Long Zaitian howled like a tiger and leapt over. His internal strength was profound, and the power of his palm strike was powerful. The strength behind his palm strike just now was overwhelming. Had he hit Su Xiao, Su Xiao would be left with just one-fifth of his life while the remaining four-fifths would've vanished into thin air.
Given those circumstances, there was no way I could just stand and watch.
I've watched this nonsense go on from the sideline for long enough. I immediately appeared from the side when Long Zaitian struck out.
There are many ways you can cause a skilled martial artist to miss. Other than the ninety plus poisoning and similar methods, there are only two. The first is to make it pointless even if he was to hit his target, and the second is to make him miss.
Given the current circumstances, it goes without saying the second option is better.
Constables must carry a rope with them so I too had one upon joining Liu Shan Men. I pulled the rope out from my belt, wrapped it around Su Xiao's small waist and gently pulled him back. Su Xiao's entire body suddenly flew backwards in the air towards me as a result. Su Xiao is honestly quite light. It didn't take me much effort to pull him over.
Long Zaitian was fairly angry that he missed.
Long Zaitian's palm strike didn't hit Su Xiao, but instead went towards Tang Ye who went to Su Xiao's rescue.
Tang Ye knows how strong Long Zaitian's palm strikes are since he experienced them before, so he was very cautious this time. His Yang Blood True Qi is a powerful technique. Once released, it's hard to cancel. With an opponent as strong as Long Zaitian, he couldn't ask for more.
The two forces collided.
Tang Ye used all his energy without any flowery moves or pretence to clash with Long Zaitian. Long Zaitian became happy. He knew Tang Ye, and he knew that Tang Ye was Liu Shan Men's hope at the imperial martial arts tournament. If he could prevent him from competing, it'd be many times better than killing Su Xiao. Tang Ye was much younger than Long Zaitian so it was only normal for him to have superior internal strength. With an eighty percent chance of winning in his favour, of course he was glad.
However, their exchange resulted in a draw. Both of them retreated ten steps as a result of their exchange. Tang Ye looked as suave as ever while Long Zaitian was furious. He cursed loudly: "You despicable brat! What art did you learn?!"
So it turned out that Long Zaitian's specialty, his powerful brute force palm strikes couldn't compare to Tang Ye. When the two clashed, Tang Ye retreated first, but as Long Zaitian went to go for the winning strike, his hand suddenly started hurting from a burning sensation. That was when he realised that the internal energy on Tang Ye's hand was like a fire that transferred to Long Zaitian's body and burnt up everything inside. It was like a fire started at Long Zaitian's core. Long Zaitian felt that his entire right arm was on fire, so he quickly retracted his qi to protect himself. Tang Ye took advantage of that and advanced on him, taking the upper hand from him.
Their clash was like a tiger charging into a burning piece of metal. While the piece of metal is light, the heat is more than the tiger could withstand. While there was a discrepancy between the strength of their respective internal energies, in terms of special attributes, Tang Ye had the upper hand.
Tang Ye didn't lose the bout, which can be attributed to his diligence with his training.
"Big Brother Ming!" Su Xiao who I was princess-carrying stared at me with his eyes wide, revealed a glad look and exclaimed: "You're here! You're here to help me! I, I knew you would back me up."
His tone indicated that he relied on me like a kid relies on his senior, but at the same time resembled l-… In short, I pinched his pretty white nose, smiled and asked: "How did you find the guts to rip the plaque passed down by the founding emperor? How many heads do you have?"
Su Xiao poked his tongue out and said: "Alright already. Are you going to take responsibility for it in my place?"
"I'm not qualified." I waved my hand and continued, "I can recommend someone to you though. He's the real deal."
"Motherfuckers! They destroyed the plaque passed down by the previous emperor! Men, kill them all!"
Long Zaitian ordered his men to kill us because he missed his attack aimed at Su Xiao.
"I-"
"Stop!"
Before he could finish, I shouted over his voice so loud that Long Zaitian couldn't even hear his men's response.
"Everybody stop! Captain Long, what do you mean we damaged the plaque?"
"You're still trying to bullshit your way out?! That crazy bitch, Su Xiao chopped the plaque in half! His sabre is sharp as can be. I saw it with my own eyes, are you telling me otherwise?"
"Nonsense!" I retorted him and pointed towards the plaque covered in dust on the ground, and added, "Everybody, including the lady selling douhua knows that Su Xiao's skills with a sabre are terrible. We even witnessed him struggling to cut a piece of tofu in half. It'd be weird if he could chop the plaque when he can't even cut tofu."
Long Zaitian didn't believe me, so he immediately went to check.
He picked up the plaque and carefully examined it from back to front before letting out a sigh of relief.
Su Xiao didn't damage the plaque.
It was all thanks to the rope. When I saw Su Xiao glare at the plaque, I knew something was wrong. And so when he raised his sabre and swung downwards, I pulled the plaque aside with the rope.
The back of the plaque was slightly damaged, but somebody in wood-works should be able to fix it.
"It doesn't look damaged." Su Xiao scrunched his nose up as if it were a pity: "Hmph, you're lucky."
Idiot, you're the one that's lucky! Good god, damaging that plaque would be a more serious offence then hitting a prince.
If it were broken, your family and the neighbouring village's villagers would all be beheaded!
"Stop!" I pulled Su Xiao over and mumbled: "Old Huang won't die."
"Huh?" Su Xiao stared at me with his eyes wide. He blinked his eyes rapidly and I think I saw a tear come out.
"Really? Are you telling the truth, Big Brother Ming? Really?"
Yes indeed.
Just before I left, I used my internal energy to release the clogged blood inside him. That plus the medication provided by the three outstanding doctors of Liu Shan Men. Old Huang is just a bit weak right now. He'll be bed-ridden for the next few days, but he'll be able to work on the frontlines in a month.
"That's great then." Su Xiao used what seemed to run out of strength as he leaned on my body: "That's great, that's great……" His voice became weaker and weaker like a puppy that exhausted himself due to his playfulness, and then crawled onto me. He closed his eyes and I spotted two teardrops on his long eyelashes. This kid… He's a kid in every sense, and yet he's copying others and picking fights.
"Hey! Are you two done flirting around?" Long Zaitian had evidently checked the plaque and confirmed that it could be repaired. He had calmed down a bit. His brain was functioning again, and he was now thinking about how to screw us over. In his sly tone he said: "The plaque is fine, I won't find fault with you there. But you motherfuckers need to take a good look at where you are. Whose place do you think this is? This is the capital, and who does this place belong to? You had the audacity to cause a ruckus here and arrest our men!"
I heard it was the emperor's place, was I misinformed?
"Listen! We're in charge of the areas outside of the imperial city. We get to bully Liu Shan Men! Don't even waste your time dreaming that you'll get another chance to rise."
Long Zaitian pointed at me with his finger, Tang Ye, and then moved his arm around to point at everybody. Once he finished pointing his finger at everyone, he said: "I'll let you off the hook easy today on behalf of your superior. All of you are to leave behind a hand or you can forget leaving our office alive."
Tang Ye leaned over towards me and said: "Shall we fight them, big bro?"
"No." I mumbled: "Let's lead Long Zaitian and run towards our office."
"Why?"
Because I'm not going to take responsibility for this.
"Because they don't dare to enter our office."
After I mumbled that, Tang Ye nodded, took in a deep breath and shouted: "RUN!" I don't know if he pre-arranged it with Liu Shan Men's members before we legged it. Tang Ye's yell was more effective than an imperial decree. All of Liu Shan Men turned around and ran away in unison. If a rabbit were to spot a carrot in their path, it wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. Otherwise, it'd meet a more tragic end than if a sheep were to bump heads with a wolf. To put it into perspective, Liu Shan Men's members ran as fast as my shifu when he spots a beauty.
I quickly chased after them.
Long Zaitian chuckled coldly and then shouted: "Chase them!" However, only a few gave chase. The fight before left their men and Liu Shan Men's quite severely injured. Chasing them would be tougher than fleeing. They didn't have the motivation so they were sluggish. Long Zaitian yelled twice but they had yet to get up.
"Call our men! Call our men! Go inside and call for more men!" Long Zaitian was fuming. A low ranking guard ran up to him to ask: "Vice-captain, how many men do you want me to ask for? Do we need to do a head count?"
"Fuck you and your head out! Where are the three hundred we normally call for?! Call them over! Surround Liu Shan Men! If I don't leave Song Bastard and that crazy bitch, Su Xiao crippled, I'll change my name from dragon in the heavens to dragon licking the ground!!"
Dragon licking the ground actually brought men with him to chase us.
We ran through the streets and ran into bustling areas whenever we could. We had rather few men so it was easier for us to move around compared to them. It didn't take long for us to arrive back at Liu Shan Men's office.
Tang Ye then asked: "Big bro, will they really not trespass into our office? Will we be fine once we hide inside?"
"You wish. You guys went and trespassed on their grounds first, you guys broke the rules first. They'd be in the right even if we took the matter to the emperor. If you want to resolve matters using Su Xiao's 'national laws', you'll be screwed sooner or later."
"What shall we do then?" Tang Ye started to get a little anxious as he continued: "We can't let our brothers take another beating."
Liu Shan Men's constables were exhausted from running. In fact, they looked like they were carried back. I was carrying Su Xiao on my back while Tang Ye carried Yi Yixian on his. We were like a team of sick elderly. We should go see a doctor first.
"It's fine, this isn't our problem alone. We have a superior at our office. If our captain doesn't show up in this situation, what's the point of having him?"
"Song Ou? He'd be willing to come out?"
Tang Ye revealed a completely untrusting expression.
"Don't worry, I have my ways."
We rushed to the door and I shouted: "Brother Bastard, Brother Bastard! Open the door, it's Feizhen!"
I shouted repeatedly for a while. Long Zaitian had almost caught up.
However, I couldn't continue yelling out Song Ou's name so loudly. After a while, there was an unexpected response from inside: "Ming Feizhen! Did you grow another gut?! How dare you call me that?"
Song Ou, my dear Brother Bastard, kicked the door open furiously, and violently came out pointing before shouting: "I'll teach you what rules are today!"
"Alright, Brother Bastard, let's see you teach me."
However, the person who replied to him wasn't me, but the man who brought three-hundred men with him standing behind me, Master Long.
"You caused a mess at my place, knocked my plaque down, beat up my men and then even kidnapped my subordinate. I felt like there was a problem with everything I just mentioned."
Long Zaitian aggressively clenched his teeth: "I just knew that a low-ranking constable like you wouldn't be so daring. So the mastermind is here, huh. Nice, nice, Song Ou. We won't have to wait for the imperial martial arts tournament; let's fight right now, one-on-one!"
Song Ou's finger was still pointed at Long Zaitian's face. He couldn't get away by taking it back or continuing to point.
He just looked at Long Zaitian like he just shit himself and then at me.
Finally, he revealed a face which was like he was crying deep down, as he choked on his tears and could only exclaim: "How could you fucking set me up like this?!"
Glossary
Douhua is the short form of doufuhua. It is a Chinese snack made with very soft tofu. It is also referred to as tofu pudding and soybean pudding.
Long Zaitian = Dragon in the Sky/Heavens; he then called himself Long Tiandi = Dragon licking the ground. Dragon in the heavens refers to the person in question being a dragon (which as you know is highly revered in Chinese culture), and one that soars in the sky above all, where you are revered by all. Calling himself a Dragon Licking the Ground is essentially saying he'll be a useless dragon who will bow his head to everybody, otherwise understood as the lowest being in the world in terms of hierarchy.