Chapter 55 of 90
Three Hundred Bandits Close In
There were at least two or three hundred of them.
They came out of the trees and the reeds and the shallows of the pool until the little clearing was ringed with them, ten deep, and still more were coming. Ragged men with scarred faces and stolen weapons—axes, cleavers, rusted swords, spears with fire-blackened points. They filled every gap between the trunks. Li Yuguo and the others were surrounded so completely that not even water could have trickled out.
"I heard…"
A big man came pushing out through the front of the crowd, swinging a long club studded all over with nails.
"I heard the City Lord of Nalan City had actually brought troops and horses to wipe us out." He spread his arms wide. "I was so scared. Really scared." He grinned, and threw back his head, and laughed. "Hahahaha! But who'd have thought—there's only twenty or thirty of you! Are you fucking with me?"
His hair had been shaved off on both sides of his head and the strip down the middle stiffened with pine resin and dyed red, so that it stood straight up from his skull like the comb of a rooster.
Li Yuguo looked at it coldly.
"You're the Second Master of Ling Snake Mountain," he said. "The one they call Roger the Cockscomb."
"But I never expected him to be such a coward," said the King of Thieves from beside the fire. "Ma Daha. Sending a pack of you to show your faces instead of coming himself."
Roger the Cockscomb ignored them both. His eyes had gone past them, to Nalan Meng. He looked her up and down slowly—the silver breastplate she had set aside on a rock to eat, the thin crimson silk beneath it, the long white thighs in the slit skirt.
"Tsk, tsk," he said. "Now there's a beauty." He licked his lips. "Take the woman alive. Kill everyone else."
He waved his hand, and the men beside him surged forward.
They came from every direction at once, a tide of axes and spears. And the Poison Guards met them first.
All fourteen moved together, as if on a single string. Their long curved swords came out of their sheaths in a single hiss, and they stepped forward into the rushing crowd and spread out and locked into a ring around the fire—shoulder to shoulder, blades out. Every one of them carried some unique skill. And together, in that ring, they made a wall that the bandits broke against like waves on a rock.
Li Yuguo rolled his shoulders. Cracked his neck.
"You bandits," he shouted. "Taking the mountains for your kingdom. Robbing the villages for profit. Unforgivable!"
He ran at the nearest one, planted his foot on the man's shoulder, and sprang up off it into the air. His fist came down like a cannonball onto the head of the next man in line.
The man's head snapped backward—so hard that it struck the bridge of the nose of the bandit behind him, and both went down.
"Cannon Fist!"
Li Yuguo's eyes blazed. His fists came like thunder. And around him, all at once, there was a wild crackling of sound—snap, crack, crack-crack-crack—like a string of firecrackers going off at New Year. It was the sound of his knuckles breaking the air. And bones.
Nalan Meng watched him for a moment, astonished.
He's reached Martial Teacher. She had heard it. She had not quite believed it. And now she saw it with her own eyes—the King of Soft Rice, fighting like a soldier.
She took up her spear very neatly. She turned to Jun Xue.
"You stay here. You have no cultivation."
"Okay! Madam—be careful!" Jun Xue said quickly. She shrank back against the rock by the fire, clutching her little shoulder bag.
Nalan Meng nodded. And all at once, she felt a rush of fondness for this obedient little girl. Quiet, brave, never in the way. No wonder Yuguo takes such care of her.
Then she went.
Her spear went out like a dragon, and she went with it, straight into the thick of them.
Her father had taught her all her skills himself. The Third Prince, who had fought his way through more battles than any living general of Haotian. She had not fought—not truly, not like this—in a long time. And now, at the sight of so many enemies, the hostility in her blood caught fire all at once.
Whoosh!
She swept the spear across in a single flat arc. A big tree at the edge of the clearing, as thick as the mouth of a bowl, was cut clean through at the waist and fell, crashing, onto the men behind it. The bandits around her were thrown in every direction—up, down, sideways—screaming. It was miserable to watch.
Up in a tree, the King of Thieves was squatting on a branch.
He waved one hand. And from it, the Circling Finger Softness flew out—a thread of starlight, fluttering through the air like a butterfly.
It passed softly and silently along a bandit's neck. A thin red line appeared there. The man took two more steps. Then his head toppled off his shoulders and hit the ground with a thud.
His body went on walking for a moment after. That was how sharp it was.
Li Yuguo grew bolder and bolder.
Something had come over him. Something like the spirit of a killer climbing into his body and taking hold. He was a writer; he understood violence the way he understood stories—from the inside, all its rhythms. And for days now, the King of Thieves had been sparring with him in the guest-house courtyard. He knew this set of Cannon Fists the way he knew his own name.
One punch after another. Like a Gatling gun. Out fast, back fast, out again. The wind of his fists roared and howled, and the bandits around him began, one by one, to back away.
"Fourth Master!" Roger the Cockscomb shouted. "You go deal with this King of Soft Rice!"
"Done!"
The Fourth Master was a big, burly man with an iron collar riveted around his neck. A Martial Teacher, like Li Yuguo. He came straight at him without the least hesitation.
"Wah!" Li Yuguo screamed, and slammed his fist into the Fourth Master's.
The two fists were very different in size. The Fourth Master's was half again as big. But Li Yuguo's was harder. As he punched, his knuckles sank—into the other man's fist, straight through it.
The Fourth Master's middle and ring fingers caved in. Then his wrist exploded. The whole of his arm went the wrong way, and he toppled over backward.
Li Yuguo was lost in the fight now.
He had wanted this. He had wanted to test what he had learned. These last days, to catch up with Ye Qiong, he had trained himself almost to death. In the guest room, nearly every waking hour, he had sat bent over the manual of Cannon Fist, studying it with something close to obsession, and practiced it until his knuckles bled. And he had it now. Every move.
The Fourth Master was staggering back with his arm hanging. But how could Li Yuguo let a man who had preyed on the common people simply walk away?
Bang!
A sound like an explosion. Li Yuguo's fist met the Fourth Master's head, and the head cracked open with a sharp snap. Red and white sprayed out behind it and spattered all over a bandit who had been standing there. The man stood stock still, dumbfounded, his face dripping.
When Li Yuguo turned around to deal with the rest, he found there was no one left near him.
Only the Second Master. Roger the Cockscomb.
"You—you people—" His lips had gone white. His eyes were perfectly round. His knees were shaking. "Where did you people come from? Are you really the King of Soft Rice? Li Yuguo?"
He fell down on his knees.
The King of Thieves drew back the Circling Finger Softness. Under his control, it had moved like a little flying machine on a string, harvesting the enemy wherever he pointed it. The ground was covered with them.
The Poison Emperor had never moved. Not once. It had all been his Poison Guards.
Nalan Meng wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her wrist, and glanced at the kneeling man.
"Speak," she said. "Who told you we were coming?"
"I… I don't know anything." Roger the Cockscomb's mouth snapped shut. Suddenly, completely, as if a door had been slammed.
Something about it was very familiar to Li Yuguo. He had seen this before, he was sure of it. But for the moment, he could not remember where.
The King of Thieves' eye narrowed.
"No," he said suddenly. "That's a body bow! Wait—it's excellent grade—move!"
Even as he finished speaking, an arrow came out of the trees behind Roger the Cockscomb.
It was as thick as a finger. It came so fast that it seemed to arrive before the sound of its own string. And it went straight into Nalan Meng's shoulder—in, and through, in a single stroke—and came out the back in a spray of red.
She had taken off her armor to eat.
Nalan Meng's cultivation was extraordinary. But the bow that had fired that arrow was of excellent grade. A body bow—a weapon that fed on its archer's own vitality to drive its shafts. With her strength alone, she could not stop it. And she had just come out of a fight. She was panting. She had relaxed.
She took one step. Her knees went.
"Wife!"
Li Yuguo caught her before she hit the ground, and held her against his chest.
Nalan Meng had never imagined that someone would get her like this. Her eyes were wide with disbelief.
"Hahaha!" Roger the Cockscomb laughed wildly, on his knees. "I killed the City Lord of Nalan City! I killed the City Lord of Nalan City!"
"Seal!"
The Poison Emperor was there in a single stride. He jabbed two fingers into the acupoints at Nalan Meng's shoulder, and the bleeding stopped at once. Li Yuguo pressed his hand over the wound.
"Hold on," he said. "Hold on. I'm going to take you back right now."
He had never expected it. A Martial Soul like Nalan Meng, struck down by a single arrow out of nowhere. And the wound was close to her chest—very close. A little lower and to the left, and it would have gone through her heart.
"More bandits!" One of the Poison Guards came running. "More coming!"
"Everyone—spread out!" said Li Yuguo, through his teeth. "They were ready for us. I'm afraid they've pulled in every scattered gang of bandits and horse thieves for a hundred li around. They mean to grind us down."
Because if it went on like this, everyone's strength would run out. Even with a man like the Poison Emperor among them.
The Poison Emperor could not use his poisons here. Not on any scale. He knew Li Yuguo and the others. But his poisons did not. They did not care whose lungs they went into. And the King of Thieves was powerful, but he was a thief, first and last—a long, drawn-out battle was the furthest thing from his strengths.
"Yes. Scatter!" said the Poison Emperor. "I can't use my mist on a large scale here at all!"
He grabbed Roger the Cockscomb by the top of his red comb of hair. A faint wisp of violet vapor curled from his wrist.
Roger the Cockscomb began to melt.
"Jun Xue, go with the King of Thieves!" Li Yuguo heaved Nalan Meng up onto his back. "I'll take Nalan somewhere safe. We'll meet at Tongming Spring!"
"Hahaha! You can't run anywhere!"
Another voice. From further off. Li Yuguo knew it at once.
Ye Qiong.
Enemies meet with red eyes. Li Yuguo ground his teeth.
"Well, well," he said. "A disciple of the True Yuan Sect. Joining hands with bandits to smear me!"
"Bandits? Hmph." Ye Qiong strode out between the trees with his sword in his hand. "I'd never join hands with thieves like these. But I know you. You're the King of Soft Rice that everyone hates! If Senior Brother Ximen hadn't stopped me last time, I'd have killed you long ago." His voice rose. "You killed the people in the fields. And now you've wounded the City Lord Nalan! Are you plotting rebellion?"
Behind him, a large number of True Yuan Sect disciples had appeared. They had cut off every line of retreat. There were about twenty of them.
They had only just driven back a wave of bandits. And now a whole crowd of cultivators. Is this what being the villain means? Li Yuguo thought. One thing after another?
Sweat was running down his forehead. He could feel how bad it was.
Ye Qiong was much stronger than when they had last met. The air around him rippled with it—Advanced Martial Teacher, and solid. If they really fought, it would not go well. And besides, Ye Qiong alone was not what was frightening. What was frightening was what stood behind Ye Qiong. One of the great overlords of Saibei. The True Yuan Sect.
And Nalan City was a shabby little city. It had only just begun to recover. The walls had not been mended, the troops had not been trained. It had been less than a month.
"Child," said the Poison Emperor, rising. "Do you know who this Emperor is?"
A male disciple stepped out from beside Ye Qiong and clasped his fists in salute.
"I never expected to meet Senior Poison King here," he said politely. "May I ask—Senior Poison King has never liked to involve himself in the affairs of the world. Why is he walking together with someone like the King of Soft Rice this time?"
The Poison Emperor snorted and smiled. "Is this how you righteous people behave? We have wounded here. Shouldn't you step aside and let our wounded go back to the city to be healed first?"
"So it really is the Poison Emperor! Hahaha!" Ye Qiong pointed his finger straight at him. "I heard you poisoned a whole city overnight! You're no good man!"
The Poison Emperor's eyes went wide.
"Stinking boy. This Emperor hates people pointing at this Emperor. Take back your finger!"
He had already gathered two clouds of poison into his palms. Two churning violet balls of vapor, swelling and swirling, hissing faintly. If they burst here, there was no telling what would happen. Something terrible.
"Brother," said the King of Thieves, glancing at him sideways. "If you let those go here, I'm afraid all of us will be poisoned too."
The Poison King ground his teeth. "Tch!"
He did not want to. But he drew his power back in.
And in that moment, the King of Thieves saw his chance.
He threw a handful of small white balls.
"Look out!" Ye Qiong shouted. "The Thief Emperor's good with hidden weapons! Take cover!"
All the disciples around him threw themselves aside. But what came flying out of the King of Thieves' hand was not a hidden weapon at all.
It was smoke bombs.
Bang—bang—bang-bang-bang! A string of soft explosions, and a wall of white smoke came rolling out across the clearing and swallowed everything.
Ye Qiong put his palms together and thrust them forward. The vitality in his hands burst out like a cannon of air, and blew a great hole through the white fog.
There was no one on the other side.
"Ran away!" Ye Qiong said furiously. "These evil people ran!"
"Junior Brother. Look at the ground." The disciple who had spoken before was crouching. "Bloodstains."
"It must be Nalan Meng's." Ye Qiong's face twisted. "After them!"
He was thinking of Ximen Lang.
"Last time I lost face in front of Senior Brother Ximen," he said bitterly. "This time I'll make the King of Soft Rice pay for it. Go!"
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