At the speed of lightning or a flint’s spark, Kou Zhong bare-handedly took three consecutive saber strikes from Ke Dazhi.

Both sides knew that if Ke Dazhi was forced to retreat, Kou Zhong would break the siege before the enemy had any chance to stabilize their troop formation. In today’s situation, where tens of thousand people were celebrating, pedestrians and vehicles were striving for the road to visit each other to pay a New Year call, Kou Zhong only needed to slip into the crowd, and then relying on his superior shenfa, throwing away the people following his track would be as easy as a hand’s turn. Not to mention that his unique skill in fleeing for his life, plus his ample experience – could only be matched by Xu Ziling.

But if Kou Zhong was forced back inside the hall, he could only fight like a trapped beast. By the time the large number of Chang Lin Army’s martial art masters rushed over, even if Kou Zhong was an unrivalled hero, his martial art skill outstanding, it would be difficult to fly even if he grew wings.

Kou Zhong was glad that he came to his senses early; otherwise, by the time the enemies laid out layer upon layer of heavy siege and swarmed in, while he was still thinking that Yun Shuai’s honorable self would arrive soon, he would lack the skill to keep his life.

At the same time, he cursed his own stupidity. Yang Xuyan was by no means someone who was easy to push around. He must be furious for losing the Image Scroll. Plus he must have guessed that Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling had overheard his talk with An Long. Thereupon he must have notified Li Jiancheng, and lay out a trap waiting for him to drop by this morning.

Putting his fingers together into a palm chop, Kou Zhong swiftly hacked just like as if he was using the Moon in the Well. Momentarily qi power filled the air. Although Ke Dazhi’s saber strike was more tricky than the last, more powerful than the previous, he was still unable to force Kou Zhong back even for half a step.

Kou Zhong was finally able to experience the formidability of this martial art master, who shared the same fame as Ba Fenghan – in direct confrontation. The air was full of fine particle of revolving energy like a sandstorm blowing wildly at him. And Kou Zhong’s spiraling energy, before it pierced the opponent meridians – was neutralized by the true qi concentrated on his saber blade.

Kou Zhong could not open thunder-climbing-over-the-pond [no idea: 通越雷池] even for half a step, but Ke Dazhi was unable to force him back into the hall either.

The long corridor extended to the left and right. To the left, it led to Bosi Hu Si’s back door; to the right was the pathway toward the main hall of the temple. Outside the covered corridor was the side garden. The grass and trees were covered in white snow, with the snowflakes were still floating down unceasingly.

If Kou Zhong could force his way out of the long corridor, crossing over the approximately three zhang side garden was the Foreign Temple’s outer courtyard wall, which was about three zhang high, which would be the determining factor between life and death.

Evidently Ke Dazhi and the others came in haste. It was during Ke Dazhi and Kou Zhong’s fiery battle that Er Wenhuan, Qiao Gongshan, Wei Jiaqing, and more than a dozen Chang Lin Army’s martial art masters, both Tujue and Han, leaped down from the outer courtyard wall, and formed a fan-shaped formation behind Ke Dazhi to surround Kou Zhong.

Arriving right after Ke Dazhi was Xue Wanche, a core figure within the Chang Lin Army, toward whom Kou Zhong had extreme misgivings. There was also Feng Liben, another trusted aide of Li Jiancheng.

Xue Wanche’s weapon was a Qimei copper stick [per Akolaw’s note earlier, ‘qimei’ indicates the height of the stick reaches one’s eyebrows], while Feng Liben was using sword. Two men pounced over from left and right, with the intention of forcing Kou Zhong back into the hall by all means.

It could be imagined that this was only the vanguard squad to encircle and annihilate him, a large number of Chang Lin Army elite troops must be rushing over at full speed. Whether Kou Zhong could immediately break the siege would determine his fate.

Xue Wanche’s copper stick turned into sharp shadows filling the air, attacking from the left like hiding the sky and covering the earth. It appeared to be all mixed up and chaotic, but hidden within the confusion was movement method that reached the great expert level of transforming complexity into simplicity, so that to Kou Zhong, he had become the threat second only to Ke Dazhi.

Although Feng Liben was also a first class martial art master, clearly he was still inferior to Ke Dazhi and Xue Wanche. However, since it was hard for Kou Zhong to attend to multiple attacks at the same time, his swift stabs toward Kou Zhong’s right flank broke out everywhere, potentially it could change the angle of attack any moment, so that he was giving Kou Zhong a big headache as well.

Surprisingly, Yang Xuyan was nowhere to be seen. If Yang Xuyan were added into the number, even if Kou Zhong grew another pair of hands, he would still be unable to deal with them.

Kou Zhong roared and laughed aloud, saying, “Good saber technique!”

His foot flew into a kick, unexpectedly it was as if he completely ignored Xue Wanche’s copper stick and Feng Liben’s sword.

When martial art masters fight, knowing the enemy is a must. This is called ‘man has a name, tree has its shadow’. Although Ke Dazhi was proud and arrogant, and did not consider Chang’an’s Han martial art masters worthy in his eyes, but encountering such martial art master whose name shook the world like Kou Zhong, naturally he did not dare to be careless.

He estimated that Kou Zhong could only soar into the air to jump into the back of the long corridor, which was more than two zhang high from the ground, before he had any hope of evading this three-pronged attack, and then he would still fall into the inferior position of completely taking the beating until he was injured and was captured.

Another way was to charge back into the small hall, and then defended himself to the death at the door to stall for time.

Upon self-introspection, if Ke Dazhi were Kou Zhong, he would only have these two options. Therefore, he changed the Sandstorm Saber from hacking to thrusting, to attack the pit of Kou Zhong’s stomach directly, while simultaneously releasing Sandstorm power, so that the Sandstorm Saber appeared to suddenly lengthen, while sharp light shot out of the saber blade; fierce and severe to the extreme point, a clear display that he was taking unfair advantage while Kou Zhong could only block the attack using his bare hands.

Who would have thought that Kou Zhong unexpectedly sent out a kick, in a both-sides-perish manner? If the saber momentum did not change, by the time Ke Dazhi hit the pit of Kou Zhong’s stomach, his lower yin would also be kicked by the opponent’s leg, and then they both would return to the Western Paradise.

But since he already occupied the upper hand, of course Ke Dazhi did not want to perish together with him; moving backward a little bit, his saber sliced down toward the tip of Kou Zhong’s foot. His might did not diminish the slightest bit, it still blocked Kou Zhong’s charging-forward path. One attacking, the other defending, outstanding with no slack to be exploited.

In this blink of an eye, Qiao Gongshan, Er Wenhuan, the ‘Jian Langjun’ [sword ‘young lord’] Wei Jiaqing, and so on, a group of relatively prominent martial art masters of Chang Lin Army, a total of seventeen men, were rushing over from the direction of the external wall, forming a half-moon formation, completely sealing all exit paths from the temple.

Kou Zhong laughed aloud. The kick, which appeared to be sent out with abandon, was suddenly pulled back, and changed direction to kick sideways toward Feng Liben, aimed at the vital point on his calf about three cun up and three cun down. If the opponent was hit, although he would not be killed, he could forget about walking with two good legs in the future.

Ke Dazhi, three men were greatly shocked. They began to understand that Kou Zhong’s reputation was certainly not in vain.

It should be noted that the reason Ke Dazhi changed his move was because he knew Kou Zhong’s kick was released at full power, like he wanted to stake everything in charging forward, absolutely difficult to block. Who would have thought that Kou Zhong had the unique ability of rapidly changing qi power? Not only he changed the kick direction from forward to sideways, it was also change target to another opponent like freely running water; how could they not be surprised?

Feng Liben was so sure that a little bit more and then his sword was going to stab and penetrate Kou Zhong’s right flank, yet while the opponent was trapped in this dangerous situation, he suddenly carried out this odd move; naturally he was unwilling to lose his robust useful leg, hence he hastily changed from offense to defense. Copying Ke Dazhi, his sword sliced down.

Ke Dazhi’s eyesight was the most brilliant among the three; immediately he cried ‘Not good!’ inwardly. Letting out a violent roar, he moved his saber to cut sideways, yet he was still one step too late.

Pulling back his hundreds and thousands stick shadows, Xue Wanche turned it back into just one stick, striking Kou Zhong at an angle from the bottom going up. Suddenly he saw that the tip of his stick was about to make contact with Kou Zhong’s palm; he could not help feeling greatly delighted, thinking that if you hastily use your flesh to meet my ten-thousand-jun-thunderbolt strike head-on, even if momentarily you could get through this ordeal, but you would fall completely under my control, so that you would not have enough power left to deal with Ke Dazhi’s saber.

Feng Liben’s sword, the stick, and the palm collided.

Xue Wanche immediately sent out his power, but at the same time he was shocked.

Not only he did not feel the slightest force resisting his power, but he felt as if he was striking empty air. It was as if Kou Zhong pulled his stick, which was moving at an astonishing high speed, into his palm, and his true qi was flowing swiftly out uncontrollably like a flash flood, being absorbed by Kou Zhong’s bizarre technique.

The feeling was like the stick was caving in into a force field.

Not even in his dream would Xue Wanche ever think that Kou Zhong would use this kind of brilliant strange technique to neutralize his must-kill stick strike. Making a prompt decision, he immediately pulled his stick back.

Kou Zhong laughed aloud and threw himself to fly sideways; his shoulder powerfully hit the pit of Feng Liben’s stomach on his right, while closely evading Ke Dazhi’s slicing saber.

On the surface, it would appear that Kou Zhong was unable to block Xue Wanche’s fierce and severe stick strike. Only Ke Dazhi and Xue Wanche knew the turn of events was not too encouraging.

From his angle of view, Feng Liben also mistakenly thought that Kou Zhong was unable to take Xue Wanche’s stick strike, hence the reason he was pouncing on him. Changing his slicing down sword strike to pricking upward, he intended to cut across Kou Zhong’s shoulder crashing over toward him.

Kou Zhong spun around; amidst the hundred-busyness, he feigned a palm chop toward Ke Dazhi first, to stop him from changing his attacking move. And then his other hand also chopped down, as fast as lightning, to hit the blade of Feng Liben’s sword.

The palm and the sword collided.

‘Crack! Rip!’

The long sword disintegrated into cun-size pieces, while Feng Liben spurted out blood and was thrown down.

With everything he had, Kou Zhong had successfully fooled the enemies one after another. Finally he borrowed part of Xue Wanche’s power, and then, selecting the enemy’s weakest link, he broke the enemy in one fell swoop, opening up a gap from which he could escape.

Again Kou Zhong let out a long laughter. Staying close to the wall, he flew along the corridor over the injured Feng Liben, who was lying face up on the ground. He shot like a shooting star toward the main hall of the temple.

With a loud roar Ke Dazhi ran after him like a shooting arrow.

Kou Zhong had just left the long corridor, a voice was heard overhead, calling, “Follow me!”

Kou Zhong fixed his gaze to look, surprisingly it was Yun Shuai; not daring to hesitate, he ran after him. Somersaulting on top of the temple’s roof, he followed Yun Shuai fleeing for his life.

※ ※ ※

Xu Ziling returned to Lei Jiuzhi’s hideout. The latter was talking to Gao Zhandao.

Seeing Xu Ziling, Gao Zhandao said, “Fortunately we did not bring disgrace to ourselves; based on the portrait that Hou Ye provided, we found that every night at dusk the ‘Fat Merchant of Sichuan’ An Long patronizes the Le Quan Guan public bath.”

“Is he usually alone?” Xu Ziling asked.

“That’s right!” Gao Zhandao replied. And then he took out from his bosom a roll of rough sketch of the bathhouse layout and spread it out on the table. He said, “Le Quan Guan has four big pools and twelve small ones. Most of the time An Long visits the big pool, not sure if that is because he loves the crowd. He is always liberal with money, all the attendants and masseuses over there consider him a VIP.”

Frowning, Lei Jiuzhi asked, “Zhandao’s inquiry is so much detailed, aren’t you beating the grass to scare the snake?”

Gao Zhandao smiled and said, “Lei Ye, don’t worry; in here, we are local mafia boss [orig. local snake head], definitely we won’t leak the least bit of tail.”

Turning to Xu Ziling, Lei Jiuzhi asked, “Ziling, how are you going to deal with him?”

Xu Ziling said, “An Long is a formidable figure of the ‘Eight Major Martial Art Masters of the Demonic Way’. If he intentionally wants to escape, killing him will not be easy at all. Fortunately public baths are fixed environment; as long as we plan carefully, as well as we watch for a fortunate timing, once we make our move we must go all-out to kill him with everything we have, then our chance of success is very high.”

“When is Ling Ye going to do it?” Gao Zhandao asked.

“This matter should not be delayed,” Xu Ziling replied, “We will do it tonight. Losing An Long, this capable helper, Shi Zhixuan’s troop disposition will be thrown to confusion. Only then will we be able to seize the opportunity.”

Accordingly, he turned to Gao Zhandao and said, “From now on, Zhandao, you must immediately order all our brothers to break up the whole into pieces, everybody vanishes without trace following our plan, quietly waiting for the next order.”

Gao Zhandao replied, “I am going back to make the arrangement right away. As a matter of fact, we are already going into hiding. If Ling Ye so wishes, I could even pull most of our brothers out of Chang’an, or perhaps we hide on the boat, so that we could either attack or defend.”

And then he asked, “About An Long, will you need our support?”

Shaking his head, Xu Ziling said, “Many men will botch things up instead. Let Shao Shuai and I handle An Long.”

After Gao Zhandao left, Lei Jiuzhi said, “Just now Yang WenGan’s woman sent her man to the shop to pass on a message to you, asking you to come to Ming Tang Wo to see her tonight.”

Frowning, Xu Ziling said, “That Hong Furen is really troublesome; how could I have the time to entertain her?”

Lei Jiuzhi asked in surprise, “She must have Yang WenGan behind her giving her instructions. In this exciting times when things are developing rapidly, this can’t possibly be a simple matter; aren’t you interested in finding out what this is about?”

Inwardly Xu Ziling agreed that it could not possibly be as simple as Madame Hong just want to hire him to win some money, but he was not in the mood to cheat anybody on the gambling table either.

Lei Jiuzhi sighed and said, “Very well, just ignore her then!”

“Now that is the right thing!” Xu Ziling cheerfully said.

Lei Jiuzhi said, “Taking advantage of the holiday season, plus we have solid financial resources, today we should go to the Six-Happiness Casino to make a fortune, to see whether Chi Shengchun can still endure and not lose his temper to come out and interfere.”

Smiling wryly, Xu Ziling said, “I am most afraid of provoking Xiang Yushan to come out. He knows me very well, perhaps he would be able to see through my disguise.”

Lei Jiuzhi laughed and said, “Ling Ye may set your heart at ease. Precisely because he knows you too well that he knows you don’t know anything about gambling, hence he can’t possibly guess that you are Xu Ziling.”

Inwardly Xu Ziling knew that in this matter, he would be unable to change Lei Jiuzhi’s mind; without any better option he gave in and said, “Lei Laoye’s order, how could Xiaodi dare to disobey?”

Lei Jiuzhi’s pair of eyes lit up instantly; he said, “Today we are going to change strategy; ruthlessly win a large sum of money from him, you could also use this as an excuse not to meet Hong Furen’s invitation. You are a professional gambler. After winning a basin-full, a bowl-full, you pack your money and leave; right?”

Without any choice Xu Ziling replied, “Very right!”