Cheng Yunpao and Gu Xitan followed the magnetic stone markers left by Bi Lianyi, tracking to the outside of Yu Konghou’s sleeping chamber. Before they could enter, they saw fierce flames rising within the chamber, blazing out through doors and windows, followed by a thunderous collapse.
This place was underground. Although the Drifting Brow Garden had descended through designed mechanical passages, its top wasn’t entirely covered with yellow earth. But the mountain tremors caused by Toad Moon Platform’s fall had loosened the sand and stone in the mountain. The sleeping chamber’s support pillars collapsed, triggering surrounding sand and stone to fall, completely burying Yu Konghou’s sleeping chamber under falling rocks and earth.
Cheng Yunpao and Gu Xitan looked at each other. Seeing smoke and dust everywhere and still smelling the strange odor unique to poisonous flames, they didn’t know where Yu Konghou was. Covering their mouths and noses, they both landed on the chamber’s bricks and stones, listening carefully to the sounds underground.
This blazing fire followed by the chamber’s collapse clearly showed someone had been fighting fiercely inside. But who would strike first while the Central Plains Sword Association was breaking into the Drifting Brow Garden? Cheng Yunpao had suspicions and listened intently. He could faintly hear movement beneath the bricks and stones, but didn’t know who it was.
While still puzzled, a halberd emerged from the earth. Cheng Yunpao reacted extremely quickly, swinging his sword to block. With a “clang,” he saw that the long halberd emerging from the earth was stained with tar oil. With a whoosh, flames suddenly blazed up, igniting Cheng Yunpao’s sleeve. Gu Xitan was greatly shocked. “Senior Brother!” He drew his sword to stab at that long halberd. Cheng Yunpao waved his sleeve to extinguish the flames, his expression grave, patting Gu Xitan’s shoulder. “Come back!”
Gu Xitan obediently withdrew his sword. “Senior Brother, he is…”
“Kuanglan Wuxing.” Cheng Yunpao said flatly.
As the halberd swung out, the collapsed chamber’s waste earth suddenly exploded with bricks and soil, and a person leaped out—it was Kuanglan Wuxing. Behind Kuanglan Wuxing, “Demon Spitting Pearl Qi” rose up. Cheng Yunpao and Gu Xitan saw the scattered sand and stone and undispersed poisonous mist floating behind him like a hundred ghosts forming. Then “Demon Spitting Pearl Qi” and the golden-red blade light of the war halberd fell together from above. Cheng Yunpao and Gu Xitan shouted together, raising their swords to resist. The two sides touched and immediately separated. Cheng Yunpao and Gu Xitan were sent flying horizontally by Kuanglan Wuxing’s single halberd strike. Gu Xitan’s back struck the remaining wall of the corridor in front of the sleeping chamber. Though he was only shaken by the war halberd’s surging great force, he vomited fresh blood violently.
His martial arts practiced for over ten years were worthless before Kuanglan Wuxing.
This halberd strike was mainly received by Cheng Yunpao. When his internal force met Kuanglan Wuxing’s, though he wasn’t severely injured, his qi and blood surged and he was terrified.
The Demon Spitting Pearl Qi before them had not only swept both brothers away together, but had even collapsed the half-collapsed passage again. Kuanglan Wuxing already looked like a demon, and emerging again from bricks, stones, earth, and wood, he looked even more identical to demons and ghosts.
This person’s martial arts had actually advanced to such a degree.
For the first time in Cheng Yunpao’s life, after exchanging one move, he had lost his fighting spirit and felt a chill.
Where was Yu Konghou if Kuanglan Wuxing was here? Cheng Yunpao’s thoughts turned, and his cold sword Desolate Frost executed a move called “Barbarian Smoke and White Grass,” sweeping out a magnificent sword toward the waste earth covering the ground. Where the sword qi reached, it lifted the sand and soil covering the ground. Kuanglan Wuxing was blinded by sand and stones, his war halberd sweeping horizontally, bringing fierce wind to draw a half-circle, sweeping away the flying sand and earth.
After “Barbarian Smoke and White Grass,” another person emerged from the sand and soil. This person’s face was covered with earth. Cheng Yunpao saw this was a stranger, and seeing this person’s wretched state with blood at the corners of his mouth, he was clearly the one who had just fought with Kuanglan Wuxing in the room. He held his sword horizontally to block this person behind him. “Friend, though I don’t know who you are, anyone who is an enemy of the Drifting Brow Garden is a friend of our Central Plains Sword Association. Please step back.” Though he knew he was no match, he still stared firmly at Kuanglan Wuxing. “Step back!”
Gu Xitan picked up the long sword he had dropped earlier and stood shoulder to shoulder with Cheng Yunpao, preparing to receive another halberd strike from Kuanglan Wuxing.
That “friend” who had crawled out from the earth held a short sword in his hand and was shakily standing up. Hearing Cheng Yunpao call him “friend,” he laughed and thrust his sword toward Cheng Yunpao’s back.
Cheng Yunpao suddenly felt the wind behind him was wrong. That short sword was extremely fast and had already penetrated his back by an inch. Gu Xitan cried out in alarm, striking out with his sword to parry, deflecting that “friend’s” sword. Cheng Yunpao angrily turned around, but saw that “friend” cover his face with his sleeve, let out a sinister laugh, and had already disappeared into the smoke and dust filling the sky.
In that fleeting glance, Cheng Yunpao recognized that person’s movement technique and roared in disbelief, “Yu Konghou!”
When Yu Konghou dressed as Xifang Tao, he wore Xue Tao’s appearance and year-round powder skirts. Cheng Yunpao only knew he was severely injured after fighting with Ren Qingchou. How could he know this person had become like this? He would never have thought he was actually fighting with Kuanglan Wuxing in the room, creating such power—definitely not pretending. If so, the person who was an enemy of the Drifting Brow Garden was actually Kuanglan Wuxing? While circulating qi to stop the bleeding, Cheng Yunpao’s mind was full of disbelief.
Gu Xitan was severely injured himself, and Cheng Yunpao was wounded by Yu Konghou’s sword. When the two turned around, they only felt the passage gradually becoming scorching hot. The thick smoke and fierce flames made them dizzy, and the flames burned more and more vigorously. Gu Xitan actually couldn’t distinguish whether the bright and dark surging around them was Kuanglan Wuxing’s Demon Spitting Pearl Qi or the afterimages of flames.
Cheng Yunpao slowly exhaled. Though the wound on his back wasn’t serious, it affected his strength. Yu Konghou was already severely injured but escaped in his moment of misjudgment. Cheng Yunpao only hated his blindness for not recognizing this demon. But at this moment, he couldn’t spare himself to pursue that demon.
His junior brother was severely injured, and Kuanglan Wuxing’s hollow war halberd soaked with oil had finally caught fire, with black-red poisonous fire blazing on the halberd blade. Cheng Yunpao saw Kuanglan Wuxing also seemed to glance in the direction where Yu Konghou had escaped, then his war halberd cracked inch by inch. Poisonous flames accompanied the shattered long halberd like fireworks filling the sky, falling toward him and Gu Xitan.
Yu Konghou covered his face and left, his movement technique as fast as a ghost. However, after three rises and falls, he had already turned behind several mechanism doors and walls of the Drifting Brow Garden, but suddenly sighed, stopped his steps, and said softly: “Cheng Yunpao and Gu Xitan might die together, yet you don’t go save them but insist on killing me?”
He turned around. His right hand’s tiger’s mouth was bleeding continuously—the wound split by Kuanglan Wuxing was still bleeding.
However, it wasn’t just his right hand dripping blood on the ground.
There was also the visitor’s golden soft armor.
Fresh blood also dripped onto the ground bit by bit along the edges of the visitor’s golden soft armor. When Ten Thousand Li Peach Blossoms had coiled around his waist earlier and pulled back Yu Konghou to forcibly block Kuanglan Wuxing’s war halberd, the visitor hadn’t escaped unharmed either.
Tang Lici wore white clothes with blood staining his waist. With each step he took, the dust on the ground was faintly soaked with fresh blood.
His right hand held Leaving the Group, his left hand Ten Thousand Li Peach Blossoms.
One step stained with blood, defiling the bright moon.
Ten Thousand Li Peach Blossoms, endless songs.
Coming with this step, it was time to decide life and death.
Yu Konghou calmed his mind and concentrated, regulating his breathing while staring intently at Tang Lici’s hands. His remaining power was only twenty or thirty percent of what it had been, but he still had confidence—
With a soft “tcha” sound, Tang Lici’s hands didn’t move, but an object suddenly appeared, shooting into Yu Konghou’s chest. Yu Konghou spat out fresh blood and knelt on one knee, staring at him in extreme shock—his sword was still gripped tightly in his hand—Tang Lici had just approached with weapons in both hands, building momentum, but had actually slightly opened his lips and teeth, using a hidden weapon held in his mouth to wound someone! This was—
This was really—
Too much bullying!
Tang Lici turned his head, spat out the hidden weapon he had held in his mouth, and smiled slightly. He hadn’t been speaking because he was holding this killing weapon.
Yu Konghou looked at that exquisite thing clatter to the ground and coughed up blood with a choking sound. “Fragrant Orchid Smile—”
The fallen spring mechanism was shaped like an orchid flower. One of its arrow points was poisoned and had multiple barbs—once it entered flesh, it couldn’t be pulled out. Yu Konghou covered his arrow wound, gritting his teeth. If his power were still intact, he could force this thing to shoot back out and expel most of the poison, so it wouldn’t take his life. But at this moment his strength was insufficient, and this “Fragrant Orchid Smile” might really take his life.
“‘Fragrant Orchid Smile’ kills people and people kill. You…” Yu Konghou coughed and laughed. “Young Master Tang, to kill me, you don’t hesitate to die together?”
This sinister hidden weapon held in the mouth was also poisoned, naturally a mutually destructive weapon. There had originally been twelve of these items—famous tools for assassins’ deaths. It was said the last two “Fragrant Orchid Smiles” in the world were kept at the “Destitute Thirteen Towers.” Since Tang Lici could pay a fortune for Shen Langhun, he could also pay a fortune for “Fragrant Orchid Smile.” Among the various rare treasures in the Thirteen Towers, what Young Master Tang was willing to use to kill you depended on how much money he was willing to spend on you.
Although Yu Konghou was already kneeling with his chest wounded by “Fragrant Orchid Smile” and poisoned by “Demon Spitting Pearl Qi,” Tang Lici didn’t approach. He raised the “Leaving the Group Sword” to look at it several times, coughed lightly, and said slowly, “You have ‘Small Exquisite’ on you. Though Tang is immune to all poisons, I don’t want to take risks.” So Yu Konghou watched him use Ten Thousand Li Peach Blossoms’ fine threads to hook the “Leaving the Group Sword’s” hilt. His left hand pulled up the fine threads like drawing a bow and shooting an arrow, aiming the “Leaving the Group Sword’s” point at himself.
Yu Konghou’s face flushed with anger, and with a “wa” sound, he spat out another mouthful of blood.
“Stay calm.” Tang Lici said slowly. “Death… is very quick.”
Having said this, he released his hand and let go of the sword. With a whistling sound, the long sword broke through the air, shooting rapidly toward the wound on Yu Konghou’s chest.
Yu Konghou covered his chest and rolled over, landing and tumbling. The Leaving the Group Sword had the force of ten thousand jun, skimming past Yu Konghou’s shoulder and striking into the ground behind him! By a hair’s breadth, Yu Konghou would have been pinned to death by the Leaving the Group Sword. But this sword strike wasn’t finished. The “Ten Thousand Li Peach Blossoms” small sword entangled on the Leaving the Group Sword’s guard rebounded due to the impact force of the Leaving the Group Sword striking the ground. The fine threads behind the sword suddenly stretched, swinging open a large circle in the air, then spinning back in reverse flight, strangling toward Yu Konghou’s neck!
Yu Konghou’s chest was severely wounded and poisoned, his internal injuries deep. Having just barely avoided the Leaving the Group Sword’s flying sword strike, though he knew Tang Lici was calculating step by step and it couldn’t possibly end there, he could no longer avoid Ten Thousand Li Peach Blossoms’ reverse collision and circling. Seeing the famous weapon “One Peach Three Colors” about to take his own life, Tang Lici’s brow slightly lifted in a half-smile.
Silver threads swirled, coiling toward Yu Konghou’s pale neck. Yu Konghou knelt prostrate on the ground, seemingly certain to die.
With a thunderous “boom,” the earth wall behind him exploded, and a person burst through the wall, grabbing Yu Konghou from the ground and throwing him onto his back. With a whoosh, “Ten Thousand Li Peach Blossoms” coiled through empty air, pulling the Leaving the Group Sword from the ground to rebound back into Tang Lici’s hands.
Tang Lici brushed his sleeves, his bearing dignified and elegant. “It’s truly not easy to see you, Prince Ji.”