THE SMILING PROUD WANDERER by Jin Yong

Annihilation Part 5

Just then when Linghu Chong and Zuo Lengchan were talking, Lin Pingzhi had heard him clearly and his position had been given away. The whole cave was quiet and only Lin Pingzhi's footsteps were heard. With each step of his, Linghu Chong knew he was one step closer to the death's door. Suddenly, someone shouted, "Wait! This Linghu Chong blinded my eyes and caused me to be unable to see the daylight from then on. Let me kill this bastard." More than ten people echoed what he said and they quickly walked over. Linghu Chong was startled. He knew they were the fifteen people who he had blinded on that night outside the abandoned temple. That day on his way towards Songshan for the merger of the five schools, he met these people on the way. These people had been blinded for a long time, and their abilities to use their ears to replace their eyes must be high. He already couldn't defend against one Lin Pingzhi, now with the addition of these fifteen people, he was totally outclassed.

He heard their footsteps while he quietly slid for a few steps towards the left. Then he heard a few 'ta, ta, ta' noise as a few longs sword were stabbed at the wall where he was standing at previously. Luckily, these ten or so people attacked at the same time causing the noise to blend with the footsteps sound concealing his footsteps. No one knew where he had gone to. Linghu Chong stooped down and felt a sword on the ground. He tossed it, and with a clanking sound, it hit the wall. Those ten or so blind men rushed over with their weapons raised, and they started fighting with some people. Shouting erupted and in a few moment six to seven people were killed. These people didn't have weak martial arts, but they couldn't see a thing in this darkness, so they weren't the match of these blind men.

Linghu Chong took advantage of this shouting to slide a few more steps to the left. He groped around to feel there was no one around the wall before he quietly crouched down and pondered, "Zuo Lengchan brought Lin Pingzhi and those blind men here to do battle in the dark. They're going to annihilate all of us here. But how does he know there's this kind of cave here?" As soon as he thought about it, he was enlightened, "Yes! That day little martial sister was on top of the place of worship, she fought using the moves engraved on the wall here. She defeated the masters from Taishan and Hengshan. She also used Songshan sword art in front of Zuo Lengchan and used the Heng-Shan sword art to fight against me. Since she came here before, Lin Pingzhi of course knows about it too." As he thought of little martial sister, his heart ached.

He heard Lin Pingzhi shouted, "Linghu Chong, you don't dare to reveal yourself, pulling in your head and tail. What kind of hero is that?"

Linghu Chong was angered and he wanted to get out to fight to the death with him, but he restrained himself. He thought, "A gentleman can bend and straighten. How can I get so irritated over him? I haven't found Yingying yet, I can't die so easily just like that." He also thought, "I once promised little martial sister to tend to Lin Pingzhi. If I come out and fight with him then got killed by him, that would be unworthy. But it's also not right if I kill him."

"There are turncoats in this cave, traitors who need to be killed," Zuo Lengchan shouted. "Even if you forgive Linghu Chong, there's nowhere he can go to!"

A short time later, clashing of weapons and shouting erupted. Linghu Chong squatted on the ground. After a short while, still no one attacked him. He strained to listen to Yingying's voice while pondering, "Yingying is far more careful and cleverer than me. In the middle of this ambush, she'd definitely not play her qin. I only hope no sword is being thrust at her." He heard the fighting between the crowd and those blind men was really fierce, they were fighting fiercely while also hurling curses. The curse 'scram your granny' was even heard. This 'scram your granny' was really grating to the ears. When common people uses this swear words, they always say 'go to your mum', or 'hold your granny', sometimes people also use 'scram your mother bastard', but it was rare to hear someone uses 'scram your granny'. Linghu Chong pondered, "Is this a swear word special to their provinces?" After listening for a while, he found that this swear word 'scram your granny' was used quite often by a few people. Once this swear word was uttered by both people fighting, the fighting would stop immediately. But if only one person uttered this swear word, then the fighting between them would continue. He immediately understood, "So this is the code for those blind men to distinguish each other." In that darkness, randomly slashing and killing, it was hard to determine friends or foes. Those blind men had determined a code beforehand and when they started fighting they would first called out this swear word 'scram your granny'. When two people cursed the same swear word, they were friends. Otherwise, they would kill their opponents. No one uses this swear word, so this code word was something that the enemy wouldn't use to curse someone with.

Once he understood this, he immediately stood up and put his sword in front of his chest. The swearing of 'scram your granny' was getting more frequent, while the clashing of weapons and the shouting were gradually dying. It seemed the people from Taishan, Hengshan, and Songshan Schools had been massacred. Linghu Chong had not heard of Yingying's voice. He was worried that Yingying had been killed earlier, but he was also happy that she didn't suffer under the hands of these blind men. He also thought, "The disciples of Songshan must've found out the cave in Huashan contained their own school's wonderful sword art so they quickly came here to take a look. This behaviour is quite common in people. But they didn't have time to report, so Zuo Lengchan just decided to kill them all and doesn't hold back at all. He must be thinking of killing me, but since he can't distinguish anyone, he even killed all his disciples who had only done a little bit of wrong." After some time, the sound of fighting ceased.

"Everyone," Zuo Lengchan shouted. "Go around the cave and give them another chop."

The blind men acknowledged his order, then the sound of sword slashing was heard going here and there. Two swords were chopping down in front of Linghu Chong, and he lifted his sword to block. Two hoarse voices shouting 'scram your granny' were heard and unexpectedly nobody realised what had happened. After some time, besides those blind men cursing and the clashing of weapons, there was no other noise. But Linghu Chong was still worried and he nearly cried, wanting to cry out, "Yingying, Yingying, where are you?"

"Stop!" Zuo Lengchan commanded.

Those blind men sheathed their swords and stood still. Zuo Lengchan laughed happily and said, "Those traitors have all been eliminated. These shameless people, just because they wanted to learn some sword moves, they actually swore loyalty to that bastard Yue Buqun. That little bastard Linghu Chong must've died under your swords! Haha! Haha! Linghu Chong, Linghu Chong, are you dead yet?" Linghu Chong held his breath and didn't reply.

"Pingzhi," Zuo Lengchan said. "Today, you've killed the person you hate the most. You must be satisfied."

"The whole battle was thought of by Brother Zuo," Lin Pingzhi replied. "It was wonderfully set up."

Linghu Chong thought, "Zuo Lengchan and him are praising each other. In order to get his Evil Resisting Sword Art, Zuo Lengchan is being very polite to him."

"If you didn't know of another secret path into this tunnel," Zuo Lengchan said. "It would've been hard for us to get our revenge."

"But it's a pity," Lin Pingzhi. "In all that confusion I didn't get the chance to kill that little bastard Linghu Chong myself."

Linghu Chong thought, "I've never offended him before. Why does he detest me so much?"

"It doesn't matter who killed him, it's all the same," Zuo Lengchan replied in whisper. "Let's go out quickly. I think Yue Buqun should be guarding outside of the cave now. We should take advantage of the darkness to rush out."

"Yes!" Lin Pingzhi acknowledged. The sound of footsteps was heard as their party entered the tunnel. Sound of footsteps gradually got farther away, and after a while, it was all quiet.

"Yingying," Linghu Chong whispered. "Where are you?" His voice sounded like he was weeping.

Suddenly, someone from above his head whispered, "I'm here. Don't make any noise!"

Linghu Chong was happy and both his knees became soft as he sat down on the ground. When those blind men randomly slashed their swords around, the safest place to be was up there. A place where no weapon can reach. This was a very obvious and simple point, but when faced with death, everyone's mind was in chaos and didn't think of this.

Yingying leapt down. Linghu Chong jumped up and tossed his sword away before embracing her tightly. They were both sobbing happily. Linghu Chong lightly kissed her forehead and whispered, "You really frightened me to death just before."

In the darkness, Yingying didn't avoid it and she lightly replied, "You were cursing people 'scram your granny'. Nevertheless, I heard it was your voice."

Linghu Chong couldn't help smiling as he asked, "You're not injured at all?"

"No."

"I heard the qin's sound before and wasn't worried anymore. But then I felt that I've stabbed a girl and the qin's sound became broken, not making up a tune, so I thought I've wounded you. Later on, there was no sound at all and I didn't know what had happened."

Yingying smiled. "I've jumped up there early on. I was afraid someone might find out so I couldn't call out to you. So I had to toss coins down to strike that yaoqin to let you know."

Linghu Chong sighed and said, "That's how it is. I never knew. I deserve to be hit, deserve to be hit!" He took her hand and lightly hit his own cheeks. "You're marrying such a stupid man," Linghu Chong chuckled. "This can be considered to be Young Lady Ren's bad luck. I felt it was really odd. If you were the one playing the yaoqin, why weren't you playing the 'Song of Peace and Serenity' or maybe the 'Smiling Proud Wanderer'?"

Yingying let him hugged her. "If I could toss coins in the darkness to make the yaoqin play out a tune, then I'll be a deity."

Linghu Chong laughingly said, "You are a deity."

When Yingying heard his words were teasing her, she struggled wanting to get away from his embrace. Linghu Chong tightly held on to her and asked, "Later on, why did you stop throwing the coins to strike the qin?"

"I'm poor," Yingying laughingly replied. "I don't have that much money on me. After throwing a few of them, I ran out."

Linghu Chong sighed. "It's a pity there's no money farm in this cave, there's also no store here. Young lady Ren has no money to use and there's no place to borrow money."

Yingying also laughed and said, "After that, I even used my hairpin and earrings. But when those blind men started killing, I didn't dare to throw things anymore because their hearings are very acute."

Suddenly, there was a gloomy cold laugh coming from the tunnel's entrance. Linghu Chong and Yingying gasped in surprise. Linghu Chong's left arm embraced Yingying while his right hand grabbed the long sword on the ground. He shouted, "Who's there?"

That person coldly replied, "Hero Linghu, it's me!" The voice was Lin Pingzhi's. Then they heard footsteps coming from the tunnel, the blind men had returned.

Linghu Chong scolded himself for being so careless. Zuo Lengchan was an old bastard and he was also very cunning, so how could he just go like that? They must've stayed in the tunnel listening to the noises inside the cave. If he was by himself, he would've wasted some time before trying to escape. But with Yingying and him worrying over each other and delighted over their reunion, he didn't think the enemy could've stayed not far from there and was watching them from the outside. Yingying put her hand underneath Linghu Chong's armpit and whispered, "Go up!" The two of them jumped up.

Yingying had earlier rested on the rock jutting out of the wall so she knew where it was. In the darkness, she applied the right amount of force to go up and steadily landed on it. But Linghu Chong missed and he instead landed back down. Yingying grabbed his arm and pulled him back up. This rock only jutted out for around three to four feet. Both of them were crowded and it wasn't easy for them to steadily stand there. Linghu Chong thought, "Yingying thinks very fast. Both of us are on top looking down, so it won't be easy for those blind men to attack us."

"Those two little ghosts jumped up," Zuo Lengchan said.

"Yes!" Lin Pingzhi acknowledged.

"Linghu Chong," Zuo Lengchan said. "Are you going to hide up there for the rest of your life?"

Linghu Chong didn't reply. He was thinking if he uttered a single noise then his hiding place would be discovered. His right hand held his sword while his left hand was wrapped around Yingying's waist. Yingying's left hand was holding a short sword and her right hand was also wrapped around his waist. They felt comforted to be able to be together, they had no regret even if they had to die right now.