The next few days passed by without anything happening. At least nothing major, anyway. I opened and ran my antique shop, sold some stuff while spending most of the time watching the counter, but by and large, nothing much happened.
So I ended up spending most of my time watching the counter cultivating instead. Every second was valuable. That was why I trained Xiao Hei while simultaneously watching the counter. Whenever a customer came in, I would pause and hurry over, but Xiao Hei would continue his combat practices. Lu Bu was a great help, sparring with Xiao Hei – albeit by restraining his strength. I mean, he could instant kill poor Xiao Hei if he wanted to, but that would defeat the point of training.
Sometimes, people thought it was best to throw someone off at the deep end and get them to learn how to swim that way. Sink or swim, they claimed. Like putting someone's life in danger was the best way to get them to learn.
That was nonsensical.
There was something called conditioning. You didn't expect a fresh trainee to start running 10km on the first day. He would collapse. Such brutal training methods might winnow the strong from the weak, but in reality it was highly impractical. Imagine if you had an army of 100 recruits. Perhaps 10 of them would survive – the strongest of the strongest, or so they claim. But that would mean you only have an army of 10, and 10 new soldiers were simply not enough for an army.
Sometimes, quantity had a quality all of its own. Especially if you armed the soldiers. Sometimes, sheer numbers mattered more than anything.
That wasn't to say training wasn't important. It was, but your soldiers had to actually survive the training. If your soldiers were strong to begin with, why would you even need to train them in the first place? The whole point of training was to condition them and slowly develop their strength, not to kill them and let only the strong survive. Otherwise you might as well skip training altogether and throw them into an actual battlefield.
Fielding untrained soldiers was a surefire way to lose a war.
In any event, I wasn't going to throw my Xiao Hei off the cliff and expect him to automatically learn how to fight. The sink or swim training method was impractical. Everyone had different strengths, weaknesses and abilities. I had to tailor my training method to suit him, not keep going with the most brutal regimen until only the strongest survived. By then I probably wouldn't have any spirits left to summon. Even Lu Bu didn't go through such nonsense.
So the days went past, though it wasn't even three days before I received a text message from Huang Hong Lin.
"Hey! It's about time we meet up to strategize our next move."
I nodded, thinking that it was fair. Given how about four or five days had already passed, our foes must have already recovered. I knew for sure that I was back to full strength, having restored all my qi. That meant my enemies had too. Perhaps even earlier.
We had to assume the worst.
So I agreed and notified my wife, who was in the store beside me. She nodded.
"Tonight?"
"Yeah. Is that all right?"
"Certainly. The sooner we get this done, the better." Mu Rong Shu frowned. "Our enemies will not be as kind."
By evening, we closed the store slightly earlier. There weren't any customers, so there was little point sticking around. Moreover, the antique store was just a cover anyway, a front to conceal the tomb exploration job and the business of selling treasures and relics acquired from there. After locking up the store, I hurried over to where my wife awaited.
"We're meeting at Huang Hong Lin's house, correct?" Mu Rong Shu asked, checking just in case. I nodded.
"Yeah, let's go."
We made the trip in my trusty Toyota, a journey that shouldn't take more than thirty minutes. However, when we navigated the route toward the massive Huang estate at the outskirts of the city, we found ourselves driving along a remote and empty road. It wasn't anything surprising, given that the place here was far from the city, with mostly wealthy people living in this area. Also, hardly anybody would be moving around at this time of the night.
Therefore it was almost unexpected when I caught sight of somebody in the middle of the road. Even if there were people around, they would be driving cars in such a deserted place – nobody was stupid enough to walk around in the middle of a dark highway. They would at least keep to the sides.
However, it was precisely because of that apparent stupidity that I knew that the person wasn't an ordinary human. Instinctively, I jerked the steering wheel to the side, even as Mu Rong Shu shouted out a warning.
And not a moment too soon – as my car veered away, almost spinning out of control, the person standing in the middle of the road had launched a colossal fireball in our direction. The massive flaming projectile gouged a crater out of the highway, leaving scorched tar. If my Toyota had still been there, it would have been burnt into a crisp or engulfed in the explosion.
"Nobody shoots at my car!" I growled, pumping the brakes and skidding my Toyota to a halt. After shifting gears to parked, I leaped out of my car, followed closely by Mu Rong Shu.
"So they have found us," she mused, not at all surprised. I nodded grumpily.
"I think I recognize that person. Isn't she Hu Li Jing?"
"You have quite a good memory…that said, we've just only met a few nights ago, so it's not as if you need a good memory to remember me." Hu Li Jing approached us, Su Da Ji by her side. The nine-tailed fox was already preparing her usual nine fireballs, aiming them at us. Her summoner smiled malevolently. "Do you still remember what happened that night? I've come to finish what I started."
"I assume you haven't already defeated the Qin Emperor?" I asked dryly. Hu Li Jing scoffed at that and shook her head.
"The Qin Emperor and the imperial family? Of course not." She pointed at me. "You're a much easier target. It'll be easier for me to eliminate you first."
"Huh, okay." I wasn't exactly pleased with that.
"You'll regret this," Mu Rong Shu vowed. Hu Li Jing laughed and waved her hand. At her gesture, four of her friends showed up, accompanying her and her summoned spirit.
"Will I now?"
"Don't waste time talking nonsense with them," Su Da Ji said. She narrowed her eyes before her nine tails twitched and launched all the fireballs at me and my wife.
I didn't move, didn't shift position. Instead, I raised my hand and summoned a spirit of my own. Lu Bu materialized in front of me, his famous spear in his hand. Lunging forward, he cleaved the first fireball into half, causing it to dissipate harmlessly. Spinning around, he sliced through the second and then twirled his spear before cutting apart a third. Thrusting his spear forward, he pierced through a fourth and then speared a fifth. Swinging his spear in a wide arc, he then slashed the sixth and bisected the seventh. Moving like a whirlwind, he tore through the eight and ripped through the ninth. Embers danced about him, the remnants of the fading fireballs, but they could do nothing except dimly illuminate the dark highway.
Hu Ling Jing remained silent, but the purse of her lips and the narrowing of her eyes were enough to tell us that she wasn't pleased about the situation. Beside me, Mu Rong Shu smiled in a condescending manner, folding her arms.
"I told you so."
"I shouldn't have underestimated Lu Bu," Hu Ling Jing admitted. "But it doesn't matter. Su Da Ji, destroy him!"
"Easier said than done," the nine-tailed fox muttered before she hurled herself at the legendary warrior. Lu Bu was already charging at her, his spear a silver flash of light that blew toward her like a missile. Flames washed over him, only for him to cleave them apart once more. Sliding his foot forward, he swung around and slashed at Su Da Ji, who leaped above him, flipping her body in midair and avoiding getting bisected.
While still in the air, she hurled another few fireballs at Lu Bu from overhead, but he simply raised his spear and cut them into slivers of sparks. Spinning around, he thrust his spear upward, forcing Su Da Ji to twist her body, the blade narrowly missing her by a few millimeters. Strands of hair and fur drifted slowly, sliced away by the near miss, but Su Da Ji was otherwise unscathed.
She landed a few meters away, skidding backward to place as much distance between her and Lu Bu. Not that it mattered, for Lu Bu was already charging at her once more.
Fire ignited once more and Lu Bu was forced a step back to counteract the hellish inferno that Su Da Ji had conjured, his spear swinging downward to cut them apart. Tides of flames continued hurtling past either side of him, the superheated air scorching his skin.
If he was mortal, he might have been burnt to cinders from the extreme temperatures. Fortunately, he wasn't, and thus he withstood the onslaught of fire.
While the two spirits fought, Mu Rong Shu and I had to deal with the attacks from Hu Li Jing and her four cronies. They had descended upon us, elemental techniques conjuring all sorts of projectiles from wind blades, water scythes, icicle spears, fireballs and earth spikes. They hammered into our position, and it was only because of our speed and agility that we managed to evade all of them.
"Are you trying to show off elementary mastery in front of me?" Mu Rong Shu scoffed. Scraping her foot against the ground, she assumed her stance and activated her Eight Trigrams palm. A mountain rose from the ground, shielding us from the elemental projectiles and forcing our assailants to veer off to the side to prevent themselves from crashing into it. After executing the Gen trigram, Mu Rong Shu then used the Kun trigram, sending up a barrage of earth spikes to impale the fleeing girls.
With a curse, Hu Li Jing incinerated them with a massive fireball, but then she spun around and crossed her arms right before I struck her. She was sent hurtling backward, blood dripping from her mouth. Before I could finish her off, I was forced to duck under a bombardment of icicles and water scythes. Then I jumped to the side to avoid being blown away by wind blades.
While I retreated to the cover that my wife provided, I watched the girls and noted something.
"You only brought half of your subordinates with you," I observed. "While I think you probably believed that the five of you would be more than enough to deal with the likes of me and my wife, I'm sure there's another reason. Did you send your other four lackeys somewhere?"
"Oh, how very astute of you." Hu Li Jing smiled, her eyes glinting maliciously. "Indeed you are right. I'm aware that you have allies, so of course I would dispatch whatever forces I can spare to eliminate them."
My eyebrow raised when I realized what her plan was. My heart turned cold and sank, even as I continued to evade another onslaught of icicles and water scythes. Turning to Mu Rong Shu, I whispered urgently.
"She must have sent her other four cronies to attack Huang Hong Lin."
"That's right." The scheming woman nodded gleefully, seeing no point in denying the truth. Mu Rong Shu, on the other hand, looked bewildered.
"Huh? But would they be able to defeat Huang Hong Lin? She can summon Gan Jiang and Mo Ye."
"Oh, my subordinates will be fine." Hu Li Jing's smile spread across her beautiful face. "I never said I was the only summoner in my group, after all."