Peng Qing of Shengcang Martial Hall Dies

Peng Qing's pupils abruptly contracted.

Lu Cheng lay beside the couch, blood still seeping from the wound in his chest. The man who had just been shouting about dragging in all the lowborn villagers from Three Trees Village and beating them twitched a few times, then went still.

The woman in the room huddled in a corner, both hands clamped over her mouth. Tears had streaked her makeup, and her face was as white as a paper effigy.

Peng Qing stared at Lu Cheng's corpse, his thin lips trembling. Rotten as his junior brother had been, he was still a man of Shengcang Martial Hall.

Worse still, the intruder killed too swiftly, too steadily, with no regard whatsoever for the rules of the martial world.

He asked no names, made no threats, and left no room for mercy.

This was no ordinary night raid. Someone had come specifically to deal with them.

"You're courting death!"

Peng Qing roared, suddenly surging his qi and blood. Veins bulged along his neck, and his entire presence rose a notch.

He lowered the long saber in his hand, kicked off the floor, and lunged.

The first slash came down at the head, the second cut toward the shoulder, and the third swept across the waist and belly.

Four more followed in a tightly linked sequence, each aimed at a vital point-the neck, the heart, the backs of the knees. There was not a trace of empty showmanship.

Yi Yang brought his blade across to meet him.

Clang!

Sparks flew between the blades, landing beside an overturned wine cup, dazzlingly bright.

Yi Yang's wrist sank under the impact.

His qi-blood second level muscular strength surpassed Peng Qing's, but Peng Qing had practiced the saber for years. Its movements were as familiar to him as eating and drinking. None of his strikes were pretty, but all were practical, seeking the gaps when Yi Yang's old force was spent and his new force had yet to rise.

Yi Yang retreated two steps, his heel catching an overturned round stool.

Peng Qing's eyes reddened.

"So what if you're in the muscle training realm?"

Before his words had faded, his blade was slicing diagonally toward Yi Yang's wrist.

Yi Yang pressed his woodcutting blade down to block, the impact numbing his arm.

He had only begun learning the Nine Peaks Saber a few days ago.

In raw power, Yi Yang held the advantage.

In the finer points of technique, Peng Qing had immersed himself in saber practice for over a decade and had far deeper experience. He hacked seven times in succession, forcing Yi Yang back beside the table, then flicked his blade backward and sent the wine jug flying.

Wine splashed, dishes tumbled, and greasy broth spattered across the floor tiles.

The woman finally failed to stifle her sobs.

"Don't kill me, don't kill me! I didn't see anything..."

"Shut up!" Peng Qing roared.

The instant his shout faded, an overturned wooden stool knocked over the lamp, and flames licked at the curtains.

The fabric first curled at the edges, then fire raced upward.

Thick smoke spread with the smell of scorching cloth, choking their throats with bitterness.

Yi Yang narrowed his eyes.

I can't drag this out.

There were still more than a dozen apprentices in the side courtyard.

Individually, they were nothing worth mentioning, but if they woke and surrounded him with clubs and blades, even a veteran master could be beaten to death by a flurry of wild fists. Besides, this was the Martial Arts Hall's own turf.

This old man had no interest in playing at soloing a dungeon.

The risk was too high. It was not worth it.

Peng Qing smelled the smoke too, and his expression grew fiercer.

"Trying to run?"

"Too late!"

His blade flickered as he rushed forward.

Yi Yang did not retreat. His woodcutting blade abruptly changed course.

Nine Peaks Saber, fourth form: Strange Peak.

This was the strangest form of all.

The first half of the strike seemed aimed at Peng Qing's head, its momentum heavy enough to force him to raise his saber to block.

But midway through, Yi Yang twisted his wrist and drew strength from his waist and belly. His woodcutting blade bent away from its overhead path in a vicious arc, sliding along the spine of Peng Qing's saber and heading straight for his right armpit.

Peng Qing's eyes flew wide. The move was fiendishly underhanded.

Block above, and he left himself open below. Guard below, and his head was exposed.

Years of saber training had given him instincts that saved half his life.

With no time to bring his long saber back to defend, Peng Qing simply abandoned it and slapped his right palm against the flat of the woodcutting blade.

Smack!

The bones of his palm met the force of the blade head-on.

A teeth-grating crack came from Peng Qing's right arm.

His entire arm dropped limp on the spot, his hand dangling loosely. He could not even make a fist.

But Yi Yang's strike still had force to spare.

The power of the qi-blood second level drove onward. The spine of the blade swept into Peng Qing's chest, sending him flying through the window lattice and into the courtyard's earthen wall.

Bang!

Half the earthen wall collapsed.

Broken mud bricks scattered everywhere.

Peng Qing landed in the dark alley beyond the wall, spewing a mouthful of dark blood. Part of his chest had caved in, and at least two ribs were broken.

The fire inside the room grew fiercer.

The curtains crackled as they burned, and smoke rolled outward along the roof beams.

The woman screamed and sobbed, scrambling and crawling toward the door.

Yi Yang ignored her.

She was merely a woman paid to entertain men over drinks, scared out of her wits tonight. Whether she escaped alive depended on her luck. She did not matter.

What mattered was that Peng Qing had heard the news about Yang Da and had seen Yi Yang fight.

His face was covered, but there were still his build, his age, his woodcutting blade, and Three Trees Village.

Too many loose threads.

If Peng Qing escaped, the trouble afterward would be enough to drive a man mad.

Blade in hand, Yi Yang vaulted over the collapsed wall.

The dark alley was extremely narrow, its high walls squeezing the path into something like a drainage ditch. A few thin threads of moonlight filtered down from above. The ground was slick, with rotten vegetable leaves and filthy water along the walls.

Yi Yang's nostrils twitched.

The smell of blood.

After reaching the muscle training realm, he could see far better at night than before.

Dark red blood marked the ground every few steps.

Dragging his ruined right arm, Peng Qing staggered toward the end of the alley.

His flight was utterly wretched.

Only moments ago, he had lorded it over everyone in the room, spitting out "lowborn" with one breath and "interrogation" with the next. Now one shoe was half off, his hair hung loose, and his left hand braced against the wall. His breathing rasped like a broken bellows.

With every rise and fall of his chest, broken bones ground through his flesh, the pain making his vision blacken.

But he dared not stop. Stopping meant death.

Only one thought remained in his mind.

Get out alive.

Find Yang Da.

Tell Yang Da that something is wrong with that old man Yi from Three Trees Village.

An old woodcutter, the muscle training realm, a woodcutting blade, Nine Peaks Saber movements.

Those clues were enough.

Once Yang Da returned, the killer would not escape.

"Hold on."

Gritting his teeth, Peng Qing tore off his belt and hastily wrapped it around his right arm.

Blood kept seeping out. He turned into an even narrower alley beside him, hoping to lose his pursuer around the corner.

But the footsteps behind him remained unhurried and steady.

Peng Qing grew increasingly panicked. His foot slipped on the wet paving stones, and his knee struck the ground, pain twisting his entire face.

He clambered up and kept running. His left hand found the corner at the alley's end, and he had barely begun to feel relieved when he saw a dead-end wall ahead.

The wall was not high.

Normally, when uninjured, he could have climbed over it easily.

But now his right arm was ruined, his chest bones broken, and his qi and blood scattered. Even standing steady was a struggle.

Peng Qing pressed his back against the wall, harsh breaths rasping in his throat.

Yi Yang's figure appeared at the alley entrance, his face masked in black cloth, his gray clothes stained with blood.

The old woodcutting blade hung at his side, the blood on its edge darkening in the night wind.

A thread of moonlight fell from overhead onto the blade, its cold whiteness piercing.

Peng Qing's Adam's apple bobbed. "Friend, don't kill me."

He changed his tune quickly.

For men of the martial world, there was no shame in staying alive.

"Lu Cheng is dead. I can pretend I saw nothing."

"Shengcang Martial Hall can give you silver too. Do you want medicine? Cultivation methods? I have ways to get them."

Yi Yang stepped forward. Peng Qing panicked, bloody foam bubbling at his lips.

"Don't push me!"

"My master has old friends in the county town, and Yang Da will return in five days. If you kill me, you won't be able to keep this quiet!"

Yi Yang paused for half a breath, and the desperate hope of survival immediately appeared in Peng Qing's eyes.

"Yes, yes, Yang Da!"

"Yang Da is about to break through to the qi-blood third level. Let me go now, and I can speak for you. There's no need for us to fight to the death."

"You're in the muscle training realm, and I'm a martial artist too. Neither of us is one of those mud-legged peasants. Why go this far over a few village women..."

Before he could finish, Yi Yang raised his blade.

Peng Qing's pupils tightened, and he hurled a broken brick at Yi Yang's face with his left hand.

Yi Yang tilted his head aside and brought his woodcutting blade down.

The blade entered beside Peng Qing's collarbone and cleaved straight through his chest.

Peng Qing slid down the wall, blood pouring from the front of his clothes.

Yi Yang crouched and searched him. Peng Qing carried twenty-six taels of loose silver, two banknotes worth ten taels each, a bronze Shengcang Martial Hall token, and several packets of blood-staunching powder.

Yi Yang gathered the silver and medicine and tucked them into his clothes.

He glanced at the bronze token, then casually tossed it into the filthy drainage ditch beside the alley.

Taking that thing home would bring bad luck.

Once he was done, Yi Yang returned to the outside of Shengcang Martial Hall's rear wall.

The room was already ablaze, and frightened shouts from the apprentices rose from the side courtyard.

"Fire!"

"Master! Master Peng!"

"Master Lu is inside!"

This chaos suited him perfectly.

Yi Yang made no further move.

Lu Cheng was dead, Peng Qing was dead, and Shengcang Martial Hall would have its own hands full tonight.

He left through the dark alley, circled past two streets, and climbed out of town. The night wind brushed his face, carrying the dampness of field ridges and the raw scent of grass.

Back in Three Trees Village, Yi Yang climbed into his rear courtyard. First, he washed the woodcutting blade beside the water jar, then scrubbed it again with plant ash.

He threw his bloodstained clothes into the stove. Flames licked the fabric, and the smell of blood was soon swallowed by the scent of smoke and fire.

He heated water and washed himself twice.

There were several cuts on his arms, none deep.

Peng Qing's slashes had been vicious, but his muscle training realm body could withstand them. Once his flesh tightened, the bleeding had already stopped.

Yi Yang sat on a small stool in the kitchen, drying his hair and muttering softly.

"The blood qi first stage can't keep this old man down anymore."