Sword Slaying the Jianghu : Chapter 2: The Three Year Accord

Hu Hefeng’s life on the run was quite colorful. He had disguised himself as a beggar, a boatman, and even an old night soil collector. But no one ever expected that when he was finally hunted down and killed, he would be disguised in such an identity. If someone were to write a book about Hu Hefeng’s time on the run, it would certainly be a very long storybook.

No one in the martial world could have ever guessed that the famous Hu Hefeng would spend the final days of his life disguised as a courtesan, hiding away in a brothel run by his mistress.

The entire martial world had searched bitterly for Hu Hefeng for two long years, only for an obscure swordsman named Su Lianyun to reap the reward. No one knew how he managed to kill the renowned chief leader Hu Hefeng, so everyone suspected he must have used a dirty trick like poisoning.

Because of this, many martial artists who witnessed him easily killing Hu Hefeng on the spot were completely unsatisfied. They swarmed forward to challenge him, and as the curtains rose on this great battle, nearby figures of the martial world caught wind of the news. They rushed to the brothel as fast as they could, and a relentless battle of attrition that lasted for seven days and seven nights unfolded in that unnamed brothel.

Zhong Yueping, who had finally avenged her family’s deep blood feud, also arrived at the scene just as the battle was reaching its peak. Through this fight, Su Lianyun established his grand reputation as the one whose single sword makes an entire city fall, while the moon hides and flowers are plucked. At the same time, it left a puzzle for the martial world, did he become famous from killing, or did he become famous from his marriage? In truth, this kind of puzzle is just like the chicken and the egg question, there will never be a definitive answer, and it is a completely meaningless problem. Regardless of whether the chicken or the egg came first, it exists. Whether it was through killing or through marriage, he became famous.

After Su Lianyun found fame, people frequently came to visit his home. While they called it a visit on the surface, they were actually delivering challenge letters. Consequently, during that period, Su Lianyun encountered many powerful opponents and sustained quite a few injuries.

Fortunately, Zhong Yueping kept her promise and stayed faithfully by Su Lianyun’s side through thick and thin, making him feel that all the trouble and pain that came with fame were well worth it. In Zhong Yueping’s eyes, Su Lianyun was a true man without a shred of hypocrisy or affectation.

On their first night together, he spoke plainly, admitting that he had indeed been captivated by her beauty at first, which was why he had tried every possible means to investigate Hu Hefeng’s connections. Hard work pays off, and after spending two years, he indeed managed to track down Hu Hefeng’s whereabouts.

In fact, Zhong Yueping really had Hu Hefeng to thank. If he had not gone to such great lengths to flee and hide, how could he have helped her test a true love that was willing to give everything just for her heart?

Not long after, Zhong Yueping became pregnant. Su Lianyun knew full well that his wife was physically weak, and if they continued living a life of constant killing, it would likely keep her on edge and put the unborn baby at risk. Therefore, Su Lianyun resolved to seal away his sword and go into hiding, withdrawing from the martial world.

What is the martial world? It is like water, it can carry a boat, but it can also capsize it. You can either drift along on the surface of the water, or sink to the bottom until death ends it all. Although a boat can dock on the shore, it can never truly leave the water.

The martial world is just like this. Once you are in it, you are no longer your own master. It is easy to dive into the water, but hard to step back onto the shore.

Even after Su Lianyun went into retirement, it was still unavoidable that people would come to deliver challenge letters. At first, he thought that simply turning a blind eye to them would be enough. However, those people were by no means decent sorts. If they were true gentlemen of honor, how could they ignore the moral code of the martial world and come looking for trouble after someone had already retired?

They were actually a bunch of wolves in sheep’s clothing, hypocritical souls whose inner malice belied their pleasant faces. Seeing that Su Lianyun ignored their challenge letters, they furiously claimed that he was looking down on them. They openly threatened to murder his son and violate his wife.

Left with no alternative, Su Lianyun had to take up his sword once more, vowing to slay these shameless hypocrites who acted polite before resorting to force. But before he set out to purge the martial world with his blade, he wanted to give his wife a period of peace and tranquility. Thus, he made a wild declaration, give me three years to forge a single sword, and I will surely destroy all the champions under heaven.

In reality, during these three years, he did not forge or sharpen any sword. Quite the contrary, he never even touched a sword during these three years, spending all his time learning how to be a good husband and a good father. He had polished the sword of daily life until it was incredibly sharp, but that weapon he had not touched for years was now so dull it could not even cut a chicken’s neck.

When Zhong Yueping realized the true intention behind her husband’s three year accord, her tears had already run dry. It turned out that forging a sword for three years was something her husband did entirely for her sake. Living with Su Lianyun day and night, she knew deeply that her husband no longer possessed the skills of his glory days. Going to Nine Heads Mountain to fulfill this three year accord was absolute suicide. Therefore, she placed her son in the care of her neighbors and hurriedly hired this carriage inside Wu’an City, intending to take this rugged old path to cut him off, because she knew full well she was running out of time.

The memories of the past had gradually faded away. Now, in this place where human footsteps were rare, who did this severed hand belong to?

The driver said with a trembling voice, “When I said it was a rock just now, I was only afraid of scaring you. I didn’t expect it to really be a person.”

He was clearly somewhat terrified. Although he tried to control his emotions, his voice still gave him away. After all, he was not a person of the martial world. No matter how much he had traveled far and wide, the chances of encountering such a scene were still incredibly slim. As the saying goes, a man knows his own trade. Having driven a carriage for most of his life, how could he possibly fail to tell the difference between running over a rock and something else? At first, he did not know Zhong Yueping belonged to the martial world, but after hearing her mention her husband’s appointment at Nine Heads Mountain, he knew she was no ordinary person, which was why he got down to investigate.

Zhong Yueping’s parents had passed away early. Left without anyone to rely on, the fact that she could navigate and survive unscathed in a martial world teeming with hidden dangers was not something an ordinary woman could achieve. In truth, she did not possess outstanding martial arts, but she had intelligence that far exceeded ordinary people.

When the driver suddenly stopped the carriage and falsely claimed he ran over a rock, she had already observed the surroundings clearly. The path ahead was covered entirely in fallen leaves without a single sign of loose rocks blocking the way. If they had merely run over a rock, the driver would have slowed to a stop rather than halting so abruptly. One must know that no matter how experienced a driver is, stopping so suddenly at such a high speed could cause the carriage to flip or even break apart. Therefore, she had long guessed that the driver must have run over a person or an animal. It was only because her heart was with her husband and she needed the driver’s help that she remained perfectly calm.

“Old gentleman, looking at its state, he probably died from excessive blood loss beforehand. You don’t need to be afraid, you definitely didn’t crush him to death.” While soothing the driver’s emotions, Zhong Yueping extended her slender fingers and cleared away the fallen leaves around the severed hand.

After a large patch of fallen leaves was cleared away, they both froze right on the spot. There was no person next to the severed hand at all. It was shockingly just a severed palm. The palm had been cleanly cut off at the wrist by a sharp weapon, and apart from this severed palm, there was nothing else within several meters.

They had clearly felt like they ran over a body just moments ago, but now there was only a severed palm, and the corpse had vanished into thin air?

They searched for another ten meters along the wheel tracks, only to find a large amount of blood that had already soaked deep into the veins of the fallen leaves, but the body was nowhere to be found.

The twilight deepened, and the valley began to grow dark. A sinister atmosphere enveloped the surroundings, causing a trace of fear to rise involuntarily in their hearts. They stopped their search, because they understood that given the speed of the carriage just now, whatever they had run over could not possibly be more than twenty meters away.