Chapter - 8 Shocking Events In the Blizzard (8)

The leader of the group suddenly pulled his horse to a stop and yelled out, "The footprints stop here. Looks like there's just been a fight here." Several people behind him jumped off their horses and inspected the footprints in the snow.

The head of the pack ordered, "Search the house!" two more men jumped of their horse to knock on the door. Suddenly an object came flying from the trees, hitting one of them on the head. The object was thrown with such an incredible amount of force that it smashed the skull of the man. The other men all started to yell and scream as several men surrounded the tree. One man picked up the object that was thrown and yelled in shock, "It's His Excellency Wang's head!"

The leader pulled out a sabre and let out a loud yell. Quickly 10 or so men surrounded the tree. He gave out another command and 5 men whipped out their bow and shot 5 arrows toward Qiu Chuji.

Yang Tiexin picked up his spear and was just about to go outside and help when Guo Xiaotian grabbed him and whispered, "Father told us not to go out. Besides, if he starts having trouble with how many of them there are, then it still won't be too late for us to help." Just as he finished, an arrow came screaming down from the top of the tree. Qiu Chuji had dodged 4 of the arrows and caught the last one, then he just threw the arrow back down like a flying weapon. With a scream of "Ah!", one of the men in black was hit and fell off his horse. His body rolled into a bush and stopped.

Qiu Chuji pulled out his sword and jumped down. The sword just started flashing when two men were hit. The leader shouted out, "Damn Taoist! It's you!" Sha, sha, sha! He fired out three short bows, then his ride came forth as his sabre came slashing through the wind. Qiu Chuji's sword continued to flash in the snow as two more men were hit and fell off their horse. Yang Tiexin was awe struck, knowing that even if he practiced kungfu for 10 more years, he still would not be able to even see the sword clearly, much less fight back. If Qiu Chuji wasn't holding back just then, he would have been a dead man by now.

Qiu Chuji moved as if carried by the wind, and now is fighting the rider with the sabre. That man's sabre skill is not bad, each move, be it a parry or a slash, came out ferociously. After fighting for a bit more, Guo Xiaotian and Yang Tiexin both figured out that Qiu Chuji was prolonging their duel on purpose as to be able to use openings and breaks to pick off the other opponents. He is doing this in order to be able to kill all the enemies, for if the leader was killed, the rest might just all turn and run for their lives, making it impossible to kill all of them.

After some more fighting, there were only 6 or 7 of them left. The leader knew he was not good enough, so he turned and tried to escape. Qiu Chuji reached out with his left hand and grabbed the horse's tail. With a slight pull, his body jumped off of the ground. Before even landing on the back of the horse, his sword had already penetrated the man's back all the way out of his chest. Qiu Chuji threw down the body, grabbed ahold of the reins, and started to chase the others. Silver colored iron horseshoes danced in the snow as silver flashes of his sword danced in the air. Amidst the screams, one body followed another onto the ground. Blood stained a ground that was covered in pure white snow into a deep red.

Qiu Chuji stopped and looked around. Seeing only several riderless horses running off, he laughed heartily. Turning to the two men by the door, he waved and said, "How did you guys like that?"

Guo Xiaotian and Yang Tiexin had just opened the door and walked out, so they have not completely calmed down from what they just witnessed. Guo Xiaotian asked, "Father, who are these people?" Qiu Chuji replied, "We'll know when we search their bodies."

Guo Xiaotian searched the body of that sabre using man and found an official document. Turned out to be an order from that very Magistrate Zhao that pretended to be a dog saying that the Ambassador from Jin has ordered that the government troops and Jin troops to work together to catch the man that murdered Wang DaoKun as soon as possible. Guo Xiaotian's rage just came on when Yang Tiexin yelled out. In his hand was some tags found on the bodies of some other men, the tags were written in NuZhen language. It meant that in this group of men, there were several Jin soldiers.

Guo Xiaotian spoke up, "The enemy soldiers can do whatever they want, including capturing and killing, within our borders, and our Sung officials are actually obeying orders from their Ambassador! What kind of world is this?!"

Yang Tiexin sighed, "Even the Emperor of Great Sung has to refer to himself as an official to the Jin emperor, so it's no surprise that our officials and generals are all becoming their servants as well."

Qiu Chuji bitterly said, "We taoists are supposed to be merciful and benevolent in our hearts and actions. But seeing a bunch of traitors and enemies that does nothing but add to the suffering of our people, I could never be merciful nor benevolent." The two other men replied at the same time, "You were right to kill them! They deserved to die!"

This small village did not have many people at all to begin with. Now with the blizzard going, nobody is coming out at night. Even if someone witnessed what just happened, they would have ran back home a long time ago. Who has guts to come out to inspect and ask questions? Yang Tiexin took out shovels and hoes and the three of them buried all of the bodies into one big grave.

Bao Xiruo picked up a broom and started to sweep the traces of blood on the snow. After a while, she suddenly felt the smell of blood go straight into her stomach. Her eyes went back for a second as she let out a little scream and sat down on the snow covered ground. Yang Tiexin was shocked and immediately ran over to help her up, all the while asking over and over, "What's the matter?" Bao Xiruo's eyes were closed and she did not answer. Seeing her white face and feeling her cold hands, Yang Tiexin just got more and more worried.

Qiu Chuji came over, grabbed Bao Xiruo's right wrist, and felt her pulse for a bit. Suddenly he bursted out laughing and said, "Congratulations! Congratulations!" Yang Tiexin was quite taken aback and asked, "What?" At this time Bao Xiruo suddenly woke up with a "Yin". Seeing the three men standing around her, she can't help but get a little shy and immediately walked back into the house.

Qiu Chuji said with a smile, "Your wife is pregnant!" Yang Tiexin can't quite believe it and asked, "Really?" Qiu Chuji smiled and replied, "Of all the things I learned in my life, I take comfort in saying that I know a little something about only three things. First is medicine, I couldn't master inner strength, but came into contact with a lot of medicinal and herbal knowledge because of that. The twond thing is writing a couple of messed up lines of poetry. The little cat-like tricks called kungfu that I know can only be placed threerd." Guo Xiaotian replied, "Father, if your kungfu can only be called 'little cat-like tricks', then we two brothers can only lay claims to 'not even rat-like skills'!" The three of them buried the bodies while talking and laughing. After that they went back into the house and started on the food and drinks again. With all the Jins that Qiu Chuji killed today, all of them felt great joys and excitement.