Chapter 85: Chapter 85
The courtyard lay in deathly silence.
Night wind stirred.
A few lanterns swayed gently beneath the corridor eaves.
At the front gate and the entrance court, a handful of outer-court disciples stood guard, stifling yawn after yawn.
Some leaned against doorframes, others squatted on the steps, eyelids losing their battle with gravity. No one was paying the slightest attention to the inner courtyard.
Shen Xiuhan’s gaze swept the area in one rapid pass.
Confirming no one was nearby, he pressed himself along the wall’s base and crept toward the large water urn tucked in the inner courtyard’s corner.
Over a month ago, when he had come here to deliver fish, he had already pinpointed where the Tongbei Stance was hidden.
Right beneath this very urn — the one the inner-court disciples used for their daily drinking water.
But when Shen Xiuhan drew close and crouched down for a closer look, he discovered another layer to the puzzle.
The pale golden light-points were not buried in the soil beneath the urn as he had assumed. They were sealed inside a hidden cavity within the fired-clay pedestal of the urn itself.
Shen Xiuhan blinked — then understood.
Before this urn had ever entered the kiln, someone had deliberately built a concealed compartment into the base and sealed the manual inside.
‘No wonder Yan Xiao and Song Yanrong have practically scraped three feet of dirt off every surface in this hall and still never found the Tongbei Stance… Who in their right mind would smash the water urn they drink from every day?’
Shen Xiuhan held his breath. Qi-blood gathered at the tip of his index finger.
He aligned it with the slightly thicker section of fired clay at the urn’s base and pressed — lightly.
CRACK.
A muffled, hairline sound. The clay fractured in a spiderweb pattern and flaked away, revealing a hidden drawer.
Shen Xiuhan reached in with two fingers and pinched. A rolled object dropped into his palm.
By the light of the moon, he saw it was an old bamboo scroll threaded with gold wire. The bamboo slips had aged to a deep amber, their edges worn — clearly an artifact of considerable age.
‘A relic passed down from a previous dynasty, no less. Still in the old bamboo-slip format…’
Shen Xiuhan didn’t linger. He tucked the scroll into his coat and secured it against his body.
His form blurred as he made to withdraw toward the wall —
Then footsteps sounded from the direction of the front corridor.
Followed by the respectful greeting of an outer-court night-watch disciple.
“Good evening, Third Senior Brother. Back from the wharf search?”
“Scram! All of you, scram to the wharf and find the bastard! I’ll hold down the hall tonight!”
Ma Xianyang’s irritable snarl carried from outside.
“Uh… y-yes, Senior Brother…”
Ma Xianyang?!
Shen Xiuhan’s gaze sharpened. His feet moved like a cat’s — silent, gliding backward — and he melted into the shadow behind the courtyard’s Taihu rock formation.
He extinguished every trace of his presence and became one with the darkness.
The footsteps from the front drew nearer.
Moments later, Ma Xianyang crossed into the inner courtyard, face dark as a thunderhead, and strode toward the wing room on the left.
He had spent the entire day combing the wharf without finding so much as a ghost, and his frustration had been building all day.
But what had truly stunned and enraged him was what he’d overheard that evening at a restaurant. In the private room next door, some merchant’s son had gotten deep into his cups and started loudly boasting to his companions.
The man claimed that on his way back from Nanxiang Commandery a few days ago, he’d been ambushed by Chenjian Wu bandits on the road.
How he had fought valiantly, single-handedly protecting two Ji clan young ladies, winning the beauties’ hearts, and so on and so forth.
His drinking companions didn’t buy a word of it and heckled him mercilessly.
The man seemed to lose a bit of his nerve, and with a thick tongue, began walking it back.
“Well, it wasn’t all me, I’ll admit… maybe thirty or forty percent. The rest was mostly that new Patrol Envoy Shen from the Ji clan…”
“The kid’s got a lower pedigree than mine, but real talent — broke through to Bone Tempering at his age. I hear he’s even the junior brother of that Heroine Jiang from Mei Hall…”
BOOM!
When those words reached Ma Xianyang’s ears, it was as though a thunderbolt had detonated inside his skull. He could hardly believe it.
He made a few discreet inquiries and quickly identified the braggart.
The young master of the Ma Trading House!
Ma Jinghang!
The man had indeed been studying martial arts in Nanxiang Commandery, and the timing and route of his return matched the Ji sisters’ ambush perfectly.
“If what that Ma kid said is true…”
Ma Xianyang crossed the wing-room threshold, teeth grinding.
“Then this so-called ‘Patrol Envoy Shen’ has to be that mud-legged brat from the outer city!”
“The little bastard really does have some secret technique for catching treasure fish!”
“How long has he been at Mei Hall? And he’s already broken through to Bone Tempering without a word to anyone!”
“No — I can’t wait any longer!”
“If I let him keep growing, there’s no telling how far he’ll climb!”
Ma Xianyang pulled the wing-room door half-shut behind him. Killing intent blazed in his eyes.
“I’ve stepped into Bone Tempering myself now, but I can’t say I’d have a sure kill against him one-on-one… Better wait for Second Senior Brother to get back and join forces…”
“The little bastard is still in the inner city. Tonight — we go, hack him to pieces, catch him completely off guard!”
He drew a deep breath, walked to the table, and reached for the fire striker.
HISS!
The instant he ducked his head and blew the striker to life — that single, feeble spark illuminating the dark —
Out of the blackness.
Shen Xiuhan slipped through the gap of the half-closed door without a whisper of sound.
Startled Swan, Roaming Dragon surged beneath him. His shadow closed the distance like a wraith.
A talon wrapped in ferocious force drove straight for Ma Xianyang’s throat!
The claw hadn’t even made contact, but the cutting wind of its approach already stood every hair on Ma Xianyang’s body on end. His heart seized.
“WHO—!”
In that razor-thin instant, he let out a wild roar, driving his qi-blood to the absolute limit.
Veins erupted across his left forearm like writhing snakes. In a desperate, off-balance twist of waist and hip, he threw his left arm back like a shield, ramming it toward the incoming claw — trying to absorb the blow and use the impact to break free.
BANG!
The collision — like a war drum struck by a titan’s hammer — exploded through the wing room.
Ma Xianyang felt a tidal wave of savage force crash into his left arm.
CRACK!
A faint sound of bone fracturing reached his ears. Searing pain detonated through his arm in an instant.
His left arm went numb and limp in a single heartbeat. The brutal force drove straight through his body, sending his qi-blood surging in reverse, deadening half his frame.
Before Ma Xianyang could so much as react, a straight kick slammed into the small of his back.
BANG!
He hurtled across the room like a kite with its string cut and crashed into the wooden bed.
CRACK-SNAP-CRUNCH…
The bed collapsed on impact, shattering into a heap of splinters.
“Hack… hack hack…”
Ma Xianyang’s insides felt like they’d been rearranged. A sweetness welled in his throat, and he coughed up two mouthfuls of blood.
He sucked in a breath, clutched his agonized left arm with his right hand, and struggled upright. Shock and fury twisted his voice.
“Skulking coward! Do you have any idea what you’re—”
The black shape gave him no time for words.
A blur of motion like a roaming dragon, and Heavenly Dark Eagle Force merged with the Thirty-Six Paths of Sky-Collapsing Legs in a torrent of strikes — crashing down like a squall of wind and rain.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Claw and leg clashed in a torrent of blows, thick and fast as falling rain.
Shen Xiuhan pressed his advantage — phantom footwork, razor-edged technique — and battered Ma Xianyang from start to finish without reprieve.
In barely a dozen exchanges, Ma Xianyang — already fighting with one arm destroyed — was kicked wide open, his guard in tatters, panic flooding his face.
“No good — I have to run!”
Ma Xianyang bit down hard, forced a desperate shift in his stance, and threw himself toward the window, trying to break free and call for help.
“Running?”
Shen Xiuhan let out a cold snort and materialized behind him in an instant, swift as a phantom.
His left hand clamped over Ma Xianyang’s mouth and nose from behind like a band of wrought iron. His right arm coiled around from under the armpit like a python, locking around the throat.
He cinched down. Tighter.
“Mmph… mmph…”
Ma Xianyang’s eyes bulged from their sockets.
Bloodshot orbs strained as though about to pop free — a grotesque, horrifying sight.
The suffocating terror of approaching death sent Ma Xianyang into a frenzy of thrashing.