Chapter 60: Desperate Fight
Guo Yi threw himself flat against the rocky ground, a stone driving into his chest and forcing the air from his lungs. Under mortal threat, the human body reveals astonishing potential. After several desperate rolls, he found himself behind a large boulder. In that frantic minute—perhaps less—he glimpsed Salina struck by an arrow, crumpling motionless to the earth.
Xue Ziliang reacted even faster, probably because his size made him an obvious target. Most of the arrows flew toward him, and within seconds he'd taken four or five hits. Guo Yi watched him crawl across the pebbly ground like a beached fish, one hand shedding his backpack while the other seized Salina's pack strap to drag her toward cover. Arrows continued raining down, though the aim had grown erratic.
"Guo, shoot!" Xue Ziliang bellowed as he hauled the wounded woman. His face was contorted with effort, the sight of it jolting Guo Yi into action. He was ultimately a desk worker—his reflexes slower. Having barely recovered his wits, he raised his pistol toward the source of the arrows and squeezed off several shots. In the chaos, he lost count of how many. From somewhere in the tall grass came agonized screams.
Seizing the opening, Xue Ziliang hoisted Salina onto his back and sprinted forward in a low crouch. Guo Yi scrambled to follow. Amid the panic, he felt something slam into his back from behind—probably an arrow—but he didn't dare look.
From the nearby trees and underbrush, over a dozen figures burst forth, charging with six- or seven-foot white wooden poles that they swung wildly. Caught off guard, Guo Yi absorbed blow after blow. Fortunately, his backpack took the brunt of the punishment. He fired twice and dropped one attacker, driving the others back momentarily.
"Push forward!" Xue Ziliang roared, snatching up a fallen white pole from beside its owner—a strangely dressed man now writhing and moaning on the ground. Even burdened with Salina, his confidence in his own strength kept panic at bay. The arrows he'd taken had either been stopped by his vest or missed vital areas. He knew that retreat meant certain death; their only hope lay in breaking through.
The clubbing Guo Yi had taken to his head left him dizzy, and worse—in the chaos, he'd emptied and dropped his pistol. But when he spotted a man in a blue robe ahead, waving a long sword and directing the mob to block their escape, something in him rallied. With a war cry, he charged straight at the man. The blue-robed figure held his ground, raising his blade to meet the attack. In that instant, a strange thought flashed through Guo Yi's mind: Is this a period drama? The man clearly wore his hair in a topknot and dressed in a traditional long robe. That moment of hesitation cost him—the blade was already descending, biting into his shoulder blade. The agony nearly made him drop his pole. Several others rushed in, raining blows with their white sticks. Guo Yi fell, desperately shielding his head while flailing his pole to resist. Despite the terror, his mind remained crystal clear: They are going to beat me to death.
In that moment of despair, a thunderous roar split the air:
"Son of a bitch!"
The head of the attacker in front of him suddenly burst apart—brains, blood, and bone fragments spraying everywhere, spattering across Guo Yi's face. That red-and-white explosion would remain vivid in his memory for decades to come.
Xue Ziliang had run ahead but, seeing his companion trapped, had rushed back after setting Salina down. Coming from behind, his single pole strike shattered a man's skull. The others, confronted with this ferocious newcomer, faltered in panic. Guo Yi seized the moment, rolling and scrambling toward him.
But the attackers didn't scatter. Someone shouted something unintelligible, and over a dozen of them regrouped and charged again. Xue Ziliang, caught while lifting Salina back onto his shoulders, took several blows—all of which landed on the woman instead. She cried out, blood spraying from her mouth onto Xue Ziliang's face.
Seeing his companion burdened and about to fall, Guo Yi ignored his own pain and swung his pole to intercept. The front attackers rained blows like a relentless storm. Facing death, Guo Yi fought like a man possessed, wielding his pole with desperate fury and forcing them back several steps.
Some measure of composure returned. These opponents were gaunt and haggard, smaller in build than him. His courage rose. Watching their chaotic, uncontrolled swings, he steadied himself and fell back on the bayonet drill from his military training. As they stumbled backward in confusion, he surged forward with a powerful thrust. Though the pole lacked any bayonet tip, the full-force blow shattered his opponent's jaw and nose. The man screamed, collapsed, and rolled on the ground clutching his ruined face, wailing.
The blue-robed leader shouted something and led another charge, slashing at Guo Yi's face. Guo Yi sidestepped and executed a textbook parry—the butt end of his pole smashing into the man's face. In a flash, amid a hideous scream, an eye—black and white—flew from its socket.
The dozen-odd attackers, seeing Guo Yi blood-soaked and savage, watching him drop their leader with a single blow, lost their nerve entirely. With panicked shouts, they dragged the blue-robed man away and fled in disarray. Many years later, locals still vividly recounted how Guo Yi and Xue Ziliang had beaten their attackers into panicked retreat with nothing but two wooden poles.
"Way to go! Guo, you are like Bruce Lee!" (Note: Li Xiaolong's English name.)
Guo Yi weakly waved a hand and collapsed onto the ground, gasping for breath. In all his years with the security services, on all his missions, he had never experienced such a heart-pounding brush with death. Now, with the tension released, his entire body screamed with pain. His face was wet—when he touched it, his fingers came away bloody. Whose blood it was, he couldn't say.
"Guo, let us go—they might come back!" Xue Ziliang called.
"I need to check something!" Guo Yi replied. Using his pole as a cane, he limped toward the fallen bodies. He wanted to search these strange people—and hopefully recover his pistol.
After another kilometer, all three had reached their limits. Their wounds ached with increasing intensity, but no one seemed to be pursuing. They decided to hide, rest, bandage their injuries, and figure out what to do next. Ahead, the river curved sharply, forming a rocky shoal where water tumbled over stones with a thunderous roar. They found a secluded spot by the bank—a small stone cave amid a pile of boulders, surrounded by tall grass and dense woods. Others would scarcely notice them here.
Xue Ziliang used a rubber water bag to fetch river water, washing away the blood and examining their wounds. Though arrows had stuck out of him like quills on a porcupine, none had actually pierced flesh—most had struck his backpack, and the rest had been stopped by his bulletproof vest. Beyond scrapes from rolling on the ground, he had no real injuries. He'd taken the fewest pole strikes of anyone.
Guo Yi had also been hit by several arrows. Fortunately, he'd worn his stab-proof vest from the start. Only one arrow had struck his arm, but his thick combat uniform had cushioned the impact, so it barely penetrated. A slight tug and it came free. Xue Ziliang shook his head at the rusty arrowhead as he applied antiseptic from the first-aid kit.
"Guo, you need a tetanus shot," he said. "The wound is not deep, but this arrowhead..."
"I know—nothing we can do now..." Guo Yi was exhausted and aching all over. Tetanus wasn't his only concern. The gash on his head probably needed stitches—for now, it was simply cleaned, disinfected, and bandaged. The saber blow to his shoulder had been stopped by the vest, but he couldn't raise his arm anymore—whether from damaged bones or tendons, he didn't know. He'd taken many pole blows and feared broken bones or internal injuries. Fortunately, nothing had felt abnormal during the walk.
Salina's condition was worse. She had one arrow wound in her leg—luckily, her knee guard's strap had deflected the shaft, so the wound wasn't deep. But while being carried on Xue Ziliang's back, she had essentially served as a human shield, absorbing several blows to her back that had caused apparent internal injuries. The immediate problem was her fever, probably from a cold. The first-aid kit contained fever reducers; Xue Ziliang dissolved some in water and fed them to her.
Outside, drizzle began to fall. The cave was small; with Salina lying down, their legs extended beyond its shelter. Xue Ziliang found waterproof sheets in his pack and covered each of them.
Guo Yi's head throbbed, his mind churning. Beyond the life-and-death crisis, that fight had raised other troubles. These people—their clothes and appearance—were unmistakably ancient. At first, he'd held some skepticism. He pulled at a corpse's topknot—it was real hair, not a wig. Their crude clothes and weapons couldn't possibly be television props. The leader's saber was genuine iron, not some machine-stamped steel replica.
The dead had carried little—just copper coins and odds and ends. Guo Yi examined the coins closely: roughly "Tianqi Tongbao." What year was Tianqi? He couldn't remember—only that Tianqi had been Chongzhen's older brother, the Ming dynasty's second-to-last emperor. Almost every corpse carried a small pouch containing a curved piece of metal, a stone, and some loose cotton-like plant material. Guo Yi studied these items for a long time, utterly baffled.
"This is a fire striker," Xue Ziliang said, leaning over.
"What?"
"A fire striker." He adjusted his waterproof sheet. "You are Chinese—this is your ancestors' fire-making tool."
"Damn—your ancestors were Chinese too..." Guo Yi swore, then asked, "How do you know?"
"The New York Metropolitan Museum has one on display. I have seen it." Xue Ziliang took the fire striker and flint in hand. Holding the flint in his left hand with tinder pressed between stone and fingers, he gripped the striker in his right and struck the blade against the stone, producing a shower of sparks. "I have never practiced, but the museum demonstrator could light the tinder in just a few strikes. Quite magical."
A chill crawled up Guo Yi's spine.
(End of Chapter)