One evening, ten days later.
Li Xian finished training at the martial arts school and returned to his lodgings.
Ancient cities could hardly be called pleasant places. Low buildings, shops, and endlessly busy pedestrians crowded his view. Besides a heavy air of decay, there was neither peace nor harmony.
Yet, in contrast to the city's oppressive atmosphere, he brimmed with vitality.
Although he had yet to reach muscle and bone great accomplishment, his figure looked tall and straight, his spirit's radiance held within, an air of robust strength emanating from the inside out.
"In another ten days or half a month, my muscle, bone, and viscera training will all be complete. Then I can push my body straight into blood exchange and marrow washing and reach an entirely new level."
Three bowls of Eight-Treasure Soup a day allowed him to spare no effort in tempering his body. Naturally, his progress covered a thousand miles a day.
Honing the body had always been a matter of patient, steady work, advancing step by step.
Gain ten parts, lose nine, retain one.
But Li Xian had previously experienced muscle and bone great accomplishment and internal strengthening of the viscera. With his talent [One Proof, Eternal Proof], ten parts of training yielded ten parts of improvement.
Like reading 3,000 words versus memorizing 3,000 words, the difference in progress was heaven and earth.
If his flesh had not needed time to adapt and grow, he should theoretically have reached muscle and bone great accomplishment in half a day and strengthened his viscera within a day.
"My muscles, bones, and viscera will show results in half a month at most, but I still have no clue about controlling qi and blood. It seems that even though I've achieved embracing qi and forming a core and comprehended primordial unity, I still need to undergo blood exchange and marrow washing before I can gather all my vital essence, control my qi and blood, then unite spirit and qi, use the false to cultivate the true, and produce true qi."
As he pondered, Green Ink Alley came into view.
But after skirting a small puddle a neighbor had emptied onto the ground after washing, entering the alley, and reaching his courtyard gate, he suddenly stopped.
Someone was inside.
With his initial progress in strengthening his viscera, Li Xian's hearing and vision were keen. He could faintly hear voices coming from the courtyard.
"He's not here, but judging by the signs of habitation, he definitely lives here. All we have to do is wait, and he'll deliver himself right to our door."
"He didn't return to Pinewind Academy or Qinghe County. Instead, he hid in this godforsaken corner and made us search high and low!"
"Enough. Don't make too much noise. The madam said that family scandals must not be aired in public. Our Marquis's Residence will resolve this privately, lest word spread and make us a laughingstock, damaging the young lady's reputation."
The Dingfeng Marquis Estate?
They've come to my door?
It sounds like they even went to Qinghe County?
As far as he knew, the Dingfeng Marquis Estate had no particularly capable experts apart from Dingfeng Marquis Liu Zhengfeng.
And that marquis had gone to the royal capital and would have difficulty returning within a month or two. Li Xian had intended to wait until the marquis returned before settling his grievances with the Marquis's Residence. He had never expected a group of guards...
Creak.
Li Xian pushed open the half-closed courtyard gate.
At once, several people in the courtyard turned their eyes toward him.
"Li Xian!?"
One man recognized him instantly.
Perhaps because his appearance and bearing had changed greatly over the past ten days or so, the shout carried a trace of uncertainty.
Li Xian swept his gaze over the courtyard. "Twelve? That's a few too few to deal with me!"
He pushed the gate a little farther open. "Leave now, and there's still ti-"
Before finishing, he reached back and shut the courtyard gate.
"Never mind. Stay."
He had seen it.
The entire courtyard had been turned upside down.
The rooms in particular had their contents strewn all over the floor.
He could make out his clothes thrown on the ground and carelessly trampled.
This was no longer something that could be resolved by simply letting them leave.
"Li Xian!"
A man wearing a saber at his waist strode forward, two others accompanying him.
"Did you think hiding would mean none of this ever happened? Let me tell you, alive, you belong to our Marquis's Residence; dead, your ghost belongs to our Marquis's Residence!"
The saber-wearing man snapped, "Will you surrender and obediently come back with me to await the first madam's judgment, or shall we beat you half to death and drag you back to the Marquis's Residence for household discipline!?"
"Your arrogance and conceit keep you from listening to me."
Li Xian said, "But executing without first instructing is called tyranny. So let me make this clear: I'm attacking you not because of my grievances with the Marquis's Residence, but solely because you entered my home and ransacked it like bandits. Killing you is killing bandits. Nothing more."
"Insolence! I'm a first-class guard of the Marquis's Residence, and you dare compare us to bandits? And talk of killing bandits!?"
The saber-wearing man brazenly drew the sharp blade at his waist, a vicious light filling his eyes. "Do you really think that after a month of martial training and injuring Zhang Qing and another man with a sneak attack, you can spout such shameless boasts and hold us in contempt!?"
"He's determined to fight to the bitter end! Captain Liu Feng, what are we waiting for? Let's grant his wish!"
A man beside him could no longer hold back either.
"I hope your bones are as hard as your mouths."
Li Xian took in everyone's positions and approximate strength. "Unfortunately, they aren't..."
"Die!"
Before Li Xian could finish, Liu Feng lost patience. At a signal from his eyes, the three guards closest to Li Xian sprang into action together.
With thunderous shouts, the three guards who had reached bone-tempering achievement attacked fiercely. Their blades whistled straight toward his arms and lower body.
Though they were not trying to behead him, every slash aimed to cripple him completely and strip him of the ability to fight.
Almost as soon as they moved, Li Xian, who commanded the entire battlefield, moved as well.
He strode forward, shifted sideways, and thrust out his right hand. Like a bolt of lightning, it skimmed the slash coming from the guard on his left, drove straight in, and clamped around the guard's wrist.
Bare-Handed Blade Catch!
Strength burst forth. His five fingers twisted, wrenching the guard's wrist through a hundred and eighty degrees as though snapping it clean off.
Crack!
"Aaagh!"
The sound of snapping sinew and bone rang out together with the guard's agonized scream!
His saber instantly slipped from his grasp.
Li Xian scooped it into his hand and lunged sideways, avoiding the slash at his lower body while driving his shoulder viciously into the disarmed guard's chest.
Thud!
As the guard flew backward from this Iron Mountain Lean, the saber Li Xian had caught spun outward, meeting the blade descending toward his head with exquisite precision.
Clang!
Sparks burst forth as the descending saber was knocked away.
At the instant the two blades collided, Li Xian's saber turned sharply with the momentum. Before the guard he had knocked back could react, the blade flashed across his throat.
Shhk!
A line of blood instantly appeared across the guard's throat.
His pupils widened sharply, his eyes filled with shock, fear, and disbelief.
Killing!?
Li Xian...
He actually dared to kill me!?
But before those emotions could bloom with the spray of blood, the blade that had swept across his throat turned again, slashing diagonally at the guard crouching low to attack Li Xian's lower body.
Clang!
The guard immediately raised his saber horizontally to block.
Sparks flew!
But before the crouching guard could straighten, Li Xian's right foot had suddenly lashed upward, striking his chin with tremendous force.
The violent force almost kicked his entire body off the ground.
Teeth mixed with blood sprayed from the guard's mouth.
What shocked even Captain Liu Feng more was that, when Li Xian's rising kick reached almost the height of a standing split, its angle abruptly changed!
The weight of his foot drove savagely downward, like the chop of a battle-axe, stamping heavily into the guard's chest.
The guard's entire chest abruptly caved in.
If the kick to the chin had left him a thread of hope for survival, this battle-axe stamp was instantly fatal!
Crack!
"A Quan!"
The dull thud of force striking flesh, the crisp crack of shattering bones, and the other guards' cries rang out together.
A flash of lightning, a spark from flint!
Facing an encirclement of three guards, Li Xian's explosive counterattack had truly come in a flash of lightning and a spark from flint.
In an instant, two men had lost their lives!
The sudden reversal and slaughter left the remaining guards shocked and furious!
But the battle did not stop for their startled cries.
The battle-axe kick sent A Quan's eighty-odd-kilogram body flying backward, crashing toward the guard whose saber Li Xian had blocked earlier.
Caught off guard, the man hurriedly caught A Quan's corpse, which completely obscured his vision!
"Li Xian! You dare!"
"Fang Rui, watch out!"
Amid the frightened shouts of Liu Feng and the other guards, power erupted from Li Xian's descending right foot. His body sprang forward like a released bow, and a flash of steel followed almost directly behind the corpse launched by his whipping kick, piercing the chest of Fang Rui, the third guard.
Shhk!
The sharp blade entered flesh.
Before the guard could utter so much as half a word, A Quan's corpse slammed into him, and the two tumbled across the ground like rolling gourds.
His hand rose, his blade fell-three men slain in an instant!
"No!"
Liu Feng, who led the group, roared in fury, his eyes straining as though they would split!
Not only had Li Xian dared to kill, he had killed three guards of the Marquis's Residence in succession!
"Li Xian! I'll kill you!"
"If others kill me, I kill them. Since you came here, you should naturally have been prepared for me to kill you instead. Now that someone's dead, you put on this show of grief and rage. Beyond making people laugh, what possible meaning does it have?"
Li Xian calmly shook the blood from his blade and faced Liu Feng, who charged at him with a furious roar.
As the group's leader, Liu Feng had reached muscle and bone great accomplishment and had already begun Internal Organ Refinement.
His cultivation level was no lower than Hongyu's.
Moreover, he had handled matters for the Marquis's Residence for years and possessed abundant practical combat experience. Now, striking in fury, he leaped forward with his saber. Its whistling light resembled a bolt of silk tearing through the void, sealing off the entire space a little over ten feet in front of Li Xian. Wherever he dodged, a thunderous pursuing slash would strike him.
But...
Li Xian had no intention of dodging.
As the slash completely enveloped his body, his eyes lowered slightly. In his mind, the trajectories of all that blade light seemed to weave into a single arc.
Listening to the Blade!
The next instant, he struck. His blade rose high in an upward sweep, blocking Liu Feng's slash with exquisite precision.
Dazzling sparks burst out as blade scraped against blade.
And as the two edges scraped and sparks erupted, Li Xian abruptly drew his saber upward, reversed his grip, and, in an instant, turned his wrist and chopped down!
Clang!
Metal clashed and flew!
The saber Liu Feng had swung in his fierce charge had its entire blade severed by a single strike from Li Xian!
The broken blade shot away into the distance.
Liu Feng's gaze instantly froze!
Whoosh!
The edge that had severed his blade turned sharply and swept sideways like lightning.
"No..."
Before the guard captain could cry out, the blade had already swept across his throat.
(End of chapter)
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