Chapter 54: Surrounded by Enemies, Survival in Despair
Dusk had not fully settled, and in the sky, the moon, missing a bite, had risen, casting a soft glow upon the valley. Forest birds startled and flew, their wings rustling as they passed over Zhou Yan’s head.
A flash of inspiration struck him, and combining it with descriptions from the Divine Condor Jianghu, he realized what the scene before him represented.
It all originated from Qiu Qianchi.
The Iron Palm Lotus, while roaming the Jianghu, entered the mountains and fields around Xiangyang in pursuit of someone, and after many twists and turns, she eventually stumbled into the Valley of Unfeeling and met Gongsun Zhi.
It was the same now; Qiu Qianchi had once again encountered the Valley Master of the Valley of Unfeeling by chance.
At this moment, Gongsun Zhi should have had a face like jade, not sallow and withered. Qiu Qianchi was reasonably attractive and possessed exquisite martial arts. Gongsun Zhi, smitten, showed her great concern, and the Iron Palm Lotus, perhaps moved, recounted her experiences in the suburbs of Xiangyang.
In ancient times, kings would light beacon fires to amuse their concubines, making fools of their vassals.
The Valley Master of the Valley of Unfeeling, to win the heart of the Iron Palm Lotus, dispatched disciples to search the areas around Xiangyang, or perhaps he personally led his disciples there.
Qiu Qianchi must have described her and Sun Buer’s appearances. In the dim light, their facial features were indistinguishable, but the bow revealed her.
Once this thought formed in Zhou Yan’s mind, he had no other. If nothing unexpected happened, the next move of the four disciples of the Valley of Unfeeling, who had occupied the southern, western, northwestern, and northern positions, would be to throw fishing nets. The Old Urchin had suffered from this tactic before.
Strike first to avoid being controlled.
Behind him lay a deep valley, which could be a path to survival or a dead end. Zhou Yan did not turn to draw his bow and arrow to attack. Instead, relying on the immense power stored in his legs, he charged directly at the disciple of the Valley of Unfeeling who had occupied the southern position.
His footwork was already outstanding, and now that he had refined the Foot Shaoyin Kidney Meridian and begun the Golden Goose Skill, his charge was as swift as a tiger crossing a mountain. The dry grass on the ground flattened in his wake, forming a ripple of movement that extended towards the enemy.
The two charged towards each other, closing the distance in an instant.
The disciple was greatly alarmed. He had not yet taken his position and thus could not deploy his fishing net to capture anyone. He changed his right fist into a palm, drawing his arm in an upward arc to his left chest for defense, while his left fist transformed into a palm and pushed out from his left waist, launching a simple yet powerful “Cloud Hand Butterfly Palm” towards Zhou Yan.
Zhou Yan’s body flickered. Using the Free and Easy Journey’s “Reach Out for Food” technique, he struck the opponent’s palm with his right fist. Internal Energy flared outwards, and the surging, explosive force caused the man’s wide sleeves to billow like waves, revealing a bare arm as fair as a woman’s.
The man’s cultivation was only at the level of the Yellow River Four Ghosts. As his arm was forced back, Zhou Yan moved with his footwork, sinking his right shoulder, and delivered a fierce Iron Mountain Lean to the opponent’s body.
In the vast dusk, the man was flung through the air like a thrown boulder, crashing a dozen yards away.
The opponent had already fired a signal flare. Zhou Yan had no intention of lingering for a fight and ran towards the southern mountain forest within the valley.
In less than a moment, from the direction the four men had come, a short man wielding a steel staff swooped down towards him like an eagle.
“Don’t run, kid.”
As Zhou Yan ran, he looked back. What met his eyes was an extremely short man, no taller than four feet, with a peculiar face and a beard reaching his chest. He wore a dark green cloth robe, cinched with a green grass rope.
It was Fan Yi Weng. Zhou Yan turned his head and ran with renewed ferocity.
“Kid, don’t run!”
“Why wouldn’t I run if you’re chasing me?”
Hearing Zhou Yan’s unanswerable retort, Fan Yi Weng stopped speaking. He circulated his Inner Qi, leaped, and bounded forward, chasing fiercely like a gust of wind.
The two passed through a hillside in the valley, one after the other. Zhou Yan’s vision caught sight of a babbling creek, and he began to intentionally slow down.
Fan Yi Weng’s short stature seemed to gather the sound of wind and thunder as he roared and closed the distance. They reached the riverbank, and Zhou Yan leaped into the creek.
Fan Yi Weng, who had just caught up to him, followed like a shadow, jumping in as well.
The short figure fell like a stone, and with a “bang,” a magnificent curtain of water splashed up.
Suddenly, Zhou Yan backhanded a palm strike.
Fan Yi Weng never expected Zhou Yan to unleash such a Hanging Horns of a Sheep-like palm strike, untraceable like a Shenlong Tail Whip, in such a desperate situation. Before he could react, Zhou Yan’s palm strike parted the water curtain and landed on him.
With a “bang,” dense water droplets exploded outwards from Fan Yi Weng’s body the moment Zhou Yan’s palm landed. Fan Yi Weng felt a burning pain in his chest and shoulder. His body swayed, and he took half a step back, planting his steel staff on the ground to steady himself.
But in the next moment, he saw Zhou Yan use the momentum from his backhand palm strike to spin, planting his left foot and sweeping his right leg. Astonishing splashes of water erupted within his vision.
With a “bang,” Zhou Yan’s right foot landed on Fan Yi Weng’s head. In a normal confrontation, this kick would have landed on the opponent’s ribs, but Fan Yi Weng was simply too short. He took the Whirlwind Sweeping Leaves Leg with his face. This time, without the support of his steel staff, his body flew horizontally like a falling leaf and crashed into the water.
Zhou Yan inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. Fan Yi Weng in the Legend of the Condor Heroes world was not inferior to him in martial arts, but he was at a disadvantage due to the lack of exquisite cultivation techniques from the Northern Beggar and Eastern Heretic, and his insufficient experience in combat.
As he turned and sprinted away, his peripheral vision caught sight of a man and a woman at the valley entrance. Their black and white figures flew above the tree crowns, like giant owls, appearing and disappearing in the darkness of the woods, and reappearing to cover several yards of distance as they pursued him.
They got together that quickly? Zhou Yan’s scalp tingled as he leaped onto the riverbank and plunged into the woods.
…
As the trees gradually thinned, the view widened, and the lines of the ridge resembled a continuous, undulating gray dragon’s spine.
Zhou Yan landed on the mountaintop. Below him, mist swirled over the cliff, its depth unknown. His gaze leveled, and in the distance, the cliff tops appeared and disappeared, the canyon’s width unfathomable.
Zhou Yan was certain that Qiu Qianchi, in her early days, was not a ruthless killer. This was evident from the fact that when the escort team encountered her pursuing Sun Buer, the Iron Palm Lotus did not kill the runners when she forcefully broke through.
However, he was sure that Gongsun Zhi, in his attempt to please Qiu Qianchi, would absolutely resort to lethal force.
Therefore, he did not hesitate. He quickly took his pack and retrieved two thin hemp ropes, each five to six zhang long.
As an escort, he was well aware of the load-bearing capacity of various ropes, and tying knots was an essential knowledge and skill.
He found a tree stump, bent the end of the rope he was about to use for descent to a length of about two feet, then looped the doubled end around the stump. He passed his right hand through the loop in the doubled rope, pulled a section of the long rope through the loop, forming a running knot. He tightened the loop, passed his right hand through the running knot, looped the short rope through the new running knot in the same manner and bent it, tightening the rope to form a new running knot.
He then took another rope as an auxiliary rope and connected it to the short end of the descent rope.
Once prepared, he threw the two ropes down the cliff.
Zhou Yan’s actions were not without purpose. After days of searching for Snake Valley in the mountains and fields, he had seen many sheer cliffs. Unless it was an abyss of ten thousand zhang, most uneven cliffs would have pine branches and trees growing from cracks in the rock. Finding a foothold, one could use ropes to survive.
Just as he finished preparing, Qiu Qianchi and Gongsun Zhi flew out together from the dense woods in the distance.
Zhou Yan drew his bow and arrow. The bow was drawn like a full moon, and two arrows, indistinguishable in their timing, flew directly towards Gongsun Zhi and Qiu Qianchi.
“Be careful, this kid’s archery is formidable,” Qiu Qianchi said.
Gongsun Zhi chuckled, “How can a firefly’s light compete with the bright moon? Miss Qiu, do not worry.”
As the Valley Master of the Valley of Unfeeling spoke, he casually slashed down with his longsword. Qiu Qianchi kicked towards the long arrow.
“Clang!”
“Bang!”
The cowhide bag tied to the arrow broke. The wind on the mountaintop was strong, carrying lime powder that brushed across the jade-like face of Gongsun Zhi and the square face of the Iron Palm Lotus, Qiu Qianchi.
Zhou Yan, with his bow on his back, slid down the cliff using the descent ropes with both hands.
