Cheng Yaojia hastily hacked her sword down to cut his hand, while trying to leap backward at the same time. ‘Rip!’ Her gown was torn by his hand. She was so scared that the sword almost fell from her hand; her face turned deathly pale and she did not dare to rush forward anymore.
Ouyang Ke sat at the corner of the table. He turned his head around and saw the door to the secret room was already closed. Recalling his dangerous encounter with steel needles earlier he shuddered in fear. “This little girl is really not easy to fight,” he thought, “Aha! I got it! I am going to play around with this Cheng Da Xiaojie, let that kid surnamed Guo and the little girl hear it. Their concentration will be broken and thus their energy cultivation will be disrupted. I want to see if by that time she won’t listen to me nicely.” Thinking to this point he was very happy. He further considered, “This Huang family’s little girl is like an angel, nevertheless I have to make her willing to follow me for the rest of her life. It won’t be as much fun if I use force. I think it will be wonderful. Just marvelous beyond words!” So he turned to Cheng Yaojia and said, “Hey, Cheng Da Xiaojie, do you want him to live or to die?”
Cheng Yaojia saw her husband was in the hands of the enemy; she could not make any rash move.
Hastily she said, “He has never wronged you, nor did he have any enmity with you. Please release him. You were very hungry a while ago. Didn’t I give you some food to eat?”
Ouyang Ke laughed. “How can two bowls of rice pay the price of a life? Hey, hey, you’ve never imagined that one day you Quanzhen Sect people will ask someone else’s help, have you?”
Cheng Yaojia said, “He … he is the Peach Blossom Island’s disciple; don’t hurt him.”
Ouyang Ke laughed, “Who told him to chop me with a saber? If I wasn’t quick enough to evade, do you think my head will still be perched on my neck? Don’t you use the Peach Blossom Island to scare me, Huang Yaoshi is my father-in-law.”
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Cheng Yaojia did not know whether he was lying or was telling the truth; she hastily said, “Then he is your junior. Just let him go, let him apologize to you later.”
“Ha … ha …” Ouyang Ke laughed, “How can there be such an easy thing in this world? You want me to release him? That’s easy, but you must do what I tell you to do.”
Cheng Yaojia saw the lewdness in his face, she knew he must have malicious intentions; hence she lowered her head but did not say anything.
“Look at me!” Ouyang Ke roared. ‘Crack!’ his palm hacked down and cut the corner of the table; making a neat cut as if the table was cut by an axe or a saber. Cheng Yaojia was stunned, she thought, “Even my Shifu does not have this kind of ability.” Ouyang Ke had been training martial art under his uncle’s tutelage since he was little; no wonder his skill surpassed Sun Bu’er who started to learn martial art in her adulthood.
Seeing the frightened look on her face Ouyang Ke was immensely puffed up. “You must do whatever I tell you to do,” he said, “Otherwise I’ll do this to his neck.” Then he made a hacking move. Cheng Yaojia broke in cold sweats and called out in alarm.
“Will you do it?” Ouyang Ke asked. Cheng Yaojia reluctantly nodded her head. Ouyang Ke said with a smile, “Good! That’s my good girl. Now go and close the door.” Cheng Yaojia hesitated; she did not move.
“You are not listening!” Ouyang Ke was angry. Cheng Yaojia trembled in fear; she did not have any choice but stand up and close the door.
Ouyang Ke said with a smile, “You two got married last night, I heard it clearly from the other room. It was your wedding night, but you did not take your clothes off. There is no such thing in this world. You don’t know how to be a bride, so I am going to teach you. Now take your clothes off. All of them. If you leave even half a strand of silk, I am going to send your husband returning to heaven, and then you will become a young widow!”
Lu Guanying could not move his body, but he could hear clearly. He was so angry that he felt his eyes were about to pop out of their sockets. He wanted to tell his wife to run away and forget about him, but his lips were unable to move.
When Ouyang Ke grabbed Lu Guanying, Huang Rong quickly closed the door to the secret room.
She took her dagger out, waiting for his second attack. Suddenly she heard him ordering Cheng Yaojia to take her clothes off; she was angry, but at the same time found it amusing. She was still childish so even though she hated Ouyang Ke’s despicable behavior, she also wanted to know whether this girlish and bashful Cheng Da Xiaojie would follow his order or not.
“What’s the big deal about taking off all your clothes?” Ouyang Ke said with a laugh, “Did you wear anything when you came out of your mother’s belly? Do you want your pride or his life?”
Cheng Yaojia hesitated a moment, then with a sad voice said, “Just kill him!”
Ouyang Ke did not expect she would say such thing; he was slightly startled, but then he saw she lifted her sword horizontally across her own neck. Hastily he waved his hand, sending out a ‘tou gu ding’ [bone penetrating nail]. ‘Clank!’ her sword fell down to the ground.
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Cheng Yaojia was about to stoop down to pick her sword up when suddenly she heard someone knocking the door, “Innkeeper, innkeeper!” someone called out. It was a woman’s voice. Cheng Yaojia was delighted, “Someone’s coming, things may change,” she thought. She busily bent down to pick her sword and leaped to open the door.
There was a young woman wearing white standing outside the door, with a white cloth on her head and a dagger on her waist. Her face was thin and pallid, but it was obvious that she was a beautiful woman. Cheng Yaojia did not care what kind of person she was, she already considered her to be her liberator. “Please come in Miss,” she quickly said.
That woman saw her exquisite clothes and adornment, her sweet and pretty face, also a sword in her hand; never in her wildest dream would she expect a desolate inn in this rural village like this would have this kind of innkeeper. She was dumbstruck. “I have two coffins outside, may I bring them in?” she asked.
If it were an ordinary house, the coffins may never enter in; but an inn was different. Besides, Cheng Yaojia was hoping she would come in quickly. She would not care if it was a hundred or even a thousand coffins, let alone only two coffins. She busily said, “Wonderful, wonderful!”
That young woman was taken aback, she thought, “What’s so wonderful about coffins going into an inn?” She beckoned outside and eight porters carrying two black coffins came into the inn.
That young woman turned her head and was surprised to see Ouyang Ke. With a ‘qiang lang’ sound she unsheathed the dagger on her waist.
Ouyang Ke laughed a big laugh and said, “The heaven has destined us to be together. You can run away, but you cannot escape your fate. It has delivered us good fortune, so we commit a great sin if we do not enjoy this blessing.”
This young woman was precisely Mu Nianci who was once captured by Ouyang Ke. After she broke off with Yang Kang at Baoying she cut her hair in grief, completely discouraged. Then she remembered there was one thing on earth she had to take care, thereupon she rushed back to the capital to fetch Yang Tiexin’s, husband and wife, bodies and brought them to the south. She wanted to bury her adopted father and mother at their hometown, the Ox Village of Lin’an; and then she was going to leave home and become a Buddhist nun.
At that time the Mongolian army was launching a large scale attack against the capital, they laid siege around the city. As a single woman traveling with two coffins in the turmoil and chaos of war, she experienced untold hardships, until finally she arrived at her adopted parents’ hometown. She had left home since she was five years old, and had never been to the Ox Village before. As she saw Shagu’s inn she was thinking of stopping by for some food and directions; who would have thought that she came across Ouyang Ke here.
At this time she did not know whether this beautiful woman wearing exquisite gown was her captor’s accomplice or not; when Cheng Yaojia was taken prisoner by Ouyang Ke, Mu Nianci was already hidden away inside the empty coffin. These two women had never met each other, so Mu Nianci thought Cheng Yaojia was one of Ouyang Ke’s concubines. She chopped her dagger toward Cheng Yaojia, then darting toward the door trying to escape. She heard the rustling noise of a clothes, someone was leaping over her head. Mu Nianci lifted her dagger up, Ouyang Ke’s body was still midair, his right hand’s index finger and thumb pinched the back of her dagger and pulled
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it away, while his left hand grabbed her wrist. Mu Nianci was forced to let her dagger go; her body leaped up and two people fell together on the doorway, halfway above the coffin.
“Aiyo!” the four porters cried out in alarm. The coffin fell to the ground, pinching five, six of the porters’ eight feet.
Ouyang Ke’s left hand embraced Mu Nianci in his bosom, while his right hand stabbed the dagger randomly toward the back of those four porters. The porters screamed in terror and scrambled anxiously over the coffin to run away. The other four porters also dropped their coffin and ran outside the inn; without asking for their money.