Xu Qian is actually Xu Qi’an?1
Xu Yuanshuang and Xu Yuanhuai, the siblings, felt their heads buzzing, as if someone had struck them with a club.
Apart from the Xu siblings, the most intense reaction came from Liu Hongmian. She, besides Xu Yuanshuang, was the only woman present.
A woman’s interest in an outstanding man was just like a man’s interest in an exquisite beauty.
Liu Hongmian was from Wanhua Tower in Jianzhou, a female-run force in the jianghu. Due to lack of early strength, they had suffered many misfortunes.
Later, they devised a strategy of alliances by marriage. The most attractive girls in the sect would be married off to heroes, gang leaders, promising young men, and even many officials in Jianzhou’s government took pride in marrying women from Wanhua Tower.
Today, Wanhua Tower had firmly established its roots in Jianzhou, with connections everywhere, but this tradition had been preserved.
Women from Wanhua Tower could not resist strong, handsome, and renowned young men.
They would swoon upon seeing them.
Liu Hongmian pursed her lips, staring at Xu Qian—no, Xu Qi’an—, her gaze burning.
Compared to the shocked Xu siblings and Liu Hongmian’s sudden interest, Daoist Jiaoye showed only brief astonishment and distraction, quickly regaining composure. His face turned grave, and he remained silent in contemplation.
As for Qihuan Danxiang, a member of the shaman clans from the Southern Marches, he did not care in the slightest about this Silver Gong Xu Qi’an of the Great Feng.
Meanwhile, Ji Xuan and White Tiger exchanged a look of tacit understanding, reading the “just as expected” in each other’s eyes.
They had already more or less guessed Xu Qian’s real identity, only lacking final confirmation.
“That’s impossible!”
Xu Yuanhuai suddenly shouted, pointing his spear at Xu Qian, his words fierce:
“How could he be Xu Qi’an? That man is supposed to be crippled! And Xu Qian is a Gu Master, not a martial artist.”
Jingxin said calmly, “Precisely because he was crippled, he turned to cultivating Gu arts.”
Xu Yuanhuai opened his mouth, but for a moment could not answer, his face flushing red as he retorted angrily:
“What proof do you have?”
He simply could not accept that Xu Qian was his eldest brother Xu Qi’an, whom their parents had raised with the capital’s clan branch. This was not what he had anticipated, he was utterly unprepared.
Ji Xuan sighed and spoke for Jingxin:
“Buddha Son, ha, apart from that Xu Qi’an who introduced the Mahayana Buddhist teachings during the capital’s Buddhist contest, who else could the sect value so highly?”
He glanced at Jingxin and Jingyuan, sneering, “Not to mention, he carries half the Great Feng’s fortune.”
Xu Yuanhuai was not foolish, in fact, he was very clever. Thinking of the Tianjigong spy’s attitude towards Xu Qian, he began to believe a little.
He seemed to realise something, and abruptly turned to look at his sister, Xu Yuanshuang.
No wonder! No wonder, when his sister had revealed her identity, Xu Qian had not struck her down, but let her go instead.
He had always thought his sister had sacrificed her chastity in exchange for her life.
“But, but isn’t he crippled?” Xu Yuanhuai seized on this point.
“That’s what I haven’t been able to figure out,” Ji Xuan shook his head.
While they spoke, Xu Yuanshuang gazed dazedly at the distant blue-robed man, myriad emotions, anger, confusion, embarrassment, flashing in her beautiful eyes. Suddenly, as if struck by a thought, her face flushed bright red.
She understood why Xu Yuanhuai’s reaction was so fierce.
The siblings had imagined countless scenarios of meeting their eldest brother in the capital.
Perhaps they would watch from the shadows, not revealing themselves; perhaps they would stand face-to-face as enemies; or perhaps, confused by swirling emotions, they simply longed for a meeting, with no idea how to handle their relationship.
Xu Yuanshuang had never expected that her first encounter with her eldest brother would begin because of the Desire Gu, with a tender green dudou…
Liu Hongmian, a scheming and flirtatious woman, cupped her hands around her mouth and called out playfully with feigned innocence:
“Hey, are you really Silver Gong Xu? Rumour has it that Silver Gong Xu is a peerless beauty. Would you show your true face for us?”
Her obvious pretense made Xu Yuanshuang frown in displeasure, but seeing Xu Qi’an ignore her, Xu Yuanshuang’s expression softened a little.
Not interested, I’ve not even a drop left… Far off, Xu Qi’an maintained an aloof façade, while grumbling inwardly.
At this point, Daoist Jiaoye spoke in a deep voice:
“Now is not the time to question his identity.
“If Xu Qian truly is Xu Qi’an, what we face is the greatest young man in the Central Plains, or even the entire world!
“A third rank martial artist at twenty-one.”
Daoist Jiaoye’s words left the whole group silent.
They had all heard the legends about this young man, even in distant Yunzhou.
He had stood alone against rebelling forces in Yunzhou, repelled eighty thousand enemies at Yuyang Pass, and took the enemy commander’s head as easily as picking something from a sack. He had once beheaded a tyrant emperor, shocking the whole realm.
His exploits were too many to count, already elevated to myth by commoners and people of the jianghu alike.
Everyone here was a paragon among their generation, yet facing such a figure, they felt almost no confidence.
Xu Yuanhuai opened his mouth, wanting to say something, perhaps to boost their morale, or some platitude about not underestimating the young, or vowing to surpass him someday…
But as the words reached his lips, he simply could not bring himself to say them.
This eldest brother, raised in the capital, was someone who made any genius pale in comparison.
The talent Xu Yuanhuai prided himself on was not worth mentioning at all in front of this man.
“Don’t worry.”
The Warrior Monk Jingyuan stepped forward, his sharp gaze full of fighting spirit:
“His cultivation has been sealed by the Demon-Sealing Nails. Now, at most, he is at the fourth rank. Even if he is aided by Gu techniques, he cannot possibly defeat us all. Benefactors, this is the perfect opportunity to subdue him.
“Even if he has plotted all this, so what? With our combined strength, we can deal with it.”
The current situation made Jingyuan see a chance to defeat Xu Qi’an and rid himself of his obsession.
He did not believe that the Buddha Son could, by himself, fight off so many experts.
Jingxin pondered for a moment, then nodded:
“That’s right. Even if he brought two Yang Spirit experts from the Heaven Sect, at most he’s balanced the beyond-mortal strength. But below the third rank, he’s only one man.”
Everyone’s eyes lit up.
That’s right. No matter how glorious Xu Qi’an once was, it was all in the past.
He was no longer at his peak when he killed the foolish king in the capital. What was there to be afraid of now?
The old Daoist Jiaoye said slowly:
“That’s right. At his heyday, we could not have matched him. But now, a tiger fallen in the flatlands, how much strength can he have left? Perhaps stronger than an ordinary fourth rank, but he can certainly not defeat all of us.”
Ji Xuan laughed: “Perfect. Let’s use him to hone our martial arts. There is no better whetstone than Silver Gong Xu. Should we happen to defeat him, tsk, tsk, the greatest hero of Central Plains in a generation, falling to us, a moment for fine wine indeed.”
Hearing these words, Xu Yuanhuai was itching to try.
The fighting spirit among the martial artists surged, their desire for battle even overshadowing their interest in the Dragon Qi.
Ji Xuan’s words struck a chord in their hearts. To fight and cross swords with Xu Qi’an was a temptation no martial artist could refuse.
And to defeat Xu Qi’an, that was an honour to stir the blood of any martial artist.
“How interesting!”
Liu Hongmian chuckled. “If I can defeat Silver Gong Xu here, when this jaunt in the jianghu ends, I must return to Wanhua Tower in Jianzhou and boast properly to those little whores.”
Let them see just how wrong they’d been not to choose her as the tower master.
As a martial artist, Liu Hongmian felt that defeating Silver Gong Xu was an immense honour. This did not conflict with her admiration for him.
Xu Yuanshuang’s pretty brows drew together. She lifted her cold, delicate face to look at Xu Qi’an.
How much of your strength remains? She could not tell whether she was worried or relieved, it was a complicated feeling.
Due to her mother’s influence, she bore little hostility toward her eldest brother, yet she was equally shaped by the Ji family of Qianlong City and by her father. She knew her position was opposed to her brother’s.
This trip away from home was partly to see the capital. She wanted to break free from her mother’s and her own standpoint’s influence, to view the matter, and him, from her own perspective.
Now, by running into Xu Qi’an here, she was spared the trouble of going to the capital herself.
Seeing that no one was willing to take the lead, Xu Yuanhuai gave a cold grunt, dragged his spear forward out of the group, and strode boldly ahead:
“I’ll bring him down!”
Dragging his long spear, his pace quickened, then he broke into a run; the tip of his spear gouged deep furrows in the ground.
As he neared Xu Qi’an, he gave a deep, guttural roar, spun with his waist leading his whole body, body driving the long spear, executing a domineering ‘Sweeping Across the World’.
Within several dozen feet, snow swirled up, fluttering everywhere.
The long spear howled through the air.
All eyes were fixed on the scene, hoping to gauge Xu Qi’an’s strength through the exchange.
At that moment, Xu Qi’an moved. He raised a hand, and with a flick of his finger—
From above, he flicked the spear shaft down.
“Ding!”
The membrane between Xu Yuanhuai’s thumb and index finger split, and he could only watch as the spear fell from his grasp and spun away into the sky.
Seeing this, Ji Xuan nodded. “No worse than me.”
He was referring to Xu Qi’an.
But, seeing this, everyone actually relaxed a little. It was, after all, only fourth-rank strength.
Ji Xuan continued: “Yuanhuai hasn’t gone all out yet. Just see how well he can test Xu Qi’an’s ability.”
Before the words had faded, Xu Yuanhuai leaped up, catching the long spear.
He hovered briefly, then gave a loud shout, brandishing the jet-black spear. The dragon’s head at the join between its tip and shaft suddenly burst with dazzling black light, then came alive, detaching itself from the weapon.
The dragon soul sealed within the artefact awakened.
This spear was a weapon of very high grade: its shaft was forged from the spine of a fourth-rank river dragon, while its head was wrought from the sharpest, hardest of its fangs.
Within the spear was sealed the primordial soul of that dragon, allowing the artefact to briefly fuse with its master, raising their power to the fourth rank for a time.
Xu Yuanhuai was at the peak of fifth rank, but when he went all out, he could rival a fourth-rank martial artist.
The illusory shape of a river dragon flew through the air, suddenly swooping down and merging with Xu Yuanhuai.
His eyes became vertical slit pupils, ghostly black scales flickered on his cheeks, and a dragon’s roar erupted from his throat.
Gripping the Dragon Spear, he dove at Xu Qi’an, the spear tip radiating blinding sharp light, forming a semicircular barrier of energy.
“What a fine weapon!”
The crowd watched in envious awe. Liu Hongmian seemed to think of something and asked:
“Oh right, what weapon does Silver Gong Xu use?”
…
Reminder that there’s a bigger difference in Chinese ↩
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