Chapter Thirty-Six: Night Battle at Dawn Pavilion

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  For you, I provide the main text of "The Legend of Wu Sheng: The Story of Yue Fei". Please enjoy! Last time, it was said that Yue Fei and five others pulled those two bed crossbow carts towards Dayuan Hall.

  Those two wheelbarrows, although they had wheels, were clumsy and heavy. With the rugged road ahead, it took half a day to travel over ten miles, pulled by horses. The sun had already set.

  As I walked, I suddenly saw flames shooting up into the sky in front of me, and the sound of shouting and killing grew louder.

  The five brothers hastened their pace, and after another incense stick's worth of time, the cries of "Kill!" and "Havoc!" shook the air even more. Yue Fei saw a small hill to his left, so he and his brothers climbed up to take a look.

  As we climbed to the top of the hill and looked ahead, about 500 or 600 paces away from the small hill, there was a large estate. The walls of the estate were towering high, not much lower than those in Huang County. It was unclear just how big the estate was in the darkness. It should be the Dayu Hall that Yue Fei and his men were looking for.

  In front of the manor, countless torches were lit up, and several corpses lay under the wall, it seemed that bandits had attacked several times.

  Upon closer inspection, a four-story high carriage from the Lu Gong family stopped about two hundred steps in front of the mansion. Next to it were eight cavalrymen surrounding two riders who were fighting each other. Outside, several circles of bandits were shouting and demonstrating.

  The two in the middle were skilled, although they were outnumbered two to eight, they still had to be on guard against cold arrows and injuries. They charged left and right, but instead of being overwhelmed, they suppressed the eight bandit leaders. However, although the bandits' martial arts skills were relatively low, their coordination was extremely tacit, and the two could not break through for a while.

  Ladies and gentlemen, if you want to see photos of Lyu Gong's car, please log in.

  Yue Fei looked at Tang Huai and asked: "Third brother, what do you think?"

  Among the five brothers, Tang Huaiwu's martial arts skills were relatively weak, but he excelled in careful thinking and strong observation abilities. Yue Fei hoped to cultivate him into a capable individual who could stand on his own.

  Tang Huai pointed to the scene and replied, "It should be that the bandits attacked several times but couldn't break in, so they wanted to use the temporary shed of Lv Gong's carriage. The temporary shed was even higher than the wall of the manor, posing a great threat, so the manor sent two good men out to try to destroy it, but they were surrounded by the thieves."

  "You're right," Yue Fei nodded and asked again: "Then did you see what formation those bandits used to trap the two heroes?"

  Tang Huai shook his head and said he didn't understand.

  "Brothers, look at this formation. It's a very powerful defensive formation called the Eight Gates Golden Lock Formation. The eight gates are: Rest Gate, Life Gate, Injury Gate, Block Gate, View Gate, Death Gate, Shock Gate, and Open Gate, each corresponding to one of the eight trigrams' directions: Qian, Kun, Li, Kan, Dui, Gen, Zhen, and Xun. The key to this formation lies in the word 'lock', which uses the cyclical changes of the eight directions to trap people."

  Wang Gui was even more anxious and hastily asked: "If it's that formidable, how can we break through?"

  "Hold your horses!" Yue Fei patted Wang Gui's back of the head and continued, "The book says that when attacking from the outside in, one should attack through the southeast corner gate; when fighting from the inside out, one should exit through the northwest Jing Gate. This will surely throw the enemy into disarray. However, in actual combat, one must be extremely careful to grasp the position, because the positions of the gates will shift, and one must know how to adapt to changing circumstances."

  Niu Gao got impatient and said: "I don't care about the seven gates or eight, I'll smash one to death and see how he can still move!"

  Everyone burst out laughing.

  "Alright, let's use Lao Niu's method to break through the formation and lend those two experts a hand," said Yue Fei with a smile.

  Niu Gao was taken aback, "My method?" Niu Gao said while scratching his head.

  "That's right, your method," Yue Fei said as he adjusted a bed crossbow. "As long as we can kill one of the bandit generals, the Eight Gate Golden Lock Formation will collapse by itself."

  Niu Gao understood and arranged the crossbow cart with Yue Fei. Tang Huai, Zhang Xian, and Wang Gui handled another one.

  The five brothers were already familiar with the bed crossbow in Qilin Village, and they quickly opened the bow, pulled up the string, and took aim. With Yue Fei's command, two long crossbow arrows shot out together, and two bandits in the battle circle fell off their horses.

  The crowd in the courtyard showed a change in the war situation, and suddenly the drums sounded loudly to show their support. The two people inside the circle were invigorated and rushed towards Lü Gong's chariot.

  Suddenly, a group of cavalrymen emerged from beside Lü Gong's carriage. The leader, with his long knife and large horse, abruptly blocked the two men, while the others were all wielding rolling knives, hacking at the two men's mounts as if they had no regard for their lives. In the blink of an eye, six more bandits on horseback arrived from behind. The two good fellows immediately became flustered.

  Although they were watching from the other side of the river, Niu Gao and others had already become excited, and then shot two rounds of crossbow arrows, and four more bandit leaders fell off their horses. The bandits were numerous, but there were only nine horsemen in total, and now six had been shot down, and it was unknown how many long-range crossbow arrows the village still had, suddenly becoming chaotic.

  Yue Fei saw this, dropped the crossbow cart, and rode with his four brothers, wielding their weapons in hand, charging straight towards where the bandits were most numerous. As they charged, they shouted loudly: "The government troops have arrived, run quickly!"

  Yue Fei and his five men were highly skilled in martial arts, charging down from the high rear on horseback, with their weapons being the finest products of Lishan Mountain, they encountered these bandits on foot, it was simply like cutting melons and vegetables.

  Those bandits heard that the government soldiers had arrived, and after being beaten up by someone, they couldn't figure out how many people were on the other side, so they immediately dispersed in a hurry, resenting their parents for not giving birth to an extra leg.

  The two good men originally saw the situation reverse and no longer went to burn down the large temporary carriage of Lord Lü, turning instead to kill the three bandit leaders.

  The three bandits, seeing the situation was not in their favor, ordered several of their underlings to block the two heroes and turned around to flee, but found one person on horseback blocking their way.

  Yue Fei had been keeping an eye on the three bandit generals all along, and when he saw them turn around to escape, he let Niu Gao and others continue to pursue and kill other thieves, while he waited for them in the main road.

  Before he could finish speaking, the three bandits rushed up to Yue Fei, shouting: "Kill him!"

  Yue Fei smiled slightly and raised his right hand, a cold light flashed towards the leader of the bandits.

  "Ah" a sound, the leader of the bandits had a flying knife stuck in his left eye, and he fell off his horse.

  The second bandit, who was still unclear about what was happening, saw Yue Fei lift his right foot and suddenly shoot out a small crossbow arrow, hitting him right in the shoulder. The bandit was also fierce and ruthless, charging forward without regard for anything, swinging his knife and chopping wildly.

  Yue Fei remained calm and composed, using his left hand to wield the divine spear of Li Quan to deflect the large blade. At this moment, the two horses were entangled, and Yue Fei grasped the Dragon Slaying Sword with his right hand, slashing it across the bandit general's waist. The bandit general attempted to use the hilt of his sword to resist, but the Dragon Slaying Sword was incredibly sharp, cutting both the bandit general and his sword hilt in two. Blood splattered everywhere. Fortunately, the bandit general's horse galloped quickly, carrying half of the corpse as it fled. Otherwise, Yue Fei would have stained both the man and the horse red with blood.

  Ladies and gentlemen, it turned out that the head of the Yuquan Pavilion, Zhou Tong, the number one martial artist in the world, had spent a lot of thought and effort to protect Yue Fei. He designed a special suit of armor and an unorthodox fighting style for his own disciple. That is, using hidden weapons from a distance, relying on martial arts skills in close combat, and using sharp instruments at close range. But thinking about it, even the master who could use "a handful of divine sand to slap someone's face" as a killing move, what kind of disciples would he be able to teach?

  The last bandit saw Yue Fei so fierce that he was frightened out of his wits, and pulling the reins tight, stopped his horse from running. At this time, the two good men behind had also caught up. The three surrounded the bandit leader.

  To know what happens next, look at the next episode.