Chapter 8: Elegant and Refined

  "What's your name?"

  The rough man sheathed his sword and patted the dust off his body, asking.

  Li Xian coughed up: "Li Xian, Li Xian's Li, elegant and refined Ya."

  "That's Li Ya!"

  The rough-looking man glared at him and said.

  Li Xian's face turned red, and he smiled awkwardly: "Tense, tongue trembled and said wrong."

  He's not stupid, and he can see that the man doesn't intend to kill him, or else he would have chopped off his little head with one knife. Moreover, Li Xian is not stupid, but rather much smarter than children of the same age. Of course, this is not something worth being proud of in this life. He's the kind of person who scores zero on English exams but still passes the college entrance exam with over 550 points. What's more, his brain is filled with stimulating stories from Jin Gu Liang Wen Huang and other great authors, as well as the reactions he has cultivated to survive in this life.

  "Amazing swordsmanship, senior..."

  Li Xian sincerely admired him. He grew up in a bandit's den, and knives were too common for him. In the Iron Floating Pavilion, Chen Que'er and Fu Hu Nu were both skilled with knives, although his adoptive father Zhang Zhongjian was not good at weapons, but his pair of fists were fierce and overbearing, unmatched in the world. So Li Xian thought he understood knives, and wasn't unfamiliar with beautiful knifeplay. But he had never thought that someone could hold a knife as steadily as Fu Hongxue. That clean and slender hand held the knife, really like a boulder, stable and unmoving.

  The man's shoulders moved unconsciously, and seeing Li Xian didn't laugh at himself, he smiled.

  Senior's good swordsmanship, this sentence is like a password.

  "You've got me in such a mess with your little tricks, you're quite formidable for a small guy like you."

  "You haven't met my aunt; if you had, you'd find me quite unremarkable by comparison."

  "Your aunt?"

  That person furrowed his brow in thought and asked sideways: "Red Buddha?"

  Li Xian was surprised: "Do you know my aunt?"

  The disheveled man narrowed his eyes and looked at Li Xian, scrutinizing him from head to toe. Li Xian was convinced that the small, shallow freckle under his ear had been thoroughly examined by the man. He was also certain that if he dared to take off his clothes, the man would dare to look. What he wasn't sure about... was whether this disheveled man had any intention of stripping him bare.

  "Do you have a cherry-sized red birthmark on your upper left chest?"

  He asked.

  Li Xian hadn't even responded when the man's knife suddenly made a light "zip" sound, and his left chest was cut open, revealing a patch of fair skin. On the spot where his heart should be, there indeed was a cherry-sized, bright red birthmark. Li Xian lowered his head to take a look, and this one cut was just right, if it had been any deeper, it would have cut into his skin as well, but he clearly wasn't satisfied with this method. Frowning, Li Xian raised his chin, about to complain that this would hurt the child, when he heard the man ask: "Your thigh root... uh, near that place, is there also a dragon-shaped birthmark?"

  Li Xian turned around and ran away without any hesitation.

  "Yes! But absolutely don't tear my pants!"

  Li Xian ran while shouting.

  The man was taken aback and burst out laughing.

  "Who would have thought that the legendary true dragon reincarnation would actually be such a shameless and rascal-like young man!"

  Li Xian had already run far away and didn't hear the low whisper of the laid-back man, otherwise he would have asked what was meant by "true dragon reincarnation". Did the birthmark on his younger brother's lower body, which looked like a centipede with claws, have some special meaning? But Li Xian didn't hear it, so he wouldn't think that he had already been noticed by many people ten years ago. At that time, there was someone standing at the peak of the human world who wanted to kill him, and countless people wanted to protect him, all because of a prophecy spoken by the nun who picked him up, due to the nun's extremely special identity.

  The rough man looked at Li Xian's back as he sprinted away and praised, "Looks pretty good now, running doesn't look bad either."

  He put his sword on his shoulder and followed Li Xian's side with a stride.

  More than a hundred soldiers who were ambushing in the woods had the upper hand at the beginning, but soon they were killed by Tie Fo's more decisive and ruthless methods. By the time Li Xian ran to the side of the road, Tie Fo's men were already cleaning up the battlefield. More than a hundred corpses were dragged over and piled up on one side, while on the other side were the bodies of seven dead Tie Fo soldiers lying on the ground in a row. There were also four or five captured soldiers kneeling on the side, trembling all over with fear and looking around nervously.

  The fierce and brave Iron Floating Pavilion bandits gathered back from all directions, with bloodstains on everyone's hands and bodies. Chen Que'er dragged a corpse by the ankle and threw it onto the pile of bodies, turning her head just in time to see Li Xian rushing over. Seeing that Li Xian was running very "healthily", Chen Que'er immediately cracked open her mouth, revealing her white teeth as she smiled.

  Zhang Zhongjian was just about to take someone to find Li Xian, and seeing that he was safe and sound, he also put his mind at ease: "Why are you running so anxiously? Is there still someone chasing after you?"

  Li Xian panted and said: "There is someone chasing us, but it's not those guys."

  Li Xian pointed at the pile of corpses and said.

  Zhang Zhongjian looked up and gazed into the distance, seeing the disheveled man carrying a horizontal sword slowly emerging from the forest. Zhang Zhongjian smiled and said, "It's okay, he's not an enemy."

  Li Xian said with a sigh: "Yes, I know, he is not an enemy, because he is not human."

  "What's wrong?" Zhang Zhongjian asked in surprise.

  Li Xianfei smiled and said, "It's nothing, you guys are no different from each other, always thinking about stripping me to see the mole! Now I know, it turns out that you've been making fun of me all along, not because my thing looks ugly, but because of that ugly birthmark. Is there really no other way to confirm my identity? Do you have to force me to take off my pants and be honest with each other?"

  Zhang Zhongjian smiled and said, "Don't blame him, there will be many people interested in that worm later. After being pried open by others many times, you get used to it."

  Li Xian stared at him and asked: "Old man, why are you now like a turtle forcing a good person to become a prostitute?"

  "Then you're just a little turtle egg!"

  Li Xian solemnly retorted: "I am not your biological child..."

  "You're naturally not his own flesh and blood, how could he possibly bear it?"

  The man said as he walked away.

  Li Xian glanced at him and said, "Can you really take it?"

  "That person sighed: 'In this world, thinking about it again and again, there really isn't a single person who can bear the burden. That's why your parents abandoned you in the snowy wilderness, and now they're probably buried under some yellow earth.'"

  Zhang Zhongjian glared at him and said: "Lv Chen, what nonsense are you talking about!"

  The man, called Luzheng by Zhang Zhongjian, furrowed his brow and asked, "Did I say something wrong? His biological parents, we've been searching for so many years, have we ever found them? A few years ago, it was said that they might have moved to the grasslands. From Altai Mountains to Lake Baikal, then to Amur River, last year I went to Ruoshui, why can't I find them?"

  Li Xian still had a rough idea of geography, and upon hearing that the man named Lü Chen had walked thousands of miles across the grasslands, he couldn't help but ask in surprise: "Why are you so determined to find them? And who are you?"

  "I? It's been a long time since anyone asked about my name. My name is Da Xi Chang Ru. You ask me why I'm looking for them, don't you think they're worthy of being your parents in your heart?"

  Li Xian's heart skipped a beat, Da Xi Chang Ru? Wasn't he the one who led 2,000 Great Sui cavalrymen to meet the 400,000 Turkic wolf riders at Honghua and fought a bloody battle without retreating? For three days and nights, they fought fourteen battles, their weapons all broken, and then engaged in hand-to-hand combat, their hands visible to the bone, with five severe injuries on his body, two of which were penetrating wounds. Wasn't he the war god who charged out of the encirclement with over a hundred men after a three-day and night battle? This is a name that makes Han people proud, a name that makes the Great Sui cavalrymen famous! Two thousand men against 400,000, killing more than 10,000 enemies, the soldiers' weapons all broken, they fought with their bare hands, relying on their flesh and blood and a heroic spirit to force back the Turkic army!

  Li Xian stood up solemnly and bowed deeply: "I have seen the general!"

  Daxi Changru waved his hand impatiently and said: "What general, I've long forgotten. You first answer me, do you also think they're not worthy of being your parents?"

  Li Xian stood up straight, thought for a moment and said seriously: "Giving birth to me is a blessing, but giving birth to me without raising me and abandoning me in the snowy wilderness, I suppose they didn't care about my life or death at that time. The blessings are all gone, why are they still my parents? However... if one day we can meet again, I will support them for the rest of their lives, worry-free until old age, it is also what should be done."

  Da Xi's eyes lit up and he burst out laughing, saying "Good! Good! Good!" three times in a row.

  The crowd buried the battlefield, and also buried those Sui soldiers who disguised themselves as grassland people. In the dense forest, seven earth mounds were erected, and the deceased Tie Fu Tu brothers were buried there. Although the crowd was sympathetic to each other, they had long been indifferent to life and death. Their hearts were sorrowful, but they would not cry or wail like women. It's just that no one expected that so many brothers would be ambushed and killed in battle from Gaozhou to Yuyang.

  "Understood?"

  Zhao Zijun asked Fuhu Nu:

  Fuhu Nu interrogated the captives and told Zhang Zhongjian and others about the information he had obtained: "They said they were all soldiers from Guyang County, disguised as grassland people and ambushed here, not targeting us. They didn't know we were coming either, but were afraid someone would support the small village at the foot of the mountain. There are also people in the village ahead who have been ordered to kill everyone in that village."

  "Why did the Sui dynasty's garrison troops slaughter the Sui dynasty's civilians?"

  Li Xian furrowed his brow and asked.

  Fu Hu Nu said, "They also can't explain the reason for their coming, but he thinks that going south with the Xianbei people is not unrelated. The Xianbei people kill and set fires, and the Youyang Jun soldiers can't find those Xianbei people, so they take their own civilians as substitutes? If they kill everyone and behead them to return, it's a great achievement!"

  "Despicable!"

  Li Xian gritted his teeth and said.

  Zhang Zhongjian was suddenly startled and leaped onto his horseback, saying: "Wan Cheng said that Xiao Di is in the village!"

  Iron Float The crowd immediately got on their horses and galloped towards the village, Li Xian whistled, his black horse rushed out of the forest, Li Xian jumped onto the horseback and chased after him. Da Xi Chang Ru also found a fine horse to ride, following closely behind Li Xian. Zhang Zhong Jian was worried about the safety of his daughter Xiao Di and Hong Fo, not daring to delay for a moment, urging his mount, raising a cloud of dust as he galloped wildly.