THE SMILING PROUD WANDERER by Jin Yong

Collaboration Part 4

Without any scruples for projectiles, Xiang Wentian ran as fast as he could and after turning two mountain ridges, he finally said, "We are here!" Letting out a long breath, he broke into loud laughter, his mind completely free from any worries. The last five miles of running was extremely dangerous. He really had had no confidence that he would be able to shake off the chasing enemies.

Linghu Chong scanned the surroundings widely and felt a slight surprise. A narrow stone beam lay in front of his eyes, leading into a bottomless abyss. The stone beam only had a visible part of eight or nine feet long; anything further was completely concealed in thick mist. He couldn't tell how long the stone beam was and where it led to.

"It's an iron chain in the mist. Don't step onto it carelessly," Xiang Wentian whispered.

"Got it," Linghu Chong answered, his heart thumping rapidly. "This stone beam's width is no wider than a foot with a bottomless abyss right below it. This is already extremely dangerous. With an iron chain in the place of the stone beam, it is impossible for me to cross it with my current Kung Fu," he thought inwardly.

Xiang Wentian untied the iron chain around the hands of the "dead shield," and then drew a long sword by the man's waist and handed it over to Linghu Chong. Placing the "shield" in front of himself, he waited for the enemies silently. Within a few minutes, the first block of enemies had arrived. Among them were both members of the Demon's Cult and members of the orthodox schools. Seeing the precipitous terrain and Xiang Wentian's "fighting with one's back to the river"[6] stance, none of them was bold enough to charge forward. After a while, more and more enemies arrived. Gathering at about fifty or sixty feet away from Linghu Chong and Xiang Wentian, they shouted their curses for a while and began shooting all kinds of projectiles, darts, migratory locust rocks, sleeve-arrows, and so on and so on. Xiang Wentian and Linghu Chong hid behind the "shield" and none of the projectiles could reach them.

Suddenly, a thunderous roar blasted as a boorish mendicant monk charged forward, leaving booming echoes reverberating in the deep valley. The mendicant monk smacked his over seventy-pound iron Buddhist staff toward Xiang Wentian's waist. Xiang Wentian bent forward and swung his iron horizontally barely above the ground simultaneously. By the time the Buddhist staff passed by from above his head, his iron chain also swept toward the mendicant monk's right ankle. The mendicant monk had put great strength into the smack and could not draw the staff back in time to block the iron chain; having no other choice, he leapt upward to dodge it. But Xiang Wentian's iron chain suddenly turned around, wrapped around the mendicant monk's right ankle, and swung upward, following the mendicant monk's upward momentum using his own force against him. The mendicant monk lost his balance at the landing and tottered forward only finding himself falling toward the bottomless abyss. With a snap of his wrist, Xiang Wentian unwrapped his iron chain from the mendicant monk's ankle. Miserable screams echoed as the mendicant monk fell down and continued all the way down into the abyss, which made the hairs on the back of everybody's neck standing on their ends as they took several steps back spontaneously.

The deadlock lasted for a good while until two men finally stepped forward. One had a pair of halberds and the other one was a monk, holding a crescent spade in his hands. The two men launched their attack shoulder to shoulder: the two halberds, one on the top and the other one below it, struck toward Xiang Wentian's face and lower abdomen while the crescent spade struck forward aiming at his left rib cage. All three weapons were the heavy type, and with resourceful inner energy attached to them, they appeared to be ultra powerful. The two men had the landform in their minds when they launched the attack so that Xiang Wentian would not be able to dodge to the side and would have no choice but to block the attack with his iron chain in a contest of strength. Sure enough, Xiang Wentian waved his iron chain and with three loud bangs, knocked the two halberds and the crescent spade back. Sparkles flew in all directions from all four weapons, proving that this round of fight was sheer strength against sheer strength and there was no room for any trickery. Loud cheers exploded in the audiences at once.