Why Live, Why Kill

Mounted on horseback, Du Chengfeng and Hexi Qing faced each other from afar.

This was the first time he had truly met this mortal enemy face-to-face.

Though Du Chengfeng had seen Hexi Qing countless times while tempering the weapons of those steppe barbarians, it was only upon meeting him in person that he realized the Hexi Qing in those memories had merely been fragmentary observations of the man.

Only now, when their gazes met, did he truly understand the weight of that power.

"Really strong..."

Du Chengfeng could not help but sigh aloud.

So when he saw Hexi Qing spur his horse after him once more, Du Chengfeng turned his mount without hesitation and galloped away.

Charging in for a great battle might have looked valiant, but he would have to be full to bursting to fight an enemy he had no chance of beating. Drawing a blade against a powerful foe was indeed an expression of courage, but knowingly drawing it when he could not win meant there was something wrong with his head.

Thus, Hexi Qing gave chase, and Du Chengfeng fled.

When Hexi Qing stopped pursuing him, Du Chengfeng turned his horse around and went back again.

Of course he had to go back. After all, he could not let go of Hexi Qing.

Naturally, he could not defeat Hexi Qing himself yet. But aside from Hexi Qing, could he not kill those ordinary steppe armored soldiers—even the steppe armored soldiers with Sha Qi entering their bodies?

The facts proved that he could.

And he was getting more and more practiced at it.

He could kill even more.

He could kill more still.

"More... I need more..."

Du Chengfeng muttered from horseback, his eyes gradually turning blood-red.

Fortunately, just as Du Chengfeng could no longer hold himself back and was nearly about to spur his horse forward, Hexi Qing in the distance had already withdrawn into Ji Town with his men.

Du Chengfeng could even vaguely make out the savage look in Hexi Qing's eyes, hatred tightly suppressed within it.

That made Du Chengfeng himself breathe a sigh of relief.

If he liked glaring, then let him glare. As long as he could not come over, it was fine—if anything, Du Chengfeng ought to thank Hexi Qing for gathering those steppe armored soldiers back into the city.

After all, it had left his increasingly bone-piercing killing intent without a target.

"Truly... dangerous."

Gripping the reins tightly, Du Chengfeng let out a long breath.

Just a moment ago, just barely, he had almost failed to suppress that desire for slaughter and charged out on horseback.

After killing those steppe armored soldiers, both he and the weapons in his hands had indeed grown stronger. Yet when those steppe armored soldiers with Sha Qi entering their bodies died, the Sha Qi they fed back was far purer than that of ordinary slaughter. Although Du Chengfeng had long been able to remain wholly unaffected by Sha Qi while sharpening blades, faced with this purer Sha Qi, he could only barely maintain the most basic shred of reason and keep himself from suddenly going mad and charging forward to die.

It would indeed have been suicide. Though he had become stronger, strength stripped of reason could never defeat that monstrous Hexi Qing.

A clamor echoed through Du Chengfeng's mind, nearly driving him mad.

"Kill your way in! Kill your way in! You're already strong, aren't you? Why aren't you killing your way in!"

The voice in his head urged him on. Even Du Chengfeng himself began to feel that charging in and killing was the most heroic thing to do.

"Why not kill? Why not kill them? Is it because of your indecision? Or are you some saintly white lotus who cannot bring yourself to kill anyone?"

No. That was not it.

On horseback, Du Chengfeng clutched his head tightly, struggling against the voices in his mind—but the effort was ultimately futile, because the voices shifted to rise from the depths of his own heart.

"The Yang family wanted to kill you, yet you did not kill them, did you? Yang Sanlang tried to assassinate you, yet you did not kill him, did you? And that knife seller at the market who deceived you, Cui Yuan, the swordsman who ambushed you after you sharpened his sword... You have never killed any of them. You do not even want blood on your hands. Why? Because you are cowardly? Because you are weak?"

Hiss...

His head splitting with pain, Du Chengfeng tumbled from his horse, sending the great pile of weapons in his saddlebag scattering across the ground.

Kill. He had to kill. He had to prove himself—to prove he was neither weak nor cowardly. Only blood could wash away humiliation; only slaughter could forge an iron will. Only killing—killing everyone, killing all that lay before him, killing every living thing, tearing everything he passed into pieces!

"Kill kill kill kill kill kill kill..."

Making some incoherent sound that even he himself could not hear clearly, Du Chengfeng, his eyes scarlet like twin ghostly flames, reached toward the weapons that could kill.

It was then that Du Chengfeng grasped a familiar hilt.

It was that heavy broadsword.

Feeling that familiar texture beneath his palm, scarlet-eyed Du Chengfeng suddenly froze.

"What... am I doing?"

Du Chengfeng lowered his head and looked at the heavy broadsword in his hand.

"Are you... trying to tell me something?"

With a clang, the heavy broadsword smashed down onto the top of his foot.

The heavy chunk of iron nearly shattered Du Chengfeng's bones.

Yet that bone-deep agony made the clamor in Du Chengfeng's heart abruptly pause.

Though the peace lasted only an instant, Du Chengfeng still regained a measure of consciousness in that moment.

"Sha Qi entering the body! An extremely severe case of Sha Qi entering the body!"

In an instant, Du Chengfeng judged his current condition.

But that was only a fleeting chance to catch his breath. The moment he made that judgment, the clamor surged back again, humiliating him by every possible means and urging him to hurry and slaughter, as though blood and death were all that existed in this world.

As those voices echoed again and again, Du Chengfeng's consciousness was already on the verge of collapse.

But a second burst of searing pain came from beneath his foot.

Flames had ignited along the blade. The blazing fire carried a rich scent of wine, and under its scorching heat, Du Chengfeng's already injured foot was wracked by piercing agony.

It made Du Chengfeng pick up the broadsword instinctively.

With the heavy broadsword in hand, Du Chengfeng inexplicably recalled that chaotic night. Back then, bloody and ferocious Baleful Intent had filled his mind, and he had nearly slaughtered everything before his eyes.

Yet he had not done it.

Du Chengfeng wanted to say it was because that was not what he wanted—that he wanted peaceful prosperity, a quiet life—but he knew without even needing the clamorous voices to remind him that such a reason simply did not hold water.

If all he wanted was a quiet life, peaceful prosperity, then he only needed to flee. He could flee south, flee into the heartland of Great Chen, far from the borderlands' flames of war, and only then could he truly live in peace.

Yet his choice now was to stay, to remain and fight those steppe armored soldiers.

"You enjoy it, don't you?"

The voice in his heart rang out again.

"Then why not prove yourself? Why not wash away your humiliation with blood? Why not kill every last one of the Yang family? Why not kill everyone in Yang Family Fort? Why not kill everything you see?"

"Because, because..."

Drawing a deep breath, Du Chengfeng lowered his gaze to the heavy broadsword in his hand.

The flickering firelight on the blade seemed to answer him as well.

"They are not worthy of making us draw our blades."

At that moment, Du Chengfeng seemed to feel what this broadsword wanted to say.

There was no need to argue, nor any need to deny it. Call it disdain, call it arrogance—this was what they had done, a part of who they were.

Like the previous wielder of this broadsword, Fatty Yang, whose great name was Tiger Fool.

How could a tiger roaming the mountains and forests care about a few mosquitoes?

"So that is what you think..."

Du Chengfeng gently stroked the broadsword in his hand.

His fingertips passed through the flames, as though he were petting some lazy great feline.

This broadsword had tasted blood in Fatty Yang's hand and had been so eager for slaughter. Why would something as bloodthirsty as a fierce tiger willingly be enshrined in a tiny ancestral hall in a frontier village?

"Because what we ultimately want is nothing more than to rot in peace."

At that moment, Du Chengfeng and the broadsword in his hand were of one mind.

What they wanted was truly not complicated: a little courtyard of their own, with jujube trees or pomegranate trees planted within. In daytime, they could read beneath the shade or do work they enjoyed. At night, they could sharpen blades by moonlight or practice a couple sets of boxing before bed. Perhaps they could keep two cats, and a dog as well. If they had such a place, they might spend their whole lives there.

"So, so..."

As he spoke, Du Chengfeng raised his blade.

"Those who cannot hinder us, those who cannot harm us—let them go to hell."

A blaze of fierce fire suddenly erupted across the heavy blade.

"But those who block our path must die!"

Bzz—

As the blade swept out, blazing fire scorched everything within three zhang.

That was the power of weapon Sha Qi.

And likewise, it was his power.

"My saddlebag!"

Coming back to himself, Du Chengfeng shouted and hurriedly began putting out the fire.

Fortunately, the angle of his swing had been relatively high. His saddlebag lying on the ground had only been singed by the flames. Even more fortunately, the warhorse had somehow narrowly avoided the blade and had not had its head sliced off by that blazing fireblade over a zhang long.

"So I... huh?"

After hanging the saddlebag back onto his horse, Du Chengfeng realized that the clamorous voices urging him to hurry and kill had vanished at some point.

Even his blood-red eyes, changed by Sha Qi entering his body, had regained their clarity.

"I..."

Lowering his gaze to the broadsword in his hand, Du Chengfeng suddenly understood.

"So this is how to master Sha Qi..."

Gripping the blade tightly, Du Chengfeng looked at the fiery blade burning before him.

Knowing why one lived, no matter how iron-hard that will might be, could only allow one to stay clear-headed for a time and remain unaffected by Sha Qi.

But to truly master Sha Qi, to gather in those thoughts of slaughter and make that immense ferocity one's own, one needed another, even more important conviction.

That was why one killed.

"We have understood completely."

Mounting his horse, Du Chengfeng rested the broadsword on his shoulder and looked toward Ji Town in the distance.

"And you? What do you kill for?"

I'm having dinner with my brothers tonight, so the second chapter may not be updated until after midnight. I'm truly sorry.

Also, thank you all for the recommendation votes. There isn't enough room in the author's notes for five hundred words, so I'll thank everyone here together.

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