It had been dozens of years since Shangguan Fei started practicing kung fu at the age of five, but he had never understood the profundity of it.
To him, kung fu was filled with danger, and no matter how skilled one was in it, one could still be killed by someone weaker or even untrained in kung fu due to a moment’s carelessness.
He wished that there was a type of kung fu in this world that would allow its practitioner to stop practicing upon mastery. Whether being attacked directly or facing a sneak attack, it would help its practitioner to react immediately, even when he or she was asleep.
It was a pity that there was no such type of kung fu that could accomplish that; the more powerful the kung fu, the more it needed its practitioner to be on all alert.
The manuals given to the killers of the Stone Castle were nearly all similar, but the disparity between the killers themselves became increasingly evident with time. What separated them was not kung fu but their level of vigilance.
Killers had to spend a large portion of their lives at different levels of vigilance and rarely slept soundly. Also, almost all of them had the habit of being afraid of being attacked from behind and would subconsciously turn their heads around frequently, even under broad daylight.
It was this fact that made Shangguan Fei lose all interest in kung fu. His Master Shifu had forced him to learn boxing, palm and machete techniques, while his mother had insisted on him learning Wayless Qigong. As for the ‘three-in-one qigong’, he practiced it after suffering much torment from the fingers of Maid Lotus.
Therefore when he decided to proactively engage his opponent for the first time in his life, the first thought that came to his mind was what type of kung fu he should use.
He was not carrying a saber, so there was no way for him to use one. He knew a few fist and palm techniques, but he did not seem to recall any that would enable him to block a saber attack.
Long Fanyun leaped forth to engage the killer clad in black, and the other two assailants, who were obviously killers dressed as soldiers, launched a sneak attack toward his back. At this decisive moment, Shangguan Fei was hesitating on what move to make.
There was no kung fu in the world that would lead its practitioner to engage his or her opponent automatically, but constant practice would allow him or her to react instinctively. Shangguan Fei had not made his decision but his limbs began to move on their own accord.
He sidestepped the attacks and struck at one of the assailants with his fist.
He managed to block one of them, but there was still another killer. It was, however, the most he could do at the moment.
Shangguan Fei did not know if his opponent was too weak or his kung fu was better than he thought; he could not help but feel surprised and elated when his fist connected.
To retreat immediately after striking and not be entangled with the opponent was one of the core principles of kung fu from the Golden Roc Fort. Shangguan Fei managed to recall and execute it, but in the wrong direction.
As such, he directly leaped into the other assailant. To observers, he was preparing to strike again.
The reaction of the second assailant was extremely quick and he immediately changed his target from Long Fanyun to Shangguan Fei.
Shangguan Fei was stunned. He seemed to be cornered by the harsh glare of his opponent’s saber in all directions and there was no way for him to escape.
Long Fanyun saved his life.
As the chief of Canopy Peak and the Dragon King’s captain of the guards, he was always very vigilant and especially so after drawing his weapon. He had already noticed the two assailants attempting a sneak attack, but he did not expect Shangguan Fei to engage them on his own volition.
After exchanging a blow with the killer clad in black, Long Fanyun retreated along with his momentum and gave the second assailant a backhand slash. It was so accurate that it made him seem as though he had eyes growing on the back of his head. It forced his opponent to give up attacking Shangguan Fei.
He then moved forward again to do battle with the assassin in black.
Long Fanyun could be considered as one of the most skilled swordsmen of the Great Snowmountain and he had received considerable insight all this while by following the Dragon King. As such, he was even more familiar with the saber techniques of the killers from the Golden Roc Fort than before.
He did not have many scimitar moves, but he attacked his opponents from different angles with amazing speed and ferocity.
The three killers were cut down within 10 moves. What was perplexing to Long Fanyun was that the first to fall was one of the sneak attackers. After being hit by Shangguan Fei’s fist, he did not get up.
The three killers made a fatal mistake of assuming that simple coordination would enable them to kill the swordsman from the Great Snowmountain. It cost them their lives.
Shangguan Fei had only made one move. He spent the rest of the battle making various poses and looking for another opponent to engage with, but in reality, he was drawing further away from the fight. He had exhausted his reserves of bravery and did not wish to engage in risky behavior again.
There were still dozens of soldiers surrounding them, and in theory, if they all came at once, they stood a very high chance of winning, but they were all machetemen and they were more concerned about the fact that Long Fanyun was more skilled than expected and that they would suffer many casualties even if they managed to win.
The precious lives of machetemen were meant to enjoy the pleasures of drink and women. As such, not only did none of them come forward, instead, all of them turned their horses around and fled, not even wishing to collect the assassins’ dead bodies.
“Without a killer to supervise them, machetemen are weaker than even an ordinary mob,” lamented Shangguan Fei. He had noticed this fact back when he and Shangguan Ru, his sister, were fighting for dominance over South City. As such, he was not surprised at the performance of his opponents today.
Long Fanyun had wanted to kill all of them to keep their presence a secret, but after consideration, he felt that he did not have the ability to kill dozens of fleeing machetemen by himself and thus only ran over to rein in the two horses left by the dead killers.
“You’re hurt,” reminded Long Fanyun after he came back.
Shangguan Fei had not felt any pain up till now. He lowered his head to observe his own body, finally noticing fresh blood coming from the left side of his abdomen.
“I really am,” replied Shangguan Fei, trying to be nonchalant; he even reached out to touch his wound. The next moment, however, he saw the blood stains on his palm and could not pretend any longer. He sat down, feeling weak at the knees. He began to feel the fiery pain from his wound now.
Long Fanyun looked suspiciously at Shangguan Fei. Where he came from, one did not feel afraid even when sustaining more serious wounds; to him, Shangguan Fei’s reaction was akin to acting.
It was only until when he saw that the face of Shangguan Fei began to turn pale, as if he could faint at any instant, that he walked over to observe the wound. “It’s just a flesh wound, you’ll live,” he said. After which, he quickly bandaged up the young man’s wound.
“I won’t die?”
“You won’t die even from an injury 10 times more serious than this.”
“Then… will it leave a scar?”
The little bit of good impression that Long Fanyun had on Shangguan Fei was now dissipating. “All practitioners of martial arts have scars on their bodies. Look at the Dragon King, he’s covered with them.”
“I, I’ve never seen the entire body of the Dragon King before. Have you?”
Long Fanyun’s expression turned grim and he raised his scimitar. “Watch your mouth or else I’ll leave a few more scars on your body.”
Shangguan Fei immediately followed the swordsman’s instructions and kept his mouth tightly shut. After standing up and taking two steps, however, he could not control himself again. “Elder Fan, your bandaging technique is really not too bad. I don’t feel pain anywhere now. Tsk, tsk, I wouldn’t have thought that a big, strapping man such as yourself will have such nimble fingers.”
Long Fanyun could not be bothered with his nonsense and lowered his head to observe one of the corpses. “How did you kill him?” he asked.
The deceased was a killer, and even if his kung fu was mediocre, he was no ordinary person. It was unimaginable for him to have been killed by only one blow from Shangguan Fei’s fist. The fact that Long Fanyun could quickly finish off the other two killers and scare off the other soldiers was connected with the shock that their opponents had felt.
“I… don’t know. Did I really kill him?” replied Shangguan Fei as he came over for a look too. He could not believe that this was someone killed by him. “Who knows, his old illness could have acted up…”
Long Fanyun looked at Shangguan Fei harshly. Compared to timidity in the face of battle, the swordsmen of the Great Snowmountain were even more intolerant of someone lying to their face.
That said, there was indeed something weird about this particular corpse. There were no visible wounds on it and its bones were all intact. It really looked as if the killer died from a sudden onset of illness.
Long Fanyun found it hard to believe that there could be something so coincidental in this world, but he did not get to the bottom of the matter. No matter how skilled Shangguan Fei’s kung fu was, he was a coward who would panic during a fight. He would need the swordsman’s protection if he wanted to survive the mission.
Now that they had horses, Shangguan Fei was finally free from the torment of walking. Very quickly, he forgot about his wound and turned to praise Long Fanyun, “Elder Fan, you’re really something. Even the nameless knockout powder from the Golden Roc Fort can’t trouble you.”
Even though the assassin in black was careless, he had not come unprepared. After his sixth move, he unleashed the knockout powder, but it did not have any effect on his opponent and instead exposed his flaw and caused him to be cut down by Long Fanyun’s scimitar.
Shangguan Fei was extremely familiar with the knockout powder of his family and had spotted the assassin’s trick with one glance.
“Right,” replied Long Fanyun. He did not wish to explain further—it was a secret the Dragon King had taught him.
“But, it’s strange. The machetemen and killers did not recognize me but you. It seems that I’ve really been overlooked. Sigh, I wish I could’ve been completely overlooked. That way, I wouldn’t have to worry about being assassinated again.”
Shangguan Fei kept harping about the issue for half of the entire day, and Long Fanyun had no choice but to explain. “I guess that the soldier probably came from the Great Snowmountain army before defecting to the Golden Roc Fort, and therefore he recognized me.”
When the Great Snowmountain army had dominated the western border of Jade City, some machetemen had volunteered to join it and quite a number of them had fled afterwards when things had gone bad for the Great Snowmountain. Because of this fact, Long Fanyun came up with his theory.
Shangguan Fei clapped his hands together, giving an expression of great alarm over nothing. “Right, Long… Elder Fan, you’re too smart. You’ve both brains and brawn, it’s my luck to have you along with me for this mission. I bet the Dragon King can’t bear for you to…”
Long Fanyun secretly swore that he would not speak a single word for the remainder of their journey.
It was a promise that was hard to keep. After travelling for a short while, Shangguan Fei gave him a question that he had to consider and reply. “I’ve thought about something. Elder Fan, our identities have been exposed. Should we continue to fight our way to our destination, or do we come up with a way to go around them?”
Long Fanyun thought about it carefully, After all, the Dragon King had sent them to the north coast of the Xiaoyao Lake not to kill but to deliver a message. Long Fanyun could not think of any other solution and could only reply, “You decide.”
“I decide? After thinking again, let’s disguise ourselves.”
Long Fanyun had a feeling that Shangguan Fei had already came up with a solution, but was waiting to share it now.
That said, disguising themselves was a workable plan.
Shangguan Fei was the one who set up their disguises. It was one of the basic trainings that he had received since a young age in the Stone Castle, and compared to kung fu, it was something he was better at. He had even carried the materials needed along with him.
Long Fanyun was willing to go through tribulations but did not agree to Shangguan Fei touching him.
Shangguan Fei did not insist and worked on his own make up. Before 15 minutes were over, he had already turned into a frowning elderly man and Long Fanyun still found it hard to believe his eyes even after staring at him while he did it. That said, the swordsman eventually agreed to be assisted by Shangguan Fei.
That evening, two travel-worn elderly men entered the capital of the Hui Kingdom and snuck into the crowd of fleeing citizens. For the moment, no one took notice of them.
Far behind them, a blademaster hurried over to the assassin, who died from taking one fist of Shangguan Fei, to check out the situation. It turned out that the death of the assassin had not only aroused the suspicion of Long Fanyun, but also made the blademaster very surprised.
The blademaster had a duty to get to the bottom of things and thus drew his saber and started dissecting the corpse slowly.
About eight killers and dozens of soldiers stood around him. The killers were indifferent to the scene but the soldiers could not stand it and turned their heads away. Very quickly, their curiosity made them look again, and they could not turn their gaze away again.
The corpse looked perfectly fine from the outside but was a mess inside. The assassin’s organs were all shattered and the blademaster could not seem to fine one that was still perfectly intact.
“An expert. It’s no wonder Long Fanyun dares to venture into the north coast of the Xiaoyao Lake alone. He has a true peerless ace with him.”
Amongst the soldiers were a few of those that had fled from the very scene, and they were stunned speechless upon hearing the Blademaster’s diagnosis. How could the youth, who was panicking and ducking everywhere after only making one punch, be a peerless ace?