The Challenge

Less than half a month remained before the New Year. A thick blanket of snow covered the ground, and snowflakes still drifted down from the sky, unhurried and seemingly never-ending.

Uneven recitations spilled out of the schoolroom. Qing Nu and the others stood guard outside the gate, covering their ears and stamping their feet to keep warm.

"The two young masters probably won't come today, not in this freezing weather." Qing Nu made the guess with great hope. Usually, if the Twins missed morning lessons, they wouldn't come to the schoolroom at all, and their attendants could leave to find somewhere to drink a couple of cups.

But that day was destined to be no ordinary day. Not long after Qing Nu had spoken, a group of children came running over. There was no need to look; in Golden Peng Fortress, only the Twins would dare make such a commotion.

Sure enough, Shangguan Ru, dressed in a brocade jacket, was in the lead, with Shangguan Yushi and Shangguan Fei right behind her. A few paces farther back came their breathless study companions.

"Come with me."

Shangguan Ru ordered them loudly without slowing her pace. She didn't want to enter the schoolroom now and be scolded by the old teacher. That old man was rude to everyone.

Half of the thirty or forty attendants at the gate belonged to the Twins. They were bored stiff and freezing. At Ninth Young Master's command, they all followed, except for the more cautious Qing Nu, who hesitated, knowing to ask, "What are we doing?"

"Someone's come to challenge us. Aren't you going to watch?"

Shangguan Ru tossed the words over her shoulder and was already running far ahead. Everyone who heard her perked up. Golden Peng Fortress was no ordinary martial arts sect; challenges at its gates were exceedingly rare. Even the attendants who had hesitated quickened their pace. Only by following the Twins could they run wherever they pleased inside the fortress—and get to the main gate to see what a challenge looked like.

Qing Nu followed too, still somewhat doubtful. He suspected this might be another prank by the two young ladies. He had been born in the fortress, and in all his decades there, he had never heard of anyone daring to challenge Golden Peng Fortress.

The other servants at the schoolroom gate didn't dare leave without their masters' permission, but curiosity gnawed at them. They all resolved to urge their masters with all their might to go see this rare spectacle later.

Gu Shenwei was quick on his feet, keeping close behind the Twins and Shangguan Yushi. After several months of experience, he was much more mature than other children his age, and more perceptive. It was extraordinary for anyone to come challenge Golden Peng Fortress. The fortress stood atop Jue Peak, with an entire Jade City guarding its gates. It was already hard to imagine an outsider making it all the way up here; what was more, this person had come to issue a public challenge.

A few people were already scattered outside Golden Peng Fortress's main gate. The Twins had heard the news early in the inner residence and arrived just in time. The fight had yet to begin.

There were three challengers: a tall, imposing old man and two young monks. They stood on the open ground directly opposite the gate, nearly a hundred paces from the crowd, with Stone Bridge—the only way into the fortress—behind them.

The old man must have been a fearsome sight in his youth. He stood a head taller than the monks beside him, with broad shoulders and a wild mane of hair and beard, like a silent lion. But age had caught up with him; only a skeleton remained. Though his frame was still larger than most men's, the seemingly inexhaustible strength was gone.

The two monks looked solemn and respectful, their brows lowered and palms joined. They seemed neither the old man's attendants nor his companions. They looked as though none of this concerned them, as if they had come only to contemplate in silence.

In his left hand, the old man held a banner more than twenty feet tall. Across its drooping white fabric ran a line of large characters: Deep vengeance unavenged, the butcher's blade cannot be laid down. To his right stood a simple weapons rack, holding only two weapons: a long spear and a single-edged saber.

"What a letdown. An old fellow and two monks—how did those idiots let them climb the mountain?"

Seeing the challengers, the young master Shangguan Fei was deeply disappointed. The attendants who had followed him thought the same. They had expected people with much more presence, but these three looked utterly ordinary. The boys could rush them all at once and drive them fleeing.

Shangguan Yushi took a closer look, then sneered. "You have no eye for things. And you call yourself the King Lord's son? Look at the banner pole."

Shangguan Fei blushed at his cousin's rebuke. He muttered under his breath, but still examined the pole again. The others did the same. Gradually, their jeering died away and cries of amazement rose instead.

The banner pole was made of ordinary white poplar, standing straight in the ground without anyone holding it. It didn't waver in the cold wind. The reason was that its base had been driven firmly into the earth.

The open ground outside Golden Peng Fortress was paved entirely with huge stones, without so much as a layer of loose soil. The banner pole was only wood, yet it had penetrated several inches into the stone. Whoever had planted it possessed not only astonishing strength, but also exceptionally profound Internal Force.

"What's so impressive about that? The fortress could send out any one of its assassins to kill these three."

Shangguan Fei still refused to be convinced. Shangguan Yushi ignored him, took Shangguan Ru's hand, and turned to look back toward the fortress. The challengers were ready. Golden Peng Fortress should be sending someone out to deal with them now.

Gu Shenwei stood just behind them. He too turned away, so no one would see the tears that had suddenly welled in his eyes.

The tears had nothing to do with the cold wind. He didn't know the old man or the monks who had come to challenge the fortress, but he recognized the style of the saber and spear at once. They were unmistakably weapons of the Gu Family. The old man clearly had deep ties to the Gu Family.

Every country had standard designs for its swords and spears, used to outfit its armies. But weapons used by martial artists had no uniform specifications; nearly every family had its own style. These differences were one way to identify the various sects and schools. The Gu Family's spears were one zhang and six chi long, among the longest in use. Its single-edged sabers were two chi and seven cun long, a little shorter than most.

Though he had only glanced at them from far away, Gu Shenwei could still tell that the saber and spear beside the old man were identical to his family's weapons. He had never practiced martial arts diligently, but he knew those two weapons inside and out. He couldn't be mistaken.

The emotional dam he had painstakingly built over the past few months nearly burst apart in an instant. He had always believed he was the Gu Family's sole survivor, with the entire burden of revenge resting on his shoulders. Now, seeing someone else come to avenge their family, he was overcome by a tumult of emotions and could barely contain himself.

Fortunately, no one noticed him. Everyone was looking around, watching either the challengers or the road inside the fortress, wondering who would come out to crush their pride.

Golden Peng Fortress had stood unbreached for a hundred years, and its assassins were invincible beneath heaven. Though most of the crowd were only in their teens, they believed this without a doubt. The old man and the monks could drive that banner as deep as they liked; they were still here to die.

People kept emerging from the fortress, but none were there to fight. They had come to watch the spectacle. The Unrivaled King seemed unconcerned about the challengers. He neither ordered the fortress to stand on guard nor barred anyone from entering or leaving.

"Who's come here, and what makes him so bold?" That was the first question everyone asked.

"Aren't those two monks from Four Truths Blue Lotus? We donate more than any other family. Why aren't the monks satisfied? Have they come to take advantage of us while we're in trouble?"

Gu Shenwei had never heard of Four Truths Blue Lotus, and he didn't care. He only wanted to know the old man's background.

Only after two quarters of an hour did the fortress finally send out a challenger. Amid a chorus of excited cries—"They're here! They're here!"—the old man's identity was passed around.

"Marshal Yang. The old man's Marshal Yang."

"What kind of marshal? He's brought two monks and calls himself a marshal? Then I must be a great marshal."

The boys mercilessly mocked the strange name. Gu Shenwei was shaken again. So there really was a "Marshal Yang."

On the day of the massacre, his father, Gu Lun, had ordered his loyal old servant Yang Zheng to take his son and daughter away. After Yang Zheng defeated a group of pursuers on the road, he knew the danger had not passed. So he had the young master change into a pageboy's clothes and sent him to Shule City that very night to seek reinforcements from "Marshal Yang."

Gu Shenwei had thought that "Marshal Yang" was a lie Yang Zheng had made up to deceive him. He had turned back halfway there, and a string of chance events had led him, against all odds, into Golden Peng Fortress.

If he had kept riding forward back then, perhaps today he would be standing across from the crowd, coming to challenge the fortress alongside Marshal Yang.

Gu Shenwei was overcome with regret. He had endured every hardship and borne humiliations he had never imagined, only to find that he had taken the wrong path.

"What's wrong?"

Shangguan Ru asked curiously. She had noticed the strange look on Huan Nu's face.

"Nothing. It's the wind." Gu Shenwei hurriedly wiped away his tears. He still couldn't reveal his identity. Even if Marshal Yang really could defeat the Unrivaled King, he would have to find a chance to recognize him later. He couldn't let anyone know that a descendant of the Gu Family was a slave in Golden Peng Fortress.

"He's scared." Shangguan Yushi glanced at Huan Nu too, and gave her verdict. She had never liked Huan Nu much. Then again, apart from Shangguan Ru, she didn't like anyone.

A squad of assassins in black with red belts emerged from Golden Peng Fortress. Every one of them looked grim. They walked straight past the boys who had come to watch, without bowing to the two young masters as they usually did.

"So many!" someone exclaimed in a low voice. Assassins were Golden Peng Fortress's finest and its backbone. A team of three or five was a rare sight, yet this squad had more than twenty. They would have been enough even for the most difficult mission.

"The old man and the monks are dead for sure."

"Of course they are."

Everyone assumed the more than twenty assassins would attack together and wipe out the challengers. They had grown up in Golden Peng Fortress and thought nothing of outnumbering an enemy.

But this time, they were wrong. The assassins stopped more than twenty paces in front of Marshal Yang and formed a loose semicircle. Then one assassin stepped forward and drew his Narrow Saber. He meant to fight alone.

That wasn't Golden Peng Fortress's "usual way," but it made the boys even more excited. Whatever lessons they had been taught growing up, whatever principles they might believe in as adults, at this age they still admired strength displayed openly and honorably.

"Ye Sheng, from Fifth Young Master's residence."

Someone recognized the first assassin to answer the challenge.

Gu Shenwei recognized him too. He was the man in black who had killed Tianshan Swordsman Long Feidu at the T-junction, and had refused to give his name.

Gu Shenwei wanted desperately to warn Marshal Yang. Ye Sheng was skilled at underhanded attacks; Long Feidu had died because he had been drugged with some kind of sedative.

But he couldn't, and he didn't dare. He could only hope Marshal Yang was more capable and clever than Long Feidu, knew all about Golden Peng Fortress's underhanded tricks, and had made ample preparations in advance.