Half a century ago, such a saying was circulated among the Kazuto samurai who were part of the Moon Country society.
"Gunshu is the father of all martial arts."
This statement has its own set of theories. Although the stick itself is simple, the application techniques are ever-changing. It has something in common with spearmanship, swordsmanship and even many other skills. Therefore, some warriors highly respected stick skills. After unifying their opinions, synthesizing each other's experiences and drawing materials from ancient books, they emerged among the many swordsmanship and spear skills, creating a school that respected stick skills.
The founders of the school arrogantly call themselves "Guiyi", which means that they are inseparable from their original sect in all changes, and believe that the skills they have learned are the origin of everything.
And they are indeed very capable.
In those days, in various martial arts competitions held between Kazuto warriors, it was common for several top-ranking masters and their disciples to achieve impressive results. Although there are often swordsmen or spearmen who curse them for taking advantage of the rules and using spearmanship techniques to compete in fencing competitions; using fencing techniques to compete in spearmanship competitions. However, the remarks of these defeated generals are often ridiculed by the first-class disciples as ignorant people who are inflexible and refuse to admit defeat.
If you were born in that era and had seen the first-class myths, you would probably be like many people at that time and believe their theory, thinking that this is indeed a perfect skill, ever-changing, and anything can be simulated.
In the competition field 50 years ago, it was a victorious general. Victory promoted the reputation of being a first-class team, and they rose to prominence and became famous all over the world.
At that time, even Qingzhi Town in the far north had a top-notch dojo. The samurai holding wooden sticks when going out once became synonymous with strong martial arts, so that most other people stayed away from them and were very afraid of them.
But things that become popular quickly often don’t last long. The reputation that Gui Lian has built up over the years can fall apart in a matter of months just because of one thing.
Youdao is a big tree that attracts wind, has a large number of people, and relies on its strong force. Returned first-class disciples often have conflicts with people from other dojos in various places, and most of the time they can indeed defeat their opponents with their reputation and skills.
Until they encountered an enemy they were not good at dealing with.
That is, enemies with real swords and guns outside the dojo, outside the martial arts arena.
One person defeated 6 returning disciples holding wooden sticks.
And this man is not even the reclusive swordsman that was rumored in the past. He is just a drunkard and a down-and-out warrior. Because he was jealous in front of the beautiful daughter of a hotel owner, he had a conflict with his first-class disciple. He pulled out the only valuable sharp knife on his body.
All methods are unified, and stick skills are the origin of all - yes, in terms of the techniques used, sticks can undoubtedly simulate sword skills and spear skills.
But after all, it is just a weapon for practice, no matter how similar the simulation skills are.
It's not a sword after all.
Sharp weapons never need to consider how to inflict maximum impact with unique techniques, that is the job of blunt weapons.
The sharp weapon only needs to be sharpened and then pointed with the sharp side facing your opponent's body, which lacks armor defense.
Just touch the surface and pull it gently, and the cut will be enough to make your opponent feel great pain and the fear of blood loss.
In the martial arts tournament that also used bamboo and wood weapons for practice, the returning stick skills were invincible. When they encountered serious sharp weapons, these six vigorous disciples suddenly found that the weapons in their hands were so weak. .
They succeeded in attacking.
The samurai were so drunk that they couldn't even formulate the starting moves to parry, but they had the advantage of numbers.
But when faced with a wandering samurai with bulging veins after drinking too much, the returning first-class disciples' striking skills that could score points and win in a martial arts tournament could not knock him to the ground, or even prevent him from approaching.
Accustomed to scoring points by hitting, they don't even know how hard they have to use to ensure they knock down the opponent.
As for this drunken samurai who couldn't even stand still, and had no plan at all and just relied on instinct to swing the sharp sword randomly, as long as he was touched, it would basically be a long and narrow ground-breaking wound.
The open wounds were bleeding profusely, and their own warm and sticky blood flowed down their arms and onto their palms, causing the wooden sticks in their hands to slip. The stimulation caused by the pain made them panic and lose their original pride.
Several people screamed and tried to beg for mercy, but the wandering warriors who were drunk and full of blood couldn't care about this. They just stabbed someone when they caught them.
Although this conflict ended with the government sending archers to kill the crazed wandering warriors with arrows, and the situation did not escalate further, it also caused Gui Yi's reputation to plummet.
"Are the skills learned by the warriors of the Thousand Years of Peace, those skills used to win consecutive battles on the battlefield, still the same skills used to defeat the enemy in the battlefield?" - There was a wave of similar discussions back then, but in the end it was still due to lack of The real battlefield threats are buried in the long river of history.
Time has smoothed everything out. Fifty years later, only very few people remember this incident.
——Yajiro is one of them.
The young master is now pale and his breathing is gradually becoming irregular.
When Henry and Mira were summarizing and criticizing the wooden sword duel in front of them during the previous journey together, he remembered that he had read it in his family's book collection but only regarded it as a part of history and did not make any comment. Too much attention has been paid to the incident of "The Destruction of Guiryu".
There is dissatisfaction.
After all, he is still just a teenager. It is human nature to be more inclined to resist than to reflect on a technology that has been studied for many years and has achieved some success.
But this also makes the current scene extremely ironic.
one person.
There was only one person standing on the opposite side.
He's not even a samurai, just a rogue.
What he held in his hand was not a waist sword worthy of a samurai, but a short and poorly made short sword that was far inferior in length and workmanship to the famous sword in Yajiro's hand.
But he was unscathed while the young master suffered a loss.
There was a long and narrow wound on Yajiro's left forearm, which dyed the luxurious white koi pattern haori on his body red. He kept breathing under the influence of violent breathing and his heart pumping powerfully due to the injury and the tension of actual combat. There was blood coming out.
A sense of fear enveloped Yajiro's heart.
He continued to use the warrior code to motivate himself, trying to control himself not to look at the wound on his forearm and focus on the enemy in front of him. But he could never forget the burning pain and the cold blade touch at the moment of injury.
"It's not difficult, I was born for this." Even if he did not go to the front line to participate in the battle during the previous conflict with the bandits, Yajiro always believed that he could behave like his adult samurai. Almost the same.
But the situation on the battlefield was complicated. In the battle against the bandits, the warriors also wore full-body armor and had horses, which gave them a great advantage in equipment.
But he was alone now, and across from him was a bandit who was about thirty years old and in his prime. His physique and physical ability were above him. Although his weapons were not as good as his, he made up for it in other aspects.
The longer you delay, the more detrimental it will be to yourself.
He could already feel that his left hand was beginning to show signs of stiffness and trembling due to excessive bleeding. From the fact that the thumb holding the handle of the knife always felt difficult to hold firmly and exert force, it seemed that it was probably not only a skin injury, but also the tendons under the skin. scratched.
This really should have been an ordinary day. Yajiro, who was just out to relax alone, encountered this guy who didn't look like a good guy on the road and was harassing women, and he helped him in the spirit of a samurai.
When the civilian woman turned around and ran away without any intention of finding anyone to help the young boy with an immature look, he didn't think much about it.
Even when the middle-aged bandit on the opposite side drew his short sword, he was still confident, and even thought it was a good opportunity to leave a reputation and prove his strength.
There are many things I regret. Maybe if I had told my companions before going out, everything would have been different. When the blood gushes out and I feel the pain and the loss of my life, a lot of regrets are entangled in my heart. He thought of the records about returning to the first class that he had never taken seriously, and also recalled the criticisms of Henry and Mira, who were extremely conflicted in his heart.
We must move forward, we must break the predicament, we must fight back to defeat the opponent, and win from a desperate situation.
When faced with great pressure, people's thinking speed becomes very fast. From the books he had read in the past, he picked out cases of fascinating warriors who went upstream to overcome difficulties, and encouraged himself over and over again.
But his feet never moved.
"Father, mother..." The words that came out of his mouth lost the arrogance of the past. At this moment, he lost his aggressive and tough appearance and turned back into the young master who had not yet grown up.
He didn't realize all this until he unconsciously said it. With his shaken heart and injured arm, the knife in the neutral position with a warning ring pointed at the opponent began to be unstable, and his body began to tremble and sway. The big and thick gangster on the opposite side saw This virtue laughed out loud:
"Are you scared? Are you scared? You're crying and calling your parents' names, hahahaha! Where's the arrogance?"
Just because he was older than him and had seen blood, this rough and untrained bandit was defeated by the young master who hesitated due to lack of experience in the first confrontation.
Who fights harder in actual combat?
His experience was more in fighting with wooden swords, so when he used his usual skills to knock down the opponent, he realized that he was holding a real sword in his hand.
Yajiro hesitated, thinking that the other party was just teasing and did not deserve death. He did something that an experienced swordsman should never do - he felt confused during hand-to-hand combat, and even changed his mind after the move was used, fearing that he had struck too hard.
His indecision caused him to fail to display his original skills. Therefore, he was obviously attacking, but he missed because he tried to hit the target.
The next second the opponent rushed over, and his reaction after long training was not unpleasant. Yajiro immediately reacted to block, but the sharp weapon was different from the round wooden sword. He blocked the opponent's blade, but because of his careless arm When it touched the dagger of the bandit who had already been restrained, a wound was cut.
This was a common occurrence in wooden sword duels, and he had even become accustomed to the feeling of his arm being lightly touched by his opponent's wooden sword - anyway, as long as it was not a hit, according to the rules, it would not count as the opponent's score.
But sharp weapons are different after all.
The words Henry and Mira said, and what happened to the first-class disciple, had never been so clearly and profoundly burned into his memory.
Are you going to die here?
His left hand, which had begun to tremble due to excessive blood loss, could no longer exert force, and his body, which had become stiff due to nervousness, was completely unable to display his usual skills. The other party was laughing, but Yajiro didn't even have the strength to get angry. All his arrogance was gone, and all that was left in his heart was fear and regret.
He began to reflect on his mistakes over and over again, thinking that if he had changed any step, he might not have ended up like this.
He began to reflect on the past actions that were obviously impossible to change, and began to imagine those "what ifs" that were impossible to achieve, instead of focusing on breaking through the current predicament.
He panicked.
He was desperate.
He was afraid.
No matter how arrogant he appears on the surface, no matter how many times he wields his wooden sword, Yajiro is always just a man who grew up in a warm environment and the care of his parents.
Some boys who are overly pampered.
He violated a warrior's taboo. He failed to concentrate during the battle. Instead, he started to blame himself and lost the confidence to move forward.
He felt that he could not win, and he had a clear understanding of the consequences of losing the battle - death, so he began to become hesitant.
No matter how much inner self-encouragement I tried, my feet were still as if they were filled with lead and couldn't move.
The rogue narrowed his eyes with sharp eyes. He noticed this and knew that the young samurai master had lost. He also began to think about whether to hold back and just take off the valuables from the other party and leave. After all, killing a samurai who seemed to be very rich would be harmful to him. There isn't much benefit.
——
"Hey, isn't that Master Yajiro?" "What are you doing?"
The woman's voice suddenly sounded. The first one was in the Moon Country language with strict wording. It sounded like she came from a wealthy family. The next one was another person whose pronunciation was not very standard and her words were a little rude.
The white-haired girl and Miss Doctor walked out of the alley behind the two confronting people, followed closely by Sakura and Lulu.
The four people who went shopping to buy things got lost. The confident doctor lady thought she also knew something about town planning and acted as a tour guide. However, after all, she was Dr. Xingyong and not Dr. Land, so she just got more and more dizzy.
After completely losing their way, the four women started walking with the idea that "if they go in one direction, they will definitely find a way out." In the end, they inexplicably ran into such a scene.
"Tsk, do you know someone?" Liu Kou clicked his tongue, then raised his heels.
"I -" The confused young master turned around when he heard the noise, but was speechless. The sharp-eyed Luoan girl captured in an instant the red color at the bottom of the torn wide feather-original sleeve on his left hand and the color of it. Blood dripping onto the dirt floor.
Yajiro's face was pale and he was sweating profusely, his breathing was disordered and his body was shaking.
The metal reflected the sun, and the smell of blood mixed with the stench of sweat from the heat of battle.
This is a familiar smell to Mira.
She responded.
"Okay -" In an instant, the Luoan girl threw the snacks and sake she bought to Ling next to her, and then rushed out like lightning, taking off the bamboo hat that blocked her sight and heading towards the rogue bandit. The edge was thrown over.
"Tsk, woman?" The middle-aged man's rush towards Yajiro to attack was subconsciously stopped by the bamboo hat thrown towards him. He raised his hand to block the bamboo hat which could not cause much damage, but Mira was already I don't intend to rely on the fluffy hat to cause real damage.
The distance between the rogue and Yajiro is closer than the distance between the Luoan girl and the two.
It takes time for her to get close, but the opponent is able to attack Yajiro faster.
So Mira decisively threw away the bamboo hat.
——Let him stop and not close the distance between him and Yajiro to buy time.
——He then subconsciously raised his hand to block his vision and couldn't see what was going on.
All she needed was a few seconds.
When the bandit slowly lowered his hands in front of his face, and was about to vent his anger and show off his brute force by crushing the bamboo hat on the ground——
The girl had already rushed to him.
In these few seconds, she lowered her figure, decisively and swiftly closed the distance with long strides, and rushed directly between Yajiro and the rogue.
"What the hell -" Before the rogue could react in a hurry, he lowered his knife hand. The moment the one-handed knife was unsheathed, the weighted ball hit his chin from bottom to top. He lost it. Balancing fell to the ground, but still did not lose consciousness.
"Drink!" Mira then deflected her wrist while waving, and hit him on the forehead with the thick back of the knife.
"Boom!" The opponent immediately rolled his eyes, but the speed-seeking girl knew that her attack could not completely disable him, so she kicked the rogue's abdomen hard the moment he fell to the ground.
"Uh-huh -" The middle-aged gangster who was in pain and curled up subconsciously let go of the short knife held in his right hand, while the Luoan girl kept the tip of the knife facing him while shifting her position and used it without looking. He kicked the dagger away with his toes, to a position where the opponent couldn't reach him.
In the instant of the confrontation, she had already completed the two tasks of knocking down and disarming him, and she also spared her hands to prevent this man from being bloodied in the peaceful town, so as to avoid being accused by the government.
"Uh-" The other four people didn't react at all.
"Ugh..." The bandit, who was in so much pain and was dizzy, didn't know whether to cover himself or cover his forehead, curled up and groaned.
"Sakura and Aya check Yajiro's injuries. Lulu, untie the packaging ropes of the wine and snacks and bring them over." Mira, who still remained calm, spoke quickly to remind, while Aya, Sakura and Lulu just reacted.
The two quickly approached the young master who was stunned on the spot, while the Yiren girl untied the packaging rope and let the things scatter on the spot before walking over. But when the doctor tried to check his wound, she found that she couldn't break Yajiro's hand that was shaking but tightly holding the sword.
His muscles were stiff.
"Here, put down the knife!" The oiran who came to help said this with some displeasure, but the young master seemed to have lost his soul and could not react no matter how much he shouted.
"Press his waist with your knees -" Mila, who was still vigilant and pointed the knife at the rogue, directed Lulu to completely restrain him. The petite Yiren girl turned the rogue over with some difficulty to face him. He faced the dirt downwards, and then pressed his knees on his waist to use his weight to prevent him from turning over and resisting.
Then he tied the wrists of his hands and the ankles of his feet behind his back like he was tying up prey, and tied his hands and feet together.
"What's next?" The completely imprisoned bandits finally lost their threat. Lulu turned to look at Mira, while the other two finally opened Yajiro's fingers and removed the knife, and began to treat his wounds.
The young master fell softly the moment he relaxed. After confirming that there was no threat, the Luoan girl put away the one-handed knife she carried and picked up the bamboo hat, but just as she patted it When Hui was about to put it back on, there was movement on the other side.
"..."
In a short period of eye contact, it was obvious that both parties had clearly judged the situation.
The seven or eight new people who appeared were all men, ranging in age, but none of them looked like good people.
And after they saw the middle-aged bandit lying on the ground, their eyes became hostile.
"Tsk—" Mira turned her head.
"run!"
