Chapter 6 – Unstable Situation in the Treasure House
“That’s impossible!” Mei Xun cried out.
Li Yuanji searched around the steel gate many times over, he still failed to find any button or lever to open the gate. “Xuyan!” he called sternly, “Absolutely don’t let him escape.”
By this moment Kou Zhong and Yang Xuyan’s saber and sword have already exchanged more than a dozen fierce moves in desperate battle, they were both attacking and defending equally, no one occupied the upper hand.
Hearing Li Yuanji’s anxious and angry shout, Kou Zhong laughed aloud and said, “Turns out you have no men waiting for you outside. Hey!”
Yang Xuyan’s sword light flared out dramatically, to such an extent that it was difficult for Kou Zhong to continue talking, he had to use the saber to sweep away Yang Xuyan’s exquisite-beyond-compare sword technique.
Li Yuanji’s bright and shiny eyes suddenly surged up; carrying the Splitting Horse Spear he approached the battle arena. With a thunderous roar he shouted, “Xuyan, get out of the way!”
Accepting the order, Yang Xuyan pulled back. Li Yuanji’s body followed his spear. Reflecting the light of the fire stick, the spearhead looked like a streak of lightning, shooting straight toward Kou Zhong, who was standing at the end of the long corridor.
Kou Zhong had already experienced his divine bravery and unrivalled martial art skill; actually, dodging this spear attack would not be difficult at all, he only needed to retreat toward the corridor leading toward the fake treasure house, and he would instantly turn peril into safety. However, he absolutely must not do so, because the consequences might be too horrible to contemplate.
First of all, he might lose the chance to escape from the moveable wall, his only way out. But this was, of course, quite low in his priority list; the real reason was that if Li Yuanji found the real treasure house, then all his great effort would go down the drain, and he would gratuitously convenience the Li Clan.
Secondly, if Li Yuanji’s unstoppable spear momentum forced him to retreat into the treasure house, then the situation would be reversed; the spacious space would give Mei Xun and Yang Xuyan the opportunity to join the battle, how could he, Kou Zhong, keep his life then?
Therefore, whatever the case, he simply had to fend off Li Yuanji’s pressing, vigorous, unstoppable spear.
The spear power completely enveloped Kou Zhong, the momentum was fierce and severe without equal, the spearhead moved in the corridor following a brimming-with-measured-force-and-sense-of-beauty arc, swiftly aiming at the vital part on the pit of Kou Zhong’s stomach.
Because the spear power was highly concentrated on the tip of the Splitting Horse Spear, combined with the flint-spark-like speed, even if Kou Zhong wanted to deflect the energy and borrow the force, he was simply unable to do it. With a violent roar the Moon in the Well transformed the complicated into simplicity, it swept upward first, and then, following Kou Zhong’s leaning-forward posture, it chopped down in a straight line, hitting the tip of the spear squarely.
‘Qiang!’
Without any cheap trick at all, the two exchanged hard, stake-it-all moves; both felt as if they were struck by lightning, and both staggered backward.
Kou Zhong’s entire right arm, with which he held the saber, went numb. Li Yuanji’s spear attack was releasing the entire store-up energy, plus he was in a rage, hence the momentum was like the rainbow, reinforced by total-annihilation bravery.
Moreover, long spear was the best weapon to be used in direct-force attack; in the narrow space of the corridor, this advantage could be unleashed in its finest detail.
During his all-out battle against Yang Xuyan, Kou Zhong hurriedly adapted himself to meet the enemy, naturally he was at the disadvantageous position. Unable to deflect the force, he could not stop his body from being thrown backward and heavily crashed against the arrow wall.
Li Yuanji was also staggering back. Compared to their previous encounter, Kou Zhong’s power seemed to be stronger; it was able to meet his spear power head-on, without yielding the slightest bit. It was indeed greatly beyond his expectation.
Before this, he was fully confident that even Ning Daoqi would not dare to take his spear head-on like Kou Zhong. The contact between the two happened in the blink of an eye, at which point Yang Xuyan was still on his way back.
Like Li Yuanji, he estimated that Kou Zhong would evade, and then Li Yuanji could forge ahead with the remainder of his spear power, and attacked Kou Zhong so that he could only parry without any power to strike back. Who would have thought that Kou Zhong was able to meet the attack solidly head-on?
Seeing no time to lose, Mei Xun tossed the fire stick to Yang Xuyan and roared, “Let me come!”
Lifting his spear, he charged forward, trying to take advantage while Kou Zhong was in a difficult situation, to continue Li Yuanji’s attack.
‘Bang!’
Finally Kou Zhong hit the arrow wall; he crashed so hard that his true qi nearly scattered. Yet before he had time to focus his mind, Mei Xun’s golden spear, which name shook the South, already shot toward his head from Li Yuanji’s side, three zhang away. Qi power was arising first, completely locking his movement, showing that his astonishing power was not inferior to Li Yuanji and Yang Xuyan.
‘Clack!’
The mechanism behind him rang out.
Hearing the noise, Li Yuanji and the others, three men were stunned, but Kou Zhong’s soul flew away and scattered, realizing that it was extremely possible that the crossbow inside the wall still had enough power to shoot arrows.
Perhaps because it has been sitting for many, many years that some of the arrow-shooting mechanism failed, but after Kou Zhong slammed on it, the failing arrow-shooting mechanism somehow recovered its ability.
Kou Zhong did not have time to think about anything else, he threw himself in the direction of the fake treasure house to evade.
‘Zip! Zip! Zip!’
Three powerful arrows shot horizontally out of the arrow holes.
The fire stick knocked against the wall.
The first to be in trouble was Mei Xun, because he was the closest to the arrow wall; practically he did not have enough time to block. Left without any other choice, he threw himself backward, one of the arrows flitted pass the tip of his nose, and firmly embedded itself into the steel gate, creating a loud ‘Dang!’ noise.
The other two separately shot toward Yang Xuyan and Li Yuanji. The two did everything they could to block; they were caught in an extremely difficult situation.
The fire stick went out, so that the corridor sank into a stretching-a-hand-cannot-see-five-fingers darkness. All of a sudden, no one dared to make any noise.
In this enemy-and-us-difficult-to-distinguish darkness, if Kou Zhong intentionally launched sneak attack, they would enter an extremely-difficult-to-cope situation.
It was precisely at this terrible moment that they heard the sound of lock ring being pulled outside the steel door.
Kou Zhong groaned inwardly, thinking that turned out the opponent still had reinforcement. Presently, the only way was to leave secretly from the moveable wall and then seal the moveable wall completely. But if he did that, it would be akin to telling Li Yuanji that in this seemingly closed space, there was, in fact, another passageway.
In a hurry, he could only take away a few of the most valuable things from the treasure-trove, but compared to losing his little life, it was still extremely worthwhile.
On the other hand, Li Yuanji and the others thought that the newcomer must be Xu Ziling; they cheered inwardly, thinking that if they could take advantage of the instant while Xu Ziling was busy with opening the door and was completely defenseless, using a ten-thousand-jun-thunderbolt momentum to launch a sudden attack, they undoubtedly would be able to kill him, and then borrowing the light from the Night Pearls outside the door, they would be able to see everything clearly and turn around to get rid of Kou Zhong. And thus it would an ideal end of this saga.
Mei Xun, who was closest to Kou Zhong, was listening with rapt attention, trying to detect Kou Zhong’s movement. As long as Kou Zhong made any noise or perhaps made any movement, he would do everything he could to intercept, so that Kou Zhong would not be able to rendezvous with Xu Ziling.
The steel door opened.
To the surprise of all four men, outside the door was complete darkness without the slightest thread of beam of light, which was supposed to be there.
Li Yuanji and Yang Xuyan thought that Xu Ziling must have heard the loud noise of the arrows hitting the steel door just now, which alerted him, and thus he covered the night pearls with some kind of cloth and silk, hence creating this kind of situation.
They already amassed their strength like an arrow on the taut bow; it simply had to be released. Thereupon they shouted at the same time, and then one spear and one sword, like mercury flowing swiftly, attacked toward the outside of the door.
Only Kou Zhong knew for sure that the newcomer at the door was not Xu Ziling. This moment he also knew that it was definitely not Li Yuanji’s reinforcement. His heart was moved, the Moon in the Well hacked forward to test Mei Xun’s position, as well as his reaction.
※ ※ ※
Xu Ziling, who was sitting in a corner, stood up, walked forward, and spoke indifferently, “Time is up, ladies and gentlemen, please leave per our agreement.”
The four persons exchanged eye signal, and stood up at the same time. And then, altering-shape-exchanging-position, fast as lightning they moved to all four corners, surrounding Xu Ziling in the middle.
Xu Ziling acted as if he already knew that this situation would happen, he laughed calmly and said, “You want to renege on your words? Aren’t you afraid of dealing with the incantation oath?”
Bian Bufu revealed a smile brimming with ridicule; he spoke grimly, “Kid, how could you be so naïve? If you were in our position, would you let people who knew the entrance to the treasure house running all over the place in Chang’an, blabbering indiscriminately?”
Wen Caiting laughed tenderly and said, “Xiao Ge’er [little boy]! We do not have the slightest intention to break our promise, we just want to let you sleep in peace, until after we find the treasure house situation clearly, and then we’ll let you and your Xiongdi leave freely. You can consider it reasonable and fair, right?” Finished speaking, she even cast him a coquettish glance, as if she was very interested in him.
While applying his power to resist the enormous pressure that the four people were sending out to him, Xu Ziling knitted his brows and said in surprise, “Have you ever thought that if you spare Wanbei [junior, younger generation], the consequences could be extremely grave? In my anxiety, I would be forced to notify the Heavenly Policy Mansion, one thing goes wrong, not only you would lose the treasure house, Zhu Zongzhu might even have to nurse a grievance inside the treasure-trove.”
Elder Xia coldly said, “Don’t forget that Kou Zhong is still inside the treasure house. If you alarm the Li Family, the first to suffer will be him.”
Laughing involuntarily, Xu Ziling said, “Isn’t this remark contradictory to your previous one? Since you are not afraid that I might alarm other people, why are you now displaying torrential-rushing momentum, acting like you want to beat me, you want to kill me?”
Pi Shouxuan laughed coldly and said, “If you stubbornly resist, we will have no choice but to go all out and kill you.”
Xu Ziling shook his head with a sigh, he said, “Frankly speaking, with the four of you joining hands, my chance of getting away is rather slim, but to alarm the patrolling troops and horses in the city, it will be easy to accomplish. Do you want to try it?”
Pi Shouxuan, four persons, could not help but look at each other in dismay; they all knew that to put Xu Ziling in order was something that cannot be accomplished in just eight or ten moves. If he disregarded Kou Zhong’s life or death and used his internal power to create noise to attract the patrolling troops, the consequences would certainly be difficult to predict.
Xu Ziling cleverly exploited the currently special circumstances and suddenly he occupied the upper hand. In order to let the four get off the hook, Xu Ziling slyly said, “How about this: I promise you that I will stay inside this house and will not go out the door even for half a step until daybreak. This way, won’t it satisfy rival demands? If it were confirmed that Kou Zhong has fallen into your hands, I can’t possibly act blindly without thinking even more, can I?”
This could still be considered to be a solution.
Taking into consideration the safety of his men, based on Xu Ziling’s conduct, he would definitely not charge outside and run away.
Without waiting for them to respond, Xu Ziling coldly said, “But you must withdraw outside the perimeter of this courtyard house to let me save them and wake them up. Ladies and gentlemen, what do you think? Any other proposal, forgive me for not being able to accept it.”
Using eye signal, Pi Shouxuan consulted the others’ opinion, and found that even Bian Bufu, who hated Xu Ziling to the bones, was also expressing that this was the only feasible solution. Without any choice, he said, “Very well! We’ll do as you say. But if we ever find out that you are conspiring against us, none of your brothers will be able to live.”
※ ※ ※
The one gracing them with her presence was naturally the head of the ‘Eight Major Martial Art Masters of the Demonic Way’, the ‘Empress Yin’ Zhu Yuyan. She was accompanied by Wanwan, whom she left behind to guard the entrance of the well, while she came alone to this place, determining to put Kou Zhong in order first and forget about other things.
It would be best if Kou Zhong thought that it was Xu Ziling coming back with their men. She could exploit this misunderstanding, which would save her a lot of effort.
The six Night Pearls were jabbed by her fingertips and were smashed, with the purpose of giving Kou Zhong unexpected surprise, to catch him off guard. Who would have thought that as soon as the steel gate was opened, welcoming her was an extremely fierce and severe pair of one spear and one sword? Fortunately she had been storing up her momentum as well. The gauze sleeve flew, it struck the tip of the first-to-arrive Li Yuanji’s spear. The Tian Mo Gong’s full strength was unleashed, it deflected the Splitting Horse Spear sideways, accurately without any mistake it hit Yang Xuyan’s Shadow Sword.
Li Yuanji let out a muffled groan; it was unbearably uncomfortable. Even if he hit a copper wall, iron bastion, he would not feel this uncomfortable. Although he had the strength, the Tian Mo power made him unable to release it, so that his whole body felt empty and fluttering, he nearly sustained internal injury and vomited blood.
If he knew clearly that his opponent was the ‘Empress Yin’ Zhu Yuyan, he would not have suffered such a terrible loss as soon as they met facet-to-face instead.
Yang Xuyan’s Shadow Sword originally carried an advance-courageously momentum, but he never expected that Li Yuanji’s Splitting Horse Spear would suddenly move sideways and hit the sword. Caught off guard, the long sword was immediately knocked askew, while his entire body instantly felt absolutely empty, all the following changes he was planning were disrupted.
In the absolute darkness, neither side knew who the opponent was, they were simply overly suspicious, and were thrown into extreme confusion.
In fact, Zhu Yuyan was shocked as well; she quickly judged that to kill these two mysterious opponents in such a narrow and small space, although not impossible –would definitely cost her a hefty price.
Her senses were very sensitive; she detected that there were still two other persons in the corridor, who were fighting each other, and she knew that one of them was Kou Zhong. Under such circumstances, how could she be willing to take the risk of sustaining an injury?
Once again Li Yuanji and Yang Xuyan regrouped to launch an offensive counterattack. Although Zhu Yuyan was so upset that her teeth itched, she had no strategy left to try, and was forced to retreat.
Inside the treasure house, no one really understood what was going on.
Mei Xun was standing against the wall. From the sound of the saber wind, he deduced correctly Kou Zhong’s position. His spear, without creating any noise, stabbed suddenly.
As luck would have it, unexpectedly his stab missed, but before he had any chance to change his move, Kou Zhong heavily hacked down on the golden spearhead, jerking the Golden Spear that it nearly fell off his hands. Overwhelmed with shock, he retreated backward.
Outside the door, the sound of fierce fighting gradually moved away. Mei Xun did not have enough strength left to strike back. On one hand, Kou Zhong already seized the initiative, on the other hand, he was unclear of the situation between the enemy and us, just now it sounded like Li Yuanji had suffered a bit of defeat. Not in the mood to zealously continue fighting, he then fought and retreated toward the door, thinking that as long as he could defend the entrance to the well, even if Kou Zhong grew wings, it would still be difficult to escape. It was not worth it for him to decide life and death with Kou Zhong in this total darkness.
Kou Zhong, however, cried ‘Wonderful!’ inwardly. If he could force Mei Xun to the secret passage leading to the underground river, or perhaps back to the mouth of the well, he could then return to the treasure house and escape via the moveable wall. And after locking the wall, it would be akin to locking the enemy outside the real treasure-trove. Even if the other side came again, they would think that the ‘fake treasure-trove’ was the real Duke Yang’s Treasure. Furthermore, they would think that he, Kou Zhong, left via the underground river.
And then things changed beyond anybody’s expectation.
※ ※ ※
Xu Ziling blew the oil lamp first, and then he took his time to rescue and wake up Gao Zhandao and the others, one by one.
The technique used to seal their acupoint was extremely vicious, to unseal it would not be easy at all, even if the unsealing process was successful, perhaps everybody would have to lie down for several days before they could recover.
Fortunately Xu Ziling had certain knowledge about the Tian Mo Gong, plus in itself the Secret to Long Life Qi had divine efficacy in healing injuries; therefore, although they could not fully recover, nearly 80- or 90-percent of their strength were back.
After listening to Xu Ziling’s brief explanation of the situation, Gao Zhandao said with a sigh, “They [feminine] came without warning at all, fortunately at that time I was outside and still had the time to activate the rooster warning sign on the roof. But it did not make any difference. Ziling is indeed supremely honorable and righteous, unexpectedly you refuse to take your own safety into consideration and come in to deal with those demons.”
Xu Ziling said, “Fortunately I have conditions that we can negotiate with. Presently we are still occupying the upper hand. If we could sneak out from the secret passage and steal into the treasure house, we can still be highly successful.”
Gao Zhandao cheerfully said, “That is not a problem. Xu Dage, please come with us.”
Xu Ziling was amused inwardly; if later on Pi Shouxuan and the other demons discovered that they have been guarding an empty, uninhabited house, what would their expression look like?