The sun began to sink westward, approximately past the Wei hour. Li Si anxiously called out for Bai Zhenzhu throughout the wild ancient forest, but amidst nature’s countless sounds, there was no human response. Li Si employed his lightness skill of Treading Snow for a Thousand Miles, racing through the ancient forest almost without his feet touching the ground, concentrating intensely to catch even the slightest trace or anomaly. But after flying about for an hour, he found no clues whatsoever. He heard the sound of rushing water not far ahead. Pushing through the dense growth and squeezing through crevices, he arrived at the source of the water sound and indeed saw a ravine stream more than a zhang wide flowing downward from above, its white water shimmering like silver.
Li Si scooped up a handful of stream water. It entered his mouth clear, sweet, and thoroughly refreshing.
The green forest hung like a curtain, white shuttles flew by—strange sights appeared one after another. But Li Si had no inclination to appreciate any of it. He suddenly looked up and saw that the stream was cascading down from the edge of a section of ancient plank road. This segment of the ancient plank road was less than thirty zhang from the ground. Compared to the earlier deep ravine plank road, it truly was a case of one soaring high into the clouds while the other drilled low into the forest. Li Si thought to himself: So the ancient plank road also has high and low sections.
While pondering this, Li Si discovered a white gauze boot among the piled stones by the stream bank, embroidered with cloud-connected kingfishers—wasn’t this the shoe Bai Zhenzhu was wearing? Li Si picked up the white boot. Looking around further, from the stream downward was a row of shallow footprints, chaotic and disorganized. Though not clear, people had obviously passed through.
Among the footprints were both small and large ones—weren’t these Bai Zhenzhu’s and Constable Feng’s!
Li Si breathed a slight sigh of relief and followed the stream downstream to search. He walked a bit, looked at the footprints, walked further forward, looked at the footprints again—repeating this back and forth, he descended seven or eight li, then could no longer see any footprints.
At this point, the stream became gentle. On both the left and right were large expanses of dense Ying tree forests, their leaves lush and feather-shaped. A mountain wind swept past, causing silver waves to roll, while also making the countless Ying tree leaves rustle, like phantom sounds in an empty valley. However, Li Si noticed that amidst the profusion of green shadows, there seemed to be a dark, mottled yellow color in the Ying tree forest on the left. Li Si paused briefly, then walked into the Ying tree forest.
From time to time, wind howled through, causing the entire forest floor to rustle incessantly. Li Si’s ears rang continuously, but his eyes remained firmly fixed on where the mottled yellow color was located. After walking for about a quarter-hour, an aged, faded yellow bamboo building quietly appeared in the clearing ahead.
The bamboo building had no door. The entrance was pitch black, seemingly quite deep. The daylight outside had also dimmed. Li Si had given his flint and other items to Constable Feng, so now he could only grope his way inside in the darkness. The bamboo building had deep corridors but few rooms—only three or four small, crude chambers. Li Si explored them one by one but saw no trace of Bai or Feng.
Only the last bamboo chamber remained. Li Si’s eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness. Looking inside, he actually discovered a bamboo pillow and a thick quilt—undoubtedly someone had lived here. Who? A face flashed through Li Si’s mind, but before he could finish thinking about it, suddenly “hiss-hiss-hiss-hiss,” a harsh, strange sound filled the bamboo chamber. The cotton quilt lying on the ground flew up on its own, covering Li Si’s face!
Li Si had been alert all along. Before the cotton quilt could descend, his long sword swung out five or six bowl-sized sword flowers in mid-air in succession, shredding the quilt into cotton fluff filling the sky! But the matter wasn’t finished yet. A colorful giant shadow suddenly pierced through the cotton, lunging straight at Li Si’s face. With a move called Golden Dragon Enters the Sea, Li Si’s body fell straight backward. The long sword in his hand swept back, severing the colorful giant shadow at its midsection. The thing still struggled on the ground, lurching left and right, and only after quite a while did it fall silent.
Li Si looked carefully and saw it was an enormous multicolored triangular-headed venomous snake, six feet long and two feet wide, its snake mouth brimming with saliva. Had he been even a moment later, the venom might have splattered onto Li Si’s face—truly extremely perilous.
The strange sound in the bamboo chamber had also been made by the venomous snake.
Coming out from the last bamboo chamber and turning a corner, the corridor reached its end. Beyond the end was a quiet courtyard covered with yellow-green fallen leaves. Deep within the courtyard, the flat ground suddenly formed a mound of yellow earth, as if it were a grave. Li Si first ascertained that there was no one around before walking to the depths of the courtyard. That patch of yellow earth was indeed a grave. Before the grave was inserted a wooden plaque a fist-width narrow, bearing several blurred characters.
Li Si squatted down to read the characters clearly. The wooden plaque read: “Grave of Foster Father Tang Wei.”
“Tang Wei?” Li Si murmured the name once. Suddenly feeling something was wrong, Li Si’s eyes flew open in fury. Just as he was about to retreat, he witnessed the yellow earth mound explode from nothing—a black shadow burst out from within the grave, accompanied by a heaven-shaking blade strike with ghostly wails and divine howls! This strike was not only fast, accurate, and fierce, but also completely unexpected and caught him unprepared. Even more terrifying, this strike was filled with boundless killing intent that changed heaven and earth’s colors and moved grass and trees—it would not return without seeing blood!
But Li Si didn’t die, only because he was the Ghost-Terrifying Li Si.
Just at the instant when the heaven-shaking blade struck toward his chest, Li Si pivoted inward to the left one step ahead, avoiding his chest’s vital point. But the sharp blade light cut through Li Si’s ribs, a large piece of flesh fell off, dyeing his blue robe red. But his life was still intact—that was enough.
The black shadow held the blade pointed diagonally at the ground. He wore black clothes and, like Bai Zhenzhu, had a dark veil hanging over his face. His sinister, icy gaze was hidden behind the veil as he laughed with a chilling, ghostly cackle. “Hmph, you actually didn’t die.”
“Lucky.” Li Si sneered back with equal sharpness. “I’m just slightly stronger than those who let themselves be slaughtered like fish—Hu Hai, Liu Feng’er, Huang Gang, Jiang Zeshui, and the others. What do you think?”
The black-clothed man was startled, then said with fierce killing intent, “Hahaha! You think you’re stronger than them, but I don’t think so.” As his words fell, the blade light cut through the darkening sky, seeking Li Si’s head once more.
Li Si shouted, “Well come!”
Li Si drew his sword in “Silver Snake Coiling Dance,” circling around the blade edge to thrust at the throat. The black-clothed man sank his blade against the sword, preventing it from advancing even half an inch. With a backhand move called “Rhinoceros Running the Plains,” he enveloped everything within a zhang of Li Si’s body within his blade light, waiting for an opportunity to constrict and trap Li Si to death within the circle.
How could Li Si not see through his opponent’s scheme? When the blade light contracted to half a zhang and the black-clothed man’s heart became unsettled at the sight of his imminent success, Li Si suddenly shook out seventy-seven, eighty-eight, forty-nine silver sword flowers—each one sharp, each move concealing killing intent—forcibly driving back the black-clothed man’s blade light. Just as Li Si breathed a sigh of relief, his opponent stuck to him again like a catfish.
The black-clothed man’s mental fortitude was quite strong. After missing this excellent opportunity, not only did he not become discouraged, but he became even more composed, guarding against impetuosity and rashness. His blade technique was bold, sweeping, and matchlessly fierce and fierce, equally matched with Li Si’s light and nimble long sword. Within the courtyard, only blade light and sword shadows could be seen. The forest wind howled and swept up countless fallen leaves, like two soaring dragons in the sky filled with flying yellow.
As time went on, Li Si’s rib wound hadn’t healed, putting him at a disadvantage. His sword momentum gradually went back and forth, every turn and maneuver falling into the lower position. Li Si’s complexion also grew increasingly pale. The black-clothed man seized the opportunity, directing every blade strike toward Li Si’s ribs—truly extremely vicious.
Li Si thought to himself: Continuing like this until my strength is exhausted will certainly result in utter defeat. I can only fight for mutual destruction to throw the enemy into confusion! Having secretly decided, Li Si barely parried the steel blade away, turned around, and whooshed into the bamboo building, disappearing in the blink of an eye into that last bamboo chamber.
“Nothing special—let’s see where you can escape!” The black-clothed man pursued into the bamboo building like a flying kite. He too was cautious, just half-showing his face and body when he saw a shadowy object flying straight toward him. The black-clothed man swung his steel blade horizontally, splitting the approaching object in two. Looking down, it was the bamboo pillow.
Seeing the black-clothed man strike down the bamboo pillow, Li Si suddenly charged down from his hiding place on the chamber ceiling. Using the “Adhesion” technique from the Eight Trigrams Sword Method, his long sword adhered to the black-clothed man’s blade body. Secretly channeling his internal force into the long sword, he transmitted it to the steel blade. The externally released internal force instantly shattered both blade and sword together, while the surging internal force also sent both Li Si and the black-clothed man flying.
Having succeeded with one move, Li Si walked out of the bamboo building. The black-clothed man in the courtyard was staring blankly at his blade handle. He looked up at Li Si and said gloomily, “Impressive technique. You are indeed far stronger than the likes of Hu and Huang. I can say you are the first worthy opponent of my life.”
Li Si threw away the sword handle and suddenly stretched his back. “Blade and sword are both destroyed, and you and I are both tired. Since we can’t continue fighting for now, why don’t we have a chat?”
The black-clothed man gripped his blade handle firmly without discarding it, but responded to Li Si, “What do you want to chat about?”
“Let’s chat about you.” Li Si first simply bandaged his ribs, then sat directly on the bamboo building steps and said, “Let’s chat about why you killed Hu, Liu, and the other four, and then chat about how Hu, Liu, and the other four went from poverty to being extremely wealthy… And we need to chat about your relationship with Chen Zhimei from fifteen years ago, as well as your purpose for hiding at Jinxi City’s gate pass.”
Upon hearing these words, the black-clothed man’s body trembled, and then his hand gripping the blade handle applied even more force.