The lakeside house under the shade of the bamboo wall was quiet and dark. The middle-aged tea artist was sitting on a stone chair carved with Kun Lake stone, and in front of him was a tea table carved with Kun Lake stone, on which there was an ebony tea table, on which there were warm and clean teapots and teacups. Beside the table was a small portable charcoal stove, on which the kettle on the stove exuded faint steam, but it had not boiled yet.
In such a hot summer night, the middle-aged tea artist seemed not to feel the heat brought by the small charcoal stove. He was draped in a thin coat, and was as calm as a hospitable host waiting for someone to return in a winter snowy night … He was Yan Suqing.
Ning Que was very sure of this. The vigilance he had before outside the lakeside house was finally confirmed at this moment, because the other party had sensed his coming in advance, and had already perceived his intention.
Glancing at the tea dregs under the bamboo wall with the corner of his eyes, and after a moment of silence, he looked at the tea artist in the chair and asked, "Then let's be direct … I want to know whether you have anything to do with the extermination of the whole family of the Xuanwei General's Mansion and the massacre of the Yan border village?"
Yan Suqing slightly frowned. He did not expect that the lad who came to kill him tonight was actually because of the two things many years ago. He had thought that no one in the world remembered those old things. After a moment of silence, he smiled and said, "Of course it has something to do with me. Otherwise, how could I, an officer with a bright future in the Military Ministry, become a tea artist who looks after the house of a tea merchant?"
"I should not be the first person you've come to." He looked at Ning Que and asked, "How are the others now? I haven't seen them for many years. I don't know what they are doing now. "
Ning Que silently observed the lakeside house and the movements around. Looking at this noble residence, he answered, "They are not living well, at least not as good as you, who can live in such a nice place."
Yan Suqing laughed out, shook his head and said with emotion, "Do you know why they are all not doing well, but I can live well? Because I am still of some use to the empire. "
The messy clothes on the body, the unboiled water on the small charcoal stove, and the empty teacup in his left hand all indicated that the Tea Specialist had just woken up. He probably got up because he sensed that Ning Que was near the lakeside house. He was not planning to ambush Ning Que in advance.
He was just a Tea Artisan who looked weak and frail and dealt with tea sets and spring water all day long. Why didn't he call for help or run away when he knew that someone was coming to kill him? Instead, he just sat there calmly and waited? What could he rely on? Moreover, what use could a tea master have for the empire? How could a tea master guard a tea merchant's house? How could a tea master have a better retirement life than Chen Zixian?
In the blink of an eye, Ning Que thought of many possibilities, even the most impossible one. An unprecedented solemn expression appeared on his childish face outside the mask. He looked at the other party and asked, "Why didn't you escape?"
"Why should I run?"
Yan Suqing looked at the teenager with a smile and said, "Since I'm awake, how could you kill me?"
After saying this, he gently flicked his sleeves, and a small dark sword without a handle appeared on the stone table.
Ning Que frowned and his body became a little stiff. He knew that he had encountered the most impossible possibility: this weak and frail Tea Artisan … was actually a cultivator!
At this moment, he could not help thinking of the conversation he had with Lyu Qingchen on the journey. The conversation about Sword Masters and Psyche Masters in Chang 'an City were as numerous as dogs.
At that time, Lyu Qingchen laughed and said that this argument was absolutely too exaggerated. After entering Chang 'an City, Ning Que had seen cultivators from the South School of Haotian Taoism opening altars and casting spells by the roadside, and had fought with cultivators in Spring Breeze Pavilion with Chao Xiaoshu. However, he really did not expect that an inconspicuous name on the revenge list was actually a powerhouse in that world.
Neither Zhuo Er's information nor Sangsang noticed it. No one could imagine that the former document appraiser of the Military Ministry and the Tea Artisan supported by the tea merchants was actually a cultivator who was proficient in sword-riding!
Ning Que's tightly knitted eyebrows slowly relaxed. He looked at Yan Suqing in the chair and the hiltless small sword in front of the emaciated middle-aged man, and said with a gentle smile, "Since you don't want to escape, I will."
As soon as he finished his words, he turned around without hesitation and rushed out of the lakeside house like a galloping horse.
…
…
Yan Suqing looked at the back of the teenager that was about to disappear beside the bamboo wall with great interest. He chuckled and shook his head, saying with emotion, "Since I've come to kill a cultivator, can I still retreat?"
The gentle words with strong confidence and killing intent slowly came out from the thin middle-aged man's lips. At the same time, he put down the coarse big teacup in his left hand, rolled up the cuff on his left arm with his right hand, and made a Sword Formula with the middle and index fingers of his left hand, pointing obliquely to the outside of the lakeside house. His movement was extremely casual and unrestrained.
As he pointed obliquely with the middle and index fingers, the dim hiltless small sword on the tea table suddenly hummed in a low voice, as if it was injected with some kind of magical energy. It suddenly bounced up from the table and then turned into a dark trace of light, tearing the darkest night before dawn of the lakeside house and piercing the outside of the courtyard.
Ning Que felt a prickling pain on his back, but there was no panic on his face, which was not covered by the mask. There was only calmness and calmness. Just as he was about to rush out of the sea of bamboos, he unexpectedly stomped on the ground with his left foot. His whole body turned over, and then his right foot stepped on the thick bamboo like lightning.
Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!
The solid soles of his shoes stepped on the bamboo rapidly, making the bamboo tree shake for a while, and countless bamboo leaves rustled down like broken feather arrows. He stepped on the bamboo tree and climbed to the courtyard wall in an instant, narrowly avoiding the sword light coming from the courtyard. Then he slightly bent his knees and quickly swept to the courtyard with the help of the vibration of the bamboo tree.
With a bang, his body just swept over the courtyard wall like a sharp arrow, and the sharp podao had already been unsheathed in his hand. With a muffled groan, Ning Que exerted strength in his waist and abdomen, turned over his wrist, and then the podao chopped toward Yan Suqing like a snowstorm!
Since he knew that this Tea Specialist was a powerful cultivator, he knew that tonight he would inevitably face a terrible test of life and death again. He knew that his present strength was not enough to fight against a powerful cultivator in the cultivation world, but he still didn't think of retreating, because he knew that retreating in the face of a cultivator meant death.
At the entrance of Northern Mountain Road, he saw how Peng Yutao and the most elite bodyguards of the Tang Empire fought with a Great Sword Master with iron and blood will and discipline. Outside Spring Breeze Pavilion, he saw how Chao Xiaoshu beheaded two foreign cultivators with his superb strength and strong control, from which he learned some experience, that was, facing a cultivator, one could only advance and not retreat, and this experience might help him escape death.
So at the beginning, his retreat was not retreat.
But retreat in order to advance.
And then kill.
…
…
Ding! A clear sound was heard!
Ning Que twisted his body and waved his podao, chopping away the gray sword light that escaped behind him, and then his body fell from the air.
For the first time they met, there was a rice-grain-sized gap on the edge of the podao and a tiny tear on the top of his shabby robe. However, there was still no fear in his eyebrows and eyes outside the mask. His legs were firmly rooted on the ground like two nails, his hands tightly grasping the long hilt of the podao, and he slightly lowered his head to vigilantly observe the movement in the night.
All of a sudden, he turned the long podao in his hand and avoided the sword light coming from the right side of the night at the cost of a blood mark on his left shoulder. At the same time, he confirmed from the slight vibration coming from his hand that his blade had at least scratched the flying sword.
Ning Que still slightly lowered his head, quietly staring at Yan Suqing sitting in a chair not far away, and carefully listening to the slight buzzing sound in the night around the lakeside house from time to time, trying to determine the position of the flying sword.
He took a step forward.
A falling bamboo leaf outside the courtyard was torn into two halves by an invisible force.
He fell backward like a mountain, and the gray shadow of the sword brushed past his shoulder, but it missed its target.
He heavily patted the ground with his right hand, tightened his waist and abdomen, and then stood up again like a mountain. His feet moved as fast as lightning, and the gray sword shadow plunged into the crack of the flagstone in front of his feet, and then quickly flew away again with a buzzing sound, disappearing without a trace.
He now stood three steps back from the previous position.
The small oil lamp on the right side of the tea table glowed faintly, and Yan Suqing sat in a stone chair with a faint smile.
The distance between the two was only a few steps, but it was so difficult to cross this distance in the night.
Because no one knew where the gray sword shadow was in the night.
…
…
Holding the long podao hilt tightly with both hands, Ning Que steadily stepped on the flagstone without stepping on the crack or the protrusion to ensure that he could borrow all the strength of the earth at any time. Like a statue, Ning Que stared at the tea artist in the chair, with no fear in his eyes, only calmness and concentration.
This was the first time in his life that he fought with a cultivator alone. He knew he had no chance, and he was very likely to meet death tonight, so of course he was afraid.
But Ning Que had been tortured by life and death too many times, so he was very clear that fear was the most useless emotion at this time. Only by turning fear and tension into excitement could he turn life and death around.
The flying sword buzzed and stabbed at him like lightning. He waved his podao to cut it, and even if he missed, he would avoid the vital parts at the last moment by virtue of the fighting instinct honed on the battlefield and his extremely strong body control.
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! The sword was like flying light, and the podao was like snow. His body was cut with numerous dense wounds by the sword shadow, and the blood seeped through his shabby clothes and began to drip on the surface of his body, making him look like a bloody man.
But Ning Que still held the podao tightly with both hands, and his feet were like nails on the flagstone. He stared at the powerhouse in the chair without any expression in his eyes, without panic or fear, and even without the fanaticism that should be in a desperate fight.
"A soldier coming back from the frontier fortress?"
Yan Suqing gradually stopped smiling, and looked at the bloody lad not far away from him, saying calmly, "Fourteen consecutive sword attacks failed to directly stab you to death, and only left some small wounds on you. Only the frontier fortress soldiers have this kind of physical instinct. But I have to remind you that even if the wounds are small and the blood flow is slow, you will still die after a long time of bleeding. "
"I understand, so I will try to find a chance to cut off your head before the blood runs dry." Ning Que answered.
"You won't have such a chance." Yan Suqing looked at Ning Que sympathetically and shook his head.
At this time, the water on the small charcoal stove finally began to boil, and hot water mist sprayed from the mouth of the pot.
The tea artist lifted the kettle on the stove with his left hand, and poured the water into the crude teacup. He looked at the tea leaves that kept floating in the boiling water, and lowered his head, saying, "I'm going to drink the morning tea, so I won't play with you."
…
…
(There is one more chapter, which is being written.) (To be continued.) If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for it and vote monthly. Your support is my biggest motivation.)
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