“It’s always darkest before the dawn” said the old man with the long and thick white beard. This man was a famous “master”, with many students under him who paid considerable sums of money on a regular basis to receive his teachings. He advertised himself as a source of profound truths and often quoted Confucius – one of his favorite sayings was “The moral force of the profound person is like the wind; the moral force of the small person is like the grass. Let the wind blow over the grass and it is sure to bend.” Of course, “the profound person” referred to himself. However, today an uninvited guest had turned up to one of his lectures. Of course, the old man was getting on in years so he couldn’t notice such minute changes in the large crowd that had gathered around him, especially since he was on the same elevation level and thus could only see the people at the front of the crowd. As soon as he finished speaking, a man wearing black clothes and a large conical hat which obscured his face barged aside a few people and made his way to the front of the crowd, his right hand resting on the handle of something that hung on his left hip. By the point the suspicious looking man made his way to the front of the crowd, he was a mere 6 meters away from the old master.

“Heh.” the man said, the disdain for the old man’s words obvious in his voice,

“You call that a profound truth? Here’s a profound truth: People run forwards faster than they can run backwards.”

Without waiting for the old man's reply, the man immediately dashed forward towards the old master whilst simultaneously drawing his sword from its sheath, his left hand holding the sheath whilst his right drew the sword. The sword came out of the sheath in a flash of white light as he was only 3 meters away from the old master. At this point the old master had already opened his mouth and was in the middle of starting to say something when he noticed that the man was charging towards him. The old master panicked and his body reclined backwards as he began to bring his arms in front of his face in an instinctive startle response. Of course the old master had never expected that someone would have the nerve to kill him in front of so many onlookers, and besides, who would want him dead that badly? Although the old master had taught his students that the superior person would be trained in martial arts and self defense, he himself had never devoted the amount of hard work or training necessary to become any good at it. As a result he doesn’t have even the trained instincts of even a beginner who had only trained for a few months. How could he react in time? The answer of course, was that he couldn’t.

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In a single heartbeat the man in black clothes covered the 6 meters of distance, the rhythm of his sword in perfect sync with his footsteps (as well as his breathing, something a person with supremely sensitive observation skills would have picked up were such a person in the crowd, which there wasn’t). The blade flashed and the old master’s neck and the forearms that he had brought up to protect his head were sliced clean through. The old master’s head fell and his body collapsed at the same time. There was a thud and the head rolled for a while before resting unceremoniously on a patch of grass. Blood spurted from his now severed neck. The man in black clothes continued onwards and ran straight through the crowd which had rapidly begun to disperse in the midst of the shock and panic.

And that was the end for the old man. Later some would comment: “He neither knew martial arts nor hired any decent bodyguards to protect himself, and had paid the ultimate price for it. Such is the state of society now.” whilst others would say “this is yet another example of barbaric violence triumphing over culture and civilization, what is the world turning into?”. None of them, of course, knew the truth behind the old man and the man who had assassinated him in broad daylight. Of course, those who knew the truth would not have made such ignorant remarks nor commented upon the incident in public for that matter...