Sword from Songshan

Chapter 1: Stealing
"Three hundred miles west of Kaifeng Prefecture, there are many peaks and ridges. It is Mount Song, one of the Five Sacred Mountains!"

"There are 72 peaks in Songshan from east to west, with Taishi Mountain and Shaoshi Mountain accounting for 36 each. Shaolin Temple is located in Shaoshi Mountain, and there is also a major sect on Shengguan Peak of Taishi Mountain, which faces Shaoshi Mountain!"

"What I want to talk about today is the Songshan Sect."

"The head of Songshan Sect, Zuo Lengchan, is one of the three great masters of the righteous martial arts world today! The thirteen guardians under his command each have their own unique skills, and they are all first-class masters. The current Songshan Sect is in its heyday, catching up with Shaolin and Wudang!"

"But, just a few days ago, Sun Dazhong, one of the Thirteen Guardians of Songshan Sect, was killed by a demon from the Demon Cult..."

……

Xiangfu County was one of the 17 counties under the jurisdiction of Kaifeng Prefecture. It was adjacent to Kaifeng City, and therefore benefited from it. It was an upper county that could afford to pay 100,000 shi of tax grain.

The main street opposite the city gate is lined with various shops and full of pedestrians.

Some small vendors, with little capital and little profit, cannot afford to buy shops on the main street, so they set up stalls in the surrounding alleys or push carts or carry loads on their shoulders to sell their goods.

In the alley, there is an inconspicuous teahouse. A middle-aged man wearing a patched gown and a goatee is both the stall owner and the storyteller. While boiling water, he tells stories about the underworld.

It was just past the hour of Chen and people had just finished breakfast, so the sunlight was not too strong. There were three or four guests sitting sparsely in the teahouse, and a group of children gathered outside the teahouse, listening to books with great interest.

Whenever they heard the important parts, they would open their eyes wide and clench their fists, as if they were in the bloody storm described by the stall owner.

It was not until halfway through that the sunlight stung his eyes and he suddenly came to his senses. His nervous mood eased a little and he couldn't help but let out a long sigh.

Then he blinked his eyes, looked at the mottled sunlight between the leaves, and was fascinated by the world described by the stall owner.

I thought to myself, if one day I could also wield a sword in the martial arts world, I could do as the stall owner recited in the poem, killing one person every ten steps and leaving no trace in a thousand miles!

Although I don’t know the specific meaning of this poem, it sounds very chivalrous.

Drink~! Ha~!

There was a lot of noise and excitement in the teahouse over here, and from behind the high walls of a big house to the west, loud shouts could be heard from time to time.

Inside the wall, there is a garden. There is no pavilion in the middle of the garden, but only a piece of rammed earth open space with stone locks, wooden stakes and other martial arts training tools.

At this time, in the open space, a strong middle-aged man, with his muscular upper body naked, was practicing martial arts.

Those tiger, leopard and thundering sounds burst out from his dantian when he exerted his strength!

The sturdy man's arms are like spreading wings and his five fingers are clenched into claws. What he is practicing is not ordinary boxing and kicking, but Eagle Claw Kung Fu!
Wow~!

The leaves trembled slightly, and a head half-penetrated from the dense canopy of a large tree beside the north wall. A pair of dark, bright eyes stared at the strong man practicing martial arts without blinking.

Steal a teacher!

With the help of dense branches and leaves to cover him, a thin boy with pale skin, who looked about fifteen or sixteen years old, watched the strong man practicing martial arts intently, while he also made claws with his fingers and followed suit with small movements.

Whether it was his sense of timing, his hiding place, or the boy's calm demeanor, it was obvious that this was not the first time.

"here we go again."

The sturdy man who was practicing martial arts caught a glimpse of the young man on the tree out of the corner of his eye, and a barely perceptible smile appeared on the corner of his mouth.

He had actually already noticed the boy's presence!
However, the strong man didn't seem to mind.

If you can learn martial arts just by peeking, then there will be no secrets in the world. If people want to learn martial arts, they don't need to find a master, they can just watch from the side.

At that time, you will not dare to fight with others easily, because once you do, others will see your moves and learn them.

How can this be.

The Eagle Claw Grappling Technique that the strong man practiced had a total of thirty-six moves. The moves and footwork were not difficult to imitate, but if you only learned these, it would only be superficial.

The key lies in the method of using the force!

Only when the strength is reached, can you 'break tendons and bones, press acupoints and hold your breath'!
However, you can never learn these methods just by peeking.

When the strong man was young, his father gave him three hundred taels of silver as a thank-you gift so that he could learn Eagle Claw Kung Fu from an old boxer!

Just imagine, if it is so easy to be stolen, how can it be worth three hundred taels?

Want to steal someone's skills? It's just a daydream!
Drink~!

Thinking of this, the sturdy man was proud, shouted again, and grabbed the wooden stake next to him with his five fingers.

Click~!

The top of the wooden stake was wrapped with a hemp rope. With a sharp sound, the strong man's five fingers were actually hooked into the hemp rope!

"How amazing!" Upon seeing this scene, Lu Nanxing on the tree instantly widened his eyes with horror on his face.

With such a powerful claw, if it hit a person, it would definitely make five holes in the body!
Wow, he is worthy of being a martial arts scholar, his artistic skills are really amazing!

However, think about the description in the novel, when Eagle Claw Kung Fu is practiced to the highest level, one can easily break iron rods and crush human bones.

In this way, the strong man's current skills are still a long way from reaching the master level.

While thinking, the strong man let out a long breath, and finished his training. He took the towel and tea from the maid, and glanced at Lu Nanxing intentionally or unintentionally.

Lu Nanxing hid behind the dense branches and leaves, motionless, until the sturdy man turned around, then he slid down the tree trunk with ease and to the bottom.

"It's almost time."

Looking at the sun, Lu Nanxing ran towards the south gate of the city.

At the foot of the city gate, seven or eight men in tattered clothes stood there.

Seeing Lu Nanxing running towards him, he waved hurriedly.

"I'm coming!"

Lu Nanxing shouted and ran over quickly.

Then he glanced at everyone and asked.

"Is Tiandong not back yet?"

"Nope."

"I guess he's been hanging around in some bookstore again and has lost track of time."

"Every time you finish selling herbs, you two run faster than anyone else, but you always come back the latest, making us wait for half a day!"

"That's right. This delayed us for half an hour. By the time we got back to the village, the meat pies I bought for my child were cold!"

Speaking of which, everyone was complaining. One of the tall and thin young men touched the meat pie wrapped in oil paper in his arms, his face red with anger.

They all came from Shihe Village, nearly twenty miles away from Xiangfu County.

Unlike other villages, Shihe Village is located on a dry riverbed and has almost no arable land.

Fortunately, there are always people who can help each other. Our ancestors passed down the skills of identifying, collecting and drying herbs. We go into the mountains to collect herbs and sell them to pharmacies in the county town. Our income is even better than that of ordinary villages.

They make this their livelihood, and in order to prevent their skills from being leaked, there is even a rule in Shihe Village that women are not allowed to enter the mountains.

Men go into the mountains to collect herbs, while women take care of the household affairs. There are dozens of families in Shihe Village, and they live a fairly comfortable life.

Until three years ago, the Yellow River Gang suddenly came to the village, armed with knives, axes and swords, looking ferocious and asked them to sell herbs only to the Yellow River Gang's shop.

It doesn't matter who you sell it to, but the price offered by the Yellow River Gang is 30% to 40% lower than the market price!

Without these 30% to 40% of profits, the people in Shihe Village could only barely make ends meet.

As for secretly selling the herbs to others, once discovered by the Yellow River Gang, at the very least, a finger would be chopped off, at the worst, they would be tied to a large stone and thrown into the Yellow River.

As for suing the authorities, haha, the leader of the Yellow River Gang is said to be the prefect's brother-in-law!

"If he doesn't come, I won't wait any longer! Just let him go back on his own. It's already so late!"

I was already depressed because I couldn't sell the herbs I had worked so hard to collect. I had to scrape out a few coins from my teeth to buy a meat pie for my child, but he couldn't even eat a hot bite. Who wouldn't be angry?

Speaking of which, every time they went into the city, Lu Nanxing and Wang Tiandong would follow them, regardless of whether they had herbs to sell or not.

Normal families can only go to the city once or twice a month, so after selling the herbs, everyone will set aside an hour to stroll around the city and buy some daily necessities that are not available around the village. Families with children will buy some cheap food for their children.

But Lu Nanxing and Wang Tiandong were different. They didn't buy cloth or snacks. After leaving the pharmacy, one went to spy on others practicing martial arts, and the other went straight to the bookstall.

It's funny to say that the Shihe Village has been a group of honest people collecting herbs for generations, but how could they give birth to two daydreamers, one who wants to be a hero and the other who wants to be the top scholar.

"coming!"

Just when everyone was getting impatient, a young man about the same age as Lu Nanxing walked towards them quickly.

With his head lowered, he held a yellowed old book tightly in his hands like a treasure.

(End of this chapter)