From the corridor outside, a voice suddenly rang out, cold as ice: “Tch. Big talk costs nothing. Who couldn’t manage that?”
Another voice immediately countered: “No, I thought it was splendid. It’s been ages since I heard language that forceful — and from a rookie newcomer, no less! Under certain circumstances, a newcomer’s performance can be forgiven. So long as he isn’t so frightened he wets himself, that alone counts as an enormous success for a rookie!”
The cold-voiced man sneered at this. “Then let’s see whether he wets himself or not!”
He hadn’t finished speaking before he flicked a hand — and two objects came flying into the cabin.
Thud, thud. Two items of differing size landed stiffly in front of Yue Yang.
The star bandits beside Yue Yang looked closely — and discovered with horror that what had been dumped before them like salted fish were two men. What made them go weak all over was that one of these men was Raven himself, the very man they’d been waiting for. The Raven before them now was mortally wounded and near death, his black clothes and cloak shredded to rags, hanging off him like a beggar’s tatters. Raven, who before his subordinates had always been so debonair, always so impeccably poised — was now flung on the floor, unable even to struggle, unable even to lift a finger… Frankly, in all his life Raven had never known such abject humiliation.
He hadn’t lost consciousness; his mind was clear enough. But to lie there like meat on the block before his own men, powerless to move, made him wish he could die on the spot rather than suffer this public disgrace.
Beside Raven, the other, blood-soaked giant was of course Pelican. Wounded all over, looking for all the world as though he’d been fished out of a vat of red dye, he had been knocked out cold and was now sprawled flat on his back, snoring away — one hardly needed to look to know this was the sort of fellow who’d never learn how he’d died.
The star bandits rushed forward, wailing to the heavens: “Lord Raven, what’s happened? What in the world has happened?”
They could not understand it, and would not believe it. Their chief, invincible in their hearts, had actually been beaten.
This — this reality was not one they could accept.
“…” Raven’s lips moved slightly, as though he meant to say something, but in the end nothing came out. His heart had already despaired, in the very instant the enemy defeated him so easily.
“Bawl about what? Is this a funeral? Have you no shame — they aren’t dead yet!” Yue Yang barked at them furiously, and ordered the star bandits to drag the two men behind him.
“He hasn’t wet himself, and he’s still giving orders. I win,” a man said smugly from the corridor, clapping his hands.
“Is that so? You’re certain you’ve won? That was then. Now he’s about to wet himself. I guarantee that inside a minute you’ll see an entirely different coward, kneeling on the floor and begging us for mercy…” The cold voice came striding in through the door — a tall, powerfully built, dignified-looking middle-aged man. His face was utterly grave, like a solemn official, and wherever he appeared the place seemed to transform into a conference hall. From his gaze, from his bearing and manner, one could tell at once: this was a man of authority with firm convictions, not easily swayed.
“Matters here are ours to handle, the two of us. You’d best not meddle.” Nether Flame’s expression had turned rather sour, and she warned the newcomer coldly.
“And if I insist on meddling?” the tall, imposing man returned.
“Then it’s yours!” Nether Flame locked eyes with him a moment, then suddenly burst out laughing, spread both hands, and shrugged. “Whose fault is it that my sister Phantom and I are women? Women are sometimes too stubborn, and it makes us disagreeable. So let matters here be handled by you men who like to put on a show! Sister Phantom, set him down. Let’s stand aside and watch what Hungry Ghost and Flying Corpse make of it — we may pick up some experience while we’re at it.”
“...” The wholly transparent Phantom seemed most unwilling, but after Nether Flame asked again and again, she finally, and with poor grace, flung away the Flower Duck she’d been holding aloft.
“Hack, hack, hack!” Flower Duck had come within an inch of death. The instant he was free he coughed without stopping, nearly hacking his own lungs out.
The other star bandits hurriedly snatched him back and hauled him behind Yue Yang.
Now, only by hiding behind Yue Yang could they feel even a shred of safety. They had no confidence in him whatsoever, but circumstances forced their hand, and so Flower Duck and the other burly bandits pressed closer to him. His strength was an unknown quantity, but in bearing and in speech, at least, this young newcomer gave up nothing to the enemy. So for the moment they’d try trusting him.
Yue Yang swept a glance over “Hungry Ghost” — that tall, dignified man who by no measure looked like an evildoer — and then looked toward “Flying Corpse,” who was slowly approaching a few steps along the cabin passage, but with the utmost caution, and who would on no account come inside. This Flying Corpse wore a long white robe; his hair was faintly purplish-red, untended by any deliberate combing yet perfectly smooth. Above that long hair rose a broad, intelligent brow, and his features were far more refined and elegant than an ordinary man’s. Had Yue Yang not heard Nether Flame address him, he could scarcely have imagined that this figure — a young lord adrift in a muddy world — would bear a name so ghastly and so hard to say aloud: Flying Corpse.
This Flying Corpse was tall and slender. The pupils of his eyes carried the faintest touch of green, lending him a striking personal charisma.
Noticing Yue Yang looking his way, he clapped his hands out of habit and nodded with a laugh: “Meeting a man truly is better than hearing of him. At first I was rather puzzled. Raven is a clever, selfish creature whose jealousy runs stronger than anyone’s — how could he possibly throw his life away to save an outsider? Now I believe it. You truly are worth the sacrifice. A young man like you, once grown, is beyond all measure. So you see, any sacrifice at all is in fact worth making!”
Upon the grave, dignified face of Hungry Ghost, a murderous intent arose that no one could quite fathom.
Perhaps the destruction of everything fine in this world — the ruin of newcomers of limitless potential, still growing — was a desire he had been born with.
The more lavishly Flying Corpse praised Yue Yang, the heavier the killing intent in Hungry Ghost’s eyes grew, until at last those dark, sinister eyes blazed with murder, wholly undisguised.
“In that case—” Hungry Ghost cut Flying Corpse off, thrust out a hand pointing straight at Yue Yang, and snorted: “I’ve reserved your face. I hope you struggle for your life and use every scrap of strength you have. That way, when I gnaw at your head and chew the flesh from your cheeks, there’ll be more bite to it. So mind you don’t disappoint me.”
“He — he likes to eat people…” Guoguo, hiding behind Yue Yang, trembled all over as he warned him. “He especially likes gnawing on people’s faces… Bleagh!“
“Bleagh, bleagh, bleagh!” Seeing Guoguo vomit, Flower Duck and the rest couldn’t help their own stomachs turning over in waves.
“Now there’s fine taste.” Face-eating? Even Nether Flame couldn’t resist the jab.
“With a man like this, it seems I can’t use rapid persuasion — that would be too great a waste of everyone’s time. There’s nothing for it: I’ll have to win him over through virtue. Whose fault is it that I possess such patience and sincerity when it comes to exhorting men toward goodness?” Yue Yang indicated that he was a great negotiator, and that he cherished, from the bottom of his heart, the noble negotiating vocation of safeguarding world peace and saving all mankind.
Hearing this, Hungry Ghost’s face filled with derision.
He did not reply. Because he held Yue Yang’s strength in contempt.
Aren’t you afraid a strong wind will sprain that tongue of yours? A newcomer with no strength at all — you’re fit to talk like that?
Contemptuous, Hungry Ghost couldn’t wait so much as a second longer. He resolved to stop talking to this rookie altogether, and simply crooked a finger, taunting Yue Yang with scorn — planning that the instant the boy lunged at him, he’d annihilate him on the spot with a single punch.
Yue Yang smiled.
A brilliant, sunlit smile, brimming with confidence…
Seeing that smile, the ever-cautious Flying Corpse instantly flew backward, and at the same moment called a warning to his companion: “Careful — something’s wrong!”
His words hadn’t yet reached Hungry Ghost’s eardrums before Yue Yang moved. His speed seemed unhurried — a hand reaching leisurely forward, pressing toward Hungry Ghost’s face. And the wary Nether Flame and Phantom, standing not far off, immediately sprang apart to left and right, plainly uneasy at this strange attack, unwilling to come too close for fear of being caught in the blast.
Hungry Ghost’s face was all mockery.
He put out a great hand, seizing for Yue Yang’s, meaning in one instant to snap that snail-slow arm, throw the boy sprawling in agony at his feet, and finally crush his head underfoot.
And in the next instant — in less than a ten-thousandth of a second—
The mockery and contempt on Hungry Ghost’s face froze. Yue Yang’s hand — its afterimage still creeping slowly forward through the air — the real hand was already pressed against Hungry Ghost’s face, and even as Hungry Ghost mounted a futile counterattack, it slammed his head savagely down into the deck plating. Flower Duck and Guoguo couldn’t see the movement at all; even Raven, Nether Flame, Phantom, and Flying Corpse failed to fully follow every stroke, and could make out only the roughest outline.
BOOM!
The entire cabin shuddered.
It was a hundred times more shocking than heaven’s thunder splitting the sky overhead. Everything in the cabin was blasted into the air; Flower Duck and the other star bandits went tumbling in all directions; Raven was flung aloft and, with considerable effort, righted himself and managed a safe landing. But the blood-soaked giant — still snoring away like a dead pig — was hurled like a mountain of meat, smashing first into the cabin ceiling, then crashing back down to be buried under a heap of furnishings scattered every which way by the shockwave, with nothing left showing but two elephantine legs… Off to the side, Nether Flame and Phantom sprang up with extraordinary lightness and hung suspended in midair, evading the force of the impact.
Outside the cabin, Flying Corpse retreated further still, watching Yue Yang with a grave expression.
Cautious as he was, he felt an immense threat closing over him.
And this, even though the Yue Yang before them still seemed as weak as any rookie newcomer, still smiling that friendly smile, the very picture of a man who’d harm neither man nor beast.
Winning men over through virtue means bursting their heads.
Flower Duck and Guoguo had learned Yue Yang’s negotiating methods a moment ago.
Now they saw the results… The moment the negotiation-by-virtue was deployed, Hungry Ghost’s head did indeed burst — burst utterly, into a heap of pulp no one could have identified.
That dignified face existed no more. Brain matter splattered outward; fragments of skull and gore and shredded flesh sprayed across the whole floor.
Something — a jaw, perhaps, or perhaps something else — landed on Guoguo’s shoulder.
Blood-red and reeking.
Guoguo brushed it off as frantically as if a ghost had bitten him, then, unable to master his nausea, vomited copiously.
“This negotiating method of yours, ‘winning men over through virtue’ — it’s excellent. I like it very much. Pity you used it on the wrong subject.” Nether Flame’s half-visible face broke into a grin. “In this world, not everyone can be persuaded by being won over through virtue. Take the Hungry Ghost in front of you — it simply won’t work on him!”
She hadn’t finished speaking before Hungry Ghost’s headless corpse suddenly sat up on the floor.
It used its hands to wrench away the pulped remnants above its neck, until nothing was left but a few earthworm-like blood vessels swaying in the air.
From the belly of the headless corpse there suddenly issued a bizarre sound — somewhat like Hungry Ghost’s voice a moment ago, and somewhat like the noise of a man sneaking out a suppressed fart, carrying that distinctive quality of escaping gas: “Ooogh. My head hurts. It’s been a long time since anyone left me in such a state! Damn you — ambushing me like that!”
Flower Duck and Guoguo’s jaws hit the floor.
Your sister! He hasn’t even got a head, and this thing is still alive? Does this creature still count as a person?
The headless yet perfectly lively Hungry Ghost straightened his body and pointed an arm furiously at Yue Yang: “Don’t think you can gloat just because you got one cheap shot in. I am an undying body — an existence that can never die! You — whoever’s dead brat you are — you dared to strike my head. Then let me teach you: the Mountain Beyond the Mountain is the world of us grown men, not a place a dead brat like you can play around in!”
“Aiyo, you’ve frightened your daddy half to death!” Yue Yang patted his chest and made a little oh-so-scared gesture, then shrugged and sighed helplessly. “Alive without a head? Truly… Although, come to think of it, this rather proves that the head was purely decorative all along, doesn’t it? A brainless idiot — I’ve heard of them often enough, but this is the first time I’ve actually seen one. The world is vast; truly there’s every kind of person in it. A brainless idiot can live too. What can I even say? No — I’d better stand further back. Idiocy might be contagious…”
(End of Chapter 1146)