A True Fan

For Fang Yunhua, the night was a long one.

For Chu Liuxiang, it was both long and thrilling.

Red One Point in the Central Plains's departure did not mean things were over. Having accepted the Heavenly Star Gang's commission, he at least had to pay the Vermilion Sand Gang a visit.

Chu Liuxiang had also promptly sought out Leng Qiuhun of the Vermilion Sand Gang. When Song Gang of the Heavenly Star Gang arrived to threaten them, a round of negotiations and probing led Chu Liuxiang to discover a crucial clue.

Two of the four corpses he had examined-the Heavenly Star Gang's chief, Zuo Youzheng, and the Killer Scholar, Ximen Qian, who had been closely associated with Leng Qiuhun before his death-had both received a suspicious letter.

Song Gang was a key witness who knew what the letter contained, but just as he was about to reveal its contents,

he was murdered by a mysterious figure who had been hiding in the shadows all along.

With Chu Liuxiang's lightness skill, he should have been able to catch the killer. Yet the mysterious figure suddenly used a trick unlike anything in the martial world of the Central Plains: a smoke bomb that released poisonous fumes.

The blast left Chu Liuxiang utterly stunned.

Still, as the king of actual combat, Chu Liuxiang had already maxed out his poison resistance. His opponent then displayed another little trick. By the time the figure fled to the lakeside, he had vanished completely, leaving only a ripple slowly fading across the water.

Recognizing this as Ninjutsu from Japan only gave Chu Liuxiang more cause for worry.

After all, what respectable person practiced this bizarre nonsense? Even someone as learned as Chu Liuxiang knew little about it and found it extremely troublesome to counter.

On top of that, his opponent's lightness skill was no slouch-at least among the finest of the age. As a result, Chu Liuxiang suffered the rare experience of failing to catch someone he pursued.

Of course, there was another decisive factor that cut this lead off altogether.

That was Red One Point in the Central Plains, who had followed him all the way!

As the greatest Chu fanboy of the age, he had something of the derangement an obsessive fan developed upon meeting his idol.

For instance, right now, he was demanding that Chu Liuxiang draw his sword.

Chu Liuxiang was rather bewildered. Earlier, he had explained his principle of never killing, and the other man had seemed to take it to heart. Yet now, for no apparent reason, he had become stubborn again.

His entire approach revolved around the lunatic idea of either killing Chu Liuxiang or having Chu Liuxiang kill him.

Chu Liuxiang intended to reason with him properly. Hadn't Red One Point already abandoned the idea of killing him? Why had he suddenly changed his mind?

But Red One Point's answer left Chu Liuxiang even more speechless.

"I merely refused to kill you for someone else. If I kill you, it will be for myself alone, because fighting Chu Liuxiang to the death would be one of the greatest pleasures of my life."

Chu Liuxiang: (≖_≖)

Actually, Red One Point's condition fit the overall tone of Gu Long's martial world quite well. After all, anyone with decent martial arts had some kind of problem.

There was the Demoness of the Emerald Sea's sexual orientation; Stone Guanyin's narcissism, which had her huffing and puffing before a mirror every day; and Xue Yiren's obsession with swords. He had even grown bored enough to deliberately make an enemy of Zuo Qinghou, and had gone after innocent young Fang too, insisting on forcing him down a path of trials where he had to improve or die.

Then there was Yuan Suiyun, who was depraved enough to extend his demonic claws toward Master Kumei.

Even if he was blind, he should at least have been able to gauge her general condition through touch.

Withered Plum was withered and gaunt, her face covered in scars. Half an ear was missing, as was one eye, and her left arm resembled charred bone.

For the sake of ambition, he really would go for even the ugly ones.

And that was not even the worst of it, because pairing Yuan Suiyun with Withered Plum could also be elevated into an important philosophical question about love.

Namely, looks mattered enormously to ordinary people of the world, but what meaning did looks have for a blind man?

Having a pair of bright eyes was a blessing for ordinary people, but it also gave rise to worldly prejudice: appearance always held a fairly lofty place.

Yet after a few decades, wouldn't everyone be nothing but a stinking sack of flesh? Even now, they were merely sacks of flesh that did not yet stink.

So this pairing could be forcibly chalked up to true love.

But Yuan Suiyun's most perverse trait was that the Bat Island he had established held captive a number of women with attractive faces and figures, specifically to serve his guests-and these women had no eyes!

Their eyelids seemed to have been sewn together by some technique, turning them into smooth expanses of skin.

They had become blank spaces-blank spaces of despair!

After a round of comparisons like that, Red One Point in the Central Plains merely wanted to kill his idol. That was relatively normal!

Especially since Chu Liuxiang had already realized that he was a little unhinged, but his nature as a true fan was beyond doubt.

And so he made the same choice he had made when facing Fang Yunhua's sword in Mount Hua's reception hall.

He clasped his hands behind his back and stood perfectly still, while Red One Point's flashing blade stopped abruptly half an inch from his throat.

Had Fang Yunhua been there, he would certainly have given this little display of Chu Liuxiang's full marks.

As one of the two greatest show-offs of the age, it was little wonder that Chu Liuxiang could attract a quality fan like Red One Point. Even with his Adam's apple trembling uncontrollably under the icy sword aura, his expression remained unchanged.

At this point, Red One Point began to feel sorry for his beloved idol, and his instincts as a true fan suppressed that little streak of madness buried in his bones.

Then, under Chu Liuxiang's verbal persuasion, Red One Point came to recognize his mistake profoundly.

Killing his beloved idol would not make him happy. Only a living idol could give him endless things to look forward to.

But just as he was about to withdraw his sword, that suppressed madness refused to accept it!

If things ended just like that, how could they demonstrate the distinctive tradition of every martial-world expert being abnormal? He had to pull some stunt now.

And so Red One Point turned his sword around and thrust it toward his own throat, forcing Chu Liuxiang to hurriedly intervene.

What followed was a fight that would have looked utterly deranged to any outsider.

One man fought not to hurt someone, but to save him. The other sought to kill not his opponent, but himself.

After they had exchanged dozens of moves like this, Wuhua, lurking in the shadows, perhaps could not bear to watch any longer and intervened forcefully.

The next instant, the notes of a zither rang out across the lake, clear and melodious, their exquisite harmony seemingly born of nature. Yet within them lay an indescribable, hidden bitterness, as though a nation had fallen and a family had perished, leaving a heart full of grief and outrage that could not be resolved; or as though someone had suffered bullying and humiliation, accumulating resentment that could not be dispelled.

As the music rose, heaven and earth seemed to fill with a bleak, murderous chill. The stars and moon dimmed, and even the famed lake's scenery lost its color.

Chu Liuxiang was open-minded and upright at heart, so the music did not affect him much.

Red One Point, however, had a miserable past and had fallen on hard times in the martial world. His disposition was already extreme, his heart already full of frustration and resentment. His inability to kill either his beloved idol or himself had twisted him further still, and now his true-fan attributes suffered another severe reduction.

Suddenly, he threw back his head and let out a long howl, then reversed his sword and thrust it straight at Chu Liuxiang.

Chu Liuxiang stopped showing off now. He no longer stood there without even dodging as he had before. After all, the true fan before him showed signs of turning into a deranged obsessive, and his keen eyes could tell that Red One Point had almost completely lost his reason.

It was not a crime for a lunatic to kill someone.

There was no need to gamble on whether the other man would regain his senses merely to maintain his own aura of coolness.

He also thought rather well of this true fan. He was confident that Red One Point could not hurt him, but knew that if this continued, Red One Point would inevitably hurt himself first.

And so he chose to dive into the water!