An Honest Man

The street-clearing drums finished their round. The market gates were sealed, and every household shut its doors.

Heavy, disorderly footsteps suddenly sounded from both ends of the long street. Crowds of burly men in black surged like a tide toward the Welcome Inn at its center!

Hearing the jumble of footsteps, nearby residents curiously opened their doors and windows to look outside. But the moment their heads poked out, they jerked back like startled old turtles. The sounds of doors and windows opening and slamming shut rang out together.

Farther away, the night patrol soldiers who normally strutted about throwing their weight around huddled together, watching the men in black as timidly as quails. Not one dared step forward to so much as let out a fart...

Black embroidered robes, gold-inlaid Ox-Tail Sabers-who under heaven did not know the name of the Embroidered Uniform Guard!

Yang Ge strode through the middle of the crowd with a hand on his Bronze-Pattern Ox-Tail Saber. A demonic half-mask covered his face, a Flying Fish Embroidered Robe clothed his body, and his eyes were dark and brooding.

No one!

No one could trash a homebody's home and then swagger away unscathed!

"Listen up, criminals inside! The Embroidered Uniform Guard has surrounded you! Come out at once, surrender yourselves and your weapons, and beg for mercy. That is your only path to survival!"

Fang Ke led his men to the Welcome Inn's entrance first and shouted sternly into the inn.

On either side of him, more than a dozen guards held ten Tiger-Head Repeating Crossbows, each requiring two men to work together and cock it with their feet. They aimed at every door and window of the inn.

To help their Banner Commander settle the score, and to avoid having to gnaw on coarse-grain flatbread at every meal from now on...

These born killers had hauled out the deadliest weapons buried in the Road Pavilion outpost's reserves without a moment's hesitation!

As the man in charge of the Road Pavilion outpost, Yang Ge naturally had no objections.

His only complaint was that there were too few crossbows...

Seeing that the inn's doors remained firmly shut, Fang Ke raised his voice and shouted with mounting ferocity, "Listen up, people inside! I'll count to three. If you still refuse to come out..."

Just then, Yang Ge reached Fang Ke's side and waved a hand.

Fang Ke fell silent at once, drew three inches of his blade, and stepped back behind Yang Ge.

Yang Ge looked up at the signboard above the inn's entrance, still covered in red cloth, and affected a different voice as he laughed. "You two are renowned heroes of the outlaw brotherhood. Why imitate sneaking rooftop thieves and break into someone's home? If word gets out, the women of the martial world in the Yan-Yun Region will laugh their teeth out!"

It was hardly a clever provocation.

But that one remark would establish the Welcome Inn as a victim and keep it out of the affair.

If they later had no choice but to fight inside the inn, Yang Ge might even be able to use his position as an Embroidered Uniform Guard Banner Commander to secure generous compensation for Old Liu's family.

The Luting County authorities?

Unless some irreconcilable conflict of interest arose, they would never interfere in a case personally handled by an Embroidered Uniform Guard Banner Commander.

Bang.

The inn's double doors suddenly flew open, revealing the pitch-black front hall.

An invisible pressure poured out. The dark entrance seemed to become a gaping, blood-drenched maw, waiting for the living to walk inside and die...

Yang Ge's brow twitched, and he quietly tightened his grip on his saber's hilt.

The next moment, the same hoarse voice he had heard at noon drifted lightly out of the inn. "Seems I misjudged you. To think an insignificant little nobody like you could be one of the court's hunting hawks and hounds!"

The tone was wildly arrogant.

Yet he, too, refrained from exposing Yang Ge's identity.

Yang Ge laughed. "I figured you must have been pretty disappointed at noon, so I've delivered myself to your door again to give you some satisfaction."

The man inside laughed as well. "Oh? Are these government lackeys what give you your nerve?"

"My brothers came to back me up. Of course they've bolstered my courage!"

Yang Ge replied, "But what gave me the confidence to come was having right on my side!"

The man asked with interest, "Right?"

Yang Ge said, "Unlawful entry, assaulting someone in the street-you've broken the law. Do you know that?"

The man chuckled and replied blandly, "Now that's something you don't hear every day."

He had barely finished when another vicious voice sounded from inside. "What do you want to do? Lay down your terms. I'll take whatever you throw at me!"

"Simple!"

Yang Ge answered calmly, "Two options. First, I arrest you and bring you in for unlawful entry and assault in the street. You receive whatever sentence those crimes warrant."

"Second, the two of us finish the fight we started at noon. Whether we live or die, win or lose, I, as the injured party, will no longer pursue your crimes."

The vicious voice had only managed a "You-" before the hoarse voice cut it off. "What are you after? Just venting your anger?"

Yang Ge answered earnestly, "And telling you that climbing over someone else's courtyard wall without permission is wrong. Messing with someone else's belongings is even worse!"

The man inside said, "Losing your life over such a trivial matter-is that worth it?"

Yang Ge said, "How you judge it is your business. Whether it's worth it is mine!"

The man inside said, "Fifth Brother, teach this disciple a lesson on your fourth brother's behalf..."

No answer came. Instead, a lean, formidable figure with the Black Saber on his back slowly appeared in the inn's doorway.

Only now did Yang Ge get a clear look at his face: long and narrow, with triangular eyes and the gaze of a starving wolf-fierce, vicious, and cruel.

He walked out into the sights of ten crossbows, yet his eyes held only Yang Ge.

"You know the Wild Wind Leg?"

He unfastened the Black Saber from his back and drove it, scabbard and all, into the stone paving with a clang, asking coldly.

Seeing this, Yang Ge silently unfastened the Ox-Tail Saber at his waist and handed it to Fang Ke beside him.

When Fang Ke saw that Yang Ge truly meant to fight the man, he whispered urgently, "Banner Commander, we don't need to follow any martial-world rules with people like this. If our brothers can't hold them here, there are still the constables, still the city patrol soldiers..."

Yang Ge watched him without a word.

Fang Ke's voice grew quieter and quieter. At last, he could only lower his head and accept the Ox-Tail Saber with both hands.

With his hands free, Yang Ge waved to the guards on either side. They immediately withdrew thirty or forty feet to the left and right, clearing a broad open space.

Fang Ke directed the crossbowmen to ready their weapons again and aim at the gray-clad man, then bellowed at the top of his lungs, "Keep your eyes wide open and watch carefully! If that bastard dares harm a single hair on our Banner Commander's head, shoot him dead! Whatever happens, I'll take responsibility..."

The two men in the clearing seemed not to have heard his furious shout at all.

Yang Ge stared at the gray-clad man.

The gray-clad man stared at Yang Ge.

"Ten moves!"

The gray-clad man suddenly spoke.

Yang Ge shook his head. "Don't act so damn cocky. Lightning strikes show-offs!"

The gray-clad man curled his lip in disdain, then darted forward, filling the air with shadows of his kicking legs.

Yang Ge sprang up and suddenly lashed out with a whipping kick.

Bang!

A fierce gust swept past, and the countless leg shadows vanished. Caught off guard, the gray-clad man stumbled back two steps, crushing a stone step outside the inn's entrance underfoot before he steadied himself.

He raised his head, and the look in his eyes as he regarded Yang Ge finally changed.

"You'd better fight to kill me!"

Yang Ge landed, bent low, and sprang forward, charging through a sky full of leg shadows. "Because I'll be fighting to kill you!"

How did that saying go again?

Don't push an honest man too far, or you'll get a taste of something nasty!

This new book is still a seedling-please water and fertilize it, dear readers~