Chapter 47: Once the blade is drawn, blood must flow!

Although Chen Wu was merely a lowly皂衣卫 (Zao Yi Wei/Uniformed Guard), he was a skilled fighter capable of taking on seven or eight members of the Tang family.

Such a person would be considered elite within the Martial Guard Office. Was he really being dismissed so easily?

Tang Wenbo stared at the handwriting and the seal on the scroll, momentarily dazed.

"Brother Yuan, is... is this real?"

Chen Wu's shoulders trembled as he fought desperately to suppress his emotions.

His Chen family had been generations of Martial Guards; he had entered the Martial Guard Office to succeed his father's position.

Was this legacy to end with him?

"After what happened last night, do you think you can ever return to the Martial Guard Office?" Zhang Yuan's single sentence left Chen Wu's face deathly pale.

Fighting.

Offending the Tang family.

Being sent to the prefectural jail.

Chen Wu had brought shame upon the Martial Guard Office, which was why he was being expelled.

He was wrong.

Zhang Yuan was making him realize where he had gone wrong—last night, he should not have struck out...

What use was martial skill if one was merely a lowly guard? How could he dare offend a great family in the city?

Ignoring the shifting expressions on Chen Wu's face, Zhang Yuan calmly and slowly folded the scroll in his hands.

"Haha! Now that his black dog skin has been stripped off, this fellow can't even be a dog anymore!" A Tang family disciple nearby finally reacted, a look of arrogant triumph spreading across his face.

"See that? So what if you're from the Martial Guard Office? You dared to offend my Tang family!"

"Weren't you such a good fighter? Next time you see me, I'll give you a beating. Without that black dog skin, beating you to death will be just like kicking a stray dog!"

As the Tang disciples jeered, Chen Wu did not respond at all.

He simply clenched his fists, kept his head low, and remained silent.

He did not know what the right thing to do was.

What was the point of cultivating martial arts?

Was this the lesson Brother Yuan intended to teach him?

To make him see the world clearly, and to see exactly how much weight he truly carried?

But back at the academy, neither Brother Yuan nor Master Tao had taught them this way.

Brother Yuan always said: *When faced with a difficult decision, ask the blade in your hand...*

Tang Wenbo's gaze swept over Chen Wu before slowly settling on Zhang Yuan.

He had expected the Martial Guard Office to show more backbone; he hadn't expected them to be so mediocre.

He had previously felt indignant that the Office only sent an eighth-rank guard to apologize, but thinking about it now, the Martial Guard Office was clearly shrinking back, leaving the Tang family to deal with them as they pleased.

No wonder this eighth-rank guard had acted the way he did just now—it was because they had already abandoned Chen Wu.

In that case—

Tang Wenbo's eyes narrowed, a cold sharpness glinting within them. "And what about the hundred taels of silver for the medicinal fees?"

A hundred taels of silver—the ten-year salary of a lowly guard.

He didn't believe Chen Wu could produce it.

The Tang family didn't truly need the hundred taels; what Third Master Tang wanted was to establish authority!

The Tang family was a great clan in the city, with officials, merchants, fields, and lands.

However, the Great Qin relied on martial prowess to establish its order. Ever since his second brother, a late-stage Post-Natal Realm expert, had fallen, countless people in the city had wanted to step on the Tang family.

Now that the family head was about to be promoted to a seventh-rank County Magistrate, the Tang family's former prestige should return!

"As for the hundred taels of silver—"

Zhang Yuan's expression remained calm and undisturbed. He raised his hand to grip his baton and reached his other hand toward his waist.

*Clang—*

The long saber left its sheath.

"What are you doing—!"

"What does this mean—!"

The Tang disciples cried out in panic.

Tang Wenbo's arm twitched, and he unconsciously clenched his fist.

Zhang Yuan twisted the dual hilts of his weapon, transforming it into a single, ten-foot-long battle saber.

"This blade has been with me for five years. It is worth a hundred taels of silver. Consider it collateral held by the Tang family!"

The long saber was pressed down as collateral for a hundred taels?

Tang Wenbo's hand trembled; he nearly swung out violently to summon the guards.

*If you had said so earlier, why make us so tense?*

The faces of the Tang disciples also twitched.

They thought a fight was breaking out, but it was merely a pledge of the blade.

Behind Zhang Yuan, Chen Wu's eyes widened as he stared intently at the blade in Zhang Yuan's hand.

He knew what this blade meant to Zhang Yuan!

It was the blade Zhang Yuan had brought back from Fengtian County, and for five years, he had never let an outsider touch it.

This blade represented the memory of that bloody battle, and more importantly, it represented Zhang Yuan's martial heritage!

Pledging this blade for a hundred taels?

Impossible!

Because Zhang Yuan was not merely unsheathing the blade—he was drawing it!

In the very first lesson on saber techniques Zhang Yuan had taught Chen Wu, he had said: *To draw the blade is to seek blood!*

If you draw your blade in front of outsiders, it means your intent to kill is absolute.

If a martial artist lacks a sufficiently firm conviction and can retract a drawn blade at will, their path of martial arts will not go far.

The edge of the blade is the intent of the heart.

Without killing intent, how can one be worthy of drawing the blade?

Zhang Yuan's words surfaced one by one in Chen Wu's mind.

The blood qi that had been condensing within him slowly relaxed.

He didn't know what Zhang Yuan was planning to do, but he knew that today, he would do whatever Zhang Yuan commanded.

From the trepidation he felt when arriving at the Tang residence, to anger, and now to this state of relaxation, Chen Wu's state of mind was undergoing a transformation.

He wanted to see what the final lesson Zhang Yuan was teaching him would truly be.

"A broken blade, and you dare claim it's worth a hundred taels—"

A Tang disciple nearby spoke with disdain, but before he could finish, Zhang Yuan spun around and swung his arm. The long saber whistled through the air, spinning out from the hall's entrance and embedding itself into the courtyard screen wall three yards away.

*Thud—!*

The blade pierced three feet into the wall, protruding through to the other side.

The hilt vibrated with a hum, sounding like a roll of thunder!

This single throw left the Tang disciples unable to even draw a breath.

The force behind that throw... was it perhaps a thousand catties?

"If I say a hundred taels, it is a hundred taels."

Zhang Yuan glanced at Tang Wenbo and spoke coldly.

Inside the hall, the expressions of the Tang disciples shifted wildly.

Tang Wenbo's face was grim.

He could already see that the martial cultivation revealed by this strike was at least at the mid-stage of the Post-Natal Realm.

Perhaps even more!

No wonder the Martial Guard Office had sent this man to the Tang family.

He had thought the Martial Guard Office was delivering their face to the Tang family to be slapped, but he was wrong.

This was an attempt to slap the Tang family's face!

The Martial Guard Office didn't send a seventh-rank uniformed leader or a military sergeant; they sent a mere eighth-rank guard, and yet he could pressure the Tang family!

On one hand, the Martial Guard Office had abandoned Chen Wu, making it appear to outsiders that they were yielding to the Tang family to garner sympathy.

But on the other hand, they were using an eighth-rank guard with mid-stage Post-Natal cultivation to exert pressure on the Tang family.

Was this what they called "applying both grace and awe"?

Was the Martial Guard Office playing the political games of the bureaucracy against his Tang family?

Looking at the calm Zhang Yuan, Tang Wenbo felt an irrepressible rage swelling in his chest.

If the Tang family's experts were still here, if his second brother were still alive, would this mere guard dare to draw his blade?

"Hmph, a mere eighth-rank guard dares to run wild in my Tang family." A Tang disciple standing by the hall looked up at Tang Wenbo. "Third Brother, he truly has no respect for you, or for Big Brother."

"Exactly! He even drew his blade. This isn't an apology; it's clearly a threat!" a disciple clutching a bruised cheek chimed in.

With a wave of his hand, Tang Wenbo shouted, "Guards!"

As his voice fell, the Tang guards who had been waiting nearby swarmed forward, blocking the path of Zhang Yuan and Chen Wu.

The two doormen, who had been observing all along, hurried to close the main gates. They rushed over wielding long staves, their faces fierce. Their eyes swept over the legs of Zhang Yuan and Chen Wu, looking as though they would break their legs the moment an order was given.

Tang Bo stood on the stone steps with his hands behind his back, rage surging on his face. "You thought you were coming to the Tang family to apologize, but you actually came to slap our face?"

The cultivation of Zhang Yuan and Chen Wu was not weak, but so what?

This was the Tang family; they had plenty of guards and strong family disciples.

The Tang family head was about to become a seventh-rank County Magistrate—that was the Tang family's foundation!

"Break their legs and send them to the Martial Guard Office. Tell them they came to the Tang family to cause trouble and damage property. Make a list of the damages and make them pay for the rest of their lives!"