The Story Behind the Duel

Under countless watching eyes, Li Xiang stepped forward and stopped before Hong Tianbao.

"I'll take the first match."

Every gaze snapped toward him.

Surprise, admiration, mockery, pity... every kind of look crossed the crowd.

"Has this kid lost his mind? He's only been here a few days," someone muttered.

"I bet he's desperate to stand out. Wants the hall master to notice him."

"Tsk. Notice him? More like he's offering up his face to be carved to ribbons. Blade-trapping handwork is a fight for your life!"

Hong Tianbao looked at Li Xiang. Surprise flickered through his narrow eyes, then gave way to open admiration.

He did not agree at once. Instead, he asked in a deep voice, "Aren't you afraid of dying?"

"I am."

Li Xiang nodded and answered honestly. "Only dead people don't fear death. I'm alive, so of course I do."

"But I'm more afraid of being poor. More afraid of having no ability. More afraid of spending my whole life trampled into the mud, unable to climb back out."

He could not help remembering the newspaper he had read that day. It had reported on the Blackwater, the great ship that had sunk on the Blackwater River. Its old captain had sacrificed hundreds of lives aboard to secure his own advancement.

In this world, without strength, you were a lamb awaiting slaughter.

Weakness was the greatest sin of all.

"Besides..."

Li Xiang raised his head and met Hong Tianbao's gaze.

"That blade-trapping handwork sounds... kind of fun."

"Fun?"

Hong Tianbao froze for a moment.

He had heard countless reasons.

Some did it for loyalty, some for fame or profit, some for revenge. But someone risking his life for fun? That was a first.

After a brief moment of astonishment, Hong Tianbao burst out laughing.

"Good! 'Fun,' he says!"

"Before you train your fists, train your courage. If you're afraid of wolves ahead and tigers behind, you're a eunuch without balls! Train for a lifetime and you'll still be nothing but an empty showman. You'll never learn real martial arts!"

"Li Xiang, the first match is yours!"

Hong Tianbao turned and beckoned to Ye Qingyao, who had been standing behind him.

"Qingyao, take charge of Li Xiang's special training for these seven days. Teach him how to dance on a knife's edge."

At that, Hong Tianbao paused. His gaze swept over Li Xiang's rather slender frame, as though something had occurred to him.

"You're putting your life on the line for the martial hall. One genuine martial art isn't enough payment for that."

"Starting today, I'll personally brew a pot of Dragon-Tiger Bone-Tempering Soup. For the next seven days, you'll soak in it for two hours every day."

"You'll have all the herbs you need, and I'll watch the fire myself. Whether you can toughen that layer of skin in seven days will depend on your own fortune!"

A chorus of sharp intakes of breath rose from below the Training Ground.

If everyone had been shocked by Li Xiang's audacity before, their eyes were now so red with envy they seemed ready to bleed.

Even the wealthy young men who had been sneering at Li Xiang moments ago stared wide-eyed, their guts green with regret.

Ah!

Hall master, why didn't you say so earlier?!

Who was she?

She was Ye Qingyao. From the moment she arrived in Linjiang County, she had become the woman of countless men's dreams.

Seven days at the side of a beauty like her, practicing close-quarters handwork that required their bodies to tangle together—even if a blade cut him once or twice, he could come back and soak in a secret medicinal bath worth a thousand pieces of gold, one that could remake his body from the bones up.

A beauty at his side, divine medicine tempering his body.

How was that going off to die? He was going off to enjoy himself!

More than a few minds began to race. They looked at Li Xiang with naked envy, wishing they could rush up, drag him down, and shout, "Let go of that senior sister! I'll do it!"

Only Qin Zhong wore a strange expression.

He quietly sidled up to Li Xiang, his face full of deep sympathy, and murmured, "You're in for a treat."

Li Xiang caught the sarcasm and raised an eyebrow. "What? Is senior sister that fierce?"

Qin Zhong drew his neck in. "Fierce? Once you start sparring with her, you'll find out. Most people can't endure that lady's brand of tenderness."

Then Qin Zhong glanced at Li Xiang again. "As for the Dragon-Tiger Bone-Tempering Soup... heh. It's good stuff. Truly good stuff. But what it feels like to soak in it... Let's just say I never want a second dip."

Meanwhile, in the east of the city, at the Dragon Gate Escort Agency.

It occupied a sprawling old estate of gray tiles and blue brick, with sweeping eaves and bracketed beams. Two stone lions, each as tall as a man, crouched imposingly at the entrance.

Above the vermilion gates hung a black plaque bearing four gold characters: "Dragon Gate Escort Agency." The strokes were bold and vigorous, carrying an air of blood and battle.

The Dragon Gate Escort Agency operated across several provinces. Its reputation had been forged through generations of flesh, blood, and steel.

In Linjiang County, there was a saying: if the King of Hell called for you at midnight, Dragon Gate could keep you alive until dawn.

Dragon Gate Escort Agency took shipments no one else dared touch.

Dragon Gate Escort Agency protected people no one else dared protect.

That was not only because its escorts were willing to fight and kill. A true living relic also held court in the agency's rear compound.

Deep within the estate stood an elegantly furnished, old-fashioned heated chamber.

Sandalwood smoke curled through the air, while the underfloor heating burned fiercely, driving every trace of chill from the room.

An old man in a dark red Tang jacket patterned with longevity characters reclined on a Rosewood Couch draped with a white tiger pelt.

He was terribly old.

His hair was as sparse as dead grass, and his loose skin hung like layers of piled bark, mottled with brown age spots.

His eyelids drooped as though he might fall asleep at any moment.

Most startling of all was his bizarre hairstyle.

Though the Demon Dynasty had fallen many years ago and cries to cut off queues and change clothing rang throughout the Great Xin Dynasty, this venerable elder stubbornly clung to the customs of that darkest age.

His brown-spotted head was shaved clean around the sides. Only at the very crown remained a silver tuft the size of a copper coin.

That tuft had been carefully braided into a long queue as thin as a rat's tail. Glossy with oil, it hung all the way to his waist.

Strangest of all, a square-holed copper coin covered in green rust and engraved with a hideous ghost face was threaded through the base of the queue, tight against his scalp.

A copper-coin demon-tail queue.

That single copper coin was the shackle locking his spine in place.

On this old grandmaster, who had lived for more than three hundred years, the queue had not withered with age. Instead, it resembled a living gray viper coiled on his back, stirring faintly with every breath as though drawing in some unspeakable nourishment.

This was the Lu Family's patriarch, the anchor that held the Dragon Gate Escort Agency steady: Lu Changsheng.

"Elder Lu, it's done."

Huang Silang stood respectfully before him, head lowered as he reported.

After leaving the Shocking Heron Martial Hall, he had not returned to the Eight Gates Martial Hall. Instead, he had come alone to the Dragon Gate Escort Agency.

"Hong Tianbao accepted the formal challenge. Three regulated matches will be held at the Shocking Heron Martial Hall in seven days."

Lu Changsheng opened his eyes.

For an instant, a piercing light flashed in those once-clouded eyes. It made the heart shudder, as though a ferocious beast still lurked inside that decaying shell, ready to choose someone to devour.

"When the time comes, please come in person to preside over the contest, Elder Lu. Stand up for us martial artists of Linjiang and cut that Southern Barbarian down to size." Huang Silang kept his manner exceedingly humble.

Lu Changsheng did not answer immediately. He lifted the cup beside him and took a gentle sip.

The liquid was bloodred. It was not tea, but a decoction brewed from century-old Blood Ginseng.

"You're still too young, Little Huang. Too quick to act on pride." Lu Changsheng set down his cup, his voice hoarse. "The martial world isn't just fighting and killing. It's favors and human ties."

"Hong Tianbao bears the title of Martial Laureate from the previous dynasty, became a master before fifty, and has that Martial Saint from the south backing him. Even in Tianjin, that den of dragons and tigers, they had to show him some respect and settle on a three-year agreement."

"Your Eight Gates Martial Hall is in such a hurry to stick its neck out. Aren't you afraid you'll break your teeth?"

Cold sweat beaded on Huang Silang's forehead, and he bent even lower. "You're right to chastise us, Elder Lu. It's just... we can't swallow this insult. We simply can't."

Lu Changsheng smiled. "However..."

His tone shifted. "Of all the places Hong Tianbao could have opened his martial hall, he chose Linjiang County. There are so many counties in Tianjin, yet he picked the one right under our noses. He doesn't know the rules."

"If he doesn't know the rules, someone ought to teach him how to behave. Very well. In seven days, this old man will pay a visit and see whether the former dynasty's Martial Laureate is as good at teaching as his reputation suggests."

"Thank you, Elder Lu!" Huang Silang was overjoyed.

As long as the venerable elder made an appearance, their plan would succeed.

After Huang Silang left amid a flood of thanks, only the Lu Family's core members remained in the warm chamber.

"Patriarch, I brought back a treasure from my studies abroad to offer you."

A young man in Western clothes, his hair slicked back, ignored the pain in his knees and shuffled forward on them. He raised the object above his head with both hands, his voice eager to please.

"I bought it on the voyage home from an impoverished Western nobleman I met in first class."

"He said one of his ancestors followed the foreign powers when they stormed the Jade Capital and took this treasure map from the Demon Dynasty's Treasure Garden with his own hands."

When Lu Changsheng said nothing, the young man swallowed and continued, "The foreigner said it marks the private vault of an Iron-Capped Prince from the previous dynasty. Inside are riches enough to rival a nation's—and the legendary Longevity-Extending Pill."

An Iron-Capped Prince held a hereditary royal title that could never be revoked. The title came from the Demon Dynasty's system of peerage: its holders' princely crowns would never be taken away.