Chapter 61 - Ambuscade

Cao Weining and Zhang Chengling each held a bucket of manure. The pestilent fumes were so overpowering it made them tear up. Still, Cao Weining found joy in adversity: he reflected that Gu Xiang was resourceful indeed — a true female general, as mighty as Zhuge Liang. Zhang Chengling, however, wasn't inclined to be so progressive in his worldview. He only thought Gu Xiang deserved eight lifetimes' worth of torments.

The two hard-toiling laborers covered the buckets with their lids and camouflaged them well. As per Gu Xiang's instructions, they placed the containers full of muck both on the rooftop and at ground level, creating the stinkiest ambuscade in history.

General Gu herself had fled the scene. Only when the traps were all set did she call over her two underlings. "Have you memorized the route I told you about?" she asked Zhang Chengling while pinching her nose.

Zhang Chengling nodded. "Don't worry, Sister Gu, I won't mess up the Nine Hall Steps. Else, Shifu will break my legs."

Gu Xiang flicked at his forehead with her fingertip. "Misstep the once, and you'll turn into Stinky Bug Zhang." She threw a glance at Cao Weining, gave a jerk with her hand, and ordered:

"Let's move!"

The three's dark silhouettes parted ways in the night. Like a bat, Gu Xiang took off for the rooftop, crouched down, and stilled. In the dim, her eyes glinted faintly, making her look like a small beast awaiting its prey. She didn't have to wait long before her eyes flashed. A flare had lit up in the backyard: it was the signal indicating Cao Weining was in position. All she had to do was to hold out a little longer, while the fire spread...

Thereupon, Cao Weining's hoarse bellow echoed from the backyard. "Catastrophe! Time to make a fuss! The building's gonna collapse on us!" Gu Xiang almost choked on her own spit.

On his end, Cao Weining worried about Gu Xiang being alone on the roof. He had blurted out the sing-song line by accident. Halfway through, he noticed it wasn't right and hastened to correct himself.

"Wait no! I meant... Fire! Fire! The building is on fire! Run guys, run! There is a fire!"

Moments later, a commotion rose from inside the inn as people stirred. A bunch of black-clad women came out running alongside other guests. They stood by in rumpled clothes and surveyed the disturbance.

As the quiet night filled with tumult, Gu Xiang flipped down from the rooftop. She yanked the mask over her face

and nonchalantly sneaked into the crowd. Sliding out a handful of signal firecrackers1 from her wide sleeves, she tossed them to the ground. The small flares instantly whizzed away and exploded amidst the noisy swarm of confused people.

Shrieks rose from all sides at the bangs, and someone shouted, "The fire has spread inside!" All hell broke loose and everyone ran in a different direction, dispersing the black-clad women in the scuffle.

Gu Xiang frowned. The ruckus was bigger than she had anticipated. She would have to be extra careful proceeding with the next step. But then, the gods above seemed to favor her. While she stood in the middle of the corridor looking rather foolish, one of the black-clad women separated from the group and shoved at her.

"Let's go check on the Gao girl," the woman shouted. "Someone may be stirring up trouble on purpose!"

Gu Xiang almost laughed out loud. She docilely let herself get dragged away, to the room which held Gao Xiaolian. Her pulse quickened, excitement coursing through her veins, but elation soon turned into sorrow. The woman leading the way was suspicious to the extreme. Just before pushing the door open, she turned around to peer at Gu Xiang.

"Why are you trembling?" the woman asked.

Gu Xiang froze for a second. She hastened to fake being all a-quiver.

"I... I'm... a-afraid," Gu Xiang said in a small voice.

The younger girls in their group all had about the same physique. Whomever the woman mistook Gu Xiang for was anyone's guess, but she threw Gu Xiang a disdainful look and snorted.

"Look at you, a right gutless moron," she said as she pushed the door open. "Stand guard outside. And beware, if you let anyone in..."

Before she could finish her sentence, the woman felt something cold at her waist. Struck by a sudden numbness, she looked up at Gu Xiang with disbelieving eyes while an odd sensation of chilliness spread from her middle. Paralyzed on the spot, she pitched forward, her whole body as stiff as a board.

Gu Xiang hurried to catch her.

"Mind the threshold," she breathed. With that, she closed the door behind her in a smooth motion and turned to the sight of Gao Xiaolian tied up to a table.

Another black-clad woman was in the room. At the commotion, she lit up a lamp and gazed over at Gu Xiang who propped up her unlucky victim while appearing to be at a loss.

The second woman came over and squatted by Gu Xiang's side.

"What has happened to her?" she asked in a worried voice.

"I... I don't know," Gu Xiang mumbled. "She collapsed all of a sudden. D'ya think she's having a seizure?"

The second woman was already checking on her colleague. At Gu Xiang's improvised line, she snapped her head back up.

"Who...?"

Gu Xiang was ready; she raised her sleeve and a puff of white mist blasted into the black-clad woman's face. The trick could only be a nasty one, and the woman held her breath posthaste. But she didn't predict the chill at her neck. A dagger had sprung out from Gu Xiang's hand and, using the instant of panic and blindness created by the mist, she had slit a deep gash across the woman's throat.

Gu Xiang's modus operandi had always been to be fast and ruthless. The woman's vocal cords were severed clean through. Dead, she tilted to the ground without making a single sound. Gao Xiaolian watched on, thunderstruck.

Gu Xiang wrenched the mask off her face and tossed it aside.

"Stupid hag, that was flour," she muttered while she made quick work of slashing through the ropes binding Gao Xiaolian.

Gao Xiaolian was shocked and elated in equal measure. She was getting up, words of thanks rushing to her lips when someone kicked the door open from outside. A frantic Cao Weining stumbled in.

"Gu Xiang, hurry! I can't hold them off anymore!"

At that moment, Zhang Chengling climbed in from the window and waved his hand energetically at them. Gu Xiang pushed Gao Xiaolian toward him.

"Carry her!"

The three of them had it all planned out. Cao Weining pulled his mask back up and wrapped a woman's skirt around himself. Zhang Chengling lugged Gao Xiaolian onto his back without further ado and took off.

Gu Xiang and Cao Weining pretended to chase after them. For good measure, Gu Xiang shouted, "Little rascal! Don't try to escape!"

Thus, the couple put on a show of hustling in hot pursuit, while simultaneously feigning delicate constitutions. Gu Xiang was hobbling on with what looked like a leg needing amputation, and Cao Weining was clutching at his chest as if tottering on the verge of collapse when a sudden gale blew by.

Granny Black-Bane's old and gravelly voice thundered in the air. "Get out of my way, all of you!"

With that, she surged past them like a tornado.

A bunch of black-clad women heeled their boss. They too outstripped the pair of brave sisters who had been "mortally injured by lowly tricks" yet valiantly hounded the enemy. Gu Xiang and Cao Weining glanced at each other. The lame of their leg stopped limping, and the one clutching his chest recovered from his heart attack — they bolted following their planned route.

For their part, Zhang Chengling and Gao Xiaolian were in much greater peril. Gao Xiaolian had recognized Cao Weining and Zhang Chengling earlier but didn't understand why she was being towed away on someone's back. Moved by gratitude and feeling sorry to be such a drag, she kept muttering under her breath:

"Little Brother, you can put me down. I still have some kung-fu left, I can run along with you."

Zhang Chengling stopped in the middle of reciting his rhyme. In a harried voice, he said, "I can't. We've still got a road to cover." Then, remembering the "dung buckets ambuscade" ahead of them, he shivered all over and returned to reciting the rhyme, not daring to let his focus stray for a second longer.

Gao Xiaolian gathered the matter's importance from the boy's grim tone and deduced a plan was likely afoot. She quieted down so she wouldn't disturb him anymore. Still, she couldn't help her silent surprise as she witnessed Zhang Chengling use an unknown technique to dart through the night like a demon.

It hasn't been yet half a year, she thought. What miraculous encounter did this young man make to become so skilled?

Zhang Chengling knew they had arrived when the delicate fragrance of fuming manure assailed his nostrils. He was keenly aware that Granny Black-Bane would be catching up any second. With every nerve in him strung up to the maximum, he bent his ears to the smallest sound. Under normal circumstances, he'd be scared witless for sure. But this time around, he kept reminding himself of the person on his back — a person who depended upon him to make it out alive. His own fate didn't worry him much. But if they got re-captured by the black-clad women, things wouldn't end well for Miss Gao for certain. The thought spurred him to stand taller as energy seemed to flood his whole body. With a great bellow, he doubled his speed once more.

Unbeknownst to him, Zhang Chengling vanquished the version of himself that was a babbling coward on that night. His state of mind has progressed by leaps and bounds, his kung-fu could only rise to a new high. Emptying his mind of all distractions, he concentrated singly on what Gu Xiang had said: Don't misstep even once.

The rhyme flowed faster and faster in his mouth as he zipped along their planned route like the shadow of a shadow, making it across the field of dung buckets they had planted.

Granny Black-Bane had been inches from catching up when the boy accelerated again. How could she resign herself to watching him get away? She too marshaled her full might and sped up.

But then, out of the blue, a thread in the air latched onto her sleeve, its resistance yanking her back.

Her first reaction was to reckon she had triggered a trap. She flew up to dodge before she could think further — just as a bucket of manure previously hidden in the dark hurtled at the spot she had been a split-second ago, its contents spilling everywhere.

Granny Black-Bane was a woman, after all. She was moreover a tad obsessed with cleanliness. Repulsed at the idea of getting splashed even by a tiny bit of the stuff, she retreated four consecutive steps — only to feel her foot bump against something else. "Thump-thump," her heart lurched. She evaded again, guiding herself by ear. But she had yet to land back onto the ground when a third bucket — dragged loose by the second one — came rolling down. With uncanny precision, it hurtled right at her head, giving her a face full.

Granny Black-Bane nearly exploded with fury. She nearly howled "Little rascal, I'm gonna dismember you!". Unfortunately, she couldn't open her mouth as a tragedy would have occurred otherwise. Besides, the young man carrying Gao Xiaolian had already disappeared without a trace. There was no target left for her to dismember.

Her disciples weren't much luckier. Every single one of them got caught in the malodorous ambuscade, suffering heavy casualties. The squad of boastful women who'd have killed bodhisattvas and monks alike thus met

an "unspeakable" fate.2

Zhang Chengling arrived at their meeting point. Gasping for air, he finally put Gao Xiaolian down. Gu Xiang and Cao Weining were already there. They came up to help as soon as they spotted them.

" They, they... aren't still, still after us, are they?" Zhang Chengling panted.

Gu Xiang patted herself on the chest. "Not a chance. As long as they are still women, none of them will keep larking about at night after getting a headful of dung juice."

Cao Weining fawned over her fervently. "Gu Xiang, you're so awesome at designing ambushes!"

The compliment seemed to embarrass the girl. She hurried to wave her hand. "I'm only learning as I go — Lord Seventh taught that me... Oh, hang on! Lord Seventh also said to contact them if we catch up with Zhou Xu and you guys!"

Gao Xiaolian thanked them profusely. Gu Xiang told her not to mention it and busied herself with sending the message to Lord Seventh and the Great Shaman. Then, after their hectic night, the four changed out of their getups and, with Zhang Chengling in the lead, they set off for the inn Zhou Zishu had elected, to reunite with the two men.

Gao Xiaolian remained silent during the entire journey. Between the other three, they had plenty of questions. But Zhang Chengling didn't know how to ask. And Cao Weining, reckoned after observing her that she seemed to be in a bad mood, so he thought better of it. Gu Xiang alone didn't give a care. She skittered gayly into the inn and, after Zhang Chengling pointed her to it, went to Wen Kexing's door.

"Master!" she yelled. "Have you missed m...?"

The door to the adjacent room slid open before she could finish her sentence. The man himself appeared and glared evilly at her.

"What are you making such a fuss for?!" Wen Kexing said in a hushed voice. "A-Xu fell asleep only now." Gu Xiang froze with her mouth still hanging open. In shock, she pointed at Wen Kexing

"Master, you, you, you...!"

Were Zhou Zishu deceased, the lot would still have woken him from the grave. Exasperated, he got out of bed and draped his outer robe around his shoulders before walking out. First, he nodded at Gu Xiang and Cao Weining. Next, he gave Zhang Chengling a pointed glower, at which point he glimpsed Gao Xiaolian. Taken aback, he pushed past the others and came to stand before her.

"Miss Gao? Why are you here?"

Gao Xiaolian had recognized Wen Kexing, and Wen Kexing had called the stranger in front of her "A-Xu". She immediately realized who he may be.

"Would you be... Zhou..."

"You are correct," Zhou Zishu nodded. The girl cut a sorry figure, so Zhou Zishu called for the concierge to prepare a room and serve food.

Gu Xiang was still standing wide-eyed to the side.

"Master," she said. "Did you... f-f-finally get your beastly way with him?"

Wen Kexing glanced at Gu Xiang, then at Cao Weining. The latter simpered back as if he were meeting his father-in-law.

"Don't think for a second," Wen Kexing shot back at her, "that you can be cheeky now you've got yourself a man."

With that, he ignored the young couple and climbed down the stairs, to arrange Zhou Zishu's outer robe so the man was warmly covered.

The four adventurers went to freshen up before they all sat down together. Zhou Zishu was listening to Gu Xiang ramble about the rescue mission when Gao Xiaolian came in.

"Miss Gao," Zhou Zishu asked in a gentle voice. "How come you are by yourself? What happened for you to fall into Granny Black-Bane's hands? Where is Sir Gao?"

Gao Xiaolian remained silent for a long time. Then, all of a sudden, she erupted in loud wails. In between sobs and sniffles, she said, "My dad... my dad's dead!"

1. "signal balls". The use of fireworks as a signal device by the Chinese military is well documented.

2. "meeting gods and killing gods, meeting buddhas and killing buddhas". Colloquialism refers to ruthlessness. The "gods" are deities from Chinese animism/ Daoism, and "buddhas" ord (bodhisattvas) to Buddha. I simplified it as it contrasted with "The Unspeakable", which is a verse from the Buddhist text known as the Garland Sutra.