Eagle Shooting Hero 2(96)

Huang Rong’s speculation was right on target. When Miss Cheng was held captive by Ouyang Ke, it was true that it was the Beggar Clan’s Li Sheng and his men who tried to help her, but they were not Ouyang Ke’s match. If Guo Jing and Huang Rong had not gone into action, she would have suffered a disgrace. She’d noticed Guo Jing was young, his skill superb, and his manner, sincere.

Unexpectedly a strand of love thread floated from her to stick on Guo Jing.

She was the young lady of a very rich family and had never been away from home before. She had reached the age where she started to have an interest in the opposite sex, so when she met an attractive young man, Guo Jing, she unexpectedly fell in love. Even after Guo Jing left, he was always in Miss Cheng’s mind. She thought it over from many sides and mustered up enough courage to leave home in the middle of the night. Though she was a martial artist, she had never left home before and did not have the slightest idea about the ways of Jianghu people. She happened to hear that Guo Jing was from Ox Village in Lin’an prefecture, and thereupon found her way there.

Because her appearance was elegant and her bearing noble, bad people did not dare to bully her along the way. At the previous village she was told that Ox Village was near and when she suddenly heard Sha Gu say that this was Ox Village, she had no idea what to do next. She had come thousands of li to find Guo Jing…and now she was hoping Guo Jing would not be home. Her thoughts were, “I will secretly go to his home in the evening, take one look at him, and then go home. I can’t let him know I came to find him…I would die of embarrassment if he found out.”

Now, at this moment, Lu Guanying arrived and inquired about Guo Jing. Miss Cheng was afraid he had found out her heart’s desire. She was at a loss for a moment, and then decided she would stand up and leave. Suddenly, outside the door, an ugly face appeared then vanished. Miss Cheng was startled and drew back two steps. That ugly face reappeared and called out, “Two-headed ghost!

Come out in the sun if you have the ability. Three-Headed Dragon [San Tou Jiao] Master Hou challenges you to fight. I have one more head [referring to his Three-Headed Dragon nickname]

than you do. In the bright sun, Master Hou does not fear you!” His meaning was clear: when it was dark, Master Hou would candidly admit defeat even though he had more heads. Lu and Cheng obviously did not understand.

“Humph!” Huang Rong snorted. “So they finally came back,” she murmured. She believed Lu’s and Cheng’s martial arts skills were not too high and it would be difficult for them to fight Peng Lianhu and the others. If she and Guo Jing wanted to help, all they would be doing is delivering two more lives. The best way would be to tell them to get out of the way quickly. But how could she let them Eagle Shooting Hero

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know? She went over other possibilities, but after thinking it over, she still could not produce any really good ideas. All they had was each other and their courage.

When Peng Lianhu and the others saw the double-headed ghost, they all thought it was the same expert, dressed as a ghost, who had humiliated them the previous night. Therefore, they all ran from the village as far as possible. No one dared to come back, with the exception of Hou Tonghai. He was a simple man and actually believed it was a real ghost. He felt the blazing sun on his head, burning his scalp. While everybody else had disappeared, he cursed, “Ghosts will meet their doom under the sun. They know that, yet they dare to roam Jianghu. I, Lao Hou [Old Hou], am not afraid and I’m going back to face the ghost. Let them respect me.” Thereupon he came back to the inn with big strides, albeit with some trepidation in his heart. When he stuck his head in the door he saw Miss Cheng and Lu Guanying sitting in the middle of the room. “Not good!” he said to himself,

“The double-headed ghost has transformed itself into a man and a woman. Old Hou, oh, Old Hou, you have to be very careful.”

Lu Guanying and Miss Cheng heard his challenge, but they did not understand the reason. They looked at each other and decided he was a mad man; hence they ignored him. Hou Tonghai kept cursing, but the ghost did not come out to fight. He believed that the ghost was afraid of the sun. As for barging in and capturing the ghost, Old Hou did not have the nerve. They were in a stalemate for quite a while. He was waiting for the two ghosts to transform themselves into other forms, but who would have thought that the ghosts did not show any signs of activity at all. Suddenly he remembered an old saying that ghosts were afraid of filthy things, so he left at once to find some dung.

There were several outhouses in the village and there was one big one next to the inn. In his efforts to capture the ghost he was not afraid of filth, so he took off his outer garment, scooped up a large bundle of dung, and returned to the inn. He saw Lu and Cheng still sitting in the inn. The secret weapon in his hands boosted his courage considerably. He called out loudly, “All right, daring ghost! Master Hou wants you to return to your original form.” With his three-pronged fork in his left hand and the bundle of dung in his right hand, he boldly entered the room.

As Lu and Cheng watched this lunatic coming back, they were slightly startled. Even before the man arrived they had already noticed the bad smell he was bringing. Hou Tonghai pondered, “I’ve heard people say that men are more vicious than women, but the female ghost is more dangerous than the male.” Therefore, he lifted the bundle and threw it towards Miss Cheng.

Miss Cheng called out in alarm and moved sideways to evade it. Lu Guanying had already lifted a bench to strike the bundle aside. It fell to the floor and broke open. Dung flew everywhere and a terrible smell attacked their nostrils making them want to throw up.

Hou Tonghai shouted loudly, “Double-headed ghost, quickly go back to your original form.”

Lifting his fork he attacked Miss Cheng ferociously. He was simple-minded, but his martial arts skills were not bad. His fork attack was both swift and fierce.

Lu and Cheng were alarmed and both thought, “This man is obviously a Wulin expert and he is by no means a lunatic.”

Lu Guanying saw Miss Cheng as a lady from a renowned family and she looked so frail and tender that a whiff of wind might blow her away. He was afraid this mad man might hurt her, so he lifted the long bench to parry the three-pronged steel fork. “Who are you, Sir?” he asked. Hou Tonghai

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ignored his question and jabbed at him with his fork three times. Lu Guanying kept using the bench as his weapon and repeatedly asked his name.

Hou Tonghai noticed that although the ghost’s martial arts skill was not weak, it was entirely different from that of the mysterious appearing and disappearing ghost of last night. He concluded it was the result of his dung attack earlier. He was very smug and called out, “You, the enchanting ghost, want to know my name so that you can put a curse on me, don’t you? Your master won’t fall for your trick.”

Initially he’d called himself ‘Master Hou’, but now that he had this sudden inspiration, he omitted the word ‘Hou’ and only used the word ‘Master’ to avoid the ghost’s throwing a curse on him. The steel rings on his fork made a ding-dong sound as he intensified his attack.

Lu Guanying’s martial arts were inferior to his opponent’s to begin with and he was using a bench as a weapon. He wanted to draw the saber from his waist but did not have the chance to do so. He was forced to step back so that after a while his back was against the wall, covering the small hole through which Huang Rong was looking.

Hou Tonghai stabbed with his steel fork and Lu Guanying hastily moved sideways to evade it.

‘Bang!’ the fork punctured the wall less than a foot away from Huang Rong’s peep-hole. Before he’d pulled his fork back, the bench in Lu Guanying’s hand struck towards the top of his head. Hou Tonghai’s foot flew out to kick Lu Guanying’s hand, while his left fist attacked Lu Guanying’s face. The bench fell from Lu Guanying’s hands as he was forced to duck to avoid the blow.

Meanwhile Hou Tonghai had withdrawn his steel fork from the wall.

Miss Cheng saw this critical situation and she jumped forward, pulled the saber from Lu Guanying’s waist, and handed it to him. “Many thanks!” Lu Guanying said. He had never imagined that, at this critical moment, this polite and charming girl would have the courage to enter such a fierce battle and draw his saber to help him. As he saw the bright flickering light from the steel fork coming towards him, his saber immediately went up horizontally in front of his chest and ‘clang!’

sparks flew everywhere. The steel fork was forced sideways, but he felt a pain in his chest. It seemed that this lunatic’s strength was not insignificant, but with a saber in his hand, he was greatly encouraged.

After exchanging several stances, both men’s feet had stepped into the dung and spread it everywhere they stepped. In the beginning, Hou Tonghai was fighting with some trepidation and he’d thought about darting out of the door to escape. He did not dare to use all of his strength, but the longer they fought, he began to see that the ghost was unable to defeat him. Obviously his enchantment powers were restrained by the dung. He became bolder and his attacks became fiercer.