Chapter 5
*Third-Person Perspective*
"Eat?" The bandit with the silver fang frowned, shoving the girls off his lap. They scrambled away with a whimper. He made a show of laying his greasy hand on the hilt of the sword at his belt. "You lost, friend?"
"I doubt it," replied the man who had just broken into the establishment, letting a predatory grin spread across his face. He turned to the goat girls and the elderly cook with the grey beard who was peering out from behind the kitchen door. "What are you all waiting for? Run, while you still can."
They glanced immediately at the head jackal. He hesitated, then waved them off — and the hostages, stumbling over one another, bolted for the back exit. Notably, none of the jackals moved to stop them. They apparently had no desire to lose their living playthings in the middle of a brawl.
"There we go." The snow leopard's voice dropped into a growl, burning with the desire to test this supposedly fearsome bandit — and to enjoy himself in the process. "Now then, dog. Time to break those ugly faces of yours."
Almost the entire gang rose from their seats at once, overturning chairs. Some stared at the intruder with visible unease. A few had already drawn their weapons and were striking clumsy stances, trying to use sheer posturing to intimidate Tai Lung. The air in the tavern grew even thicker.
"Brave one, aren't you," Sabo said, grimacing as he sized up the smirking guest — who appeared not to have noticed the dozen men around him. "Doesn't matter. Killing your kind is a hobby of mine." The jackal's face split into a blood-hungry grin as he rose from his seat. "I'll peel the skin from your skull and make myself a rice-wine bowl."
"Get to the point, big talker," the leopard cut in, widening his grin. "Are you all mouth, or is there something else?"
"Ha… I won't even need my sword for you…" the jackal exhaled, lowering his head and letting his scabbard clatter to the floor in a show of arrogant contempt. "Actually, I changed my mind. Your pathetic skull is going to be my chamber pot!" Every word dripped with hatred as he launched himself at the self-assured master who had dared to insult him.
Sabo, known as Iron Tooth, had once walked the path of a martial artist himself. His master had taken three students, and Sabo had been the second — in both age and strength. Master Ha-Ku had taught them much, but the path he offered — discipline, self-restraint, the protection of the weak — had not appealed to his students.
One night they simply killed him in his sleep and took the low road. Each of the three students, bound together by the murder of their teacher, had formed his own gang and set about doing evil across China as they pleased. Three times someone walking the path of kung fu had stood against Sabo, and three times the jackal had killed them without particular difficulty, using each victory to convince himself he had surpassed that path — sinking ever deeper into the delusion of his own invincibility.
He surged from his place and became a blurred, russet shadow. All his hatred poured into his signature technique — the Jackal's Lightning Bite, claws aimed directly at the leopard's throat. It was the move that had ended his last fight with a master.
Tai Lung simply smirked. He shifted slightly to the right and gave the jackal a leisurely kick.
Sabo's claws tore through empty air, whistling an inch past the leopard's neck. The unexpected, almost lazy kick sent the jackal stumbling forward, and he barely managed to stop himself before hitting the wall. The noise of the dozen bandits in the tavern went instantly silent.
"Fast enough. But too straightforward." Tai Lung turned toward him, unhurried. "Too simple, little dog."
"Die!" Sabo roared, his pride stung again.
He charged in a second time. This time it was a series — quick, jagged strikes aimed at the eyes, the groin, the solar plexus. Dirty techniques learned on the open road, mixed with the remnants of Master Ha-Ku's teaching.
Tai Lung moved as though dancing. He didn't retreat. He met every attack: a light sweep of the back of his hand redirected a blow, a short forearm block stopped a kick, a step forward, and Sabo was hitting air while Tai Lung's elbow tapped him firmly but calmly under the ribs.
The jackal reeled, gasping. It didn't hurt exactly — but it humiliated.
He still hadn't landed a single hit.
"You…" Sabo rasped. "Stop dodging!"
"Weak, little dog." The leopard's smile grew wider. "Your stance is broken. You lean too far forward when you throw with your right. And yet you actually thought you could set the terms here? Not a chance."
It was true, and Sabo knew it. The three "masters" he had killed had been barely trained beginners. This leopard was simply using his own force against him and testing what the jackal was capable of — the way his old master had, years ago.
Fear began to eat through the bandit leader's confidence. He attacked again, less decisively this time. He tried to fake with a leg and strike simultaneously with a palm — but Tai Lung didn't even react to the feint. The leopard calmly waited for the moment Sabo committed to the strike, and when the jackal put his full weight behind it, the master answered.
It was not a devastating blow. It was a short, precise push of the palm into the chest — and yet to Sabo it felt like a battering ram. He hadn't simply taken a hit in a fight. He felt the master's fist drive every last bit of air from his lungs, and somewhere in the back of his mind came the understanding — the leopard was still holding back.
His breath failed him. Sabo stumbled backward. Tai Lung stepped forward.
A strike to the shoulder that killed his balance.
A jab of two fingers into the solar plexus.
A sweep.
Sabo hit the floor on his back, raising a cloud of dust. Dead silence in the tavern. The bandits clutching their blades didn't move, watching their invincible leader flounder helplessly on the ground.
Tai Lung stood over him, arms folded across his chest.
"Your claws were enough for me, were they?" The leopard quoted him back to himself. "Show-off."
Rage, humiliation, and primal terror crashed over Sabo at once. He had lost. Completely. In front of his entire gang. His eyes darted frantically across the floor — and then he saw it. A few steps away, thrown down in a moment of arrogant pride, lay his saber in its scabbard.
Victory at any cost.
Forgetting honor, forgetting words, forgetting everything he'd ever known of the warrior's path, Sabo lunged desperately for the weapon. He slid across the filthy floor, fingers locking around the hilt, and in the next instant he was on his feet with a gleaming blade pointed forward.
"Now you're going to dance for me, you bastard!" he shrieked, driving the point toward the leopard.
Tai Lung sighed heavily. The grin faded from his face, replaced by disappointment.
"You're no warrior. You're garbage." His golden eyes flared vivid blue, and in the same instant he was standing directly before the bandit who had his sword raised high — except now there was a hole in the bandit's chest and blood was spreading from it. "I'd rather not even dirty my hands on you," the snow leopard said quietly, watching the blood flow from the wound.
The sight that met the bandits stopped them cold: their leader stood with his sword raised above his head, while the unfamiliar master — wreathed in blue light — stood before him, fist buried in the jackal's chest, having torn out his heart in a single motion.
"H-how…" Sabo managed with his last breath, but his killer didn't bother to answer.
"I was waiting for something interesting. All I got was a half-trained amateur and a pack of blunt-faced jackals." Tai Lung glanced at the remaining men. "You've disappointed me. Say goodbye."
"Wait, we can—" One of the bandits dropped his sword and tried to speak, but his head came off with a single palm strike.
For the next minute, under the screaming of the remaining gang, they were killed one by one.
***
*Tai Lung's POV*
Honestly — even knowing this supposedly dangerous bandit posed no real threat to me, I had at least expected something. It turned out even that was too much to ask from garbage like this. The jackal moved like an average Jade Palace student, and a talentless one at that. Couldn't he at least land one hit? With his skills he'd barely put up a fight against a couple of my rhino guards.
Pathetic excuse for an opponent.
On the other hand, in the original story, Tai Lung had been defeated by Po — who simply absorbed every attack with his fat and then obliterated him with a technique called the Wuxi Finger Hold. Shifu's personal trademark, as it happened.
I still remembered watching Shifu execute it from back when he was still a member of the Furious Five and training me — the technique that sent its target straight into the spirit realm. A shame I'd never been able to master it myself. My Chi had been too wild in those days, too furious and unrestrained, while the hold demanded surgical precision. I suspected my control was considerably better now — but learning such a complex technique from half-remembered childhood impressions of a cartoon? No. I was powerful, yes. Smelly, possibly. But not quite that good.
Tch.
The disappointment made me lose my temper, and I simply killed the lot of them. I was reasonably certain they had a stash somewhere in the forest, and while the valuables themselves meant nothing to me — I could take what I needed on my own terms — the jackals guarding it were another matter. Leave them alive and they'd sell everything they'd stolen, use the money to recruit and arm another crew, and then some master would have to waste time cleaning up yet another group of idiots who thought they were untouchable.
I shook the blood from my claws. The smell of iron mixed with stale beer and sweat — and something else, because it seemed one of the jackals had lost control of certain functions in his final moments. Revolting.
I turned and stepped through the broken doorframe, out onto the street.
The sun was beginning to set, painting the grey houses in shades of dark red. Very… symbolic, given that I was covered from head to toe in jackal blood. It dripped from my claws, ran down my arms, and stained my trousers — which had already seen more than their share of things.
The village street, which had been nearly empty before, was now completely deserted. The few people who had been outside — the goat boy, still standing in the alley, and a pair of old men who had cracked their shutters open — saw me. Their reactions were predictable.
A woman who had been peering from a window screamed and slammed the shutters. Two men standing by a well went rigid, and one of them dropped his bucket, which clattered deafeningly across the cobblestones. They looked at me not as a savior but as a monster — just another killer who had finished off a rival. Apparently masters were a rare sight out here.
Into the dead silence came the sound of running feet. The goat boy burst out of the alley. He eyed the door and my blood-soaked hands warily, but held his nerve and came to a stop a couple of meters away. His yellow slit-pupils were blown wide — with fear, but also with something else.
"Master…" he managed, unable to take his eyes off my hands. "Did you… did you really… defeat Sabo?"
He was clearly terrified of hearing no — though it wasn't difficult to piece together what had happened.
I nodded.
"Sabo Iron Tooth won't be troubling anyone again. Him or his crew."
The silence stretched until it was deafening. Then the boy… sobbed. He covered his face with his hands, and his thin shoulders began to shake. He was crying — not from fear, but from relief.
"He… he took my mom… he… thank you…" the words came out broken, between tears.
I stood there for a moment at a loss. I might have patted his head again — but I was covered in blood, and I had no desire to get it on him. Still, his crying…
I exhaled slowly and extended my hand. My palm, still wet with blood, came to rest on top of his head, between the small horns. He flinched but didn't pull away — only pressed his face harder into his hands.
"Easy. It's over," I said, trying to make it sound reassuring. It didn't come out particularly soft, but it seemed to work.
That small gesture changed everything. The villagers who had been watching saw it: a huge, blood-drenched leopard who had just committed a massacre was standing there, quietly comforting a child. It broke the paralysis. The fear on the faces around me gave way to confusion, and then to slow, tentative understanding. I wasn't a bandit who'd taken out a rival. I was a master who had come to help them.
People began to emerge from their houses. Slowly, very slowly — first the elderly, then the men carrying pitchforks and hatchets (useless weapons, but the gesture meant something), then the women. They gathered in the square, keeping their distance, but no longer hiding.
At that moment a woman ran out of the crowd, and I recognized her — one of the goat girls from the tavern, the one with the torn sleeve. She was running barefoot across the cobblestones, her eyes red and swollen, but the panic in them now was of a different kind.
She reached the boy and grabbed him by the shoulders.
"Lin! I told you to hide!" She shook him, then looked up at me and stepped back sharply, putting herself between us.
"Mom! He saved us! He killed Sabo!" the boy cried, peering around her.
She looked at her son, then at me. After a moment, she stepped forward and bowed low.
"Master…" Her voice trembled with everything she'd been through. "My husband is the village head. He… did he send you?"
So. The boy's father was the headman.
I shook my head.
"I was passing through and decided to help."
The woman went pale. It was not the answer she had been expecting. The crowd's reaction mirrored hers — a murmur of disappointment, followed by a new ripple of unease.
"But… but then…" she whispered. "My husband, Chen… he's the strongest and quickest in the village, he has some standing with the lord of the city. He left four days ago for the city of Wei-Jin to ask the lord for help — to bring a master here. Four days, and he hasn't come back. We thought…"
She stopped herself.
"There were four jackals on the road," I told her, without softening it. "They were guarding the trail. I didn't see anyone else. I don't know whether your husband is alive."
The woman pressed her hand over her mouth. The news wasn't good — but it left room for hope, and that was something. When there is no body, the ones who love you keep waiting, even years later.
She looked at me, then at the tavern I had walked out of. The crowd behind her was silent, waiting on her word. In the absence of the headman, his wife was apparently in charge.
"Master…" She bowed again, more firmly this time. "You saved us. You are… covered in blood. Please, stay the night. We cannot offer much — the bandits took nearly everything — but we have an empty house. Old Li's house. It has been… standing empty."
I nodded, accepting.
I hadn't come to this village purely on a whim. Vachir's map was dated from the year I had been imprisoned, and while much of it was probably still accurate, terrain and landscape do shift over time. Getting lost because of an outdated map held no appeal, and learning what had happened in the world during my imprisonment was equally important.
"I'll stay the night. In the morning I leave." The crowd let out a collective breath of relief. I could see their fear plainly: a savior was one thing, but I was no hero out of legend — heroes didn't drip blood from their claws and stand there without a billowing cloak. "But I need several things," I continued, looking directly at the woman.
"Anything, Master!" She nodded quickly.
"First. I need a current map. A detailed one, if possible."
"Yes — my husband has one in his study. I'll bring it."
"Second. Food."
"Of course, we'll pre—"
"A lot of food," I cut in. "Meat, preferably. As much as you can manage."
"Y-yes, Master. We have meat — we keep goats, and our hunters could go into the forest today to—"
"No need." I stopped her. "One goat is plenty. Don't go to too much trouble."
"We have hunters, Master, and it's no hardship for them — but I understand." She nodded.
"Good. And third." I looked out across the crowd, which was still pressed together in a huddle. "I need news. What has happened in the world. What took place over the last twenty years. Who the current Emperor is. What has become of the Jade Palace."
They might easily guess who I was. I wasn't going to try to hide it. My name was something I intended to restore very soon — and that work could begin right now.
The headman's wife nodded.
"We'll tell you everything, Master. Please, come. I'll bring clean water and clothes."
I followed her toward Old Li's house, leaving behind the bodies of the jackals and the frightened but living goats.
***
Far away, at the very highest peak of the Spire of Ten Thousand Spears — where the view stretched across the whole valley, including the tiny speck that was the village of Han-Ya — a figure stood.
"That must be the village the bandits took," she murmured, gazing into the distance. "Good. I hope I'm not too late."