Chapter 2: 2

Chapter 2

Ironhands Breaks the Longblade

The cogongrass swayed violently, the azaleas cut savagely with a bladed weapon, sending petals flying. The enemy was in the middle of an extensive search, wanting to tear Coldblooded pieces once they found him!

They used sabres to cut away the cogongrass, to hack away the mountain azaleas, continuously searching. The man who had cut Coldblooded in the back, with his shadowy, overcast face, tendons bulging on his hands, carried a sabre that was thirteen spans long! Every swing of his sabre and a whole line of brush came down, and there was a huge chunk of empty space where cogongrass once was.

Every swing of his sabre was like a violent gust of wind blowing out a candle. One little swing cleared a huge swath. Just then, he heard an angry shout.

He spun around and saw that one of his two men with him had swung his sabre at Coldblooded’s temple, but before he made contact Coldblooded’s sword ran him through the chest.

The man was dead, his force expended, so of course his sabre could not continue cutting.

Coldblooded was covered in blood. He was panting, taking big gulps of air.

The longblade master’s mouth broke in a thin callous smile. He slowly raised his longblade, the blade giving off dazzling gold blooms of light reflecting the dim sunlight.

“Now if you can still take another stroke of my blade, I’ll admire you.

Coldblooded could not.

He found he could not even muster the strength to remove the sword embedded in his enemy’s breastbone. He had to support himself on that embedded sword in order to struggle to his feet.

—That last stroke had used up his final bit of strength.

The sky spun, the ground wheeled, the man’s longblade whizzed and spun and cogongrass on all sides flew up and was spun into a gust of violent sabre qi.

—Once that blade fell…

Suddenly he heard a calm, moderate voice say, “I’m right on your right side. If you swing that sabre down, your Great Reception, Iron Basin, Breast Window, Thigh Gate, and Five Mile acupoints will be burst, so you can’t swing that sabre.”

The bladesman heard that and was startled. If he brought his blade down those five acupoints really would be exposed. He suddenly jumped back half a span, spun around and said coldly, “What if I swing it at you instead?”

The persons still said mildly, “Then your Imperial Canopy, Celestial Prominence, Flank Sinew, Sun & Moon, Marsh Bend, Great Mound, and Hold & Support acupoints will be in danger, so you really cannot swing your sabre, you absolutely must not.”

When the bladesman heard this he broke out in a cold sweat.

What that person had bluntly pointed out was in fact his sabre stroke’s seven weak points. The bladesman looked over and saw a man of about thirty years old dressed in gray, a smile on his face, quite mild.

Coldblooded called out, “Second Senior Brother!” He was clearly glad to see him. And with that he could no longer hold out and he dropped to the ground with a thud.

Coldblooded’s second senior brother was none other than Ironhands of the “Four Great Constables”. Ironhands was modest and unassuming and was most upright and quickwitted, and his martial arts and internal force were substantive. His pair of iron hands were matchless. Though Coldblooded was ruthless enough and steadfast enough, and all-out attack with his swift sword feared by all, but he was still slightly inferior compared to Ironhands.

Coldblooded’s call out made the bladesman’s heart tremble. But he immediately thought: It wasn’t that strange for his opponent to be able to call out his weaknesses like that. If he struck quick as lightning, then in that split second, how would his foe be able to strike at his weak points? By the time he struck, he would already have been hacked into eighteen pieces.

With that thought, the bladesman’s courageous instantly plucked up.

Ironhands seemed to know what he was thinking. “’Zhenjiang Blade’ Yue Jun, you’d best not try it. Your sabre’s length is its strength but also its weakness. If your stroke misses and allows me to steal in, then you’ll have to abandon your blade.”

Yue Jun’s face sank. His blade still swung, emitting a tiger-like roar. In fact, he also shot a meaningful glance at his remaining helper signaling for him to attack Ironhands.

At first he hadn’t believed his opponent was so skilled, but then he was able to state his name.

He was still not convinced, but he still picked the safer option: let his subordinate test him out first!

The subordinate’s tricorner flat awl whizzed through the air in a thrust at Ironhands’ back.

Yue Jun was waiting for Ironhands to act. Whether Ironhands dodged or countered, he would be distracted and reveal a flaw, and in that moment he would strike and chop that bluffer into sixty-two pieces!

But Ironhands didn’t strike.

He just jerked his head back and slammed it into the killer’s face. The killer cried out, seeing stars, and backed up seven or eight steps and stumbled and fell on his butt, hands feeling, coming away bloody, his nose flattened like a sea cucumber. Ironhands’ headbutt was really no different than a bronze hammer.

At the same time that Ironhands threw his head back, Yue Jun unleashed his longblade with “A Single Chop Cleaves Mt. Hua” in a direct chop downward!

This stroke from Yue Jun had once cut a falling huge boulder from the top of Mount Jun in half, and had once chopped Mount Song’s Thousand-Year General Bai in two. Even “Great Strength General” Gao Jiasuo’s wrought-bronze golden pestle had been chopped into two by his sabre stroke.

This stroke’s power was not inferior to “Longblade Demon” Sun Rentu of former years.

Ironhands moved back, the stroke’s line of attack clearly aimed at opening up his face and entering his chest. Before the tip of the blade reached him the wind from the blade rustled Ironhand’s clothes and the hair on his temples.

The bladewind suddenly vanished.

The bladewind was snatched up into Ironhands’ hands.

Ironhands had used his bare hands to clap onto the sides of the blade.

Yue Jun’s face sank. Ironhands smiled. “Like I said, you’d best not swing that blade…”

Ironhands was not finished speaking when there was a snap. Yue Jun could not pull his sabre back, so he forcefully bent it and the blade snapped, the broken blade thrusting directly at Ironhands’ belly!

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This sudden change could not be said to be slow, but Yue Jun only had time to see Ironhands smile before his vision went black.

When he opened his eyes again he once again saw Ironhands smiling at him.

But during this smiling time, Yue Jun’s vision blacked out because Ironhands had dodged the sabre thrust and stole in and poked two fingers lightly on Yue Jun’s eyelids, then he returned back to his original position.

His opponent was able to touch his eyes without any resistance at all. If he had wanted to kill him, wouldn’t it have been as easy as turning one’s hand over?

Yue Jun was stunned, and his sabre stopped suddenly.

Ironhands hadn’t sealed his acupoints, but as far as Yue Jun was concerned, the shock to his psyche made his nearly seize up all his acupoints on his own!

Ironhands said mildly, “Yue Jun, I know these cases were not spearheaded by you and ‘Yellow River Sword’ Tang Chao. As for your thirteen associates, I know they aren’t privy to the details. As long as you tell it to me straight, perhaps your sentence can be reduced…”

Yue Jun fixed his eyes straight on him and almost whispering said, “Sentence can be reduced? Reduced how much? You all giving me the thumbs up doesn’t count for much. I’ve burned down houses, more than all the paper money burned at the New Year festival. I’ve robbed more money than armies that plunder cities. You say if I tell the truth I can get a reduced sentence, reduced to what punishment? Won’t be beheaded? Just sit in jail the rest of my life? Or eight to ten years and have to be beaten and kicked by the prison guards like a dog? Or just eight or ten days like a petty thief who stole some flatbread?…”

Ironhands was taken aback. Yue Jun sneered, “I’m dead any way you look at it. Anyway, I can’t defeat you. You want me to tell you who the ringleader is, tell you the details, isn’t that just blocking up even my road to being avenged later on? Your honeyed words might fool an inexperienced petty thief, but using them on me is like stuffing a bugle horn with cotton, you blow on it but it won’t make a sound!” With that he once again raised his sabre.

Ironhands waved his hands with a wry smile. “Yue Jun…”

Yue Jun brandished his sabre. Though the blade had been broken off, there was still three spans of blade left. Ironhands slipped to the side and he heard a sound and the broken blade entered the other remaining subordinate’s belly, sinking in all three spans and sticking out his back!

Ironhands angrily rebuked, “You want to kill the witnesses—“ Yue Jun pulled the blade so he could kill himself, but Ironhands grabbed the blade fast as lightning.

The strange thing was that when Ironhands’ flesh and blood hands knocked into the sharp blade, the blade shattered to pieces, leaving only a bare sword guard. Ironhands sneered, “You can’t die. If you die, our trail of clues cuts off.”

A sudden click and the pointy end of Yue Jun’s sword guard shot out a three-fingerwidth blade that stuck into his heart. A faint smile appeared on Yue Jun’s face.

“Your martial arts is superb, I can’t kill you… But you also can’t stop me… stop me from… killing myself…” Yue Jun fell. Ironhands held him to stop him from falling, but he quickly realized he was dead and let go of him.

In one fell swoop thirteen thugs, as well as Tang Chao and Yue Jun, lost their lives. Now Ironhands couldn’t help but let out a faint sigh. Now all of he and Coldblooded’s clues were cut off.

He immediately searched Tang Chao and Yue Jun’s bodies. He was a master of pharmacology and finally found two packets of medicinal powder which he gave to Coldblooded to take. After the time it takes for more than half of an incense stick to burn, Coldblooded’s complexion began to get its color back.

Ironhands supported Coldblooded by the shoulder. “How are you?”

Coldblooded said, “Like always, wounded but it’s not fatal.” His eyes shifted and lingered on Ironhands’ face for just a moment, then moved away, but in that moment his expression was extremely gentle.

“Only this time if not for you, I might really have died.”

Ironhands smiled. “The man they call ‘Forged in Iron Coldblooded’, his whole body cast in steel. Your Second Brother only has a pair of hands to put food on the table with. It was just luck that I was able to save you.”

Coldblooded said, “Second Bro, don’t make fun of me, is this the only time you’ve saved me? It’s just that… weren’t you going to Northern Shaanxi to nab the notorious bandit Tang Shi’er? How come you just happened to be here?”

Ironhands smiled. “What on this earth could be so coincidental? Doesn’t everyone say about us Sixleafers1 that when you need us we aren’t there, but when you don’t need us there we are pestering you? I caught the notorious bandit Tang Shi’er, but this person was involved in a string of mass robbery and murder cases, with a huge plot seemingly behind it. My investigation hadn’t yet turned up any clues when Tang Shi’er was poisoned to death.”

Coldblooded asked, “When you say mass robbery and murder cases, you mean…”

Ironhands said, “In recent months in this region the Deng family of Henan, Sincere Heart Sanctuary, the Nian Family Stronghold, The Song Tingmo Winery of Hebei, 800 people in all, old and young, were plundered and murdered, with not a single survivor… This is a bit different from the case you were assigned to. Those four families I just mentioned are all illustrious families of the martial world, but the Chen Family Lane, Zhao Family Market, Yan Family Bridge, and Gong Family Village are all not martial arts people. Why were these eight places on both sides of the river, hereditary houses of civil and martial arts families, villages, all of them, wiped out and robbed and murdered? The only thing they all have in common is that all eight are situated in this same region on either side of the river, and they’re all well-to-do. However, all signs indicate that ordinary brigands and bandits are not likely to be so cruel and merciless. Furthermore, it’s not necessary to butcher and destroy these places like this, plus whoever did this all have strong martial arts, they aren’t ordinary martial world scum. According to my investigation, there are six leaders…”

Coldblooded interrupted, “How did you learn that?”

Ironhands smiled. “Good question. I caught the notorious bandit Tang Shi’er, and he offered to reveal who the ringleader was behind these shocking cases, on the condition that I release him.”

Coldblooded said, “You of course didn’t agree.”

Ironhands said, “Whether official duty or private, I couldn’t agree. I could only advise him to lay out the details of the case to reduce his sentence. He thought I didn’t believe in the importance of the case, and he asked me if I knew about the Sincere Heart Sanctuary murder case, and he hinted that the instigators of this string of massacres were six martial world masterhands, but the ringleader’s status was even higher, and it also involved a huge plot within the martial world…”

Coldblooded nodded. “’Yellow River Sword’ Tang Chao was a junior of a maternal line of the Tang Sect of Shu, famous throughout the jianghu for their concealed projectiles, and was also a master swordsman rarely seen in the Tang Sect or the martial world at large. ‘Zhenjiang Blade’ Yue Jun became famous in the martial world for defeating ‘Great Strength General’ Gao Jiasuo. It looks like this plot is no small matter for these two to accept being used by others to rob and pillage…”

“Naturally.” Ironhands sighed. “Pity that Tang Shi’er had yet to say anything before a masked man in black charged in. I fought him, his martial arts was really strange. We exchanged 50 moves, then he suddenly retreated and cast poison powder on Tang Shi’er who was not able to put up any resistance, and he died.”

“In that case,” Coldblooded said, thinking, “our opponent already knows you investigated this matter.”

Ironhands said, “The man in black’s martial arts was really strong, if he ganged up with the others who colluded to kill Tang Shi’er and fought me, there’s an eight to nine-tenth’s chance I don’t make it out alive, but they seemed to only want to kill the witness and cut off our trail of clues… The last fews days I’ve been hanging around this area and sure enough happened across the ‘Dan Family Village’ fire, so I ran over. I didn’t imagine I’d arrive just in time to save you.”

Coldblooded said, “Too bad that of those six leaders, the only two we know of are dead, Yue Jun and Tang Chao. The other four, we don’t even know who they are.”

Ironhands said, “Exactly. If the case ends here, there’s no way for us to keep investigating and finding out who the culprits are on behalf of those eight families.”

“However,” Ironhands continued, smiling, “The net of Heaven is vast, loose but no leaks. Even if we don’t continue with this case, this ilk totally devoid of conscience, no matter if they hide out in the far corners of the world, one day they will reveal their foxtails one way or another.”

Certainly, perhaps it’s kept too tightlipped, these massacres were kept under wraps for a time.

But another strange thing occurred, something gradually becoming related to this case.

That strange thing occurred on Straddling Tiger River. At the time, Coldblooded was recuperating from his wounds, and Ironhands was safeguarding Coldblooded, allowing him to recuperate in peace.

 

NOTES

六扇門, lit. “six leaf gates/doors”. This refers to the yamen 衙門, or governmental office. It’s wear cases were heard, had prisons, where the constables worked, etc. So-called “six leafs” because the main gates had three doors or two leafs each, so six total door leafs. This is a colloquial term, so I think it’s appropriate to translate it literally, so “Sixleaf”. In wuxia novels, the Sixleaf is the police force, basically. Though instead of police they are called constables.

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