Chapter 64 Blackmail
“Ahahaha…”
Li Mu laughed and burst into tears.
“Wuss.”
He pointed to the Cloud-dragon Sword Mu Renlong who was kneeling on the ground for mercy.
To be honest, Li Mu could not believe that Mu Renlong, one of the so-called Fast Swords Masters in Northwest Wulin World and also the sworn brothers of Dongfang Jian, Qiu Zihan and Gao Shengpeng, was so timid as if his soul had left the body that he knelt on the ground and begged for mercy when he was dragged into the darkroom of torture.
The guards in the darkroom looked at Mu Renlong, and they also showed disdain looks.
Before today, these people were still the chivalrous men in their minds, the great martial arts masters, and the wonderful people who they envied and wanted to be.
But now, all of a sudden, the soldiers and guards felt that the so-called heroes from Jianghu were just ordinary people, who were not the great masters that had the courage of a warrior and the soul of a musician and thus could be like a king in the mountains and forests as they had imagined.
For example, some people, like Mu Renlong, were even worse than the ordinary people.
Standing beside Mu Renlong was the Mind-clearing Sword Gao Shengpeng. He showed a shame on his face, but also lowered his head and did not criticize Mu Renlong.
Because he was also very afraid in his heart.
Before he and Mu Renlong were dragged in, in the past six hours, 56 masters in the Joint-qi level who were put into the county government prison were dragged into the darkroom of torture and never came out again.
The Jianghu heroes in the prison, through the cracks in the door of the torture darkroom, could vaguely hear the sound of roaring and fighting, as well as all kinds of wailing and screaming voices, which also came from the cracks in the keyhole.
Those sounds were very vague and not very clear.
But that was enough for those Jianghu people who were locked up outside in the prison to think of something terrifying and fell into the abyss-like fear.
The more they thought, the more they were afraid.
The more they feared, the more they could not help thinking.
Fear was constantly amplified in their imagination, and everyone was drowning into it.
Every time, when someone was dragged out of the prison, even the most determined and strong-minded man would tremble, so some people chose to leave the will to their acquainted companions, some people shouted and cursed at Li Mu, some people struggled hard and wailed like ghosts and howled like wolves as if doomsday was coming. In a word, everyone was frightened.
Among those people who had behaved in a revolting manner, there were several great masters from the Northwest Jianghu World who were good at using fierce and vicious martial arts moves.
In the face of death, those people collapsed faster than others.
Therefore, Gao Shengpeng could deeply understand the ugliness of Mu Renlong at that time.
In fact, if it were not for the last trace of reason and dignity in his heart that made him stand trembling, he would have knelt down and begged for Li Mu already.
Li Mu sat behind the table, sipping melon seeds, eating watermelon, and showed a scornful look.
Li Mu winked at his guards.
A guard threw two long swords in front of the Mind-clearing Sword and the Cloud-dragon Sword.
“The winner can live.”
Li Mu spat out two melon seeds and said that.
Mu Renlong was stunned at first, but immediately he rushed over to grab a sword and stabbed mercilessly at Gao Shengpeng like a mad dog.
At about the same time, Gao Shengpeng also grabbed a sword.
Clang!
The blades of the swords hit with each other and sparks were splashed around.
“How can you stab me?” Mu Renlong was shocked, roared and said, “I am your third brother, and you actually…”
“If I don’t stab you, should I stand straight and be stabbed by you and wait for death, you cowardly-and-desperate-to-live wuss?” Gao Shengpeng sneered.
Hearing the word “live” from Li Mu, both of them began to ignore the brotherhood, and sneered at each other, who were not like sworn brothers anymore, and they were more like enemies now, but they were more ferocious than enemies because both of them were hoping that their swords could pierce a hole in the other side.
Both of them were well-known masters who were good at Fast Swords in the Northwest Wulin World, and they both fought with each other using fast moves. In the darkroom, the shadow of swords was like lightning, making a strong wind blowing in the room, and due to their fierce fight, that room was sometimes bright and sometimes dark. The sound of metal clashed was as noisy as thunder, beating everyone’s eardrums in the torture darkroom.
The fight was extremely fierce.
Soon, Mu Renlong and Gao Shengpeng were both injured.
Those two sworn brothers often fought in private to learn from each other, so they both had a good understanding of each other’s sword-fighting skills. Therefore, although they fought fiercely and both were injured by each other, they avoided the fatal injuries of each other’s tactics, that was to say, they only suffered skin injuries though they were both covered with blood.
Mu Renlong’s the Swordsmanship of Cloudy-dragon Appearing at Three Times and Gao Shengpeng’s the Swordsmanship of Mind-clearing and Thoughts-Seeking were both the peak fighting skills of the Eighth-ranking swordsmanships, and they were indeed much more advanced than those of the previous masters’ from Jianghu.
Li Mu put the watermelons on the other side, stopped eating melon seeds to look at their fighting very carefully.
Although Li Mu was able to knock those two fast swordsmen by his slaps on the fighting ring at that time today, that was because Li Mu was completely much stronger than them in terms of the speed, strength, and reaction, and it did not mean that Li Mu was better than those two men in terms of martial arts attainment, theoretical level, and tactical training.
Li Mu’s strengths were strength, speed, and reaction.
And his weakness was combat skills.
If Li Mu encountered an enemy who had the same strength and speed, then he would be in an inferior position.
He was very clear about that.
Moreover, when he was on the earth, the old faker said more than once that fighting skills were very important.
After tempering oneself in a hard struggle, fighting skills could be equal to rules and the Great Way to a certain extent.
That was the so-called “fighting skill was close to the Way”.
Even the immortals, according to the old faker, they also attached great importance to the training of combat skills, including various immortal magic, immortal skills and so on, which could increase the fighting power of immortals, besides, that was also the one and the only way for the weak overcame the strong.
Li Mu’s thought was very simple.
Although he had no foundation on combating skill, he wanted to start from scratch to practice them gradually.
He must learn and imitate others in that process. He had to learn a lot of skills from simple to complex, from shallow to deep to accumulate all the combating skills, then he could be a great master who was really good at it. Quantitative accumulation would lead to the qualitative transformation, which was the most basic philosophical theory he learned in junior high school politics class.
Therefore, he put so many Jianghu masters in prison.
On the one hand, it was really necessary to punish them and let them pay for their own evils in Taibai County. On the other hand, through this unique way of learning, he could observe these people’s martial art skills and broaden his own martial art horizon to enhance himself and create his own martial art skills.
That was a bit like the plot, when the heroine Zhao Min imprisoned martial arts masters from seven different Wulin factions and forced them to teach her martial arts skills, from the martial arts novel Heavenly Sword and Dragon Slaying Saber written by Louis Cha Jing-Yong on the earth. In fact, Li Mu was indeed influenced by that plot.
And it turns out that approach was correct.
Through the fightings among different martial arts masters, Li Mu’s thinking and understanding of martial arts skills were rapidly improving.
Especially the fight between those two powerful fast swordsmen was very exciting.
The two swordsmanship techniques were brilliant and profound.
Li Mu looked at them with a serious look and in fact, he was very fascinated.
His whole soul seemed to sink into the battle, just like a young man in love, who saw his favorite goddess coming slowly to him. Li Mu was lost in that wonderful fight.
But at the same time—
Swish! Swish!
Two swords lights had turned into lightning, and they came to the direction of Li Mu to assassinate him.
During the duel, Mu Renlong and Gao Shengpeng suddenly cooperated with each other without saying a word to kill Li Mu, who was fascinated by their fight.
Those two swords-using moves were undoubtedly the two strongest and most horrifying moves after they had entered that darkroom of torture.
And the Cloud-dragon Sword Mu Renlong and Mind-clearing Sword Gao Shengpeng, at that moment, burst out their strongest strength.
“Kill him.”
“Go to hell!”
They were acting before.
The purpose of acting was to get the opportunity to kill Li Mu at that instant moment.
However, at the moment when their swords had almost reached him, Li Mu seemed to have been ready for it and disappeared from the armchair in a flash.
The next moment, he appeared next to the weapon rack with two more swords in his hands.
“What a good play, but unfortunately I can’t be killed.”
Li Mu smiled and approached them.
He used those swords in both his hands: he used the Swordsmanship of Cloudy-dragon attacking Mu Renlong by his left hand, while at the same, he used the Swordsmanship of Mind-clearing and Thoughts-Seeking attacking Gao Shengpeng respectively.
At first, Li Mu was not so proficient.
But soon, he became more and more skilled and fast when using two swords in his hands.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
Swords were clashing, making some huge noise.
After a while, both Mu Renlong and Gao Shengpeng showed horrifying looks.
They got the looks as if they saw ghosts.
Because what Li Mu was using at the same time were their unique swordsmanships, however, Li Mu’s swordsmanships were becoming more and more sophisticated and his ability was gradually surpassing them, which was like he had already practiced those swordsmanships for decades judging by the perfect grasp of changes and timings of the swordsmanships.
Moreover, he used two different swordsmanships with two hands respectively. They never heard that one person could use two sets of swordsmanships at the same time, but his effect was excellent as if he had split into two people.
Ding! Ding!
Here came two crisp sounds.
The swords flew out from Mu Renlong’s and Gao Shengpeng’s hands at the same time.
They cried out in pain, covered their broken wrists, pulled themselves out to retreat.
“Hahaha, What’s learned from books is superficial after all. It’s crucial to have it personally tested somehow…” Li Mu laughed and began to recite some ancient poems on the earth.
However, compared with watching fights among masters, fighting with them in person really brought Li Mu some different feelings.
After fighting with those two masters, he could say he truly skillfully mastered the Swordsmanship of Cloudy-dragon Appearing at Three Times and the Swordsmanship of Mind-clearing and Thoughts-Seeking.
Mu Renlong and his sworn brother, who had utterly despaired, turned pale.
That was no longer a problem that they were not good at the swordsmanship.
It was an all-around, no dead angle, thorough and fundamental victory over them.
“We failed, you can kill us now.”
“We brothers have nothing to say.”
The two men stood side by side with a calm look and stopped being hatred of each other. Since the acting was useless, there would be no need to act. The four Fast Swords Masters in the Northwest Wulin World were not the ones who were afraid of death, so how could it possible for them to actually kill each other?
“Hey, show me the brotherhood? You know, what I hate most is you guys. To tell the truth, you guys always boast you are chivalrous and upright, but you are so narrow-sighted and constantly bring calamity to the country and people, and you guys are so stubborn and unyielding, so it is really a headache for me to deal with trash like you.”
Li Mu was still not very fond of those two people.
Talking about the masters and heroes in the Northwest Wulin World, was there anyone who did not kill people like flies or was his or her hands not covered with the blood of innocent people?
They just did anything that made them happy, and they could kill people due to the so-called brotherhood.
According to the materials collected by the county government to Li Mu, people like Mu Renlong and Gao Shengpeng were not good people. These days in Taibai County, although they did not kill civilians directly, it was only because they did not have the time and energy, besides, they also connived in their subordinates’ looting in the county, which equaled to they had done that.
“Write letters to your family. I can release you only after your family come to Taibai County and hand to me two copies of Eighth-ranking combating skills books each of you and one-kilogram gold, or grains in the same amount of money. Otherwise, you just wait to get out of the prison until you’re dead.”
Li Mu pointed to the table next to him.
That was his ultimate solution.
Let them pay their prices.
In the end, after the alternate intimidation and bribery from Li Mu, both of the Fast Swords masters had written a letter to their home.
Li Mu asked someone to send their home letters to the post station to deliver.
Then they were put on the special-made handcuffs and shackles and were put back to the prison.
With regard to such “important criminals”, Li Mu certainly did not release them and let them go away easily like Zhang Ning and Wang Chong.
Li Mu did the same thing after the next day and night.
Even the Sky-upholding Iron hands Tie Zhendong and the Sky Dragon Sword Dongfang Jian could not escape from doom. They both were forced to fight with each other, and then their combating skills were learned by Li Mu, besides, both of them were forced to write a home letter, which asked their family to come to here with a huge ransom to save them.
Of course, ransom to release this kind of giant was definitely the highest.