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This kind of dangerous man-made pathway, constructed around the mountain in a roundabout route, was mainly built by cutting holes on the sheer cliffs and precipitous rock faces and then inserting beams into the holes, which served as the skeleton for the wooden planks laid out on top of them.

As people were walking on it, on one side was the uneven surface of the rock cliff, while the other side was thousand-ren [unit of length, my dictionary did not have the definition, baike.baidu only says 8 or 7 feet] steep cliff. When the mountain breeze was blowing, the feeling was that the entire walkway was swaying, the foothold was unsteady. Those who are bold would still feel fright at every step, while those who are timid would be unable to move a single step.

At first Xu Ziling was overwhelmed with marvel, but suddenly his mind opened and cleared up. The unpleasant mood stirred up by Shi Feixuan was washed away clean. Along the way more and more marvelous scenery emerged; it was extremely pleasing to the eyes.

Maintaining a touring-the-mountain, visiting-scenic-spots frame of mind, he thoroughly enjoyed the covered-by-trees-and-underbrush deep mountains, high ridges, marvelous peaks and amazing rocks.

Cloud fir [spruce], cold fir, red fir, iron fir [tsuga chinensis], all kinds of fir [Cunninghamia lanceolate] trees, mixed together with ginkgo tree, fragrant fruit tree, paulownia tree, formed the ever-changing natural ecology. It was not only a paradise for birds, but golden sub-nosed monkeys [Rhinopithecus Roxellana], macaque, wildebeests, and hairy crowned deer were roaming around freely, so full of life. When he rounded a bend, the scenery changed again.

The first to catch his eyes was the roaring of the waterfall, while the walkway was continuously widening. Burst of water droplets hit him on the face, while the mist pervaded the air on the opposite mountain. A waterfall appeared like a jiao dragon [legendary (horned) dragon with ability to control rain and floods] coming out of a hole in the mountain, cascading down along the cliff, straight to the bottom of the cliff into a boiling torrent, and then rushing out following the terrain with strong momentum.

Seeing all these, Xu Ziling’s mind was intoxicated. He stopped to enjoy the view with his hands behind his back, feeling the essence, qi, and spirit in his entire body soared without any bound, and ten thousand changes converged into one.

In this moment of clarity, there was no distinction between internal and external.

The man was the nature, and the nature was the man.

Before this natural wonder, all struggles, enmity and killing have become irrelevant.

Right this moment, suddenly a familiar voice entered his ears, saying, “We must be especially bound together by fate; unexpectedly I come across Xu Xiong here.”

Xu Ziling was still staring fixedly on the mountain flow down below, formed by the water flying out of the cliff above. It converged first into more than a dozen of layer upon layer of pools, big and small, then flowed around the colorful rocks filling the bottom of the waterfall. Under the bright sun the rippling waves sparkled magnificently. Smiling, he said, “Naturally we are especially bound together by fate. But I wonder if Hou Xiong is leaving Sichuan, or is entering Sichuan?”

Hou Xibai walked slowly along the walkway toward Xu Ziling, while waving the Fan of Beauty in his hand lightly, in such an unspeakably elegant and graceful demeanor, confident and at ease above the crowd.

Xu Ziling sighed inwardly; if they fought in this place, both sides would have no way out. This matter could only be resolved by one of them defeated and perished. At the same time, he was also blaming himself for being careless. Ever since leaving Yangzhou, he has been neglecting this young martial art master of Hua Jian Pai, while Hou Xibai has been lurking on the side, waiting for an opportunity like the present.

Was it because Shi Feixuan knew that he was nearby that she was unwilling to enter Sichuan together with Xu Ziling? Listening to the tone of Shi Feixuan’s voice, she only had good impression toward Hou Xibai, without any bad feeling at all.

Hou Xibai stopped when he was about a zhang or so from him; he spoke smoothly, “During the reign of Xian Wang of the Zhou dynasty, Qinhui Wang wanted to destroy Shu [i.e. Sichuan], but no matter how hard he tried, he could not force entrance into it; thereupon he issued an order to make a stone ox with five heads, and daubed the ox tail with gold dust, claiming that the ox could produce gold excrement, and have the ox delivered to King of Shu. Greatly delighted, King of Su ordered his men to construct the plank walkway to welcome the golden ox. Eventually the Qin army forced entrance into Su along the Golden Ox Walkway and wiped out the Su State. Won’t you say that things like this are actually the main cause of disaster for the people of Sichuan?”

Looking back at the plank walkway that he had just walked through, Xu Ziling spoke indifferently, “Later on, Zhuge Liang’s ‘Six Campaigns from Mount Qi’, Jiang Wei’s ‘Nine Campaigns on the Central Plains’ [both are from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms], were also transporting troops along this path. Therefore, the fault is not on this Golden Ox Walkway, but on the people; don’t Hou Xiong think so?”

‘Swish!’

Hou Xibai opened his fan fully, and then waved it back and forth; the speed was irregular, but it seemed to follow some kind of law-within-no-law rhythm, like it was very easy to fathom, yet was impossible to grasp. It was such an extremely weird feeling.

“I never thought Xu Xiong would be this familiar with the history of Sichuan,” he spoke in astonishment, “Evidently the walkway we are standing on has been through many different reconstructions. The most ancient Golden Ox Walkway started in Mei County of Shaanxi, passing through the Xie valley, winding around the Bao Valley, and into Hanzhong. To the west it goes out to Mian County, through Yang Ping mountain pass, and into Sichuan, passing through Qingchuan, JianGe, Zitong, Mianyang, and arrives at Chengdu. Currently the Hanzhong to Sichuan section has changed into Ningqiang, surpassing seven mountain passes. This is precisely the section that Xu Xiong stopped to admire, as if you wanted to become an immortal and go directly into danger.”

Hou Xibai took a step forward, closing the distance between the two men to approximately eight chi, while the Fan of Beauty continued to wave, one after another, producing ‘Swish! Swish!’ noise. The side of the fan facing Xu Ziling had only one painting of Wanwan’s amazing image, putting her faintly discernible, unfathomable innate character, touching portrait in full display. One corner also had the ten-thousand-kinds-of-grace, another implicit-charm-in-rhyme, image of the famous courtesan Shang Xiufang.

Xu Ziling was still standing with his hands behind his back; noticing Hou Xibai did not respond, he went on, “It seems that Hou Xiong did not wish to answer. Xiaodi suddenly has a weird thought; supposing one of us suddenly ascend the heavens to become an immortal, I guarantee that no one in Jianghu would find out.”

Blurting out laughing, Hou Xibai said, “Xu Xiong’s idea is very interesting. Regrettably, the world of the immortals has no doors, so nobody could open it as he wishes. Perhaps Xu Xiong wants to turn a good dream into nothingness!”

A sliver of without-any-care-in-the-world smile escaped from the corner of Xu Ziling’s mouth; remaining tranquil and calm, he said, “Whether the world of the immortals has a door or has no door, so much so that whether there is the world of the immortals or afterlife, Xiaodi practically has never had any imagination nor any desire to look forward to, hence I have no good dream to be turned into nothingness. Even toward life and death, Ol’ Xu has a very indifferent view. I wonder if Hou Xiong would be interested in giving it a try?”

Finally Hou Xibai’s countenance changed. His eyes shone with sharp, peculiar light, the rhythm of his fan became more erratic, but it was not in confusion at all. If the listener was not Xu Ziling but another first-class martial art master, perhaps he could not stop rushing out and making his move.

※ ※ ※

Kou Zhong lay on his back on the bed, but was unable to sleep. With eyes opened wide he stared at the ceiling of the cabin, with myriads thought surging in his mind.

He was thinking of his relationship with Du Fuwei.

It could be said that Du Fuwei was the first person ever to show respect on him, to consider Kou Zhong to be qualified to inherit his burning incense stick and his undertaking. Yet due to all kinds of reason, Kou Zhong declined his good intention.

In the past he was willing to let Kou Zhong left Liyang, demonstrating his breath of mind and positive outlook, which surpass others, and revealing his sincere affection, which was inconsistent with his style.

But in return, Kou Zhong bitterly defended Jingling for ten days and ten nights, so that Du Fuwei could only gain tragic victory.

Today he was going to destroy Du Fuwei’s grand plan of attacking Jiangdu. Thinking about this, he felt depressed and helpless.

That trusted lieutenant of his called Chen Sheng was a total stranger to Kou Zhong. There was no grievance in the past, there was no animosity in the present, yet tonight, using thousand ways and hundred plans, Kou Zhong was going to make him meet his death, just to incite Du Fuwei’s anger, all in the name of contention over the world. Therefore, he had to proceed by hook or by crook, not stopping at anything. Contention over the world is just like that.

Ay!

Yet if he could go back to the past, he would still decline Du Fuwei’s good intention and proposal.

The real reason was that Du Fuwei did not enjoy popular support too much. Plus Kou Zhong did not wish to get things done by relying on others.

Thinking to this point, Kou Zhong jumped out of bed and ordered his men serving outside the door to summon Chen Changlin, Bu Tianzhi, and so on for a discussion.

※ ※ ※

Finally Xu Ziling reacted; suddenly he turned his tiger-body around, so that he was directly facing Hou Xibai, who was standing at an oblique angle about eight chi away on the walkway.

Two pair of eyes met, both men stared unyieldingly toward each other.

Hou Xibai stopped waving his fan and put it away on his back. Nodding his head, he said, “Xu Xiong’s brilliance is indeed beyond Zaixia’s expectation.”

Xu Ziling smiled and replied, “We are no better or worse than each other!”

The two men were not simply uttering polite words.

In fact, ever since Hou Xibai raised his voice to speak, the two have been on a head-on confrontation. Xu Ziling was bit lucky, because as he was enjoying the beautiful scenery of the waterfall on the opposite mountain, his state of mind converged seamlessly with the ten-thousand changes outside, entering the ‘no-man, no-me’ [non-self, anatta], forgetting inside, forgetting outside, state, in deep union with the purpose of the ‘Secret to Long Life’. Although he had not raised his qi or applied his power, all the orifices within his body were full of life; naturally the innate true qi circulated freely, from head to toe, there was not the slightest flaw.

The reason Hou Xibai chose this place to make his appearance was originally to borrow the waterfall’s surging momentum and its loud rumbling noise to conceal the vibration, as well as any noise, generated on the walkway as he was stepping on it, while actively calculating how to launch one strike, with a ten-thousand-catty-thunder momentum, to successfully getting rid of this formidable opponent, who, in so many aspects, was able to rival him.

From his footwork of standing at an oblique angle, pressing down on the plank walkway going around the mountain, to the rhythm of his opening and waving his fan, not one did not imply the profound-mystery law and logic. As soon as Xu Ziling was somewhat influence by it or was a bit distracted, he would make his move with all his strength. Staking everything, disregarding injury or death, he simply must strike to kill this opponent, in such a no-retreat, no-escape battlefield.

Who would have thought that not only Xu Ziling was not influenced by him the slightest bit, he remained in the profound mystery state, which Hou Xibai found to be amazing and inexplicable, which Xu Ziling suggested earlier that he had no regard of life and death. Consequently, Hou Xibai felt that if he forcefully made his move, both of them would only end up perishing together.

And that was the reason he praised Xu Ziling wholeheartedly.

From Xu Ziling’s point of view, Hou Xibai did not give him the slightest gap that he could exploit, hence the reason he did not dare to turn around earlier, afraid that his concentration would fail him.

The rhythm of Hou Xibai’s fan was some kind of gongfa [skill/power law/method; this is another ‘one of those’ that I don’t know how to translate succinctly (the other being shenfa and xinfa)] analogous to the Tian Mo Yin [demonic sound] that Zhu Yuyan employed. One slight mistake, he wound incite the opponent’s terrifying attack. He waited until Hou Xibai’s heart appeared to be shaken. He chose the exact time when the opponent was in the middle of two shakes of his fan to turn around; the exact moment when the Fan of Beauty was at its limit of movement.

This kind of subtlety accurately grasped the rhythm of the opponent’s fan, which appeared like random, without any order, movements; in a way, it was tantamount to thoroughly break the brilliant skill of waving the fan.

From this, it could be said that Hou Xibai has been hiding his real strength all along, hence the ‘no better or worse than each other’ comment.

Xu Ziling still had his hands behind his back, while standing upright and unafraid. His eyes stared fixedly on the opponent, his stored-up imposing manner expanding unceasingly, assuming the unyielding attitude of going-all-out, staking-everything, fight-might-happen-any-moment.

Hou Xibai was still maintaining his confident and at ease, unconstrained appearance, but the fact was that he was standing straight like a mountain, exuding a biting cold vortex of qi, restraining the opponent from a distance, abundant with sweeping-away-the-world spirit.

A glimmer of smile escaped from the corner of Xu Ziling’s mouth as he spoke indifferently, “Did Hou Xiong accidentally run into me entering Sichuan, or did you already know that I am entering Sichuan?”

While continuously looking for any gap in the opponent’s line of defense, Hou Xibai replied, “This matter is unusually complicated, but it is closely related to Qingxuan. Xu Xiong, what do you think?”

Inwardly, Xu Ziling cried, ‘Formidable!’

It should be noted that fighting on the plank walkway, any shenfa or footwork would not be effective. The only way was to fight force against force.

Even though there was indeed relative superiority between the two men’s martial art skill level, but the difference was not far. Therefore, they must resort to various means to weaken the opponent’s fighting spirit, to divide his attention, in order to succeed in one strike.

Hou Xibai’s choice of words was precisely to achieve that objective.

If Xu Ziling was distracted by the two words ‘unusually complicated’ and pondered upon it deeply, also by Hou Xibai intimately calling her by her first name ‘Qingxuan’, which would make Xu Ziling think that his relationship with Shi Qingxuan was quite complex, then Xu Ziling would fall into the trap.

Fortunately, Xu Ziling was quite indifferent toward success or failure in men/women relationship; hence he was not too affected by it. Smiling instead, he said, “Hou Xiong clearly knew that before entering Sichuan, Xiaodi had an all night long chat with Miss Shi.”

This is called playing someone at their own game; moreover, he was hinting that Shi Feixuan was nearby.

According to Xu Ziling’s analysis, the reason Hou Xibai was able to select this place to intercept him was that he obtained the information from the Yangtze River Alliance, simply because Yun Yuzhen and Yangtze River Alliance’s Zheng Shuming had secret connection. Furthermore, Hou Xibai’s skill with women definitely raised this possibility.

Sure enough, Hou Xibai was slightly startled.

Naturally Xu Ziling was unwilling to let this built-up-through-painstaking-efforts golden opportunity pass; stepping forward, he sent out a heavy punch.

Hou Xibai did not take out his fan at all; he simply put his fingers together and used the palm chop with his left hand.

‘Bang!’

Qi power collided.

Both of them tumbled backward as if they were struck by lightning, opening the distance between them a zhang or so.

Hou Xibai’s revealed an extremely grave expression. “Why not spiraling qi power?” he shouted.

Xu Ziling was struggling to suppress his boiling blood and qi, while inwardly he was very shocked. If the opponent had not mistakenly thought that he was going to use spiraling qi power, he would have suffered quite a bit of loss in this exchange.

He had managed to create all sorts of favorable situations, yet still ended up both parties shared the limelight. Evidently Hou Xibai’s true power was at least a notch above his. Not to mention Hou Xibai has not used his fan yet.

Smiling slightly, he said, “How come Hou Xiong did not use the amazing skill of ‘Immortal Printed Scroll’?”

Hou Xibai’s eyes emitted an unprecedentedly fierce expression. “Was it Feixuan who told you?” he spoke in heavy voice.

While resisting his rapidly increasing fierce qi momentum, Xu Ziling sneered and said, “From this, it is clear that Hou Xiong has not had any chance to meet Shi Qingxuan, otherwise you might mistakenly guessed that it was she who told me.”

Recovering his calm manner, Hou Xibai blurted out laughing and said, “But it is also possible that I have just visited her fragrant residence, right?”

Letting out a long laughter, Xu Ziling said, “Absolutely correct!”

Both palms struck out at the same time, immediately a violent force rolled straight toward Hou Xibai.

※ ※ ※

While the warriors were working hard, the cabin was serene under the lazy afternoon sun.

After sweeping Bu Tianzhi, Chen Laomou, Luo Qifei, and Chen Changlin, four men, with his eyes, Kou Zhong pondered deeply for half a day before finally speaking slowly, “I have two things that I’d like gentlemen to consider carefully.”

Everybody knew he still had more to say, hence they just waited silently.

Appearing to be very deep in thought, Kou Zhong said, “Tonight we only need to hurt Chen Sheng, but there is no need to kill him. I want to borrow Chen Sheng’s own mouth to tell Du Fuwei who had wounded him.”

“There shouldn’t be any problem,” Bu Tianzhi said, “As long as we manage to burn a few more of his boats, it will be enough to provoke Du Fuwei’s wrath.”

Chen Changlin said, “Chen Sheng ought to know Gu Jun. If there is any flaw, in the future, our achievement will be completely wasted.”

Chen Laomou joined in, “Outside appearance is not a problem. In confusion, it woud be enough to have fifty, sixty-percent resemblance. Could Changlin describe his general appearance that I can use as my reference?”

Chen Changlin nodded to give his consent, but he said, “Gu Jun’s spear technique is very particular; if Chen Sheng sees it, he will definitely be able to tell it apart.”

“Have you seen it?” Bu Tianzhi asked.

Chen Changlin’s eyes emitted deep hatred. Letting out a cold humph, he said, “Not only seen it, I have tasted it.”

Listening to this, everybody knew that he had fought Gu Jun in the past, perhaps he even suffered some losses.

Delighted, Kou Zhong said, “That will do! Imitating ten or twenty-percent will work; Chen Sheng would think that Gu Jun was deliberately concealing his martial art.”

After a short pause, he continued, “The other thing is that in order to avenge Changlin Xiong, we must, by all means, kill Shen Lun. But we also must make Shen Faxing thinks that it is Du Fuwei who kill him. This way, the enmity between them will never be resolved, forever.”

Luo Qifei said, “Changlin and I have repeatedly considered this over; we both think that as long as Du Fuwei believed that Shen Lun attacked him, the moment Shen Lun withdraw his troops, we will ambush him from the side. This way, all accounts will be credited to Du Fuwei. The only difficulty is to determine the suitable time and place.”

Muttering to himself irresolutely, Kou Zhong said, “Supposing when Chen Sheng is injured Du Fuwei did not advance but retreat instead by withdrawing to Qingliu to regroup, then it would be really bad for us. Therefore, we must have a contingency plan. It would be best if we can force Old Du so that he won’t dare to delay.”

Frowning, Bu Tianzhi said, “Is there a way to make Du Fuwei thinks that Shen Lun has sold him to Li Zitong? That way, Old Du would try to smash one of the two in the shortest time possible, or else he would fall into the situation where he is caught up in between.”

Slapping his thigh, Kou Zhong praised, “This is merely the exertion of lifting one’s hand [fig. requiring a very light effort]. Have somebody deliver a letter to Li Zitong at once; have this fellow immediately spread a rumor, saying that Shen Faxing has already made peace with him. If this rumor can enter Old Du’s ears one step ahead of Chen Sheng being attacked, he would be even more convinced.”

And then he rose to his full height, stretched his limbs, and said, “This time I really can sleep a good sleep!”