6 The Extraordinary Combat
When Wei Gaoyuan woke up, his mind was still not so clear. He looked around blankly, only found the eight guys on the ground near him, which made him more confused.
After a while, he remembered a little about what had happened — he had been beaten by those guys on the ground, but how was he lying on the ground in a faint?
Pressing a hand on his wound, he fled away as quickly as possible, otherwise it would not be so easy while those guys regained consciousness.
The sun came up. Overnight the knife wound on his waist had already scarred. Wei Gaoyuan carefully shook and stretched his body, still felt a little painful. He could only slowly walk alone.
Moments later, Wei Gaoyuan entered the White Plain Town and planned to fill up his growling stomach first. On the way, he found that today most of the passersby on the streets looked a little bit peculiar.
Wei Gaoyuan found a grits stall and sat down when a chatting came from the table beside him.
"Brother Qian, you're still going to school today?"
"Sure, nothing to do at home today."
"Didn't you hear about that event last night in the north of the town?"
"Everyone knows it, I believe, it spreads so fast."
"Not strange, just one night, eight people were killed...eight..."
"I'm just wondering who did it. It's unbelievable... the eight persons died... without any sign of injury on their bodies..."
Wei gaoyuan was listening at side in astonishment. Eight persons were killed last night in the north of the town?
He had been hanging around in the north of the town for a quite long time yesterday, and got beaten up by that group of guys, and fortunately, he thought, not meet that horrible murderer; unfortunately, his cabin was right outside the town, not far away from its north gate.
The two men's chatting was still going on.
"It is said that the authorities assumed the eight people might have been attacked by a weird poison, so no wound at all..."
( the poisoning skill: as an efficient skill in Martial Arts, it's often used by the martial artists, especially the bad ones, to kill his enemies.)
"Don't tell me the murderer is still in the town..."
"Who knows... the town's main government has already posted the notice, offering a reward of 50 silver coins for any clues and information about the murder."
"But who knows the clues? who dares to provide clues? That's a devil who killed eight persons overnight!"
"Well, we commoners..."
" I was planning today to exchange with the brothers and sisters of the Chengxi Academy, but now I think it's better to leave early so as not to encounter that devil."
"Yeah, exactly..."
Finishing a bowl of grits, Wei Gaoyuan paid a copper coin and left to find a gambling house. For fear that he would go back home late and possibly encounter with that devil, he'd better make some money quickly during the day.
...
Even though the people in the west district of the town was kind of richer than those in the north, the west of the town was also the active and busy area for most of the poor.
Wei Gaoyuan always haunted different gambling houses alternately in the town, and today it was just the turn of the west.
Soon he came to a gambling house only to see its door closed. Before leaving he'd got a glimpse of an official notice on the wall nearby.
He went closer to read it, and got shocked.
The notice was about the murder last night with the portraits of the eight dead attached.
Those eight guys! The members of Sole Dragon Gang! He'd just got beaten by them last night, they all died?!
Wei Gaoyuan was so shocked that he did not realize that he could fully understand the words on the notice.
His hands and feet trembling. As the notice showed, the eight guys were found dead at the right place where he woke up.
Why? What Wei Gaoyuan worried most was that yesterday he appeared where they died and he was the only one that regained consciousness and survived,
How could he explain it?
Eight lives, in spite of all thugs, was enough to make him executed ten times.
Wei Gaoyuan quietly left, used the left coins to buy some dry food and drinking water in the town, then quickly returned to his cabin and packed some necessaries. Get all prepared, he entered into the deep forest behind...
Unconsciously, a month had almost passed. Wei Gaoyuan was now still wandering in the forest which was actually part of the extension of the Cloud Nest Mountains, instead of the forest outside the north gate of White Plain Town.
He could have passed through the forest to the official road in just one day. But he had gone to the opposite direction and had been completely lost in the Cloud Nest Mountains.
The only thing he could do at the moment was to keep on moving aimlessly…
This day, when he sat under a tree for a rest, there was a sound of long whistle suddenly coming from the high sky. He looked up and saw a giant black eagle in the air chirping occasionally whose body was surrounded with a blue glow.
In shock, he quickly jumped to hide behind the tree.
The giant eagle in the sky suddenly swooped down. Its aim was a man in a dark blue gown, standing on the top of the tree below the eagle. He held a long sword. With his sudden wave, the long sword turned into a silver light and shot straightly at the black eagle.
Meanwhile the black eagle's wings unfolded with a wind whistle; when the long sword flew close, it clawed at the blade, forcing the long sword to fly past one side of its head.
Seeing the sword miss the target, Wei Gaoyuan was anxious for the man in dark blue. How could a swordsman throw his sword so rashly? At that moment the man was unarmed, how should he deal with that giant eagle's next attack?
Knowing himself too weak to participate in such a combat, Wei Gaoyuan had to hide behind the tree and waited until the fight was over. then he could bury the man in dark blue; absolutely, if the man in dark blue was lucky enough to survive, he would try to give him a aid after the eagle left.
However, the long sword in the air did not fall to the ground as he expected. Instead, it circled around and swung back to shoot at the neck side of the giant eagle!
The giant eagle's big wings flapped to rouse a fierce wind. Countless branches and leaves were swayed violently. However, it didn't work at all , the slim man in dark blue was still standing steadily on the top of the shaking tree, like a mountain.
In the air, the long sword seemed to be tied to the invisible thread by the man in dark blue. It was changing its attack directions and angles by itself to fight against the eagle.
Behind the tree, Wei Gaoyuan hold his breath and kept totally silent in a astonishment. The man in dark blue was able to control his sword flying to attack his enemy in long distance, undoubtedly, he was a Land Taoist!
The eagle had been fighting with the sword in the air for a long time and seemed no patience at all. The blue light streams around its body suddenly moved quickly and sizzled.
Seeing this situation, the man in dark blue took out a small red brocade box from his long sleeve.
And just then, a blue light beam spurted from the beak of the eagle and shot at the man in dark blue as quickly as lightening. At the same time, the man jumped a few feet high and stepped on the body of his long sword floating in the air, just as steady as stood on the ground.
The blue beam hit the top of the tree where the man stood just now and made a firecracker-like blast. Only in seconds, the whole tree was burnt into black.
As the man on the sword opened the brocade box, a yellow Fu flashed from inside, shot at the giant eagle and fixed precisely between its eyes. Then the Fu turned into a fireball, and the huge body of eagle burnt up immediately.
(Fu: as an important term in Taoism Arts, Fu is a small paper on which Taoists can draw and write some unique words, pictures, signs, spells and talismans has almost countless powerful functions.)
In the giant fire ball, the eagle was seen constantly shaking. All of a sudden, from the fire ball inside countless big feathers were shooting at the man in dark blue like a shower of sharp arrows.
The man on the sword was quickly twirling his body and dodged to left and right so that the flying feathers all swept past his side and missed their target.
At the last moment, a blue flash was abruptly shot out of the giant fire ball, several times faster than the previous feathers! Next second, the man on the sword who found no way to dodge was hit on the chest by the last strike of the giant eagle.
The giant eagle who made a long loud wailing and the man on the sword both fell down from the air...
