Dream Shattering Sabre

Chapter 8

Ironhands’ Hands, Coldblooded’s Sword

When Little Pearl saw Xi Meihong she pulled her over by the hand. When two women are like that, men know that the girls will have a lot to talk about amongst themselves and that it’s best for the guys to stay out of it, lest they be subjected to talk of Ah Zhu bought a red skit, that Ah Ling is in her seventies but still has her hair up in a braid, that sort of shameless talk, and they’d have to just listen to it as if it were a lecture on the Classics.

However, girls like them getting together wouldn’t talk as much, but would actually spend more time just appreciating each other.

And when there was girl talk, it was just Xi Meihong talking and Little Pearl listening.

“My second brother is really lucky to have a little wife like you. And him, if he dares mess things up again then he’s not a person, just let me know, and I’ll—“

Ironhands and Coldblooded at the same time thought of the same person—Guo Qiufeng.

Probably only a crafty Sixleafer like him would be able to handle this.

Fortunately, because of Xi Meihong, the main topic came up.

Him—How is he?”

Little Pearl said flatly, “Who?”

Xi Meihong was surprised. “Him, My second brother, your—“

Little Pearl quickly cut her off with an even more surprised tone, “Didn’t you all just call him out?”

Ironhands nearly jumped. “You mean—? Who? Who called for Second Young Master Xi?”

Little Pearl was at a loss. “You all.”

Ironhands said urgently, “Then who came to call on him?”

Little Pearl also felt something wasn’t right. She thought for a moment and said, “I was inside at the time… Second Young Master was in the garden chatting with Guo Qiufeng. Later I think someone came by and they talked for a while. I didn’t go out to look, but it seemed like someone they knew. Later Second Young Master came in. He…” Little Pearl’s earlobes reddened. No one else noticed, but Ironhands saw it.

Maybe, maybe when Xi Qiuya, the second young master, came in Little Pearl was the only one in the house, so it was hard to avoid him doing some especially intimate things. Anyway, sooner or later Little Pearl would be his.

Little Pearl, though, quickly added, “He… He said that Second Master Tie and Fourth Master Coldblooded had called for him, so he was going out and would be back. I asked him if you called for me and he said no, and he said staying here was safe and that nothing was wrong, then he left.”

Ironhands calmed his mind and asked, “So then Constable Guo? Did he go with him?”

Little Pearl knew something was wrong so she said hurriedly, “I heard an argument in the courtyard. Seemed like Constable Guo was uneasy and wanted to go with him, but Second Young Master said there was no need. Seemed like he was going back to Xi Family Village and didn’t need a guard, plus it was Fourth Master Leng and Second Master Tie who called for him, so naturally there would be no problem, but Constable Guo insisted on going with him…”

Ironhands couldn’t help a wry smile. He knew Guo Qiufeng’s temper. Since he was tasked with protecting the two of them, he would never allow them to suffer any injury.

“…Later Second Young Master said that I would be all alone and needed someone to protect me. I heard that and raised my voice and said, ‘I won’t be in any danger, Master Guo, you go with him.’ Second Young Master didn’t say anything else, and then I heard, ‘Miss Little Pearl, be careful.’ That was Master Guo’s voice. Then Second Young Master grudgingly muttered something and I heard the creak of the bamboo gate opening and they left…”

Ironhands knew that what Little Pearl said was correct. The river incident had been directed at Xi Qiuya alone. Little Pearl had just gotten dragged into it, there was really no need to harm her, the one in danger was rather Xi Qiuya. And he really listened to Little Pearl. If she told Constable Guo to go with him, then Xi Qiuya could not help but obey.

Coldblooded asked, “Do you know who it was who called for him?”

Little Pearl said, “I didn’t go out to look, but they seemed to be intimately acquainted with Second Young Master, but didn’t seem to know Constable Guo.”

Coldblooded asked, “You heard them say they were going to Xi Family Village?” Little Pearl nodded. Coldblooded immediately looked at Ironhands.

Ironhands said, “Let’s get over there.”

Xi Meihong’s reaction was really quick too. As soon as Ironhands said “there” she cut in with, “I’m going too.”

Ironhands made up his mind quickly. “Alright, we’ll all go together.” He really didn’t want anything to happen to the other one.

Xi Meihong considered her sabreplay to be quite good. Though she had been bested by Coldblooded’s fearless dodging, she was still brimming with confidence.

But now she couldn’t help but feel inferior. Because Ironhands and Coldblooded were on either side of Little Pearl carrying her along, and Little Pearl didn’t know any martial arts at all so it was quite the effort for them, yet Ironhands and Coldblooded were still leading the way far ahead of her.

It looked like Ironhands and Coldblooded would have been even faster if they didn’t have to wait up for her.

But Xi Meihong was giving it all she had but still couldn’t catch up to them.

She could have simply stopped and made a scene, but she wasn’t about to let loose with her spoiled Third Miss attitude, because she knew that Second Brother might have run into trouble.

And what she thought was absolutely correct.

Xi Qiuya had run into trouble, in fact he was in imminent peril!

They were on a hill outside the city.

Xi Family Village was also outside the city, and this was the road they had to go down to get there.

There was an earthen mound on the hill on which a wooden lookout tower with a thatched roof was constructed. This was for guarding the city[or village?] gates, if there was a disturbance, the soldiers could light a beacon fire as a warning.

A figure in the tower darted.

Ironhands and Coldblooded immediately rushed up there.

As they rushed up there, Ironhands tossed off a sentence.

“Take care of Little Pearl.”

Of course he was talking to Xi Meihong. Ironhands knew well from many ferocious battles that sometimes, once the fight starts you don’t know if you will live or die or if you will be able to see your loved ones that day or the sun the next.

When Ironhands and Coldblooded got up to the lookout tower, they found that the situation was not only fraught with danger but was actually shocking.

Under the thatched roof of the lookout tower was a horizontal wooden beam propping up the roof. There was a person suspended from it, one arm held aloft, the other arm hanging down, swaying back and forth.

But the person was dead.

That person, shockingly, was Guo Qiufeng!

Guo Qiufeng was already dead, but the iron plate in his left hand was embedded in the wooden beam, and the bronze pipa in his right was swaying, and his eyes were bulged out and his teeth were clenched. It was clear he had fought the enemy hard before his death, and his final move was to stick the iron plate into the beam and use the bronze pipa to beat back the enemy from his higher vantage point.

There were at least eight to ten wounds on his body. The deepest one was a blade wound to the midsection, from his waist on the right all the way across and to his left buttocks, his intestines bulging out. But that wasn’t the most severe wound.

The most severe wound was on his forehead where there were five holes: bloody holes, through which the bone was cracked and exposed, as if he had been smashed five times with a bronze hammer. Yet this still was not the fatal wound.

The fatal wound was on his neck. His neck had been snapped by a fierce, heavy blow.

Everywhere was evidence that Guo Qiufeng had fought a hair-raising battle. Especially since he had died, but the one he was protecting had not.

This was because Guo Qiufeng had been a good official and a trustworthy friend. Ironhands and Coldblooded had entrusted Xi Qiuya and Little Pearl to his protection—he would not let anyone touch the people he was protecting unless he died first!

But Guo Qiufeng was not an easy person to take out, either.

Whoever killed him must have very strong martial arts.

And it wasn’t just one person.

Three people. One big and strong, one small and slender, and one slightly stooped. Three people, all masked and wearing tightfit clothes and holding weapons.

The big and strong one wielded a wrought-bronze staff. This was clearly the one who had snapped the nape of Guo Qiufeng’s neck. The small and slender one held a sawtoothed iron fan. This of course was the one who had cut open Guo Qiufeng’s belly. The stooped one was unarmed, but his fingers were like hooks that made clacking sounds whenever he brandished them. Naturally this was the one who had clawed Guo Qiufeng’s forehead. Now they were three surrounding one. The one who was surrounded was in the middle of a critical fight. This one fighting for his life was of course one who Gui Qiuya had died protecting, Xi Qiuya!

But the danger Xi Qiuya was in right now was more than pen and ink could describe.

If Guo Qiufeng had not held them off at first, then Xi Qiuya would be dead already—the ambushers clearly hadn’t anticipated that Guo Qiufeng would have come along nor that his martial arts would be so strong. They joined up to kill him, and when they turned their sights on their “principal mark” Xi Qiufeng, Ironhands and Coldblooded appeared at the same time.

Ironhands’ and Coldblooded’s sudden appeared just as the small and slender one cut Xi Qiuya’s knees with his sawtooth fan, as the big and strong man sent Xi Qiuya’s sabre flying out of his hand with his bronze staff, and as the stooped one’s claws went for Xi Qiuya’s chest.

Those claws tore through the air like ten shooting stars burning up through the sky at once. If Xi Qiuya were swept by them, he would likely not be left with a single unbroken rib.

Ironhands didn’t run up the ladder but flew up next to them. As soon as his head popped up he saw those relentless hawk’s talons and Xi Qiuya under them like a helpless rabbit waiting for death!

Ironhands sent a hard kick into one of the ladder rungs.

The run splintered with a crack, but Ironhands used the momentum from pushing off to spring up and steal in front of Xi Qiuya.

Quick as a spark from a flint his hands pushed out in front of Xi Qiuya and met the claws head on!

The stooped one was stunned.

His claws that had been meaning to crack and rip up Xi Qiuya’s ribs morphed into palms.

Though he was taken aback, his moves were not stalled and he not only didn’t hesitate, the force of his strike increased from seventy to ninety percent!

He didn’t care whose hands they were, but the person were trying to save Xi Qiuya, he would just destroy their hands first.

He knew his own claw skills inside and out and knew that just sixty percent force was enough to crush a silver ingot into a silver ball!

He waited for the sound of shattering bones.

No sound.

He grabbed the palms coming at him and it felt like a cat using its claws to grab a stone.

He felt at once that something was wrong and then he saw who it was who had arrived. After glimpsing who it was he regretted his earlier decision to not care who it was and just destroy their hands first.

But in that instant his two companions attacked.

The sawtooth fan whirled and cut into Ironhands’ wrist, and the wrought-bronze staff slammed into Ironhands’ elbow joint.

In that split second, both of Ironhands’ hands were assaulted by the claws, the staff, and the fan!

“Ironhands’ hands, Lifesnatcher’s legs, Coldblooded’s sword, Heartless’ concealed projectiles.”—These were the “weapons” of the Four Great Constables. In the capital, kids had made a song about them, the first half of which went like this: “Tang Chou’s poison, Tu Wan’s hammer, Zhao Hao’s heart, Yan Zhao’s song and dance”. Tang Chou, Tu Wan, Zhao Hao, and Yan Zhao together were called the Four Great Cutthroats. No one had ever been able to punish them, and the song’s meaning was also how the people felt: it was as if only Ironhands, Lifesnatcher, Coldblooded, and Heartless, the Four Great Constables, could subdue the four evil fiends.

What they encountered was Ironhands’ hands.

Ironhands never needed a weapon.

His hands were his weapons, and they were weapons among weapons.

The wrought-bronze staff snapped with a bang and the small and slender one and the stooped one were sent flying.

Ironhands grunted. Though he had concentrated his force in his arms, and knocked the two people back and broke the staff, his arms suffered a huge jolt and his blood and qi reversed flow and his face immediately turned pale.

He had wanted to send the three of them flying, but the one with the wrought-bronze staff used hard kungfu, and his weapon was one of the hardest there was. Ironhands’ jolting force was also hard kungfu, so when the staff broke the man wielding it was also pushed back by the force.

That person never imagined his wrought-bronze staff, as big around as the mouth of a bowl could strike someone’s elbow and the thing that broke would be his own staff instead. He was dumbfounded.

Dumbfounded for only a brief moment, and in that moment Ironhands’ face was rapidly recovering its normal color, but just as he was taking a deep breath—not completely recovered, the big and strong man reacted quickly too. He was very close to Ironhands and the half a bronze staff in his hand slammed straight for Ironhands’ face!

Of course he was planning to smash Ironhands’ face to smithereens with that strike—Ironhands didn’t dodge or use some method to deal with it, he wasn’t able to because Ironhands didn’t have time to dodge or counterattack before Coldblooded stepped in.

Ironhands knocked the two people back to save Xi Qiuya in a split second, and Coldblooded was there.

How could Coldblooded let Ironhands handle the danger alone? Coldblooded’s chest nearly scraped the ground as he swept in and suddenly sprang up from in between Ironhands’ legs and before the man’s staff could fall his sword had already pierced his chest.

The man was stunned and suddenly saw another person appear out of nowhere in front of Ironhands. The three of them so close together, the hand suddenly felt the person had a sword in hand but there was no blade, just the sword guard.

And the blade? It was in his own body! When that thought hit him, the man had no more strength to hold the staff and he let out a shrill, hoarse scream. At the same time he screamed he still couldn’t believe that he was felled by this little boy’s sword, so he actually tried to shoot backward.

But this rapid retreat no doubt was tantamount to drawing the sword from his chest!

The big and strong man backed up seven or eight spans before he managed to stop. He looked down and saw the bloody hole in his chest and looked up again and saw Coldblooded’s sword dripping blood. Only then did he know that he had been fatally stabbed.

Because he knew it was hopeless quicker than the fatal blow could take him, he loosed a sharp scream and pointed a reviling finger at Coldblooded and squeaked, “You…” And he fell on his back and died.

Ironhands’ sudden appearance had knocked back the three people and saved Xi Qiuya, and aside from the big and strong man who had countered because he was so close, the other two had not immediately gotten back into the fray but too a quick look.

Then Coldblooded had suddenly appeared and stabbed one of their own to death, and the unarmed masked one howled wildly and rushed out of the thatched awning and dropped down!

This was of course a matter of not wanting to fight and instead taking flight.

The other small and slender one wanted to flee too, but he was a bit slower and Ironhands had already intercepted his escape route.

This person reacted quickly too and didn’t go out but charged in, toward the ladder.

At the ladder was Coldblooded.

With Coldblooded there, the person went quicker, but not quick enough to get avoid Coldblooded’s sword tip.

But at that moment the sound of footsteps rang out and caused Coldblooded to turn his head to look.