A Scroll of Infinite Glory

In this day and age, ordinary families have to save on candles and lamp oil. After a long day of hard work, they don't keep the lights on for long at night. If they need to get up to use the toilet in the middle of the night, they often have to go in the dark.

But inside this house, the lanterns hanging under the eaves and the kerosene lamps lit inside the houses illuminated the entire place as if it were dusk.

Guan Luoyang had already walked around the mansion once, observing from eight different locations, and had a clear understanding of the entire layout of the mansion.

Of course, during this process, he also sensed something unusual.

"They appear relaxed on the outside but are actually highly skilled. They seem lazy, but they're all elites. These aren't the kind of people an ordinary nouveau riche could cultivate, are they?"

He wiped out all the opium dens in the three cities and seven villages. With the big buyers gone, the amount of opium flowing here naturally decreased significantly. Unfortunately, he was all alone, and some fearless individuals wanted to engage in some private opium transactions, but he simply couldn't manage them all.

After arriving in Diancheng yesterday, this group did the opposite, opening an opium den with great fanfare and parading around town, as if they were afraid that this blue-faced ghost wouldn't hear the news.

"So it was a deliberate trap to lure me in... That means the whole mansion is full of people who are considered qualified to ambush me, people who are used to doing this kind of thing..."

Guan Luoyang squinted, planning the steps to take action, his gaze lingering on the two people on duty in the corridor for a while.

Both of them were carrying guns.

Since arriving in this world, this wasn't the first time Guan Luoyang had seen firearms. When he assassinated the magistrate of Heyang County, the attack from those muskets had truly terrified him for quite some time.

After all, someone who grew up in one of the safest countries in the 21st century has almost no direct contact with firearms, yet always hears various descriptions of their power, inevitably developing an indescribable sense of awe.

So much so that Tian Gongyu felt his reaction was so extreme that he couldn't understand it, and said the following to him.

"Foreign guns are indeed very powerful, much more powerful than ordinary people's knives and fists. In fact, since the early days when muskets were used in the military, many people have felt that boxers should be eliminated."

But in reality, even today, a knife is still used when necessary, and it is ultimately human who kills. You shouldn't treat these foreign guns like demons.

I heard from the battlefield back then that when foreigners fought each other, if they all had cover, hundreds of bullets might not be enough to kill a single person. When the Boxers fought against the Eight-Nation Alliance, they charged directly without relying on cover, and in a single battle, the ratio of casualties to ammunition consumed was often more than one hundred.

Those guys who claim to be the elite of eight nations can't even hit a rabbit with a gun. Do you really think that after training with me for years, you're less skilled than a rabbit?

These words alone could not possibly erase the fear in Guan Luoyang's heart.

But later, through repeated practice, he became able to deal with these firearms very calmly, and even landlords and gentry who carried guns could not withstand his knife.

However, the guns these people carried were quite different from those he had seen during his assassinations over the years. In terms of their design, they seemed to resemble the rifles he had seen in movies and TV shows from World War II.

We must pay more attention to this.

Well, this time we won't go straight for the center. We'll eliminate these gunmen who pose a significant threat first, and then kill the leader last.

call! ! !

Guan Luoyang tucked his knife into his belt, placed his hands on the wall, and leaped over the wall. With a push off the wall, he darted into the corridor like a swift cat, covering a distance of five or six meters.

The two Qing soldiers, both dressed in black jackets and tight trousers, were patrolling back and forth when they passed each other and walked in different directions.

The Qing soldier on the left felt a blur before his eyes, and then his mind suddenly went blank.

The sound of Guan Luoyang's footsteps landing and the sound of his fist striking the man's temple rang out simultaneously, becoming the last sound this Qing soldier heard in his life.

The Qing soldier on the right heard a strange noise behind him, turned around, and saw his companion leaning to one side, about to fall.

A shadow on the ground rose and fell, and it was already in front of him. The blue mask suddenly magnified in his eyes, almost hitting his nose.

Ka!

Guan Luoyang broke the man's neck with a single punch, leaving the two corpses to fall to the ground one after the other.

The dull sound was about to attract the attention of other patrolmen.

Six years have passed since Guan Luoyang traveled through time, and he has experienced confusion and hesitation.

Based on his observations over the past three years, watching people in the city and countryside struggle to live and die helplessly, seeing those who couldn't control themselves, ruining their homes and wealth, and becoming as thin as withered skeletons, lying at the base of walls and on both sides of the road, with no one to bury them, he finally understood what he needed to do.

Those who recklessly exploit the laborers, bully the weak and vulnerable, and trample on human lives, whether they are leaders or accomplices, are scum who should be shot ten times over.

Therefore, even after losing two more souls, Guan Luoyang remained calm and composed. He exhaled a little breath, took a deep breath, and swiftly moved diagonally to strike.

When he moves, he is so fast that he is almost like a shadow constantly reflecting between the nearby pillars. In the blink of an eye, he can dart from one pillar to the next pillar about three meters away.

Within seconds, he struck each of the four pillars on either side of the corridor with his palm.

Wealthy families near Guangzhou often use cypress wood for pillars when building pavilions, corridors, and other structures. This type of wood is not easily deformed, has good corrosion resistance, and is also very rigid.

The eight pillars in front of us are each nearly twenty centimeters in diameter; even an axe would only leave a shallow mark on them.

However, after being struck by Guan Luoyang's palm, fine cracks appeared and spread out in a spiderweb pattern on the pillar.

In this world at the end of the Qing Dynasty, although I have never seen any gods or ghosts, nor have I ever heard of martial arts techniques such as the Three-Foot Qi Wall or the Dragon Subduing Palm.

However, the martial arts skills that Guan Luoyang learned from Tian Gongyu had a far greater effect on physical training and improvement than anything he had in the previous world.

With a force of about two thousand pounds contained within the palm of his hand, it was not impossible to not only create a crack that pierced through the pillar, but also to break it in one go.

After knocking down the eight pillars, Guan Luoyang leaped up, grabbed the edge, and flipped onto the top of the corridor, where he lay down.

Tonight, dark clouds obscured the moon, and the starlight was sparse. Guan Luoyang, dressed in a grayish-blue outfit, lay prone on the roof of the corridor, almost blending into the color of the tiles.

At this point, patrol officers from the vicinity arrived and, upon discovering the two bodies on the ground, immediately blew their whistles to warn others.

A dozen or so people arrived near the corridor one after another, patrolling the area and remaining on guard.

The four people in the living room were immediately alerted, and the patrolmen in the courtyards on the other side of the living room also sprang into action.

Guan Luoyang shifted his body slightly, dangled one leg from the roof of the corridor, kicked and broke a pillar that he had previously cracked, then braced himself with both hands on the roof of the corridor and leaped away.

All eight pillars already had through cracks. When this pillar broke, the other pillars shifted and collapsed one after another.

The entire corridor collapsed, sending up dust and flying debris.

Those who had gathered near the corridor were instantly killed or injured, their cries of agony filling the air.

Several Qing soldiers who managed to stay further away were also struck in vital areas by tiles thrown by Guan Luoyang before he left, and died instantly!

He scaled the wall and, with a few leaps, the layout of the house he had observed flowed through his mind. He deliberately bypassed the courtyard where the living room was located and ventured into the courtyard on the other side.

Li Piaoling, Zhuang Chengxian, and others arrived one after another. The dust and smoke from the collapsed corridor had not yet dissipated, and the screams of the Qing soldiers were particularly piercing in the darkness.

Zhuang Chengxian opened his mouth wide, his voice cracking as he shouted fiercely, "What's going on? What's going on?!"

He saw no trace of the enemy, only that nearly half of his thirty most trusted elite soldiers had been killed or wounded here.

Could it be that this dilapidated house has been in disrepair for so long that this section of the corridor just happened to collapse here today?

No, these people couldn't have gathered here for no reason. There was a whistle warning earlier; it was the Blue-Faced Demon! But... but...

Zhuang Chengxian's eyes trembled, and he made rapid, breathy sounds.

They studied the case files, boasting of their profound knowledge of the Blue-Faced Ghost, who had become increasingly dismissive of firearms ever since he assassinated the magistrate of Heyang County.

Even if he saw muskets here, he couldn't possibly recognize how powerful these new guns were. Why would he go against his usual practice and choose to attack these gunmen first?! And he actually succeeded!

Tonight's scheme, from the very beginning, seemed to have broken free of Zhuang Chengxian's reins and was racing headlong into unknown dangers.

A sense of foreboding washed over Zhuang Chengxian: "Something's wrong! Quick..."

Li Piaoling was the most alert; before he could finish speaking, she suddenly turned around and ran away.

Since this blue-faced ghost targeted the gunmen first, there must be another group of gunmen in the courtyards to the right of the living room, in addition to the gunmen who are already dead or useless here.

………………

The right half of the courtyard of this residence was used as a place for family members to live. There were no corridors, artificial hills, bamboo groves or other landscape features, only a few courtyards connected by arched gates.

There is only one path leading from these courtyards to the backyard of the living room.

The Qing soldiers patrolling these courtyards first heard the whistle, then the loud crash of the corridor collapsing. They rushed toward the road, preparing to cross the backyard of the living room to check where the noise came from.

A shadow swept across the top of the wall and landed directly in the crowd.

The surrounding Qing soldiers were startled and all looked over.

The person wearing the blue mask, the instant he landed, placed his left hand on the scabbard at his waist and his right hand on the hilt of his sword.

The Ming Dynasty text "On Single-Sword Techniques" states: "If one wields a light knife without proper technique, it is like iron that has not been refined into steel. If the knife is too light, it will be weak and the blade will be crooked to one side when it is used to cut. How can it kill a person?"

If a knife is to be hard, it must be thick; and if it is thick, it must be heavy, so only a strong person can use it.

Therefore, the method of making this knife is simply to make the back of the blade thick, gradually thinning it from bottom to tip, with the ridges on both sides rising high, and the blade edge thin; this ensures the knife is of appropriate weight.

The knife in Guan Luoyang's hand was custom-made for him by Tian Gongyu. The handle was seven inches long with bamboo-like patterns, and the blade was two feet and seven inches long. The center of gravity was just right, and it was extremely easy to hold.

The moment he drew his sword, it didn't feel like a person wielding a knife, but rather like a beast suddenly unleashing its long-hidden fangs and claws.

Some of the Qing soldiers could almost see the arm holding the knife, spreading out like a peacock's tail, leaving a series of afterimages.

The human eye has the effect of visual persistence. If the displacement of an object changes faster than 0.1 seconds, the image of the previous scene will not have time to disappear from the viewer's field of vision and will form a ghost image.

The reason why Guan Luoyang's afterimage was so complete during his swing of the sword was that not only was the time of the blade's movement much shorter than 0.1 seconds, but the movement of his wrist, elbow, and even the upper arm near his shoulder also reached an extremely high speed.

To someone with slightly poorer eyesight, this slash would appear as if, the moment he drew the sword, his arm and the blade suddenly vanished, leaving only an arc of light reflected from the blade's tip.

laugh! ! !

With just this one flash of blade light, the bodies of the three people around him were severed.

When they looked down, they realized that their body above the ribs was beginning to separate from their lower body.

Someone let out a scream.

Blood splattered all over the ground, splashing onto the faces and bodies of those on the periphery.