Qin Feng

That bamboo-hat man's sword truly wasn't slow. With a single flicker of movement he was already before the carriage, and the next instant he sprang into the air and struck out. That move of his had, without question, been meant to show mercy. After all, he'd taken Lei Buji for nothing more than a cart-driving underling, and had no intention of taking the man's life. Since he'd said he meant to "teach him a lesson," then naturally a few slaps with the flat of his sword would do—no need to draw blood. But Lei Buji hadn't seen it that way... He was such a simpleton, really. Seeing someone charge at him like that, how could he not strike back? Faster than words can tell, Lei Buji too sprang up from his driver's seat, rising to meet him head-on—moving later yet landing first—and before the other's sword had even swung into position, he drove a fist at the man's chest. Luckily, the bamboo-hat man was fairly seasoned in real combat, and in the split second before the blow landed he hastily pulled back his own momentum to block, deflecting some of Lei Buji's punch—otherwise that one blow would likely have left him vomiting blood. Whoosh— A second later, the bamboo-hat man had been "shoved" back to where he'd started, out of midair. He barely caught his footing, staggered back several steps, and only then managed to steady himself. "Hiss—" The moment the exchange ended, the bamboo-hat man sucked in a sharp breath, and inwardly he was shaken. "Where did a mere carriage driver get skill like that! Could he really be Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai's sworn brother? Then... wouldn't those two, Sun and Huang, be even more formidable?" He was wrong... Very wrong. In raw martial skill alone, Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai together couldn't match Lei Buji—to say nothing of the fact that Huang Donglai was still unable to channel his internal power. If it truly came to blows, the two in the carriage wouldn't stand a chance against him. But when Lei Buji went up against Qin Feng, the odds ran seven to three in Lei's favor. "Friend, dare I ask your honored name?" Proud and arrogant as this bamboo-hat man was, he was no petty villain, and having witnessed Lei Buji's skill, he naturally wanted to know the man's name. "Certainly—my name is Lei Buji," Lei Buji replied. "Oh?" The bamboo-hat man had actually heard of him. "You're the Lei Buji who made a name for himself overnight at that 'Youth Heroes Assembly' and fought his way into the top eight?" Hearing that, Lei Buji was delighted, thinking to himself: So I'm this famous now? His joy showed plainly on his face. Beaming, he thumped his chest and replied, "That's right, that's me!" "Mm... so that's how it is." Saying this, the bamboo-hat man reached up and removed the bamboo hat from his head. With his features revealed, one could see this man clearly now... His complexion was fair and clean, his features sharply defined, a pair of sharp, sword-like brows slanting boldly upward, below them a pair of broad, wide eyes, a straight and well-formed nose, and just as he opened his mouth, a faint trace of stubble showed around his lips. Judging by his looks, he wasn't very old either—just past twenty. So who exactly was this man? As the tale goes, his name was Qin Feng, twenty-two years old this year, and he had once been the twelfth-generation senior disciple of the Heavenly Sword Sect. Four years ago, at that session of the Youth Heroes Assembly—the fourteenth year of Yongtai—Qin Feng had cut through every obstacle and defeated one strong opponent after another, seizing the championship of the Youth Heroes Assembly, his glory at the time unmatched by anyone. He'd assumed this was the first step toward the pinnacle of his life, never imagining... that the step led downward. There's a saying, "peaked the moment you debuted," and it may well describe Qin Feng's situation. After taking first place, Qin Feng—already somewhat proud—grew even more arrogant, his nose in the air, frivolous and slack. It just so happened that his master died of illness that year, and since he was the senior disciple of his own generation, there was no one left to keep him in check. Sometimes, when disciples one or two generations his senior tried to lecture him, he'd shoot back with lines like "Were you even qualified to join the Youth Heroes Assembly back then?" or "What place did you take at the Youth Heroes Assembly back then?"—choking them off until their faces went red with fury, after which they simply couldn't be bothered with him anymore. And so, in less than a year, this "champion" was expelled from the Heavenly Sword Sect by their current sect leader. When he heard the news, Qin Feng was astonished, and he found it baffling: Why wouldn't my martial-uncle the sect leader play by the usual rules? By rights, a fault as minor as mine was only a matter of attitude—I didn't do anything truly wicked. At most it should've gone: first, reflect on my errors facing the wall; then, a stern warning; and finally, the gentle push to step down. How could you just drive me straight out the door? A man as guileless as he was—how could he understand? The martial-uncle sect leader had his own personal disciples, while Qin Feng was merely the man's martial nephew. He'd been sitting in the seat of twelfth-generation senior disciple; the man had always found him an eyesore and would have loved to be rid of him for no reason at all—and Qin Feng had gone and handed him a reason himself... On top of that, his own master had passed away, and he'd offended every senior brother and martial uncle besides. So who was left to protect him? And so, the Qin Feng who a year before had ridden high as the twelfth-generation senior disciple of the Heavenly Sword Sect became, a year later, a wandering drifter of the jianghu, expelled from his sect. Outsiders didn't know the real reason he'd been cast out, so by the usual logic they simply assumed he must have done something outrageously treacherous. Then, as the rumor spread, everyone added fuel to the fire, telling their own guesses and embellishments as though they'd witnessed it all with their own eyes, and scattering them far and wide. Some said Qin Feng had peeped at his junior sister bathing; some said he'd peeped at his master's wife bathing; still others said he'd peeped at his martial uncle bathing... In short, it all ran in that direction... and for some reason the rumor gradually veered down a "crooked path," so that by the time it reached Qin Feng's ears it had twisted into a story in which his martial-uncle sect leader had "made a choice" between him and the man's own wife. From that time on, Qin Feng had taken to wearing a bamboo hat... and he'd worn it for years. But in truth, the rumors about him hadn't spread all that far after all, and not all that many people had actually believed them; besides... he wasn't as much the center of attention as he liked to imagine. He alone had always taken himself far too seriously. In reality, the time he'd drawn the most notice in the jianghu was nothing more than the stretch around when he won the Youth Heroes Assembly; by the time he was expelled from his sect, hardly anyone spoke of him anymore. So why had Qin Feng come today to block Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai's carriage? Put plainly, he was bored—and on top of that, a little off-balance with envy. The "Youth Heroes Assembly" was a major turning point in Qin Feng's life, much like a one-hit-wonder comedian and the signature bit that made them famous. So at least up to now, this assembly had become a hurdle he couldn't get past, one he couldn't help but care about. Though with his present standing and place in the jianghu, the assembly would never invite him to watch, he'd still arrived in Luoyang more than half a month early, wanting to join in the excitement. But as it turned out... he was no different from the common folk of the city, doing nothing more than wandering the markets for fun, listening to whatever rumors drifted from the streets and alleys. The heart of the assembly had nothing to do with him, and he couldn't see any of it. By the night of the sixteenth of the eighth month, whenever Qin Feng thought of the others chatting and laughing merrily at the Heroes Banquet while he sat alone with his drink in an inn, he sank deeper and deeper into gloom. As the saying goes, wine drunk alone is hard to swallow. Not long after finishing his dinner that day, he'd gotten dead drunk and fallen asleep—he hadn't even known that a fire broke out in the city in the dead of night. By the next day, when he woke, rumors were flying thick and fast everywhere, and it was only by listening to a street-corner storyteller alongside his fellow townsfolk that he pieced together a rough account of what had happened. The more Qin Feng brooded, the more pent-up he felt, thinking: If only I hadn't gotten drunk and fallen asleep, I could've shown my face when they were rounding up and wiping out the Tianqi Gang. That was a golden chance to step back into the spotlight—and if I'd been the one to cut down Gu Qiying with my own hand, wouldn't I have risen to fame all over again? Of course... he was only daydreaming. If he'd really gone, chances were he wouldn't have lived to see today. After becoming a lone wanderer, though Qin Feng still roamed the jianghu and upheld justice where he could, he'd never made much of a name for himself, and his martial arts hadn't improved much either—only a few notches stronger than when he'd won the Youth Heroes Assembly four years ago. Both being "champions," he and Lin Yuancheng were worlds apart. The Youth Heroes Assembly of the eighteenth year of Yongtai was a rare, once-in-a-century session, teeming with talent; any one of those five—Lin Yuancheng, Song Zhixiu, Lei Buji, Chun Kong, Liu Yikong—could have taken the championship in the previous session. Even Qin Feng as he was now, up against any one of those five, would in all likelihood lose. It was just... that Qin Feng himself had no idea of this. After all, he'd never once witnessed this year's martial exam, so he figured: we're all champions, so our strength ought to be about the same. And now he'd heard there was a Sun Yixie and a Huang Donglai... one had taken fourth place, the other had only reached the top sixteen, and yet their acclaim ran even higher than that of this session's champion, Lin Yuancheng. So for him, a "senior," to come find them and "reach out a hand," trade a couple of moves, and test whether their great fame lived up to the name—surely there was no harm in that? "This humble one is Qin Feng, champion of the previous session of the Youth Heroes Assembly." In the several years Qin Feng had knocked about the jianghu, the only nickname he'd earned was "Hat Guest," and few enough people even knew it, so even now he was still trotting out matters from four years ago. "This Qin heard that this Heroes Assembly had a few quite outstanding 'juniors,' and so I've come to greet you—I mean no harm." He put a deliberate weight on the word "juniors," as though that alone might buy him a measure of superiority. "Just now I witnessed this Brother Lei's skill, and it truly is formidable. I only wonder whether the two in the carriage might do me the honor... of coming out to meet me?" In truth, Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai inside the carriage had long since guessed that this man blocking the road was no villain—because anyone with real malice wouldn't stand there in the middle of the road, exposing himself first, then jabber on and on with greetings before anything else. At this point, having heard Qin Feng's self-introduction and his stated purpose, the two exchanged a glance inside the carriage, and without a word between them, both wore a "we get it" look. Then the two of them lifted the bamboo curtain and stepped out, one after the other. "Hahahahaha..." "Hahahahaha..." The two jumped down from the carriage one after another, came out onto the road, stood shoulder to shoulder, and treated Qin Feng to a burst of "hearty" laughter. "So it's Brother Qin—we've long admired you, long admired you!" Sun Yixie clasped his hands and bowed in salute. "Had we known it was Brother Qin, the two of us would've climbed down to welcome you at once—forgive our rudeness, forgive our rudeness!" Huang Donglai's manner was much the same. At the sight of this, Lei Buji was dumbstruck, thinking: Clearly this man was the one being rude first, blocking the road like that—and besides, after trading a single move with me, I couldn't tell his skill was all that great either. So why are you two so polite to him? While Lei Buji was still puzzling over this, Qin Feng was a bit dazed as well. "What's going on?" Qin Feng hadn't been treated this way in nearly four years, and for a moment he was somewhat overwhelmed by the favor. "These two figures who now shake the whole jianghu... actually know me? And they're this courteous to me?" "Uh..." Qin Feng hesitated, turning over what tone and expression to answer with, then said, "You two needn't stand on ceremony, I only..." "Ah~, Brother Qin, there's no need for modesty—every word from us comes straight from the heart." Before Qin Feng could finish, Huang Donglai cut him off and stepped forward to clasp his left arm. "Come, come—there's a lot of wind and sand on the road; whatever you have to say, say it inside the carriage." Sun Yixie, for his part, stepped up and clasped the man's right arm. The two of them, half pushing and half propping him along, "invited" Qin Feng into the carriage, and then had Lei Buji continue on the road. Lei Buji didn't know what they were up to, and couldn't be bothered to figure it out; his big brothers had their reasons for what they did, so he'd simply do as told. And so, once the three of them had climbed into the carriage, he whipped the horse on again and drove them forward. Hemmed in with a man on each side, Qin Feng somehow ended up inside the carriage, whereupon these two promptly blinded him with a flood of honeyed words. As the saying goes, "it's hard to strike a smiling face"—so at this point, Qin Feng, could you still bring yourself to say something like "I want to reach out a hand with you two and get a little practice in"? And even setting that aside—you've now been tricked into this carriage. In a space this cramped, you couldn't even draw that long sword of yours. If the two of them suddenly pounced at once, one locking up your joints, the other smacking poison into your face—would you live or die? To make a long story short, a little more than half a shichen later, the four of them had reached a post station beside the official road, and the wine and dishes on the table before them had been laid out in full. All along the way, Qin Feng had been left dizzy and reeling by Sun and Huang's nonstop chattering, and before he knew it, quite a few pieces of information had been coaxed out of him. And now, with wine and food before him, his chatterbox was even harder to shut than ever... A sip of wine here, a bite of food there; on one side, "Brother Qin, let me offer you a cup"; on the other, "As expected of a man who's taken the championship at the Heroes Assembly—you truly have a great head for drink." In such an atmosphere, Qin Feng's spirits, so long dampened, rose high as they hadn't in ages, and he let down his guard more than ever before. He was never much for deep scheming, and his tolerance for drink was shallow to begin with; once drunk, he all but accounted for the affairs of eighteen generations of his ancestors, and poured out no small measure of his grievances. Hearing of what he'd been through, Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai kept up an unbroken barrage of "heartfelt words" and "fair-and-square words," picking only the pleasant things to say and "speaking up for the injustice done" to Brother Qin. By the time the group parted the next day, Qin Feng felt as close to them as if they were his own blood brothers. Not only did he stand at the gate of the post station, loath to see his three brothers off, he even fought to pay last night's lodging and wine bills himself, and declared that whenever they met in the jianghu again, whatever they needed they had only to come find Brother Qin—Qin would risk life and limb for his brothers without a moment's hesitation, sparing nothing. Only after they'd left the post station and set off once more did Lei Buji finally catch on. As he drove the carriage, he called back to the two big brothers behind him, "Brother Sun, Brother Huang, I get it now!" "Get what?" asked Huang Donglai, who sat closer to him. "You two deliberately put yourselves low and played to what he likes, so that he'd be too ashamed to come looking to spar with you again," Lei Buji said. "It took you till now to figure that out?" Sun Yixie took it up, earnest and heartfelt. "Buji, you must remember this—resorting to force is always the inferior choice, and putting on airs over nothing is even more foolish." He paused. "Take that Brother Qin: four years ago he was still champion of the Youth Heroes Assembly, so how's he fared since? Which goes to show... low emotional intelligence is scarier even than low martial skill." "Abso~lutely right," Huang Donglai chimed in at just the right moment. "Say we'd sparred with him—how d'you think that would've gone? If we lost, we'd be sore; if we won, he'd be sore. Either way it breeds a grudge. People with low emotional intelligence just make enemies wherever they turn—you know that, right?" "Hah? And you've got the nerve to say that?" Sun Yixie seemed to think of something and abruptly turned his fire on Huang Donglai with a jab. "What? What're you trying to say?" Huang Donglai knew exactly what he was needling him about, and answered with a sour look. "Fine, fine, I won't say it." Sun Yixie smiled, then turned back to Lei Buji. "Buji, after this you ought to understand... When you roam the jianghu, clashing with people is bound to happen. And when it does, so long as the other man isn't some arch-villain steeped in evil, it's best to settle it by some means other than force. At worst, just give a step and play the pushover for a while—it's nothing... That way you tie a good karmic bond, and it might just prove useful someday." "Oh, I understand, Brother Sun." Lei Buji nodded, though in his heart he only half followed it; the word "emotional intelligence," especially, he'd never so much as heard before. As for what Sun Yixie had said—it was truly sound. The "good karmic bond" they tied with Qin Feng that day would, when the time later came for "Wujian Manor's Hundred Swords Slay the Twin Xie," end up saving their lives. Of course, that too is a tale for later...