The Human Emperor
chapter-697

Chapter 697: Wushang Village (III)

Gao Feng and Nie Yan walked up to Wang Chong and whispered, “Lord Marquis, just what is the background of this girl? How can she be so formidable?”

“That’s right! Although the wujian grass in the chest isn’t heavy, the chest itself is. How can she be so strong?”

“Haha, this is Wushang Village. You just need to get used to it.”

Wang Chong grinned, got up, and began to follow the girl. From ahead came the girl’s faint voice.

“Hurry up!”

The girl’s speed was much faster than they had imagined.

As the group proceeded farther in, the terrain grew steeper and harder to traverse. Yet the girl leading the way continued to almost fly across the path, not slowed in the slightest.

As the rest of the group watched from the back, they felt that the girl navigated the rocks as agilely and nimbly as a civet cat.

Gao Feng and the others were growing more and more astonished. At the start, none of them had thought much about Wang Chong’s decision to make Wushang his fief and build a city there, but now, none of them dared to believe that the decision was made so simply.

No wonder Young Master chose to build a city here. It’s probably for this Wushang Village, Gao Feng mentally speculated. As he followed Wang Chong, he gradually began to understand that every one of Wang Chong’s decisions was never as simple as it seemed.

A girl of only eight or nine already possessed such shocking talent. Whether in speed or dexterity, she already far exceeded the rest of the party, and even Gao Feng and Nie Yan felt like they wouldn’t be able to keep up with her. One could easily imagine how powerful the rest of the people in Wushang Village were.

Gao Feng and Nie Yan were finding this Wushang Village to be more and more curious.

As they followed the girl, they gradually began to hear more and more noise.

“Who goes there? You dare intrude on our Wushang Village!”

A thunderous voice suddenly rose from a distant peak. As the voice was still echoing in the air, there was a rush of wind. Before anyone could react, a boulder was suddenly tossed toward Wang Chong from a mountain several hundred zhang away.

In a flash, that boulder was falling over Wang Chong’s head. At this moment, everyone could clearly make out that this boulder was longer than a zhang and a half in diameter and weighed at least two thousand jin.

If such a massive boulder crashed down, even steel would crumple, much less a body of flesh and blood.

Buzz!

At this sight, Wang Chong couldn’t help but mentally smile. Without a movement from him, a wave of energy rolled out and stopped the rock while it was still one zhang away, freezing it in mid-air.

For a moment, everything was quiet, and even the distant mountains were silent. Everyone looked at that massive boulder and Wang Chong in shock.

Even the little girl turned her head and looked at him with mouth agape.

The girl suddenly turned toward the distant mountains and bellowed in anger, “Uncle Jiu, you big dummy, why are you hitting my friend?”

“What friend? Xiaoyan, they aren’t people from the village. You’ve been tricked!”

An extremely vexed and furious voice came from a distant cliff. He seemed even angrier than the girl.

“‘Friend’, I don’t know who you are or what you came for, but you should quickly go back, while you still have time.”

“Uncle Jiu! Why can’t I talk sense into you!” The girl put a hand on her waist and continued her tirade, her eyes spitting fire. “I said that he’s my friend, and he even has a friend with Grandpa. They even gave me wujian grass and knew that my fox is called Luoluo. Stop making trouble and let them by!”

“Luoluo?”

The voice seemed to pause and then dwindle away. From a distance, one could hear muttered words.

“How did these fellows know? Could they really be friends that the chief made on the outside?”

Not many people in Wushang Village knew that this girl’s fox was called Luoluo, but Uncle Jiu happened to be one of them. It was impossible for anyone who wasn’t part of the village to know of the name ‘Luoluo’.

Wang Chong silently smiled, calmly watching as the girl talked with her clansman.

She was already like this when she was young; no wonder she grew up to have such a violent temperament.

In the distance, the person that the girl called Uncle Jiu finally made a choice.

“Since you know of Luoluo, then you at least aren’t bad people. Forget it; I’ll let you in.”

With these words, a figure suddenly emerged from the smooth face of the cliff from a hidden crevice.

Thwishthwish. That person climbed over the smooth cliff like an ape, spanning ten-some zhang with every leap. The several-hundred-zhang-tall cliff was like flat land to him, not hindering him in the slightest. In the blink of an eye, he had vanished.

“!!!”

Gao Feng and the other ten-some guards were all flabbergasted.

Not even Profound Martial experts were this agile.

“I can’t believe it! How can this impoverished and remote village have experts like this! How were they trained?”

Gao Feng and the others wouldn’t have believed such a place existed even if they were beaten to death, but they had seen it with their own eyes.

“Get used to it. These people aren’t even the best experts of Wushang. And besides, the entire village knows how to climb cliffs and mountains, treating them like flat land.”

Wang Chong’s face was calm. The Wushang were his future subordinates, so how could he not be clear of their capabilities?

The things that Gao Feng and Nie Yan had witnessed were their most ordinary abilities. Without even abilities like this, the Wushang would have never been known as the world’s strongest cavalry.

Awooo!

While they were talking, cries that seemed both ape-like and human came from the distance. In the blink of an eye, the deserted mountains were suddenly filled with ape-like figures emerging from their hiding spots and climbing away over the cliffs.

With these strange cries, more and more people emerged before the group and then vanished into the mountains.

Wang Chong’s followers could only watch in stupefaction. The place that Wang Chong had led them to had completely surpassed their imaginations.

“Follow!” Wang Chong ordered them, and quickly followed the girl.

The girl’s mind was not as occupied with such complicated thoughts. While the group had been dumbstruck, she had already run one-hundred-some zhang.

If it weren’t for that large iron chest serving as a constant waypoint, they might have already lost sight of the girl.

As if retracing his steps through an old home, Wang Chong was in a most relaxed mood. This place gave him a very familiar feeling, but it was also a little different.

Uncle Jiu is probably Fang Xiaoyan’s uncle, Fang Jiuqiu. I heard from Fang Xiaoyan many times that this uncle spoiled her the most. Alas, in that calamity…

This time, I might as well bring him and Fang Xiaoyan with me. This way, the matter from later can be avoided and one of Xiaoyan’s dreams can be fulfilled.

Wang Chong’s steps did not slow as he thought, and he kept close behind Fang Xiaoyan.

Whether it was in clothes or demeanor, Wang Chong’s group stuck out like a sore thumb in Wushang Village. As a result, an endless stream of people emerged to intercept them.

At times like these, Fang Xiaoyan’s influence and status in Wushang Village revealed itself. No matter who appeared, Fang Xiaoyan would continue to use one hand to hold the large chest on her shoulder and stick the other hand on her waist while she berated them. Through sheer force of will, she scolded the would-be interceptors and smoothly delivered Wang Chong’s group toward the center of Wushang Village.

More and more Wushang began to appear, all of them rushing about with astonishing speed and dexterity.

“Look over there!”

While still some distance from the village, a guard suddenly noticed something and gestured into the distance. Following his gaze, the group saw that on a several-hundred-zhang cliff to the right of the road, a bare-chested twenty- or thirty-year-old villager was currently sweating as he trained.

This villager and his fellows each wielded a massive rock in one hand, exhaling and shouting as they trained. Those rocks were all craggy and weighed at least one thousand jin, but these Wushang villagers seemed to wield them as if they weighed nothing. Raise, withdraw, raise, withdraw… the massive stones were as steady as Mount Tai in their hands, not even trembling.

Each of these people used this unique method to train their bodies, and some of the stronger villagers were using rocks that weighed two or three thousand jin, constantly raising them and putting them down, up and down, up and down…

“These fellows… just where did they come from!”

“Not even in the great clans would someone dare to use such a method to train!”

……

The guards behind Wang Chong were once more stunned.

The training methods of the Wushang would truly make the training methods used by many of the Great Tang’s famed military clans blush with shame, and the toughness of this training definitely surpassed that of many of the capital’s great clans.

Even these elites who had participated in the war of the southwest and been refined on a battlefield of hundreds of thousands were left speechless.

Wang Chong only gave a slight nod of recognition, not at all surprised.

People were raised according to their environment, and the barren and steep mountains where the Wushang resided were a harsh environment indeed. In these circumstances, training according to local needs was the best choice. Whether it was their ability to traverse cliffs like flat land or their use of rocks weighing several thousand jin to train and hone their strength, it was all the result of their environment.

Living in this sort of environment year in and year out, it was not unusual to end up defeated by the environment, but if one adapted to it, grew comfortable in it… It wasn’t strange at all for the Wushang to be such powerful, agile and swift warriors.