บท 3: Chapter 3: Time.. slowed down?
"Shut up! I bought your chicken meat here yesterday and it caused me to feel drowsy and eventually fell asleep in class! You must have doused it with sleeping herbs for the seasoning you damned old woman!" yelled a young man with short black hair. He bears an arrogant and haughty look to him.
"My teacher had reprimanded me for that in front of the class! Do you know how shameful that is for me, Feng Li?! Now compensate me a hundred coppers and I will let this matter go!" he shouted again in front of grandma Ying, before his lips curled into a sneer.
"Otherwise..."
Just as he was still trying to finish his villainous lines, a loud 'pa' sound could be heard as he was slapped by grandma Ying which had immediately made him stumbled backwards two steps, expression looking stupefied.
"You ruffian! How is that my fault? Are you dumb?!" yelled grandma Ying back towards that startled young man.
This grandma Ying was already in her late 70's and had quite the temper as well. "This young man had picked the wrong person to vent his frustrations on..." thought Duan Li as he shook his head.
"Y-you! How dare you slap me?!" said the young man with an infuriated expression, "Are you blind old woman?! I am a student of the Jixue Knights Academy!" he shouted out while flicking his white and blue uniform as his other index finger pointing to the academy emblem on his right shoulder. The emblem had one sword and one saber crossing one another, with a shield as its background.
"Hah! Even if I'm deaf, I would still have slapped you the same! Now get out of here!!" replied grandma Ying angrily.
"Damned old woman!!" yelled the young man as he stepped forward with raised hand seeming as if to slap back at grandma Ying.
"Stop!" shouted Duan Li, his voice was loud that it startled the young man which immediately halted his hand mid-air.
The young man turned his head to look at the person who shouted at him.
"Who are you?! Don't meddle in my business you filthy peasant!" said the young man with an even haughtier look as he observed Duan Li's clothing. In his view, Duan Li was but a simple peasant.
"Well... about that… I have business with grandma Ying..." replied Duan Li slowly while giving a sheepish smile as he scratched the back of his head and continued, "If you hurt her, that would be difficult for me then..."
Hearing this, the haughty young man replied with disdain, "Hah! Then let me teach you a lesson first as an example!"
- Woonggg!
A sword suddenly appeared in his right hand.
At first, Duan Li was surprised that a sword had materialized out of thin air. But, as he look closely, he found out that in all honesty, this sword seems to be of the common grade that he frequently saw on the rack of any weapons store that were sold quite cheaply.
Noticing Duan Li's look towards his sword and the lack of reaction the other party had, the contemptuous young man's face flushed red before yelling angrily, "What are you looking at?! Too surprised that cat's got your tongue?!"
"Oh... No..." replied Duan Li while shaking his head quickly and continued as he pointed out, "That is a great quality sword you have there!"
'Pu!' the young man choked.
Great quality sword? He himself knew that his sword was quite common that could be found anywhere. Thus, hearing Duan Li's compliment, coupled with that gaze of the other party that even hinted a sliver of disdain to his sword with that 'nothing special' look in the former's eyes, had riled up the haughty young man entirely!
"Y-you good for nothing peasant! How dare you humiliate me like this!" he barked out as he step forward towards Duan Li.
"No! Stop!" shouted grandma Ying in a terrified voice when she saw the situation started to spiral out of control.
Duan Li was the child of Meng Yue! If her son was to be hurt here because of her, how could she face the other party next time?
"I'll chop off your arms so that you will remain disabled forever! HAHA!" laughed the young man as he swung his sword in a cutting motion. To him, a mere peasant losing an arm or two wouldn't really cause any issue.
- Rrringggg!
Due to the suddenness of this situation, Duan Li wasn't able to react properly at all. By the time the sword was swung halfway towards him, it already seemed to be too late for him to dodge! However, right at this moment, his ear ranged for a bit before the momentum of the sword suddenly slowed down considerably until it moved only at a snail's pace.
Duan Li was shocked due to this bizarre scene he was witnessing!
But taking advantage of this chance, knowing that there are no time for hesitation, Duan Li performed a single side step to the right as he dodged the incoming strike gracefully.
- Swoosh!
"What?!" startled the young man.
He just couldn't believe his eyes! In one instant before, he was sure that his sword would definitely amputate that darned peasant's left arm. Yet in another instant, the latter suddenly moved with a speed so fast, akin to a lightning that his eyes couldn't follow the other party's movements at all and dodged his attack effortlessly!
"I... managed to dodge?" thought Duan Li in a daze as he realized that time had returned to normal again.
The arrogant young man called Feng Li was naturally unable to endure this. Thus, gritting his teeth, he swung his sword again. But this time, he aimed for the knee! He thought that it must have been due to pure luck that the damned peasant had managed to dodge his sword attack before!
However now, from the trajectory of the incoming sword attack, Duan Li knew that the other party was aiming for his legs and thus tried to dodge. Unfortunately, his reaction speed was still too slow that the sword had already reached halfway to chop off his legs!
"I won't be able to make it!" thought Duan Li as he panicked. It was then, that the ringing sound reappeared again as time began to slow down once more!
- Rrrrinngggg!
"Wha-What? Again?" he was entirely stumped by this bizarre phenomena! The ringing sound was just like when one had reached a certain depth while swimming.
Thus, taking this chance, Duan Li lifted his legs up from harm's way. But this time, he decided to retaliate a bit!
Just as he had successfully lifted both of his legs by jumping up, he immediately stomped downwards on the body of the sword that was passing slowly beneath him, pressing it to the ground firmly with his weight. After his counter-attack was completed, time began to flow normally again.
However when the time flow returned to normal, due to the sudden change in momentum, that young man's right elbow snapped and twist in a horrendous way accompanied with a 'crack' sound.
- EHH?
Duan Li hadn't expected this outcome at all!
He had only meant to stop the young man from continuously attacking him by subduing the other party's weapon, but instead got the latter's right arm broken into a cripple!
"ARGHHH!" shouted the young man with agonized moans. "My arm! My arm!" he yelled out loud with a horrified look as tears started to churn out from both of his eyes.
- Hissssss!
The crowd that was looking at this commotion from outside the shop could not help but to suck in cold breath from the sudden reversal! At first they thought that it was over for Duan Li. Yet, at the next moment, Duan Li had crippled that arrogant young man's arm instead!
The hairs on their back stood straight as they shivered! They then began to break into a commotion as they whispered towards each other.
...
"T-That Duan Li... he actually practices martial arts?" the crowd thought simultaneously. From what they knew, Duan Li was just someone who liked to be alone, to sleep and eat comfortably.
But now, they had witnessed a new side to him that the village folks previously didn't know about! This caused some of them to start looking at Duan Li in a new light. In addition, some of them even had that look of awe and reverence towards him!
"Hais... I never knew... who would have thought that all these while, Duan Li had actually practices martial arts to this terrifying degree?.." said a villager.
"Me too... Now it makes sense! The reason why he had always liked to be alone was because he was practicing such martial arts! Perhaps he had long treaded the path of a martial artists before we even knew about it..." said another while shaking his head slowly.
Similar thoughts and conversation sprung up among the masses that watched this commotion.
Meanwhile, Duan Li was just standing still looking unfazed with the sword still lodged firmly to the ground beneath his feet. The crowd was awed by his calm composure.
In actuality however, Duan Li had not a sliver of clue as to what was happening at all! All he did was just waiting to be chopped up before time suddenly slowed down and he moved to dodge accordingly. Then, what was up with these crowds and their reaction? Aren't they over-exaggerating themselves too much? Thought Duan Li feeling a bit weird.
In fact, had Duan Li were to become one of the crowds just now and watched how fast he had actually dodged the incoming attack on that very last second, perhaps even he too would become riled up like the rest of them.
...
"Bastard! BASTARD!!" howled the young man as he glared at Duan Li with murderous intention. "I will remember this! This is NOT over!!" he retreated backwards slowly while tucking his broken right arm, looking wary towards Duan Li in case the other party decided to attack him. As he retreated into a safe distance, he quickly turned his back and ran away.
"Not good...!" said one of the villager, seemingly to remember something important as he slapped his forehead.
"What is it?" asked one of the crowds towards that man.
"That young man is a student of Jixue Knights Academy! A simple scuffle would be of no issue normally... but now that one of their student has returned with a broken arm... the Academy is bound to take action for this!" replied the man as he wiped the sweat off his forehead.
A sense of foreboding came into the rest of the crowd as they too began to realize this. In fact, this is not the first time students from the Jixue Knights Academy were causing troubles, there were also others although of less intense than this one.
If not for the fact that they do not want to dishonour the name of the Academy, as it had trained numerous people into knighthood to serve the empire, they would have long rallied together to pummel these troublemakers themselves.
"Then... what are we going to do? Today's matter is not as simple as before! You guys too have seen how overboard that haughty young man from the Jixue Knights Academy was right?" said a man from the crowd, evidently feeling displeased from the increasing brazenness of these troublemakers.
"Hais... the only thing we can do right now is to help report this matter to the village head, and hoped that the village head had some way to settle this dispute in order to not escalate the matter further!" replied an elderly man.
The crowd nodded to the elder's suggestion as they quickly walked off together, heading into the direction of the residence of the village head.
...
"Duan Li my boy! Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?" asked grandma Ying with a worried face, "I'm sorry… if only I hadn't slapped that haughty young man from before... things wouldn't have turned into this..." her voice grew weak as she continued, "Now that I have troubled you, oh no... What am I going to do... how am I going to answer this to Meng Yue!"
Hearing the concerned voice of grandma Ying, Duan Li's heart grew warm as he put up a smile and hugged grandma Ying. He then tapped her backs slowly to calm her down.
"It's going to be fine, this Duan Li will naturally be able to handle it somehow..." said Duan Li softly.
"Are you sure you are going to be fine? If those bastards were to find trouble with you again after this, this old grandma will cause a ruckus at their academy for nurturing such degenerates!!" she said while clenching her teeth, but tears could be seen welling up the sides of her eyes, threatening to fall at any moment right now.
Duan Li shook his head. He knew that grandma Ying has always been protective of him since he was young. Somehow, he felt that grandma Ying was like a true grandmother to him because of this.
After he managed to persuade her, he bought the things his mother asked for as he immediately returned home after, his heart began to race in panic.
...
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