rd. As soon as the door opened, Mr. Paint leapt backward. Mr. Huang-Zhong and the other two Manor Masters also leapt back many feet. Instinctively, Linghu Chong also took a few steps back.

“Little friend, they are afraid of me, but why would you be?” the man laughed loudly.

“Right!” Linghu Chong answered and then stepped forward. Reaching his hand out, he pushed on the iron-door. The hinges on the door were so rusted that he pushed very hard and only was able to open the door two feet wide. Immediately, a strong stale smell filled his nostrils.

Mr. Paint stepped forward and then handed him two wooden swords. Linghu Chong took the wooden swords and held them tightly with his left hand.

“Brother Feng, take an oil lamp with you,” Mr. Bald-Brush suggested, taking an oil lamp off the wall.

Linghu Chong took the oil lamp with his right hand and then entered the room. The prison cell was about ten-foot long and ten foot wide. A narrow and long bed lay next to a wall, on which sat a man. Long whiskers and mast aches covered the man’s face, making it impossible to see his look. The long beard under his chin almost reached his waist. But his hair, beard, and eyebrows were jet black without even a grain of grey.

“It is so fortunate of me to be able to meet the Senior Master Ren today. I hope I’ll be getting many good advice from you,” Linghu Chong bowed.

“Don’t be modest. I’ll have to thank you for coming here to dispel my loneliness,” the man grinned.

“You flatter me. Should I put the oil lamp on the bed?” Linghu Chong asked.

“Fine!” the man answered but didn’t reach out to get the lamp.

“This prison cell is too small to have a sword fight here?” Linghu Chong thought to himself.

He walked next to the bed and set the oil lamp down. Expediently, he gently tucked the paper ball and the hard object inside into the man’s palm. The man was slightly taken aback but still took the paper ball as he asked in a loud voice, “Hey, you four chaps! Are you coming in to watch?”

“The space is too limited. There’s no room,” Mr. Huang-Zhong replied.

“Suit yourself! Little friend, shut the door,” ” the man said.

“Yes,” Linghu Chong answered and then shut the cell door.

The man stood up and immediately a series of slight clanking sounds clanged from around his body as though many thin steel chains were clanking against each other. Reaching out with his right hand, he took a wooden sword from Linghu Chong and heaved a long sigh.

“I have not touched a weapon for over ten years. I wonder if I still remember the sword arts I learned many years back.”

Linghu Chong noticed a steel circle around his wrist, and a steel chain attached to it connected all the way to the wall behind him. Another glance quickly confirmed that there were also steel chains shackling the man’s other hand and both of his ankles to the wall behind him. Then the four walls grabbed his attention. Under the dim light from the oil lamp, they shined in dark green – turned out the four walls were all made of pure steel. He figured that the chains and shackles on the man’s wrists and ankles must have been made of pure steel, or else, chains this thin wouldn’t have been able to restrain a top notch Kung Fu master like him.

The man gave the wood sword a swing. The swing came from above to below and the sword merely moved about two feet in the air, but suddenly loud buzzes echoed in the small room.

“Senior Master, what incredible strength!” Linghu Chong praised.

The man turned around, and Linghu Chong could vaguely see that he opened the paper ball, saw the hard object wrapped inside, and began reading the writings on the paper. Taking a step backward, Linghu Chong intentionally blocked the square hole on the iron-door with his head, so no one from the outside could see what the man was doing. The man’s body trembled slightly as though the writings on the paper had greatly agitated him, and the steel chains clanged again and again. But only moments later, he had already turned around, and sharp stares shot out of his eyes.

“Little friend, although my hands cannot move freely, it is not necessarily true that I cannot win over you!”

“As a young and green junior, I, of course, is no rival for Senior Master,” Linghu Chong said.

“You attacked Black-White over forty moves in succession and didn’t give him any chance to launch his counterattack. You want to give me try?” the man demanded.

“Please forgive my audacity!” Linghu Chong replied and then thrust his sword at that man. The move he used was none other than the exact same first move he had used in the match against Mr. Black-White.

“Excellent!” the man commended and thrust his wooden sword at Linghu Chong’s left chest at an angle. It was a defending move that carried strong offence, and an offence move backed by strong defense at the same time, a swift and fierce sword move indeed.

Mr. Black-White watched the fight through the square shaped hole on the iron-door. As soon as he saw this move, he couldn’t help but shout, “Brilliant move!”

“Today is you four chaps’ lucky day. I am going to really widen your view now,” the man chortled.

By then, Linghu Chong’s second sword attack had arrived. The man swung his wooden sword outward and pointed it at Linghu Chong’s right shoulder, another smart move that had both strong defense and strong offense. Linghu Chong’s heart thumped. It felt as though there was not a single flaw in the man’s move that he could explorer to thrust forward and attack the opponent’s vital points. Having no alternative, he leveled his own sword in a block, tilting his sword tip, implying a possible attack toward the opponent’s lower stomach, a defending move that also carried much offense.

“Very clever move!” the man smiled, retracting his sword and swept it to the side.

The two of them went back and forth, and within just a few moments had already exchanged twenty moves or so. But during the entire course, the two wooden swords never even touched each other. The man’s sword moves had such complicated variations and movements; ever since Linghu Chong had learned the “Dugu Nine Swords,” he had never run into an opponent so formidable and powerful. It wasn’t that his opponent’s sword moves were void of flaws, but because the moves fluctuated so unpredictably he simply couldn’t attack the flaw or crack within. But he sincerely followed the gist in Feng Qingyang’s teaching, which was to “conquer a move with no move,” and shifted his moves at will. Although the “Sword-Breaking Stance” was only one stance in the “Dugu Nine Swords,” it was a combination of the essentials in all the sword arts of various schools and factions in the world. So even though it was “no move,” when in fact it built its foundation on all the moves in all sword arts.

The man also noticed that Linghu Chong’s new sword moves emerged one after another, and every change seemed completed new to him. Relying on his abundant experience and profound Kung Fu skills, he was able to resolve them one after another, but after over forty moves, he could already feel a slight sluggishness in his sword movement. Slowly, he attached more and more inner strength onto his wooden sword, and every swing of his sword seemed to have created vague echoes of gust and thunder.

But no matter how resourceful the opponent’s inner strength was, when those moves met the profound and subtle sword techniques of the “Dugu Nine Swords,” they all came to nothing. Only that the man’s outstanding prowess in inner strength and his superb ingeniousness in sword techniques had become simply inseparable from each other. Several times the man had already forced Linghu Chong into extremities, where Linghu Chong should have had no choice but to throw down his sword and submit, but Linghu Chong would always be able to suddenly come up with some bizarre moves, which not only rescue himself out of the dead-end position, but also enable him to use the opportunity to launch his counterblow. The brilliance of these moves was simply unimaginably queer.

Mr. Huang-Zhong and the rest three Manor Masters crowded over the iron door and watched through the square-shaped hole. The hole was so small that there was only space for two persons to watch at the same time, and even with the two persons watching, one had to watch only with his left eye while the other one watched only with his right eye. So two of them would watch for a while before moving aside to let the other two watch for the next while.

At the beginning, the four of them gasped in admiration when they watched the marvelous sword moves exchanged between the man and Linghu Chong, but soon afterwards, they could no long understand the brilliance in the two’s sword moves. Sometimes after Mr. Huang-Zhong saw a move, he had to ponder upon the subtlety within the move with all his might. Only after a long contemplation was he able to comprehend. But by then, the two men inside had already exchanged another dozen moves, and he pretty much had been turning a blind eye on how those next dozen moves had panned out. After he finally got over the initial amazement, he couldn’t help but wonder.

“It turned out that Brother Feng’s sword skills have reached such an extreme. When he fought me earlier, he probably only utilized thirty or forty percent of his true skills. I had thought that my ‘Seven-String Invisible Sword’ from my zither failed to subdue him only because he had no inner strength. But even if he does have resourceful of inner strength, my “Invisible Sword” wouldn’t have had any impact just the same. All he had to do was to launch three quick attacking moves, and I would have no choice but to drop my zither and admit defeat. If it had been a fight for survival, he could have easily blinded my eyes with the jade flute in his first move.”

Mr. Huang-Zhong, of course, had no idea that he had really overrated Linghu Chong’s sword skills. The “Dugu Nine Swords” was a Kung Fu that turned more powerful when the opponent was stronger. If the opponent were not adequate, then the brilliant techniques in the “Dugu Nine Swords” would not have been applicable. The man Linghu Chong was fighting today was a world-shaking figure in the entire Martial World. The aptitude of his Kung Fu had reached a level that’s well out of people’s imagination. Only with the stimulation from his extraordinary Kung Fu, were the many profound and subtle aspects of the “Dugu Nine Swords” able to make the most revealing performance. Even if Dugu Seeking-A-Loss could come back to life, or if Feng Qingyang had come himself, they would have found great joy fighting such a capable opponent. To successfully use the “Dugu Nine Swords” relied on not only a very good understanding of the sword techniques and variations, but also the intelligence of the practitioner, where the second part played even a bigger part. Once the practitioner had reached a stage where he could extend at will with no restraints and no boundaries, then the more intelligent the practitioner was, the more brilliant the sword art would become, and to him, each sword contest would have been like a poet composing a wonderful poem after following his greatest inspirations.

After another forty moves or so, Linghu Chong found himself fighting with greater and greater facility. Many of the clever knacks he used were ones that even Fang Qingyang had never mentioned before. On encountering the brilliant sword moves from his opponent, the “Dugu Nine Swords” spontaneously originated corresponding moves to counter. At the moment fear had been completely cleared off his mind, or in another word, he had been concentrating wholeheartedly in the art of sword, having no leisure for any feeling of fear or delight on his mind. That man changed into eight different styles of advanced sword arts in succession, some uninterrupted and unbroken, some delicate and swift, some others firm and forceful, but regardless of how he changed his moves, Linghu Chong was able to handle the with ease, as though these eight sword arts were ones he had been trained to spar against ever since he was young.

The man suddenly swung his sword in a block and yelled out loud, “Little friend, who on earth taught you your sword art? I don’t think Reverend Feng has that capability.”

Linghu Chong was slightly surprised. “If this weren’t taught by Reverend Feng, who else could have it been?” he uttered.

“That is true! Why don’t try this sword form of mine?” the man demanded.

He let out a long howl and suddenly brought his wooden sword swishing down from above. Linghu Chong thrust out in a tilted angle and forced him to withdraw his attack to block. The man roared again and again as though he had gone completely mad. The more pressing his roars were, the faster his attacks became. Linghu Chong didn’t find anything peculiar about this sword form, but each of the thundering roars made his ears buzz uncomfortably and made him feel annoyed and perplexed. He tried to hold his calm with difficulty and continued breaking the opponent’s attacks, but suddenly, the man let out an earth-shattering and heaven-battering howl. Linghu Chong felt a loud ring in his ear as though his eardrums had been shattered by the thunderous shock. A strong dizziness quickly consumed him and before he knew it, he had collapsed to the floor and lost his consciousness.

__________

[1] The first temperament of the “Twelve Temperaments” used in ancient music. Huang-Zhong is the lowest out of the twelve and all other temperaments are derived from it.

[2] Chinese idiom. For a frog living at the bottom of a well, because the frog could only see the sky in the shape of the opening of the well, so the frog thought that the sky must have been only as big as the opening of the well. The idiom is used to depict a man of ignorance and with a very limited outlook,

[3] The character “Feng” stands for wind in Chinese.