Da Tang Shuang Long Zhuan Volume 5 Chapter 1 part1

New Chapter, new Book ...

Book 5 Chapter 1 - Escape By The Skin Of Their Teeth
Translated by Foxs

Most of Zhai Rang's Big Boss Mansion had caught fire, and the fire was continuously spreading, the flame illuminated the sky, reflected by the dark cloud above that it felt like a big rock pressing on their hearts. Although the fire intensity was increasing, nobody was fighting it. The shouting from the killing shook the heavens; dead bodies were everywhere. Li Mi's men had their faces covered in black cloth like nightwalkers, making it difficult to recognize them.

Kou Zhong raised his saber to open up a path, Xu Ziling, with Susu on his back, followed behind him. They had just leaped up onto the tiled roof when four men in black pounced on them like mad tigers. When they saw that Kou and Xu, two people were not wearing black, they immediately raised their swords to slash at them.

Kou Zhong met the attack head-on. In this critical moment, automatically the true qi within his body surged on; an extremely cold qi, hidden inside a warm stream, flowed from his hand onto his long saber, emitting a whistling noise as it slice the air, cutting across the enemy.

The man had never imagined that the saber's momentum could be this swift and fierce. The most frightening thing was that the opponent's blade carried a blast of incomparably frigid cold saber qi, so that when the enemy met it, he would immediately feel the chill in his heart, that even his qi and blood could not flow unimpeded.

By the time the man allocated at least half of his strength to resist Kou Zhong's saber qi, Kou Zhong's long saber had already hacked onto the man's sword so that from attacking, the sword turned into blocking the saber instead.

‘Dang!' A clear ringing noise was heard, the man let out a miserable scream; unexpectedly the sword, along with the man, were hacked by Kou Zhong's saber that he fell off the roof tile.

Kou Zhong was also shaken by the man's reacting force that his wrist felt numb. But a sudden qi arose from within his body; the numbness and pain immediately subsided.

At this moment his eyes, ears, nose and the other senses have become incomparably sharp; so much so that his skin was able to clearly sense the variation in the air surrounding him due to the opponents' movements. Although by this time, due to lack of experience he was unable to reach the state ‘all-seeing', but the day would come when even if his two eyes were blindfolded, he would be able to ‘see' the opponent's attacking move.

After the enemy taking the lead to attack had fallen, the other three men were obviously so shocked that their actions suffered a split-second delay, exposing a gap in their offense. Without even thinking Kou Zhong swiftly charged from the slanted roof tile surface going upwards, entering the gap in the middle of the enemy's attacking formation. His long saber swept in a large circle, slashing the three enemy's swords in succession.

This time, the people following Li Mi in the raid on the Big Boss Mansion were all handpicked from among Li Mi's troops, every one was skilled, valiant, and ferocious; but encountering Kou Zhong, who was even braver and more unstoppable than they were, their acute spirit was dampened. The first two men had their swords hacked by Kou Zhong; they let a stifled grunt, and were forced to retreat.

After dispelling the threat from these two swords, Kou Zhong's murderous spirit arose. With a loud shout his broadsword increased in speed, with all his strength he hacked down on the last man's sword.

The man brandished his sword to block, but he felt the opponent's saber strength was as heavy as a mountain; his entire body felt like he has just entered an icehouse. With a miserable scream he was hacked down by Kou Zhong that he rolled down to the ground.

While Kou Zhong was still pondering why he became very formidable, Xu Ziling swept past to his side, while hurling another man in black in Kou Zhong's direction. The man was jolted back by Kou Zhong that his qi and blood surged, and the icy cold saber qi penetrated his meridian; the feeling was unbearable. Suddenly hot tears welled up like lightning in his eyes. He was just about to raise his sword to block, the pit of his stomach felt as if he was struck by lightning. Without even having time to scream, he was thrown backward, fell face up on the ground and died a violent death.

The other man was so scared that he turned around and ran toward the other side of the roof, while pursing his lips to send out a whistle, calling for help. The two boys exchanged glances; they did not dare to remain on the roof, hence they jumped down to the ground and relying on their memory, they killed their way to the left, toward the three buildings in the eastern courtyard. As long as they could cross the eastern courtyard, they would be able to climb over the high wall, and out of the Big Boss Mansion.

However, Li Mi's force was very organized; in groups of three or five, they combed the area looking for the enemy. Whenever they saw people not wearing black clothes, they showed no mercy and simply killed them.

On the other hand, the mansion guards on Zhai Rang's side was like a sheet of loose sand; every body was trying desperately to break out of the siege, no longer had any heart to continue fighting. Which one was the strong, which one was the weak, it could be clearly and easily seen.

Kou and Xu, two boys had just taken about ten paces or so, they already met a group of enemy numbering about a dozen, some of them even burst out of the window of a nearby building, charging madly toward the two boys.

Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling were scared out of their wits; they accelerated forward so that in the twinkling of an eye the distance between two sides increased considerably.

Kou Zhong was afraid the opponent would harm Susu with secret projectiles, hence they turned around behind the main hall, and like arrows the three of them flew toward the eastern courtyard.

Ahead they saw a group of men in black were surrounding about a dozen or so Zhai Mansion's guards, engaging them in fierce battle. Xu Ziling was thinking about leaping onto the roof, but he suddenly felt splatter of blood coming from someone who was falling off the roof. Clenching his teeth, he rushed even faster forward, sweeping toward two men who had their back towards him.

The two men suddenly felt a blast of qi entering their body; abandoning the enemy in front of them, they turned their swords around to block. Xu Ziling let out a wild roar, his short halberd swept the sword of the one on the right first, jolting the man so that he was thrown aside. Immediately afterwards he changed his move, the short halberd pulled and pushed, so that the other man was blocking an empty space, and then Xu Ziling watched for a gap he could exploit, the tip of his halberd entered the man's chest.

By the time the man fell dead, Xu Ziling, with Susu on his back, already entered the center of the hard battle. Like a shadow Kou Zhong followed closely behind him; flipping his broadsword up, he deflected an incoming lance, and then with another flip he hacked another man's flank.

As the Zhai Mansion guards felt the hard pressure suddenly decreased, they all scattered in all directions. The situation was extremely chaotic.

Kou Zhong turned his head around and saw the dozen or so enemies they left behind were closing in fast. Aghast, he yelled, "Go!”

Xu Ziling was also aware that the situation was extremely critical, if the enemy managed to cut their path, they would lose their lives right then and there. Additionally, he felt Susu's body on his back was trembling violently. His heroic spirit rose up; using only the toes on his feet as a support, his short halberd turned into hundreds of flashing blades, forcing the four enemies right in front of him to scatter away, and thus he managed to split the encirclement, and was finally able to dash toward the eastern courtyard.

But the situation on the area surrounding the Zhai Mansion was even more dangerous. Apparently Li Mi has deployed a massive military force to prevent anybody from the Zhai Mansion from escaping. They saw human shadows everywhere; ‘you chase after me, I pursue you', the killing was so intense that the moon and the stars lost their light.

The three people dashed to the left and darted to the right; each time they were forcing their way toward the eastern courtyard, they were always repelled by the enemy. Not too long afterwards, Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling already suffered countless minor injuries; even Susu's milky white back also suffered a long blade cut. Fortunately, in their attempt to escape, the several dozen Zhai Mansion guards were also rushing the same way, so that they impeded the enemy's movement. Otherwise, their lives would definitely be hard to protect. Moreover, the two boys had already cut down at least a dozen men from the enemy's side.

After cutting down five more enemies, under the light from the raging fire the two boys saw that the enemy had seized complete control over the situation; they were surrounding and killing the remaining thirty or so Zhai Mansion guards and slowly pushing them into a corner, unlike the previous ‘you chase after me, I pursue you' situation, where everybody was running randomly in all directions.

By this time the three people had arrived at coppice woodland outside the reach of the firelight; it seemed that the enemy has temporarily forgotten about them. Looking to the west, most of the buildings in the Zhai Mansion complex had already engulfed in flame, while burst of shouting, yelling and screaming of the battle still came intermittently.

Susu wept. "Laoye must be dead,” she cried.

Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling exchanged a glance; they both felt their qi was depleted their strength gone, they no longer felt as brave as before.

Kou Zhong asked, "Is there any hiding place around here?”

Susu was still shaking in fear by a miserable scream from the direction of the battle; hearing the question, she stared blankly for a moment before pointing toward a rockery in the middle of the pond situated north of the eastern courtyard. "Let's go that way!” she said.

Without even thinking Xu Ziling carried her on his back flying toward the big pond about a dozen zhang away.

Kou Zhong caught up next to Susu and asked, "Is there any place in the pond we can hide?”

Susu anxiously replied, "Inside the rockery there is a little pond that was used as fish hatchery; after the water was drained, it became a dry well. It is completely hidden.”

The two boys were greatly delighted; increasing their vigilance, they listened to eight directions. After evading two groups of the enemy, they proceeded cautiously; making sure nobody noticed their movements. Taking advantage of the immensely golden opportunity while the enemy's attention was focused on stopping the Zhai Mansion guards from escaping, they flitted across the side of the pond, and landed on the fake rock, which diameter was close to two zhang.

Following Susu's direction, the three of them squeezed into the small well, about five chi deep and four chi across [1 chi is approx. 1/3m or 1ft]. Unless someone deliberately broke into the crack in the rock and reached the side of the well, nobody would be able to find the three people.

‘Thump, thump, thump …' They heard each other's heart beating wildly. It was quite a while before, like the killing noise outside, their hearts gradually calmed down.

Kou Zhong said in a low voice, "Is Zhai Rang finished?”

Xu Ziling was about to reply when suddenly he felt his collar was dripping wet; turned out Susu was crying silently. Although the well was dark and he was unable to see Susu's expression, he knew that she was choked with the bleakest emotions; his heart ached as he said, "Don't cry! Your Laoye has led uprising in the past; he would have known that a day like this may come. The situation right now is if you don't kill me, then I'll kill you.”

Pressing himself against Susu's back, Kou Zhong also whispered comforting words in her ear, "In the future it will be the two of us who take care of Jiejie!”

Chapter end