Chapter 54: Chapter 54
“Who’s there!”
The words had not yet fallen.
Gao Fu’s bear-like bulk sprang from the floor, landing with light, precise balance on the crossbeam overhead!
“BANG!”
A palm-strike sent a roof tile flying; half his body thrust out through the roof, eyes sweeping the surroundings like a hawk’s.
A cold wind moaned.
Everything nearby lay in silence.
Gao Fu’s brow drew tight. He held his breath in suspicion, his senses spreading outward like a spider’s web, probing for any stir of wind or bending of grass.
About a cup of tea’s time.
All around him, nothing moved. Gao Fu’s face relaxed a little, and he ducked back inside.
A hundred paces off, in a cramped, shadowed alley.
Shen Xiuhan crouched against the wall, his chest rising and falling quickly, his heart in shock:
‘That was too close…’
‘Hidden Strength martial artists really are a class of their own — their senses and reflexes go well past Manifest Strength. Thank heavens for Startled Swan, Roaming Dragon; otherwise Gao Fu would have pegged me for sure…’
Shen Xiuhan let out a breath. Still as a stubborn stone, he lay low with patience for the space of half an incense-stick.
Having confirmed Gao Fu hadn’t followed him out, the strength at his feet suddenly burst loose.
Swish!
His whole person turned into a streak of grey-black afterimage, melting into the depths of the dark alley.
…
Xuanhua Ward.
Raging Waves’ gang headquarters.
Lanterns blazed bright; the din was shaking heaven.
In the courtyard stood a bluestone table; seven or eight tall, strapping underlings sat around it in a circle, robes pulled open across their chests, faces flushed red from drink, calling out their finger-guessing game freely.
“Five grand champions!”
“Six, six, six — you lose, drink up!”
Two days earlier, Raging Waves had swept away the Golden Dragon Gang’s headquarters in a single strike. Their standing had shot up all at once; they were now among the most rampant gangs in the outer city.
High and low across the gang had been gathered for days now, drinking, gambling, and handing out rewards for meritorious work. Nothing could be jollier.
“Fuck their mothers!”
Outside the gang headquarters, Liu Laosan — on lookout and night-watch duty — caught a whiff of the wine and meat from within and couldn’t help spitting. He cursed under his breath:
“You lot eat the fragrant and drink the fine, leaving this old man alone out here drinking the northwest wind. Wait till my shift’s up — I’ll win every copper of your reward money off you…”
Liu Laosan’s muttering had not yet finished.
Fwip!
A faint hiss of wind-cutting rushed at him!
A sharp pain struck Liu Laosan’s brow, as if he’d been hit by something.
“Ouch, fuck me!”
His whole body jolted. He fumbled the short blade from his waist, looking about warily:
“What eye-blind sneak-thief is this? You come to kick up on Raging Waves’ turf — tired of living?!”
The alley was quiet and still — no reply.
Liu Laosan looked down; at his feet lay a balled-up paper wrapper — the very thing that had struck him.
“What’s going on out there?”
“Liu Laosan, where’s the man?”
The underlings, mid-game inside, heard the commotion. Blades and clubs in hand, they came pouring out.
At their head was the middle-aged scholar — Raging Waves’ Second Chief, Tang Cheng.
Liu Laosan quickly picked the paper ball up and passed it over: “Second Chief, I don’t know who threw it.”
A flush of wine still on his face, Tang Cheng took the paper ball with a frown and unfolded it. After a few glances, his color shifted; the buzz of drink cleared out of him in half a heartbeat.
“Yeci Ward, fifth house — Gao Fu and the remaining rats are hiding here…”
He drew in a cold breath; a wild joy burst across his face. He cupped his hands by his mouth and roared:
“Brothers, arms up!”
“Go tell the Great Chief — we’ve found the hiding hole of that cur Gao Fu!”
…
An hour later.
Yeci Ward.
Raging Waves emptied their nest. Several dozen men, blades in hand, closed in quietly on the Tian residence.
To hide out, Gao Fu had been unusually careful. He hadn’t even left a lookout.
Raging Waves’ men had no trouble at all encircling the courtyard tight as a drum.
“BANG!”
A kick shattered the gate.
Zheng Dadao gave out a wild howl and was the first to charge in: “Cur Gao Fu! Die!”
The other Raging Waves men raised ghost-wailing, wolf-howling cries and rushed in after him.
The courtyard at once thundered with the roar of slaughter.
“Kill!”
“Root and branch — leave not a single one!”
“Wind’s tight — scatter!”
“Brothers, follow me out — split up and run!”
Blade-flashes and sword-glimmers, mingled with piercing death-cries, split the silence of Yeci Ward in an instant.
The surrounding residents reacted quickly — one after another, they barred their doors and shuttered their windows.
The beggars and drifters on the street scrambled to their feet and fled, terrified of being caught in it.
In the courtyard, Nie Cang and several trusted men of the Golden Dragon Gang were surrounded in the middle. In the space of a breath, they were cut down under a storm of blades.
“Raging Waves!”
Gao Fu let out a great roar; the roof tiles rattled with it.
“This old man will not rest under the same sky as you!”
He stood drenched in blood, like a maddened beast — taking the cleaving of several steel blades, he rammed straight through the courtyard’s earthen wall and burst out.
At that moment his state was ragged and desperate: a sword cut a forearm’s length long yawned across his chest, the flesh turned back and curling — a terrible sight.
But in the end he was a Hidden Strength master. Even grievously wounded, he still carved out a blood path and vanished into the night.
“After him! Don’t let that cur escape!”
Zheng Dadao charged out at the head, several Manifest Strength martial artists hard on his heels.
Tang Cheng, his body spattered with blood, came tearing out of the courtyard with a savage grin — in his hand a stack of silver notes and a few bundles.
He barked out orders at speed:
“Old Fifth, take some men to the city gates. He’s not to slip into the inner city. Old Seventh, take a group to the waterways and wait — mind the cur doesn’t flee by boat. The rest of you come with me — run Gao Fu to ground and reinforce the Chief!”
The men roared their acknowledgment in one voice.
In the space of a moment, the courtyard that had moments before been thundering with slaughter-cries went silent again.
Slipping through the chaos, Shen Xiuhan vaulted the wall into the main chamber where Gao Fu had been hidden.
Guided by the pale-gold point of light, the moment he entered he locked onto the ceiling beam.
A tap of his toe, and his form alighted on the beam like a flying swallow. He lifted a wooden panel and, from a hidden compartment inside, drew out a cloth bundle.
He opened it; his eyes lit up at once.
Inside the bundle, astonishingly, lay a yellowed, thread-bound manual —
“Twenty-Four Paths of Mountain-Collapsing Legs”!
And beneath the manual was pressed a disc-shaped jade mirror roughly the size of a palm, glossy and translucent all through, carved with intricate cloud-patterns across its face — warm to the touch; a glance was enough to see it was no ordinary thing.
Though he didn’t yet know what use the jade mirror had, Gao Fu had hidden it this tightly — it could only be a treasure.
He tucked the things into his robe. Without the slightest delay, Shen Xiuhan turned, left the room, and vanished into the dark in a breath.
No sooner had his heels cleared the door than several burly men came stomping in, cursing — the pursuit having come up empty.
The men turned the room upside down, even prying up the floor tiles. In the end, they found nothing.
“Ptui! Truly goddamn unlucky!”
One of the men spat and smashed the teapot and cups on the table:
“Apart from a few dozen taels’ worth of silver notes found on Nie Cang, not a single copper in the whole room — that old cur Gao Fu must have carried them all on him when he ran!”
Another man clapped him on the shoulder:
“Forget it, don’t be greedy. Pulling out the few tough nuts left in the Golden Dragon Gang and leaving Gao Fu gravely wounded — that’s already enough. Pull out!”
Long after Raging Waves’ men had gone.
On a street of Yeci Ward.
A figure in torn clothes and covered in blood stumbled back into the courtyard.
Astonishingly — it was Gao Fu returned.
His face was now the color of gilt paper; pressed into the flesh of his stomach was a brown palm-print, sunk deep into skin and meat, the flesh around it giving off a rank stench.
Had he not been suppressing it with Hidden Strength, the venom of that palm-strike would have spread faster still.
“Heart-Stopping Palm… ‘Both-Blade Both-Palm’ Zheng Dadao. The name’s no empty rumor.”
Gao Fu gritted his teeth against the agony, killing intent almost overflowing from his eyes:
“Just wait!”
“Wait till this old man has his fortune — I will pull out every one of your ten fingers on both palms, one by one!”
Gao Fu, bearing the searing pain, sprang up onto the ceiling beam.
When he saw the hidden compartment — opened and empty — his whole body reeled as if struck by lightning!
“My Jade Mirror!!”
Gao Fu’s already fierce face twisted into the shape of a vengeful ghost. Eyes red, fists clenched, he roared up at the sky:
“Raging Waves!”
“Zheng Dadao!”
“You’ve destroyed my foundation, you’ve ruined my fortune — this old man will kill you, every last one!!”
The roar was shrill and piercing — like a night owl weeping blood.