Poetry Chants, Saber Howls – Chapter 19
by Little PandaTruth and Falsehood in the Chaotic Mortal World; I Walk My Own Path, Bold and Unabashed (Part 4)
There were three who came.
Two men and one woman—the elder in his thirties, the younger in his twenties—all wearing stone-blue Daoist robes. They stepped slowly from the depths of the forest and clasped their hands toward Zhao Yao. “Your hearing is impressive.”
Zhao Yao smiled. “If my hearing weren’t this sharp, who knows how long you planned to keep skulking after me like this.”
“Please don’t misunderstand. This one is Wang Dai, a disciple of the Dingshan Sect. This is my Junior Martial Brother, Song Quan, and my Junior Martial Sister, Shi Xia. We meant no harm just now—we simply chanced upon you here and wished to ask your name, but were hesitating over how to approach…” The man seemed quite courteous, his tone respectful. He finished his explanation, paused, then cut straight to the point. “Might you be surnamed Zhao, given name Yao?”
“Oh? The Dingshan Sect? I don’t recall having any dealings with your Dingshan Sect before.” She didn’t deny being Zhao Yao, which naturally amounted to an admission.
Wang Dai’s expression turned instantly grave, his tone hardening considerably. “So it is you. We were indeed strangers before, but the disciples of my Dingshan Sect have always made it our mission to act chivalrously and righteously, to punish evil and promote good. Having encountered you today, we cannot simply turn a blind eye.”
Zhao Yao had been about to retort, “What do I care about your punishing evil and promoting good?” when it suddenly occurred to her that she did indeed seem to have a notorious reputation in the jianghu these days. After another moment’s thought, she smiled in understanding. “You’ve come for those twelve dead men.”
Song Quan said coldly, “So you admit those people were killed by you?”
Zhao Yao said, “If you saw their bodies, you must have also seen the words I carved into the tree. Why ask?”
Such a casual tone immediately enraged the three Dingshan disciples. Their faces flushed with anger, and they had just opened their mouths to respond when Ling Cheng, who had finally processed what was happening, raised her voice in Zhao Yao’s defense. “Those soldiers deserved to die! Heroine Zhao killed them to eliminate harm for the people. Don’t you go framing a good person!”
She then recounted in detail the entire sequence of events from that noon.
The three across from them had listened attentively, never interrupting her account, but when she finished, their brows furrowed even deeper. Shi Xia stepped forward, her gaze carrying something almost like heartbreak. “Whose child are you? How can you be following a female demon like her? At such a young age, already learning to lie and deceive—what will become of you when you grow up?”
Ling Cheng had been certain that once she explained the truth, even if they didn’t fully believe her, they would at least hold off on antagonizing Zhao Yao and investigate first. She never expected them to be so obstinate. She stood there, stunned for a moment, before fury blazed up from the bottom of her heart. “Everything I said, I saw with my own eyes! It’s the absolute truth! What gives you the right to call me a liar?”
“You’re not the only one who saw it with your own eyes.” Song Quan sighed deeply, seemingly saddened by the child’s plight, then turned his gaze toward Zhao Yao. “According to that commoner, the whole matter began simply because he wasn’t watching where he was going on the road and nearly bumped into you. You actually drew your blade and slashed his shoulder. The twelve soldiers saw this injustice and tried to take you to the county magistrate for trial, and you killed them for it. Afterward, you even pretended to use demonic arts to threaten him. If he hadn’t seen us wearing Daoist robes and taken us for Daoist practitioners whom he could ask to catch a demon, he probably wouldn’t have dared tell us of your evil deeds. How does Lady Zhao explain this?”
Before Zhao Yao could even open her mouth to respond, Ling Cheng was stunned for an instant, then quickly realized that the commoner they spoke of must be the father of the girl from that noon. Her anger flared even hotter. “You ask us for an explanation—did you ever ask him for one? Since what I say contradicts what he says, why do you only believe him and not me?”
“That’s simple enough. Because I’ve always been one for murder and arson, committing every evil under the sun.” Zhao Yao was naturally free-spirited; a stranger’s idle gossip was to her no more than dust on the wind, not worth the slightest notice. But she had never expected that while she couldn’t care less about the matter, Ling Cheng would be this angry on her behalf. She finally couldn’t help laughing, raising a hand to ruffle Ling Cheng’s hair. “They’ve already decided that’s the kind of person I am. Naturally, they’ll only believe what they want to believe.”
Wang Dai was a man who hated evil as he would a personal enemy. Seeing her so utterly nonchalant, his fury burned hotter. “You know full well what kind of person you are. You should also know that good and evil have their recompense. You’ve evaded justice this long—today, you answer for your crimes!”
The words were barely out of his mouth when he leapt forward. In a flash, his sword was drawn from its scabbard, the blade quivering as its tip thrust straight toward Zhao Yao.
“I’d advise you all to come at me together. That way we can have a few more exchanges. If you lose too quickly, it won’t be any fun.”
Sword light flashed like lightning, but Zhao Yao was unhurried. She stood rooted in place, not moving an inch. She spoke leisurely even as she suddenly flipped her saber, sweeping the blade open. Her timing was flawless—a sharp Clang! rang out as saber met sword. But in the very next instant, Zhao Yao applied a deft twist of strength. With a slight flick of her wrist, the back of her blade pressed down. The last syllable of her sentence landed at that exact moment, and Wang Dai felt a tremendous force crash toward him. The hilt in his palm jolted, slipping beyond his control. Fortunately, his internal power was profound; he immediately clamped down on the hilt, channeling his energy to stabilize himself, and his sword did not fly from his grasp.
Yet from this single exchange alone, Wang Dai already knew she wasn’t bluffing. This woman’s martial prowess had truly lived up to its reputation. Though he himself was already a first-rate master in the jianghu, compared to her, he fell far short. He was startled but not afraid—not pausing for even an instant, he pressed with one sword stroke after another, each faster than the last, like the surging waves of a great river, ceaseless and unending. Zhao Yao remained perfectly at ease, deflecting each move as it came, handling everything with effortless skill, as if she were genuinely just playing.
Blade light and sword shadows intertwined in a blur. Ling Cheng could only feel her eyes swim, utterly unable to tell who held the upper hand. On the sidelines, Song Quan and Shi Xia couldn’t help but feel their hearts pound with alarm. They had long heard that this enchantress was the foremost martial artist in the world today. They had been half-doubtful before, but hearing was nothing compared to seeing. From the look of it now, their Senior Martial Brother would fall beneath this enchantress’s blade in ten moves at most. Only if the two of them joined the fight might they have a chance at victory—but attacking outnumbered was too shameful. Dingshan disciples had never stooped to such a thing, nor would they.
Just as they were hesitating, Wang Dai also knew that continuing to fight like this would get him nowhere. Seeing a sheet of blinding white blade light sweeping toward him, he gritted his teeth. Though he clearly had a chance to dodge, he refused to retreat. His sword blade traced a wild-goose arc as it slashed fiercely toward Zhao Yao.
This strike was vicious to the extreme, and the blade was imbued with his full internal power. His intent was to risk his own life to deal Zhao Yao a grievous wound, sparing his Junior Martial Brother and Junior Martial Sister from her lethal hands later. But Zhao Yao had already read his martial style thoroughly over the course of the previous twenty-odd exchanges. She gave a soft laugh, sweeping her saber in reverse. The blade spun and pressed flat against his arm in a flash—not drawing blood or causing injury—but his arm went numb, and his sword, which had been a mere half a cun from Zhao Yao’s chest, was forced to a halt.
And Zhao Yao’s saber, carried forward by the momentum, would have cleaved hard into Wang Dai’s body if she hadn’t pulled the strike. The Dingshan disciples shared a deep bond as martial siblings. At this critical juncture, they could no longer afford to care about fairness. Song Quan and Shi Xia’s hearts lurched. They instinctively pushed off with their toes and launched themselves forward in a flash, two fine steel longswords chopping down toward Zhao Yao’s forehead.
Killing intent bore down on Zhao Yao from above. She raised her saber, and the blade soared like a dragon riding the clouds. A burst of clashing metal and jade rang out—she had already caught both keen swords.
“You’re finally all coming at me together.”
She swept forward again, the saber moving with her body. Suddenly, Song Quan and Shi Xia both felt a powerful, invisible force push toward them. They couldn’t help staggering back several paces before finding their footing. They took up positions at three separate points around Zhao Yao and attacked simultaneously once more.
In the martial world today, if Zhao Yao claimed to be second in martial prowess, no one would dare claim to be first. The combined power of the three of them still fell slightly short of hers. But the three martial siblings had grown up together since childhood; their coordination was seamless. The light of three swords merged into a single sheet, as if weaving an inescapable net—move after move, woven so tightly that not a breath of air could pass through, and each strike carried the force of wind and thunder as it bore down on her.
Zhao Yao finally grew interested. Her body floated and dipped like a small boat on ocean swells, never once losing her balance. But by now the Golden Crow had set and the night was deep. If she kept deflecting moves like this, it would take at least another half a shichen or so to end the fight. Zhao Yao had no wish to waste more time. She wanted to resolve this swiftly. The saber handle suddenly spun in her palm, the blade whirring as it sliced toward Song Quan’s waist.
Song Quan had a seven-in-ten chance of dodging this strike, but Shi Xia beside him, wary of the remaining three-in-ten risk, would certainly move to assist. Zhao Yao had predicted Shi Xia’s response perfectly and was about to seize the opening to close in and subdue her first. But the moment she pushed off with her toes, the chest pain that had been faintly nagging her suddenly intensified. Her footwork stuttered, and her saber technique stuttered with it. Wang Dai saw this and thought she had finally revealed an opening. He was overjoyed. One sword stroke lashed out, mercilessly slashing an extremely long wound across her right shoulder!
Blood sprayed. Ling Cheng cried out in alarm: “Heroine Zhao!”
It turned out that two days ago, when Ling Cheng had fallen from the cliff, though she had landed in the river, the tremendous impact had still injured her body. To save her life, Zhao Yao had been forced to infuse several years of her own profound internal energy into Ling Cheng.
Zhao Yao was born with extraordinary physical constitution and peerless martial talent. Though not yet thirty, she was already a top-tier master in the jianghu. The loss of a few years’ worth of internal energy was nothing to her—but to say it had caused not the slightest harm to her body would be impossible. After fighting three elite masters for an extended period, her stamina was finally beginning to falter, and that was how she had been caught by Wang Dai’s sword.
Though the wound wasn’t fatal, she wielded her saber in her right hand, and an injured right shoulder would inevitably affect her subsequent strikes. Cold moonlight spilled down like frost and snow. Zhao Yao turned her head to glance at Ling Cheng, who stood not far away, her face full of worry. A thought stirred in her mind, and she silently told herself: “Can’t worry about that now. I’ll just have to use it!”
The saber light flared open. Chilling energy erupted from all sides. The blade drifted in like falling snow—seemingly gentle, yet moving at a speed beyond imagination. Wang Dai had just wounded the legendary foremost martial artist in the world and was still riding a wave of elation; his reactions were no longer as sharp as before. And somehow, in the instant that biting cold bore down through the air, his sword technique momentarily seized up. Then, as if a ghost had flickered before his eyes, he grunted—the saber had already struck his right shoulder!
The cold vanished. The wound on his right shoulder suddenly blazed with pain, as if seared by raging fire.
Zhao Yao’s fine brows drew slightly together. Her right hand gripped the saber; her left pressed against her chest. Yet the smile on her face was still as warm as a spring breeze. “Are you still not going to concede?”
“Don’t worry about me!” Wang Dai said through gritted teeth. “This is the best chance to eliminate harm for the people! Don’t listen to this Enchantress’s devilish lies!”
Dingshan disciples always placed chivalry above all else. To eradicate evil and punish wickedness, they feared neither death nor personal peril—but the life and death of a martial sibling was another matter entirely. Song Quan and Shi Xia stood frozen, not daring to truly advance. Torn between fury and dread, they were at a complete loss—when Zhao Yao smiled radiantly once more and suddenly withdrew her strike. Blood welled from Wang Dai’s shoulder as she lazily retreated two steps and leaned against a tree trunk.
“Who said I’d use your life to threaten them? I simply mean—if I can critically wound you in a single strike even while injured, what makes you think I couldn’t handle the two of them?”
Wang Dai faltered, at a loss for words.
Song Quan stepped forward to support his Senior Martial Brother’s body and said coldly, “What do you want?”
Zhao Yao said, unhurriedly, “I don’t want anything. It’s just that your faces truly disgust me. I don’t wish to see you anymore, so I don’t wish to keep fighting you. I hope you’ll get lost right now.”
At this, the forest fell abruptly silent. The three Dingshan disciples exchanged a glance, clearly hesitating.
After a long moment, Shi Xia let out a deep sigh. “Your martial prowess far exceeds ours. In single combat, we would have already lost to your blade. To keep fighting you would be shameless on our part. But among our sect, the three of us are not the strongest. If we ever hear of you committing another evil deed, the countless disciples of the Dingshan Sect will not let you go! Until we meet again!”
She finished those last four words, took hold of Wang Dai’s other side, and the three martial siblings turned and departed.
In a corner no one had noticed, Ling Cheng’s brows had lifted like blade edges, her eyes carrying a chill to match. She watched their retreating figures with cold intensity for a moment, then turned and rushed quickly to Zhao Yao. “Are you all right?”
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