Inner Demons Volume 1 Chapter 14

A swordsman in Taoist robes stood up, and picked the sword up with care. He removed the letter from it. After taking a quick look at it, he pa.s.sed it to another swordsman.

It seemed that he couldn’t read.

The other one took the letter from him. After a while of careful reading, he lifted his head.

“No longer needed.” He said, “Kill them all.”

“Uh?” The swordsman with narrowed eyes shook his head slightly and sighed, “Pretty troubling, huh? Since there are so many.”

Then he stood up with the sword in his hand, and turned to the members of the escort team, who were no more than 20 steps from them.

The 5 people behind him stood up, too.

Formless murderous intent suddenly spread out in the dark night. Even the campfire behind them darkened for a second, it looked as if it was curling up in fear.

“It’s time.”Qiao DuanHong whispered.

He could read their lips. Although he was more than ten steps away and the light was not bright, the eyes of this old-timer in jianghu didn’t make any mistakes. Furthermore, by seeing their imposing manner and facial expressions, he knew that they had the intention to kill.

The reason must have been the letter delivered by the flying sword. Although he didn’t know what the letter said, he realized that apart from the 6 martial experts before them, there was another super martial expert somewhere, and the skill of this super martial expert was beyond his comprehension of martial arts.

It was at this moment that a ridiculous thought appeared in his mind: Maybe that person was not an expert in martial arts.

He could be...a cultivator.

To the minds of ordinary people, cultivators, also called  immortals, should only exist in stories. It was almost impossible for an ordinary person to see one in his entire life.

Whoever the man really was, the only thing Qiao DuanHong could do in such a deadly situation was to summon up all his courage. He didn’t want to get killed without fighting.

Therefore he repeated one more time: “It’s time. Get prepared.”

Then he looked at his daughter, and said in a determined voice: “JiaXin, you leave with SiFu. Old Ke, Old Liu(六, another person, not the priest), we need to hold them here, so the children can escape by the help of the dense forest.”

Qiao JiaXin and Qiao SiFu wanted to speak, but got interrupted by Qiao DuanHong: “Shut up! It's not the time for you to be unruly. If anyone manages to escape, take a detour to Wei City, and tell the rest of our escort team there to leave with all their money, and never show up again.”

He glanced at the 6 people, and then put his eyes on the dark shadows of the trees: “THOSE people may be involved in it.”

Such strictness which was rarely seen on him surprised the others. Qiao SiFu sensed the fear in his voice, but still didn’t get it: “Uncle...Which people?”

“Cultivators.”Qiao DuanHong peered at Liu the old priest, who was completely unaware of the imminent calamity and was whispering something to Li YunXin. “Real cultivators.” He added.

2 groups of people faced each other in the dim light of the fires. The distance between them was only about 15 steps.

A sneer appeared on the face of the swordsman with narrowed eyes: “What’s the point? Why don’t you save us some time. You are like mole crickets and ants[1] before me. If we really fight with each other, you won’t be able to even overcome my first hit – what’s the point of a final struggle?”

Qiao DuanHong didn’t answer, he just stared at the thin sword in the swordsman’s hand. Knowing it might be the last fight in his life, he summoned up the energy in his body to its peak. However, he didn’t even know why they must fight.

Why did they kidnap them? Why did they want to kill them?

Everybody wanted to know the answers to these questions, but n.o.body asked, not until the young man spoke in a relaxed but confused voice: “...but why are you going to kill us?”

By now n.o.body was in the mood to mock him for being stupid, naive or new-born. Even Qiao JiaXin only sighed in her mind. She felt pretty bad – she never expected that the first time she fell in “love at first sight”, her love interest would be such a person.

Nevertheless, what was really unexpected was that this sentence actually broke the atmosphere in the forest which was like swords being pulled out of their scabbards and bowstrings being drown[2]. After hearing this, the swordsman with narrowed eyes who looked as if he was ready to pounce had a strange change in his facial expression.

It looked as if something heavy was removed from his back.

The swordsman pulled back his inclination to move forward, and snorted. He flicked the thin sword in his hand, and gave the people not far away a sneering look: “I might as well let you die while knowing. Don’t mistake the t.i.tle of us 6 brothers when you meet Death in the underworld.”

“We 6 brothers, are the 6 Ghosts of the River. Have you heard of the name?”

Qiao DuanHong was slightly startled, and then frowned: “6 Ghosts of the River...Weren’t you killed by Ying JueRan the Black Blade[3]?”

“Heh. Perhaps we would have if we brothers hadn’t met our master, but now...”A light of hatred flashed in the eyes of the swordsman, “After finishing this matter, we brothers will go collect the debt from him!”

“Wow, he sounds awesome.” The voice of the young man cut in again disharmoniously, “What master? The name given to you guys makes it sound like you weren't doing very well before, but that guy called Ying JueRan the Black Blade sounds like a real character. I guess that you were bad guys who were hated by everybody. You did something to attract public anger, and then got killed by that Black Blade guy - Oops, were about to be killed by him, and then you met your master. Who was that?”

Unbelievably, swordsman didn’t get angry, instead he grinned: “Heheheh, talking about our master – Ever heard of Above the Clouds Sword School, you bunch of ordinary commoners?”

The people of the escort team looked at each other, but didn’t know what to say. They’ve heard of some Above the Clouds Sword Schools, but schools with that name existed in every province. Which one was he referring to?

But Li YunXin immediately clapped a few times, the sound of his applause spread far in the night: “Wow! Do you mean the Above the Clouds Sword School of the 72 legendary schools?”

The swordsman put on a proud smile: “Looks you are not that ignorant.”

He clasped his hands and held them to the east: “Our master is a cultivator of Above the Clouds Sword School, and the t.i.tle of his dignity is HuaiNanZi[4]. He is the direct disciple of the school leader. He came to the secular world to experience his trials - Do you know what a trial is?”

n.o.body responded, as a matter of course. Therefore he continued to talk on and on like a flowing stream. Actually he didn’t know that much. Li YunXin had heard all that he had said from ChiSongZi and KangCangZi.

Finally, the swordsman said: “...so he gave us 6 brothers some marvelous spiritual pills. After taking only one pill, my power was increased greatly. If you were lucky enough, maybe you would get a chance to see the master. Unfortunately, he’s busy today...so, you people, are useless now.”

Pills and their containers.
“So he is trying to pa.s.s through his trial of killing.” Li YunXin said after he finished his speech, “...and that’s why you made us to gather here like animals. We were waiting for your immortal master. Once he gets here, he would kill. I guess he needs to kill a lot of people, and you are not the only followers of him - there must be more of his puppets elsewhere.”

“People like you find him prey, and then he comes and kills them all. He keeps killing until he feels ‘Oh G.o.d killing people is such a boring thing to do, I guess I’ll go back to be a quiet gentleman’, which means that he has pa.s.sed through his trial. Am I right?”Li YunXin’s tone had become serious.

The swordsman gave him a surprised look, and then laughed coldly: “You sure know a lot, boy - What’s your story?”

By this time, the people of the escort team had become complete spectators - Hearing their discussion about grotto-heavens, schools and trials, even the most knowledgeable one of them, Qiao DuanHong, also felt his mind was filled with fogs of confusion.

After all, he was not a “cultivator” like Liu the old priest - and even Liu knew little about the details of the great schools - but he still realized that...he was wrong, again.

He thought Li YunXin was a “inexperienced young man from a merchant family who was pretending to be an expert”, but now Li YunXin showed skills which amazed him.

He didn’t know how the young man did this - he was about to be killed, but he used only a few sentences to make the 6 killers tell him all their secrets in a strange, crazed state of arrogance.

Something was wrong...the young man must have done something, Qiao DuanHong thought, or they wouldn’t act like this. Who is he? Does that mean we can be saved tonight?

Qiao DuanHong glanced at Li YunXin once more, and then looked at Liu the old priest, who was behind Li YunXin.

He was shocked. Liu the old priest looked like a completely different person from before. No longer being scared, he was sitting on the ground calmly in lotus position, with his eyes slightly closed, and was chanting something. It looked like...

Yes, it must be him! Qiao DuanHong suddenly felt truly and totally relieved. Everything was explainable now - Liu the Old Priest was hiding his power. Qiao DuanHong knew that some masters would pretend to be careless and even crazy in jianghu.

The swordsman talked about the trials of cultivators. Maybe Liu the old priest was also a cultivator going through his trials.

At least this explanation made much more sense than “the young man was actually a genius cultivator”.

It was at this moment, he saw the right hand of Liu reached out from his sleeve and made a special gesture.

Almost at the same time, the voice of the talking swordsman suddenly became loud and excited: “...Do you know how much we 6 brothers had suffered to acquire our current skills? Thinking back to when Black Blade tried to kill us, he took us as insects, but who is the insect now? Who dares to look down upon us? After taking care of you, we’ll go back to the river, and let them know...Hahahah, today is the day we make our names known in jianghu--”

Not only Qiao DuanHong, but even the dullest person noticed the strangeness of the 6 swordsmen.

They didn’t look cool and proud anymore, just insane. They were talking to themselves like psychos, with the swords in their arms, not paying any attention to who were in their surroundings, nor to what the people in their surroundings were doing.

From how the 6 brothers met each other, how they learned their martial skills, how they got the name of the 6 Ghosts of the River, to what they had done, who they had killed, how they came across HuaiNanZi of Above the Clouds Sword School, when they took the pills and where they went after that - They spilled everything.

Now, Li YunXin knew everything that he wanted to know, and realized that this matter could be somewhat troublesome, because he figured out who ChiSongZi and KangCangZi really were.

Translator’s notes:
[1]Mole crickets and ants蝼蚁: n.o.body.
[2]Swords being pulled out of their scabbards and bowstrings being drown剑拔弩张: Intense
[3]Ying JueRan the Black Blade黑刀应决然:JueRan=Resoluteness.
[4]HuaiNanZi淮南子:
HuaiNan=South of Huai.
Huai=The name of a river.

Please leave your comments and suggestions!

Translator: Rienne,Dropped
Editor:Dropped