Chapter Eighty-Eight: Clamor and Tumult

“Kill! Kill! Kill!”

The entire Salt Gang surged with excitement. Every enforcer was fired with bloodlust, their eyes blazing with savage ferocity as though they meant to tear someone apart and devour him.

The gang leader clapped his hands and said, “The match begins!”

The prisoner who had been brought up had his bonds cut. He glared fixedly at the salt peddler. The salt peddler swallowed, spun his curved blade in his hand, and said, “Come on then!”

The convict gave a dark smile and took up a battle-axe, turning it over in his hands as he slowly advanced.

He had once been an enforcer himself. Having broken the rules, he too had to fight three matches before he could leave. He had already won two. This was the final round.

The salt peddler, however, was terribly nervous. He sold salt; he was not an enforcer. To fight this match was, for him, little short of a death sentence.

The convict struck first. He thrust the battle-axe forward, the wind whistling sharply around it. There was a spearhead at the end of the weapon; a direct hit could kill. The salt peddler raised his blade to block, preparing to counterattack, but he met nothing at all. It was only a feint. The convict drew the axe back at once.

Then he thrust forward again, this time straight at the salt peddler’s left ribs. The salt peddler hurriedly changed the angle of his blade to defend against the blow, only for the convict to feint again and pull the axe back before it even reached him.

After two consecutive empty swings, the salt peddler grew very frustrated. He looked up at the convict, only to see a smile on the man’s face. The axe went forward, then back, forward, then back, as though he were merely toying with him.

Enraged, the salt peddler stepped diagonally forward, knocked the battle-axe aside with a slash, then shifted into a move known as the Boy Pays Homage to Buddha, bringing his blade down in a straight chopping strike.

The convict’s brute strength was unexpectedly weak; with a light sweep, the salt peddler sent the battle-axe aside. Just as the strike seemed about to land and he was rejoicing, the convict’s weapon came flashing crosswise through the air and blocked his blade.

A tremor shot from the tip of the knife straight into his hand. The salt peddler felt a numbness crawling over his scalp. The convict swung the battle-axe in a move called “Blocking the Gate,” aiming to smash his waist, but fortunately the salt peddler changed his technique quickly. His blade took the blow for a moment, and then his whole body was hurled away.

Only then did the salt peddler realize that the convict had been pretending weakness all along, trying to make him underestimate him, and deliberately provoking him to anger.

This man was not only tremendously strong, but also cunning. He was truly a formidable opponent.

It seemed he could only use his trump card now.

The tip of the salt peddler’s blade began to tremble. That bright, gleaming point seemed to turn into a blinding white ring, as though it would suck the convict’s eyes into it.

The convict tilted his head, suddenly serious as well. After so many years of fighting, this was the first time he had ever seen such a technique.

It was the salt peddler’s inherited sword art. His father had once told him that unless there was no other choice, he must never use it; and even if he did, it had to kill in a single stroke, never to be seen by others.

But now the moment was one of life and death. If he died here, the family art would vanish with him. So even before all those watching eyes, he had no choice but to reveal it.

The convict knew the salt peddler was about to unleash something extraordinary, and so he no longer held back. He decided to use his own strength to crush him completely. With one great stride, he charged forward, the battle-axe poised to split down upon the salt peddler’s head.

At that instant, the salt peddler took a retreating step. No one could tell how it happened, but in the blink of an eye he had moved to the convict’s flank. The motions of his hands had only been a feint; the true killing stroke was hidden in his footwork.

At this critical moment, everyone watching held their breath, staring at the two men locked in combat on the platform. Then, from not far away, a shout suddenly rang out: “Bad news! There’s a fire!”

“A fire?!”

The crowd fell into panic. If a blaze broke out in the stronghold, that was no small matter. As soon as they lost their composure and looked back toward the arena, they saw that one of the two men on the platform had a curved blade buried in his stomach, while the other had already been split in two.

“Good... good blade technique...” the convict squeezed out those words through his mouth, then collapsed and died.

No one had expected the two men on the platform to kill each other.

“Bad news! There’s a fire!” The man who had shouted came running to the training ground and was slapped to the ground by the gang leader.

“What are you panicking for? Where’s the fire? How big is it?”

“The warehouse is on fire. I pushed the door open, and the flames inside were huge. I couldn’t get in...”

The gang leader raised his arm and shouted, “Everyone, follow me to put it out!”

The scene turned chaotic. Just as everyone rushed off in a crowd to fetch water and fight the fire, someone else suddenly cried out, “Bad news! Bandits are attacking the stronghold!”

The gang leader barked angrily, “What are you panicking for? How many of them are there?”

“A lot... too many to count.”

“Damn it, where are the sentries?”

“The sentries went to put out the fire!”

“Damn it all!”

...

The chaos lasted an entire day and night. The fire, combined with the sudden raid by bandits, caused the Salt Gang catastrophic losses.

Because the fire had thrown the stronghold into disorder, all the sentry posts had failed. The bandits, whether by chance or because they had somehow received word, seized the opportunity to attack. They tore aside the chevaux-de-frise and the barred gates. Fortunately, the brothers of the Salt Gang were not to be trifled with. Even amid the chaos they fought desperately back, and in the end they drove off the bandits and saved the stronghold.

The price, however, was grievous. In the turmoil, more than thirty of the Salt Gang’s elite enforcers were killed, most hacked down by the bandits’ blades amid the confusion. Some were knocked senseless by smoke in the fire, only to be trampled to death afterward.

Seated in the main hall, the gang leader’s expression was grim.

“Have the sentries been dealt with?”

“They’ve all been hanged. Their bodies were thrown into the mountains.”

“And the brothers who died in battle?”

“They’ve all been properly buried.”

The gang leader rose and clasped his hands behind his back. Everyone below him felt anxious and uneasy. Whenever they could not guess what he was thinking, they became especially frightened.

“Bring that man up here,” he said softly.

The crowd let out a breath of relief and shouted, “Bring him up!” “Bring him up!”

“Bring up that spy!”

Guo Decai was tightly bound hand and foot. He was shoved down to his knees before the gang leader.

The moment he knelt, he cried out, “I’m innocent!”

The people around him all cursed at once. “It was this bastard who got so many of our brothers killed!” “It wouldn’t be enough to kill him a hundred times!”

When the fire first broke out, Guo Decai had still been bewildered. Only later did he realize it had been a perfect chance to escape. But his escape had failed, and he had been captured. So everyone concluded that he must have been an infiltrating spy.

If he were not a spy, then how could it be that the moment he arrived, a fire broke out here and the bandits came swarming after it? Wasn’t that far too much of a coincidence?

In truth, Guo Decai really was unjustly accused.

At this very moment, only five days had passed since Xu Wenshan had recruited his soldiers. His training had barely begun. In order to prevent Windstone Village from attacking Deer-Crane Gorge before his troops were ready, he had played the old game of baiting a tiger to swallow a wolf.

He had informed all the bandits in the surrounding hills around Windstone Village that there would be a fire there that very day, and had also sent Luze to slip secretly into their stronghold and set it ablaze.

Those bandits had long been eager to sink their teeth into the fat meat of Windstone Village. The moment they saw smoke rising inside the stronghold, they naturally rushed in all at once.

It was just that on this very day, Guo Decai had run straight into the line of fire.

“I really am innocent, Your Grace!” Guo Decai’s cries of grievance echoed like thunder.