Ye Xingge kept his eyes fixed on Winnowing Basket Water Leopard. He cut down the lackey on his right with one stroke and smashed the jaw of the man on his left with a rising elbow. But the moment he turned, lime powder came flying at his face.
Ye Xingge had plenty of underhanded tricks of his own, however, and the opponents he had encountered before had all been wandering jianghu bandits. On his guard, he immediately shut his eyes and jumped back.
The move kept the lime out of his eyes, but it also cost him his sight!
Swish-
Winnowing Basket Water Leopard had thrown the lime and struck with his saber at the same time. His thrust missed, and seeing that his opponent could hardly open his eyes, he swept the drifting lime aside with his left sleeve, sidestepped, and drove his saber diagonally at Ye Xingge's left ribs.
It was an exceptionally tricky strike.
But with his eyes shut, Ye Xingge relied on muscle memory and the sound to locate the attack. He lowered his body and circled his saber around his head.
Clang-
The blades met.
Winnowing Basket Water Leopard's killing blow was blocked, and a flicker of surprise crossed his eyes. But his left hand had already darted out like a snake. Stepping in with a crushing fist, he slipped through the opening as the saber swept past and struck Ye Xingge squarely on the robe.
Bang!
Under the heavy blow, Ye Xingge slid several steps sideways in his lowered stance. Then he bent slightly and sprang upright, leaping back onto the stage as he tore down a dry gauze curtain and swept the lime powder from his brows and eyes.
"Kill!"
Thud, thud, thud...
Seeing that Ye Xingge had lost his sight, Winnowing Basket Water Leopard and the remaining followers naturally seized the chance and swarmed onto the stage. Some hacked at his feet.
Clang, clang, clang-
The theater's doors and windows had long since been flung wide open.
On the surrounding rooftops, countless embroidered-robed officers stood with swords drawn and crossbows ready. At the sight, their fingers pressed lightly against their triggers.
An Yurou, watching from a distance, felt her heart tighten when she saw this kid ambushed with lime powder. She bent over and tilted her head, trying to lower her vantage point and look for him.
Keeping his eyes tightly shut, Ye Xingge retreated through the gap he had just smashed open and entered the inner hall, vigorously wiping his face with the dry cloth along the way. Once behind the long table holding banknotes and briefing papers, he sprang up and kicked it.
Crash-
The middle section of the long table, which had been assembled from three pieces, flew forward and smashed through the partition between the halls.
Several charging lackeys failed to dodge in time and were sent flying off the stage by the impact.
Winnowing Basket Water Leopard, charging at the front, leaped over the table and brought his saber down in a two-handed overhead slash!
"Hah!"
A full-force leaping slash with both hands could not be stopped with one.
Hearing that something was wrong, Ye Xingge had already cracked his left eye open. He lunged forward, braced the back of his saber with the bracer on his left wrist, and drove his strength up from the ground to meet the blow head-on.
Clang-
Winnowing Basket Water Leopard had truly not expected his opponent to meet his leaping slash like that.
Under normal circumstances, that heavy blow would have driven the back of the saber into flesh and shattered bone.
But a bracer was a bracer.
As the two collided with brutal force, the web between the thumb and forefinger of Ye Xingge's saber hand went numb, but the bracer on his left wrist was not damaged in the slightest.
The impact traveling through the back of the blade spread across his entire forearm through the bracer. His body held firm, and with the strength of his whole body, he drove the blow back.
Winnowing Basket Water Leopard had held nothing back in his airborne strike. The collision knocked his blade backward into his face, shattering his mask on the spot and leaving a two-inch gash on his forehead. He staggered backward as soon as he landed.
Swish-
With one eye closed, Ye Xingge followed through with a thrust at his heart. But Winnowing Basket Water Leopard did have some skill. Even after the back of the blade had smashed into his forehead, he managed to pull away, land back on the stage, and leap down into the main hall.
Not much lime had gotten on Ye Xingge, and he had brushed most of it away. His open left eye stung a little, but he could bear it.
He still did not open his uninjured right eye. Driving forward, he slashed left and right, cutting down several lackeys who had rushed onto the stage to finish him off, then leaped down after them:
"Hah!"
Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang...
The clash of metal in the main hall came as thick and fast as the thunderstorm outside.
Blood and firelight turned the entire theater a blazing red.
Corpses lay strewn across the main hall. The raging flames had spread to the ceiling, and pieces of timber had begun to fall.
Only a dozen or so followers had remained to begin with. With the skilled fighters who had charged in dying violent deaths and the others scared out of their wits, they could offer no resistance. Anyone who came close died, and after only a few slashes, they scattered and fled once more.
Ye Xingge kept his eyes fixed on Winnowing Basket Water Leopard and pursued him around the hall, saber in hand.
Winnowing Basket Water Leopard's face was covered in blood. Realizing that this man's foundations were too formidable and that he could not break through, he actually began circling the pillars like the King of Qin, weaving around the hall and even shoving the dodging lackeys into Ye Xingge's path as obstacles, intending to.
But it was all clearly meaningless.
Blades flashed now and then, and every time a cold gleam passed, there was one fewer person in the hall.
Ye Xingge's gray robe had long since turned red, and his left eye was swollen and streaming tears, but his gaze never changed in the slightest. As he pursued Winnowing Basket Water Leopard around the pillars, he said:
"Twenty-eight. You don't have much time left. Where is Tail Fire Tiger?"
Winnowing Basket Water Leopard's faceplate was shattered, and blood streamed unceasingly from his forehead. He kept wiping it from his face with his sleeve, his eyes filled with horror, as though he had seen a monster ready to choose a man and devour him:
"If I tell you, can I live?"
Ye Xingge turned aside to avoid a flaming section of the ceiling as it fell, then advanced again with his saber:
"Of course you can't. But burning to death won't be pleasant. Tell me, and at least you can have a quick death."
Clang, clang-
They exchanged two more blows.
The few remaining lackeys had long since fled through the doors and windows to await death in the courtyard.
Alone and without help, facing a raging sea of fire and the blood-soaked mad dog bearing down on him, Winnowing Basket Water Leopard knew he had no way to survive. After taking several breaths, he caught the instant Ye Xingge blinked and swept out a leg, kicking a burning piece of timber.
Whoosh~
Sparks flew as the burning timber hurtled toward Ye Xingge's chest and belly.
At the same time, Winnowing Basket Water Leopard sprang up with his saber and brought it down with all his strength. The three-foot blade swept through the sea of fire, tracing a flaming half-arc!
"Hah!"
But Ye Xingge opened his uninjured right eye at the same moment. He swept the timber aside with an upward slash, then raised his saber in both hands to catch the heavy blow. There was a:
Clang-
The mighty downward slash landed on the horizontally held saber, chipping both blades.
The savage force traveled through Ye Xingge's arms into his torso, making him slide backward. Then came:
Clang, clang, clang-
Blow after heavy blow rang out like thunder through the theater, now a sea of fire.
The fierce wind of the blades even swept the surrounding flames aside!
Fighting for his life, Winnowing Basket Water Leopard was almost possessed. He no longer cared about guarding himself, maneuvering, or holding anything in reserve. He hacked sideways and downward, every blow trading his life for his opponent's, looking ready to bludgeon him to death if he could not cut him down.
Yet though Ye Xingge clearly could have raised his saber and stabbed him to death, he merely held his blade across his body and defended.
After seven or eight blows in succession, Ye Xingge had been driven to the other end of the hall, all the way back to the railing along the passage surrounding the theater.
"Hah!"
Winnowing Basket Water Leopard let out another explosive roar and brought his saber down with all his might.
Crash-
The railing, its timbers as thick as a forearm, snapped under the immense force. Ye Xingge retreated into the passage, only a few steps from the wall.
Winnowing Basket Water Leopard had delivered nearly ten consecutive slashes in one breath. His face was red with blood, and he could barely make out his opponent through his eyes.
As he delivered the final blow, he staggered, veins bulging all over his body as he gasped for breath:
"Huff, huff, huff..."
Ye Xingge held his saber up in both hands, also panting like an ox, but he remained on guard. After waiting a moment, he finally asked:
"Finished?"
Winnowing Basket Water Leopard said nothing, but despair filled his eyes. He desperately wanted to ask who his opponent really was.
Unfortunately, he no longer had the chance!
Ye Xingge stepped out past the railing and advanced no more than two paces. Gripping his saber in both hands, the muscles of his chest and back bulging, he delivered a mighty chop as though splitting Mount Hua:
"Hah!"
In the time it took sparks to fly from flint, the two sabers collided.
It was the same Mountain-Crushing Stance of the Eight Extremities Saber, but the force behind it was utterly different.
Under that single blow, the floor tiles beneath Winnowing Basket Water Leopard's feet cracked instantly. He stumbled back three steps and tried to strike back, but he had only just pushed the saber aside when Ye Xingge swung in a diagonal slash.
Clang-
Struck from the side and unable to plant his feet, Winnowing Basket Water Leopard was driven two steps sideways. The third blow followed close behind!
Clang, clang, clang...
After only a few blows, Winnowing Basket Water Leopard's steps had already begun to falter. His arms, exhausted by the violent exertion, could no longer withstand the fierce, explosive blows.
His back heel struck a fallen corpse, and a slash knocked him completely off balance. He fell backward and slid several steps across the blood-soaked floor.
Clatter...
Ye Xingge wiped his face with his sleeve, stepped over the corpses with his saber in hand, and pressed forward once more:
"Where is Tail Fire Tiger?"
"Cough..."
Winnowing Basket Water Leopard struggled to his feet with the aid of his saber, breathing like an ox. His face covered in blood, he looked at the approaching sound, let out an angry roar, and raised his saber in a desperate thrust:
"Hah!"
But he was plainly a spent crossbow bolt this time, and the saber wavered as he thrust it out.
Ye Xingge turned sideways to evade it, wrapped his left arm around Winnowing Basket Water Leopard's arm and pinned it under his armpit. Rather than stab or slash with his saber, he struck his chest at close range with a twelve-to-six elbow.
Thud-
Thud-
Thud-
The heavy elbows crashed into his bloodstained black clothing. With every muffled impact, a visible dent appeared in his broad chest.
Winnowing Basket Water Leopard's right hand was locked in place, and his weakly raised left hand could no longer stop the heavy elbows pounding him at close range.
After three blows, blood spilled from his mouth, and his body gradually went limp.
Thud!
Ye Xingge brought his elbow down once more, and the clatter of a long saber falling to the floor sounded beside him.
The body before him went completely limp, hanging almost in midair by the arm Ye Xingge had pinned. All that remained were muffled coughs and labored breaths:
"Gh..."
At that moment, only the rolling flames remained in the theater; there were no more aftershocks of force.
"Huff... huff..."
Ye Xingge could no longer open his left eye. His right eye, too, was red, swollen, and clouded from the smoke and heat. After glancing around, he grabbed Winnowing Basket Water Leopard by the arm and dragged him toward the doors, saber in his right hand.
Clatter...
The body left a furrow through the blood, exposing the smooth floor tiles beneath, which reflected the sea of fire.
As the heat around them receded, cold raindrops fell on both men once more.
Shhh...
With his swollen left eye closed, Ye Xingge stood in the pouring rain and glanced around. A few lackeys remained outside, but they had long since thrown away their weapons and huddled beneath the wall, their faces ashen and their bodies trembling.
The surroundings were as quiet as if no one were there, save for the rustle of rain and the crackle of the flames.
After catching his breath, Ye Xingge threw Winnowing Basket Water Leopard to the ground and planted his saber beside him.
Scrape~
Then he half-crouched and searched inside his robe. He found a waist token and tucked it into his own robe before searching elsewhere.
Rustle, rustle~
On the surrounding rooftops, more than two hundred embroidered-robed officers had put away their bows and crossbows. Before the burning theater stood a bloodstained young man with swollen eyes, reflected in their gazes, which were filled with shock and horror.
That afternoon, they had heard that the newcomer to the Judicial Review Bureau had asked for only three days for his assessment. They had all sorts of thoughts about it, but not one of them believed it.
Even now, they still did not quite believe it, but his bearing was enough for a Night-Walking Lieutenant!
Among the Heaven-Observing Pavilion's hundred-plus Night-Walking Lieutenants, quite a few could kill more than thirty people, but they had never seen anyone strike so viciously.
Ruan Jinyu sat on a rooftop with a teacup in his hand. Watching the scene, his face remained expressionless, revealing nothing of what he felt.
Beside him, Chen Xiaobao, who had gotten in through connections, looked as though he had seen a celestial being-or rather, as though he had seen the man he was in his daydreams. He lowered his head and said:
"Lord Ruan, haven't you made a fool of yourself? What do we do now?"