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INVINCIBLE UNDER HEAVEN isn't just a regular crowdfunding campaign. It's also an effort to support fellow indie author Donald Jacob Uitvlugt. His family has run into difficult times lately, encountering one financial hit after another. He'd had to run multiple GoFundMe campaigns just to survive. By adding Jiao Tu's Endeavour to your cart at checkout, or by selecting the Sword and Swordbreaker perks, you will help the Uitvlugts get back on their feet.
As a bonus, here's a sneak peek of part 1 of Chapter 1 of Book 4, Fist of Heaven and Earth. Here we see Li Ming dealing with the consequences of newfound fame, and an insight into the undercurrent of blood that runs through the rivers and lakes. Enjoy!
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Martial arts were not for elevating your ego. There was no glory in winning a pointless duel, no face in losing one. Li Ming had made a solemn promise never to show off his skills, nor to offer or accept meaningless challenges. All his life, he had abided by his oath.
But now… some things were more important than personal reputation.
The northerner had blown into the village of Fuyang with the first winds of spring. At the break of dawn, he had appeared at the gates, alone and unarmed. His sudden appearance had taken the watchmen off-guard. They swore up and down that they hadn’t seen him coming, even though there was only one road into the village, wide and smooth and level, bordered by sparse woods. It was as if he had simply materialized out of the morning mists.
With a smile and a wave, he approached the stunned guards. He stopped a respectful distance away and issued his request.
“I wish to see the Rising Dragon of Fuyang.”
His rhotic accent, with its unfamiliar tones and irregular pronunciations, marked him as a stranger from far away. The guards did the only thing they could think of. They placed a call, conveyed the visitor’s wishes, and received their instructions: escorted the northerner to the Li Family estate.
The junior man stood his post. The senior beckoned the northerner to follow. The northerner trailed behind him, hands in plain view, a soft smile on his face, his expression both unfailingly polite and utterly unreadable.
The Li estate was almost indistinguishable from its neighbors. Almost. Like every other house in the village, it was a single-story structure built of rammed earth. Ancient ceramic tiles, weathered with age, formed a steep roof with dramatically upswept eaves. Around the back, there was a shed nearly as large as the house itself. The sole visible concession to modernity on the outside was the air conditioning unit.
But that was only what the untrained eye would see.
The senior watchman knocked on the door, exactly three times. His knuckles shook the wood-paneled steel security door in its thick, reinforced frame. A minute later, the door opened to reveal Li Guo An.
The years had agreed with him. Decades of labor under the hot sun had packed sturdy muscle on his deceptively small frame, lean and taut and surprisingly powerful. A forest of fine lines on his face spoke of many smiles and much laughter. His dark eyes sparkled in the light. He dressed in the heavy cottons and denims of a farmer. Though the morning was warming up, the sleeves of his shirt rolled down to his wrist. The calluses on his hands, on the base of his fingers and the web of his thumbs, could have come from a lifetime of handling farm equipment.
They had not.
The northerner smacked his fist into his palm over his chest and bowed slightly.
“Greetings, Li da ren!”
Li Guo An saluted him too, but shook his head.
“Good morning. But please don’t call me ‘da ren’. As you can see, I am quite short indeed.”
The watchman backed away from the door, chuckling softly. The northerner laughed gustily from his belly.
“I have heard many things about you, but your sense of humor was not among them, Colonel Li.”
“I’m not a colonel anymore. That was a lifetime ago.”
“Ah, my apologies.”
The men stood where they were, two tigers sizing each other up.
The northerner was tall, easily a head taller than Li Guo An. His lustrous black hair, tied into a topknot, added an extra fist to his height. His legs were like tree trunks, his arms like steel whips, his dark silk robes cut to emphasize the swell of his muscles. His collar struggled to contain his huge neck and formidable trapezius muscles. His hands hung easily by his side, the knuckles unusually swollen, the fingers hooked like claws. On the small of his back, mounted on a belt, was a waxed canvas pack.
“May I inquire as to the purpose of your visit?” Li Guo An asked, at last.
“I have heard much about the famous Rising Dragon of Fuyang. I’ve come to pay my respects,” the northerner said.
“Who is that? Are you perhaps referring to my son?”
As he spoke, the older Li stepped aside and gestured at the living room.
Li Ming sat a couch, angled towards the door. A shaft of sunlight streaming through a thick window, reinforced against a plasma bolt, fell upon a face far too old for one so young. His eyes were wide and unblinking, drinking in the northerner and everything around him. His bare feet were planted firmly on the ground, his back and neck erect, his powerful hands resting on his lap. He was dressed for the indoors, in a short-sleeved shirt and ankle-length pants, and with the reality shapers on his forearms, he was ready for war.
The northerner poked his head in. His face brightened, but darkness lingered behind his eyes.
“Ah! The famous Li Ming! We finally meet!”
The northerner hastened into a salute.
Rising to his feet, Li Ming smoothly returned the gesture.
“A pleasure to see you this morning,” Li Ming said. “May I know your honored name?”
“Ah, please excuse my manners. I am Han Yong.”
“Please come in, Mr. Han,” the elder Li Ming said.
The men sat around the living room table. Carved from lacquered ebony hardwood, the joints fitted together by hand without the use of glue or screws or nails, it was protected by a tempered glass surface. It would stand up to hot liquids—or a beating. As if in awareness of its mass and length, Han Yong sat to Li Ming’s left, perpendicular to the table.
“Would you like anything to drink?” Li Guo An asked. “Coffee? Tea?”
“Tea,” Han Yong said.
The second he spoke the word, Mrs. Li emerged from the kitchen, carrying a tray in her hands. On it was a kettle, with three cups on saucers. She laid the cups before the men and filled them with steaming green tea. Han Yong bent the first two fingers of his hand and rapped them against the table. The Li Ming men echoed the gesture. Mrs. Li placed the kettle within Li Ming’s reach, then retreated.
Out the corner of his eye, Li Ming spotted his younger sister peeking out her bedroom. Their mother quickly shooed her back inside.
Han Yong brought the cup to his lips and blew, deeply and deliberately. Then he took a small sip. And smiled.
“This tea is wonderful!” Han Yong exclaimed.
“We brought out our best for you,” Li Guo An said.
“I appreciate the thought.”
The Lis now sipped their own tea.
“Where have you come from, Mr. Han?” Li Ming asked.
“Beizhou.”
The northern provinces, of course. His accent had given it away. The three provinces of the north theoretically made up an independent state, but in practice their ties to the Zhongxia Republic were growing stronger day by day. Li Ming suspected that he might live long enough to see a union of Beizhou and Zhongxia. Or, more accurately, reunion.
“You’ve traveled a long way, Mr. Han,” Li Guo An said.
“Oh, it’s not that far, not anymore. I caught an airship to Bao An, then traveled the rest of the way here.”
“The world is getting smaller every day.”
“True, true.”
“How did you approach our village?” Li Ming asked. “No one saw you coming.”
Han Yong laughed again.
“I walked, of course.”
“You must have walked all night.”
“It is a pleasant hike, isn’t it?”
What kind of man would walk for all night through beast-haunted woods just to visit a faraway town? The kind of man who was up to no good. Or crazy. Or both.
“You’ve come a long way just to see me,” Li Ming said.
“Word of your exploits have traveled far and wide. Everyone in the jianghu knows of the Rising Dragon of Fuyang.”
Li Ming shook his head.
“That honor belongs to my father. Or, if you insist, my great-grandfather. I am merely a biaohang.”
“A tiger father does not beget a dog son. And truly, you’re far too humble. You unearthed a forgotten Yue military base, destroyed hordes of monsters, saved two nations. How could anyone _not _call you the Rising Dragon of Fuyang?”
“You’re far too kind.”
Li Guo An drained his tea in a single gulp and set it down with a noisy clink.
“You have visited us. I trust you are satisfied?”
“Indeed, indeed,” Han Yong said, nodding. “Word has it that Li Ming is a formidable martial artist.”
Li Ming finished his own tea. His clink was even noisier than his father’s.
“I have known many men more skilled than I. Compared to them, I am only a dabbler,” Li Ming said.
“Your Medal of Valor citation says otherwise,” Han Yong said.
This was getting out of hand. Han Yong knew the rules of tea etiquette. The Lis had offered two signals inviting him to leave. Did he need a third?
“I simply adapted to the situation,” Li Ming said.
As he spoke, Li Ming refilled his father’s cup. Li Guo An circled the filled cup in its saucer, slowly.
“Few people willingly seek out hand-to-hand combat in this day and age,” Li Guo An said. “It is extremely dangerous, more so on the modern battlefield.”
“And yet martial arts is still the foundation of the jianghu,” Han Yong said.
With this proclamation, Han Yong finished his tea. Li Ming refilled his cup, then rapidly circled the kettle on its saucer. The swift grinding of pottery was the clearest, yet most polite, gesture for Han Yong to leave, short of shooing him out.
Or kicking him out.
“You are part of the jianghu too?” Li Ming asked.
“In a manner of speaking. I am not an accredited biaohang like you, but I am a student of the martial arts,” Han Yong replied.
“Ah? Which one?”
Han Yong smiled.
“Shi da xing.”
The Ten Great Shapes. The sister art of wuxingquan, the Fist of the Five Elements, the art the Lis specialized in. Among the myriad of martial arts practiced by the Xia people, shi da xing was called the most vicious, most venomous of styles.
“A formidable fist,” Li Guo An said agreeably. “How long have you been studying?”
“Ten years, under a variety of masters in the north. Shifu Jiang, Shifu Lu, Shifu Zhang…”
“I’m afraid I’m not familiar with them.”
“I understand. The jianghu is vast, and they prefer to teach small classes.”
“Ah,” Li Guo An said, his voice so neutral, so vacant of meaning, anyone could read anything into it.
“There’s only so much you can learn in your own village,” Han Yong continued. “By traveling to other places, I hope to deepen my understanding of the art.”
“Which is why you’ve come here,” Li Ming said.
“Yes. I’ve heard much about your gongfu. I wish to see it for myself.”
And here it was. The challenge.
“Our gongfu is the gongfu of the An Family,” Li Guo An said. “If you wish to see it, perhaps you could learn it instead. An Shigong lives in Beizhou too. You needn’t come all the way here.”
Han Yong shrugged with a smile.
“I’m here, aren’t I? And besides, I am not just here to see your art. I have come to spread my own.”
Li Guo An’s eyes hardened. His hands wrapped around his teacup.
“Is that so?” he asked quietly.
“Dongshan Province has many famous biaohang and martial artists, but none of them practice shi da xing. As a practitioner, it is my duty, and my desire, to spread the teachings here.”
“You said you trained under several masters,” Li Ming said. “I take it they trained you in the old ways too?”
Han Yong’s head bobbed.
“Correct.”
“Fuyang is a small backwater village. You’ll find few worthy opponents here. The provincial capital of Bao An is another story. Perhaps you could try your luck there?”
Han Yong emptied his cup and smiled like a wolf.
“You are here, aren’t you?”
“You wish to cross hands with me?” Li Ming asked.
“Yes. I wish to test our skills on the lei tai.”
“Do you understand what you’re asking?” Li Guo An asked.
“Of course. And I’ll be glad to fight anyone else who wishes to see shi da xing for themselves as well.”
Han Yong wanted to build his name by destroying Li Ming’s own. By taking on all comers on the lei tai, he would prove the supremacy of his style above all others in the area. The customs of the jianghu demanded that any martial arts master who lost to the supreme victor would stop teaching others.
Han Yong was here to assert his ego. Not a fight Li Ming was supposed to engage in. On the other hand, by the old ways, to refuse a lei tai match when you were capable of fighting was the same as declaring that you had no confidence in your skills, and no one would respect a martial artist who would not test his mettle.
The Lis were the leaders of the town militia. They were the closest Fuyang had to martial arts instructors. If they were forced to stop, the town would be exposed to the beasts that lurked in the woods. And the honor of the An family, the ones who had transmitted the art to the Lis, would also be at risk.
Li Ming sighed. He had anticipated this. It wasn’t the first time he’d been called out for a challenge match, though it was the first time he’d been challenged to a lei tai duel. When the Jianghu Times foisted the moniker of the Rising Dragon of Fuyang on him last month, without his knowledge or approval, he knew it was only a matter of time before someone came to his doorstep.
And here he was now.
“Do you accept?” Han Yong prompted.
Li Ming looked at Li Ming square in the eyes.
“I do.”
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