SS CH7

Xie Li felt as though his destiny had violently clashed with the Grand Duke Jupiter this year; if he managed to make it out alive, he would absolutely drench himself head-to-toe in a basin of black dog’s blood to ward off the evil.

Just moments ago, he had been unceremoniously shoved into this stone chamber by some mechanism while completely bewildered. He had even taken off his scabbard and boots to furiously smash against the door for half the day, but it yielded absolutely no reaction. His heart was gripped by panic, and he was completely at a loss.

Ye Fusheng’s intentions had been good. With his sharp hearing and keen sight in the dark, he had noticed the hollow echoes from behind the door and deduced it was a quiet room. Seeing an enemy present, he simply pushed Xie Li out of the battle circle to spare him from being implicated, intending to go fetch him once the trouble was resolved. Unfortunately, in this world, aside from well-behaved children, there was no shortage of bratty troublemakers.

Despite his young age, Xie Li had never been one to climb onto roofs to rip off tiles, but he undeniably possessed quite the knack for courting death.

Seeing that beating the door was a dead end, Xie Li decisively turned around to seek another way out. He was unfamiliar with the structure of this place, nor did he possess any fire-starter for illumination, so he blundered around in the dark like a headless fly. Fortunately, he was both bold and meticulous. Feeling his way along the seams of the wall bricks one by one, a blind cat actually managed to stumble upon a dead mouse. After tapping out seven hollow bricks in succession, Xie Li mentally connected their locations and then dealt a heavy palm strike squarely onto the Tianshu position.

That hollow brick was smashed completely inwards by his strike. A deafening “boom” echoed in the dark, and Xie Li hunched down to dodge to the side. Half of the wall collapsed, and a blast of frigid wind howled in, cutting against his face until it stung.

A faint light shone through the broken hole, stinging eyes that had gradually grown accustomed to the darkness. Xie Li picked up a stone and tossed it in. It clattered against several things in succession before rolling far away.

There were obstacles inside.

A smart person would hesitate, but Xie Li happened to be foolish.

He was ten years old this year. He had begun learning martial arts at three and grasped a saber at four. Unloved by his father, with his mother having passed early, all those acts of causing trouble, acting spoiled, and complaining when wronged had long been buried in the innocent dreams of his past.

The Duanshui Manor Manor, the Duanshui Manor Saber, Xie Wuyi… these were the responsibilities he had witnessed and engraved into his heart since childhood. For the past three years, he practiced martial arts day and night, unceasing through all four seasons. Having witnessed deception and treachery, having heard of yesterday’s fading glories, a sprout of wanting to stand indomitable between heaven and earth had already taken root in his un-grown mind. Even though he didn’t have two ounces of flesh on his bones, he desperately wanted to shoulder the crumbling beams, never knowing what it meant to retreat in the face of hardship.

Xie Li took a deep breath and drew the Duanshui Manor Saber from his back. He was too small; the saber wasn’t much shorter than his own height, making the sight look rather comical.

Immediately, he dove inside. Before he could even steady his footing, a humming wail of wind rushed above him. He instinctively ducked his head. His high-bound hair-bun silently spilled open as the lapis lazuli hair-ring was cleaved cleanly in two!

In that exact split second, Xie Li caught a hasty glimpse. This was yet another stone chamber, its layout not much different from the previous one, only vastly larger. Three everlasting lamps burned on the walls, and in the very center stood a circular stone platform surrounded by water. In each of the four corners stood a human-shaped puppet.

All were crafted into life-sized, male forms, their features carved nearly identically. At a glance, they looked like four blood brothers. They held four different weapons—a saber, a spear, a sword, and a halberd—looking exactly like the Four Heavenly Kings descending to subdue demons.

The puppet wielding the sword was closest to him. Upon its first failed strike, it thrust its iron sword again—agile and vicious. The sword tip clashed against the Duanshui Manor Saber’s scabbard in the blink of an eye, a mere hair’s breadth from Xie Li’s throat.

With a jolt from the iron sword, Xie Li stumbled three steps back. Suddenly hearing the howling wind behind him, he instinctively reversed his saber horizontally, blocking a long halberd. A tremendous force pressed down, forcing him straight to one knee, the web between his thumb and index finger splitting open.

Before he could even take a breath, Xie Li’s expression drastically changed. He abruptly withdrew his saber and rolled on the ground. Only a continuous series of eight thwacks was heard as dust flew into the air; eight holes had just appeared precisely where he had been standing!

The third puppet charged over with its spear. The ninth thrust clashed against the Duanshui Manor scabbard. Under the competing forces, Xie Li felt as if his internal organs were churning. He swallowed down a mouthful of blood, right as the fourth puppet’s saber came chopping down.

With a resonant clang, a saber shining like autumn water flashed from its sheath. Xie Li had endured for a long time, only drawing his saber to strike at this exact moment, fiercely clashing against the puppet’s great saber in a burst of sparks.

One strike out, the move yet unfinished, the edge of the Duanshui Manor Saber slashed down with the momentum, cleaving the puppet’s saber in twain. However, the damn thing simply abandoned its weapon. Its ten fingers cracked menacingly as it formed fists and smashed down toward him.

The four puppets surrounded him in the middle, strikes following one after another relentlessly. They forced Xie Li to practically wish he could reincarnate as a monkey to dodge faster. Sweeping a glance from the corner of his eye, he noticed the water-ringed stone platform remained peaceful. From beginning to end, the puppets had never dragged the fight in that direction.

Xie Li feinted a move. Just as the Duanshui Manor Saber and the iron sword were about to connect, Xie Li secretly withdrew his force and was instantly knocked away like a kite with a broken string. His calculation was precise; seeing he was about to land right onto the stone platform, the spear-wielding puppet surprisingly refused to let him pass. The long spear in its hands shot out, hurtling directly toward his face. Mid-air with nowhere to dodge and no leverage to borrow, Xie Li’s pupils shrank, but the spear tip brushed past his ear and shot away.

“This is the first time I’ve ever seen someone lacking a brain to such an extent.”

An unfamiliar male voice rang by his ear. The long spear was lightly flicked by a pale finger, deviating from its bullseye trajectory. A ghostly, shadowy figure appeared beside Xie Li, grabbing him by the collar and hoisting him onto the water-ringed stone platform like a baby chick.

As expected, the four puppets did not pursue. They merely stood by the water’s edge, eerie and motionless. Chu Xiwei unceremoniously let go, and the boy faceplanted onto the ground, eating a mouthful of dust.

Chu Xiwei inspected their landing spot. This stone platform was roughly a square zhang in size, circled by a ring of glowing green water. He raised an eyebrow and tossed a piece of silver into it, which elicited a bizarre sizzling sound.

“This is the forbidden ground of the Duanshui Manor, and you’re the Young Master. Have you ever been here?”

Xie Li coughed a few times before speaking, “Young Master, not yet the Manor Lord.”

“Tsk, deadweight.” Chu Xiwei kicked him. “Get up. It’s about to begin.”

What was about to begin?

Xie Li didn’t ask. He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, gripped the Duanshui Manor Saber, and stood up, ready for battle.

Facts proved that the rare warning from the Master of the Hundred Ghosts Sect was no idle threat meant to scare people.

With a series of loud clangs, a dozen iron bars shot straight up along the edges of the stone platform, piercing deeply into the stone ceiling above, forming a massive iron cage. Chu Xiwei pressed down on Xie Li’s shoulder, examined every single iron bar, and then struck out with his palm. After a violent tremor, the iron cage shockingly remained entirely unharmed. Xie Li, standing behind him, looked up and exclaimed in shock, “The ceiling stone sank three inches!”

Chu Xiwei furrowed his brow and struck out with another palm, utilizing sixty percent of his strength. The iron bar in front of him fractured to the point of near-breaking beneath his strike, but the massive stone slab above them plummeted by over a foot!

If they couldn’t blast open this iron cage in a single strike, they would be pinned down, immobilized, or even crushed into meat paste!

“Give me the saber.”

Xie Li hesitated for a second, then handed the Duanshui Manor Saber over. Chu Xiwei drew a breath of true Qi. Just as his hand grasped the hilt, Xie Li only felt his vision blur; the Duanshui Manor had already left its sheath.

Before he could even widen his eyes to catch a clear glimpse of the saber’s edge, a sharp hum rang in his ears. Chu Xiwei’s saber techniques were entirely devoid of flashy flourishes; drawing the saber was in itself a strike. Xie Li merely blinked, and the man had already returned the saber to its scabbard.

The four iron bars in front of them were sliced into twelve segments. The top and bottom eight segments teetered unsteadily, while the middle four segments completely exploded outwards.

At that exact moment, the massive stone slab crashed down, throwing up blinding dust. In an instant, it pressed down toward their flesh-and-blood bodies!

Grabbing Xie Li with one hand, Chu Xiwei soared up like a drifting duckweed, flying out of this cage of entrapment. The massive stone slammed into the stone platform, practically brushing past the hems of their clothes. The colossal impact sent water splashing in all directions.

Water sprayed everywhere, yet Chu Xiwei, carrying a half-grown child, managed to dodge through the chaotic assault without a single drop of water touching them. Just as they were about to land, the sound of triggering mechanisms echoed from all sides. Three walls flipped open simultaneously, revealing inner layers riddled with holes. From within, smoothly polished and razor-sharp stone needles fired out explosively, dense and gleaming with chilling light.

Suspended mid-air with nothing to land on or grasp, their path blocked by four armed puppets in front, and surrounded by stone needles from the left, right, and rear, it would only take a moment for them to be shot into a hornet’s nest.

The fastest stone needle was already on the verge of piercing into the back of Xie Li’s head.

Chu Xiwei forcefully shoved Xie Li forward, violently twisting his own body mid-air. The Duanshui Manor Saber in his hand swept out in a half-circle with the momentum, like a howling gale scattering autumn leaves. The stone needles closest to his body were drawn in by the invisible Qi of the saber and deflected back along the edge of his saber. Each one perfectly struck down the second volley of incoming stone needles.

With a spin of his body, he moved through the torrential rain of needles like a fish in water, forcefully carving out a three-foot zone of absolute safety around himself.

Unfortunately, even the most exceptional Qinggong couldn’t keep him suspended in the air indefinitely.

Before Chu Xiwei could even plant one foot firmly, the halberd-wielding puppet moved. It closed in, thrusting and hooking, aiming straight for Chu Xiwei’s face. Without enough time to pull the saber back to defend, Chu Xiwei raised his left hand, forming a knife-hand, and slashed diagonally upwards. It struck perfectly into the gap of the puppet’s wrist.

That incredibly lifelike hand was severed clean off at the wrist, and the long halberd clattered to the ground. Yet, from the severed stump of the puppet’s wrist, a stream of yellowish-green smoke suddenly blasted out. Caught completely off guard, Chu Xiwei was sprayed directly in the face. Though he held his breath just in time, his eyes burned with searing agony.

The puppets seemed to understand the concept of ‘taking advantage of his weakness to take his life’. All four puppets closed in simultaneously. Xie Li cursed inwardly and, relying on his small and agile frame, squeezed through the gaps and planted himself in front of Chu Xiwei. Accumulating his strength, he delivered a flying kick squarely onto the knee of the sword-wielding puppet. The counter-shock almost threw him off balance, but everything below the puppet’s knee was forcibly kicked flying away!

Chu Xiwei closed his eyes, but his hearing remained sharp. “What’s going on?”

Xie Li paused for a moment, his eyes quickly scanning the area. “These puppets all have cracks on them. They look extremely neat, as if they were once severed by someone using a sharp weapon.”

“The mechanisms here are primarily meant to trap, with killing as secondary. The traps are interlinked; you must possess the strength to trigger the next phase. It’s clearly a dilemma meant to trap someone. I wonder for what sacred entity this was set up…” Chu Xiwei let out a low chuckle and leisurely sat down on the ground. “Kid, I can’t see right now. I’ll leave these four fellows to you. Don’t let them hurt me.”

For a grown man to say this to a half-grown child was truly rather shameless, yet the child possessed no such awareness.

Xie Li only froze for a second before taking the Duanshui Manor Saber back from his hand, turning to face the four puppets.

Metal and stone clashed, ringing with resonant clangs. He stood guard in front of Chu Xiwei without giving a single inch of ground. The martial arts foundation he had built up day and night over the past seven years was finally laid bare in this moment. Lacking internal energy, he relied on his agile footwork to dodge attacks and continually exploited the puppets’ weaknesses to cause them to strike each other. Facing four opponents alone, though not fighting with ease, he was remarkably methodical.

The longer he fought, the more clear-headed and calm he became.

If he had been born into an ordinary family, a ten-year-old child should be at an age of carefree joy without knowing sorrow. Yet, he hailed from the Jianghu, destined for a lifetime of flashing swords and dancing shadows.

“The foundation of the Duanshui Manor cannot be ruined in your hands. You are Xie Wuyi’s son, so you can never just be a child!”

Sweat poured down his forehead, his loosened hair was a tangled mess, and a bloody gash from a sword tip marred his cheek.

The Duanshui Manor Saber was raised horizontally above his head, blocking a sword strike from a puppet that pressed down with the weight of Mount Tai.

As the iron sword heavily bore down, Xie Li was almost forced to his knees, unable to rise. He could pull his saber back; he could dodge.

But behind him was the blinded Chu Xiwei, and in his hands was the Duanshui Manor Saber.

Blood had already begun to seep from his knees, knocking against the floorboards. Gritting his teeth with veins popping, staking everything on a single breath in his chest, he shockingly began to slowly rise.

Behind him, Chu Xiwei raised an eyebrow. His fingers slowly unfurled, a palm strike ready to be unleashed.

“…Fei, Liu!”

A hoarse voice tore from his tender throat. The Duanshui Manor Saber let out a sharp, resonant hum, forcefully blasting the iron sword away. The saber’s edge slashed down along the cracks on the puppet’s body, carving deeply into its waist!

This single saber strike was like a flying waterfall piercing through rock. Chu Xiwei no longer hesitated. Locating him by sound, his palm brushed right over Xie Li’s head, slamming heavily into the puppet. The body, already deeply carved into by the saber, was instantly blasted flying away!

This earth-shattering palm strike stunned Xie Li, but failed to frighten the remaining three puppets. They attacked in a triangular formation, their heavy blows accompanied by the sound of tearing wind, arriving almost instantaneously.

Xie Li only felt his vision blur, while Chu Xiwei heard the fluttering of robes.

Ye Fusheng swept in from the broken doorway like a swallow, gracefully inserting himself into the battle. Almost without needing any coordination, he and Chu Xiwei struck out with their palms simultaneously—one to the left, two to the right. Xie Li’s messy hair flew wildly into the air. He subconsciously ducked between the two men, and only then did his hair, severed by the sheer force of their palm winds, flutter down to the ground.

Falling to the ground alongside it were piles of shattered, splintered rotten wood.

A single palm strike, striking with the momentum of ten thousand thunderbolts. Once the palm is unleashed, there is no return, let alone any life.

Seeing that the newcomer was Ye Fusheng, Xie Li let out a long sigh of relief, only to turn his head and discover yet another person standing at the broken doorway.

Standing against the light, the person’s features were indiscernible. They were emaciated to the point of being skin and bones, though one could vaguely tell it was a woman. Xie Li widened his eyes, trying to see clearly, when a hand suddenly fell upon the back of his neck and pressed down forcefully.

Before he could even let out a grunt, Xie Li went limp and collapsed to the floor.

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