Nightfall

They had seen their brave subordinates knocked away by the middle-aged man, who, gently waving his sleeves, was coming closer and closer. And despite the romantic night, Lord Meng, Jun Jie, and The Old Cat, who were bosses controlling Southern City and Western City, began to tremble slightly and could not suppress their strong desires to retreat.

However, thinking of the true noble standing behind them and those two aces back in the government, they clenched their teeth, emitting the most severely fierce roar. “Everyone charge together and surround and kill him! Throw the axes!”

The severe roar resounded throughout the streets and alleys of Spring Breeze Pavilion. Quite strangely, after hearing the words “surround and kill him”, those in the crowd, who had used their remaining courage to carry knives and roar to charge forward, dispersed from Ning Que and Chao Xiaoshu at their fastest speed. With the crowd in front spreading out, there were two rows of strong men appearing. They had coarse cloth belts tied to their waists and four small axes inside each cloth belt, and carried two small axes in their hands and were ready to throw them!

Because warrior spirit was promoted among the Tang and a brave atmosphere flowed in the courts and rural areas, carrying official swords was not prohibited in the capital, Chang’an. Even for weapons like the podao, long hilt broadswords, the government wouldn’t bother one as long as he didn’t show them off in the middle of busy areas and streets. However, as for bows and arrows that were kind of long-ranged weapons, its supervision was comparatively stricter. Especially for the enormously powerful crossbow arrow; it was even strictly prohibited among common people. As a result of that situation, dozens of flying axes splitting the air had become the terrifying weapons!

On this slaughter-filled, rainy night, Chao Xiaoshu changed his calm expression for the first time. Seeing two rows of flying axes from a distant wall and showing a fearless expression which lacked even vigilance, he just frowned slightly, seemingly feeling a bit troublesome. He shook his head and said, “You know what to do.”

These words were natural for Ning Que, but Ning Que… didn’t know what to do at that moment. If the enemies’ axes came flying out like the rain, he was sure that he himself could flee but he knew that Chao Xiaoshu wouldn’t choose to leave before killing or defeating everyone. Just at that instant, seeing Chao Xiaoshu’s back, he suddenly thought of the battlefield at Northern Mountain Road and Old Lv Qingchen’s words, with a bit of shock flashing in his eyes.

As if hearing the sound of shock in his mind, that lonely cyan-steel sword in Chao Xiaoshu’s hand hummed and vibrated at an extremely high speed, making the rainwater and blood on its body change into bits of powder. It then suddenly disappeared into a gray, blurry, flowing shadow rushing into the rain to fly towards those two rows of flying axes!

Though like a gray, blurry and flowing shadow, it was truly a fast and swift sword with a subtle and smart moving orbit. Where there was the sword passing, there were those chaotically scrambling spring dreams like the pierced rain beads suspending in the night sky. It pierced the outermost layer of the rain beads, thoroughly piercing the inner heart, and then pierced out to go through the outmost layer of one’s skin and his flesh and bone. Finally, it pierced out with falling fingers, which had firmly held onto the axe handles like lotus roots, one by one, with blood spraying from the severed parts!

In front of the wall and among the alleys, there was only a cracking sound of the straight sword’s tip piercing through raindrops and the continuous sound of severing fingers. There were uncountable fingers that had firmly held onto axe handles sprinkling down together with the raindrops. Then the heavy axes followed, falling and smashing onto the ground full of rainwater with a muffled sound, followed by the sound of countless wretched howls!

With the fastest action and reaction, two of them had already thrown the axes from their hands when Spring Breeze Pavilion Old Chao first raised his sword. However, the next moment, that gray, blurry, flowing shadow of the sword had easily swept past their wrists and caused a whirlwind of blood. They unexpectedly threw the axes with their hands at the same time, drawing out a wretched line of blood, and ghastly falling on the nearby floor, which looked exceptionally bloody!

Spring Breeze Pavilion was silent on this rainy night. Standing amidst the rain, Chao Xiaoshu looked around at the hundreds in the Chang’an crowd and heard the miserable howls caused by his own flying sword alternately appearing and disappearing, showing calmness on his face.

With a pale face, Lord Meng of Southern City pointed a trembling finger at Chao Xiaoshu who was standing outside the pavilion and shouted like an insane woman. “Chao Xiaoshu!… Chao Xiaoshu! How can you, Chao Xiaoshu, be… a cultivator? You… you can not be a Great Sword Master!”

…

…

“What kind of person do you need around you?”

“Be quick, strong, and brave enough to kill people with your eyes open, and you can never let anything fall on me.”

Staring at Chao Xiaoshu’s back, Ning Que saw those two slightly trembling hands dangling outside of the indigo robe’s sleeves and couldn’t help but feel a bit stiff. The fact that the thin sword changed into a soundless and gray shadow finally proved what he had guessed and made him finally understand the dialogue inside the shop from before.

At the battle at Northern Mountain Road, that Great Sword Master, who had been expelled from the Academy, had a martial warrior as an escort-servant close to his side. After Lv Qingchen used a scheme to entice and kill that Great Sword Master, he immediately killed that escort-servant. It was precisely because cultivators like Sword Masters and Psyche Masters most feared being approached by killers in battle, just like Spring Breeze Pavilion Old Chao, who had just finally shown his true strength.

Just then, Chao Xiaoshu’s psychic powers and primordial Qi were wholly tied to that blurry, unpredictable flying sword. Though looking powerful, he had already lost all his defensive abilities with no sword in his hand. If someone of the opposing side could break through that flying sword or secretly approached to raid him, he would fall into utmost danger.

In the fierce fights of past years, Chao Xiaoshu had those rumored fierce brothers as escort-servants at his side. But tonight, his brothers had all been locked down in their camps by the government officials. So he needed to find someone, someone he could trust and powerful enough to protect him at close range.

Therefore, he went to Lin 47th Street in the pitter-patter spring rain and entered into that calligraphy shop called the Old Brush Pen Shop, standing on the wet ground outside the threshold and looking at that lad who groaned a sigh and ate noodles. Then he said with a slight smile,

“I’m going to kill.

“I need a man at my side.”

Chao Xiaoshu only knew what Ning Que had done in the past but didn’t know what kind of person he was. It was a gamble, no doubt, to randomly entrust his safety and even his life to Ning Que.

That gamble, or perhaps trust, made Ning Que feel a bit of pressure on his shoulders. He took a deep breath, tightly grasping his right hand around that hilt on his back aiming towards the sky, and slowly pulled out that gleaming podao that was shiny and had no scratches.

…

…

The falling rainwater was quickly stained by the gathered dust on the ground, gradually changing into a stream towards the street sidewalk’s gutter, and then quickly stank of the filthy dirt around. It was precisely the environment that Chang’an’s rats loved the most. A rat with ulcers in its fur used its two filthy black claws to seize a chopped human finger and excitingly continued gnawing, occasionally resting to lick the blood off its fur. The rat had nothing to do with the people being slaughtered, each one above its horizon. It only hoped that the blurry shadow could cut off more fingers and that the rainwater could rush those fingers right in front of it. “I Wish for Haotian Lord’s blessings, for my whole family depends on your bestowments these days.”

With a clapping sound, a lump whizzed over, smashing to land just in front of that rat, splashing the filthy water and blood on the ground. “Did Haotian Lord feel that I was too greedy so as to smash me to death?” The shocked rat quickly ran away, and when it was going back to the rat hole underneath the courtyard wall, it turned, a bit unwillingly, to glance at a finger nearly gnawed to bones, but firmly decided to flip its tail, and ran inside. But if it looked back again and discovered that the lump splashing filthy water and blood was a human’s head, it would definitely regret its decision.

The rat drilled out of its rat hole and it didn’t get a chance to regret it. The moment that the solid Tang military boot had stomped it into pieces, maybe it was regretting that it hadn’t told its company how wonderful human flesh tasted.

A soldier in the elite troop of the Tang slowly pulled back his foot wearing military boots, glancing at the rat’s bloody flesh by his foot. And hearing the voice outside the courtyard walls, he then slowly returned to formation to describe the battle situation outside to a colleague with hand gestures. He later bowed to glance at the crossbow arrow in his hands to verify that the rainwater did not bring problems to the machine’s spring.

Wearing dark rain cloaks, several dozens of elite troops of the Tang silently stood at the rear of the courtyard wall and held crossbow arrows in their hands. Outside the shabby Spring Breeze Pavilion’s wall was the sound of killing all around, shaking the heavens. But no one had discovered them, for these officers kept silent like a group of stone carvings, no slight facial expression change, regardless of wind and rain or a fierce fight.

Behind these elite troops of the Tang, two people were sitting inside a house on wooden floorboards covered by layers of rainwater. One was a middle-aged person with smart brows and eyes, with his whole body covered in a white robe, and beside his body was a calmly placed, somewhat small sword on the wooden floor. Another person wore a bamboo rain hat to cover his face, but he must have been a sadhu judging from the monk robe he was wearing, his wide, large, and filthy pair of bare feet, and the copper bowl that was in front of him, under the eaves.

The swordsman in the long robe slightly frowned, looking at the rain like a silk curtain in front of his eyes, and softly said, “It must be a Sword Master, no wonder the two of us were needed.”

The sadhu lowered his head without uttering a word, faintly hearing the sound from outside the wall of a flying sword splitting the air and hacking the rain. He stared at the copper bowl below the wooden stairs, watching the rainwater in it as it was disturbed by newly incoming raindrops, and gradually felt that his own Ocean of Qi became a little disturbed. Thus, he then lowered his head more, but more slowly and firmly kneaded the ironwood prayer beads on his wrist with his fingers.

This estate was Chao Mansion, belonging to Spring Breeze Pavilion Old Chao. This open, wooden building was the Rain-enjoying Building for listening to the rain, where Old Chao occasionally came to act like a scholar and listen to the rain when he was idle. These elite troops of the Tang and two strong men were waiting for him to return here.

Outside the courtyard wall on another side of Chao Mansion, two horse carriages stopped at the opening of the lane where the spring rain kept pattering. In front of the horse carriages, one energetic horse was somewhat disturbed by the spring rain, who sometimes wanted to blow its nose but was unable to utter a sound or wanted to kick its two hooves forward but dared not move. One horse carriage turned into a deep silence, while inside another carriage came the sound of low, deep coughs from time to time.

No one knew who was inside these two horse carriages. But if Chao Xiaoshu now could see the middle-aged, fat person standing beside the horse carriage, he could certainly guess that the person inside the carriage was not an average one. Looking like a commoner, that middle-aged fat person wasn’t famous in Chang’an. He didn’t have any official rank identifications. However, many government officials would curry favor with him when seeing him, because they all knew that he always dealt with something that was inconvenient for the prince to do.

But even if this person, an even more awesome figure than Prime Minister Chamberlain, was drenched all over by ice-cold spring rain, he still dared not to enter and sit in the carriage to avoid the rain but only stood near the carriage with his back slightly bent, showing an exceptionally humble attitude.

…