A War of Attrition

Setting up camp?

Chen Fan stopped toying with the jade thumb ring.

Interesting.

This Zhao De really was willing to risk everything for his good-for-nothing son.

He raised his head and glanced at the bandit leaders who had followed him in.

Some were alarmed, some disdainful, but more of them looked bewildered.

"Chief, th-this Zhao De has gone mad! He's going to wear us down to the bitter end!"

A trace of irritation appeared on Smiling Tiger's fat face.

He was skilled at scheming, fencing stolen goods, and splitting a single tael of silver three ways to make it stretch.

A fight to the death that staked everything they owned was beyond what he could accept.

"Wear us down?"

In the corner, the second chief, Iron-Armed Monkey, wiped the throwing knife in his hand and sneered.

"What's he going to wear us down with? That bunch of crooked melons and split dates at the foot of the mountain? A hundred died today, and two hundred will run off tomorrow!"

"Big brother, if you ask me, we don't need to bother with them! Let them feed the mosquitoes down there! Before half a month is up, they'll scatter on their own!"

Iron-Armed Monkey's words echoed what most of the hardened bandits were thinking.

They had an almost blind confidence in their own martial prowess and Black Wind Mountain's advantageous terrain.

Chen Fan said nothing.

He was Black Wind Baleful Intent now, a bandit chief who ruled this gang of desperate outlaws through ferocity and violence.

He didn't need to explain himself to anyone.

"How long will the grain on the mountain last?" he asked the third chief, Smiling Tiger.

Smiling Tiger jolted and hurriedly answered, "Chief, if we eat sparingly, it'll last three months without a problem! We have enough water too!"

"Enough."

Chen Fan rose and hoisted the great ghost-head saber onto his shoulder.

"Pass down my orders."

"Starting today, tighten security. Guard the mountain pass in shifts, and don't let a single soldier through."

"If they want to wear us down, we'll play along."

"I'd like to see which is harder: Zhao De's official hat or my saber."

With that, he paid the others no more attention. He turned and walked into the passage leading to the rear hall.

He left a group of bandits staring at one another in the gathering hall.

Seeing this, Iron-Armed Monkey burst out laughing. "You hear that? Big brother has spoken! What the hell is there to fear? Let's go drink!"

Only Smiling Tiger stared at the dark entrance to the passage, the fat on his face twitching incessantly.

A man who counted every last coin, he was immediately pained at the thought of using all the mountain's stored grain to outlast the soldiers.

The days that followed proved that Smiling Tiger's earlier words had not come from an empty cave without wind.

Zhao De really had gone mad.

Like a mad dog that had fixed on its prey, he used the lives of the county soldiers to grind down Black Wind Mountain's fighting spirit.

On the third day after setting up camp, the soldiers launched their second attack.

Once again, it was at the narrow pass; once again, the battle was brutal.

Rolling stones and logs smashed their formation, while a rain of arrows reaped their lives.

They retreated, leaving more than seventy corpses behind.

On the fifth day, they took advantage of a heavy rain to try climbing the cliffs at the back of the mountain. Bandits patrolling the mountain spotted them, and dozens fell to their deaths, smashed into pulp.

On the eighth day, a night raid.

On the tenth, a feint.

Over half a month, there were at least a dozen clashes, large and small.

On Black Wind Mountain, the cheers of victory grew quieter by the day.

In the gathering hall, the bandits drinking and eating meat also grew fewer by the day.

They had won every battle, but the number of people in the stronghold had plummeted from over two hundred to fewer than one hundred and fifty.

The wounded lay everywhere, howling in pain.

And though the soldiers at the foot of the mountain had suffered heavier casualties, their main camp remained as steady as Mount Tai.

As if the dead had not been living, breathing people, but merely a string of cold numbers.

An invisible pressure began to weigh on every bandit's heart.

Unlike the increasingly oppressive atmosphere in the stronghold, the stone chamber in the rear hall remained peaceful.

Every day, apart from accompanying his three bandit chief's wives to "study" life, Chen Fan spent the rest of his time practicing with his saber in the stone chamber.

Whoosh!

The great ghost-head saber whistled through the air, whipping up a gale in the small stone chamber.

Though this body's aptitude was mediocre, it had a solid foundation and enduring strength.

Half a month of hard practice had deepened his understanding of the Gale Saber Technique by another level.

The internal power in his Dantian had also grown considerably. Though the Seventh-Grade True Qi Realm was still a distant prospect, he was worlds apart from where he had been half a month ago.

This slow but steady sense of growing stronger felt tangible to him.

But there's no point practicing any further. Black Wind Baleful Intent's Root Bone is only average. There's no hope of breaking through to the seventh grade, and continuing to practice would be futile.

Chen Fan muttered to himself.

His hard training over the past half month had mainly been to experience what it felt like to cultivate the martial path.

Zhao Long's body had not been able to experience it, but Black Wind Baleful Intent's body had let him get a proper taste.

Just then, the stone door was violently forced open with a bang.

The second chief, Iron-Armed Monkey, charged in, his face full of viciousness.

One of his arms was still wrapped in a bloodstained bandage, the result of a stray arrow from the soldiers the day before.

"Big brother!"

Iron-Armed Monkey's voice was somewhat hoarse, and his bloodshot eyes were filled with fury and a trace of confusion.

"Something's happened!"

Chen Fan stopped, saber in hand, and frowned.

The soldiers again?

"Speak."

"Our men were killed at the foot of the mountain!" Iron-Armed Monkey ground out the words through clenched teeth.

"Not at the mountain pass, but outside the mountain! Three of the brothers we sent out to gather information are dead! Every one of them had his throat slit with a single sword strike!"

Something stirred in Chen Fan's mind.

Throats slit with a single sword strike?

There was no such expert among the soldiers.

"Who did it?"

"I don't know!" Iron-Armed Monkey slammed a fist into the stone wall, sending chips of rock pattering down.

"The brothers who survived said it was a brat! A young man in Daoist robes!"

"That brat was like a ghost, darting around in the woods. Our brothers couldn't even touch the hem of his clothes!"

A young man in Daoist robes?

A frail figure flashed through Chen Fan's mind.

Impossible.

He quickly dismissed the absurd thought.

"One brat scared you all this badly?" He gave a disdainful snort, speaking in Black Wind Baleful Intent's usual tone.

"He's a martial artist!" Iron-Armed Monkey grew anxious. "He... he left a message too!"

"What message?"

Iron-Armed Monkey's Adam's apple bobbed, as if he found the words hard to say.

"He... he said..."

"He told all of us to wash our necks clean and wait."

"He's going to use the heads of everyone on Black Wind Mountain to honor Young Master Zhao Long's spirit in heaven!"

Honor Zhao Long?

Chen Fan froze.

In this world, who besides that fellow Zhao De would take revenge for the good-for-nothing Zhao Long?

And a martial arts expert at that?

A sense of absurdity rose in his heart.

"What's his name?"

Chen Fan heard his own voice, somewhat dry.

Iron-Armed Monkey looked at Chen Fan, his fierce face filled with humiliation and resentment.

"That brat was arrogant as can be!"

"He told us to remember his name!"

"Zhang Shan of Azure Yang Temple!"

"..."

Silence, endless silence.

Chen Fan felt it was utterly absurd.

Zhang Shan.

The young man who had kowtowed to him in the courtyard of Listening to Bamboo Pavilion.

The young man to whom he had casually tossed a breathing technique manual.

The young man with exceptional Root Bone, whom Xuanyangzi had called a potential grandmaster.

He had come down the mountain.

With a sword.

To avenge "Zhao Long."

To kill him.

For a moment, Chen Fan didn't know what to say.

What the hell was all this?