A brutal battle, the dust settles

The wind howled and snow drifted, figures darting through it.

The girl struck fast and changed moves even faster, advancing and retreating without ever tangling with Third Brother Xie, instead blocking his route up the mountain.

Lian Youming flicked the Military Dagger in his hand, sending hot blood rolling silently off it.

Third Brother Xie pressed a hand against the bloody hole in his chest, his face filled with shock, fury, resentment, and unwillingness to accept defeat.

He had painstakingly waited and schemed for so many years, weathering every storm. Who could have imagined that, right at the end, he would founder in the gutter, everything ruined by a teenage brat just as success was within reach? How could he accept it?

Feeling the pain in his chest, Third Brother Xie grew pale. As his hot blood flowed out, it carried away his body heat.

"Hm? It stopped?"

But Lian Youming's eyes flashed as he looked at the other man's chest. A hole like that, with a Military Dagger twisted around inside it, would have killed anyone. Yet after Third Brother Xie let out just a few light breaths, the blood spraying out in a torrent visibly stopped.

"Well, damn. You can still hang on after that." Spitting bloody saliva into the snow, Lian Youming wiped his mouth and raised his eyebrows. "You really have my respect."

His casual tone concealed a viciousness that pierced to the core.

Third Brother Xie glared savagely at Lian Youming, staring fixedly at the boy's usual cheeky grin. His expression was utterly dark as he said, "If I'd known, I would've slaughtered you earlier."

He considered himself one of the greatest fighters alive, yet a child had run circles around him. Not only had he lost the initiative, he had dragged the others on the mountain down with him, throwing away their excellent position in an instant.

Even if he had not yet lost or died, he had already forfeited the initiative in this battle.

Besides, since the girl named Shuang'er had made it down the mountain, the mysterious person hidden among the educated youths must already have been dealt with.

With no chance of victory and a severe wound, even if he fought to the death and killed these two, that unfathomable old devil was still up on the mountain.

Lian Youming gripped his Military Dagger, intending to add a few threats. But before he could open his mouth, Third Brother Xie turned without hesitation and rushed downhill, his long strides fast and urgent.

He was running. Fleeing.

The girl who had come to help made to attack again, but Lian Youming stopped her.

"Forget him. Let's head up first."

The girl's raised fists paused as she, too, realized it.

Third Brother Xie had lost the will to fight and was seriously wounded. He was no longer a concern. What mattered now was the fierce battle on the mountain.

Without another word, the two hurried back.

Amid the white curtain of snow, Lian Youming endured the pain in his chest and followed beside the girl.

The mountain path was slippery, thick with frost and snow. But when the girl named Shuang'er turned around, Lian Youming sucked in a sharp breath, his pupils contracting. Her entire back was crimson, soaked with blood. He had no idea what brutal battle she had endured.

Although they saw each other every day, they barely knew each other. Unlike those young men awakening to romance, always dreaming up ways to court the female educated youths, Lian Youming only mingled with the men. He was also accustomed to keeping to himself. Aside from exchanging a few words with his roommates, he struck everyone else as quiet and reserved.

Lian Youming could not understand it either. They were all fucking exhausted, so how could these people still think of nothing but falling in love?

"What exactly is buried up there?"

Looking at the girl's small back, Lian Youming could not help asking. He truly wanted to know what treasure could make these people stand guard for decades, wasting their best years and their entire lives.

"I think I have a right to know. I'm risking my life to help you, after all. You can't expect me to die without even knowing why."

The girl kept her head down and hurried on, seemingly silent. But after several seconds, she finally spoke. "There's a person buried up on the mountain."

"What?"

Lian Youming was somewhat stunned, as though he had not understood.

What was buried on the mountain was not treasure, but a person?

He said hoarsely, "If you don't want to tell me, don't. There's no need to make up lies. Would so many people risk their lives fighting over a dead person? Do you take me for a three-year-old?"

But the girl added, "Not a dead person."

Lian Youming was even more bewildered.

Not a dead person?

Could there actually be someone alive buried there?

As though she had guessed his thoughts, the girl said evenly, "Many things in this world are far more than what meets the eye. You've only just encountered martial arts. Though you've received some genuine instruction, you've only seen the tip of the iceberg of that world."

Lian Youming frowned. "What exactly are you trying to say?"

The girl said softly, "I'm saying you still have a chance to return to the world of ordinary people. But once you know what's buried up there, turning back will be difficult."

Lian Youming lowered his eyes and fell silent too. He was not considering the girl's final warning, but wondering just what was buried on the mountain. If she was telling the truth, and a living person really was buried there, that was simply too incredible.

Because the Mountain-Guarding Old Man had been guarding the mountain since the Republican era, which meant the person buried there was at least over a hundred years old.

And still alive.

At that thought, Lian Youming felt his mouth go dry.

Then, considering Third Brother Xie and his companions' actions, along with the Mountain-Guarding Old Man's reaction, an extremely terrifying, even somewhat absurd guess surfaced in his mind.

These two factions really might not be fighting over some treasure. After all, they had sacrificed far too much.

If that was the case.

The person on the mountain was most likely trapped.

And the Mountain-Guarding Old Man was there to keep watch over that person.

So Third Brother Xie and the others' real aim was to rescue someone? That living person who had survived for over a century, trapped in a coffin deep underground?

At these thoughts, Lian Youming's expression became utterly strange, and even his breathing grew unsteady.

He looked at the girl before him again, his face that of someone who had seen a ghost.

"That person..."

Lian Youming was about to ask when he saw that the girl had stopped.

Without realizing it, they had already reached the top.

Frost cut like knives and snow like swords, the north wind lashing their faces.

But what Lian Youming had not expected was for the girl walking ahead of him to suddenly topple forward without a sound.

Lian Youming froze, then stared dumbly.

"What's going on?"

But he quickly came to his senses, hurried to her side, and checked her breathing.

Fortunately, she had merely fainted.

Just then, he heard the girl murmur groggily, "Don't worry about me. Hurry... go help..."

Lian Youming frowned slightly. After a moment's thought, he found a wooden shed used for storing odds and ends, then ran back to the dormitory for his quilt and wrapped her in it from head to toe. Only then did he plunge into the white world outside.

With no time to consider much else, Lian Youming passed thick tree stumps and trudged through deep snow. At last, in the clearing behind the dining hall, he spotted the Mountain-Guarding Old Man and four other figures.

Crouching behind a stump, he focused his gaze. The four were a middle-aged woman dressed as a peasant, a goatherd in a sheepskin coat with a goatee, a man wearing a Zhongshan suit, and a short, yellow-haired dwarf.

Wind and snow filled the sky. Lian Youming strained his narrowed eyes, hardly daring to breathe as he cautiously watched the situation in the clearing.

He did not know whether the two sides had already exchanged blows. Now they seemed locked in a stalemate, as though waiting for Third Brother Xie to break it.

Unfortunately, Third Brother Xie had valued his life too much and fled.

The Mountain-Guarding Old Man suddenly spread his feet slightly and clenched his fists. Like the Golden Toad Gazing at the Moon, he tilted back his throat and drew a deep breath.

Lian Youming's eyes widened. Like a great whale drawing in water, that breath tore a gap in the curtain of snow before the old man, parting it like water and pulling a stream of wind and snow into his mouth.

He swallowed that breath deep into his belly. A flush rapidly rose on the Mountain-Guarding Old Man's sallow face, and his entire bearing changed. As though reborn, he glowed with renewed vigor, Dragon-Essence Tiger-Vigor.

At the sight of his transformation, the other four all looked aghast.

The dwarf's eyes bulged as he cursed bitterly, "Xie Tianhong, you fucking bastard! Fuck your mother!"

Lian Youming's gaze shifted. Xie Tianhong? Could that be Third Brother Xie's name?

"Careful. The old bastard's going all out. Fifth, go dig out the coffin first," the man in the Zhongshan suit, who resembled a teacher, said gravely. "The rest of us will hold him off."

A coffin?

Connecting this with his earlier guess, Lian Youming was deeply shaken and hurriedly looked over.

The village woman with her large hands and feet answered, then darted toward a low earthen house.

At that very moment, a fist suddenly broke through the curtain of snow in that white world, flying straight toward the center of the woman's back.

The Mountain-Guarding Old Man struck first.

But unexpectedly, the middle-aged village woman seemed to have anticipated this. Her footwork abruptly changed, cunning lurking in her small eyes. Turning around, she swept and gathered with her large, rough hands, as though tracing a circle in the air. As her fist stance took shape, the snow within that circle swirled, enveloping the Mountain-Guarding Old Man's fist as her movements began to dissipate its force.

"Chen Family Fist?"

The Mountain-Guarding Old Man's face twitched, his breath surging with a roar. The tendons and bones suddenly stood out on his diverted right fist, veins swelling as it grew a full size larger. From a distance, it seemed to become a bronze hammer. His fingers loosely curled, he broke free of the village woman's fist stance and withdrew.

Neither hurried nor slow, the old man followed the momentum of his retreat, quietly turning his right fist and smashing it fiercely behind him.

Behind the Mountain-Guarding Old Man, a small figure moved lightly, darting about as though flying, preparing a lethal ambush. But his eyelids suddenly twitched as a fist came straight at his chest, its force melting frost and snow, killing intent filling the sky.

"Ah!"

The dwarf's pupils contracted. He barely had time to scream before the punch struck his chest.

He did not fly backward or spew out his innards. Instead, the clothes on his back burst open with a bang, revealing flesh rapidly turning dark purple.

Apparently knowing he was doomed, the dwarf locked his limbs around the Mountain-Guarding Old Man's right fist. His face twisted like a vicious ghost as blood poured from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. He shrieked, "Old bastard, die with me!"

Squelch!

Suddenly, an ancient sword pierced through the dwarf's back and emerged from his chest, then continued on into the Mountain-Guarding Old Man's body.

The sword was held by the man in the Zhongshan suit. He looked somewhat scholarly, yet his attack was the most vicious and insidious, killing even his own companion.

Impaled by the sword, the dwarf looked at the wounded old man, his face filled with both venom and savage delight. "Kill him! Kill him! Kill him for me!"

Listening to the dwarf's weakening howls, the Mountain-Guarding Old Man remained calm. He flicked a finger of his left hand, snapping the sword in his chest. Then he pressed down with his palm, driving the broken blade completely into his own body. Its momentum unspent, the broken sword flew straight out of his back.

Seeing the old man turn to strike the dwarf, the village woman thought her chance of victory had come. Gathering force into her palm, she lunged.

But halfway through her attack, just as she was about to succeed, a broken sword shot from the Mountain-Guarding Old Man's back.

With a thunk, the broken sword embedded itself in the wooden door of the earthen house.

The smile froze on the village woman's face, but she immediately gritted her teeth and drove her palm all the way in. Then a cloud of blood burst from the right side of her neck, staining the flying snow and white frost red.

As though she had never dreamed she would die this way, the village woman clutched the horrific sword wound and staggered backward. Finally, she fell onto her backside against the earthen wall, the light rapidly fading from her eyes.

But just then, at the instant the Mountain-Guarding Old Man broke the sword, a figure flipped into the air, running up the wall and diving from the earthen house's roof, bringing down a heavy palm strike.

It was the little old man with the goatee.

Not only that, before the Mountain-Guarding Old Man, the man who looked so much like a schoolteacher suddenly sank through both feet, lowering his shoulders and elbows. His somewhat thin frame seemed to grow taller and broader as he stretched his sinews and bones. Roaring like a tiger, he raised both elbows and slammed his body forward as though crashing into a mountain.

"Hmph!"

Everything happened extremely quickly. There were no opening and closing exchanges, no back-and-forth. In that lightning instant, there were only endless killing moves and a clash of schemes.

Life and death, victory and defeat, hung on a single instant.

A thin line of blood flowed from the Mountain-Guarding Old Man's mouth. The dwarf's corpse still gripped his right fist tightly, leaving only his left hand free. But the hunchbacked old man had already seized his chance, chopping his knife-like palm toward his left shoulder.

At this moment, had certain death come for him?

No, it had not.

Right then, at that heart-stopping moment when life and death were separated by a thread.

Behind a tree stump amid the boundless curtain of snow, the boy lay covered in frost and snow, his narrowed eyes bloodshot. Holding a slingshot, he pulled its hollow rubber tubing taut and aimed at the airborne goatherd's eyes.

Two clay pellets shot out soundlessly.

The interruption came so suddenly.

The hunchbacked old man's eyes had been filled with delight, as though he could already see the Mountain-Guarding Old Man's death. But a second before success, two clay pellets unexpectedly flew toward his eyes.

Lian Youming lay against the stump, his Adam's apple bobbing. He could no longer even swallow. Cold wind poured in, cutting his throat like knives.

But he could spare no attention for anything else, staring fixedly at the fight.

Wind and snow surged, frost sweeping past. The Mountain-Guarding Old Man shook his right arm, sending the dwarf's body flying like a rag amid a series of cracks. At the same time, he clenched his left fist like a hammer, smashing its savage, domineering force down toward the schoolteacher's crown.

One after the other, the Mountain-Guarding Old Man's freed right fist rose skyward at an angle an ordinary person could hardly imagine, his entire right arm seemingly boneless, and struck the goatherd's right foot.

For an instant, time seemed to freeze.

Three figures rose and fell, crossing one another.

His vision obscured, the goatherd seemed struck by lightning. A series of explosive bone cracks rang out from his body as he tumbled to the ground, his face bloodless. "Cough... cough... Haha! As expected of Yang Luchan's grand-disciple. What a domineering Tai Chi Hammer!"

Only two figures remained standing in the snow.

Lian Youming was initially delighted as he saw the schoolteacher slowly collapse, still holding his elbow-forward, body-pressing posture, clearly already dead. But his heart soon rose into his throat again. Apart from the sword wound piercing his heart and lungs, more than half the Mountain-Guarding Old Man's chest had caved in.

Even so, the old man could still breathe and move.

Looking at the goatherd slumped on the ground, the Mountain-Guarding Old Man said flatly, "I never expected even the Eight Trigrams Sect to produce a traitor."

The Goatee Old Man lay on the ground, gazing at the flakes of white snow before him. He did not answer that, merely saying hoarsely, "Thank you!"

The Mountain-Guarding Old Man's eyes flickered. His voice remained flat. "You're welcome."

With that, he kicked out, sending him on his way.

Only once the dust had settled did the Mountain-Guarding Old Man look toward the boy who had already fainted in the snow.

Through his haze, Lian Youming heard a gentle voice beside his ear. "Boy, live your ordinary life well. Don't readily reveal what I taught you. If you do, leave no survivors. We won't meet again..."