Chapter 22: Nothing Special
Thick alcohol fumes mixed with pungent blood stench permeated the room.
The newcomer flicked his blade, blood droplets splattering onto the floor. He wore a suit of dark training clothes that accentuated his upright posture. The conical hat pressed low, covering his brow and eyes, with only a mocking smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
“Hong Yuan?!”
Meng Yue gripped his steel saber tightly with his right hand, maintaining a stance ready to strike at any moment. His eyes looked over with shock and suspicion, his expression changing drastically.
Hong Yuan slowly raised his head, revealing the face beneath the conical hat. His gaze met Meng Yue’s, and he smiled faintly, “Junior Brother, you are always deferential to me, your Senior Brother, on normal days. Why call me directly by name now? Doesn’t that make you the kind of hypocrite, two-faced and three-knifed, as they say in the plays?”
Meng Yue’s face was unsightly. His gaze passed through Hong Yuan’s figure and saw that the three ruffians who had been urinating outside the door were already lying on the ground, each with a gruesome gash across their throats, just like the few sober ruffians inside the room. Two or three of them were still twitching, but they had already stepped onto the road to the underworld.
The remaining dozen or so drunken ruffians, several of whom were sobered up by more than half by this sudden killing, struggled to their feet in utter terror, trying to find their weapons that they didn’t know where they had been thrown. But their bones were soft and legs weak, and with this fright, they each stood up only to collapse again, crying out in fear ‘ah ah’, having completely lost their reason.
Fortunately, this small courtyard was located in a remote area of the county town. This group of ruffians often drank and made merry noisily on normal days, and the surrounding people were quite afraid of them. Even if the sounds reached the street, no one would meddle in their business.
“So noisy!”
With a ‘chi’ sound of blade cutting through wind, Meng Yue’s long saber in his palm flicked backhand, slicing across the neck of a ruffian wailing loudly beside him. Blood sprayed out, startling the other screaming ruffians into silence, like ducks with their necks wrung.
The shock, panic, and other negative emotions on Meng Yue’s body seemed to vent out with this saber strike.
His expression gradually became calm and composed, his eyes sharp as a hawk or falcon, locking straight onto Hong Yuan’s figure. Suddenly, he gave a low chuckle, which turned into loud laughter.
“Junior Brother, what’s so funny? Tell your Senior Brother, let’s enjoy it together!” Hong Yuan said leisurely.
“I laugh at your stupidity!” Meng Yue’s laughter stopped abruptly, staring coldly at Hong Yuan: “I don’t know when I revealed a flaw and let you catch my weakness. That’s my mistake; I underestimated you too much!”
He paused, his face mocking: “But since you’ve noticed, why didn’t you tell Yang Erhu? With you two joining hands, if you had launched a surprise attack, I would have no power to resist. Yet you stupidly came to track me alone and stand openly in front of me?”
Meng Yue’s gaze swept over the ruffians on the ground, saying indifferently: “Or do you think that by assassinating these wastes with a surprise attack, you can intimidate me, Meng Yue?”
He slowly raised his steel saber, holding it level at chest height. The snow-bright blade reflected a pair of eyes filled with killing intent.
“Or perhaps that previous clash gave you the illusion that I’m nothing special?”
Hong Yuan smiled: “From what Junior Brother says, in that previous clash, you were hiding your strength?”
“Hehe!” Meng Yue’s face twitched, letting out an emotionless laugh, then killing intent overflowed: “You’ll know soon enough!”
Before the words finished, Meng Yue’s feet moved in quick steps, his figure spinning with astonishing speed, and in an instant, he reached a wine table.
The ruffians in the room had been feasting for a long time; the table was littered with cups and plates. On the small brazier in the center, a pot of wine was still warming, and now with the drinkers lying on the ground, the wine in the pot was still bubbling nonstop.
Meng Yue spun over abruptly, suddenly kicking out with one foot. The entire table crashed with a ‘hua la’ sound, cups, plates, bowl and plate, leftovers, cold dishes, and the small brazier flaring up all poured toward Hong Yuan.
At the same time, the wine table spun in mid-air, kicked by Meng Yue’s powerful foot, tumbling toward Hong Yuan.
The wine table collided violently with the air, emitting a piercing shrill sound.
Meng Yue’s face was cold and stern. As the wine table flew up, his body closely followed in a surprise attack. He held the long saber reversed in his right hand, inner strength surging within, poised to strike.
Meng Yue had witnessed Hong Yuan’s strength and knew he couldn’t match the other in raw power, but this did not dent his confidence at all.
In true life-or-death combat, it never relied on strength alone; no matter how strong, if it didn’t hit, it was useless.
The sect he came from never practiced in isolation; almost all the outstanding disciples had experience in Jianghu or military combat.
And Meng Yue was one of the best among them.
Before coming to Yangquan County and joining the Yang Family Martial Arts School, he had challenged many Jianghu experts and even tempered himself in the military for several years. Could the experience and skills gained from life-and-death struggles not deal with the delicate ‘pretty boy’ opposite him?
Perhaps this Hong Yuan was indeed carefully cultivated by Yang Erhu, but how many people had he killed? How many battles had he fought?
Hula!
A flash of saber light swept up, knocking away all the incoming cups, plates, bowls, brazier, and other debris.
“Indeed a novice, still afraid of dirtying his clothes at a time like this.” Cold light flashed in Meng Yue’s eyes. As the debris flew and the wine table smashed down toward Hong Yuan, he let out a sharp shout, his reversed long saber slashing diagonally upward from below.
The saber light was chilling, swift as lightning and thunder, clearly intending to cleave the wine table and Hong Yuan in two at once.
Chi la!
The wine table was instantly split diagonally in half, the two sections flying to either side. But Meng Yue’s pupils contracted; there was no sensation of the long saber entering flesh in his hand. Right ahead, Hong Yuan’s figure had vanished.
Hula!
A gust of wind hit his face, Meng Yue feeling a chill at his glabella. In his peripheral vision, he saw Hong Yuan had somehow leaped into mid-air, higher than his entire body, saber striking down from above straight at his head.
The speed was in no way inferior to his previous strike, even more vicious.
Meng Yue could only lean his body back, suddenly gripping the hilt with both hands, countering with a upward saber strike.
With a ‘dang’ explosive clang, the two sabers clashed. Meng Yue’s body trembled violently, feeling a tearing pain like his tiger mouth splitting open, his feet unsteady as he staggered back “deng deng deng.”
Meng Yue’s face changed in horror; this force was far stronger than he had anticipated. Knowing it was bad, he forcibly stomped with one foot to halt his stumbling figure.
Blood seeped from his palm, but he gripped the steel saber firmly, wanting to fight again, when a kick came from the side. Meng Yue had nowhere to dodge and took it squarely in the chest.
Instantly, his chest exploded in pain, his back arching. The force of this kick felt like it went from front chest to back, sending Meng Yue flying backward.
Bang!
Meng Yue’s body crashed heavily down, smashing another wine table in the room into pieces. Leftovers and cold dishes poured down, drenching his head and face. The scalding brazier landed on him, embers spilling into his neck area, plus the cracking pain in his chest bones, immediately making him cry out in agony as he struggled to evade.
Pu!
A flash of saber light stabbed straight into Meng Yue’s right palm. Hong Yuan’s tall figure entered Meng Yue’s view. Looking down from above, he lightly said: “Indeed, nothing special!”
