Chapter 4: Riding on Top of the Head and Pulling Out Shit

  A ten-year-old boy, relying on his exquisite and unparalleled archery skills, killed more than a dozen strong men in a row. His movements were as swift and mysterious as a ghost, and his heart was as cold and hard as solid ice. At such a young age, the familiarity of his killing technique and the decisiveness of his mind would be astonishing to anyone.

  Li Xian slashed the neck of the cavalryman, then pushed the still-breathing man off his horse and snatched the warhorse. He chose a direction and galloped away. The remaining twenty or so cavalrymen saw that the child was about to escape and knew he had no more arrows left, so they chased after him on horseback. At this moment, in the eyes of those cavalrymen, the child was no longer a child, but an enemy who made them fearful and had to be killed to put their minds at ease.

  Being frightened by a child until one's heart is trembling, isn't this a shame for these regular cavalrymen?

  Li Xian is indeed a child, but one thing needs to be emphasized: the children of mice are born with the ability to dig holes, the children of cats can climb trees from birth, the children of eagles are destined to soar in the sky, and the children of tigers have a king character on their foreheads since birth. Li Xian is the child of a bandit, although killing people is not his innate talent, but he grew up in the most ferocious group of horse thieves on the Hebei Road. Influenced by his surroundings and deliberately learning, the skill of killing has become as familiar to him as eating with chopsticks.

  Why does a ten-year-old child have to desperately learn killing skills?

  Why?

  Because Li Xian has an enemy who is almost at the pinnacle of the world and wants to kill him, and Li Xian also wants to survive by all means, he must make himself stronger. That person has been sending people to kill Li Xian since he was in his swaddling clothes, and Li Xian struggled to live until he was ten years old. Moreover, he still wanted to live a long life, so the unwilling-to-be-killed Li Xian had no choice but to practice killing skills diligently. Is it not a bit abnormal for a ten-year-old child to think about how to kill people faster and more artistically every day? Unfortunately, he was born an abnormal person.

  Li Xian never treated himself as a child, while his peers were still playing with mud and urine in the village, he was already struggling to hold a bow that only a strong man could pull open. His delicate fingers were covered in bloodstains, the pain of his ten fingers connected to his heart made him frown but wouldn't make him retreat. When the children in the village looked at him like a freak, he also looked at them like an idiot and sneered. A group of kids still wearing split pants clamored to play with him every day, what time did he have to coax children?

  While children of the same age were practicing farting and blowing holes in the soft sand at the edge of the village, he had already gotten up several hours earlier to practice stabbing with a dagger. When he could hold a steel knife, he practiced chopping speed over and over again, requiring himself to punch out and draw his sword as fast as possible, not seeking to reach the speed of Tianma Liuxingquan, but at least not losing to Tyson. When six or seven-year-old children were still playing house and arguing about who was the bride and who was the groom, he was in the yard chopping away at a small mountain of dry firewood with an axe, staring intently at the wood grain and analyzing how to chop more efficiently.

  In the severe winter, he chased after a hapless wild rabbit in the snowy ground with bare feet and pinched its ears. In the cold spring, he used his hands to molest the fish's buttocks in the icy river water. At the beginning of summer, he hung upside down from a peach blossom tree on the outskirts of the village and chewed on a pink flower. In the golden autumn, he went alone into the mountains to hunt wild wolves and mountain cats, and returned alive with scars all over his body.

  He was a child who seemed to have no happy childhood in other people's eyes, although his mind had already matured, but others didn't know, right? But Li Xian felt that he was happy because he was still alive, and he had lived more than one life. In the previous life, he hadn't died well, so this time, he must make the most of it and live a fulfilling life. At least, he couldn't die an unjust death, right?

  At the age of seven, he could shoot a wild rabbit's eye. At eight years old, he could cut down small trees with a single knife. At nine years old, he could lift and catch the hundred-pound stone lock in the courtyard. At ten years old, he faced over forty Uighur cavalrymen alone and killed nearly twenty of them in one breath.

  Then start running away.

  Lone hero? Li Xian didn't not want to do it, but his current physical age was really a bit young. Thirty arrows shot out in a row, even if he were a grown man, both arms would be somewhat unbearable, let alone this youth whose biceps hadn't developed yet? Although Li Xian firmly believed himself to be an adult, sometimes he couldn't help but feel humiliated by his weak and small body in the face of reality.

  Oh no, it's suffocating.

  Even a Mongolian man on the grasslands would try to tame an unfamiliar horse, but Li Xian clearly wouldn't give the horse time to adapt. The dagger slipped out of his sleeve like flowing water and was grasped in his hand, then he stabbed the horse's buttocks without any hesitation. Flattery is pleasant, but stabbing hurts.

  A frightened warhorse is terrifying, Li Xian's small body clung to the back of the crazed warhorse, just like standing on a flat boat in the midst of raging currents yet as steady as a rock. His body was like a falling leaf floating up and down with the galloping horse, looking so eerily harmonious.

  Little people, wind and water rise, nothing but love to be happy.

  Li Xian galloped his horse, still singing a song.

  I don't know how someone who has just killed people can still be so happy, their psychology must have become twisted to the point of being hated by both heaven and man. Twenty or so war horses were following closely behind him, and the cavalrymen couldn't bear to not take the backsides of their beloved mounts seriously. They wouldn't give up chasing and wouldn't be shaken off because they were the Sui dynasty's cavalry. Even the fierce and skilled horsemen from the grasslands didn't dare say they were stronger than the Sui cavalry, so they were proud like a peacock spreading its tail. Although, just not long ago, twenty or so peacocks had their feathers plucked by Li Xian, turning them into twenty or so white featherless chickens.

  Li Xian seemed to be letting the frightened warhorse run wild, looking like he was fleeing for his life without a care. Only Li Xian himself knew that the poor horse was being controlled by him and running step by step towards its death. Li Xian was a man who saw things through from start to finish; once he started killing, he wouldn't leave behind a laughable tail. If the news of a ten-year-old child beheading dozens of government soldiers got out, it would absolutely not be good for Li Xian.

  Kill one, kill all; just like cutting grass, you must pull out the roots.

  The war horse ran up a high slope, and the pain had eased a lot. The war horse gradually regained its senses. So when it saw the situation below the slope, the war horse became very resistant. As for the disobedient beast Li Xian, he always had a way. He stuck to the war horse's ear and whispered: "Run down, don't be afraid of death, I'll burn a paper-made mare for you, with big eyes and double eyelids."

  The war horse let out a mournful cry, as if it had understood Li Xian's words, and then charged down the high slope with lightning speed. Can horses understand human language? I don't know, but the sharp horizontal knife inserted on the horse's buttocks was the answer. At the moment when the war horse jumped down from the high slope, Li Xian slid down from the horseback, rolled over a dozen times before stopping his body, and then he darted out with his waist bent, just like a cheetah that had discovered a goat.

  About twenty cavalrymen galloped after them, and then there were cries of surprise and wailing.

  Under the slope, two rows of dozens of sharpened wooden stakes were slanted and supported. The war horse ridden by Li Xian was pierced by a stake and fell softly to the ground. More than 20 cavalrymen desperately restrained their horses, but it was not easy to stop them due to inertia. Only the last cavalryman managed to pull his horse up, while the other war horses were nailed to the stakes. Not only the war horses, but also seven of the more than 20 cavalrymen were pierced by the stakes and killed as they fell.

  The cavalrymen who had fallen off their horses struggled to get up, only to discover with dismay that they had stepped on the large iron traps set by the wolf hunters. The traps could at most snap a leg, but would not kill a person outright, unless they were poisoned. So it could be said that all of the twenty or so cavalrymen in front were dead, even though some of them were still alive. When the last cavalryman jumped off his horse and rolled on the ground twice before getting up, he suddenly found a boy standing right in front of him, only as tall as his chin.

  The cavalryman opened his mouth wide and subconsciously went to draw his sword. His sword didn't come out, but he saw a strip of knife light like a horse whip.

  "Goodbye!"

  Li Xian said.

  A sword pierced his throat, and blood flowed like a waterfall.

  Li Xian dodged with an extremely quick movement, and the blood that sprayed out like a waterfall didn't get a single drop on him. He seemed to cherish his clothes as much as a crow cherishes its feathers. Although, his clothes were as black as a crow's feathers, there were patches of oil stains on them that had almost been polished to perfection over time.

  Li walked over slowly and didn't add another blow to the dying cavalrymen. The poison on the iron clip wasn't something that could be eaten as a snack by Zhu Hong, the genuine article, one drop of which was enough to kill a black bear, as advertised.

  Li Xian walked past the cavalrymen who were groaning or wailing, then gathered up their horizontal knives and bows and arrows, tied them together with a rope, and pulled them back to the top of the slope with great effort. The young man dragging a pile of weapons under the sunset had a very long shadow.

  At some point, a tall and robust man stood on the high slope, watching Li Xian struggling to pull his luggage forward. He applauded and laughed loudly: "You're indeed my son, well done!"

  Li Xian raised his head and said in a lukewarm tone: "First, I am not your son, at least not biologically. Second, take a look at yourself, do you have the appearance of being a father? Third, you are shameless and ugly, while I, no matter from which angle, am so handsome, especially handsome."

  "That big fellow burst out laughing and said: 'Look at your arrogant appearance now, wait till you're two years older, won't you be riding on my head?!'"

  Li Xian thought for a moment and replied seriously: "Not only must you ride it, but also pull a lump of shit on top."