THE SMILING PROUD WANDERER by Jin Yong

Seat Fighting Part 4

People in the hall were still chatting and making wild conjectures as to who had killed the apprentice of the Taishan Sword School and the apprentice of the Qingcheng Sword School. When they saw Yu Canghai coming in, some recognized him as the Master of Qingcheng Sword School. For the ones who did not know him at all, even though all they saw was a short man, the way he walked and behaved clearly showed the dignity of a great master. So soon, they all stopped talking. Silence took over the entire hall. Yu Canghai looked through the crowd closely, person by person. Most of the people in the hall belonged to the junior generation in the Martial World. Although he did not know many of them, by each one's apparel, he could determine which school they belonged to. He knew that no one from the junior generation of any school could be such a master with great inner energy. If this person were really in the hall, he must look somehow different from the others. He looked and looked, one after another, when suddenly, his sharp gaze picked out a man.

This man had a very ugly face. The very muscles on his face seemed to have been twisted by some kind of evil magical force. Several pieces of plaster were spread across his face, and a big hump stood out from his back.

Yu Canghai could not contain his surprise when he suddenly thought of the man's identity. "Could it be him?" he asked himself. The 'Hunchback of the North,' Mu Gaofeng, always hung around the northern border, and seldom showed up in the central region. He had no connection with the Five Mountains Sword Alliance. Why would he show up in Liu Zhengfeng's hand-washing ceremony? But if it were not he, Yu Canghai could think of no other ugly hunchbacks in the Martial World.

The other people in the hall followed Yu Canghai's gaze and saw the hunchback. Several older members of the crowd, who knew much about the Martial World, let out cries of surprise. Liu Zhengfeng rushed toward the hunchback and greeted him, "I didn't realize that your honor had come, and did not serve you in good manner, please pardon me."

In actuality, the hunchback was nobody famous. He was none other than the young master of the Fortune Prestige Escort House – Lin Pingzhi. Afraid of being recognized by the others, he had kept his head down the entire time and stayed in a corner of the Great Hall. If Yu Canghai had not searched very carefully, nobody would have ever noticed him. But now that everybody's eyes were fixed on him, Lin Pingzhi felt very embarrassed. He stood up immediately, bowed back to Liu Zhengfeng and said, "Not really, not really!"

Liu Zhengfeng knew that Mu Gaofeng was from the northern border region, but the man in front of him had a southern accent. He also seemed to be far younger. Despite his doubts, he knew that Mu Gaofeng always liked to come and go like a shadow; it wouldn't be appropriate to judge his behavior using common standards. So he said very politely, "I am Liu Zhengfeng. May I have the honor to ask your respectful name?"

Lin Pingzhi never thought that someone would ask him about his name. He mumbled a couple of words but did not answer.

"You and Hero Mu...?" Liu Zhengfeng asked again.

An idea suddenly came to Lin Pingzhi's mind: "My last name is Lin. If I use only half of it, it's the character of Mu."[2] So he said quickly, "Mu is my family name."

"Mr. Mu's coming to Hengshan has brought great honor to our Liu House. May I ask what is the relationship between you and 'Hunchback of the North,' Hero Mu?" Liu Zhengfeng inquired. He could tell that Lin Pingzhi was just a young lad, and those pieces of plaster on his face were used just to hide his true identity. He was definitely not the man who had been renowned for decades – 'Hunchback of the North' Mu Gaofeng.

Lin Pingzhi had never heard of the name 'Hunchback of the North' Mu Gaofeng before, but by the tone and voice of Liu Zhengfeng, he could tell the man named Mu had quite a reputation. Also, Yu Canghai was still glaring at him with a fierce look on his face; if he revealed his true identity, Yu Canghai would probably kill him without batting an eyelash. In such a precarious situation, the only right thing to do was to make some innocuous statements and fob them off with some vague answers. So he said, "'Hunchback of the North' Hero Mu? He is...he is a senior of mine." He thought if that man was called a hero, then of course the name "senior" would be appropriate.