im out of the door.

Completely shocked and terrified, the Yue couple all came to the same conclusion, “That Ping One-Finger’s medical skills are indeed astonishing. Besides, his inner strength is nothing ordinary, either. When he smacked the Bai-Hui point on Fruit Fairy’s head, he must have injected vigorous inner energy into Fruit Fairy’s body to wake him up instantly.” Within the moment of hesitation, the Peach Valley’s Six Fairies had gone far away.

Ping One-Finger stood up and then walked into another room. Yue Buqun gave his wife a signal, and the two quietly sneaked away. Not until they were hundreds of feet away from the room did they speed up their steps.

“That Killer Doctor’s inner strength is simply extraordinary. But his behavior was indeed very unusual,” Madam Yue exclaimed.

“Since the Peach Valley’s Six Freaks are around, the city of Kaifeng has gotten to be a place of trouble. We’d better leave here at once. There’s no need for us to get tangled up with them,” Yue Buqun suggested.

Madam Yue answered with a hum. Throughout her life, only the last several months had given her the most grievances. Even her husband, the Head Master of the Huashan Sword School, a member school of the Five Mountains Sword Alliance, had to run around in hiding. And it almost felt as if there was nowhere safe no matter where they went. The couple had never kept anything from each other, but every time when this topic came up, both of them would immediately change topic to avoid the embarrassment. Now when they finally knew that Fruit Fairy would live on, both felt great relief as if a big rock had been removed from their hearts.

The two of them went straight back to the “Shrine of General Yang” and found Yue Lingshan, Lin Pingzhi, Lao Denuo, and the rest of the apprentices waiting at the back hall.

“Let’s get back to the boat,” Yue Buqun ordered.

By then everybody had become aware that the Peach Valley’s Five Freaks were close by, so neither questioned the order and all returned to the boat in a hurry. Just when they were going to ask the boatman to set sail, the Peach Valley’s Five Fairies’ loud shouts suddenly came from ashore.

“Linghu Chong! Linghu Chong! Where are you?”

All faces of the Huashan Sword School members changed color as they watched six men rushing toward the wharf in trots. Besides the Peach Valley’s Five Fairies, there was also Ping One-Finger among the group. The Peach Valley’s Five Fairies had seen the Yue Buqun couple before, so when they recognized Yue couple’s faces from afar, all cheered uncontrollably. Within seconds, they had arrived and immediately all five of them leapt toward the boat.

Instantly Madam Yue unsheathed her sword and stabbed it forward toward Root Fairy’s chest. At the exact same time, Yue Buqun also drew his sword and pushed Madam Yue’s blade down using that of his own.

“Don’t be reckless!” he whispered.

The bow of the boat sunk slightly when the Peach Valley’s Five Fairies boarded the boat.

“Linghu Chong! Where are you hiding? Why don’t you come out?” Root Fairy yelled loudly.

“Why should I hide? Am I afraid of you?” Linghu Chong roared in fury.

Right at the moment, the boat bumped slightly and another person had leapt aboard – the “Killer Doctor” Ping One-Finger.

Yue Buqun felt a great shock inward. “The minute junior apprentice sister and I got back this dwarf shows up right here. Could we have left any traces when we sneaked about outside of his window? Could he have found the traces? The Peach Valley’s Five Freaks alone are already hard enough to deal with, not mentioning adding such a tough opponent on top of that. Alas, perhaps our lives are destined to end here at Kaifeng today.” Then he heard Ping One-Finger speak.

“May I ask which one of you is brother Linghu?”

Surprisingly, his words were quite polite.

“I am Linghu Chong. May I have your respectful name? May I ask what I can do for you?” Linghu Chong slowly walked onto the bow of the boat and answered.

Ping One-Finger looked Linghu Chong up and down. “Someone has asked me to treat your wounds,” he said.

Reaching out and grabbing Linghu Chong by his hand, he placed his index finger on top of Linghu Chong’s wrist and began checking his pulses. Suddenly, he raised his eyebrows and uttered a cry of surprise. But soon his eyebrows gradually knitted into a straight line and another cry of surprise followed. Raising his head high, he stared into the sky blankly, his left hand scratching his head madly.

“How odd! How odd!” he murmured to himself.

A long while passed before he reached out again to check Linghu Chong’s pulse from the other wrist. But as soon as his index finger touched Linghu Chong’s wrist, he sneezed all of a sudden.

“This is so weird. I’ve never seen anything like this before,” he muttered.

Root Fairy could no longer hold his tongue and jumped in. “What’s so odd about it? It’s so obvious that he was wounded in his Heart Passage. I have already treated him with my inner energy.”

“Why are you still insisting on saying that he was wounded in his Heart Passage? Obviously he had problems with his Lung Passage. If it weren’t I who opened his many pressure points along the Lung Passage, you think he’d still be alive today?” Trunk Fairy immediately rebuffed.

Wasting no time, Branch Fairy, Leaf Fairy and Flower Fairy all jumped into the big debate, each claiming himself the only one that gave the right and critical treatment and the one who should get the credits.

Ping One-Finger suddenly gave a loud shout, “What crap!”

“Hey! Are you talking crap, or are we, the five brothers, talking crap?” Root Fairy mocked angrily.

“Of course you are!” Ping One-Finger answered. “Inside brother Linghu’s body, there are two streams of stronger energy flow, which seemed to have come from Monk No Commandment. There are also six streams of weaker energy flow, which probably came from you guys, you six fools!”

Yue Buqun and Madam Yue shot a glance at each other, both thinking, “This Ping One-Finger is indeed incredible. It’s not hard to detect the eight streams of energy flow inside Chong from his pulse, but it is completely amazing that he is able to identify the origin of the different energy streams and knew two of them came from Monk No Commandment.”

“Why are you saying that our six energy streams are weaker and the god-damned No Commandment’s energy streams are stronger? There’s no doubt that ours are stronger and his are weaker!” Trunk Fairy snubbed furiously.

“What a nerve!” Ping One-Finger sneered. “He was only one, yet his two energy streams overwhelmed all the energy streams of the six of you combined. How the hell could yours be stronger, huh? Monk No Commandment the old scumbag, he has outstanding Kung Fu skills yet no brain! God damn it! What an idiot!”

Flower Fairy stuck his finger out and pretended to also check Linghu Chong’s pulse. “Well,” he said, “it seems that the energy streams of the Peach Valley’s Six Fairies are actually in total control and have completely overwhelmed Monk No Commandment’s….” Suddenly he cried out in pain and pulled his finger back quickly as if somebody has bitten it. “Ouch! God damn it!” he shouted.

Looking very pleased, Ping One-Finger burst into loud laughter. Everybody could tell that he must have passed his advanced inner energy through Linghu Chong’s body and gave Flower Fairy a painful shock.

After some more laughing, Ping One-Finger put the solemn face back on.

“Listen up, all of you! Go wait in the boat’s hold and be quiet! I don’t want hear a word out of you!”

“Wait a minute! What makes you think we’d do exactly what you tell us to do?” Leaf Fairy protested.

“Didn’t you swear an oath that you would kill a person for me?” Ping One-Finger asked.

“That’s right! But we only agreed to kill a person for you. We never agreed to follow your orders?” Branch Fairy answered.

“It’s totally up to you whether you want to follow my orders or not. But what if I ask you to kill the Fruit Fairy of the Peach Valley’s Six Fairies? What do you think?” Ping One-Finger sneered.

The Five Fairies all shouted out in protests. “That’s outrageous! You have just cured him. Why are you asking us to kill him?”

“Well, what kind of oath did you five swear to me?” Ping One-Finger asked.

“We agreed that if you can cure our brother Fruit Fairy, then when you order us to kill a person, regardless of who that person is, we must do it. No excuses, whatsoever,” Root Fairy replied.

“That’s correct!” Ping One-Finger nodded. “Now did I cure your brother?”

“Yes, you did!” Flower Fairy concurred.

“Is Fruit Fairy a person?” Ping One-Finger pressed on.

“Of course he is a person. He is no ghost,” Leaf Fairy answered.

“Fine. I want you to kill a person for me, and this person is Fruit Fairy!” Ping One-Finger concluded.

The five Fairies looked at each other in blank dismay. All felt that this order was unspeakably queer, yet neither of them could think of any argument.

“If you are not willing to kill Fruit Fairy, I am sure we can work something out. Now will you follow my orders? I am telling you to go sit in the boat’s hold and behave yourselves. I don’t want any movement or any word out of you,” Ping One-Finger commanded.

The five Fairies hurriedly acknowledged the order, and within seconds, all five of them sat down in the hold, their hands on their knees and their backs straight up, making sure that no one could have behaved any better than them.

“Master Ping, I heard that you have this rule when you treat your patients: after you’ve cured the patient, he will have to kill someone for you. Is that true?” Linghu Chong asked.

“That’s correct! I do have this rule,” Ping One-Finger admitted.

“But I don’t want to kill anyone for you, so please save your trouble and don’t treat me,” Linghu Chong exclaimed.

“Huh!” Ping One-Finger uttered a cry of surprise. He looked Linghu Chong up and down as if he had seen something totally eccentric and abnormal. After a long pause, he spoke again.

“Firstly, your case is too severe and I can’t cure you; secondly, even if I could cure you, someone else has already agreed to kill for me. You don’t have to worry about it at all.”

Ever since Yue Lingshan had shifted her love interests to someone else, Linghu Chong had lost the joy of life. But when he heard from this famous doctor, who had such a great reputation with his capability of bringing the dying back to life, that even he couldn’t cure the wounds, Linghu Chong still found himself swept by utter desolation.

The Yue couple gave each other a stare, both thinking, “Who has gotten such great due respect that could have made ‘Killer Doctor’ to make house calls? What kind of relationship does he have with Chong?”

“Brother Linghu,” Ping One-Finger spoke again. “There are eight streams of foreign energy forces inside your body that could not be discharged, nor dissolved, nor tamed, nor overpowered, which have caused all the injuries and suffering. I was entrusted the task to cure your wounds. It’s not that I am holding any effort back from you. Because your injuries are related to inner energy, that’s why medicine and medical treatments won’t do you any good. Ever since I became a doctor, I’ve never seen any injuries like this. Alas, there’s really nothing I can do. I am so ashamed.”

He took a china bottle out from his chest pocket and then poured ten vermilion pills into his palm.

“These are ten ‘Heart-Soothing’ pills. They contain many kinds of precious medicinal materials and took me a long time to make. Take one pill every ten days and you will be able to live for another one hundred days.”

“Many thanks!” Linghu Chong took the pills respectfully.

Ping One-Finger turned around and headed toward the bank. But suddenly he turned back again. “There are two more pills in the bottle. I might as well give all of them to you.” He took out the china bottle and handed it out.

But Linghu Chong didn’t take it. “I can tell that senior master really treasure these pills very much. They must contain great healing power. It’s probably better to keep them with you to save someone else in the future. Even if I could live ten days or twenty days longer, it’s not gonna do anybody, even I myself, any good.”

Ping One-Finger threw a sideways glance at Linghu Chong for a moment and then murmured, “Having no regards of one’s own life, you do show the qualities of a true man. No wonder! No wonder! Alas, what a pity! I am sorry!”

He shook his giant head, turned around, leapt off the boat, and then walked off in big strides. He came and went so abruptly and completely ignored Yue Buqun, the Head Master of the Huashan Sword School. Yue Buqun was greatly annoyed. But there were still five menaces sitting in the boat’s hold. Getting rid of them was not going to be an easy task.

The five Fairies all sat absolutely still, their eyes looking down, their hands on their knees, as if they were monks meditating in trance. If Yue Buqun ordered the boat to start sail, then the five menaces would have, for sure, been brought along. If he didn’t order the boat to start sail, then nobody knew how long they were going to just sit there, or if they were going to jump up suddenly to attack in retaliation for the stab Madam Yue gave Fruit Fairy. Lao Denuo, Yue Lingshan, and some more apprentices had seen with their own eyes the horrible scene how the Fairies had ripped Cheng Buyou into pieces. Even now, each of them could still feel chills on their back from the fear. They simply gazed at each other in dismay, and neither was even brave enough to cast a glance at those five.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” Linghu Chong came back into the hold.

“We are just sitting here and behaving ourselves. We are not doing anything,” Root Fairy answered.

“We are about to start sail. You can go back ashore now,” Linghu Chong urged.

“Ping One-Finger told us to sit in the hold and behave ourselves, no talks and no movements. Otherwise, he is gonna ask us to kill our brother. That’s why we are sitting here behaving ourselves and dare not talk or move,” Branch Fairy replied.

Linghu Chong couldn’t help but grin at these words. “Doctor Ping has gone ashore already. You can start talking and moving now!”

“No way! No way! What if he sees us talking and moving about? That’s not going to be good!” Flower Fairy shook his head frantically.

Suddenly a croaky voice floated from ashore, “Hey, you five ugly goblins! Where are you?”

“I think he’s calling us,” Root Fairy suggested.

“Why do you think he’s calling us? Are we ugly goblins?” Branch Fairy argued.

The voice shouted again, “I have one more ugly goblin here. Doctor Ping has just cured him. Do you want him or not? If you don’t want him, I am gonna drop him in the river to feed the fish.”

Hearing those, the five Fairies instantly leapt out of the hold side by side and landed ashore. The middle-aged woman who had helped Ping One-Finger with the operation stood by the river straight as a ramrod. With her left arm extended to the side, she lifted a stretcher in her left hand, and Fruit Fairy lay on the stretcher. The woman looked ill from her face yet had great strength. To lift the over one hundred pounds Fruit Fairy plus the wooden stretcher using only one arm seemed so easy for her.

“Of course we want him. Why would we not want him?” Root Fairy said hurriedly.

“Why are you calling us ugly goblins?” Branch Fairy asked.

“Look at yourself, you look more like an ugly goblin yourself,” Fruit Fairy said while lying on the stretcher.

It turned out that after Ping One-Finger had sewed Fruit Fairy’s wound back together, fed him some miraculous medicine, and then smacked his head to inject advanced inner energy, he immediately stood up and walked out. But due to the loss of great amount of blood, he fainted again after only a short distance and was brought back into the room by the middle-aged woman. Even though he was still far from recovering, his wounds didn’t keep him from yielding to anyone orally, and he simply couldn’t help but contradict the woman.

“Do you know what Doctor Ping fears the most in his life?” the woman asked coldly.

“We don’t know. What does he fear the most?” the six Fairies replied in unison.

“He fears his wife!” the woman answered.

“We thought he feared nothing at all. Who would have though he actually fears his wife? Ha-ha! Oh my god! Ha-ha!” The Peach Valley’s Six Fairies laughed so hard that they almost laughed their heads off.

“What’s so funny? I am his wife,” the woman said in a chilling tone.

Instantly, the Peach Valley’s Six Fairies shut themselves up.

“He never dare disobey my orders,” the woman continued. “If I want anyone dead, that person will be the one he tells you to kill.”

“Yes! Yes! May we ask you who you want dead, Mrs. Ping?” the Peach Valley’s Six Fairies asked in unison.

The woman cast a glance toward the boat’s hold and looked at all the Huashan members one by one. Her eyes moved from Yue Buqun to Madam Yue, then to Yue Lingshan, then to the rest of the Huashan apprentices. Every one could feel goose bumps all over his back, all knowing that if this woman with the ugly and bloodless face had pointed at one of them, the five Fairies would instantly rip that person into pieces. Even first class fighters like Yue Buqun perhaps wouldn’t be able to escape from their hands.

The woman slowly looked away from the Huashan members and then turned her eyes to the faces of the six Fairies. The six brothers also felt their heart pounding in their chests from fear. “Uh,” the woman let out a sound, and the six Fairies immediately answered, “Yes! Yes!” “Hum,” the woman let out a snort, and the six Fairies again answered at once, “Yes! Yes!”

“I haven’t thought of whom I want dead,” the woman finally said. “But Doctor Ping said that there’s a Young Master Linghu Chong on the boat who he respects very much. You must wait upon him until he dies. Whatever he tells you to do, you will do it for him with no exceptions. Do you hear me?”

“Wait upon him until he dies?” the Peach Valley’s Six Fairies asked with big frowns.

“That’s correct! Wait upon him until he dies. But he only has one hundred days left in this life. Within the next one hundred days, you must obey all of his orders,” Mrs. Ping explained.

Hearing that Linghu Chong only had no more than one hundred days left, the Peach Valley’s Six Fairies all became happy again. “Sure, to wait upon him for one hundred days shouldn’t be that hard!” they all said.

“I am truly grateful for Master Ping’s generous offer, but I dare not trouble the Peach Valley’s Six Fairies to care for me,” Linghu Chong rejected. “Will you please tell them to stay ashore? We hereby bid our farewell to you.”

Mrs. Ping kept her cold face without any sign of joy or anger, whatsoever. “Doctor Ping said that Young Master Linghu’s internal injury is solely caused by those six scumbags. Not only would Young Master Linghu die because of that, it also made Doctor Ping lose great face from not being able to cure him and give a satisfactory answer to the one who entrusted him for the task, that’s why he must punish these six scumbags to a great extent. Doctor Ping had planned to ask them to kill one of their brothers following their own oath, but he decided to show mercy and only ask them to wait upon Young Master Linghu.”

She paused for a moment and then continued. “If these six scumbags do not follow Young Master Linghu’s commands and Doctor Ping hears about it, he promises to kill one of them immediately.”

“Since brother Linghu’s injury was caused by us, it’s really nothing that we wait upon him for a while. A true man knows when to pay back a favor and when to settle a score,” Flower Fairy declared.

“A true man is willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of friendship, much less waiting upon his injuries,” Branch Fairy added.

“My wounds also need someone to wait upon. So I’ll wait upon him and he will wait upon me. Back and forth, it’s good for both of us,” Fruit Fairy followed.

“Not mentioning that we can only wait upon him for a limited one hundred days. How short it is!” Trunk Fairy joined in.

Root Fairy smacked his own thigh loudly and said, “Even in the old days people could travel a thousand miles to help at the news of their friend’s trouble. For us six brothers, did we ever hesitate to jump in troubles and help the needed…?”

Mrs. Ping shot a glance of distain toward the six Fairies and then simply walked away. Branch Fairy and Trunk Fairy lifted the stretcher and leapt onboard. Root Fairy and the rest of the Fairies all followed. Then six voices shouted simultaneously, “Start the sail! Start the sail!”

By then, Linghu Chong knew that, for sure, they wouldn’t be able to keep the six Fairies from going together with them, so he said, “Six Fairy brothers! I can let you come together with us, but you must show good manners to my Master and Master-Wife. This is my first order. If you don’t do as I say, then I don’t want you to wait upon me.”

“We, the Peach Valley’s Six Fairies, have always been refined and courteous gentlemen. Everybody knows that. We will even show respects to your apprentice or your grand-apprentice, much less your Master and Master-Wife,” Leaf Fairy replied.

Hearing that he had called himself a refined and courteous gentleman, Linghu Chong found himself greatly amused. He turned to Yue Buqun and said, “Master, these six Fairy brothers would like to board our boat and sail east with us. Do you think it’s alright?”

Yue Buqun pondered. It seemed that, at least for now, these six wouldn’t make things difficult for the Huashan School. With everybody else on the same boat, they still remained a serious hidden danger. But it was probably impossible to drive them away under the current circumstance. Fortunately these six men appeared to be mentally deranged despite the outstanding Kung Fu skills they possessed. So it wouldn’t be entirely impossible to contain them by strategy. At that thought, he nodded.

“Alright. I guess they can take the boat with us if they insist. But I prefer a quiet life and would not want to listen to them argue back and forth non-stop.”

“You’ve said it wrong, Mr. Yue,” Branch Fairy argued. “Why do you think a person is born with a mouth? Other than eating, this mouth is also used to talk. And how about the two ears? Of course they are used to listen to people talking. If you prefer a quiet life, then you are really letting the Almighty Creator down for giving you a mouth and two ears.”

Yue Buqun knew too well that if he had argued back, when the other five brothers’ five mouths all joined in, that would be like opening a can of worms, and there would be no end to it. He couldn’t beat them in physical fight, nor would he be able to beat them in a word fight, so he simply let out a slight smile and then said, “Boatman, set sail!”

“Mr. Yue, didn’t you just open your mouth to tell the boatman to set sail? If you really prefer a quiet life, you should have signaled him to set sail with a gesture,” Leaf Fairy joined in.

“The boatman is at the back of the boat, and Mr. Yue is here in the middle section. If he had signaled yet the boatman couldn’t see him, then it would still be useless,” Trunk Fairy disagreed.

“Couldn’t he have walked to the back of the boat and then signal the gesture?” Root Fairy suggested.

“What if the boatman couldn’t understand his gesture and thought the ‘set sail’ command was the ‘sink the boat’ command? That would be terrible,” Flower Fairy argued.

Amid the arguments from the Peach Valley’s Six Fairies, the boatman had weighed the anchor and set sail.

Both Yue Buqun and Madam Yue cast a glance at Linghu Chong spontaneously followed by a brief glance at the Peach Valley’s Six Fairies. After exchanging some looks at each other, the Yue couple all had the same thought.

“Ping One-Finger mentioned that someone had entrusted him to treat Chong’s injury. From his words, it seems that this person must have been someone with very high status in the Martial World, that was why Ping thought nothing of the Head Master of the Huashan Sword School, yet was very polite to an apprentice of the Huashan Sword School. Who had entrusted Doctor Ping to treat Chong? Since Ping called Monk No Commandment a ‘god damned idiot,’ then obviously it wasn’t Monk No Commandment.”

In the old days, they would have called Linghu Chong over and asked him in detail, but unconsciously, much misunderstanding had emerged between the master and the apprentice. Both of them knew it was not yet the time to ask Linghu Chong. When Madam Yue thought of that even Ping One-Finger, the number one doctor in the Martial World, couldn’t cure Linghu Chong’s injury and that he only had one hundred days left in his life, sadness welled up in her heart and tears streamed down her cheek.

Sailing with the wind and downstream, the boat traveled speedily. By evening, they were already not far from the town of Lanfeng. The boatman anchored the boat along the bank and soon had prepared dinner. Just when everyone was ready for supper, suddenly, loud voices came from ashore.

“Excuse me! May I ask if the heroes of the Huashan Sword School are on this boat?”

Before Yue Buqun had a chance to answer, Branch Fairy had already answered, “Heroes of both the Huashan Sword School and the Peach Valley’s Six Fairies are all on this boat. What do you want?”

“Great! Great! We have been waiting here for an entire day and night. Hurry! Hurry up! Take those over!” the man replied gleefully.

Over a dozen hefty looking men walked out from a straw mat shed falling into two lines, each with a red-lacquered small case in his hands. An empty-handed man in a blue robe walked by the boat and bowed down.

“Our superior was very concerned when he heard that young hero Linghu was not feeling well. He really wanted to pay a visit himself but simply did not have enough time to make the trip back. So he sent me specific orders by homing pigeons and asked me to present some small gifts to young hero Linghu on his behalf.”

One by one, the dozen of men walked aboard in a file and placed the over a dozen of cases down on the boat.

Utterly surprised, Linghu Chong couldn’t help but ask, “I am Linghu Chong. May I ask who the respectful superior of yours is? I am afraid I am unworthy of such generous gifts.”

“Young hero Linghu is a man of good fortunes. I am sure you will fully recover in no time. Please take care!” the man replied. Bowing down respectfully, he led the bunch of men and walked away.

“I wonder who is sending me the gifts. This is so odd,” Linghu Chong murmured.

The Peach Valley’s Five Fairies could no longer hold their patience. “Let’s open them up!” they acclaimed in unison and soon had opened all of the red-lacquered small cases. Some of the cases were filled with exquisite refreshments and pastry; some contained smoked chicken or ham that were great to go with wine; some held all kinds of expensive and precious medicinal materials such as ginseng, pilose antler, swallow nest, and tremella; the last two cases were filled with small gold and silver ingots, apparently for Linghu Chong to use along his trip. These were no small gifts at all! As soon as the Peach Valley’s Five Fairies spotted the candies, cookies, candied fruits, and the pastries in the different cases, they wasted no time grabbing the treats and jamming them into their mouths. “This is delicious! So delicious!” they shouted cheerfully.

Linghu Chong checked the many cases carefully and thoroughly yet didn’t find any notes, seals, or signs that would give out a trace of the gift-giver’s identity.

“Master,” Linghu Chong said to Yue Buqun, “I really can’t figure this one out. These people seem to bear no ill will, and it doesn’t look like that they are playing pranks on us either.” Having said those words, he put some of the treats in front of his Master and Master-Wife respectfully before distributing the rest of them to his apprentice brothers and sisters.

Yue Buqun cast a glance at the Peach Valley’s Six Fairies. They all had some of the treats, and none of them had any abnormal reactions from the food. It seemed that the food was not poisoned. So he asked Linghu Chong.

“Do you have any martial friends living in this area?”

“No.” Linghu Chong shook his head after he pondered for a moment.

Sound of hoof beats suddenly rose. Eight riders dashed toward them along the river. Someone shouted among the riders.

“Is young hero Linghu of the Huashan Sword School over there?”

“Yes, yes! He’s over here! What good stuff have you brought with you?” the Peach Valley’s Six Fairies shouted cheerfully.

“Our chief heard that young hero Linghu had come to the town of Lanfeng. He also heard that young hero Linghu is quite fond of wine, so he told me to put together sixteen jars of excellent mellow wine and bring them here, so young hero Linghu can enjoy them on the boat along his trip,” the man shouted back.

Soon, the eight riders had arrived, and sure enough, each saddle atop the horsebacks had two wine jars hanging from it. And on the wine jars, some wrote “Best Quality Royal-Wine,” some wrote “High Grade Fen-Wine,”[11] and some others wrote “Shaoxing Red Wine.”[12] These sixteen jars of wine turned out to have contained sixteen different types of wine. In Linghu Chong’s mind, there was nothing else that could have been a better gift than these great wines. He hurried to the bow of the boat and then cupped his hands to salute.

“Please forgive my ignorance. Will you please tell me the name of your respectful clan? And what is your respectful name?”

“Our chief specifically told us again and again to not mention the name of our clan to young hero Linghu. He said that these are only very humble gifts. It’s embarrassing enough. Why embarrass ourselves even more by mentioning our names?” the man answered with a grin. He waved a signal to his companions, and all the riders carried the many win