THE SMILING PROUD WANDERER by Jin Yong

Annihilation Part 4

That middle aged person put his hand on his sword handle. He said, "Five Mountains School's headmaster, Mr. Yue, is very kind and he's allowed us to come and have a look at the sword moves on the wall. But he didn't limit us to which moves we can look and which ones we can't."

That old person from Songshan School said, "You're thinking of harming my Songshan School, we won't allow you to."

"Five schools have become one. At this time, there's only Five Mountains School. How can there be Songshan School? If not for five schools becoming one, Mr. Yue would never have permitted you to look at the sword moves in this cave at Huashan," that middle aged person said and that old man was unable to reply back. A disciple of Songshan pushed the back of that middle aged person's shoulder and shouted, "You're very good in turning things over." That middle aged person reached back with his hand and flinged that person's hand away. That Songshan's disciple staggered and fell on the ground.

At this time, a person from the Taishan School suddenly shouted, "Who are you? Wearing our Taishan School's uniform and mixing with us trying to steal the Taishan School's sword art." A youngster wearing the Taishan School's uniform hurriedly rushed out. A person nearest to the exit immediately moved and shouted, "Stop, who are you making trouble here?"

That youngster stabbed out with his sword as he rushed forward. The person blocking the exit sent his left palm out towards his eye. That youngster quickly retreated a step. The person blocking the exit shot his right hand out like the wind, again stabbing at his eye. The youngster's long sword was on the outside so it was difficult for him to block and he was forced to step back again. The person blocking the exit swept his leg, the youngster leapt up to avoid it. Then with a 'peng' sound, his chest had been hit by a palm and he had fallen down on the ground. From behind, two Taishan School's disciples went up to detain him.

At this time, the four Songshan School's people surrounding that middle aged person had attacked with their long swords. That middle aged person swiftly and fiercely fought back, but his sword art didn't belong to the five mountains sword schools. A few Songshan's disciples watching on the side cried out, "This chap isn't from the five mountains sword schools. He's a traitor mixing in with us."

With two fights going on, the quiet mountain cave had turned chaotic. Linghu Chong thought, "My master told these people to come here, it's not because he has a good intention. I'm going to tell Martial uncle Mo and ask him to lead his people out of here. I'll tell him about the Hengshan School's sword art once we got out of the cave." He immediately leaned on the wall to stay in the shadow as he walked near to Mr. Mo Da. He had only gone for a few dozens feet when suddenly a big rumbling sound was heard. It was as if the mountain had cracked.

People were crying out in alarm. Linghu Chong quickly turned around and saw dirt and dust falling around the cave's entrance. He didn't care about finding Mr. Mo Da anymore and was just wishing to go to Yingying, but with lots of people chaotically running away, swords brandished everywhere, dirt falling down around the cave, he couldn't see where Yingying was. He flew out from the cluster of people towards the cave's entrance while dodging swords slashed at him. He shouted desperately but he saw a massive rock which was around tens of thousands of catty heavy dropping on the cave's entrance, firmly shutting the cave in. In panic, he took a glance and it seemed there was no crack to get out.

"Yingying, Yingying!" Linghu Chong shouted. Yingying answered but it sounded like she was somewhere deep inside the cave. But with two hundred people shouting in confusion, he couldn't hear her clearly. He thought, "How come Yingying is inside?" He thought for a while and he understood, "Oh, yes. When that big rock fell down, Yingying was standing on the cave's entrance and she wasn't willing to run by herself, but she was thinking of me. I rushed back to the entrance to look for her, but she was rushing inside to find me." He immediately turned around to rush inside.

Originally, there were dozens of torches inside the cave. But when the big rock fell down and with the confusion going on, there were some who threw their torches away. Thus, most of the torches had been extinguished. The whole cave was filled with dust and all he could see was fuzzy yellow. He heard people shouting in alarm, "The cave's entrance has been sealed up! The cave's entrance has been sealed up!" There were also people who angrily shouted, "It's that traitor Yue Buqun's plot!" Another person shouted, "That's right. That traitor deceived us to see his ***** sword art..."

Dozens of people tried to push the big rock. But this big rock was just like a small mountain, even though dozens of people were forcefully pushing it, how could they even move it for an inch? There was also someone who shouted, "Quick, quickly leave from the tunnel." A few people had thought of this earlier. Around twenty of them were pushing each other crowding the entrance to that tunnel. That tunnel was the one dug by the Devil Sect's elders years ago with hatchets and only one person could go through it at a time. So with twenty people crowding together, how could they manage to go in? With this confusion, ten more torches were extinguished.

Two big men from the crowd used their strength to push the people away as they rushed towards the tunnel's entrance. The tunnel's entrance was very narrow and they hit each other, preventing each other from going in. The person on the right hand side swiped his left hand and the big man on the left cried out, a dagger was sticking out of his chest. The big man on the right hand side pushed him away and entered the tunnel. The rest of the crowd pushed and shoved, all of them wanting to enter. Linghu Chong had not seen Yingying yet and he was feeling very worried. He also thought, "The Devil Sect's ten elders had very high martial arts. But because of this plot, they were all buried in here. Today, I'm not sure if Yingying and I can get out of this difficulty. This would be very dangerous if my master is the one who arranged all this."

He saw the crowd was at the tunnel's entrance pushing and shoving. They were all anxious and frightened. Suddenly, a murderous intention popped into his head, "These chaps are blocking me, I must kill them all then Yingying and I can escape from here." He lifted his long sword wanting to start killing people. But he saw a youngster crouching on the ground with both his hand clutching his hair and his whole body shuddering. His face was ashen. It was obvious he was scared to death. Linghu Chong took pity on him and he pondered, "He and I are friends in difficulty and we've both fallen in this trap. We should cross the river in a boat together, why should I kill him in anger for?" He pulled back his long sword and put it across in front of his chest.

Then he heard the twenty odd people at the tunnel's entrance shouted, "Quickly go in!" "Why aren't you moving?" "Not crawling in?" "Drag him out!" That big man's two feet were still outside and it seemed the tunnel was blocked, but he wasn't willing to crawl back out. Two people stooped down to grab that big man's feet and pulled him out. Suddenly, dozens of people called out in alarm because they had pulled out a headless corpse. The neck was covered with blood. This big man's head had unexpectedly been cut off by someone in the tunnel.

At this time, Linghu Chong saw a person sitting in the corner of the cave, and under the dusky flame, he recognised that person to be Yingying. He was jubilant and quickly rushed there. But after only taking two steps, seven to eight people blocked his way. Currently, the cave was in chaos and everyone looked like they had lost their reasoning just like headless flies flying all over the place. There were some who crazily slashed their swords at random, some were beating their chests crying, some were wrestling each other, and there were some who were crawling on the ground going here and there.

Linghu Chong had squeezed out a few steps when he suddenly felt both of his legs being firmly embraced. He powerfully hit the top of that person's head causing that person to cry out but he still didn't let go. Linghu Chong shouted, "If you don't let go, I'll kill you." Suddenly, the top of his calf hurt as he had unexpectedly been bitten. Linghu Chong was angry and surprised. He saw everyone was acting like they were crazy, and the torches inside the cave were getting less and less. Now, only two torches were still burning but they were already fallen on the ground. Linghu Chong called out, "Pick up the torches, pick up the torches."

A fat Taoist laughed and stepped on a torch extinguishing it. Linghu Chong lifted his long sword and beheaded that person biting on his calf. Suddenly, everything was dark and nothing could be seen. The last torch had been extinguished.

With the torches extinguished, everyone in the cave suddenly became quiet as they were stunned by this change in situation. But after a short moment had passed, the mad shouting began again. Linghu Chong thought, "We have no chance of getting out of here alive today. It's lucky that I can die here together with Yingying." Thinking up to this point, he felt happy instead of afraid and started going towards where Yingying was. After walking for a few steps, someone suddenly came towards him and powerfully hit him. This person had high inner energy and the hit was swift and fierce. Linghu Chong staggered back for a couple of steps after being hit and turned around for half a circle. He quickly turned back and slowly continued on his way to where Yingying was sitting at. With his ears straining to listen, he heard crying and shouting and dozens of weapons colliding. In the dark, with so many people frightened, most of them were like half crazy and everyone was afraid so they were slashing their weapons about to protect themselves. Some of them had a lot of experience or high internal energy, and they originally remained calm, but with the people besides them randomly swiping their weapons and the mountain cave so crowded, also with no place to dodge in the darkness, besides wielding their own weapons, there was no other way. He heard weapons clashing, people crying out in pain around them, also injured people moaning and cursing.

Linghu Chong could only hear the weapons splitting the wind all around him. Even though his sword art was high, there was no way for him to use it properly as he could be hit from any direction at any moment. He was feeling really worried so he immediately swiped his long sword to protect his upper body. Step by step, he moved towards the cave wall. Once he reached the wall, he could lean on it while walking and avoid a lot of dangers, just like that person resembling Yingying leaning on the wall while sitting down. With that method of walking, he would be able to meet her soon. From where he was standing, he was still dozens of feet away from the cave wall. But the blades were like the forest and the swords were like the rain, every inch was fraud by danger and every step was fraud with death.

Linghu Chong thought, "If I die under the hand of a master then it would be sweet. But in this situation, I can just get killed anytime by something mysterious. And the one who killed me is probably some idiot who knows a bit of martial art only. Even if Hero Dugu lived again and met with this kind of situation, I'm afraid he probably also can't find a way out." As he thought of Dugu Qiubai, he was enlightened, "That's right, in today's situation, if I don't kill someone mysteriously then I'll be the one killed mysteriously. When I kill one, that'll be one less person to kill me." His long sword trembled out using the 'Arrow Breaking Stance' of the 'Dugu Nine Sword', his sword stabbed out to the front, back, left, and right. Once he used the sword stance, a few people around him cried out miserably and dropped to the ground. He felt his sword entered the flesh of someone and he heard that person cried out lightly. It was the voice of a girl. Linghu Chong was greatly startled and his hand became weak and he nearly dropped his long sword. His heart was thumping, "Was that Yingying? Did I just kill Yingying!" He shouted desperately, "Yingying, Yingying, is that you?"

But there was no sound coming from that girl. He was very familiar with Yingying's voice and that light cry was not actually from her and very easily distinguishable. But with many voices mixed inside the cave, the lightness of this girl's cry, his worried heart, and his chaotic mind, he felt that it was Yingying but at the same time also felt that it wasn't her. He called out again for a few times but there was still no answer so he stooped down to feel around the ground. Suddenly, a kick came flying in and kicked him squarely on his butt. Linghu Chong flew up and while his body was in mid air, his left leg hurt as someone gave it a whip. He quickly used his left hand to cover his head, and with a 'bang', his arm along with his head had hit the top of the cave. As he was dropping back down, he felt his head, his arm, legs, and butt were all covered in pain, like his whole body was about to be shattered into pieces. He calmed himself down and called out "Yingying" again for a couple more times. Hearing his own voice, he sounded hoarse like he was crying. His heart was feeling miserable and desperate as he shouted, "I've killed Yingying, I've killed Yingying!" With his long sword slashing left and right, he rushed forward and killed a few people.

In this clamour, he suddenly heard two 'zheng, zheng' sound. This was the sound of a yaoqin. Even though the sound of this qin was light, in Linghu Chong's ears they were just like thunder startling him. He was rapt and quickly called out, "Yingying, Yingying!"

Right at this time, he wanted to go to where the sound of that qin was coming from. But as he thought about it, the sound of that qin came from some distance away. This one hundred feet distance was a hundred times more dangerous when compared to walking in Jianghu for a hundred thousand li. To be able to walk this one hundred feet distance without dying was actually very difficult. This sound of qin was of course from Yingying and since she's alright, then he mustn't just throw his life away. If the two of them couldn't die together hand in hand then they would suffer endless regret in the nine fountain. He retreated back for a couple of steps and leaned his back on the cave wall. He thought, "This is much safer." Suddenly he felt a strong wind of someone slashing his weapon rushing at him. Linghu Chong thrust his sword out, but just as he moved his long sword, he immediately knew things were far from good.

The essence of 'Dugu Nine Sword' was at looking at the flaw of the opponent's movements and attacking that point. Thrust later but arriving first, one move to take victory. But in this dark cave, he couldn't even see his enemy or his enemy's movement, so how could he see the flaw in the movement? At this situation, 'Dugu Nine Sword' was completely useless. The long sword in Linghu Chong's hand had only thrust out for a foot when he hastily dodged to the left. Then he heard a breaking sound followed by a crashing sound and lastly a miserable cry. He guessed that person's weapon must have first struck against the wall and broke, and the broken weapon then had stabbed his own body.