Upon hearing this, Yang Ge instinctively slapped his chest, only then remembering that, to avoid exposing his identity during the body search at Prince’s residence, he had not brought along not only the Cold Moon Blade but also the prepared White Lotus Sect mask.
"This is indeed a misstep!"
He muttered to himself, then seriously shouted, "Stop talking nonsense. I am a lone member of the White Lotus Sect, ’Pure’ Zhang Muzhi. Today, I specifically came to take your life, Zhao Liang, to avenge the Jiangzhe and offer sacrifices for the 2,494 valiant souls who fought in the battle at Zhoushan!"
How could he have expected the Prince to come meet him so eagerly?
After all, the Prince was too eager to make progress!
Prince:...
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freeweɓnovēl.coɱ.
The guards:...
With eyes blood-red and face burning red, the Prince stared at Yang Ge, his throat moving for a long time before he forced down the impulse to burst out cursing, his expression grim and his reasoning clear, "Spare me, and I swear by the ancestors of Wei, I will not pursue your crime of attempting assassination today. Besides that, high positions, great wealth, magical weapons, and beautiful treasures, just name it, I refuse nothing... If I die, you will not have it easy!"
Yang Ge chuckled, "At this moment, are you still obsessed with wealth and honors?"
With forehead veins throbbing, the Prince tried to remain calm, asking, "Everyone has a price, you Yang… Zhang Muzhi are not a saint. Others might not be able to offer enough, but I certainly can. Furthermore, even if you kill me today, it merely resolves a moment’s hatred, benefiting neither the state nor the people in the slightest. With your intelligence, you surely don’t naively believe that all the corrupt officials in Jiangnan are solely because of me, do you?"
Yang Ge casually laughed lightly, "You may indeed have a point, but unfortunately, I am not here to reason with you, nor am I ready to accept any of your reasoning... When someone commits a mistake, there must be punishment. You are no exception!"
With forehead veins still throbbing, the Prince shouted angrily, "What must I do for you to spare me?"
The smile on Yang Ge’s face gradually faded, "I want those people who died in last year’s famine to come back to life, I want the 2,494 valiant souls who died at Nansha Bay to come back to life. Can you do that?"
The Prince finally realized that this man was not holding back from killing him to drive a hard bargain, but was purely mocking him!
He flew into a rage and hysterically cursed, "Damn you, Yang Erlang, even if I become a ghost, I will slaughter your entire clan..."
"Pfft!"
Yang Ge grabbed his ox-tail knife and lifted the Prince with one hand, the blade moving as fast as lightning drawing a "z," cutting the Prince into four pieces in mid-air!
"Clap clap clap..."
The four pieces of the body limply fell to the ground, bright red blood flowing like a fountain staining a large area of the ground crimson in an instant.
"You are dead, not instantly ascended to immortality..."
Yang Ge disdainfully flicked the fresh blood off his ox-tail knife, "Thinking about slaughtering my clan? You are not worthy!"
The guards at the Prince’s residence stared at the four pieces of the body lying on the ground. All of them stood frozen in place, their pupils shrinking to the size of mung beans...
Such a vigorous Prince, so full of life, had just died?
And like pork chops on a chopping board, had been chopped into four pieces?
The scene suddenly turned silent.
In the silence, it seemed as if there were the sounds of a massive tide.
The next second, hundreds of pairs of eyes suddenly lifted, their ferocious gazes focusing on Yang Ge.
"Shhh..."
Yang Ge placed a finger on his lips, his gaze even more ferocious as he lightly chuckled, "You are already surrounded by me. Let’s play a game, the game is called ’You clearly see me but all pretend you don’t’ and ’You clearly know who I am but all pretend you don’t.’ Play well, and I’ll let you go today... How about that?"
The guards of the Prince’s residence silently stared at him, their fierce gaze slowly turning into a resolved intent of a die-together attitude.
The Prince was dead.
They too had to die.
If they did not die, their families would...
"Kill!"
"Avenge the Prince!"
"Villain, give us your life..."
Hundreds of the Prince’s guards hysterically shouted, grabbing their swords and rushing towards Yang Ge, one after another.
The three experts adept in combined tactics surrounding Yang Ge immediately pounced towards him from three different directions.
Yang Ge soared into the sky, jumping three yards high...
Then, he spread his arms wide, and his robust metal True Qi poured out like it was free.
In an instant, all the guards’ swords at the residence of Prince Wei vibrated intensely, slipping from their hands and shooting skyward, aligning with Yang Ge.
From the ground, it seemed as if the sky were about to rain swords...
’Sword Sea Fury!’
Yang Ge roared inwardly, his arms swinging down toward the ground.
In a flash, hundreds of ox-tail swords transformed into streaks of lightning-fast sword light, pelting down from the sky like rain.
What was late now came fast, from the moment Yang Ge took over the guards’ swords to when he "returned" them, it was all but a few snaps of the fingers.
The three artful fighters from the White Lotus Sect, who were good at joint attacks and were just catching up in mid-air, saw the dazzling sword Qi. Their many years of strong mutual understanding made them scurry headlong without hesitation...
"Clang clang clang clang..."
Hundreds of ox-tail swords fell back to the ground like hailstones, smoothly piercing through guards who couldn’t dodge in time, and embedded upright into the bluestone ground, causing a dense web of cracks.
"Thud thud thud..."
The surging crowd collapsed in waves like wheat under a storm, the spurted blood merging to form a vast, cruel red flower on the ground.
Yang Ge crashed forcibly onto the ground, his chest heaving as he gasped for air.
Seeing this, the three masters who narrowly escaped death swiftly circled around, aiming to take his life while he was down, but they were met with a pair of blood-red eyes.
Yang Ge lunged forward with his sword toward one of the men, the ox-tail sword swishing effortlessly through the air like a torchwood, so fast it left no afterimage!
The master was caught off guard, feeling a chill rise from his chest to the crown of his head.
With a terrified glance downward, he saw his own legs carrying half his torso, rushing away...
’What a swift blade!’
This thought flashed through his mind, and then he felt the world spinning around him, his thoughts stiffening until he could move no more.
The other two masters, seeing this, once again didn’t hesitate and smoothly turned tail and fled.
Too strong!
Impossible to fight, absolutely impossible!
Yang Ge leaned on his ox-tail sword, standing amidst a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, breathing heavily, his mind gently completing the phrase: ’Light as a feather...’
After slaughtering Prince Wei, the pent-up rancor in his heart finally dissipated. His self-created move ’For every man owes but one death, be it as heavy as Mount Tai or as light as a feather’ was now fully realized.
This move had two variations.
One was ’As Heavy as Mount Tai’, with a sword force that was strong and as mighty as landslides.
The other was ’As Light as a Feather’, with a sword force light and swift as dust sweeping through a shadow.
It possessed the essence of martial arts that harmonizes the soft and hard, yin and yang.
It also encompassed profound philosophies such as ’Noblesse oblige is the epitaph of the noble, and vileness the passport of the vile. The times make heroes, and heroes can also shape the times.’
These two distinct sword forces could be employed separately in battle against different enemies.
Or they could be melded together, using a technique of making the great as effortless, thus endowing the swordplay with both the devastating force of a landslide and the fleeting, swift nature of dust in the wind.
For now, this move consumed far less than the ’point of no return’ move.
But the power of this move depended more on the strength of his spirit.
The deeper his understanding and the more he contemplated concepts like yin and yang, softness and hardness, nobility and despicableness, the shaping of history by heroes or vice versa, the stronger this move became!
Dragging his sword, he walked alone to the corpse of Prince Wei, bent down and severed his head, murmuring softly, ’This move shall be called... Eternal Longing.’
The world is but a brief lodging, whether you are a great hero, a saint, a commoner, or a villain, you are just a passerby.
And merely a grain of sand in the mighty river of history.
The ancients have taken the Yellow Crane, leaving only the Yellow Crane Tower behind.
The Yellow Crane is gone forever, with the white clouds thousand years remain...
(End of Volume Two: Discussion of Harmony Not a Precondition for Togetherness)