This Is the Eighth Year of Linde

The girl in blue flexed her hands and feet, still hardly able to believe that this great lecher had actually let her go. She stole a glance at the scabbard lying on the ground. She knew full well how formidable the lecher's martial arts were—even with a weapon in her hand she would not last a few moves against him, and a scabbard, besides, was surely no handier than a longsword; all the more so since the lecher had just made a breakthrough, and his martial arts had advanced yet again. Wang Chong followed her gaze, glanced at the ground, walked over, and flicked the scabbard up with his toe. He slid the Qingfeng Sword into it and handed both back to her. The Qingfeng Sword was slender and graceful in style, its scabbard inlaid with seven bright pearls, elegant and costly—at a glance, plainly a woman's weapon. When he had swung it a moment ago it had felt a little awkward in his hand, and since he knew it was hers, returning it was only proper. Instinctively the girl reached out to seize it, while her other hand chopped out in a swift palm strike—a move from the bare-handed blade-seizing art. Wang Chong simply followed through with the push. Instinctively the girl caught hold of the longsword, but the weight of it landed in her hand and dragged her whole body off balance, so her palm strike met only air. A flicker of embarrassment crossed her small face; sheepishly she slung the longsword across her back and quietly closed her hand around the hilt. Wang Chong thought a moment, then asked, "What era is this?" He guessed that she would know nothing of concepts like myriad heavens, myriad realms, continents, or alternate universes, so he meant to start with easy questions. The girl hesitated, then answered, "This is the eighth year of Linde!" Wang Chong did in fact know that this reign title existed in history. The man who had used it was Emperor Gaozong of Tang, Li Zhi, and he had used it for only two years—there was no eighth year of Linde. Still, he asked, clinging to a shred of hope, "Who is the emperor now?" The girl in blue answered, "It is the Heavenly Empress." Wang Chong's spirits lifted slightly. "A woman emperor?" The girl nodded, then asked with some curiosity, "Do you remember nothing at all?" Wang Chong thought, "Of course I remember my own affairs. But I don't remember this lecher's life!" Taking his speechless silence for assent, the girl answered cautiously, "The present Heavenly Empress is indeed a woman emperor. She once took vows at Wudang and studied under a master there. Later the eighteen grassland tribes joined forces and broke through Shangdu, carrying off the two emperors, Qin and Hou. As Grand Princess, the Heavenly Empress raised troops to rescue the throne and drove the eighteen grassland tribes back. With no sovereign in the court, the great ministers jointly urged her to take the throne." "Everyone under heaven knows this. Why do you ask such things?" Wang Chong's head swam with these tidings for a good while. He thought, "Took vows at Wudang, and a Grand Princess besides—so she isn't Wu Zetian? This place is a real mess." He went on to ask seven or eight more questions, so wide-ranging and so wildly jumping from one thing to the next that the girl in blue could scarcely keep up. Then Wang Chong asked, as though casually, "What martial art am I best at?" The girl blurted out, "Ice Soul Finger!" The words were barely out of her mouth before her face went white. Wang Chong, however, felt a little odd. He could sense the current of qi within him—warm, gentle, and calm, flowing through his whole body with a pleasant glow. It was nothing at all like a technique whose very name sounded so cold and grim. The two of them stared at each other, wide-eyed, for a while. Then Wang Chong grinned, showing his teeth, and said, "You may go, miss." He had gained a rough understanding of this world, and there was no reason to keep a girl locked up. Besides, he wanted to question someone else as well, so as not to be taken in by this girl in blue. After all, the prettier the girl, the fonder she is of lying. The girl in blue let out a cry and bolted like a startled rabbit, running for all she was worth without a single glance back. Only after twenty or thirty li did she dare to look behind her. The road was utterly empty. She pressed a hand to her chest and cried, "Heavenly Empress, protect me!" Wang Chong watched until the girl in blue had vanished from sight, then said in amazement, "I underestimated that girl. I caught her as easily as reaching out a hand, so her martial arts can't be much—but the speed she runs for her life! She'd break eight seconds over a hundred meters, easy. That's zebra and wild-boar class, and this is a mountain path; on flat ground she'd be even faster. Is the martial study of this world really so extraordinary?" He grew all the more curious about exactly what rank his own martial arts amounted to in this world. Wang Chong strolled out of the ruined temple and took one great stride forward. He felt the qi throughout his body sink and grow heavy, and he drifted lightly out six or seven zhang. Overjoyed, he leaped with all his might; the qi within him rose and grew clear, carrying him three or four zhang into the air until the top of his head was level with the crown of a thick-trunked tree beside him. He came down without stirring a speck of dust, light as could be, and for a long while was too shaken to believe it. He thought, "A man whose lightness skill is not refined enough could never make a lecher of himself—that is the unbreakable rule of martial arts novels—and yet the original owner of this body was simply outrageous in his lightness skill." "Earth's long-jump record is only eight point nine five meters, the high-jump record barely over two, and the NBA's highest touch is not even four. I can cross about twenty meters in a single stride and leap more than ten meters into the air. Athletic ability of that level belongs in the category of things that need to be sliced up and studied." "Is it that this lecher's lightness skill is too high, or that this world's ceiling is high?" Suddenly his ear twitched. Wang Chong plucked a leaf, fitted it to his fingers, and flicked it out. A flash of green, gone the instant it appeared—and a squirrel leaping in midair split along a line of blood from its brow and dropped to the ground with a smack. Even after it landed, the two halves of its body twitched and blinked for a moment. Privately startled, he thought, "This lecher's inner-power art is formidable—several degrees finer even than his lightness skill. He truly can pluck a flower or flick a flying leaf, and either will wound." Wang Chong said to himself, "Now is no time to be studying martial arts. The girl in blue has fled, and she will surely bring righteous folk down on the lecher to hunt him. My martial arts are strong, but two fists are no match for four hands; if a crowd sets on me, my end will be hard to imagine. I need to get out of here. And besides, a lecher's martial arts always have a ceiling. If my place in this world is a Lu Zhangke or a Yun Zhonghe, that would be fine enough; but if it is an Ouyang Ke, a Yin Zhiping, or a Liang Ziwen, then it is not so fine." He cast a look around in every direction and cried, "Woe is me!" The mountain could not be called steep, but the woods stretched on and the ridges folded one behind another. Apart from the way the girl in blue had taken down, there was not another path, not even half of one. However fine his lightness skill and however exquisite his internal force, to plunge alone into those mountain woods—any modern person knew what a dangerous thing that was. Wang Chong thought, "I meant to cut across the mountains and circle around by another route, but that is out of the question now. Following the girl in blue down the mountain risks running straight into the 'righteous folk' coming to catch the lecher, but it is safer than braving the mountain forest." He weighed it for a moment, then used his lightness skill to make his way down the mountain. In less time than it took to burn a stick of incense, he had caught up with the girl in blue. She had fled dozens of li at full speed. Her body was spent and her breath shallow, her internal force exhausted, and she was walking slowly along when suddenly she heard the wind rushing behind her. She turned her head and saw the great lecher, his wide sleeves streaming like a swimming dragon, almost upon her. She shook like sifted chaff, her heart dropping into an icy pit, and laid the Qingfeng Sword across her throat, crying, "I would sooner die than be defiled!" Gritting her white teeth, she made to slash with all her strength and end her own life... ...Half a squirrel: Such a fast leaf... ...Girl in blue (Tie Mingzhu): Such a fast lecher...