CH 32

Su Yang was fuming.

At the beginning in Meizhu Mountain, Gu Feidi had ruined his performance by randomly changing his lines—so be it. After all, he was the protagonist of ‘Arch-Rivals’. Now, how dare this Jianghu martial artist cannon fodder also change the script lines so casually?

Can you just let the storyline run properly?!

Su Yang narrowed his eyes, snorted coldly, leaped up from the water and drew out the soft sword coiled around his waist. He flipped over and launched an attack on the man in the moon-white outfit.

The four guards immediately stepped forward but Gu Feidi yelled at them to withdraw, “I will meet him, you all protect the horses and supplies.” 

Knowing that the Young Pavilion Master was adept in martial arts, the guards exchanged looks, then turned and led the horses away; making enough room for the two to battle it out.

Xu Yunzhan grabbed Huo Ying’s wrist and drew her far away, looking at the fight which had abruptly broken out with a complex expression.

As soon as Su Yang’s sword edge clashed with Gu Feidi’s sword, he felt a little surprised.

Although he didn’t use his full strength, he would’ve been able to defeat most of the martial arts world just by using 70-80%. But the little supporting actor before him who had covered his face and head had actually blocked his attack and appeared more than equal to the task.

Since when did cannon fodders have this amount of strength? Could it be that he had still been too playful in his two years at Lesser Jade House and had not achieved the peak that the Devil Sect’s Young Saint should have reached?

So Su Yang increased his internal strength by another 10%.

He turned his wrist slightly, the third style of Blooming Lotus Sword Technique, ‘Rinsing Ripples’ was directly transformed into the second style of Flying Flowers Art, ‘Hay Lotus Scent’. The edge soft blade was turned over and twisted at Gu Feidi’s wrist.

Gu Feidi did not use the True Hawk technique, instead he used the Returning Geese Sword Art, ‘Startled Swan’ to receive the move, avoiding the frontal attack and lightly tapping at the spot of an opening he found in Su Yang’s attack.

Su Yang raised the corners of his mouth, used his Prized Flower Steps and continuously performed ‘Cinnamon Fall’, ‘Prized Cold Plums’ and ‘Crimson Peach Spring’, relying on dazzling movements to force Gu Feidi back a few steps.

Flying Flower Art consisted of the four seasons of peach, lotus, osmanthus and plum in a perfect cycle accompanied by ‘Jade Peony’, ‘Lilac Knot’ and ‘One Calyx Red’. Although the moves were simple, they were extremely overflowing with variations and there were almost no fixed patterns. When he began face-to-face matches in Lesser Jade House, Su Yang actually liked this sword technique the most as it was more useful than the Devil Sect’s Blooming Lotus Sword technique.

Gu Feidi’s Returning Geese Sword Art was nearer to upright techniques. When faced with the Flying Flower Art, it was similar to scholars wanting to be reasonable, however they would relent when encountering the feeling of being pestered incessantly by ladies.

Seeing Su Yang’s eyes getting brighter and brighter, Gu Feidi laughed lightly, increasing his somewhat restrained internal strength to 80%, swinging his arm to the ‘Fallen Sand’ move and piercing into the middle of Su Yang’s sword strikes. With a powerful hit, he resolved all of Su Yang’s moves.

Su Yang frowned, feeling that his opponent wasn’t simple.

So he hauled out 90% of his internal strength, turned at his waist and replaced his moves with Drunk Slashing Red Plums.

The styles of Drunk Slashing Red Plums, Devil Sect’s Blooming Lotus Sword and Lesser Jade House’s Flying Flower Art were completely different. After all, this was created by Su Yang combining a dance. Its every move was very simple and straightforward. The dance overflowed with violence, so he used the sword as a whip, with less stabs, more hacking and twisting.

This was also a set of swordsmanship without defensive tricks.

After all, Su Yang was not a martial arts expert. He’d combined dance moved into martial arts without caring about the complementarity of offense and defense. The sword moves he created were completely desperate and extreme offensive methods. But unexpectedly, this ‘offense-as-defense’ martial art was very suitable for his inner strength cultivation methods and fighting views, so Di Ling did not stop him from studying this set of swordsmanship at the time.

Gu Feidi’s sword blocked Su Yang’s strike and then barely avoided the several attacks that followed. He couldn’t help but smile, “Good swordsmanship!”

Su Yang was too lazy to reply to the person in front of him. His moves became fiercer, all strikes directed at fatal points.

Gu Feidi was finally unable to parry with the Returning Geese Sword Art, his footsteps changed and his internal force surged out, changing to the True Hawk Sword technique, first move ‘Red Falcon Dashing Clouds’ and struck at Su Yang’s face.

Su Yang dodged the blow with Prized Flower Steps, secretly gritting his teeth. He flipped his sword in his hand, swung his sword like a whip and lashed at the side of Gu Feidi’s neck.

Gu Feidi turned around, avoided with ‘Owl Enters the Forest’ and served back a move of ‘White Hawk Strikes the Water’ aiming directly at Su Yang’s heart.

Su Yang was not afraid at all, twisting his body and avoiding it, then flexibly reverted back to the Flying Flower Art. He twisted the blade that Gu Feidi had stabbed in, pulled a ‘Lilac Knot’ and pushed Gu Feidi’s blade edge towards his own torso.

Xu Yunzhan stared at the battle between the two of them for a moment. He could hardly hear his own breathing, as if he was afraid that the slightest sound would disturb the people on the scene.

Suddenly, someone held his wrist tightly and he returned to his senses. He turned his head to look at Huo Ying beside him.

Huo Ying’s face was pale and her hand holding Xu Yunzhan was visibly trembling.

“Husband, that person…” she said, swallowing, “That person can actually force Feidi to use the True Hawk Sword technique and fight on par with him, I’m afraid… that he’s the Devil Sect’s Young Saint… here in person?”

Xu Yunzhan was silent for a moment, then patted Huo Ying’s hand with his eyes downcast and comforted her: “Don’t worry, Feidi won’t lose.”

After saying this, he looked back to see the progress of the battle. Where Huo Ying could not see, he grasped his cold fingertips into his palms as if trying to calm his mind.

The two were still duelling fiercely.

The Devil Sect aides who had been chasing after Su Yang had already arrived at the pond’s edge at this time, but seeing that the Tengyun Pavilion guards on the opposite shore did not make any moves, they did not immediately join the battle. Instead, they remained guarded by the water’s edge.

Suddenly, Mei Shisan said in a deep voice, “Young Saint, beware, there’s someone else coming from the East!”

Su Yang had no time to look back, but roughly felt that those who were approaching must be from the Central Plains martial arts circles. Who knows, maybe it was Gu Feidi and his subordinates coming to rescue this supporting role cannon fodder in the moon-white outfit!

Thinking of this, he immediately became a little anxious.

He wasn’t able to take the person down, but reinforcements were closing in from over there. How was he to fight this battle?

Su Yang tried to recall the plot. It seemed that after Gu Feidi rescued the person captured by him in the script, the Devil Sect also said some savage parting words and withdrew.

So, in a moment, as long as he retreats in time, it… shouldn’t make the storyline collapse… right?

He thought back to the time in Lesser Jade House where the storyline had crumbled and his fear of being controlled. Su Yang made a misstep and tripped over his Prized Flower Steps.

The sword edge from Gu Feidi’s hand narrowly avoided Su Yang’s neck, scraped him and left a faint blood scratch at the side of his neck.

Su Yang drew in a cold breath and sighed with relief, that was a close call! He has just been distracted and was almost immediately beheaded by a supporting role cannon fodder! That was completely disgraceful to the point of no return!

With this in mind, his expression suddenly changed. He held onto his sword and continuously attacked his opponent.

Gu Feidi swung his sword to defend. But for some reason, it seemed that he never seized the opportunity to attack again.

A new team arrived quickly on the east side of the pond. They saw two people fighting by the water’s edge. One of the fighters was obviously holding back while the other issued deadly strike after deadly strike with his sword. For a while, it was impossible to tell whether these two were fighting or exchanging pointers.

When they were ten feet away from the pond, the group of people exclaimed loudly: “It’s the Devil Sect! The one in red is the Devil Sect’s Young Saint, Su Yang!” 

As soon as the words fell, two people from the team raised their crossbows without prior warning and immediately attacked, firing arrows directly at Su Yang and Gu Feidi.

Xu Yunzhan was startled and shouted: “Look out!”

Mei Shisan immediately activated his Prized Flower Steps forward, swung his blade to try to intercept the arrows.

However, the crossbow arrows were very fast. Although he managed to take down one, there was still another heading directly at Su Yang and Gu Feidi.

At that time, Su Yang’s back was facing his attacker and he only heard the arrow whizzing through the air. He subconsciously turned around to fend it off but if he did that, his back would be wide open to his opponent.

Being attacked from both sides stunned Su Yang momentarily and he was at a loss of how to deal with it.

Gu Feidi’s sword horizontally blocked Su Yang’s moves that he wasn’t able to repeal. He took a quick step forward, grabbed Su Yang’s shoulder and pulled him into his arms in a partial embrace, swirling half around.

He clenched the sword and swiped it onto the oncoming arrow, diverting it away from hurting the both of them.

Gu Feidi nervously looked at the person in his arms: “You—” 

However, before he could say anything, Su Yang ferociously slammed his palm onto Gu Feidi’s chest.

His boundless palm strike forced Gu Feidi back a few steps, his sword fell to his side and he coughed abruptly twice. Under the silk covering, his dark eyes were filled with astonishment.

Su Yang held his sword and stepped back, shouting in a low voice: “Shisan, go!”

Mei Shisan heard the order and immediately commanded the Devil Sect troops to lead the group of horses that had drunk their fill to evacuate to the Wasteland interior.

Riding his horse, Su Yang finally looked back at the new group.

Those people were dressed in a mixture of clothing, weapons were assorted and their ages were not distinct. They were obviously not the disciples of any major sect. Su Yang couldn’t find the stubborn face of the young wolf cub among the crowd and was a little disappointed. He sighed and rode away.

Xu Yunzhan stepped forward to support Gu Feidi.

Gu Feidi panted for a moment, his eyes kept staring at Su Yang’s departing back and he did not move for a long time.

“Who are you people?!” A violent shout raged out from nowhere, “You all, you intentionally let the Devil Sect demon spawn go?!”

Gu Feidi turned and saw the leader of the mob had jumped off his horse and was pointing his scabbard at him, his face flushed with anger.

Without waiting for Gu Feidi to speak, the guards of Tengyun Pavilion gathered around and held the man back. Gu Feidi didn’t explain either, only took out the Tengyun Pavilion’s disciples tag and held it in front of the man’s eyes.

Seeing the tag, the leader immediately let out a strange ‘gu’ sound like he was a bird being strangled and didn’t dare to say anything more.

Gu Feidi found the shade of the tree and sat down. He untied the silk scarf, folded the red stain into the inner layer and wiped away the remaining blood at the corner of his mouth.

Xu Yunzhan frowned: “He didn’t hold back any strength in his palm strike just now?”

Gu Feidi shook his head and said, “He probably used only 50-60% of strength. I didn’t expect it and never blocked it.” 

After that, he seemed to have thought of something and laughed: “There’s truly such a thing as karma……”

Xu Yunzhan was silent for a moment, glanced at Huo Ying, who was meditating next to him and transmitted a low voice over to Gu Feidi, “Why didn’t you reveal your identity to him?”

Gu Feidi shook his head, “I was expecting that… he could recognize me.”

Xu Yunzhan: “Didn’t look like he did.”

Gu Feidi: “Indeed… Even when I used the True Hawk technique, even when I still carry the divine medicine fragrance on my body, he didn’t recognize me.” 

There was a touch of disappointment in his tone.

……

In the distance.

All the time he was on horseback, Su Yang had been frowning.

Earlier, when he had been rescued from the arrow by the cannon fodder martial artist, his brain had subconsciously exploded and he couldn’t stop himself from striking him with his palm. Looking back now, he had delivered 50-60% of internal strength in his palm strike and hitting that person’s heart directly from such close proximity… Wouldn’t it seriously injure him? Wasn’t this, wasn’t this like returning enmity for kindness?

——Although, he still didn’t want to understand why that supporting role cannon fodder would save him.

Su Yang was still puzzled after much deliberation, only recalling that there was a pleasant fragrance on the person, which seemed a little familiar. At that moment, he couldn’t remember where he smelled it before.

Many historical men wore perfume sachets, it was probably some familiar flowers and plants.

Su Yang thought to himself.