Soaring Swallows Startle Dragons

Chapter 2

A Blur of Swords in a Perilous Valley

Part 4 (10)

Let’s turn now to Yang Menghuan, who went back home to find Yang Zhang sitting in the parlor reading. When he looked up and saw his son and Xialin returning side by side he smiled. “Paid your respects at your Cousin Juan’s grave?”

Yang Menghuan said, “Yes. Your son is thinking of heading out early for Mount Kunlun.”

Yang Zhang said, “Good, it’s best to go now. I can put in a word for you with your mother. I’ve already had Yang Fu prepare your luggage.”

With that, he pointed to a small table in the corner of the main hall. “Take a look and see if anything is missing.”

Yang Menghuan looked over and saw that a bundle had been placed on the table, along with his and Xialin’s swords. It looked like his father was pressing him to go even if he hadn’t said anything.

Menghuan felt a wave of sadness, but he knew this was an unusual situation. The later they left, they more dangerous it would become. He might even bring disaster onto his parents. He went over and took the swords, shouldered the bundle, and kowtowed, weeping. “Your son is unfilial and cannot stay and look after his parents!”

Yang Zhang rose and set aside his book and laughed as he walked out of the main hall. Suddenly he stopped and looked back, and in that instant his eyes beamed with fatherly love. He said slowly, “You all eat first, then leave!”

Then he clasped his hands behind his back and walked out the door.

Yang Fu brought their meals, but Menghuan had no appetite and just picked at his, then set his bowl and chopsticks down. Xialin saw he wasn’t eating, so she just ate one bowl herself, then Menghuan handed her her sword. “Let’s go!”

Xialin asked, “We’re not going to see Auntie? She really likes me.”

Menghuan gave a pained smile and shook his head. “No, we have to get going. If we dawdle we might not be able to leave.”

Xialin blinked her big eyes twice. “Whatever you say.”

~*~

Yang Menghuan wore his sword and he and Xialin left Watermoon Mountain Villa. He looked back at his old home downcast and despondent. This trip back home had come and gone so fast, not even two days altogether, yet those two days had seemed like two years. Miss Juan’s death had broken Menghuan’s heart, his father, utterly disheartened, had taken to the Way, and his mother studied Buddhism, her heart like a dried-up well. It looked as if his parents didn’t even care about their only son. But worst of all was this entanglement over the treasure map. He only hoped his school’s clashes didn’t affect his parents… He thought as he walked, his mind surging with a mix of emotions. He didn’t know if he felt bitter or resentful.

Miss Shen saw the changes coming over Menghuan’s handsome face and couldn’t help but frown. “Big Brother Huan, what’s on your mind? How about telling me about it?”

Menghuan looked over at her fair, expectant face and thought, This child is so pure, I can’t hurt her feelings too much. Right now there’s danger all around us, one misstep and she will suffer along with me. Thinking that, he perked up his spirits and for now swept the melancholy from his face. “There’s a lot of formidable people in the jianghu who are set against us. It’s imperative that we leave quickly. Once we’re out of northern Hunan we’ll be out of their encirclement.”

Xialin said, “That I know, but as long as you and I are together, I’m not afraid of anything.”

Her pretty eyes were glistening with tears and smiling like a flower. It was a sad expression but also a happy one, and it made Yang Menghuan’s heart thump. He grabbed her hand and said, “Then let’s hurry up and get going!”

Xialin blinked and two glittering teardrops fell. “I don’t want to go to Mount Kunlun.”

Yang Menghuan asked curiously, “Why, do you not want to join and become a disciple of the Kunlun School?”

Xialin shook her head. “It’s not that, I’m afraid once we get to Mount Kunlun you will go and leave me there all alone and I won’t be able to see you!”

Yang Menghuan was really touched and with a smile said, “Why are you overthinking it so much. Afterwards I will treat you really well. Let’s get going!”

Xialin smiled and asked, “Then answer me, do you want me to be with you forever?”

Yang Menghuan felt a chill. “I’ll treat you just like you were my younger sister.”

Shen Xialin was young, first of all. Secondly, she was pure, she only knew that she liked Yang Menghuan, it was fine as long as she could be with him. “Promise?”

Yang Menghuan nodded and Shen Xialin smiled in relief and took off like she was flying.

~*~

They walked for the time it takes to eat a meal and reached the mouth of Dongmao Ridge. They descended the ridge and went out on Yueyang’s public road where they were met with three galloping horses coming on fast and were soon reached the mountain pass. On the lead horse sat a girl dressed in blue-green, a sword hanging at a slant on her back. Two men in tightfit clothes sat on the horses behind her. The one in the very back was one of the four big men who had been there when Xialin fought Divine Yangtze Flood Dragon.

The blue-clad girl charged up to Menghuan and Xialin and reined in and the horse slowed. The man on the last horse called out, “Incensemaster Li, that’s them.”

The blue-clad girl came to a stop and sat her horse and sized up Menghuan and Xialin for a moment, then smiled. “Are you two the brilliant disciples of Senior Master One Yang of the Kunlun School?”

Yang Menghuan said plainly, “Yes, we’re both Kunlun disciples. Miss, why are you blocking our way with your horse?”

The blue-clad girl got down from her horse, starry eyes flashing like lightning, boring in on Menghuan. “Kunlun’s Split Second Swordplay and Celestial Dipper Palm are famed throughout the martial world, how could I dare block your path? I just had something to discuss with you.”

Yang Menghuan saw that the blue-clad girl was around twenty-one or twenty-two years old, pink cheeked and pretty as a picture, with cherry lips shaped like a water caltrop, a tall beautiful nose setting off her slim willowy waist, a perfect lovely body, a superlative beauty, only there was a forceful heroic air about her brow. She pressed in closer to Menghuan as she replied.”

Yang Menghuan took a step back. “Miss, if you have something to say, just say it…”

The blue-clad girl cut him off, “Suppose I say it and you don’t agree?”

Yang Menghuan was angered by her forceful tone and cocked a swordlike brow. “Whether I agree or not is on me, you saying you’re going to force me?”

The blue-clad girl chuckled sweetly. “You are a hard one, you think I wouldn’t? Not to mention you, I would even if it were my sectfather.”

Yang Menghuan was really worked up into a rage now. He sneered, “Who are you? You sure talk big.”

The blue-clad girl lofted her willowy brow, her whole face frosty, “Is the treasure map in your Kunlun School’s hands? If it’s on you then you’d better hand it over now lest you hurt the harmony between us.”

Yang Menghuan replied coldly, “What if I had the treasure map and what if I refused to hand it over, then what?”

The blue-clad girl grasped her sword with a smile. “Then today you can forget about leaving this mountain pass. Don’t believe me just try me.”

Yang Menghuan could see that there was going to have to be a fight. He whispered to Xialin, “Charge through with me.”

With that he turned his wrist and his three-span sword was drawn from the scabbard and he took a flying leap over a stave long and heard the blue-clad girl laughing clear and crisp as tinkling silver bells and a streak of blue clothes flew by, and a pallid light like lightning flashed and the blue-clad girl was in front of Menghuan, blocking the way with her sword. Yang Menghuan was surprised and thought, This girl is really fast. Before the shock had worn off the blue-clad girl held her sword across and smiled. “Think again whether you really want to fight me.”

Yang Menghuan pushed his sword forward and boomed, “You’re really going too far. You think I’m really afraid of you?”

With that his sword shot out with Chilly Moon Over Blue Waves, the tip of his sword quivering in a silver awn of light stabbing straight ahead. The blue-clad girl parried with her sword held crosswise, and when the two swords crossed it sounded like dragons wailing and tigers roaring, and Yang Menghuan felt a jolt in his right arm, nearly dropping his sword, then he saw the blue-clad girl looking surprised and bewildered, her pretty eyes looking hard at Yang Menghuan. She stared blankly for a moment, then counterattacked.

Shen Xialin was already fighting with the big men accompanying the blue-clad girl. The young lady was not as solid and stable as Menghuan, attacking full force each time to strive for victory, her sword performing the Split Second Swordplay that Master One Yang had taught her, swinging left and sweeping right, like a divine dragon emerging from the water. Instantly her sword qi arced like a rainbow, reflected light dense as a curtain. Kunlun’s Split Second Swordplay was an incomparable swordcraft of the martial world, each move varying and changing as fast as lightning, its strikes and feints impossible to anticipate among its relentless sword forcewind. After ten rounds, the big men had been forced by Xialin into a perilous predicament.

Menghuan’s aim was to extricate himself, not wanting a protracted battle, but he could see that with the blue-clad girl’s incredible moves that the fight would not be decided in a short time. Anxious, he switched to three moves of the Soul Seeker Twelve: “Rising Phoenix, Soaring Flood Dragon”, “North Wind Howls Wildly”, and “Foggy Sword, Clouds Gather”, three sword strokes in a row in a fierce attack like a raging tempest.

The Soul Seeker Twelve’s power was no trifling matter, and the blue-clad girl was forced back again and again. Once Menghuan forced his foe back, he bounded up and over to Xialin and with one stroke of the sword knocked a sabre out of one of the men’s hand and whispered to Xialin, “Charge with me out of the mountain pass.”

Miss Shen nodded with a smile and the sword in her right hand flashed a bluesteel awn of light, attacking with Parting Flowers, Whisking Willows at the men surrounding them. The men had already been alarmed by Miss Shen’s swordlight, and now with one of them having his sabre knocked away by Yang Menghuan’s internal force, how could they stop Xialin. Wherever her sword went the men backed away one after another. Xialin took this opportunity and leapt up, spanning over a stave long, and followed behind Menghuan as they sped away.

The blue-clad girl held her sword in a crosswise guard position as she stood firm as a mountain and watched blankly as the two of them disappeared in the distance. She heaved a long sigh and turned to the big men. “You all go back an notify Chief Helmsman You. Tell him that they charged through the pass and tell him to go back to Dongting Lake for now.”

Then without further ado she mounted up, flicked the reins and headed off alone after Menghuan and Xialin.

The big men saw the blue-clad girl’s frosty expression and didn’t dare open their mouths but just watched her ride away.

~*~

Let’s turn now to Menghuan and Xialin, who were speeding along for a while before looking back and seeing that no one was chasing them. Only then did they slow down. Xialin looked to the overcast sky and blurted, “Big Brother Huan, it’s going to rain.”

As soon as she said that a strong wind blew up and a flash of lightning, a peel of thunder, and Menghuan took stock of where they were, no more than three or four miles from Dongmao Ridge, still a good ways from Yueyang. With this sudden change in the weather, a heavy downpour imminent, he couldn’t help but frown. “It’s all open country out here, not a cottage anywhere. Looks like we’re gonna get soaked.”

Xialin pointed to the east. “Look, you can just see the corner of a roof over there in the woods. Let’s go over there first so we’ll be out of the rain, okay?”

Yang Menghuan looked where Xialin was pointing and saw the faint outline of a roofridge through the big trees about a mile away. He nodded. “Good thing you’re so observant, otherwise we’d probably have ended up soaking wet like a chicken drenched in soup.” As he said this, a few drops of soybean-size rain fell on their faces.

Yang Menghuan hollered, “Hurry!” They used their incredibly fast footwork and like an otherworldly swooping falcon or a petrel sweeping the waves they reached the woods in no time. The house in the woods was actually a long-abandoned temple, paint peeling off the doors and weeds grown up all around. There were broken rooftiles and the eaves were dilapidated. It was extremely dreary, but fortunately the roof of the main hall was intact. Behind the altar table were several tall statues of deities, all broken and crumbling so that you could no longer tell what gods were consecrated here. They had just entered the main hall when it started to pour down rain outside, thunder booming in quick succession, wind howling like a typhoon. It was an incredibly violent downpour.

Xialin and Menghuan sat in a corner of the hall and watched the rain absently. Suddenly, she turned to Menghuan and asked, “Big Brother Huan, do you really have the treasure map?”

Menghuan shook his head. “No.”

Xialin sighed. “Those people really were unreasonable. You didn’t have the treasure map, so why did they want to fight us?”

Yang Menghuan couldn’t help but snicker at her naive question. Xialin glared at him with her big eyes. “What? Did I say something wrong?”

Yang Menghuan said, “I didn’t say you said anything wrong!”