The Longest Day in Chang'an

Chapter 91. Zichu (23:00-23:59) Part 4

Translator: DragonRider

Yuan Zai's words reduced Zhang Xiaojing's shoulders to trembling. The apprentice thought that he was scared, but when he took a more careful look, he found that, surprisingly, Zhang Xiaojing was grinning. The corners of his mouth curving up, the grin seemed cruel and wry. His silkworm-shaped eyebrows lifted to the sides, as if he had just encountered something he found extremely exciting.

Zhang Xiaojing casually picked up the long knife on the ground that Chao Fen had used to hack bamboo, weighed it in his hand, ripped a strip of cloth off his sleeve, bound the knife hilt to his hand and then turned around, training the knife at those pursuers.

Seeing he had picked up the knife, Yuan Zai, though secretly delighted, snapped, "You are faced with imminent death yet still want to put up a last-ditch fight? Guards! Restrain him!"

On hearing the order, all soldiers came at the target in an attempt to arrest "the ringleader of the Termite". Unexpectedly, Zhang Xiaojing gave a strike and, with a gleam of his knife, the soldier at the front fell to the ground beheaded, blood spewing out of the wound. Those behind the decapitated body paused in fear. Then they exchanged glances and charged at the target all at once. With another two gleams of the knife, another two men were downed.

Before soldiers at the rear could react, Zhang Xiaojing hurtled into their formation, his knife flashing through the air non-stop with wicked gleams but without a single word of its wielder. The knife in his hand, like the scythe of the Grim Reaper, took a life with every swing of it, sending blood spattering around to anguished cries.

The apprentice had some time ago crouched down holding his head with his hands, trembling all over in fright. Only Chao Fen was sitting still before the kiln with his eyes fixed on the dancing flames inside, showing a total disregard for the gory, cruel fight happening right around him.

Yuan Zai involuntarily felt a cold shiver of fear run through him. He had an intuition that something was not right. Subconsciously, he started drawing back, ordering the soldiers to keep advancing.

Zhang Xiaojing's attack was still ongoing, as if he had been possessed by death himself. Never once had these Lubi Army soldiers ever fought an enemy so frenzied. His near-concrete killing intent and his blood-red furious eyes made him seem like a ferocious beast in the dark that would kill anybody on contact. This yard was rather narrow and there were many sundries on the ground, which was why those Lubi Army soldiers crowding this place were unable to mob the target. They were just enduring in horror the attack on a small army from a single man.

If Feng Dalun were present, he would have given them a word of warning. The year before, Zhang Xiaojing intruded into the headquarter of the Fires Gang to seek revenge and caused the gang thirty casualties. Even the vice leader and a couple of top-ranking members died to his saber. And this was the exact frenzied state that he was in on that day.

Currently, Zhang Xiaojing was indeed in a state of madness.

Before this day, he had shown mercy to his enemies whenever he could, no matter how dangerous a situation he had been in. But Es' being hit by arrows and Yuan Zai's repeated provocation had given Zhang Xiaojing a channel to vent his anger, which had been building up and subdued inside him all along.

His companions' being struck down one after another, the enemies' still advancing towards their target, the stupid and greedy faces of bureaucrats, the last wish of his old comrade-in-arms, the lives of all residents of Chang'an –all these stressful things conspired against him and finally, a raging power that had been lurking inside him for a long time bust out, turning him into the incarnation of the Grim Reaper. He no longer had to make any choices. If there were a god in his way, he would kill the god. If there were a Buddha in his way, he would kill the Buddha, not to mention those fragile Lubi Army soldiers.

What was more terrifying was that the form of Zhang Xiaojing's frenzy was not mad killing but extreme coldness, like that of a rock. He was not making any redundant movements or sounds, and there was no misgivings or mercy or even the faintest idea of self-protection in his mind. With no intention of defending or dodging, he was like a lifeless and mindless machine the sole function of which was killing. Every strike of his was lethal.

In the only eye that Zhang Xiaojing had left, three scenes –the gory scene in this yard, the bloody scene in the headquarter of the Fires Gang, as well as the sanguinary scene when he was defending the city in the Western Regions –overlapped each other. As the slaughter continued, Zhang Xiaojing lapsed into an illusion, mistakenly believing that he was still in that small bunker having a life-or-death fight against the Turkish army.

A silent monster of this kind charged into the formation of those soldiers, making the silence even more horrifying. Amid yelling and anguished cries, almost every victim was killed by a single blow. A couple of bold soldiers tried to intercept him only to find that it was impossible to hold him back. That weird knife in Zhang Xiaojing's hand was sharp enough to cut clean through iron as though it were mud, and it was also extremely tenacious. After cutting through so many people's bodies, its blade had still not been turned.

Remarkably, one man with one knife managed to dozens of Lubi Army soldiers, leaving bodies all over the yard. Soon, the soldiers were forced out of the front door. The Five-Honored Yama's reputation for being ruthless, venomous, diabolic, stubborn and cruel was widely known in the 108 Fangs, but on this night, Chang'an witnessed the sixth trait of this Yama –madness.

Those over ten lanterns were still on the corridor posts. By light of the flickering flames, a bloodthirsty and lonesome black figure holding a knife was reflected in the pools of blood on the ground.

Yuan Zai, who had quick reflexes, immediately fled the front yard, feeling his heart hammering so violently that it seemed to be about to break through his chest. His pants felt hot and wet –he had actually wet himself. The frenzied killing performance of that man, who seemed to have been possessed by the Grim Reaper, had shattered Yuan Zai's courage into pieces.

Now Yuan Zai finally came to understand why Prince Yong and Feng Dalun bore so deep fear of this man. 'He is no small threat. He is a mortal malady!'

Only slightly more than half a dozen people managed to follow Yuan Zai out of the yard in time. Fortunately, there were another dozen soldiers on the perimeter, who had just hurried over, but when they caught sight of the gory scene, their legs started trembling with fear.

"What are you waiting for?!" Yuan Zai urged the soldiers beside him but found that his voice was weak, hollow and short of authority. Lubi Army soldiers tightened their grip on their weapons but none of them dared to advance, panic on their faces. Like Yuan Zai, they had been neutered of courage and morale by the fight in the yard.

Step by step, Zhang Xiaojing walked towards the outside of the yard, giving off an aura of despair, ferocity and death.

This intense and horrifying aura reduced all the soldiers to drawing back. Yuan Zai standing behind them yelled in fright, "Use your crossbows! Use your bows!" Ridding himself of this nightmare was the only thing he wanted to do, but his muscles were as tense as iron, leaving him powerless to take a single step backwards.

On being reminded of this, Lubi Army soldiers reacted as though having just awoken from a dream. Those at the rear immediately fished out their crossbows in the knowledge that no matter how tough that man was, he was but flesh and blood, and it was impossible for him to survive these bolts.

Right at the instant when Zhang Xiaojing was about to step out of the front yard and those soldiers were about to pull the triggers, the two door planks, as if being grabbed by a pair of invisible hands, abruptly slammed shut. "Puff..." The volley of bolts went into the door sheets and with that a patter was heard, as if somebody had just bolted the door with a wooden latch from inside.

Yuan Zai's face twisted. Without seeing Zhang Xiaojing die with his own eyes, he would probably be haunted by this nightmare every night for the rest of his life.

"Hurry! Knock down the door!" Yuan Zai screamed, heedless of the foul odor of urine emanating from his crotch, but nobody followed his order, as if that was the gateway to the underworld.

On the other side of the gate, Zhang Xiaojing also stopped. He had no idea why the two door planks had suddenly swung shut. He raised his vacant right eye and found that behind the two door planks were a series of mechanisms which consisted of bamboo poles and threads leading to the far end of the yard.

At this moment, Zhang Xiaojing was uninterested in these things and intended only to kill. He slowly raised his arm and was just about to hack the latch horizontally laid across the two door planks when a big hand covered in callus grabbed his hand holding the knife hilt.

"Good. You are very good." Chao Fen, who had amazing strength, directly snatched the knife from Zhang Xiaojing's hand.

The moment the knife left his hand, Zhang Xiaojing's eyes returned to normal. He flicked a glance at those bodies on the ground and knitted his silkworm-shaped eyebrows with no complacency whatsoever on his face.

"Do you know what the most beautiful thing in the world is?" Chao Fen's tone of voice was no longer apathetic and unconcerned. "It's extreme. It's purity. It's the most thorough obsession. It was the desire to behold such beauty that motivated me to come to this country to learn craft."

He held the knife in a horizontal position and wiped the blood off the blade with his thumb, making it wicked-looking once again.

"I traveled to a lot of places and tried many things, but the beautify I found always seemed to be an inch away from what I desired to see. But just now, in you, I saw what I've been trying so hard to find all these years –that was such a beautiful massacre, free from impurities of any kind. Its purity was extreme." Excitement gleamed in Chao Fen's eyes as he said this.

The apprentice had an amazed expression on his face. 'This place has been turned into such a mess, yet master shifu still regards it as beauty?' Trembling, he rose to his feet and ran away. Chao Fen made no attempt to stop him. In a contemptuous tone of voice, he observed, "People of his kind seeks only the ingeniousness of artifacts. They'll never get enlightenment."

Zhang Xiaojing kept silent. He still had not rid himself of the influence of that frenzied mood.

Chao Fen returned the knife to him. "I haven't forged any weapons for a very long time. This is the last knife that I forged myself. I thought that it could not create the beauty I desire, but now, it seems that I just didn't put it in the right hand –I can hear it vibrating excitedly right at this moment, because you are the one it has been waiting for. Take it."

Unexpectedly, Zhang Xiaojing pushed the knife back and replied in a wry tone of voice, "I've lost count of the number of lives taken by my hands, but never once have I felt happiness in killing. Quite on the contrary, every time I killed anybody, my heart was filled with fatigue and sorrow. For you, maybe there is beauty in it, but for me, killing is nothing but a painful and torturous method I have to resort to when deprived of choice."

"You may call it killing or pain all you want. It is beauty as long as it is extreme," explained Chao Fen in excitement. "Pity that I cannot go to hell before death. That is the place I dream of going to." He handed the knife to him once again.

"Soon you'll see it."

Zhang Xiaojing didn't take the knife. He turned around to check Es who was lying in blood. Es had been hit by two bolts. Fortunately, none of them hit any vital parts. But the muscle tendon in his legs had been broken, which meant that he probably wouldn't even be able to walk, not to mention perform grotto-running.

"Commandant, I'm sorry for not being capable and helpful enough..." Es said with great difficulty, startling blood stains at the corners of his mouth. The eyes of this descendant of the royal family of Persia were still as gentle and sparkling as usual.

"I'll inform people in the Persian Temple and take you back." This was the only consolation Zhang Xiaojing could offer him.

"... It's Nestorian temple," Es corrected him in a low voice. Not having enough strength to do anything else, he could but watched Zhang Xiaojing with a pitiful look on his face. This time Zhang Xiaojing understood. He pulled that cross out of Es' clothes and put it beside his lips. Es heaved a sigh of satisfaction and started mumbling prayers for Zhang Xiaojing.

This was the only thing he could do.

Zhang Xiaojing, without making any redundant remarks, rose to his feet and said to Chao Fen, "I'd appreciate it if you informed a hospital and got him medical treatment."

"Where are you going?"

"The Taishang-xuanyuan Grand Lantern Pavilion." Zhang Xiaojing's voice sounded even sharper than Chao Fen's blade.

"But there are so many soldiers waiting for you outside."

"I either successfully leave this place or die trying. And things would be a lot easier for me if the latter is to be the case."

Chao Fen withdraw the knife. "Since you don't want this knife, let me provide you some information."

More Lubi Army soldiers gradually arrived at Zhiye Fang and the total number of them increased to thirty plus, but Yuan Zai still felt that it was not safe enough. He believed that he needed at least two hundred men to ensure Zhang Xiaojing's death.

Since even the superior was so afraid, all those soldiers were unwilling to take risks with their lives. They had encircled Chao Fen's dwelling ring upon ring and even a bird wouldn't be able to make it out of this place alive, but none of them dared to break into the house. The blood-thirsty man and his knife behind that door had spilled a lot of people's blood on this night. Nobody knew how many more people's lives he was going to take.

It had been ascertained that the owner of this abode was Chao Fen, a renowned craftsman, and his master was that Japanese named Chao Heng, the Deputy Commander of Imperial Guards –an official of the first level of the fourth grade. In the knowledge that it was inadvisable to take any rash actions, Yuan Zai switched his tactic from a pre-emptive attack to a siege.

There were no secret passages in this yard. If Zhang Xiaojing was to get out of the yard, he would have to do it through the front door, and when he did, he would become a live target, since there were dozens of crossbows and long bows waiting for him.

Sweat was oozing out of the forehead of Yuan Zai continuously and, despite his effort to wipe it clean, not for a single instant had his brow been dry. Until this very moment, his hands had still been quivering. He couldn't understand how a single man came to make him feel under so great pressure. The very thought of his wet pants brought Yuan Zai's mood into alternation of shame and resentment.

'I've got to kill him! I've got to kill him!'

But right at this moment, a messenger hastily delivered a letter to him, telling him that it was a Triple-feather Document from the Secretariat. Yuan Zai, who was very surprised to hear that this letter was from the Phoenix Pavilion, took the letter, read it and was dismayed.