Book 16 Chapter 1 - On The Tianjin Bridge
Wanwan looked like something that appear in a dream or in fantasy; her pair of beautiful eyes, which rippled like the most fragrant, the richest wine, seemed to be completely oblivious of the men, women, young and old, who were falling over each other in all direction to seek refuge from the terrifying atmosphere. Her gaze was fixed at Ba Fenghan, who had just stepped onto the Bridge, at least a hundred paces away from her. Her jade countenance was as calm as still water.
Kou Zhong was falling about ten steps behind Ba Fenghan. He had his eyes on the passers-by, who were running on both sides of the Tianjin Bridge, either toward or away from them. By the time Ba Fenghan, with his fantastic footwork, stopped about twenty paces away from where Wanwan was standing, aside from these two man and woman standing opposite of each other, there was only one person remained on the Tianjin Bridge, Kou Zhong, whom Ba Fenghan asked to hold his troops.
Wanwan nodded slightly at Ba Fenghan. Seemingly with infinite regret, she sighed tenderly and said, "Ba Xiong actually has a chance to advance into the rank of the world's top grand masters of martial art. It's a pity you show no understanding of the times, by making a vain attempt of a praying mantis raising its arm to block a horse-drawn carriage, which will result in your demise. You have only yourself to blame, it is not anybody else's fault.”
Before Ba Fenghan could answer, Kou Zhong, who was sitting leisurely on the bridge's railing, burst out laughing, "What a joke. From among our many encounters, which one Wan Daxiaojie [big miss/Miss High and Mighty] did not act like you were about to swallow us whole, yet which one you did not toss your armor and abandon your troops to run away to the wilderness? Shame on you for audaciously tooting your horn; isn't that the biggest joke in the world?”
Wanwan's jet-black eyebrows were slightly knitted; turning to Kou Zhong, she said, "The most important thing is to know oneself. Maybe Kou Xiong will refuse to believe, but every time nujia made my move against you in the past, I always left some leeway for you. The reason nujia refrained from shooting at the rat for fear of breaking the vases is, quite naturally, for the ‘Duke Yang Treasure'. But now, even if I kill both of you, there is still Xu Ziling who knows the secret, hence I don't have to show mercy; I will let you experience the consummate skill of ‘Tian Mo Mi' [demonic/devil secret].”
Both Kou Zhong and Ba Fenghan cried inwardly, ‘This female demon is formidable'.
Kou Zhong's remark was absolutely not a shooting-without-aiming ridicule; he just wanted to remind Wanwan about a number of times she retreated in defeat, with the hope that her confidence would suffer a huge setback.
Who would have thought that in just a few words, the verbal attack vanished, and instead, she made the two men feel that previously she really did not use her full capability, and this time it would be entirely different.
Wanwan continued by smiling sweetly and said, "If you think that just with the two of you, you can pin us, Yin Gui Pai, down in here, to let Xu Ziling transport someone out of town, now that is the biggest joke in the world.”
She was smiling coyly and spoke in a very soft voice, but in the two men's ears, it was like a thunder from a clear sky.
Ba Fenghan suddenly felt Wanwan's momentum grew; hastily he took a deep breath to calm his mind, before speaking in heavy voice, "Isn't Yin Gui Pai being too excessive here? Right now Junyu's life or death is hard to tell, but you're still unwilling to let her go. Do you really want her dead before you are satisfied?”
Inwardly, Wanwan was greatly astounded.
Ba Fenghan has always been arrogant and strong-willed; he had never said this kind of words, which sounded a bit like he was pleading for leniency.
Right this moment, Ba Fenghan's murderous aura surged. Like a flash of lightning the Beheading Mystery Sword dashed forward, followed by his body, in rapid movement, careened sideways while the sword sliced across horizontally.
Originally, Kou Zhong was slightly confused as well, but now that he saw the dramatic increase in Ba Fenghan's power, plus how he took the initiative to attack, he suddenly understood.
Ba Fenghan grew up among the horse thieves; in all his life he has been challenging all kinds of authority, and Yin Gui Pai was the supreme authority among the heretical sects and demonic schools.
Ba Fenghan's arguments were to arouse his fighting spirit against Wanwan's intolerable bullying, also to stir up the righteous indignation in his heart and awaken his aspiration to protect the small and the weak; hence the rainbow-like momentum of his attack carried some ‘hatred' in it.
Two streams of white ribbon flew out from inside Wanwan wide sleeves, left and right, while simultaneously the big toe of her right foot pushed the ground, acting as the pin on which her entire tender body spun like a gyroscope.
In fantastic, graceful and amazing movements her pair of slender lily-white hands waved the ribbons, back and forth and crossing each other, weaving a magical, indeterminately changing, brimming with waves of beauty, perfectly round, white net, with her in the center, which has turned into a blur of white shadow, like a marvelous demonic dance.
Such a demonic skill, certainly it was unheard of, and certainly it has never been seen before.
At first Ba Fenghan still had the intention to advance courageously and risk his life, but in this frightening instant he suddenly had dejected feeling of not knowing where to start.
It should be noted that when martial art masters were fighting each other, advancing to attack or retreating to defend must be done in lightning-fast, flying-sparks moment of the gap in the opponent's movement, in order to hit the opposite site's vital part, or perhaps to force the opponent to withdraw the cutting edge of his attack.
But now the ‘circular' characteristic Wanwan was displaying has already reached great heights, she was weaving an even and uniform net protecting her body, which practically did not have any gap or weak spot to be exploited, making him felt at a loss as for where to attack.
If he attacked presumptuously, he would only drive himself to failure.
Even with Ba Fenghan's dauntless character, unexpectedly he was forced to jump back to evade.
Kou Zhong could only stare blankly as well.
The ribbon suddenly disappeared back into Wanwan's gauzed sleeves.
Having fought with Wanwan several times before, even until this moment they still could not grasp Wanwan's foundation, so much so that they still could not understand which weapon she was an expert in. They only knew that sometimes she was using her delicate hands to resist the enemy, or perhaps brandishing a pair of short blades ‘Tian Mo Shuang Zhan' [lit. demonic double-beheading], or maybe a single ribbon or double ribbons, or floating fragrant gauzed sleeves; more and more emerged, the variation was limitless, the changes were profoundly orthodox mixed with fantastically demonic, rendering the opponent incapable of drafting a counterstrategy in advance.
In short, anything she conveniently used would be amazing, unconstraint killer move.
This moment, as soon as she wanted to stop, she stopped; the contrast between static and dynamic already made Ba Fenghan, who was standing in the vicinity, as well as Kou Zhong, who was sitting as a spectator, felt the chill creeping in their hearts.
The strangest thing was that all passers-by on the Heavenly Street, extending to the north and to the south, on both ends of the Tianjin Bridge, were completely gone; no one had the courage to stay to watch the action. And there were two big ships, separately moored along the dikes by the Bridge on both sides of River Luo; this moment there was no lantern, no firelight. Both ships were pitch-black, without a single human shadow on them, so that the ships appeared mysterious; definitely not a good sign.
This kind of unusual and bizarre situation could only happen not by coincidence.
Wanwan definitely did not come alone. Someone must have acted on her behalf to ‘clear the surrounding area', as well as to setup a net around them, with the sole purpose of killing the two men.
Even the waterway traffic from both sides was cut off.
The situation was clearly very disadvantageous for the duo!
With her chilling confidence, Wanwan fixed her gaze on Ba Fenghan, who had retreated from where he originally stood; sighing grimly, she said, "Didn't you guys always pose as people with outstanding intelligence? How could you not know that no matter what, we will never allow Fu Junyu to return to Gaoli?”
Her remark has confirmed their suspicion.
It was for the ‘Duke Yang Treasure' that Yin Gui Pai captured Fu Junyu, and used thousand ways, a hundred plans to keep it a secret; precisely the same as they stole the Jade Annulus of He Clan, and categorically denied that they did it, because the consequences would be too serious.
Although Yin Gui Pai ran amuck all over the world without any scruple, they still feel deeply afraid of ‘Yijian Dashi' Fu Cailin, one of the three top martial art masters of the world. They did not wish to provoke him for inconsequential reason, and thus incurred endless trouble later on.
Now that Kou Zhong and the others plucked Fu Junyu from danger, it was tantamount to someone else had reaped their stolen goods. Under this circumstance, naturally Yin Gui Pai would spare no effort in killing them to shut their mouth, so that Fu Cailin would never know about it.
It was also the reason Wanwan did not allow anybody else to be in the vicinity to ‘sit and listen'; they were taking all kinds of measure to prevent the news from leaking.
Were it not for Shi Feixuan was injured and was returning to Jing Nian Chanyuan to recover, Yin Gui Pai would not dare to run wild like right now.
Only this moment did Kou Zhong and Ba Fenghan realize their dire situation.
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