99.Practical martial skill is a sensation earned with the body on the battlefield.
Practical martial skill is a sensation earned with the body on the battlefield.
It has no fixed form, no codified pattern, no grand name worthy of being passed down.
You turn, gather force, and bring it down in a crushing strike.
You see the opening of the one retreating and drive a rising kick straight into that space.
It is nothing more than accumulated instinct for survival.
If one were forced to give such movement a name, what would it be?
It has no form, no techniques—only the motions that survived remain.
Lee Hui ordered his subordinates to bind the remaining two.
Two, three, and those knocked unconscious by stones—seven in total.
Three remained.
One leader, and two who followed in his shadow.
They were likely somewhere in a corner, measuring the situation.
He would not come.
He was not the kind of man who would risk himself to rescue beaten subordinates.
He might say, "If they're captured, you go and see."
But he would not stake his own life on loyalty.
Lee Hui gave a signal.
Those guarding the perimeter came inside, and the relief unit moved out.
There was no urgent need for the change, but they were men as well.
They needed food and rest.
In front of Jinga Manor stood the entire county garrison and eight Black Blade warriors, all bound.
It would have been convenient if the magistrate came, but the head of the Black Blade unit would not.
Lee Hui assembled the county soldiers.
He had them cut timber, raise wooden palisades, reinforce the weaker points along the outer perimeter.
He set dislocated arms back into place and bound injured shoulders tightly with coarse cloth.
Those who could still be used had to be kept alive.
The method of defense depends on the nature of the enemy.
The likelihood of a large army descending was low.
But if General Jin Mugwang were to return, that would change everything.
Then an army would come.
For now, it was not an army.
It was assassins.
Spies.
The Black Blade would have sent men who seep in rather than charge head-on.
Lee Hui marked the likely routes of infiltration and ordered traps set along them.
The outer walls were reinforced with wooden barricades.
The county soldiers were inexperienced in such work.
Their hands were clumsy, their judgment slow.
They were cursed and struck as they labored.
It was closer to forced labor than duty.
But this labor would hold the line.
As the minimum defenses against assassins took shape,
Lee Hui's face grew increasingly rigid.
Outwardly calm, inwardly calculating.
He had expected watchers on the main house.
One or two would have sufficed.
But there were ten.
That number was not light.
Even raiding the estate of a high official rarely required so many.
And this was unlikely to be all.
There would be more within the county.
Their objective was beginning to take shape in his mind.
Perhaps the Black Blade had not truly accepted the General's death.
That thought pressed heavily on Lee Hui's chest.