Chapter 132: The Duel |
On the long stone-paved street of the small town, people came and went in a lively stream, mule bells jingling and peddlers' carrying poles creaking under their loads.
Wu Shang and the other Captain, Cheng Zhong, sat upright on their tall horses, leading the carriage forward while sweeping the street with watchful glances.
Shops and stalls lined both sides of the road in dense rows. Under a sky that was half clear and half overcast, the copper-clad signboard of the pawnshop clanged in the wind, the ironsmith's forge sent showers of crimson sparks spraying out at intervals, and the calls of merchants near and far rang out without cease.
The town sat close to the official road and saw a constant flow of traveling merchants and wayfarers, so when Li Musheng's group entered the town, they drew no particular attention.
The carriage stopped at the largest inn in the town, and after they stepped down a stable boy came out to take the horses.
Captain Cheng Zhong and the coachman Cao Gaoshan went with the stable boy to see to the horses and carriage, while Hu Rui'an had a waiter lead them to a private window-side table on the second floor and ordered a full spread of food and drink.
Li Musheng, Hu Rui'an, and Murong Xiaoya took their seats at the table one after another, with Wu Shang standing in attendance to one side.
Throughout the journey, the three sharing the carriage had exchanged very little conversation.
Murong Xiaoya seemed to be a deeply shy young woman, keeping herself tucked into a corner of the carriage the entire time, either sitting cross-legged in cultivation or dozing, and barely saying a word.
As for Li Musheng, he had a sense that there was something peculiar about Murong Xiaoya's situation, but he had no interest in looking into it.
His attention at this point had actually been devoted to the Azure Dragon Profound Darkness Scripture he had acquired from the Azure Dragon Elder the day before.
Because of his supremely exceptional comprehension, every martial technique he currently practiced had been derived and created from scratch through his own insights into various otherwise unremarkable common methods. As a result, when studying the Azure Dragon Profound Darkness Scripture, he felt an incessant, irresistible itch to extrapolate and rework this divine technique that countless figures in the martial world dreamed of obtaining.
In his view, it seemed as though every supposedly supreme martial divine technique in the world had its flaws and shortcomings. Only the methods he himself derived and created could be considered truly perfect.
And having spent the better part of a day on the road studying it, Li Musheng had found that the Azure Dragon Profound Darkness Scripture did indeed have quite a few defects and imperfections, with enormous potential for revision and improvement throughout the entire text.
"Not bad. At least there's something to occupy my time on the road."
Li Musheng gave a quiet nod of satisfaction. Whatever the case, he would need to continue cultivating the Azure Dragon Profound Darkness Scripture in the future to absorb Azure Dragon True Qi.
Only a technique he had derived and created himself, confirmed safe through his own understanding, was something he could use with full peace of mind.
Just as Li Musheng's thoughts were absorbed in the Azure Dragon Profound Darkness Scripture, the lively main street of the town was suddenly broken by the urgent clanging of a bronze gong.
In an instant, the merchants and townspeople all across the stone-paved street broke into a flustered uproar.
Passersby scattered and fled in every direction, while shopkeepers on the roadside hurriedly packed up their stalls and pulled their shutters closed.
Before long, the street that had been bustling and full of life became empty and desolate.
In the wind that swept down the deserted street, only the ironsmith's furnace continued to throw up its scattered sparks without concern, shop banners fluttered, and the hanging copper bells gave out their faint, tinkling rings.
Some of the guests on the second floor, noticing the unusual commotion below, pressed up to the windows and peered down curiously at the street, evidently trying to make sense of what was happening.
Some among them clearly knew what the situation was, and their expressions became deeply grave as they moved to stop others from looking, even attempting to pull the inn's windows shut.
Seeing this, some guests were not entirely willing to comply, so someone offered an explanation to put them at ease, saying, "I've heard that this is a rule the town established long ago. Whenever martial world experts in the area have arranged a duel, someone in the town will ring the gong in advance to warn bystanders to clear away and avoid any innocent casualties."
"Expert duels are extremely dangerous, and it would be best for us ordinary folk to neither see nor hear anything. If one of those experts were to take their anger out on us or we got caught in the crossfire, things could turn very ugly."
Upon hearing this, many guests, subscribing to the principle that less trouble is better than more, quickly shut the windows and returned to their seats.
But a portion of the guests remained undeterred, and for safety's sake left the windows half-latched, peeking through the narrow gaps to catch a glimpse of what was unfolding on the stone-paved street below.
The table where Li Musheng's group was seated happened to be beside a wide-open window. Wu Shang, having caught most of what the people around them were saying, furrowed his brow slightly and was just about to consult Li Musheng's opinion.
But just then, a young figure came walking unhurriedly up to the second floor.
He appeared to be around twenty-seven or twenty-eight, dressed in white, with a sword bearing a bronze scabbard cradled in his arms.
His features were stern and cold. After a single casual glance around the room, he walked toward the only table with an open window on the second floor, which happened to be Li Musheng's.
"Don't close that window for me. I want to watch the rare duel of experts about to take place."
The young man spoke casually to the four of them at the table as he walked over.
His eyes were narrow and slightly long. He gave the four people at the table a brief appraising look, then walked up and sat down in an empty seat at the table as a matter of course.
Seeing a stranger arrive, Murong Xiaoya quickly lowered her head, picked up the tea on the table, and sipped it quietly, looking somewhat uncomfortable and at a loss.
Hu Rui'an's rather full-looking face furrowed slightly as he cast a sidelong glance at the young man who had sat down, but thinking it better not to make trouble unnecessarily, he said nothing and took a sip of his own tea.
As for Li Musheng on the other side of the table, he raised an eyebrow, then turned to Wu Shang standing in attendance beside him and said, "What are you waiting for? Throw him out for me."
The moment those words fell, Wu Shang, who had very nearly gone along with Hu Rui'an's approach of letting the matter slide, was briefly taken aback.
Murong Xiaoya, who had been quietly sipping her tea with her head lowered, also looked up in surprise, stealing a glance at Li Musheng.
As for the young man in white, he too was stunned for a moment.
He had seen that Hu Rui'an and Murong Xiaoya raised no objection to his request, and had been rather satisfied with their compliant attitude, assuming the group before him knew how to read the situation.
The last thing he had expected was that the other young man at the table, who did not look particularly old, would be so utterly ignorant of how the world worked as to say something like that.
The young man in white's gaze immediately turned cold, and he narrowed his eyes toward Li Musheng, saying, "Young man, don't be too presumptuous out in the world. You can't afford to mess with me..."
But before he could finish, Wu Shang moved. In an instant he was at the young man in white's side.
The next moment, he reached out and grabbed the man by the collar, then flung him through the open window as casually as tossing out a piece of rubbish, sending him flying several zhang out from the second floor of the inn.
Wu Shang had moved fast, and his hands had moved even faster.
The young man in white had not even had time to react before he found himself flying through the air with nothing to be done about it, crashing down onto the stone-paved street below and rolling several times before barely managing to steady himself.