The Legend of the Condor Heroes – Chapter 26

As it happened, Qiu Qianren had taken off his jacket and hung it over the stem of a small tree – not only was he far apart from the others, the grass and woods were also blocking the view – and he’d somehow pulled off this ‘moult of the golden cicada’ trick. Just now, Huang Yaoshi and Ouyang Feng were concentrating on facing their opponent, their eyes on nothing else; and those two were in turn being watched by Zhu Cong and the rest. In the end, they’d all been deceived by Qiu Qianren. Eastern Heretic and Western Venom, giving each other a glance, couldn’t help bursting simultaneously into loud laughter, both feeling secret cheer at having one less powerful enemy in the world.

Ouyang Feng knew that Huang Yaoshi was quick-witted in thought, and not straightforward like Hong Qigong; it wasn’t easy to connive against him and succeed. But seeing him laughing in an easy-going manner, totally off-guard, how could he not take advantage of this opportunity to land a vicious strike? He gave three clanging laughs – a noise just like the din of gold clashing with iron – then stopped abruptly, as quick as lightning making a sudden bow low towards Huang Yaoshi.

Huang Yaoshi, still laughing with his head held high, raised his left palm sharply and clenched his right in a hook – and clasped his hands, returning the courtesy.

Both men swayed slightly.

His surprise attack failing to connect, Ouyang Feng stood unmoving, before suddenly retreating three steps. “Heretic Huang,” he shouted, “we’ll meet again!” With a shake of his long sleeves, cloth swirled as he turned to go.

There was the faintest change of expression on Huang Yaoshi’s face: he thrust out his left palm in front of his daughter, shielding her. Guo Jing had also recognised that Western Venom, in the midst of this turn, was stealthily unleashing his ruthless, sinister skills, and was about to use an Air-Splitting Palm-type technique to launch a sneak attack on Huang Rong. But both in reactions and making his move, he wasn’t as quick as Huang Yaoshi; seeing the danger, it was already too late to help. So with a loud shout, he threw a double punch straight at Western Venom’s stomach, hoping to force him to counterpunch in self-defence. The power applied in the sneak attack on Huang Rong would then not be enough.

The force unleashed by Ouyang Feng had just been repelled by Huang Yaoshi; exploiting the momentum, he immediately swung it around to attack Guo Jing instead. This move augmented the original force from himself with energy borrowed from Huang Yaoshi’s block, amplifying its power. Guo Jing, in a critical position, ducked and rolled away. Leaping up afterwards, his face was already pale with shock.

“Good little boy!” swore Ouyang Feng. “I don’t see you for a few days, and your skills improve yet again.” Just now, his counterattacking move – borrowing an opponent’s strength to injure another, an unfathomable variation delivered with unspeakable speed – had somehow been dodged by Guo Jing. That was completely beyond his expectations.

The Six Freaks of Jiangnan, seeing both sides go on the attack, had clustered into a semicircular barrier behind Ouyang Feng. Paying no attention to them in the slightest, he dashed straight through, taking big strides. Quan Jinfa and Han Xiaoying, not daring to obstruct him, stepped aside to get out of his way and watched wide-eyed as he left the forest.

If Huang Yaoshi had wanted to avenge Mei Chaofeng right now, he could have got everyone to join forces, surround Western Venom, and overwhelm him. But being proud and arrogant by nature, he was unwilling to let anyone say a word about him ‘using the many to persecute the few’, and would rather seek him out again in the future, alone. Following the figure of Ouyang Feng with his gaze, he gave a cold laugh.

Guo Jing, Quan Jinfa and the others untied Huazheng, Tuolei, Zhebie and Bo’erhu. Already beside themselves with joy at the sight of Guo Jing still alive, they loudly cursed Yang Kang for his deceitful rumourmongering. “That Yang character said that he had to hurry to Yuezhou for something,” fumed Tuolei. “I thought he was just a decent person, so I wasted three fine horses on him as a gift.”

Earlier, they’d been told of Guo Jing’s tragic loss; in the midst of their grief they heard Yang Kang talking on and on about wanting to avenge his sworn brother, and had fallen for his spiel. That evening, while they were staying together at an inn in a small town north of Lin’an, Yang Kang had wanted to go and stab Tuolei to death. But he hadn’t expected that Fatty and Skinny – the two beggars who’d seen him holding the stick of the Chief’s authority – were guarding him vigilantly, taking turns on night watch outside his window. Yang Kang had several times been just about launch his attack, only to see if not Fatty then Skinny, patrolling to and fro in the courtyard with blade in hand. After waiting a whole night and from start to finish not getting an opportunity, he just gave up; the next day, he cheated Tuolei out of three fine horses, and rode off westward along with the two beggars.

Tuolei and the others, unaware that the previous night they’d nearly died a brutal death, were about to head north when they saw the pair of white eagles turn around and fly south. Waiting for half a day, there was no sign of them coming back. Tuolei knew that the eagles were unusually intelligent and that there must have been a reason for them to go south; as there was fortunately no urgency at all to return north, they therefore waited in the inn for a couple of days. When the third day arrived, the eagles suddenly flew back, crying incessantly at Huazheng. Tuolei and the others followed in a group as the pair of eagles led the way, once again travelling south. Unfortunately, they then chanced upon Qiu Qianren and Ouyang Feng in the forest.

The Jin Empire had conferred a mission upon Qiu Qianren: incite the champions in Jiangnan to get fired up against each other, so that the Jin army could come south. While talking trash to Ouyang Feng in the forest, he’d spotted Tuolei – the Mongolian ambassador – and, together with Ouyang Feng, had instantly gone on the attack. Although Zhebie and the others were extraordinarily brave, how were they a match for Western Venom? The two eagles had actually flown south because they’d discovered the tracks made by the Little Red horse, but had ended up unwittingly leading their master into a catastrophe. And if they hadn’t brought Guo Jing and Huang Rong over just in time, Tuolei’s entire group would have inadvertently lost their lives there and then in the forest.

Of these particulars, there were some Huazheng knew of, and there were some she was oblivious to. Tugging at Guo Jing’s hand, she chattered away endlessly. Huang Rong, seeing the manner between Huazheng and Guo Jing so intimate, was already somewhat unhappy. Even more uncomfortably, Huazheng was speaking entirely in Mongolian, which Huang Rong couldn’t understand a single word of. She had become an outsider.

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