glance at the fainted elder on the ground; he walked step by step towards the door, sneering as he spoke, “Why did Master Meng come silently? Our humble abode may lack fine wines and good tea to entertain you. I wonder if you have visited the Yin family’s winery by the Zhaoxi River at Feihe Mountain; their peach blossom wine has the flavor of the old capital of Chu.”
His voice infused with internal energy could be heard clearly within a radius of three miles.
The face of the Xiliang man who was trying to extinguish the fire changed drastically, and he ran directly towards the dock.
The so-called dock was merely a small river cove for docking boats. Between every house, there were stone slabs; some were sculling boats, others were small sampans, adding up to more than a dozen in total. However, when they got there, they found that neither the large nor small boats could be used.
They had been destroyed, broken into several pieces, and half-sunk in the water.
“…Let’s fight!”
The Xiliang people were inherently fierce; when they saw they couldn’t escape, the few who had jumped into the river to flee were a minority. Gritting their teeth, they turned back to search with their knives.
They thought that Meng Qi must not have come alone; perhaps there were remnants of the Chu army or people from the Fengxing Pavilion following him. As long as Ayanpuka confronted Meng Qi, they disregarded everyone else.
The fire gradually diminished, but the smoke grew thicker.
Because of the dense foliage covering it, this place, already dark at night, was now filled with a chaotic clamor, making it impossible to distinguish how many intruders there were.
They began shouting loudly in the language of Xiliang to avoid friendly fire.
At that moment, a loud crash echoed, and the roof of the house in the center of the sandbank collapsed, a figure shooting straight out.
It was Ayanpuka, who pretended to walk toward the door but suddenly unleashed his power halfway, breaking through the roof with a strike infused with all his strength.
However, Meng Qi was not nearby; this strike shattered a big locust tree that two people could barely embrace, its branches crashing down toward the rooftop.
Ayanpuka dodged to the side, stepping onto the tree trunk to gain a vantage point to look around for the enemy’s whereabouts. Just as he made a move, a gust of wind rustled past his ear, resembling a fierce wind sweeping through the forest or a giant creature flapping its wings. Ayanpuka turned abruptly to see a large black shadow brush against the branches and disappear into the smoke, its posture resembling that of a mountain eagle or similar bird.
“No—no way!”
Ayanpuka momentarily lost his focus and quickly realized it couldn’t be the familiar hawk he knew.
Such large eagles could only be found on the snowy mountains of the grasslands; although Feihe Mountain had many birds, their sizes were vastly different.
Ayanpuka quickly came to his senses, but in that brief moment of distraction, it was already too late.
The cold blade silently stabbed into his back. If Ayanpuka’s martial arts hadn’t been so advanced that he could clamp the blade with his muscles, this strike would have left him completely incapacitated, a man unable to stand.
Even so, the injury was still incredibly dangerous, as the blade was still embedded in his flesh, and the person wielding it was no easy opponent.
Ayanpuka couldn’t turn around, nor could he exert force freely. He even had to use the force of the sword to propel himself forward.
One fled, and the other pursued.
The sword did not advance another inch, and Ayanpuka couldn’t escape either.
He could only muster his inner energy, even at the cost of injuring his own meridians, forcing Meng Qi’s sword out with a powerful shock.
Having narrowly escaped death, Ayanpuka had no time to channel energy for healing. Blood trickled from his lips as he unbuckled his weapon from his belt.
Meng Qi would not give him a chance to catch his breath. With a sweep of his sword, he launched a seamless and airtight attack, like a heaven and earth net.
Ayanpuka countered each move, fury boiling within him. The wound on his back burned painfully, and he couldn’t help but mock, “I never expected that the Great Master Meng would resort to a cowardly attack from behind.”
Meng Qi raised an eyebrow at this, casually replying, “Neither of us are men of the martial world. Why would I follow its rules and refrain from striking from behind?”
Scheming and rebellion, or leading troops in battle—why would it be laughable to not allow sneak attacks?
“You—”
Ayanpuka hesitated. He wanted to ask about the shadow resembling a falcon from before.
Could it be that Meng Qi already knew his background? Otherwise, why send someone disguised as a falcon to unsettle his mind?
The Taijing dragon vein—could Meng Qi possibly recognize the Anahduo Mountain dragon vein?
Impossible, the falcon had said it had never even seen the Taijing dragon vein, nor had it assumed its true form anywhere near Taijing!
“Surprised?” Meng Qi asked leisurely.
The faster they fought, the more their weapons blurred into afterimages, with Meng Qi’s Zhongqing sword and Ayanpuka’s bloodbone mace creating streaks of purple and red, leaving the battlefield in utter ruin. Trees bore deep gashes from the force of their strikes, and the earth sunk beneath their feet as the river churned violently.
“Zanpu, kill him!”
A loud shout came from the Xiliang people, followed by an overwhelming chorus of support.
They hadn’t seen Ayanpuka’s injury. Everything had happened too fast for their eyes to catch.
With shadows of trees swaying and thick smoke filling the air, these people seemed to have forgotten where they stood. They longed for this place to be the bustling capital of Xiashou, the former glory of the Xiliang Kingdom decades ago.
In the grand and magnificent temple, countless monks formed into battle lines with their staffs, led by a figure draped in dazzling garments, dressed as a royal descendant. He looked like the offspring of the gods described in the scriptures of the Mojie Temple, about to fight the arrogant and brazen imperial master of the Chu Dynasty who had come from afar.
Author’s Note:
↑
Fat Mouse: ?? You guys are really getting into this.
————
There’s a large roll of fabric in the storeroom. Mo Li thought for a moment and draped it on, ready to test Ayanpuka’s reaction.
Sand Mouse was delighted and even gave a thumbs up.
Sand Mouse: The doctor wouldn’t hurt someone from behind, so I’ll take care of this small matter for you.
