Three days after the ambush at Jiangyin Wharf, a horrifying piece of news arrived in the hands of Zuo Lengchan, leader of the Songshan Sect, at almost the same time as the latest issue of The Jianghu Almanac.
After hearing the thunderbolt his junior brother Fei Bin had brought back after traveling day and night, Zuo Lengchan was enraged. Still, he forced down his anger, opened the latest issue of The Jianghu Almanac, and read the following report:
The Jianghu Monthly · Strange Reports
—The Huashan Sect was attacked at Jiangyin, but two hundred formidable foes were routed!
Seven days ago, the Huashan Sect's leader, "Gentleman's Sword" Yue Buqun, set out from Jiangnan by boat with nearly twenty of his disciples, bound for Huashan. Their original plan was to travel north from Hangzhou along the Grand Canal, passing through Jiangyin, Huai'an Prefecture, and Kaifeng Prefecture, then disembark at Luoyang and continue overland.
However, while they were spending the night resting at a wharf outside Jiangyin, they were suddenly ambushed and surrounded by more than two hundred masked men in black!
According to a merchant who had stayed overnight at the wharf, shortly after midnight, dozens of men in black appeared on the river. Like ghosts, they attacked the Huashan Sect's moored ship simultaneously from the water and the shore. Even more horrifying was that the attackers carried more than ten powerful crossbows of the kind used by the military!
"The terrible whistling of those bolts made my scalp go numb!"
"But Sect Leader Yue was dressed in white, his sword in hand. With a flash of swordlight, he knocked down at least seven or eight bolts. It was truly a feat worthy of an immortal!"
The merchant had trembled as he recounted what he had witnessed.
Reportedly, the battle