The Shadow's End

In the end, Gu Qiying had still managed to block that sword strike. In the split second before the blade could reach him, he'd raised his right arm to guard, deflecting the sword's path. His arm took a slash that cut deep to the bone, but at least the side of his neck had only been opened by a gash that wasn't too deep. His life was saved, but in this exchange, he had lost. For Gu Qiying hadn't blocked that strike through his own judgment, but through instinct. It was the instinct of fear and years of battle experience that had set his body moving on its own, shielding that fatal vital point. Setting aside skill and experience, purely in terms of technique, this move of Lin Yuancheng's made Gu Qiying sigh at his own inferiority. There were many who wielded the sword in the jianghu, but swordsmen worthy of Gu Qiying's regard numbered only two, and today... there was one more. "To think the younger generation had such a figure..." Gu Qiying, even as he guided the gu within his body to stanch his own bleeding, turned his head toward Lin Yuancheng, who had already passed by him, and mused to himself, "All this time I thought so highly of myself, and it turns out I was just a frog at the bottom of a well, gazing up at the sky. I never imagined the world truly held people like this, born for the sword and chosen by heaven..." He was still lost in these feelings when Yun Shili came charging in from another direction. Flying Dragon Rides the Clouds, Cloud Net Across the Heavens, Azure Clouds Across Ten Thousand Li... the three forms of the Cloud Illusion Blade came one after another, each building on the last, their force bearing down on him. Seeing the momentum, Gu Qiying gave a low, deep shout, first launching into the form Solitary Pacing Steps, casting out two layers of afterimages; then following with the move Phoenix Spreads Its Wings, unleashing torrents of palm force. With his vigorous internal strength, he met the blade head-on, matching Yun Shili blow for blow. The two clashed together, blade and palm flying back and forth, internal force surging, and in an instant they ripped and blasted countless furrows and cracks into the ground around them. Under these circumstances, others naturally found it hard to get close to them; merely standing within five meters of them could get one accidentally injured or even killed. But there were still those who would step in. As long as your martial skill was good enough, or your luck good enough, you could ignore all that. Besides, at this point, Gu Qiying was no longer quite so terrifying... By now, in truth, those quasi-first-rate experts and above had all seen roughly where Gu Qiying's limit lay. No matter how strong he'd been at his peak, right now he simply wasn't strong enough. Internal injuries, that kind of thing, had a huge effect on a person. To give an example with concrete numbers: say your peak combat power was 1000, and after an internal injury it dropped to 900. But that didn't mean the injury's effect on you was merely a loss of 100 combat power; in fact, it should be counted as a 10% reduction. And as the battle wore on, your internal force kept being consumed and the effect of the internal injury kept worsening. So your combat power itself would gradually decline from 1000 toward 900, 800, 700... while your internal injury, on top of that, would further cut your combat power by 10%, 11%, 12% of 1000... The internal force of a top-tier expert ought to have been very abundant. Not to say inexhaustible, but at least each time the small internal cycle within their body completed one run (it was generally held that one round of breathing using the distinctive breathing method of one's own internal cultivation method counted as one cycle), the amount of internal force produced was quite astonishing. As long as their physical stamina wasn't exhausted, their internal force was basically unlikely ever to run dry. But Gu Qiying, at this moment, hadn't yet used up his physical stamina, and yet his internal force had already hit rock bottom. With every round of breathing now, he could feel the internal force he generated growing less, and the circulation of his internal energy through his meridians growing ever more sluggish; all his wounds and burdens were piling up like a snowball. Even though he'd gritted his teeth earlier and fought with such momentum, this kind of bluster, sustained by overdrawing his reserves, was undoubtedly something that had to be paid for... Now that his defeat was plain to see, many saw that he was already a spent force, an arrow at the end of its flight, and so all wanted to come up and grab a share of the spoils. Even landing a single slash on him or scraping off a bit of his skin counted as a share of the merit, something to boast about in the future. "He's almost done for! Everyone together now! Kill him!" Just as Yun Shili was gradually gaining the upper hand, someone among the attackers suddenly shouted this. These words deeply captured everyone's hearts. Those top figures of the righteous path at once perked up and surged forward all together, fists, feet, swords, and blades striking out as one. For a moment, Gu Qiying took more than ten blows in succession, thrusts, slashes, cuts, chops, and hacks, he took every one of them in full. No matter how tough his body was, no matter how astonishing his self-healing, it couldn't keep pace with damage at such a rate. But still he stood firm, and with a great shout, he used the last breath of his dantian to blast away those who had closed in around him, sending each of them flying several zhang and toppling them into a chaotic heap. Even Yun Shili was forced back several steps by Gu Qiying's explosive strike, staggering a few times before he barely managed to steady himself. And at this time, Lin Yuancheng, there in the crowd... had already turned and walked away. Because for him, there was nothing left worth watching. What he wanted to watch was a contest of skill between experts, not dozens of people hacking wildly at a man who was already nearly dead. If watching the latter could teach one the essence of any martial art, then Lin Yuancheng needn't have bothered learning martial arts at all, he could just go to the fish market every day and watch the local bullies and hoodlums fight over turf. Of course, tonight he had gained something too. Earlier, when he'd seen that Cloud Illusion Blade technique, he'd suddenly comprehended a sword form. The very one he'd used on Gu Qiying just before. When Lin Yuancheng had attacked Gu Qiying head-on a moment ago, it hadn't been for any other reason than to put the sword move he'd just comprehended to actual use while the inspiration still lingered. As for whether, if you were to ask, he wasn't afraid of getting himself killed testing a new move on a top-tier expert like Gu Qiying, all I can say is that in that moment, he really hadn't thought that much about it... More than matters of life and death, what he cared about was that the fleeting inspiration about the sword move would fade and scatter. A peerless swordsman ought to be just so. "Heh... you lot... want to kill me?" Gu Qiying, his face now covered in blood, actually laughed again at this point. "You lot... are worthy to kill me?!" But this second half was an angry roar. Before the words had even settled, suddenly! Gu Qiying spun around and abruptly charged toward the north, the direction of the Tianqi Gang's main gate. "He's making a run for it!" "Don't let him get away!" "Stop him!" Those shouting such things were all people positioned to Gu Qiying's sides and rear. Those in his charging path were all thinking: this guy's probably looking to drag someone down with him in mutual destruction, please don't let it be me. Of course, Gu Qiying couldn't get away. When he made this move of charging headlong, it meant his back was left wide open, and those who specialized in hidden weapons, or those who could use them, naturally wouldn't let such an opportunity slip. Thwip, thwip, thwip, thwip... In the space of a single breath, more than a dozen hidden weapons of all shapes and sizes had already embedded themselves in Gu Qiying's back. But Gu Qiying showed no sign of stopping. He charged forward like a mad bull, clearing his path with the gusts of his palms. Those in his path didn't dare block him, and simply couldn't, scattering to either side and giving way... Soon, Gu Qiying arrived before the south gate of the Tianqi Gang. By now the once grand and solid gate had been blackened by the flames, and the great courtyard beyond it was a sea of fire, thick smoke and flames surging skyward. Gu Qiying, his whole body riddled with holes, came before the gate without slowing in the least, and with a wild roar, slammed into it. Then came a "bang," and the gate panels shattered on impact, as Gu Qiying followed through and plunged into the sea of fire. "Ah—" The martial world figures who had pursued from behind stood outside the flames and looked through the gate, and they saw... amid the firelight, Gu Qiying, his whole body ablaze, flailing his arms and legs in the fire like a burning demon, letting out one shrill, utterly ghastly howl after another. This lasted for about thirty seconds. A long, drawn-out thirty seconds... Even many of those who had just taken part in hacking at him couldn't help but turn their eyes away at the sight of his miserable state now. In the end, Gu Qiying fell. He no longer moved, and no longer made a sound... He and this "Tianqi Gang" were swallowed together by the great fire, reduced to ashes. What he never came to understand was this: in truth, twelve years ago, when Gu Qizong perished in a sea of fire, the Tianqi Gang had already died along with its gang leader. He and Shen Youran were merely Gu Qizong's shadows and ghosts, the shadows beneath the towering, heroic figure of that generation. It wasn't that the world couldn't do without Gu Qizong; it was just that the two of them... couldn't do without Gu Qizong. ........ August 17, afternoon. After most of the morning spent on the cleanup, the majority of the open flames had finally been put out. The several hundred Brocade Guards Yun Shili had summoned last night had not gone to help surround and attack Gu Qiying; instead, under his direction, they had gone to the east, west, and north gates of the "Justice Sect" headquarters to organize the common folk in fighting the fire. Facts had proven his decision very correct. If these officials hadn't stepped forward to take the lead, and it had been left to the common folk alone, there was no telling how far this fire might have spread. I'll mention this briefly here: Da Ming was rather poor in the area of firefighting technology. You think firefighting in ancient times relied on what? Water? In many TV dramas it does seem to be done that way... you see a big crowd of people using wooden buckets to draw water, passing it out bucket by bucket from a well or a water vat, spilling half a bucket along the way during the relay, then handing it to some fellow standing at the edge of the fire, two meters from the flames, and having him pour it in that direction... Are you kidding me? Even in modern times, when a house of several dozen square meters catches fire, it takes a certain amount of time to put it out with a high-pressure water hose. And in Da Ming, most buildings were of brick-and-timber construction, so when there were many points of ignition and the fire covered a large area, the chance of extinguishing it by hauling water in buckets was very small... which was also why the palaces of the Ming dynasty often had a whole swath burn down at the slightest lightning strike. In that era, the most effective firefighting method was actually "digging" and "tearing down." Put plainly, you dug trenches around the fire to set up a firebreak, then quickly tore down all those flammable wooden houses, thatched sheds, and the like that were connected to the blaze; if necessary, you'd bury things under sand, and then dig trenches along the edge of that rubble as well... Once everything inside the firebreak had burned out and the fire failed to spread beyond it, then after waiting a while the fire would naturally die out. However, relying on ordinary common folk, with no one to organize and direct them, these tasks were very hard to accomplish; and so, many large fires of that time would burn for a dozen hours or more, scorching several streets clean, or would only be put out when it happened to rain. That night, the common folk of Luoyang were rather fortunate. Though the Justice Sect headquarters covered a large area, it was surrounded by walls on all sides, and beyond the walls were all streets, with no civilian homes connected to it. After the Brocade Guards arrived, the fire was fairly smoothly contained within the headquarters' grounds, and by morning it had burned itself out. As for another spot in the city, the fire at Bugui Tower, that was not too bad either, because there was only one point of ignition there, so it was extinguished before the fire could spread beyond Bugui Tower... had it truly grown large there, two or three streets would probably have suffered. With this, the conspiracy orchestrated by Shen Youran and Gu Qiying and carried out through the once-every-four-years "Youth Heroes Assembly" had finally come to a close. As for how Shen Youran had died, Sun and Huang had of course told their jianghu peers as well; with Chun Kong and Liu Yikong to vouch for it, no one suspected them of making the story up. But exactly who had taken Shen Youran's head... remained a mystery to these righteous folk of the martial world. As for that "Bliss Gu"... actually, once you knew the cure, it wasn't all that hard to deal with. There's a thing called "Hundred-Herb Soot," also known as "Moonlit Ash" or "Cauldron-bottom Ink": that is, the sooty residue left clinging to the bottom of a pot or inside a chimney flue after weeds have been burned. Take this, combine it with extremely spicy chili peppers, any variety, the hotter the better, and then swallow it all together, using ginger soup as a guiding agent. After drinking it, wait a short while, and while these things are still in your stomach, go get a blade with a very wide blade-face, or some other iron implement, and polish its surface until it gleams bright and shiny; then drag your fingernails back and forth across it... if it can produce that sound like fingernails scraping across a blackboard or glass, that counts as success. If you still don't know whether you've done it right, then remember this: as long as hearing that sound makes you feel thoroughly uncomfortable all over and makes your scalp tingle, you've done it right. Using the method above, twice a day, morning and evening, repeated for three days, you can eliminate all the Bliss Gu within your body. Of course, if you're still uneasy... extending it to five or ten days is fine too. To the people of this era, this way of curing gu seemed quite baffling, but Huang Donglai could understand it somewhat, because the principle by which the Bliss Gu flared up was similar to a "resonance" effect at a specific frequency, and thus had little to do with a person's own hearing; the current method of killing the gu insects also had to do with producing a sound at a specific frequency, which was very reasonable. ........ By evening of this day, half of the remaining hundred-odd martial world figures had already hurriedly left Luoyang. Naturally, they were all in a great hurry. Not to mention that Luoyang was a troubled place, not fit for a long stay, the key point was that with such a huge incident having occurred, they certainly had to hurry back and report to their sects as soon as possible. Moreover, many sects had lost people in that great battle to surround and kill Gu Qiying, and those still alive had to hurry back with the corpses of their fellow disciples to bring word of the deaths; as for those whose return journey was long and who couldn't make it back in a short time, they could only find a coffin shop locally in Luoyang, first have the bodies of their fellow disciples placed in coffins, then send a message by carrier pigeon reporting the matter to their sect leader, who would then decide how to handle it. Additionally, there were also some who hadn't left... mostly because they had doubts about the gu-cure method Huang Donglai had provided, and so had stayed behind. Although they all understood that Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai were already their life-savers and had no need to deceive them, still, since this gu-cure method was truly too bizarre, they all worried that perhaps Huang Donglai had made a mistake or been deceived himself. So these people who had stayed decided to remain in Luoyang for another three to five days, strictly following the method Huang Donglai had described each day, and after five days have Huang Donglai use the gu bell once more in front of them to see whether the gu had truly been cured, and only then leave. And if that method happened to have no effect, they could then hurry to think of another approach. Huang Donglai and Sun Yixie didn't mind them doing this; after all, it was a matter of life and death, and a little caution was never wrong. Besides, the two of them couldn't leave anyway. On the afternoon of August 17, they had been invited by the two "Excellencies," Yun Shili and Shui Hanyi, to the government office, on the grounds that there was an "important matter" to discuss with them.