Chapter 16: Chapter Sixteen: So She Was a Tigress All Along

The two Uyghurs, their upper bodies now ruled entirely by their lower halves, felt no danger at all. Both stared hard at Lady Cao's round buttocks, their breathing quickening.

Perhaps sensing those two burning gazes, Lady Cao lifted her head from where it had been buried against Zhang Zhao's leg.

On that fair face glowing with the luster of healthy flesh, strings of teardrops were falling, as if pearls hung upon a bright moon. Her lips, moistened by tears, looked all the redder, and within her slightly parted vermilion mouth, porcelain-white teeth now showed, now hid.

Truly a blossom bearing rain, lovely enough to stir any heart!

The two Uyghur warriors even felt an inexplicable surge of tender pity. Even they thought that delivering such a beauty into the hands of a devil like Ge Duo was nothing short of a sin.

"Shing!" It was the sound of a blade leaving its sheath. The two Uyghurs, wholly captivated by Lady Cao, looked up stupidly. In the dim yellow lamplight, a hengdao saber flashing cold light came chopping down with the force of a thunderbolt.

Zhang Zhao stood in a relaxed, unrooted stance, gripping the hengdao saber's hilt with both hands and raising it above his head, then hacked savagely at the Uyghur on the right.

This fellow wore a leather cap studded with iron plates and was taller and sturdier than the one beside him. When striking by surprise, of course you hit the greatest threat first.

"Clang!" The keen hengdao saber cut straight through the iron plate in the Uyghur's leather cap. The swift, forceful edge then smashed onto the Uyghur's skull, the tip biting in a full two inches. Zhang Zhao even felt the instant the man's skull split.

"Aiyah!" Blood gushed from the Uyghur's head like a spring, swiftly dyeing his forehead and face red.

Amid the screams, Zhang Zhao stepped forward again and kicked the Uyghur hard in the chest, using the momentum to pull the hengdao saber free from the man's head.

All this happened within a few breaths. Seeing his companion attacked, the Uyghur on the left reacted quickly enough — but he had only just drawn his blade when Zhang Zhao twisted at the waist and sent the hengdao saber slashing diagonally down at him from right to left!

Retreat! Too late now. The Uyghur could only raise his blade crosswise to block.

"Clang!" Another crisp ring, and the Tibetan-style saber in the Uyghur's hand snapped in two!

No joke — the Tang-style hengdao saber in Zhang Zhao's hand was forged from industrial tool steel produced in a later age. Compared to it, the iron Tibetan-style saber in this Uyghur's hand was no different from rotten wood!

"Crack!" Zhang Zhao had never imagined a steel blade striking a human body would make such a sound. It felt like chopping down several stalks of sugarcane in one stroke.

There was a bit of resistance, but more than anything there was a sense of exhilaration. Every cell in his body was steeped in the thrill of that thunderous blow — a bit like the rush of breaking through five passes, cutting down six generals, and then scoring a goal.

Warm, rank blood sprayed all over Zhang Zhao. Clatter, clatter! The two halves of the broken Tibetan-style saber fell from the left Uyghur's hand to the ground. Then a body still reeking of mutton went weak at the knees and knelt before Zhang Zhao.

Zhang Zhao looked closely. That stroke of his had slashed diagonally from upper right to lower left. Under the full force of the blow, a great groove had been carved across the left Uyghur's chest, as if by a chainsaw.

Blood mixed with assorted gaudy things of unknown origin poured madly from the gash. The Uyghur had not yet died; his whole body twitched as he stared at Zhang Zhao with dead-fish eyes, his mouth still making hoarse, rasping sounds.

In the distance, Qi Xiahu and Sha Gou'er were both stunned witless by that thunderous strike. They had seen men killed before, but never a single stroke that nearly cut a man in two.

"What swine, what dog! Is my mother's figure something for you to look at?" A delicate shout rang out. Zhang Zhao turned his head in surprise.

The Lady Cao Sanniang he had pictured as frail and delicate, a mature-faced loli like a little white lamb, had grabbed the head of the Uyghur on the right — the one whose skull had nearly been split — and with a flick of the short blade in her hand...

Cold light flashed, and a jet of blood shot from the Uyghur's throat. The blood spattered Lady Cao's tear-streaked face. The dying body in her hands twitched faintly, over and over.

Hiss! A ruthless one! Zhang Zhao sucked in a breath of cold air.

It felt like keeping a harmless little kitten at home, all soft and delicate — then one day you suddenly discover she is no kitten but a tigress, and she ferociously kills a wild boar right in front of you.

The transmigrator Zhang felt his entire worldview about to collapse. A woman — a very beautiful woman — killing without blinking an eye!

In the distance, the stunned Sha Gou'er hastily squeezed his own eyes shut, putting on the look of one who had seen nothing at all.

"Sha Gou'er, is your daddy's figure lovely?" Lady Cao Sanniang dropped the Uyghur corpse in her hands and walked toward Sha Gou'er, blade in hand. Pale-faced and eyes shut, Sha Gou'er slid straight to the ground.

"Spare me, Sanniang! Spare me! It was all that dog-slave Zhai Tongjin who put me up to it — it has nothing to do with this humble one!"

The vain and shallow are seldom made of anything very firm, and Sha Gou'er was exactly that. He had already broken before Lady Cao Sanniang's short blade even reached his neck.

"Nothing to do with you? Is that dog-slave Zhai Tongjin your daddy? You do everything he says?" Lady Cao Sanniang blinked at Zhang Zhao. Leaving Sha Gou'er alive was something the two of them had agreed on, because this fellow still had great use.

"He led this humble one into gambling, made me run up a debt of two zhang five chi of fine cotton cloth, and when I couldn't pay, he was going to haul me off to Dunhuang County. This humble one knows his crime — I beg Sanniang to spare my life!"

"Xie" was a general term for cotton cloth; fine xie was fine cotton cloth, one of the official cloths collected by the government to precise standards.

During the Guiyi Army period, silver and copper were scarce in the northwest, so a fine cotton cloth stamped with a seal circulated as currency. At that time it was legal tender in the Guiyi Army, among the Ganzhou Uyghurs, the Gaochang Uyghurs, and in Khotan.

Damn, this guy's a gambler too! Two zhang five chi of fine cotton cloth was no small sum — roughly equal to a year's rent-tax owed by a small landlord with seventy mu of land. A poor common soldier like this fellow — no wonder he couldn't pay it back.

"Why should I believe you? Didn't you call yourself a squad leader? Weren't you the one running back and forth at Ge Duo's side? Who knows whether you or Zhai Tongjin is the real ringleader?"

Zhang Zhao wiped the blood from his hengdao saber on one of the Uyghur corpses, then walked slowly toward Sha Gou'er.

The heavy footsteps and the cold glints of light reflected from the keen blade pressed down on Sha Gou'er with immense force.

"This humble one can prove it! This humble one can prove it! I still have the debt note on me, and Sanniang's gold hairpin is on me too."

Trembling hands, a despairing face — what Sha Gou'er brought out was not merely Lady Cao Sanniang's gold hairpin; it was also his hope.

Because with those thirty strings of cash, he could not only pay off his gambling debt, but also buy a small courtyard and marry a little wife.

Sure enough, a man with his eyes drilled full of money. When Zhai Tongjin had been half-killed by Zhang Chao's throw, with a master like Zhang Zhao inside and Zhang Zhong and Yin Yaozi arriving outside, at the very brink of life and death, this fellow still hadn't forgotten to make off with Sanniang's gold hairpin.

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