The Turks

Whoosh!!

Su Yun instinctively ducked, and the wineskin in his hand was shot out of his grasp.

Li Ping'an raised a hand and effortlessly caught the incoming arrow.

He took the wineskin hanging from it and fastened it back at his waist.

It was a short wooden arrow, crudely made.

It looked like the work of vicious bandits roaming the desert.

Su Yun sprawled awkwardly on the ground, backside in the air, and looked around.

In the distance, more than a dozen swift horses were racing toward them.

"Mounted bandits!"

Su Yun gave a slight start.

Before long, the riders had surrounded them.

Besides a steel saber, each man carried a bow on his back.

Su Yun gripped the sword at his waist, his expression tense, as though facing a formidable enemy.

"Where have you two gentlemen come from? My brothers have been a little short of money lately. Could you lend us some to tide us over?"

Their leader was a man with a full beard.

Though clearly a mounted bandit, he had an upright air about him and seemed to have been a soldier.

"Boss, there's a woman."

One of his men stared fixedly at the alluring Pei Zhuxuan.

A single look from the bearded man frightened him into averting his eyes.

Su Yun felt the money in his pocket, wavering between handing it over and fighting them.

According to the plots of martial arts novels, Su Yun should not have feared them.

In reality, however, they had strength in numbers, and they did not look like opponents he could dispatch with an easy eighty-twenty advantage.

Su Yun stole a glance at Li Ping'an behind him, waiting for his reaction.

Li Ping'an remained unmoved, seemingly paying the bandits no heed at all.

That gave Su Yun some confidence. Judging by his experience of reading over five hundred novels,

this blind man was definitely a master hiding his true abilities.

Both his shattering a saber with a flick of his finger yesterday and the innkeeper's inexplicable fawning over him today had convinced Su Yun of this.

"Hmph! Mere petty thieves! What have I, Su Yun, to fear?"

Su Yun declared loudly.

At a time like this, he had to let this blind man see his courage.

Even against ten million men, I would press on.

The bearded man's gaze shifted to Li Ping'an. "And you? Same as him?"

"No! I'll pay."

Li Ping'an took out some money. "I didn't bring much with me. Please don't take offense, brave heroes. Consider it my treat for the brothers to have some tea."

His words left no opening for objection, and the bandits' expressions softened a little.

Li Ping'an briefly cupped his hands. "I'll take my leave, gentlemen."

Beside him, Su Yun was utterly dumbfounded.

It felt as though ten thousand horses were stampeding through his mind.

This wasn't how the plot was supposed to go!

According to his expectations, shouldn't the two of them have joined forces against the bandits?

Then this peerless master would have recognized his fine character and taken him as a disciple...

The bearded man waved a hand, and his men opened a path.

Li Ping'an simply walked out of their encirclement without the slightest difficulty.

Su Yun stood rooted to the spot. By the time he came to his senses,

he found himself facing the vicious stares of more than a dozen burly men.

Su Yun swallowed and gave a couple of dry chuckles.

"Just now... I was only joking..."

"Hey! You're a really strange person, you know."

Pei Zhuxuan rode on Old Ox while Li Ping'an led Old Ox ahead of her.

At first glance, Li Ping'an looked like a servant.

"Those men shouldn't have been any match for you, right? Why did you pay them and back down?"

Pei Zhuxuan asked curiously.

"Why resort to violence when money can solve the problem?" Li Ping'an said.

"Then if I give you money now, will you let me go?"

"Those are two different matters."

Pei Zhuxuan rolled her lovely eyes.

"Boss, that fellow was loaded. One look at his jade pendant told you it was worth a fortune. Why didn't we take it?"

The bearded man said, "Even thieves have their code. We only became outlaws because we had no choice.

"Besides, taking people's money is an unrighteous act to begin with."

The bearded man, Liu Yong, had once been a frontier soldier. His agility and fighting prowess had earned him command of a scouting squad.

He had devoted himself to defending his home and country, but the world was shrouded in darkness.

In the end, villains had forced him to flee the frontier and become a wandering soldier.

Unable to return home, he had drifted from place to place.

To make a living, he had been forced to become a mounted bandit.

Even so, Liu Yong had not willingly sunk into depravity.

He only took money, never lives.

He turned a blind eye to poor commoners and picked out the wealthy to rob.

He took half and left half, and never laid a finger on the women. Compared with other mounted bandits, he was practically a living bodhisattva walking the earth.

Amid the rolling yellow sands, another two days passed in the blink of an eye.

Liu Yong and his dozen or so brothers passed a village and intended to rest their feet.

But from a distance, they saw thick smoke billowing over it. A group of foreign soldiers were galloping through the village, cracking their whips and slaughtering its people.

"Damn it! Those bastards were born to mothers but never raised by them!"

One man could not help cursing.

Great Sui was weak, and its imperial court was in turmoil.

The ordinary people always suffered the most.

Especially those on the frontier, struggling to survive in the cracks: on one side, they endured exploitation by the authorities.

On the other, they had to guard against foreign raids.

Murder, pillage, and being sold into slavery were all routine.

Great Sui would never truly go to war with another country over one or two villages.

"Brothers, kill them!!" Liu Yong raised his cavalry saber and roared.

More than a dozen swift horses charged straight ahead. These men were all frontier soldiers who had fled with Liu Yong.

As hot-blooded men, how could they witness such a scene without righteous fury filling their hearts and blood rushing to their heads?

Turks!

A Turkic soldier spotted Liu Yong's group and hurriedly blew his horn.

With a roar, Liu Yong slashed diagonally downward, cutting through the man's head.

Scalding blood splashed across his face.

"Kill!"

There were roughly thirty Turkic soldiers in the village.

Though Liu Yong's men were outnumbered, they were all brave, battle-hardened scouts.

Their sudden attack also caught the Turkic soldiers off guard, absorbed as they were in burning, killing, and looting.

Liu Yong's gaze sharpened as he spotted something nearby.

A familiar figure was facing off against several Turkic soldiers.

It was Su Yun, whom they had robbed only a few days earlier.

Su Yun had originally thought Li Ping'an was some great master and wanted to follow him, become his disciple, and learn his skills.

Who could have known that when Liu Yong's bandits robbed them, Li Ping'an would simply pay and leave?

Disheartened, Su Yun realized he had been imagining things.

Still, he had to keep exploring the martial world. As he passed this village,

he had intended to rest his feet, only to stumble upon a Turkic raid.

Although Su Yun could not stop these Turks, escaping amid the chaos would have been no problem.

But after witnessing what these beasts were doing, Su Yun abandoned the thought of fleeing.

He had, however, underestimated these seasoned Turkic soldiers.

Surrounded and attacked by four men, Su Yun soon found himself at a disadvantage.

He was about to lose his life there.

Liu Yong suddenly appeared and unleashed a fierce horizontal slash.

The thick-backed military saber traced a black arc through the air, whistling toward a soldier's head.

Su Yun seized the chance to break out of the encirclement. Looking up, he exclaimed in surprise, "It's you!"

Liu Yong laughed heartily. "Well done, lad!!"