A chill ran down my spine. I grabbed his arm and said urgently, "This is a martial arts performance, not a New Concept Writing Competition. Are you trying to get yourself killed by playing stream-of-consciousness with the judges?"
Xu Delong, however, didn't seem to care and said, "We've performed like this before, and Marshal Yue praised it!"
I jumped up and down, saying, "Even if your grandfather's grandfather said so, it's no use! If you don't have a stick, you can at least bring a broom, right?" Speaking of brooms, my eyes lit up. I remembered the battle at the Tiger Pavilion, where Lin Chong used a mop as a spear; naturally, 300 could use brooms as sticks. Getting 300 martial arts sticks in such a short time would be truly difficult, but there were several local product shops outside the stadium; getting 300 large brooms shouldn't be too hard. I quickly pulled over a few young soldiers, stuffed some money into their hands, and sent them out to buy brooms, specifically specifying that they wanted the long-handled straw brooms. Later, I simply told them, "The kind used for sweeping the streets—"
In the short time that followed, two more performance teams finished their shows, leaving only one team ahead of us.
I was pacing back and forth in a panic. The actors on stage, I don't even know which school they hired, were performing a Peking Opera piece called "Shizipo," also known as "Wu Song Fights at the Inn." The actress playing Sun Erniang was dressed in a tight black leather outfit, holding a whip, looking every bit the queen, while the two guards escorting Wu Song were portrayed as two submissive characters… I lost all interest in what was supposed to be a good play.
After the Queen stepped down, we became the performance troupe closest to the stage. The warriors sent out to buy nunchucks were late in returning, and the performance with 12 nunchucks on stage was already halfway through.
Finally, a soldier carrying about ten brooms arrived late, followed by a second and a third. Li Jingshui was the most resourceful; she hired two tricycles to bring 200 brooms at once. I had just finished distributing the brooms when the nunchaku left the stage, and the host signaled for 300 to come on stage.
Now things were really in trouble. The soldiers, who didn't even have time to deal with the broom heads, could only hurriedly step into the center of the stage. Since the stage couldn't accommodate so many people, only Xu Delong and four soldiers led the dance on stage, while the rest stood scattered around the stage. Three hundred large, golden brooms stood upright, perfectly aligned, creating a strangely spectacular sight.
Seeing that things had already come to this, I had no choice but to walk into the audience. The audience pointed and laughed, and someone said, "Why is the sanitation department sending a team too?" A little boy next to me said disdainfully, "Dad, don't talk nonsense, this is Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," pointing to a little soldier with a scar on his forehead in the arena, "I saw Harry Potter..."
I buried my head in my crotch (for creative purposes, please do not imitate) and walked back to the VIP seats, only to hear Xu Delong leisurely call out, "Rise—"
With a "whoosh," 300 displayed their starting stance, their movements as neat as if 300 tiny pieces of paper were being attracted by a magnet. Then, with a few quick, sweeping motions from top to bottom, several wheat stalks were shaken out of the bright yellow, newly bought brooms, swaying and fluttering among 300's orderly ranks, adding a touch of grimness to their already imposing presence.
Xu Delong twirled the broom around his waist, then thrust his arms forward, the broom head trembling violently. The soldiers were always a beat slower; the next moment, hundreds of brooms swept around his waist, then thrust forward, and the soldiers shouted in unison, "Kill!"
The tens of thousands of spectators in the stadium were stunned into silence for a long time by the shout. The old monk on the podium, who had been sitting with his eyes closed, suddenly raised his long eyebrows and opened his eyes. The other judges, who had been both amused and exasperated by the broom, now sat up straight.
Xu Delong quickened his pace, wielding the broom with incredible speed and precision, occasionally thrusting it out diagonally. Xiang Yu remarked, "Hmm, some of those moves resemble the Overlord Spear techniques."
Lin Chong chimed in, "Yes, sweeping horizontally is like a staff, and pointing vertically is like a spear. This set of skills is extremely suitable for killing large numbers of enemies on the battlefield."
So aren't these 300 brooms the legendary weapons of mass destruction? By the way, what will they do with all these brooms after they've finished their performance?
Lin Chong then took a closer look at Xiang Yu, clasped his hands in greeting, and said, "I haven't asked for your guidance yet?" Lin Chong hadn't gone drinking yesterday, and the heroes had all been surrounding Li Shishi, asking her about Yan Qing, so no one had introduced the two of them yet.
Xiang Yu, who was watching the performance on the field, casually waved his hand and said, "No problem, Xiang Yu."
I suddenly realized that both of them were skilled with guns, so I asked Xiang Yu, "Brother Yu, what do you think is the highest level of skill with a gun?"
Xiang Yu casually remarked, "Killing many people and winning battles is the highest level of achievement."
I glanced at Lin Chong and, recalling something similar he had said, was horrified: "You two are quite alike... uh, great minds think alike."
Lin Chong and Xiang Yu exchanged a smile, and the two spear masters from different generations thus formed a tacit understanding.
By this time, the movements of the 300 were no longer very synchronized, due to the increasingly rapid pace of the moves. Most of the attendees had little experience in traditional martial arts and were unfamiliar with battlefield combat; seeing the chaotic movements, they lost interest. However, a few experts gathered together, pointing and gesturing, while the five judges, as expected, watched the scene intently.
Xu Delong suddenly leaped high into the air, slamming his broom into the ground before landing, then flicking it up with a cunning and ruthless motion. The other soldiers followed suit, hundreds of brooms falling to the ground, and with a flick…
I knew something bad was going to happen. The playground was all dirt, and they were carrying big brooms—how could they not kick up dust? With hundreds of people poking and kicking, dust filled the air instantly. What I didn't expect was that similar actions would increase. I saw Xu Delong frantically drawing circles on the ground on the stage; I had no idea what he was trying to do.
Lin Chong clapped his hands and exclaimed, "What a fine set of hook-and-sickle spear techniques! I just don't know why they also use this spear technique?" Actually, it's quite simple. The use of hook-and-sickle spears to break the chained cavalry at Liangshan was only temporary. When Yue Fei's army fought against the Jin army, the enemy's cavalry formations were even more difficult to deal with, so the 300-meter hook-and-sickle spear technique was used even more skillfully. When they didn't have spears, they were also extremely adept at sweeping the horses' legs with sticks.
...However, even the most superb marksmanship was no longer visible. The dust stirred up by hundreds of large brooms frantically pounding the ground completely obscured the 300-square-meter area. It's no exaggeration to say that even if they were performing a sermon inside, people wouldn't be able to see them.
At first, you could vaguely see figures moving in the dust, but in the end, you really couldn't see anything at all. All you could see was yellow dust rolling on the playground, like a real monster gradually growing stronger.
Unfortunately, a gentle easterly wind just happened to blow, neither too fast nor too slow, which carried the cloud of dust slowly toward the stage. The audience on the other side of the stage scurried away from their seats, laughing and joking, while the five judges were instantly dumbfounded.
Do you think they should run or not? If they wanted to run, of course they would have time, but then the audience would have made a fool of themselves, and what would be the point of this competition?
If they hadn't run, the 300-meter runner would have swept more than half the dirt across the entire playground. Once the dust settled, they could have simply placed small wooden signs with their names on their five original seats—that would have been ready-made graves. The country has banned burials for many years; these five were actually an exception.
At this point, the difference between believers and non-believers became very clear. The old monk closed his eyes again, chanting Buddhist mantras softly, his face dignified and resolute, displaying a compassionate sentiment of "If I don't go to hell, who will?"; the old Taoist priest smiled inscrutablely, as if reciting, "The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; one begets three, three begets ten thousand, Zhuangzi turned into a butterfly..." In short, his expression was very ethereal, very ethereal indeed; the man to the left of the chairman of the judging panel seemed to have a rather clean appearance, instinctively covering the rim of his teacup in the face of the oncoming sandstorm; the man to the right of the chairman strangely revealed a tender and nostalgic emotion. I later learned that he was from Inner Mongolia, and the scene before him might have reminded him of his hometown, and—the sandstorms of his hometown…
The chairman looked around, sighed deeply, circulated his inner energy, and sat there waiting for his death.
The Yellow Demon mercilessly devoured our five beloved judges...
I don't know when the 300 stopped; it took quite a while before I could vaguely see their motionless shadows. After some more time, a gentle breeze swept away the dust around them. The soldiers were covered in a thick layer of dirt on their heads and shoulders, but without orders, none of them brushed it off. They stood motionless, barely blinking. Each of them had a small braid in their hair, just like the Terracotta Warriors. I turned to look for Qin Shi Huang, and sure enough, I saw him staring at the 300, muttering to himself, "Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh—"
After quite some time, once the dust settled on the stage, the real fun began. The five judges looked like they'd been cast out of clay. The 300 judges, covered in a thick layer of dust, kept moving, while these others could only sit still—you can imagine the state of their condition. They kept their eyes closed and motionless, clearly unaware that the sandstorm had passed. Several staff members, suppressing their laughter, ran up and pulled the judges out of the dust, changed the tablecloths, and used damp towels to restore them to their original state. The judge who had been covering his teacup demonstrated truly first-rate internal energy cultivation; he even picked up the cup and took a sip, chewing it for a while like he was eating fried noodles. Among them, the monk had no worries at all, simply wiping his head with a towel, while the hair of the laymen looked particularly sparse. The Taoist priest was the best; he took off his hat and placed it on the table, revealing a head of long, shiny black hair that was exceptionally dazzling.
Chapter Three: Martial Arts Families
The chairman of the judging panel asked the staff a few questions, and then suddenly gave us a hostile look. My heart skipped a beat.
After the other teams resumed their performances, Xu Delong led 300 people back to school. They were clearly very satisfied with their performance, and each of them looked quite pleased with themselves.
Li Jingshui and Wei Tiezhu ran over and grabbed my hands excitedly, saying, "Brother Xiao, how did our performance go?"
I forced a smile and said, "Not bad."
Wei Tiezhu said, "The preceding parts are all transitions; the most exciting part is the Demon-Subduing Staff Technique that follows."
I said, "Aren't those hook-and-sickle spears behind you?"
Wei Tiezhu said, "That's just a transition."
I clutched my chest and said, "...You should all go back and rest early." I need to ask Secretary Liu for some quick-acting pills later, and also reimburse the cost of the broom.
After I saw them off, thinking about what Wei Tiezhu had said, I felt like I just wanted to kill myself.
I returned to my seat with a gloomy expression. I couldn't tell which martial arts school was performing; they seemed to be a martial arts family. A nail board had already been set up on the stage. An old man and his young son went up to spar. Finally, the father kicked his son, sending him sprawling onto the nail board. The son never got up again. The son's sons—two grandsons around thirteen or fourteen years old—carried up a stone slab and placed it on their father. Then, a woman with a slender waist leaped onto the stage, brandished a small gong, and struck it for a while. She then bowed respectfully and said with a charming smile, "Three generations of a family come to perform, all gathered at the martial arts gathering. May I ask where the tavern is? The strong ones will make your throat throb with laughter!"
The audience was stunned, and the judges were collectively petrified. My depression vanished instantly, and I adjusted the focus of my binoculars, saying, "Hey, this is interesting."
At this point, some people started to jeer. The slender-waisted young woman, used to such sights, remained unfazed, casually beckoning a few men to her with seductive eyes, and had them inspect the sharpness of the nail board on the ground and the authenticity of the stone slab. The men touched and tapped here and there, then unanimously raised their hands in all directions to indicate that it was real. Whistles and cheers began to emanate from the audience. A group of bald men from a martial arts school in Northeast China even started a wave, standing up and sitting down repeatedly from east to west, creating a huge shockwave. This infected the Guangdong team next to them, then the teams from Shanxi, Shandong, Hubei, and Henan, and the audience joined in the jeering. The entire stadium was in a frenzy of human waves, which only subsided when it reached the quiet and reserved Gansu team.
At this climax, the young woman's father-in-law took the hammer from his grandson, and with a swift stroke, the stone slab on the man's body snapped in two. The man leaped up, picked up a bowl of water, and gulped it down. Then he turned to the audience, asking if his back had been turned into a watering can.