Chapter 157 – Before the Imperial City, a Rainy Day

This rain in late fall was gradually getting heavier.

Five Bamboos, in the rain, under the gaze of the strange eyes of the pedestrians along the street, made his way out of the alleyway and arrived outside the small fork in the road next to the Heavenly River Road. Wet rainwater slowly dripped downward along the clothes on his body and the black cloth on his face. It was here that he stopped in his tracks, then raised his head slightly, looking at the palace in the distance in the misty rain and smoke.

Yesterday afternoon, Five Bamboos was also here looking at the palace for half a day. Although he was a traveler who had come from the temple and subconsciously followed Fan Xian’s tour of the earth, and the Imperial Palace was indeed the most worthwhile place to visit in Kyoto, with the most majestic buildings, but Five Bamboo had come here two days in a row, and he thought that there must have been some other chance that had influenced his decision.

Under the eaves of the street, a few Kyoto urchins wearing small cotton coats were carrying square schoolbags, rubbing their hands against the cold, their little faces a little white from the cold. These children have to go to the public school organized by the imperial court to study every day, and they all carry umbrellas with them, but they just didn’t expect that the rain would suddenly become heavier when they walked to the entrance of the alley.

“Look, it’s that fool from yesterday!” A little guy was feeling that this rain was making people too bored, although it seemed to delay the time of the class, but who would like to keep bowing down under someone else’s roof, at that exact moment, he spotted Five Bamboo who was standing woodenly in the rain like an idiot, and recognized the other party as the fool who allowed himself to be abused and played with yesterday, and was as happy as if he had rediscovered a new continent.

There weren’t any rocks under the eaves, and the urchins, with their eyes spinning bone-deep, found some of last night’s incompletely burned cinders next to one of the coal stoves, laughed shrilly, shrieked, and began to throw them at Gojira.

I don’t know why, but it seems that humans, at a very young age, are very good at proving their strength by bullying those weaker than them, thus gaining some sort of mental satisfaction. This seemed to be a kind of nature, otherwise why would those children feel joy just by listening to the sound of the cinderblocks smashing on the body of the Five Bamboo? Why would they feel joyful when they watched the Five Bamboo’s body being smashed all over and dirty?

There were not many people hiding from the rain on the street, in the eyes of these small number of people in Kyoto, that blind man standing in the rain, obviously an idiot, and a handicapped person, can not help but feel some sympathy, but while sympathizing, looking at the stains on the body of the blind man, and subconsciously disgusted.

So except for an older woman-like woman, who scolded those little brats fiercely, no one else did anything, just indifferently watching those unimpressed children venting their violent desires that all life has in their own way.

With a popping sound, a water-soaked lump of cinder ruthlessly smashed into Five Bamboo’s unmoving, expressionless face, making a crisp sound as if it had slapped him in the face.

The lump of cinder, which knocked the black cloth on Five Bamboo’s face slightly off, and Five Bamboo’s pale face also deflected a little, as if he didn’t quite understand what was happening. Then he straightened the black cloth on his own face and slowly turned to look at the little children under the roof whose hands were not clean.

The urchins weren’t afraid, because after smashing all afternoon yesterday, this blind idiot didn’t show the slightest sign of resistance, on the contrary, they watched the five bamboo react today, instead, they felt even more excited, and the cinderblocks that were smashed into the street in the rain were suddenly denser.

Five Bamboo still did not dodge. It turned out that Five Bamboos could also be injured, and he stared blankly through the layer of black cloth at the children who kept laughing shrilly and waving their little hands, not understanding why they were attacking themselves, and even more so, why these children’s innocent faces were smiling so hideously. He didn’t understand why the stones, whether sharp or round, smashed on his head and face, but his heart felt a little strange?

What kind of emotion was that? Sadness? Disappointment? Anger? Unwillingness? Or just the word emotion? Five Bamboo looked at those children, let them smash, a chaotic mind, but suddenly like a little something more.

The rain suddenly became very big, the sky of Kyoto in the late autumn, as if someone poked a big hole, countless rivers and lakes, from that unfathomable big hole splashed down, turned into a sky of sudden rain, rain, scattered in the streets, alleys and houses above.

Five Bamboo’s mind also seems to suddenly open a big hole, clear and diffuse sky light shot down, let his body is covered in a strange mood.

There were emotions, what did this prove? Was it the same proof as the young man called Fan Xian’s words of curiosity? Five Bamboos once again began to think, silent in the pounding rain.

That young man called Fan Xian had once said many things to him, but he couldn’t understand them, couldn’t hear them, couldn’t understand them, and only memorized them.

What had that young man called Fan Xian done? It seemed that he had gone to the palace, as if to take revenge. Why and for whom? It seemed like someone had died, so that person called Fan Xian was unhappy and unpleasant. Was it a woman named Ye Qingmei and an old cripple named Chen Pingping?

These two unfamiliar names seemed to have become progressively clearer and more familiar in Five Bamboo’s mind along with this roiling rain, and the clear light coming down from that big hole. However, what gave him a headache was that he still could not remember who the other party actually was, had he not been in the temple all his life?

Five Bamboo still couldn’t remember anything, but he possessed something he wasn’t supposed to have, and that was an emotion, in fact, since yesterday afternoon, that emotion, had overflowed his heart, causing his eyes to just look at that palace silently through the black cloth.

That emotion was called disgust, and for some reason, which Five Bamboos himself couldn’t explain, he loathed that tallest building in Kyoto, perhaps it was just because he instinctively loathed the people in that building?

When he left the Snow Temple, the young man called Fan Xian coughed up blood on one side and said to himself that he wanted to follow his heart, but …… what is the heart? Could it be the vivid and unfamiliar …… emotions that one feels at this moment?

Five Bamboo decided to go to the palace to look, to find the real source of their emotions, to see if there is anyone inside that they want to see, the people who are destined to see in the underworld. So his hand steadily placed on the brazier on the side of his waist, while slightly lowering his head, he reattached the hat on his back, covering the rain in the sky, and covering the black cloth that covered his eyes.

Yet those children were still throwing stones and cinders with pleasure. After a moment’s silence, Gojutsu let go of the brazier in his hand and crouched down, his palms slashing through the sewage flowing on the ground, grabbing a handful of cinders that weren’t too hard.

No harm could be done to mankind, unless it was for the good of mankind as a whole. However, the biggest difference between Gojutsu and the old man in the temple was that he didn’t understand what the overall good was, what kind of shit it was, and what it had to do with himself.

Those young humans might just be playing a game, that’s how Five Bamboo thought and reacted, at least there was no emotion of disgust or anger in his heart towards these young humans who were bullying him.

Since it’s a game, I’ll play the game with them once, and maybe they won’t pester me so much anymore. Five Bamboo directly threw the cupped cinder mixed with rainwater in his hand towards the children under the eaves of the street.

A terrified scream, a panicked footstep, countless cries, the sound of someone fainting in the rainwater, and a mess of voices resounded along with Gojutsu’s action.

A handful of cinderblocks mixed with sewage, accurately separated according to four people, accurately hit the bodies of those few urchins, one of the urchins who laughed the loudest had his head directly smashed with blood, and fainted in the rain without saying a word.

After a deathly silence at the street corner, an angry roar suddenly erupted, “The fool has killed someone!”

The previously apathetic people of Kyoto, at this moment suddenly all turned into anxious and good citizens, those who reported to the officials, those who notified their parents, there were also some middle-aged men, who took out wooden sticks and mops, ready to beat that idiot who committed the offense to the ground.

They were all neighbors, so naturally they could not stand by and watch the children suffer so much. The mother of that child who had fainted to the ground jumped on top of her child, crying loudly and cursing Five Bamboo spitefully.

Five Bamboo watched all of this indifferently, still not understanding why that woman was crying if it was a game, and if it wasn’t a game, why didn’t they stop these children earlier? He knew that he wouldn’t really get hurt, did these humans also know that he wasn’t normal? Did they not worry about my safety when those kids beat themselves up earlier?

In the rain, the silent Five Bamboo vaguely learned something, slightly understood that human emotions have nothing to do with choices and reason, it turns out to be divided by affinity and likes and dislikes.

In today’s world, Five Bamboos thought that the person with whom he had the closest relationship should be that young man called Fan Xian. He loathed that palace the most, so he stopped paying attention to these people who were acting like crazy, and very seriously re-smoothed the wrinkles of the black cloth on his face, placing his hand on top of the brazier at his waist, and stepping in towards the palace in the distance.

Someone tried to beat the idiot, the blind man, the madman to death, and then fainted, and the wooden stick broke in two. In the midst of the downpour, dressed in cloth and a hat, Five Bamboos easily stepped out of the angry circle of the people of Kyoto, leaving only a trail of people crying out in pain in his wake.

Five Bamboo did not kill. It’s not that he doesn’t dare to kill, but the habit he has developed over hundreds of thousands of years makes him not think of killing. When you want to kill, then kill.

When the magistrates of the Kyoto Prefecture arrived at the fork in the road next to the Heavenly River Road, the madman who had knocked down a field of people was long gone. Looking at the field of people who were crying out in pain in the rain, after the magistrate’s squad leader took a moment to check, he sucked in a mouthful of cool air, wondering which expert this was who had struck so cleanly. How could a strong person bother with these unarmed people? The magistrate squad leader felt some chills in his body, not because of the injuries of these people, but because of the blind man who was no longer known, if it was true that the man was a fool as these people had said, then there was no doubt that this fool must be the most powerful martial arts madman ever.

To have such a martial arts madman roaming around Kyoto was terrifying for the magistrate squad leader to think about, and the first thing he did was to have his subordinates notify the Kyoto Prefectural Yamen, and then nervously asked one of the people next to him, “Where did that madman run off to?”

“It seems to be heading towards the square.” The man replied with a trembling voice, gritting his teeth, “That person has been staring at the palace for two days, I’m only afraid there’s a problem.”

The magistrate squad leader didn’t need to ask any more questions, but also understood that this person was trying to get that madman killed, and that when anything involved the palace, there would be no more way to live. However, I heard that the martial arts lunatic straight towards the direction of the palace, the head of the magistrate’s squad instead feel a little more relaxed, after all, the palace is full of experts, the forbidden army is strict, and then powerful martial arts lunatic can only be knocked down to the ground, even if the legendary little Lord Fan killed back, can it still break into the palace not to be?

Rain has been falling, five bamboo does not know behind the distant street people want to let him die how urgent mood, also do not know that the yamen squad head has pronounced his death sentence, he just wearing a hat, holding the brazier, step by step, exceptionally stable and dry walking toward the palace square.

The new cloth shoes that Fan Xian had bought for him in North Qi’s Enamel County had long been soaked to the skin as they stepped in the water. With each step, it was as if a drum sounded in Five Bamboo’s mind, striking his heart, striking his soul, Ye Qingmei, Chen Pingping, Fan Xian, these seemingly distant yet extremely close names, kept ringing out.

At every step, he vaguely remembered something, not distinct but extraordinarily close. For example, this Imperial City in the cold rain, for example, this Kyoto full of familiar flavors, full of glass made by himself, was actually so familiar.

And likewise, as the first step towards the Imperial City Square approached, the disgust in Five Bamboo’s heart for this imperial palace deepened. This towering imperial city standing in the rainstorm, is so untouchable, so solemn and …… disgusting.

Kyoto is the old place, the palace is also the old place, five bamboo thought.

In the rain alone in the old place, but met with the road blocking the rain sprinkled all over the ground, the road is quiet people lonely, this confused rain way people lazy to go for shelter.

The people who blocked the way of the five bamboo is not the rain, is a team of full body armor in the rain, the murderous intent of the forbidden soldiers. The rain hit on the gray armor of these Qing military elites, snapping, hit on their solemn face, but could not provoke the slightest change in mood.

The emotions on Five Bamboo’s face didn’t change at all, his body still leaned forward slightly, letting the hat on top of his head cover the torrential rain falling from the sky, and his feet didn’t stagnate or speed up, but just steadily followed the speed he was used to, traveling towards the middle of the square.

Five Bamboo wants to enter the palace to see, so to pass the main gate of the palace, so to walk through this square in the rainstorm, for him, this is exceptionally simple logic, he does not care if there is no one will stop himself. And this exceptionally simple logic of his, for the forbidden army in charge of the security of the palace, is exceptionally cold and bold.

The news of Fan Xian’s return to the capital had already spread from the Ye Mansion yesterday night, and by today, all the upper echelons of the Kingdom of Qing were aware of this shocking news. The imperial palace, on the other hand, has been under martial law since last night, with all entry checks being extremely stringent, and the defense work being elevated to an unprecedented level of tension.

Even on the day when the Kyoto guard division escorted the old dean of the Supervisory Academy, Chen, back to the capital, the entire imperial city was not as tightly guarded as it is today, because everyone knows what Fan Xian is returning to the capital for, and that he will surely try to enter the palace again to carry out an assassination attempt, and that the court of the Southern Qing Dynasty will definitely not give this rebel a second chance.

The patrols of the forbidden army had been extended outward by a third of the territory even more than usual, and today a heavy rain in the morning, wet and cold, had made all of them on the alert, and felt a gust of palpitations, for they did not know where Fan Xian was now, and when he would kill his way into the palace.

The small storm at the fork in the Tianhe Road had actually fallen into the eyes of the forbidden army, only the soldiers in charge of monitoring the security of the periphery did not take the unexpected events of a martial arts madman too seriously.

However, when this martial madman wearing a hat and completely blind in both eyes suddenly displayed an extremely amazing strength and began to walk towards the palace in silence, the forbidden soldiers finally discovered a hint of strangeness.

When the cloth shoe on the right foot of the blind man wearing a hat and hat, stepped on the standing water on the green stone slabs of the Imperial City Square, the forbidden army issued the first warning and began to gather force, preparing to capture this person in one fell swoop.

However, the five bamboo is like did not even hear that sound of warning enough to make the vast majority of people in the world feel chilled, he is still just walking steadily and silently, in the imperial city on the forbidden army generals vigilant gaze, in the square forbidden soldiers cold and murderous gaze, step by step steadily walking.

Such as the one who warned three times, the cloth-clothed blind man in the sky and rain, still seems as if he has not heard, as if he is blind, step by step toward the center of the square, toward the main gate of the palace.

Even at this point in time, the generals of the forbidden army still thought that this eccentric character was a madman, and did not associate him with an assassin. This was because in the eyes of the worldly people, an even more powerful assassin, even the Four Guards Sword from back then, would not be able to choose to assassinate in such an open and honorable manner. Surrounded by over ten thousand forbidden troops, under the palace walls that towered into the sky, no one would be able to kill their way through so many people, kill their way into the palace, and point their sword at His Majesty.

Unless there really was a god in this world.

That was why the forbidden soldiers thought that this eccentric blind man was perhaps just an extremely unlucky madman who suddenly broke into the forbidden land in front of the palace in such a tense time. What greeted him could only be death.

Five Bamboos was still walking, seemingly not seeing the line of forbidden soldiers in front of him stopping him. At this time the sky wind and rain is still raging, endless rain is like a huge wave on the East China Sea, will be his lonely figure will be swallowed. Yet it was never able to be truly engulfed, as he walked out of the rain again.

“Kill.” A forbidden army colonel’s eyes narrowed slightly as he felt a piercing chill coming through from the body of that blind man not far away, who had stepped into the forbidden area, and a sense of danger that caused the colonel to no longer have any hesitation in issuing the command.

With a swish sound, the forbidden soldiers who stopped in front of Five Bamboos drew their swords in unison, and the light of their swords instantly flared up the cloudy and rainy waterfall-like sky in front of the Imperial City.

There was no snorting of swords, Five Bamboo simply steadily drew out the brazier at his waist and stabbed out. His speed in the violent wind and rain, does not seem fast, and the momentum of the brazier is not how exquisite, however …… every time the brazier is handed out, the brazier tip will accurately stab the throat of a forbidden army.

Accurate, clean, stable, this is the feeling when the five bamboo strikes, very simple, but simple to the extreme, will become a certain realm.

From the time the word “kill” came out of the colonel’s mouth to the time Five Bamboos stabbed all the forbidden soldiers in front of him, only a few breaths of time had passed. In the midst of the rain that filled the sky, a field of corpses fell behind Five Bamboo, and as soon as blood gushed out from the throats of those corpses, it was washed away by the rain.

During the process of killing, Five Bamboo’s speed did not change in the slightest, the pace of his two feet advancing in the rain was still as steady as ever, as if he was not hindered in any way, all the way through the rain, all the way killing.

This was not the dashing of a supreme expert, nor did it give all the forbidden soldiers around the palace the feeling of a strong man walking idly, they just felt cold, very cold, because that blind man’s strikes were that stable, so stable that it was even incomparably cold.

The forbidden army didn’t even know how those colleagues died under that iron brazier, because that blind man wearing a hat didn’t have an aura that was strong enough to break through heaven and earth, and his strikes weren’t very tricky and poisonous either.

It was just that the brazier seemed to be covered with a layer of heavenly cold, easily calculating all the angles, all the possibilities in the rain, and then picking the most reasonable gap in space and handing it out.

Seemingly simple, it was actually shocking and earth-shattering, enough to cause everyone who saw this scene to completely lose any confidence in being an enemy!

That colonel watched his subordinate, without even humming a single sound, die under this blind man wearing a hat, and he felt a chill all over his body, colder than the autumn rain that kept falling around him.

Five Bamboos walked up to him. The school official suddenly felt that the other party s cloth coat that was wet by the rain and became a little dark in color was not like an ordinary coat, and the brazier that the other party was holding was not an ordinary weapon, and the other party was not …… a person, but a monster that condensed all the mysteries of heaven and earth and breathed all the coldness of heaven and earth.

The school official trembled and fought to draw his sword, and then saw a brazier piercing under his own jaw, and then retracting it like lightning.

It was too fast, why had it looked so slow earlier? Why couldn’t one dodge it in any way? With such questions, the school official fell heavily into the rain, his pupils full of panic gradually about to be drowned by the standing water, and then he watched a pair of soaked cloth shoes walk by his skull.

Right at this moment, those feet in the cloth shoes were still as stable as ever.

The rain still kept falling, and the forbidden army kept dying. The unknown fear of that killing god with the hat made the forbidden soldiers responsible for the safety of the palace become extremely angry and brave, killing one after another.

However, these forbidden soldiers were actually unable to stop even a single one of Five Bamboo’s steady steps.

Five Bamboos bowed his head, turned around, bent his knees, and with a calmness and calculating ability that was completely beyond the imagination of mortals, he calmly stepped aside from all the weapons that might harm his body, and then handed out the brazier straight, tearing through the curtain of autumn rain in front of him, and tearing through the heavy siege in front of him.

He just wanted to enter the palace to have a look, and because of this reason, there were constantly people falling by his side, there was constantly blood reflecting the red curtain of rain, there were constantly people dying and falling into the rain, there were constantly cries of alarm, screams, and muffled grunts.

Just like a messenger from heaven who fell to the dust for no known reason and came to earth, in a most peaceful way, and also the most frightening way, he was reaping the guards beside the emperor, reaping the lives of the lowly mortals.

The people in front of Five Bamboo were getting fewer and fewer, while the dead bodies on the ground were getting more and more.

Suddenly, Five Bamboo stopped in the center of the square directly in front of the imperial city. There was no longer a single person standing beside him, and in his surroundings, hundreds of forbidden soldiers were lying in a pool of blood. No matter how violent the autumn rain was, at this point, it could not wash away all this blood in an instant. He slowly raised his head and looked above the Imperial City.

The forbidden troops on the city had already bent their bows and arrows, and the densely-packed feathered arrows were already aiming at Five Bamboos in front of the palace gates, and they might fire all arrows at any time.

Five Bamboo stood right in the middle of the blood and water, raising his head, looking at the familiar and unfamiliar imperial city through that black cloth, looking at those horrible arrows. The face exposed outside the cloth was still calm, without any fear at all, he just slowly raised his right arm and extended the brazier in his hand into the torrential rain, letting the rain wash away the bloodstains on it.

The rain snapped on top of the brazier.

By that handle iron brazier killed lost soul of the forbidden army has been ordered to take back the palace gate, at this time the vermilion palace gate is closed, wide square in addition to those lying on the ground of the blood corpse, there is only if the waves of the general general sky wind and rain and …… that wearing a hat, the blind man standing alone.

Countless people up and down the Imperial City saw this scene and all felt a chill from the deepest part of their hearts. Who exactly was this unimaginably powerful blind man?

The pale-faced commander of the forbidden army, Gong Dian, stood at the head of the city and gazed at the blind man standing alone in the rain, his body trembling slightly as he thought of the woman and her teenage servant from many years ago, and a wave of unprecedented fear welled up from deep within his heart. He knew who the other party was and had informed His Majesty in the palace within the first hour, yet he had no idea if his tens of thousands of forbidden soldiers could stop the other party.

Five Bamboo had come, Five Bamboo had finally come, he had come to avenge Miss!

Gong Dian’s heart kept echoing these words that made his heart tremble.

Five Bamboo, who stood alone in the wind and rain and challenged the entire powerful Qing Dynasty court with a brazier, did not have these thoughts, he just suddenly said to himself, “The one who lives inside, seems to be …… a small plum.”

The sky is full of wind and rain, the s man is independent, although ten million people, I go.