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While Kou Zhong, using a whip, was straining Bao Zhifu and Shi Jie to their limit, Yun Yuzhen came to stand by Xu Ziling and watch. Amazed at the situation in the arena, she said, “These two’s martial art skill is indeed not bad, how did you get them back here?”

‘Dang!’

Bao Zhifu’s broadsword was coiled by Kou Zhong’s whip and was pulled away.

Xu Ziling cast a sidelong glance toward the radiant-looking Yun Yuzhen. His eyes then fell onto the double-spear wielding Duan Yucheng, who was taking over Bao Zhifu’s position. “Ma Gui, your turn!” he barked his order.

Ma Gui shouted his acknowledgement, his left and right hands successively shot three iron bullets toward the vital points on the pit of Kou Zhong’s stomach and his crotch.

Yun Yuzhen immediately jumped in fear, thinking that even the training looked a lot like a life and death struggle.

Kou Zhong laughed aloud, his body swayed, Ma Gui’s secret projectiles all hit empty space.

Only then did Xu Ziling smile and asked, “Beautiful Shifu, why are you up so early?”

Casting him a flirtatious glance, Yun Yuzhen replied, “I was concerned over you guys!”

Forcing a laughter, Xu Ziling said, “Shifu seems to mistake me for Kou Zhong again!”

Yun Yuzhen’s pretty face blushed slightly. Awkwardly she glowered at him and said, “I thought you are not going to bring that matter up anymore.”

By ‘that matter’, naturally she was referring to she was throwing herself in Xu Ziling’s bosom and kissing him, mistaking him for Kou Zhong.

Xu Ziling laughed indifferently, stepped into the arena, and shouted, “My turn!”

Kou Zhong retrieved his whip and withdrew to Yun Yuzhen’s side. Xu Ziling used his bare hands to face the four men.

Kou Zhong laughed and said, “These four boys are getting more and more formidable. It proves that we have original insight, and that we use the correct method in teaching them. Humph! With me by your side last night, Beautiful Shifu naturally tossed and turned restlessly, hard for you to sleep.”

Yun Yuzhen’s powdered face turned even redder; she spat and said, “I don’t know how fragrant and sweet my sleep was. Why is it that men always arrogantly thought that girls can’t do anything without them?”

Kou Zhong breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s very good,” he said, “I was afraid Beautiful Shifu could not do without me. In that case, when I leave in a few days, I won’t have to rush back anytime soon.”

Albeit knowing that Kou Zhong was teasing her, Yun Yuzhen could not help getting angry, “Kou Zhong!” she snapped, “You bully me too much!”

Kou Zhong smiled and said, “I was just testing Yun Bangzhu’s heart. Hee! Su Jie is here, do you want to go out and have fun with us?”

Yun Yuzhen cast him an angry look and said, “Only ghosts want to accompany you!”

After giving him a sweet smile, she simply left.

The carriage left the General Mansion. Eight riders opened up the path, eight riders protected from behind, plus Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling riding leisurely side by side with Susu’s carriage.

Susu was relaxed and was in a very good mood, every now and then she chatted and laughed with the two boys through the window; they were happy and were in harmonious relationship.

The cavalcade exited the city via the north gate, their destination was Linjiang Pavilion at the upper reaches of the River, a well-known scenic spot outside the city of Baling, from which they would be able to feast their eyes on the beautiful scenery of the Yangtze River.

Outside the city, Susu followed the two boys’ suggestion to take a break in the wayside. Kou Zhong noticed that not only Xu Ziling seemed to be deep in thought, his face also seemed a bit pale. “What are you thinking?” Kou Zhong asked.

Xu Ziling hesitated for half a day before relying, “I suddenly remembered Yang Xuyan. I wonder whom does he work for?”

Frowning, Kou Zhong said, “Didn’t somebody say that he is in pursuit of Yang Shichong’s beautiful daughter? They all surnamed Yang, naturally it should be easy to get close to each other!” [I think it ought to be Wang Shichong. Author’s error?]

After a quick and thoughtful glance toward the dock outside the city, Xu Ziling said, “Of course I remember that. I just think something does not fit here. Right now the person Yang Shichong fears the most ought to be Li Mi, and then Xiao Xian comes after him.”

Deep in thought, Kou Zhong commented, “It won’t make sense even more if he is working for Lin Shihong. Someone like Yang Xuyan, who is of the royal family origin, would not have anything to do with Lin Shihong, who is of lulin [lit. green forest, i.e. criminal world] origin. But you are also right, if I were Yang Shichong, how could I have time to deal with the things in the south?”

“If Yang Xuyan is not Yang Shichong’s man,” Xu Ziling continued, “He must be related to one of the Four Major Clans. The Song Clan is at odds with the royal family, plus they tend to stay in the south, so we can eliminate them. That leaves us with the Li Clan, the Dugu Clan, and the Yuwen Clan.”

Kou Zhong analyzed, “Dugu Clan has always been an ally of Baling Bang, so they can also be eliminated. That leaves us Yuwen Clan and Li Clan. It seems to me that Yuwen Clan has a slightly higher possibility. Ay! But Yuwen Clan is also too busy with their own problems; just like Yang Shichong, they don’t have time to meddle with the south. My Niang, could it be that Li Shimin guy?”

Xu Ziling was emotionally moved, “That possibility is really high,” he said, “That Li guy has an acute foresight [orig. stand tall and see far], a man with power, aptitude, and broad outlook. Only he has the ability to see through the Xiang kid’s importance; if he were killed, Xiao Xian would turn half-blind. From this, it could be seen that that Li guy thinks highly of Xiao Xian.”

Kou Zhong nodded, “In Sunzi’s [Sun Tzu] Art of War, it is said ‘know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated’. Speaking about the vastness and density of the intelligence network, no hole left un-entered, nothing surpasses Xiang kid’s network of brothels and casinos all over the country. Hey! Li guy plus Yang Xuyan, won’t you say they are an interesting combination?”

This moment Susu opened the curtain and stuck her head out, “Hey! It’s so boring here! Come and chat with Jiejie, all right?”

Back at the General Mansion that evening, Duan Yucheng reported, “Subordinates followed two Bangzhu’s instruction: from the time the carriage left the door, we monitor any movement all around, but we did not find anybody following your track, or any unusual activity.”

The two boys returned to their room, totally mystified, and even more disappointed.

Could it be that they have guessed incorrectly? Or perhaps the enemies were clever enough to evade Duan Yucheng, four men’s detection?

Slapping the table, Kou Zhong exclaimed, “It does not make sense. Yucheng and the others’ monitoring positions are strategically located and carefully selected; as long as anybody was following our trail, they would definitely see it. Unless ... hey!”

Xu Ziling caught on, “I don’t believe that the Evil Monk and Amorous Nun would be willing to swallow their pride to do it personally. That Evil Monk is irascible, he won’t have the patience to wait for long. Unless ...”

The two boys looked at each other, with myriads of thoughts flashing through their minds.

Unless they were waiting for reinforcement, there was no reason to miss their chances of attacking and killing them outside the city.

Supposing Evil Monk and Amorous Nun were really Yin Gui Pai people, the reinforcement must be from Yin Gui Pai or perhaps martial art masters from Qu Ao’s side; this was definitely not a trivial matter.

Kou Zhong blew a mouthful of cold air. “We must never take Su Jie out of the city,” he said, “We’ll simply use an empty carriage as a decoy and forget about it.”

Frowning, Xu Ziling said, “We must find a way to have our passive situation reversed; it would be best if we can do it ahead of the enemy’s martial art masters’ arrival, we need to be one step ahead by getting rid of Evil Monk and Amorous Nun, otherwise we will meet a disaster.”

Grabbing his own head, Kou Zhong said, “Have you ever thought that this matter is really strange? On the surface, basically Evil Monk and Amorous Nun don’t even know that we are related to Baling Bang, they did not even know that after the killing we would slip away to Baling. Why do we always think that they clearly know our whereabouts and are ready to ambush us anytime?”

“This is purely some kind of almost supernatural intuition,” Xu Ziling replied, “I can’t explain it.”

Kou Zhong sighed and said, “It is thus clear that the ‘Secret to Long Life’ is indeed a Taoist treasure, plus in this aspect you are much more keener than I am. Simply because your state of mind is closer to ‘real warrior’ cultivation. No! You are basically an authentic [orig. replacement guaranteed if not genuine] Ziling Zhenren [lit. true/real person, Taoist Master]. Hee! The only thing lacking is the Taoist robe. It would be best if you and that Shi Feixuan make a pair, and snatch away Hou Xibai’s heart of love. Ha!”

Xu Ziling spoke in anguish, “In time like this you are still talking nonsense.”

“This is not nonsense,” Kou Zhong seriously replied, “Supposing you really have this kind of supernatural intuition, we might as well exploit it to our advantage. For example, can you feel the approximate position of the enemy?”

Xu Ziling was silent for half a day; he slowly shook his head and said, “No! I simply have an ominous feeling. That’s all.”

Kou Zhong rose up to his full height and said, “We’d better conduct an experiment. Let’s go around the city first, if it doesn’t work, then we’ll go out of the city. Supposing the feeling of danger in your heart is getting stronger, it will mean that we are getting closer to the enemy. I guarantee that this kind of investigative method has not been used since the dawn of time until today. It will be unimaginable, and it can kill the enemy unprepared.”

Severely shaken, Xu Ziling said, “We won’t need to go around the city. Do you remember when we first came out of the city this morning, you asked me what am I thinking? I replied by asking you if you remembered Yang Xuyan; actually, that matter came later. At that time my feeling of danger was increasing substantially, my heart felt very uncomfortable. It was just like the feeling I got before Yang Xuyan mounted a sneak attack on us that day. That was the reason I was thinking of Yang Xuyan. But after we headed west, that singular sensation gradually disappeared.”

Chapter 7, Part 2

Kou Zhong was greatly delighted, “That will do,” he said, “Outside the gates, the piers are full of ships and boats in all kinds of shapes and sizes, one must be the enemy’s hideouts. At that time they must be watching us in secret, to determine whether they should trail us and make their move; that’s why it induced a reaction from you, just like the other day when Yang Xuyan was trying to assassinate Xiang kid. Ha! This time we hit the jackpot!”

Xu Ziling rose up suddenly. His tiger-eyes flashed with sharp glints, he spoke in heavy voice, “There is no time to lose, we’ll go now to give the enemies an unexpected shock they won’t forget for the rest of their lives.”

The one-li-or-so long pier outside the city of Baling was full with docking ships and boats, big and small; at least there were two or three hundreds of them. On the vast shoreline stood about a dozen or so canopied structures, where goods and cargo, which did not make it into the city that day, were piled like small hills.

Xu Ziling and Kou Zhong followed the water line, and crouched behind a pile of goods, looking at the hundreds of flickering lights coming from the ships. They had no idea where to start looking for the enemy.

“Do you feel anything stronger anywhere?” Kou Zhong whispered.

Xu Ziling smiled wryly and said, “I don’t feel anything at all. Ay! Shall we go back to sleep?”

Kou Zhong shook his head to indicate he had different ideas. He said thoughtfully, “Supposing we stick our ears to the bottom of the boats and apply our inner strength to eavesdrop, do you think we will be able to listen to the conversation inside the boat?”

“So what if we could?” Xu Ziling was displeased, “Supposing the people in the boat are sleeping or not talking, do you still want to continue taking turn in eavesdropping? Don’t forget that there are hundreds of boats here. Even if we only listen for a moment each, we won’t even cover one tenth by daybreak.”

Finally Kou Zhong relented. “We’ll come back tomorrow then,” he said disappointedly, “I hope your feeling will be a bit stronger by then. Huh?!”

Following Kou Zhong’s gaze, Xu Ziling saw a skiff, without any light on it, was weaving through the rows after rows of ships, coming toward the shore. By looking at the speed of the boat, they knew that the one steering it was a very capable sailor.

Applying their inner power, the two boys focused their attention to the boat; they did not wish to miss any movement or sound.

On the boat stood two people: one man and one woman. The youthful looking woman was standing on the bow. Just by looking at her clothes, they knew that she was a maid. She had a graceful and good-looking countenance, but there was a little bit of licentious feeling on her. The man looked thick and solid, but his face looked uncouth. Apparently this man had the same capacity as the woman; they were both maid and servant.

The skiff was fast approaching. Before it even reached the shore, the maid soared into the air. With several ups and downs she reached the dark shore, while under the skillful hand of the servant the skiff stopped ashore to wait.

The two boys were overjoyed at this turn of events. Although they could not ascertain if these two were Evil Monk, Amorous Nun’s people, this matter was definitely incomparable to their previous situation where they had no clue of what to do.

After exchanging eye signals, the two boys stealthily circled around and went down into the water outside the male servant’s range of vision. A moment later they reached the bottom of the boat and applied their strength to attach themselves to the boat. They used this opportunity to cultivate their strength to deal with the hard fighting that might come soon.

Less than half a sichen later, the maid returned. The servant asked, “Did you get it?”

“Uh huh,” the maid replied, indicating that she did indeed get what they were looking for.

The skiff set off, the servant and the maid on the skiff no longer speak.

Quite half a day later, the skiff reached a huge sea-going ship, and stopped by its side.

The two boys left the skiff and dove under the giant ship. Sticking their ears to the hull, they seemed to hear voices, too bad the sound of the waves lapping against the hull distorted it, so that they could not hear it clearly.

Kou Zhong pulled Xu Ziling away; as the two of them emerged from the water at the aft, he said, “How do you catch the tiger cub without entering the tiger’s lair? Well?”

Xu Ziling laughed and said, “No need to talk too much, go!”

The two boys looked at each other’s eyes and laughed. They climbed up, stopped at the edge of the deck, and craned their necks to take a peek.

Even at its bottom, this ship already felt huge. Now that they looked from this angle, it felt even grander; the hull extended to more than two hundred chi. Three floors of cabin towered above the main deck, with more than thirty cabin windows, but only four of those windows were lighted, and they heard voices coming out of these windows.

But the deck was quiet, no one was in sight.

Putting his mouth close to Kou Zhong’s ear, Xu Ziling whispered, “I found two guards on sentry duty, both are on the third floor. Clearly their job is mainly to monitor any movement of other boats on the surface of the river, not to watch for any activity on the deck.”

Kou Zhong nonchalantly said, “We’ll just have to gamble his mother’s a bit; if things go awry, we’ll escape via the water. Let’s go!”

The two boys somersaulted over the railings. Crouching low on the deck, they crept toward the aft and hid in the shadow. Not only their movement was as fast as a ghost, they were in sync with each other, as if they had already practiced this mission a hundred or a thousand times before.

They did not dare to rashly break into the cabin. Focusing their power in their ears, they listened carefully and quietly. A man’s voice was heard inside. The man said, “When the two boys fight together, they become especially formidable that even Ren Shaoming ended up in injustice death. Therefore, when we fight, we must pick just one and go all out to kill him, and then we can capture the other one and torture him to extort his confession. I don’t believe he won’t spill the ‘Duke Yang Treasure’s’ secret.”

Listening to this, the two boys looked at each other in shock; wasn’t it the voice of Dajiang Hui’s Second Chief ‘Tiger Lord’ Pei Yan, who pursued and attacked them at the mouth of the river when they had just left Changshu? At that time there was also Wang Kuijie, whose martial art was extremely strong.

This time they were looking for Evil Monk and Amorous Nun, but unexpectedly found a ‘second carriage’.

Another unfamiliar voice said, “We will wait for eight days until after they cross the River to the north before using the force of a ten-thousand-jun thunderbolt to either capture or kill them in one fell swoop. With our strength, dealing with them ought to be as easy as pinching a few ants.”

This person was speaking in a variable voice; sometimes it was low and muffled, sometimes it turned shrill and sharp, somewhat disjointed, so that it was quite uncomfortable to listen to.

If his voice became like that due to the martial art he trained, then it must be an eccentric, strange, heretical and unusual martial art that was hard to estimate.

Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling’s countenance changed. Not because of the strange voice, but because the opposite side had such an accurate information of their whereabouts. Needless to say, someone must have tipped them off; no wonder they did not have to send anybody to watch the two boys’ movement.

A muffled female voice filled with hatred said, “We’ll kill that Xu Ziling, and captured Kou Zhong, who attacked us the other day. I want him to suffer all kinds of torture before we kill him.”

Just by listening to the fiery animosity in her voice, one would immediately know that she hated Kou Zhong to her heart and to her lungs.

The two boys felt that the voice sounded familiar, but momentarily they could not figure out whose voice was it.

Another charming and sweet female voice, as soft as the clouds in the sky, spoke indifferently, “You Xiangu’s [female immortal/goddess/fairy] desire is definitely attainable. Those two boys must be proud for being able to facilitate the joining hands of Die and Shen Dangjia [Chief]. When we declare our kingship in the future, we can have them to thank!”

Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling immediately remembered that the woman who hated them to her guts must be Haisha Bang’s pretty nun, You Qiuyan, the other ‘Amorous Nun’.

Shen Dangjia must be Shen Faxing, to whom Haisha Bang recently pledged their allegiance to be his hunting dogs. The allied force has suffered devastating setback in the two boys’ hands; no wonder they were this thirsty of revenge.

But who was the girl’s dad? It sounded as if Dajiang Hui was also taking orders from him.

Shen Faxing’s voice was heard, “This time Princess Mei presides over this mission, I am sure the two boys will fall into our hands. After we obtain the ‘Duke Yang Treasure’, plus the alliance of our Jiangnan and Garuda [Jialouluo], two armies, won’t we have the world [tianxia – China] in our bag?”

Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling’s heart shivered in fear. They finally realized who this Princess Mei’s dad was.

Among the warlords vying for supremacy over the world [China], in terms of brutality, nothing could surpass Zhu Can, who called himself Garuda King, whose fame and power was, currently, growing day by day.

It was said that when Garuda Army lacked provision, they even cooked human beings for food. This matter might be grossly exaggerated, yet it showed how bad their reputation was.

Kou Zhong whispered in Xu Ziling’s ear, “What do we do? Perhaps we could carve ‘Xu Ziling and Kou Zhong were here’ with a knife, so that they would jump in fear.”

“No!” Xu Ziling shook his head, “That way we will never become real martial art masters. We might as well go his mother’s all out, so that in the future they will not be in our way.”

Kou Zhong grabbed Xu Ziling’s shoulder forcefully, his tiger-eyes were gleaming. “All right!” he said, “We will change according to the situation. We’ll see whose fist is a bit harder. Hee!”