Volume Three: The Storm over Xuanwu Gate, Chapter Eighty-Six: To Slay the Wicked Is to Uphold Compassion

A gray-clad man from the Fierce Tiger Gang, charging at the forefront, bellowed and swung his blade straight down at Li Mingyu’s head.

Li Mingyu lifted his long sword to meet the blow, catching the man’s saber. At the same time, he drove a foot into the man’s belly. The fellow cried out as though his guts had been kicked loose, staggering backward in agony.

Though kicked flying, he had bought his companions a moment.

“Take this!” Two lean men attacked in concert, one leaping high to hack at Mingyu’s throat, the other crouching low to sweep at his shins.

Mingyu shifted aside and slipped past both strikes, then roared, “Hit me with this!”

His sword darted like a serpent striking from the grass. Blood sprayed as one cut landed on a man’s shoulder.

“Again!”

His wrist turned; the blade whirled and dropped, opening a deep wound across the man’s abdomen.

“And again!”

Amid the man’s shrieks, the sword flashed upward and split into two gleaming arcs. With two wet sounds, blood burst forth, and the arm still clutching a blade flew high into the air, severed clean at the shoulder.

Clang!

Steel met steel, sparks scattering.

The other man tried to seize the opening for a sneak attack, but Mingyu reversed his sword and blocked the saber. Then he spun and smashed an elbow into the man’s face.

Crack.

The blow shattered the bridge of the nose. Fragments of bone drove into the brain. Before the man could even cry out, blood gushed from every opening in his face, and he toppled dead to the ground.

“And you!”

Mingyu leaped into the air, his wrist trembling. The long sword blossomed into a screen of light that enveloped a man in blue from head to toe. Blood droplets burst in every direction, and the man’s screams rose and fell without end. When the sword light faded, every major tendon and vein in his body had been severed.

Li Mingyu hooked a saber from the ground with the tip of his boot and roared, “You beasts in human skin! Today I will cut you all down to the last man!”

Long sword in his right hand, saber in his left, he charged into the crowd like a whirling gale.

Blood shot skyward. Limbs flew.

Li Mingyu had never felt rage like this. Their deeds were monstrous, beyond all words; they scarcely deserved to be called human at all. To call them beasts would not be excessive.

As a traveler from another world, as a man who had known the contentment of modern life, as a soldier with a fierce sense of honor, he had never imagined that in this world there would truly be men who, for silver, could discard conscience and commit such savagery, such utter wickedness.

Their actions filled him with uncontrollable fury. Against such villains, guilty enough to deserve a thousand deaths, there was only killing, only making them pay in blood.

No. Killing them so quickly would be too merciful.

I will make you beasts taste what it means to beg for death and be denied it. I will make you die amid endless howling, regretting every crime you ever committed.

He did not know whether the rumored underworld truly existed, or whether such villains would continue into hell after death to suffer forever.

Call him brutal if you wished. Call him vicious if you liked. In his previous life, Li Mingyu had been only an ordinary soldier; he had no grand doctrines to preach, no tender-hearted mercy, no patient sermons. He believed only in violence answered with violence. Only the wicked could subdue the wicked.

Even the eminent Buddhist monk Jixi Gong had once said that killing the wicked is itself an act of good.

Li Mingyu struck like lightning, showing no mercy. In the blink of an eye, more than a dozen men from the Fierce Tiger Gang lay sprawled on the ground.

The floor was strewn with severed limbs and flowing blood. Aside from the first few whom Mingyu had killed with heavier blows, the rest he had deliberately spared from fatal wounds. Their injuries were grave, but for the moment none would die.

As for Boss Liu, Mingyu had given him special “care.”

He now lay on the ground, barely breathing, drenched in blood, his body marked with no fewer than thirty or forty wounds. His legs were in the worst state, the flesh reduced to a blur of ruin, not a scrap of healthy meat left, with bone showing through in places.

The children stood nearby, staring blankly. Though their little bodies shook uncontrollably, their eyes remained wide open. Young children are simple in mind; after suffering torment akin to a living hell, they feared these villains, yes, but in their hearts there was also a hatred that would never fade.

By now Li Mingyu was splashed with the enemy’s blood all over his body, his hands, and his face. Combined with his eyes, red and swollen from the lime powder, he looked every bit like a fiend from hell come to reap souls.

He walked up to Boss Liu, crouched down, and said in a cold voice, “Beast. You even set your filthy thoughts on little girls barely out of diapers.”

Boss Liu had already fainted from pain several times and woken again. With life reduced to a single fragile breath, he had not the strength left even to beg. His mouth opened and closed, as if he wanted to say something.

Thrusting his long sword in slowly, slowly, Li Mingyu sank it into Boss Liu’s belly. The sword was no divine weapon; after the fighting, its blade was already riddled with nicks and damage.

Once it entered the body, it was like a saw, a dull knife cutting flesh. There was nothing more agonizing. Boss Liu’s whole body convulsed in torment, and he no longer had even the strength to scream. Only a hoarse, broken sound could escape his throat.

“Now then,” Li Mingyu said evenly as he continued forcing the blade deeper, “are you sorry for the evil you have done?”

Each time the sword met bone, he twisted it in a circle inside the body, then changed angle and drove it in again.

Boss Liu could no longer speak. He shook his head and nodded frantically, his whole body writhing.

Li Mingyu suddenly smiled, revealing a mouthful of white teeth.

He would not let them die so easily. But right now, he could not allow this man to die yet. He still had to find out where the chief villain was.

His voice turned gentle, as though he were speaking from their point of view, full of seductive power. “But are you content with that? You have paid the price, but what about your boss? What about Iron Tiger? He still eats fine and drinks well, while you are about to die. But you were only following orders, were you not? The real villain is Iron Tiger. This was all his doing. Come on, tell me where Iron Tiger is. I promise he will suffer ten times worse than you!”

When a man is about to die, his nature turns vicious. For scum like Boss Liu, the issue was not that there was too little to share, but that the sharing was unequal; not that he was poor, but that he was unable to feel secure. If I am going to die, why should you remain carefree and happy? Even in death, I must drag someone down with me.

At the mention that Iron Tiger would die worse than he would, Boss Liu’s eyes brightened with a gleam of excitement and cruelty.

He first made a hoarse sound deep in his throat, drawing breath for a moment, and then, with the last of his life’s strength, shouted, “Gathering Worthies Lane! Prosperity Gambling Den! Iron Tiger! I’ll be waiting for you below!”

After that final burst of clarity, his head slumped to one side, and he was dead.

Li Mingyu nodded. For someone like Boss Liu, who harmed others without benefiting himself, those dying words were likely genuine.

Still, he would not believe them too readily. They would need further confirmation. It was not impossible that Boss Liu had tried to lead him astray.

He rose and walked to one of the Fierce Tiger Gang men beside him. This one’s hands had been severed at the wrists, and one leg twisted at an unnatural angle.

Li Mingyu asked, “Want to live?”

The man hurriedly nodded. Even an ant struggles to survive; much more so a grown man.

“Good. Then speak. Where is Iron Tiger right now?”

“The Prosperity Gambling Den on Gathering Worthies Lane!” the man blurted without hesitation.

Li Mingyu thrust his sword into the man’s chest and said in a cold voice, feigning disbelief, “Damn it, you’re still lying on death’s doorstep. Do you really think I’m a fool? Boss Liu tried to hoodwink me, and you think I can’t tell?”

He pulled the sword free, then went to a second man whose arms had been severed. He repeated the question.

The man trembled all over and stammered, “No, no lie... he really is at the Prosperity...”

Before he could finish, the sword flashed. Blood sprayed, and a head rolled away.

Li Mingyu moved on to the third man. This one was less badly injured, only missing a leg. Seeing Mingyu be so ruthless, one man after another cut down without mercy, he was already shaking like a leaf, snot and tears streaming down his face.

“Good sir! Spare me! Spare my life! I dare not lie to you. He really is at the Prosperity Gambling Den! That is the Fierce Tiger Gang’s den! I truly would not dare deceive you! Ask anyone nearby if you like! Spare me!”

Before he had even finished, a foul stench filled the air; the man had been so terrified that he had voided his bowels and bladder.

“Really?”

Li Mingyu paused, still not entirely convinced.

“Waaah! Absolutely true! If I lie, may thunder strike me dead!”

“We would never dare deceive you, honored warrior!”

“In that case, good. Let us play a little game.”

Arms folded, Li Mingyu looked down at the fallen gang members and gave a cold laugh.

Then he pointed at the surviving men. “Let me see... one, two, three, four... There are six of you left. But I do not intend to spare all of you. You have committed too much evil. Only one of you may live.”

He tilted his head and thought for a moment, then said, “This is how we’ll do it. From now on, each of you will give me detailed information about the Prosperity Gambling Den: how many thugs are inside, whether there are secret passages, and when Iron Tiger usually goes there. You will answer one after another. Whoever cannot answer, or answers wrongly... heh.”

“See the thing in my hand?”

He shook the long sword lightly and said in a grim voice, “If any of you are still not honest, I’ll give each of you a transparent hole.”