C***6 Son of a . . . Hunter!

A half dozen young men in the prime of their lives formed a semicircle around Shen Shudun. To most, such a scene would be considered menacing, but Shudun saw through the bravado. The young men wore the standard leather armours distributed by the ZTO, and gripped wooden practice weapons in their sweaty palms. In Shen Shudun’s eyes, the toys in their hands were meant for children playing, not for warriors. To be a warrior was to risk life and death, everything less was just a game.

To quickly and thoroughly analyze an opponent is one of a cultivator’s most important dao skills. Truth be told, with the dao skill Scan: Autumn ✭✭✭, Shen Shudun could count the stray whiskers on their chins with one eye closed.

“Hey, didn’t you hear me, delivery boy? When Chang Chen addresses you, you should show the proper respect!”

Shen Shudun shut his open eye, returning to the blankness, letting out a long breath. Emotion held a special place in combat. It had the capacity to bring perfect form to a higher level, otherwise unattainable without that primal connection. Currently, his heart was in disarray, while his form was untested, thus Shen Shudun could not allow himself the privilege of indulging in that emotional collusion. His training today had to return to the fundamentals, the backbone upon which all martial prowess is established.

It’s play time.

Another whelp spoke up as well. “Senior brother Chang, this spring chicken isn’t giving you any face.”

“Face?” began Shudun as he smoothly stretched his body, “Your type of face is rather familiar, perhaps I knew your mother.”

“What?! What did you say? I dare you to say that again!” screamed Chang Chen.

“Uh, does that mean the delivery boy is your daddy?” said one of the other young men.

The group laughed at Chang Chen’s expense, even Shudun broke his concentration to jeer.

“Shut up! Shut the hell up! Do you want to die? I’ll kill anyone who laughs at me.” The group of young men were normally informal and intimate together, and such teasing amongst them was common as red dirt. Shocked when Chang Chen unleashed his fury upon them, the group quieted immediately. Although they were brothers in arms, Chang Chen was the strongest, and came from a good family background with powerful connections. None of them could afford to truly offend him.

“Ho ho ho,” antagonized Shen Shudun, in poor replication of a certain detestable slaughterer.

“You’re gonna die old man!” Chang Chen held a replica longsword thrust outward in one hand, threateningly.  

Huh? Since when am I old?

A thick wooden stave manifested in Shudun’s grasp. “Less talk.” He shifted the wooden pole over his head, sending it into an accelerating helicopter spin in his quick hands.

A portion of Chang Chen’s bravery diminished upon seeing the crippled delivery man wielding a weapon. The spinning stave gave him pause, only because such a tactic was completely foolish, even the slightest tap should knock the weapon out his opponent’s hands. Chang Chen had no intention of dealing a slight tap. He would crush the old man in a single blow for daring to be so audacious!

The overhead strike was a straightforward sword move with the intention of splitting an enemy down the centre; a decisive execution.

At least that was how it was meant to be executed.

Instead as Chang Chen brought down his blade, it clashed with the revolving stave. Ostensibly, his blade hardly felt like it made contact with the stave at all and he pressed on downward with his attack.

Thunk!

Chang Chen tasted red dirt in his mouth and felt a numbing pain on the top of his head, directly between his pair of outward curving three tier horns. He didn’t even see the counterattack . . . perhaps he had tripped? He stumbled back to his feet, sword in hand.

“You! What was that, some sort of trick?”

“Hmm? A taste of your own medicine.”

“Bullshit. You got lucky once. I’d like to see you get lucky a second time!”

Shen Shudun’s opinion of this young warrior was only getting worse with each word. Although it may have been partially attributed to the bump on the head, youngsters these days were growing up too dumb. Perhaps he should go a bit easier on the idiot? At the least he would avoid headshots. This youngster couldn’t afford to lose any more brains.

“Me too,” announced a feminine voice from beyond the boundary fence in reply.

“Manager Ming.” “Ah, it’s Manager Ming.” The trainees bowed with cupped hands at the spectator. An important figure had suddenly appeared!

“What’s going on here?” Ming Hua asked.

Chang Chen was eager to impress. Not only was this new arrival the leader of the Zhang Trade Office, but she was also a peerless buxom beauty with enormous horns. Her looks and status made her the most coveted single woman in the tribe, and the only woman who held a position of power within Redwall Village.

“Manager Ming, I was about to give this pot bellied delivery boy a lesson in basic combat principles. Please, watch closely as I demonstrate my Chang family’s twin dragon sword style. Both in speed and power, it is the finest.”

“Ah, I see . . .” Ming Hua peered at Shen Shudun, who was rubbing his stomach, sucking it in behind his ribs and releasing. He frowned when he caught her watching him. “. . . then let us make this a bit more interesting. I will reward the winner . . . with a kiss!”

The fire qi in Chang Chen’s young blood was lit. A kiss from the manager was a priceless treasure that he would not miss!

Contrarily, Shudun rested against his stave while glowering at the blonde haired blue eyed vixen. It didn’t take an autumn rank and three stars in scan to see this trouble brewing.

“It’s your unlucky day grey beard. Chang Chen will make you his training dummy.” He removed his leather cuirass exposing his muscular tanned body. Borrowing a second practice sword from a nearby trainee, Chang Chen proceeded to slash at the air with ruthless abandon, even going so far as to finish his masculine warm up display by rolling his stomach muscles in waves and bouncing his pectorals like jumping beans.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Eh? My beard is mostly red! Don’t shamelessly talk in the third person! And I was young once too!

This whelp was in dire need of a stern life lesson- and a shirt.

Since a crowd was gathering, and seeing as Manager Ming was watching as well, Shen Shudun decided he might as well give these trainees some legitimate schooling.

Two probing slashes swept toward Shen Shudun. It was clear that Chang Chen was more cautious during this second bout. He probed carefully with his main hand, while maintaining a vigilant defence with his second sword.

Each slash was met with a step backward and to the side, by Shudun. From the spectators view, Chang was slowly chasing the delivery boy in concentric circles. What sort of fight was this?!

“Booo!” “Fight already.”

“Get a room!” added Manager Ming with no shame at all.

“Err, ah. Lesson one,” stammered Shen Shudun, addressing the crowd. “Don’t waste your time fighting like a sissy, swinging and missing all the time. You’ll just get tired, and then killed.”

“@#@%!”

“Don’t lose your temper either, unless you're strong, then do what you want.” Somehow, judging by the mirth and snickering coming from the mob, Shudun didn’t think his lesson was going too well.

“You want a @#$%ing lesson! I’ll give you a @#$%ing lesson! [Double Dragon Flaming Swords]!”

Was it really a good idea to tell your opponent your next sword move? Maybe that should have been lesson one.

Two red lines of elemental qi climbed from the hilts of Chang Chen’s longswords, slowly forming a complete circuit along the length of the blades, which burst into orange flames once the circuit closed.

If it took a whole half a minute to control your fire qi, then you might as well have a conversation about it first, Shen Shudun supposed.

“Die!” Chang Chen’s warcry sounded rather laboured. The punk probably used most of his qi in this one move.

“Lesson two, uhm, footwork is important.” Screw it. His lesson was getting almost as bad as this trainee’s fighting. And if this continued, wouldn’t it seem like he was the bully?

The tip of Shudun’s stave became a downward thrusting spear, slamming against Chang Chen’s leading foot. The sound of breaking bones was reminiscent of cracking an egg.

“Disabling your opponent is the easiest way to win,” Shen Shudun concluded.

“You haven’t won yet!” Two flaming wooden swords cut like scissors crashing against the upper half of the stave. But unlike his expectations, Chang Chen felt none of the accompanying resistance to his attack.

Shudun stepped to the side, but the stave almost moved of its own accord, spinning on its axis and slamming its lower half against Chang Chen’s groin.

“Ooo . . .” “Ahh . . .” “That had to hurt.”

“Using your opponent’s force against them is a lot easier than using your own force. Oh, umm, that is err. Lesson three-ish.”

Chang Chen dropped to the ground in distress, only to scream in agony as his bare chest pressed against his flaming swords. Normally, wooden practice swords were fairly harmless training tools, unless you were dumb enough to light them on fire and press them against your nipples.

“Oh damnit.” Shen Shudun kicked Chang Chen over onto his side, and quickly poured earth qi into the ground through his feet, pushing a mound of red dirt over top of Chang like a blanket to smother the flames.

“How ruthless.” “Such dirty fighting!” “He destroyed Chang Chen’s manhood and buried him in the same fight.”

Only one set of hands in the crowd was clapping. With a twinkle in her eye, Ming Hua announced, “the winner is Shen Shudun!”

“What? That Shen Shudun.” “The grumpy hunter?” “The one hairy legged warrior.” “The Innkeepers man slave!”

“But Shen Shudun is hunter class. What is he doing fighting with trainees? is he a sadist?”

Shen Shudun’s ears burned as his eyebrows spasmed.

“Come get your reward, a kiss from yours truly.” Ming Hua batted her eyes and offered up a view of her luscious curves.

“I’ll pass.”

If some members of the crowd had remained indifferent to Shen Shudun, that changed as soon as he passed up a chance to kiss the manager. In a single stroke, he enraged every red blooded man in the ZTO.

This is why I hate people, Shen Shudun thought, as he strolled to a barrel and splashed water on his face.

“Shen Shudun. I would speak with you. In private.” Ming Hua swivelled, irately strutting towards the ZTO administration buildings. Even Shen Shudun couldn’t help but glance at her skin tight black leather backside.

“It’s okay to look,” he told himself, reflexively guarding the back of his head. A private meeting with Ming Hua was not something Shen Shudun had the least bit of interest in, but since he and his wife were technically ZTO associates, he really didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. Manager Ming was the boss.

“What’s this about?” asked Shen Shudun, after a servant closed the office door behind them.

“Can’t it just be about us?” quipped Ming Hua, pressing herself up against the burly hunter.

“There is no us.”

“There could be.”

“. . .”

“Fine. I give in.” She took herself away from the danger zone and sat on the edge of her desk, plucking up an envelope and tossing it at Shudun.

“What’s this?”

Ming Hua batted her eyes. “Do you want me to read to you?”

A grunt could be heard, followed by the tearing of paper.

The grumpy mask of Shen Shudun’s countenance grew confused as he read the paper within, before dropping into a cold rage. The content of the letter was short and simple, as the best delivered killing blows. He crumpled it into a ball and let it fall to the floor, before silently leaving the office like a rumbling thundercloud promising lightning.