Against every expectation, the Mongol army launched not a single attack over the following days.
And just as Guo Jing and Huang Rong were failing to puzzle out what Batur intended, the entire Mongol host withdrew in a single night.
Only after sending men to investigate did they learn the truth: the army had been quietly pulling out for some time, leaving a token force to keep up the illusion that they were still there.
With that, the defense of Xiangyang was formally at its end.
Guo Jing and Huang Rong hosted a victory banquet in honor of the patriots who had rushed to the city's aid.
Guo Jing, Huang Rong, and Yin Zhiping were, without question, the stars of the evening.
Yin Zhiping's name had already begun to travel the jianghu.
The battle of Xiangyang above all—where he had fought the Mongols' finest, the Golden Wheel Dharma King, to a dead standstill. The retellings of that duel grew more miraculous with every mouth they passed through.
The Quanzhen Sect's name rang out across the martial world once again.
After the banquet, Guo Jing and Huang Rong still had days of loose ends in Xiangyang—including waiting for the court's newly appointed prefect to arrive and take over before they could leave.
For the men who had died in the fighting, the court would issue compensation at a soldier's rate, paid into the hands of their surviving families.
That, too, needed Guo Jing and Huang Rong watching over it.
The court still needed the couple to spend themselves again when the Mongols came back—so on these matters, at least, there would be no funny business. Draining the pond to catch the fish was not a mistake they would make.
As for everyone else, they were drifting away group by group. Everyone had affairs of their own; everyone was busy.
Yin Zhiping had not yet left. Not because his junior brothers' wounds kept him.
He stayed because he wanted one bout with Guo Jing.
From trading blows with Ouyang Feng, Yin Zhiping had profited enormously.
Without those feeding-drills, he reckoned he could still have held the Golden Wheel Dharma King to a no-loss—but it would have been an ugly, scrambling business.
The duel with the Dharma King had been pure exhilaration. He had even come to love that feeling—strength meeting equal strength.
So once the war ended, the itch remained: he wanted to test himself against Guo Jing.
When he raised it, Guo Jing agreed readily—but the postwar chores were many; it would have to wait until his hands were free.
Time was the one thing Yin Zhiping had in abundance. He could wait.
The wait ran five days.
The City Lord's manor had gone quiet; nearly everyone was gone. Those left were court personnel and household servants.
Five days on, Guo Jing was finally free. At Yin Zhiping's insistence he rested one full day—and then the two of them found a secluded spot and had their fight.
Just the two of them. Even Huang Rong stayed away, on account of the pregnancy.
Li Zhichang and the others were desperate to watch. Yin Zhiping refused.
The bout lasted an entire day, and apart from the two men in it, no one ever learned the result.
When they returned, neither showed a trace of injury—clothes somewhat disheveled, breath running a little quick, nothing more.
But both wore the flushed, delighted look of men thoroughly enjoying themselves, which explained precisely nothing.
All anyone ever established was this: those who later visited the woods where they'd fought found a brand-new clearing, the ground pocked and cratered, carpeted in sword-scars and palm-prints.
"Senior Brother—your bout with Hero Guo. Who actually won?"
On the road home, Li Zhichang finally lost the fight against the question pent up inside him.
Around them, every junior brother's ears stood at attention.
And not just theirs. Word of the match had escaped into the jianghu, and the whole martial world was arguing over the result of Yin Zhiping versus Guo Jing.
Most held that even if Yin Zhiping had reached Innate—even if he'd fought the Mongols' number one to a draw—against a name as long-established as Guo Jing, he'd still fall a shade short.
Guo Jing's fame rested on the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms and the arts of the Nine Yin Manual—either one, on its own, the very summit of the age.
And what did Yin Zhiping fight with?
The Quanzhen Swordplay, Quanzhen Palm Technique, and Quanzhen Inner Art—the same arts every disciple of the sect drilled daily.
Not that the Quanzhen arts were weak. But set beside the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms and the Nine Yin Manual, they simply didn't rate a second look.
That was the majority position, and most of the jianghu subscribed to it.
A smaller camp raised a different argument.
Yes, they agreed—Quanzhen martial arts, Wang Chongyang's Innate Art excepted, fell far short of Guo Jing's arsenal.
But that was exactly what made Yin Zhiping's talent so staggering.
Guo Jing's achievements stood on those two arts—stood, in large part, on the Nine Yin Manual.
Hand any other man the Nine Yin Manual and the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms—might he not climb as high as Guo Jing had?
So it was the Nine Yin Manual that had made Guo Jing—not Guo Jing who had made the Nine Yin Manual.
Yin Zhiping was another matter entirely. No Innate Art. Nothing but the common curriculum every Quanzhen disciple shared—and on that alone he had climbed to Innate, a feat harder than scaling heaven.
In raw gift, Yin Zhiping exceeded Guo Jing by too much to measure.
No one managed to refute that conclusion.
Which led some to speculate: with talent like that, why shouldn't Yin Zhiping carve a path of his own out of the Quanzhen arts?
And if he did—wouldn't that close the gap with Guo Jing entirely?
To which Yin Zhiping could only say: you're overthinking it. My cheat code is a proficiency panel. It doesn't come with a developer mode...
As for refusing to let his junior brothers watch—that was simply because he knew he was not Guo Jing's match, and had no intention of letting them see their beloved senior brother get thumped. Bad for the towering image.
To junior brothers at the first-rate and second-rate levels, a duel between Innates would teach nothing anyway. They likely couldn't even follow the techniques. They'd be watching fireworks.
And shouting things like: what a mighty sword-stroke! What a fearsome palm! Go, Senior Brother Yin!... That sort of thing...
"I lost..."
Yin Zhiping admitted it with perfect equanimity.
He had weathered the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms. He had weathered the Adamant-Crushing Divine Claw and the Spiral Nine Shadows. In the end, what he could not weather was the Great Demon-Subduing Fists.
And it taught him, once again, exactly how much a first-class method was worth to a man who lived by martial arts.
"Don't be disheartened, Senior Brother! Hero Guo had his string of miraculous fortunes, and noble helpers at every turn of the road. You will certainly catch him."
"That's right, Senior Brother. Hero Guo has the Nine Yin Manual and the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms. It isn't that you lost—it's that our Innate Art was lost."
"If you had the Grandmaster's Innate Art, you would surely beat Hero Guo."
The junior brothers crowded in to console him.
They, too, took it as read: the distance between Yin Zhiping and Guo Jing was a distance between methods, nothing more.
"Enough. I knew the gap between Hero Guo and myself before we ever crossed hands. Losing to him surprises me not at all."
Privately, though, Yin Zhiping was already composing the question for his master: had Grandmaster Wang Chongyang's Innate Art been passed down—anywhere—or not?
And if it hadn't, then it was time to start planning in earnest for the Nine Yang Divine Art.