Chapter 53: Chapter 53

By the time Li Suifeng arrived at the gate of the Nanyang prefectural yamen with Wen Bubao, the area was already packed with jianghu folk who’d come to watch the spectacle.

Even ordinary folk who knew no martial arts had come to join the excitement.

By the yamen gate stood a rankings board pasted with several sheets of red paper—though it looked as if it hadn’t been changed in a very long time. The red paper had faded, and the names on it were growing hard to make out.

“Here he comes, here he comes!”

A young man in a yamen runner’s uniform stepped out of the yamen, a sheet of red paper in hand.

He walked up to the board, tore down the faded sheet on the far left, and pasted up the red sheet he carried.

“Looks like the Earth Rankings and the Heaven Rankings haven’t changed this time—only the Human Rankings.”

“Obviously. The Earth Rankings are all Grandmaster experts, and our whole Nanzhou doesn’t have a single Heaven Rankings expert—how could they change so easily?”

“Even those Human Rankings prodigies may never make it onto the Earth Rankings one day.”

“In the future, if I could make the Human Rankings too…” Some youths in their teens gazed at the board, their eyes burning.

To wander the jianghu was, in the end, all for fame and fortune—and to make even one of these rankings, what glory that would be!

“As if the rankings were so easy to make.”

“It’s a good thing for the young to have dreams.”

Someone sighed.

Once, in their own youth, they too had dreamed of climbing onto the rankings. But only after frittering away half their lives had they come to understand the gulf between themselves and the people on those lists.

“Huh?”

“Nothing’s changed on the board?”

“I see it—I see it! Li Suifeng, sixth on the Human Rankings!”

A cry of astonishment went up.

The Human Rankings had changed little this time. The top five were unchanged, but the sixth spot was now taken by Li Suifeng’s name, and everyone below had been bumped down by one.

“Li Suifeng, suspected peak seventh-rank, hailing from the Canal Gang’s Nanyang Branch, lineage unknown!”

“In Nanyang Prefecture, while still at the seventh-rank, he slew the late-sixth-rank Divine Fist Gate master Ba Hu.”

“He has mastered several body-tempering arts, with profound attainment in them; his palm force is fierce and unyielding, with the might to split stone.”

“Provisionally ranked sixth on the Human Rankings!”

As those at the front read out Li Suifeng’s details aloud, the crowd erupted.

The local martial artists of Nanyang Prefecture especially were beside themselves with excitement. Their Nanyang Prefecture had long been weak in the jianghu—after all these years, it had finally produced a Human Rankings powerhouse!

“A pity—when the Star-Plucking Pavilion set the rankings, Lord Feng hadn’t yet slain that one from the Valley of Ten Thousand Flowers, or he’d surely have made the top five!”

“Indeed, what a shame!”

…

On the upper floor across from the yamen, Wen Bubao wore a delighted expression:

“Congratulations on making the Human Rankings, Lord Feng. The Canal Gang headquarters is bound to think all the more highly of you now.”

Li Suifeng shook his head and said nothing.

For now, everything hinged on Crow’s move against Ye Mingchu. If Ye Mingchu died, the Canal Gang headquarters would send someone else—and whether Li Suifeng would even remain with the Canal Gang in the future was far from certain.

“Hu Ming is here—Lord Feng, come out and fight!”

Just then—

Hu Ming’s voice rolled in like thunder. Laden with internal force, it raised a storm of crashing waves around the yamen.

Hu Ming stood in the long street before the yamen, a long saber in a jet-black sheath in his grip, gazing toward where Li Suifeng stood.

The Xu siblings, Xu Tianyi and Xu Yiyi, stood at his side.

“Hu Ming—the old number thirty on the Human Rankings?”

“Hu Ming hasn’t been seen in five years. Why has he suddenly turned up in Nanyang Prefecture, and to challenge Li Suifeng no less?”

“Now there’s a show to watch! Li Suifeng may be sixth on the Human Rankings, but Hu Ming hasn’t fought in five years—who knows how far his strength has come!”

“Wonderful, wonderful! Two Human Rankings experts, old and new, crossing blades—Nanyang Prefecture hasn’t seen such a grand event in decades!”

The jianghu folk grew excited, their eyes turning of their own accord toward Li Suifeng.

Had the twenty-three-year-old Hu Ming faced Li Suifeng, they’d have had no doubt that Li Suifeng would win—but Hu Ming had been gone five years now and had surely stepped into the sixth-rank realm.

A sixth-rank who had come down from the Human Rankings was on another level entirely from Ba Hu.

“Hu Ming?”

“What’s his background?”

Even as Li Suifeng asked, he had already leaped down from the upper floor.

Wen Bubao hurried after him:

“This Hu Ming is quite renowned in Nanzhou. He was once thirtieth on the Human Rankings and only fell off because of his age. He studied under the fifth-rank expert Golden Saber Liu Feng, and these days he’s close with the Righteous Manor—rumor has it he’s been training at the side of the Righteous Manor’s Third Master Leng all this while.”

“The two beside him are both from the Xu family of Mingzhou. The Xu family head, ‘Deft Hands, Orchid Heart’ Fourth Aunt Xu, is a fifth-rank expert as well!”

Wen Bubao felt a flicker of unease. Lord Feng had already offended the Valley of Ten Thousand Flowers; if he now offended the Righteous Manor and the Xu family too—just thinking about it made his scalp crawl.

“Handsome enough; what a pity he’s about to die,” Xu Yiyi remarked, eyeing Li Suifeng’s features with a touch of regret.

Back in Mingzhou she’d had her share of intimate dealings with many a young hero—some handsome among them—but none had carried the air Li Suifeng had about him.

A pity, though; he was about to die!

“You’ve come to challenge me because I killed Ba Hu?” Li Suifeng planted his feet in the street and looked at Hu Ming.

“That’s part of it,” Hu Ming said flatly. “I’ve just emerged from seclusion, and I need someone to test what I’ve gained these past few years. The sixth on the Human Rankings will do nicely.”

Hu Ming took a step forward. His saber had not yet left its sheath, yet a startling blade qi was already surging at Li Suifeng’s face.

Wen Bubao, standing beside Li Suifeng, was driven back step after step by the fierce blade qi.

PFFT!

A mouthful of blood sprayed from Wen Bubao’s mouth, his face stricken with horror.

The blade qi radiating from Hu Ming’s body alone had forced him to spit out a mouthful of congealed blood before he could expel the blade intent that had pierced into him.

‘Terrifying!’

‘Truly, far too terrifying!’

Wen Bubao had always had faith in Lord Feng, but in that instant, his confidence wavered.

At the same realm, he believed Li Suifeng would surely win—but clearly Hu Ming had already stepped into the sixth-rank realm, very likely the mid-to-late sixth-rank, a full great-realm above Lord Feng. In a clash between prodigies, to fight across a realm boundary was simply too difficult!

TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP!

A burst of orderly footsteps rang out as countless Canal Gang disciples rushed over.

The yamen was not far from the Canal Gang branch, and the branch had received word at once. Three heavy mounted crossbows had been brought out, and countless bows and crossbows were trained together on Hu Ming and his two companions.

“These things can’t deal with me!”

Hu Ming did not spare the surrounding Canal Gang disciples so much as a glance; his eyes on Li Suifeng, he said evenly:

“If they hold back, only you die today.”

“If they intervene, not a blade of grass will be left of the Nanyang Branch!”