Chapter 5
Faded Silver Sabre
Dusk in the summer is always particularly beautiful.
The slanting, leaning against the western mountains, looked very much like a red egg yolk; or like a bright-red rouged village woman leaning against the door frame obsessively waiting for her husband to return from the war, so much bottled-up bitterness, such tender feeling, pure and candid, making one unable to resist wanting to comfort her from the bottom of one’s heart, console her.
It ought to be poetic, beautiful; but for Silver Sabre, it was melancholy, black.
Left the jianghu, a full five years, three months, and eight days ago.
These days, dusk was lifeless.
Every day at dusk, Silver Sabre sat on this big mirrorbright, round-as-a-millstone rock.
He’d been sitting a long time. He never worried about anyone coming to disturb him, because no one in the world knew he was here.
Only one person knew was his friend unto death, Xiong Batian.
He knew that Xiong Batian was dead. The day Xiong Batian was killed, Long Ming retrieved Silver Sabre’s address from an exquisite little brass box that was normally never opened and dispatched someone to inform him of the news.
They knew, the whole world knew, that Silver Sabre would avenge Xiong Batian, just like if Silver Sabre were killed, Xiong Batian would avenge him. That’s what friends unto death were.
Not everyone had a friend unto death.
The cry of a wild goose swept past, its cry sad and beautiful and moving.
Silver Sabre suddenly sighed gently.
“Why can’t people ever hold onto their most valued possessions?”
His voice was faint, like a lingering wisp of smoke carried far away on the wind.
What was man’s most valued possession? Power? Wealth? Fame? Or maybe family affection? Romantic love? Friendship? Or freedom? Life? Youth?
What was it that Silver Sabre most valued?
Probably no one knew, because the profound depth of those eyes watching the far horizon could not tell anyone anything.
Five years living in seclusion had tempered the gamut of his emotions so that they did not show on his face. He was no longer the Silver Sabre he once was, hadn’t been for a long time.
Silver Sabre was about to appear once more in the jianghu; was he as glittering and radiant as before? As keen and sharp?
Dusk quietly departed and night quietly fell. Silver Sabre’s rear silhouette was as proud and aloof as before, as firm and upright. Only now there was an added layer of invisible loneliness and desolation.
X X X
A small room. A lone lamp.
Nangong Xue was seated in the small room reading a book intently under the lone lamplight.
Actually it wasn’t a book, just a little booklet made from a few cut up sheets of white paper.
It was a booklet recording the names of famous jianghu personages. There were great xia, swordsmen, bladesmen, great bandits, petty thieves, every gang and sect, etc. They had all been recorded by Nangong Xue as she listened to her master tell stories of jianghu affairs. Understanding the affairs of the jianghu was the number-one thing a person of the jianghu needed to possess.
Know oneself and know thy enemy, and even if you’re not always victorious, you certainly won’t always lose either.
Right now she was reading Silver Sabre’s information.
Name: Tie Shibing.
Nickname: Silver Sabre.
Age: 39.
Family Background: Poor peasant from Yuzhou. At age eight a Yellow River dike broke, parents and siblings all killed. All alone in the world, orphaned and helpless, led a vagrant life in the jianghu.
School/Sect: Unknown.
Martial Arts: Sabre, fists, palms, acupoint strikes, especially good at sabreplay. Created the “Silver Smoke Sabreplay”. Famed throughout the jianghu.
Jianghu Exploits: At 19, barged into “Skywolf Gang” alone, seriously wounded Skywolf chief, beheaded the young chief-heir, killed five protectors, became famous.
Financial Status: At 20 became armed escort for “Far-Reaching Might Escort Agency”. At 25 became head steward of “Lonestar Fortress”. At 28 became chief instructor of “Awesome Might Martial Arts Academy”. Financial status very good.
Personality: Resolute; frank and honest; inarticulate and reticent.
Likes: Wine, women, silver-colored clothes.
Marriage Status: Single.
Other: Friends unto death with Xiong Batian. Five years ago suddenly retired from the jianghu, not seen since.
The information wasn’t detailed, but for Nangong Xue, it was enough. At least it was better than nothing at all.
Nangong Xue was mentally prepared to have a decisive duel with Silver Sabre. If Silver Sabre really did appear, she thought he would be a really good adversary.
She’d read Silver Sabre’s information and was now looking over someone else’s information.
—“Lucky’s” information.
She looked front to back, but where was “Lucky”?
“Was he not a famous person?”
Nangong Xue thought aloud, “Impossible, not even Poison Eighteen or the Three Wolves of Taihu dared to offend him, and by how he toyed with Long Ming it’s obvious that his martial arts is unfathomably profound. Could such a person be an unknown?
“He mus not be called Lucky. He’s not a dog.”
Nangong Xue found this funny.
She flipped through the booklet again, trying to find information that matched “Lucky”.
“This booklet just has information that Master talked about, so of course there’s omissions.” She sighed and put away the booklet. “That person’s a slippery one, a nasty piece of work for sure. All men are the same.”
Nangong Xue was used to going to be early, but she suddenly felt that the moon outside her window tonight was beautiful, so she pushed open the door and went out and sat on a stone chair in the side courtyard and relaxed in the cool night air and admired the moon.
The lights next door were out. “Lucky” was obviously not in his room. Ever since he had rescued her the night before, Nangong Xue had not seen him the whole day.
—Had he left?
She suddenly saw an attendant walk by. She called him over and asked, “Isn’t there someone staying in the room next door?”
The attendant scratched his earlobe and thought a moment. “There was, but that guest checked out early this morning. He said he couldn’t stand some woman…”
That night, Nangong Xue had a particularly bad night of sleep.
X X X
Today was the eighth and people were talking about the fifteenth.
On the fifteenth when the moon was full, there was going to be a breathtaking duel on “Eighth Grand Heir Bluff”, in the countryside twenty li south of the city.
Silver Sabre vs. Nangong Xue.
The former was a top-notch masterhand known by all, with godlike sabreplay, sweeping away all comers, but for a full five years now he had not appeared in the jianghu. He had sent a letter of challenge in order to avenge his bosom buddy, Xiong Batian.
The latter was newly risen in the jianghu, a suspicious little woman. No one knew what school or sect she was affiliated with, but everyone knew that just a few days ago she had singlehandedly stamped flat the Awesome Might Martial Arts Academy and violently killed the resoundingly famed Xiong Batian. She had accepted the challenge to defend her life.
The two sides had agreed to have the martial world’s most revered Shaolin sectmaster “Reverend Lose Out” act as a witness.
This would be a fair duel, but it was also a duel to the death.
It was also going to be a duel that would cause a sensation throughout the martial world. Everyone was looking forward to seeing the long-vanished Silver Sabre.
What everyone was even more interested in was: who would be the victor in this duel?
The odds were five to one. Silver Sabre five, Nangong Xue one.
X X X
On the evening of the ninth the sky was full of dark clouds. No moon, no stars.
East Wind Inn had been closed for half a double-hour.
Two strongly built men flipped up onto the towering upturned flying eaves like an owl silently dropped into the side courtyard where Nangong Xue was staying.
By the looks of their lightness skill, the two were rare masterhands, but their faces were obscured as they were blackgarbed and masked.
There attire was what only secretive martial world assassins wore.
They nimbly closed in on Nangong Xue’s door.
The lamp flame inside the room was as small as a bean. Nangong Xue ought to be asleep. She was asleep. She was a person who was early to bed, early to rise.
Nangong Xue was sleeping soundly, but she was a light sleeper, especially since that lesson from Poison Eighteen. She had since learned to remain on high alert, whether she was eating, sleeping, or even bathing or going to the bathroom, just like a lioness in the jungle, ready to suddenly attack any time, any place. That kind of life of survival in the jungle was a portrayal of life in the jianghu.
Now, she already knew something was about to happen.
She suddenly rolled out of bed and put on her shoes as quick as she could, but she had no time to put on an outer garment, because the two masked blackgarbed people outside the door had already smoothly forced open the door and were on her like ghosts!
Before they got to her, two flashing bright swordtips like two scurrying venomous snakes bit like lightning at Nangong Xue’s neck!
This sword strike was not only swift and fierce, but also vicious.
Nangong Xue didn’t counter, she didn’t even have time to parry, she could only turn and shift to barely avoid the assault that would have sent her to the Yellow Springs.
The two blackgarbed people didn’t slow once their attack missed, but rather sped up and quickly changed moves and a storm of swords swoosh swooshed with strong gusts of forcewind, enveloping Nangong Xue’s lithe body in a curtain of swords!
During that time, Nangong Xue’s hand found a sword.
Her sword looked quite exquisite, an ancient bronze handguard inlaid with a sparkling red ruby the size of one’s thumb, but it was much shorter than most swords, only about a span or so long. It was a short sword.
Though the sword was short, it was incredibly awesome.
Cling clang and the two fierce, ferocious longswords not only couldn’t harm Nangong Xue, they were forced back again and again.
When experts go at it, one knows if they have it or not. That statement was correct and it had been proved here. The two masked people had strange, strong swordplay, but they were no match at all for Nangong Xue.
There are many kinds of stupid people in the world. One is the kind who knows he’s beaten but still doggedly insists on fighting. This is without a doubt the dumbest kind of person.
But this kind of dummy was apparently not very numerous, and the masked people were not this kind of dummy. At the first sign of things going south, they exchanged glances and struck a feint attack and both backed away.
Nangong Xue didn’t expect them to back off so quickly, never saying a word at all the whole time, and she was dumbfounded for a moment, until she chased them out to the courtyard and found they were gone without a trace.
—What was that all about? Who was it who wanted to come and kill her?
Up to now, Nangong Xue only had one enemy, and that was the Awesome Might Martial Arts Academy. But that animosity was already scheduled to be settled fairly a few days from now. They had no reason to send people to assassinate her.
By now the dark clouds had dispersed and a halfmoon hung in the sky, and a few not so bright stars. Nangong Xue looked up at the slowly drifting clouds, mind full of doubts…
Suddenly, all the muscles in her body tensed up!
She saw a person sitting on the roof over there.
“Who’s there?” Nangong Xue called out in a low voice.
“It’s me.” The person waved to her. “Lucky.”
