Chapter 10 | Dominating the World with Nine Yin and Nine Yang

Lu Liding spoke with a frown:

"But if they leave the manor, they will be..."

Yang Guo immediately interrupted:

"That's why everyone needs to scatter and flee together."

"As many as can escape, escape."

"Keeping everyone here is no different from putting all your eggs in one basket."

"This is basically preparing a family bucket for Li Mochou."

Lu Liding: "?"

Lu Erniang: "?"

Cheng Ying: "?"

Lu Wushuang: "What bucket?"

Yang Guo waved his hand:

"It's nothing."

"In short, just flee as quickly as possible."

Yang Guo was already pulling Aniu toward the exit:

"Let's go."

"While there's still no sign of movement."

"If we can slip away, let's slip away first."

Aniu nodded and followed.

After taking a few steps, Yang Guo turned back:

"Manor Master Lu."

"You had better leave as soon as possible."

"You can't go head-to-head with Li Mochou."

Lu Liding smiled bitterly as he spoke:

"This is the Lu family, and our ancestral home is here."

"My wife and daughter are here as well."

"I can't simply flee the moment she arrives."

"I cannot hand over my family home so easily."

Yang Guo opened his mouth, but in the end he said no more.

There was no persuading someone in a situation like this.

Had he been in Lu Liding's shoes, he might have done the same.

"Alright."

"Take care of yourself, then."

Yang Guo turned around, grabbed Aniu, and began to leave.

They hadn't even taken five steps.

Suddenly, a woman's voice rang out from outside the courtyard wall.

"Today,"

"no one gets away."

The voice wasn't loud, and was even somewhat pleasant to hear.

Yet the courtyard instantly fell silent.

Yang Guo stopped in his tracks as well.

Aniu asked softly beside him:

"Who is it?"

Yang Guo didn't answer.

The next moment, the corner of an apricot-yellow robe fluttered gently atop the wall.

A figure vaulted over the wall into the courtyard.

When she touched the ground, her feet made almost no sound at all.

The white strands of her whisk spread out like flowing clouds, and her apricot-yellow Taoist robes swayed gently in the wind.

With bright eyes, white teeth, snow-white skin, and a faint smile playing at the corners of her lips, she was so charming that she didn't look like a monastic in the slightest.

Had he not known who she was, Yang Guo's first impression would likely have been clear.

He would have thought she was a top courtesan escaped from some brothel.

Now, having taken two glances, his heart had already grown cold.

Knowing things were bad, he silently shifted a step in front of Aniu.

Aniu asked in a low voice:

"Is she Li Mochou?"

"She doesn't look like a bad person."

Without turning his head, Yang Guo said softly:

"The prettiest mushrooms are often the most poisonous."

Aniu went silent immediately.

Looking at Li Mochou, Yang Guo had only one thought in his mind.

Reading about it in a story, this was called enchanting charm.

Standing right in front of her, this was a matter of life and death.

Lu Liding had already drawn his saber, stepping forward in a dash to stand in front of everyone:

"Li Mochou, whatever grudge you have with my Lu family,"

"I will take it on."

"However, the servants of the manor have nothing to do with this affair, nor do they hold any grievance against you. Let them go!"

Li Mochou looked at him and said coldly, "Unrelated?"

The two words were spoken lightly, but sent a chill down the spines of everyone present.

She raised her head and glanced at the Lu family plaque.

After a moment, she looked back at Lu Liding:

"Lu Zhanyuan is dead."

"He Yuanjun is dead too."

"So you all think this way."

"My ten years,"

"should be buried along with them as well?"

No one in the courtyard responded.

Li Mochou continued:

"Back then, he spoke of ten years."

"So I waited for ten years."

"Not a day less."

"Now that ten years have passed,"

"they die clean and neat."

She sneered coldly: "Saves me the trouble, then."

Her laugh sounded faint, yet no one found it funny.

Lu Liding tightened his grip on his long saber and spoke:

"You feel my elder brother failed you, but he has already passed away. As his younger brother, I can offer my head to repay his debt!"

"However, these people have absolutely nothing to do with this affair."

"If you want to kill them,"

"that is not revenge."

"It is slaughtering the innocent!"

The smile on Li Mochou's face gradually faded:

"Back then, Lu Zhanyuan was at his last breath at the foot of Mount Zhongnan."

"I stole medicine to save his life and betrayed my sect for him!"

"In the end, when he held He Yuanjun's bright red wedding veil and numerous guests offered their congratulations in unison, did anyone ever think of me as innocent?"

She flicked the whisk in her hand fiercely, its powerful gust scraping across the bluestone floor and carving out several white furrows:

"When has this world ever cared about the word 'innocent'?"

"Since these people ate the Lu family's grain and enjoyed the Lu family's protection, they should naturally be dragged along on the road to the Yellow Springs today!"

Seeing her impervious to reason, Lu Liding barked furiously, "Attack!"

The dozen or so guards had long been sweating from their palms.

Hearing the command, they all charged forward together.

Sabers, spears, cudgels, and staves whipped through the wind, crashing down toward Li Mochou in a relentless frenzy.

For a moment, it seemed quite imposing.

Yet Li Mochou stood right where she was, not moving an inch.

It was only when a steel saber slashed right before her face

that she flicked her wrist, and the white strands of her whisk wrapped around the thick-backed steel saber coming down at her like a flexible whip.

With a gentle tug of her wrist,

the guard couldn't hold back his momentum at all and crashed sideways.

Bang!

He knocked down two people beside him on the spot, and the three of them tumbled into a heap.

At that moment, a long staff came whistling down from behind.

Li Mochou didn't even bother to turn her head, whipping back the tail of her whisk.

Crack!

The waxwood staff, thick as a bowl and bound in forged copper, snapped clean in two.

Holding the remaining half of the staff, the guard froze completely.

Li Mochou turned her head and gave him a cold look.

The guard's Adam's apple bobbed involuntarily. He took a sharp step back and roared:

"Everyone, attack together!"

Standing to the side, Yang Guo's eyelids twitched as he watched.

Over the past half year, relying on his Nine Yang true qi, he had beaten up Magan and his fellow thugs quite a few times.

Taking on three at once was super easy for him by now.

Occasionally, an illusion would spring up in his mind, making him feel that he was somewhat of a jianghu figure himself.

Looking at this now, Yang Guo couldn't help sighing in his heart:

"Fighting Magan and his gang is a neighborhood quarrel at best."

"It's still miles away from real jianghu bloodshed."

"Out of the way!" Lu Liding drew his saber and charged into the crowd.

Lu Erniang followed closely behind with sword in hand.

The couple's martial arts were clearly far superior to those of the guards.

Flanking her from left and right, saber and sword struck out together.

Gleams of saber and sword locked fiercely onto Li Mochou.

Only then did Li Mochou get a bit more serious.

After the three of them engaged for several moves, Li Mochou parried with her whisk.

Clang!

The saber in Lu Liding's hand was knocked right aside.

Lu Erniang thrust her sword toward Li Mochou's shoulder.

Li Mochou side-stepped to dodge it and struck back with a palm strike.

The strike sent Lu Erniang stumbling back several steps, her shoe soles grinding against the green bricks with a harsh, grating noise.

"Father, Mother!" Lu Wushuang cried out in alarm at the sight.

Cheng Ying supported her, her palms drenched in sweat.

Lu Liding pushed himself up and charged again, sweeping his saber horizontally right toward Li Mochou's waist.

Yet Li Mochou lightly tapped her toes, her robes fluttering as she moved to his side.

Lu Liding's heart jolted; just as he tried to bring his saber back, a sudden numbness struck his shoulder.

Smack!

The whisk whipped against him.

He stumbled backward several paces.

Li Mochou did not press the pursuit; instead, she swept her eyes over the dozen or so guards nearby.

Only half of them remained standing.

The rest were either fallen and unable to get up, or had already lost their weapons.

Li Mochou hadn't taken Lu Liding seriously in the first place.

His martial arts were hardly high, and his saber technique could scarcely be called exquisite.

Yet those moves were personally taught by Lu Zhanyuan, down to the subtle chin lift when generating power, matching without a hair's difference.

During the fight just now, as she fought and recalled the past, the whisk in her hand involuntarily slowed down by a few degrees.

It felt as if her heart had been sliced open with a knife.

She needed only to strike back with a Scarlet Palm, and she could shatter Lu Liding's heart meridians on the spot.

Yet if that palm strike were delivered for real—

there would never again be the Jiangnan Lu Family Saber Technique in this world.

And that shadow which had drained ten years of her life's devotion, that shadow she hated so deeply she gritted her teeth down to the roots, would vanish entirely into ashes.

The killing intent in the depths of Li Mochou's eyes suddenly dissipated by more than half.

At this moment, her mind felt befuddled as well.

She just wanted to stand right there and take a few more looks, watching for a moment longer.

Even if it was merely looking at an imitation, it was still good.

The wind from Lu Liding's saber swept past the root of Li Mochou's ear.

Li Mochou met it limply with her whisk, leaving a way out with every move, her usual ruthless methods dissolving entirely into tangled thoughts.

Up until now, she hadn't killed a single person.

Yet precisely because of this, the people in the courtyard grew even more terrified.

To fight to this point without the opponent even giving rise to killing intent—

this gap was no longer a question of numbers.

Lu Liding and Lu Erniang gritted their teeth and pressed the attack, taking advantage of a gap between clashing weapons.

Lu Liding shouted: