After battering Steward Qi into a serious injury, Zhang Xiaohua stopped attacking and darted elsewhere. The soldiers who had just been bullied miserably by Steward Qi would never pass up such a perfect chance to throw stones at a man who had fallen into a well. They swarmed forward and hacked him to the ground.
After more than a dozen such leaps and bounds, Zhang Xiaohua had already knocked down the most skilled members of the gang. A troop of soldiers eager to pick up the scraps had long gathered behind him. Now this was the bearing of a true master: with one sword, he beat an opponent until he had no power to fight back, then tossed him aside and went on to gnaw at other hard bones, leaving the credit for capturing the enemy to others. Who would not be willing to follow him?
Seeing that the situation had been settled, Zhang Xiaohua thought of the still-unconscious Xiao Juzi and did not linger. He shifted the long sword to his right hand, pushed off with his feet, turned in midair, and leapt out of the fighting circle. Behind him, a heap of soldiers watched with such reluctant eyes that countless gazes carried the same thought: Great hero, are you leaving already? Won't you kill a few more?
Yu Deyi and Le Zhichun, who had been supervising the battle from behind, had long been dumbstruck. It was not as though they had not expected Zhang Xiaohua's martial arts to be formidable and helpful to their side. But was this not a little too formidable? The moment he entered the fray, before even the time it took to drink a few cups of tea had passed, he had dealt with the enemy's dozen or so strongest men. Could this man