Marching to Demand Justice

What is “Tongbi”? Plainly speaking, it means long arms. Liu Bei, Zhang Bolun, Luffy... you know the sort, don’t you? Their abilities are all considerable. But those examples are physiological long arms. In martial arts, “Tongbi” can have another meaning. Huang Baijia once, in his book Internal Fist Methods, ranked the Tongbi Skill first among internal fist methods, saying: “You Shen’s Tongbi is the highest; the deep-sealed Gate turns heroes. The Immortal rises in a Heaven-ward stance; withdrawing to embrace the moon, it spares no one. The whip strikes left and right beyond all match; the fierce hammer charges and seizes, both wings shaking.” Please note that the “Tongbi” here is not “Tongbei.” They are two different things, though later generations often confused them. “Tongbi Divine Sword” Zhu Jiaduan originally practiced the Tongbi Skill. If you cannot imagine what that skill was like, picture in your mind the old men swinging their arms in the park in the morning; that would count as catching a glimpse of the tip of the iceberg. Some people might think, what could possibly be powerful about that? Then I must say: setting aside the fact that ordinary shut-in keyboard warriors may not be able to beat old men who exercise in the park every day, consider another analogy—old men also practice Tai Chi; does that mean you can use it to prove that Zhang Sanfeng’s Tai Chi could not kill people? Zhu Jiaduan’s “Tongbi Swordplay” was created by taking the Tongbi Skill as its foundation and combining it with the swordplay of Huashan Sect. It took him more than ten years. This martial art could not be called unrivaled under heaven, but it did have unique merits. Moreover... Zhu Jiaduan’s arms were, physiologically speaking, truly quite long—at least considerably longer than a normal person’s—so when he wielded the Tongbi Swordplay, it was like adding wings to a tiger. There are many martial arts in the jianghu like this. You could say they are not “top-tier martial arts,” but in the hands of a particular person, they can truly be formidable enough to contend with first-rate experts. Now, looking back over Zhu Jiaduan’s life, it is easy to see that he did not actually possess remarkable talent. As a child, he had studied under a street martial instructor and learned the Tongbi Skill. In his youth, he went up Mount Hua to seek instruction, and spent his entire adolescence and young adulthood on Mount Hua, always as an utterly ordinary disciple. Only in the year he turned thirty-one did he finally create this not especially brilliant sword style through his own efforts. At that time, many of his fellow disciples mocked him, saying things like, “Our Huashan sect has such brilliant swordplay, and you have changed it into a style only long-armed people can practice. Truly laughable.” In a fit of anger, he left Huashan Sect. After descending the mountain, he established his own school and opened a small escort agency. At first, he delivered valuables across provinces all by himself; later, after accumulating some capital, he gradually hired helpers and began teaching martial arts to young escort guards. By now, twenty years had passed. Zhu Jiaduan had become the agency head of the renowned Guangxing Escort Agency, known as “Tongbi Divine Sword.” And those who had mocked him back then? Who the hell knows where they are now? People who have no talent, do not work hard, and still mock the efforts of others will sooner or later be left behind by the very people they mocked. Now, Zhu Jiaduan had brought more than twenty of his agency’s disciples and descended on Xuzhou with a great show of force. For no other reason than to avenge his “closed-door disciple,” Zheng Mukai. Zhu Jiaduan had never married and had no children. Zheng Mukai had been an orphan who, at around ten, had become Zhu’s disciple as his “son-disciple,” raised by the master with his own hands. When Zheng Mukai took a wife, it was his master who sat in the seats of honor reserved for parents. The child in Zheng Mukai’s household, barely old enough to speak, also called Zhu “Grandpa”—his honorary grandfather—and was expected to learn martial arts from him in the future. It could be said that between these two there was no longer merely a master-disciple bond, but that of father and son. Now Zheng Mukai had suddenly died a violent death away from home. How could Zhu Jiaduan not come to avenge him? Even if it meant risking his old life, he would fight the killer to the death. Then who... was the killer? The authorities would not investigate for you. If it was a jianghu vendetta, the authorities would not get too involved. If the investigation was right, fine; but what if it was wrong? If you killed the wrong person, how would that be accounted for? Would it be on you, or on me? Therefore, after the Guangxing Escort Agency people arrived, their procedure was to first make a trip to the yamen, spend the silver that had to be spent, and talk with the night watchman, the constable head, and the coroner. They asked clearly about the time the bodies were discovered, the approximate time of death, Zheng Mukai’s cause of death, the two escort hands’ causes of death, the condition of the scene, and so on. Then they claimed the bodies and left. Once outside the yamen, whether they could find the killer, whether they got the right person or the wrong person, whether they succeeded in killing him... all of that became their business and had nothing more to do with the authorities. Zhu Jiaduan was fine when claiming the bodies, but once back at the inn, he clutched Zheng Mukai’s corpse and wept bitterly. He did not even mind the smell. His other disciples stood to one side and wiped their tears as well. The innkeeper was wiping his eyes too—because with all of them making such a scene, his business had become impossible. Fortunately, Zhu Jiaduan did not cry for long. After all, he was already over fifty, and he understood that no amount of grief, however vast, could be fully vented by tears—blood debts must be repaid with blood. After a short while, he calmed down, wiped his face, and issued two orders on the spot. First, another examiner had to be found to re-examine the bodies, and the examination had to be conducted in front of him, with explanations given as it proceeded. Because the journey from Kaifeng had taken a day and a night, and that was enough time for others to manipulate many things in secret—bribing the coroner, faking wounds, destroying evidence, and so on. Second, they had to immediately investigate in the city: what Zheng Mukai and the two escort hands had done all day on the day of the incident, whom they had met, what they had said... Xuzhou was a place where people came and went; if they were late, witnesses would be hard to find, and even if found, the other party’s memory might already be blurred. Upon receiving the orders, the Guangxing Escort Agency disciples set out immediately and began their work. These escort guards had traveled far and wide. Setting aside martial skill, their eyes were sharp, and they were also good at dealing with people, so their investigation was efficient. Before long... they traced it to Huang Donglai and the others. The small conflict between Zheng Mukai and Huang Donglai at the restaurant that day had been seen by many. If no one had brought it up, perhaps everyone would have forgotten it within a few days. But Zheng Mukai happened to die that very night, and less than two days had passed since then—how could those witnesses forget? Meanwhile, the “jianghu coroner” Zhu had summoned also conducted a second examination of Zheng Mukai’s and the two escort hands’ bodies. Analyzing from the perspective of a jianghu man, his conclusion was: all three victims had actually been killed by a single punch, while the other wounds covering their bodies had all been inflicted after death, their purpose being nothing more than to conceal the true fatal blow. In fact, this “concealment” had indeed worked, because the ordinary yamen coroner’s conclusion had been “beaten to death by a flurry of fists, organs all shattered.” He could not discern so many other hidden details. But the jianghu coroner was different. He quickly discovered that the punch to the heart had been the only fatal wound. This was no “Dragon Rising from Mount Lu,” where a punch to the front chest could stop the heart and a matching punch to the back could revive it... When this punch landed, the heart shattered outright. Its name was—“Five Thunders Piercing Heart Fist.” In the current martial world, only three people could deliver such a punch. These three were: “Iron Monk” Yihuai; Overlord Fist Sect head “Overlord Fist” Huo Ming; and Feng Manlou of the court’s “Wind-Cloud Years.” There was also another who had retired for many years—one could not be certain whether he was still alive, but he certainly knew this punch—“Eight Wastes Fist Sage” Lei Buwei. When Zhu Jiaduan heard this conclusion, his brow furrowed. Whether he could defeat those four was another matter; but by basic logic, the possibility that any of them was the killer was nearly zero. Yihuai and Feng Manlou were upright men of universal repute. If they had wanted to kill Zheng Mukai, it must have been because Zheng had done something monstrous. Moreover, they had always killed openly and honorably—why would they strike in the middle of the night, kill, dump the body, and try to conceal the cause of death? As for Huo Ming, he was the head of a sect; so many eyes watched his comings and goings every day, and his sect was far away across mountains and long roads. If he had done it, there would be no need to conceal the cause of death; he would first have to think about how to deal with an alibi. Lei Buwei... there was even less need to mention him. He had been retired for years, and he had always disdained fighting people whose martial arts were far inferior to his own. Going one step further: if those four wanted to kill Zheng Mukai and the two escort hands, would they need the “Five Thunders Piercing Heart Fist”? With their level of force, a sequence of ordinary punches would have killed them. Just as Zhu Jiaduan was utterly baffled, the disciples he had sent out to gather information returned and told him what they had found... Hey, it fit! Even before the Youth Heroes Assembly had ended, some had already guessed that Lei Buji might be Lei Buwei’s son. Though there were countless people in the world with similar names, on top of the similar name, this young man of unknown origins, so young and with such superb fist skill—how could that not invite speculation? Of course, one could not rule out the possibility that the boy’s father was a die-hard fan of the “Eight Wastes Fist Sage” and had deliberately given his son this name... but in comparison, directly guessing that he was Lei Buwei’s child was clearly more plausible. Speculation was speculation, though; an unverified matter could at most be called rumor. Besides, only about ten days had passed since the Youth Heroes Assembly ended, and it was not yet even out of August. In those days, gossip did not spread that quickly. However, Kaifeng was not far from Luoyang. Zhu Jiaduan had already heard the rumor that Lei Buji “perhaps” was Lei Buwei’s son, and most people in the Guangxing Escort Agency knew it as well. Now that this affair had coincidentally come up, they pieced together the information they had, and a chain of logic emerged... The cause of the matter should be the earlier conflict between Zheng Mukai and Huang Donglai at the restaurant. As for the exact situation of that conflict, it was hard to say... after all, ordinary onlookers loved to embellish. So by the time this affair passed through the witnesses’ mouths and reached the ears of the Guangxing people... it had become several rather exaggerated versions. But the outcome of that conflict was fairly certain: Huang Donglai and the others had backed down and apologized, and Zheng Mukai left the restaurant with two escort hands. According to Zhu Jiaduan’s speculation, those young men had probably felt their honor had been wounded afterward and, harboring resentment, went to seek revenge on Zheng Mukai that night. It might have been several of them together, or Lei Buji alone. In any case, the result was that he encountered Zheng Mukai on the road, but could not reliably overpower him in martial arts. During the fight, this brat Lei Buji used the “Five Thunders Piercing Heart Fist” taught by his father to kill him. After killing him, he feared that his martial art would be identified if investigated, so he rained a flurry of punches on the corpse, beating Zheng Mukai until he was covered in wounds and shattering his internal organs, then dumped the body in the back alley of the inn where he himself was staying. After dumping the body and returning to his room, he still felt uneasy, and simply decided not to stop halfway. He went to the west-city inn and beat the other two escort hands to death as well, then concealed it in the same way. This line of reasoning actually had many holes, but Zhu Jiaduan’s hatred was burning through his heart, and he was eager to seize the enemy; he could not think too carefully. After forming only a rough idea, he led his men to the east-city inn to demand an accounting. When the Guangxing group charged through the gate of that inn, Sun Yixie, Huang Donglai, and Lei Buji happened to be sitting on the first floor eating. The several escort guards in charge of gathering information had naturally already scouted the place and memorized their appearances, so someone immediately leaned close to Zhu Jiaduan and said softly, “Agency head, it’s those three. The short-necked one is Huang Donglai, the small-eyed one is Sun Yixie, and the black-faced one who looks older is Lei Buji.” “Hm?” At that instant, Sun and Huang, who had already pricked up their ears, simultaneously let out that same thoughtful grunt and both turned to look at Zhu’s group. Lei Buji also hurriedly swallowed the mouthful of food he was chewing and turned to look along with his two elder brothers. “Oh?” Zhu Jiaduan looked over the three juniors, then stepped forward to their table. Suppressing his anger, he glared at them and said, “You... are Lei Buji, Huang Donglai, and Sun Yixie?” As he spoke, his tiger-like eyes swept viciously across their faces. Even the most oblivious person would understand that this visitor meant trouble. Therefore, Sun Yixie stood up at once, pretending to bow while actually putting a little distance between himself and the other side, ready to fight. “This one is Sun Yixie. May I ask who this senior is?” “Hmph!” Zhu Jiaduan gave a cold snort, put on the airs of an agency head, and enunciated word by word, “Head of the Guangxing Escort Agency, Zhu Jiaduan.” “Oh~ So it’s Senior Zhu. Long admired, long admired. Forgive me for my lack of respect...” Sun was at it again, with the same old routine. But this time... it would not work. “Enough nonsense!” Seeing Sun’s grinning, cheeky face, Zhu’s anger flared instead. He shouted sternly, “Zhu has come today to demand justice! If you know what’s good for you, confess what you did...” At that point, his eyes fixed firmly on Lei Buji. “If one person did it, I will pursue only that one and will not involve the others... If it was done together, but you insist on bearing it alone... I will respect you as a man who dares to act and take responsibility, and at least leave you a whole corpse!”