Book 27 Chapter 1 - Deep Love Between Father And Son
Stunned, everybody looked, and saw a man, with tall hat on his head, long robe draped over his body, extremely tall, with ancient, awkward, wooden expression on his face - was walking leisurely from the courtyard gate into the plaza.
Inwardly the 'Gambling Ghost' Zha Hai cried, 'Demonical!' because earlier he ordered his men to lock the main gate, temporarily prohibiting anybody from entering in, and not opening it until this matter was resolved.
But this man silently came, leisurely, without any noise of any attempt of anybody to stop him. Clearly this strange man was not simple.
The man regarded all those casino martial art masters as nothing; he came straight toward Kou Zhong, carrying with him irresistibly imposing qi momentum.
Because earlier with just one saber strike Kou Zhong had stricken the two men of their side until their weapon broke, their body collapsed in front of the carriage, the men were already scared out their wits and their will to fight was seized away. Unexpectedly they involuntarily stepped aside to allow this strange man pa.s.sed through as if he was entering a place with n.o.body in it.
Lei Jiuzhi and Lin Lang were greatly puzzled; they could not figure out what kind of relations.h.i.+p could Kou Zhong possibly have with this strange man.
Kou Zhong's scalp went numb. Looking at the strange man walking to his side, Kou Zhong smiled wryly and said, "Fuqin [father] Daren, how's the current situation?"
The strange man cast him a deep glance, revealing a wooden, emotionless smile, as if he had no relation with Kou Zhong whatsoever, and spoke indifferently, "I did not die of anger because of you, I thanked G.o.d for his kindness; there is nothing good or bad to tell you."
Zha Hai seized this opportunity to disentangle himself; cupping his fist, he said, "Gentleman, Senior, may I ask your honorable surname and great given name?"
He had been mingling in Jianghu for many years, his eyesight was brilliant, hence he was well aware that he did not have the power to withstand the opponent, so he could only resort to kind words.
The strange man cast him a quick glance, shook his head, and said, "If it was Xiao Xian personally opening his mouth to ask me, he is still good enough; but you fall far too short!"
Zha Hai flew into a rage. But he suddenly remembered someone. Immediately a chill crept into his heart, and he no longer dared to say anything.
The strange man extended his arm toward Kou Zhong, and spoke in soft voice, "We, father and son, have not seen each other for a long time; why don't we find a place where we could drink wine and chat first?"
Without the slightest hesitation Kou Zhong let the strange man grabbed his hand tightly. He said to Lei Jiuzhi and Lin Lang, "Two LaoGe may go back first, I'll catch up with you later." At the same time, he signaled them with his eyes, telling them to follow behind him.
The strange man pulled Kou Zhong away, Lei Jiuzhi and Lin Lang followed closely behind; under Zha Hai and his men's blank stare, they swaggered off.
In an instant Xu Ziling has had complete grasp of the situation, while at the same time he knew that if he did not go all-out but still concealing his real skill left and right, it would be akin to borrow the enemy's hands to kill himself.
In other words, he could only choose between revealing his real ident.i.ty or being killed. Without anybody telling him, he ought to know what to do.
Out of the three martial art masters, elders of Yin Gui Pai, two were attacking from the front, left and right. The weapons they used were one long and one short. The long one was a piece of rope with an iron ring at the end. The short one was a pair of hooks, which could be concealed inside her sleeves.
The long and short weapons worked together like seamless heavenly clothes. Even if Xu Ziling soared into the air, he could not escape the swift and severe attack of the flying ring.
The one behind him attacking with an unusually narrow and long sharp sword. All three kinds of weapons were completely of different characteristic, their attack paths were all ruthless, dangerous, and strange, filled with ample power. Momentarily, yin in nature, cold qi, flared out, with strong wind slas.h.i.+ng the bones. Even with Xu Ziling's overbearing skill, caught in this situation, he found it hard to breathe, difficult to maintain his movements, and the pressure was growing heavier and heavier.
Xu Ziling quietly performed the Unmoving JinGang Chakra Image; immediately his heart was like still water, pure, limpid and exquisite. He pondered inwardly that even if Ning Daoqi himself was caught in this situation, perhaps he would not dare to meet the three persons' joint attack head-on either. His mind churning at the speed of light, he dodged to the left.
Hidden inside this dodging were countless mysterious principles, which was not easy to obtain.
The enemy's most formidable aspect was that what is true and what is false was hard to fathom. Although Xu Ziling had rich real battle experience and his eyesight was brilliant, but because the enemies were all top-ranking martial art masters of the demonic school, who, if fighting one-on-one with him would not be inferior much, hence, although they seemed to attack at the same time, the reality was that they might change any moment, so that Xu Ziling would misjudge the attack path, and if that happened, the enemies would be able to kill him within a few strokes.
He absolutely must not make any mistakes; the cost of losing the initiative would be instant death on the spot.
This dodging was precisely the crucial point in his strive for seizing the initiative.
Purely relying on his intuition, he sensed that the first attack to arrive was not the flying ring, which was best to be used in long-range attack, neither would it be the pair of hooks crisscrossing each other, creating a fantastical image of countless net-like lights coming down on his head, but it was the pointy sword blade slas.h.i.+ng from behind. The attack from both sides in front of him was just a diversion to confuse his eyes and ears and mind, to a.s.sist Wen Caiting's pointy sword blade attack.
Just as the sharp-tipped sword blade was silently moving upward to stab his back, his body feigned a backward sway, pretending to withstand the enormous pressure from the combined attack of the ring and the hooks from the front.
As expected, Wen Caiting fell into the trap. The sword blade immediately whistled violently, as it moved faster and stronger in an all-out attack, so that it was rus.h.i.+ng ahead of the flying ring and the double hooks.
Xu Ziling precisely wanted to create this kind of situation. Just as the thousand-pounds-hang-by-thread moment as the tip of the blade reached his back, he flashed sideways.
As if by prior agreement, all three women let out a 'huh!' cry of surprise, as an expression of amazement at his brilliant judgment; however, their hands did not hesitate at all, their movements adapted themselves to changes.
'Whoos.h.!.+' The flying ring, still hovering overhead, spiraled down at an angle, like a shadow following a shadow, it swiftly cut Xu Ziling's, who was going to change position - path. If he continued flas.h.i.+ng to the left, it would be tantamount to letting himself being cut by the flying ring, while the other elder, both the hooks and the person, was cras.h.i.+ng against him. If she managed to wind him around, he would fall completely under their control.
From behind, Wen Caiting changed her offense to defense, her sword created fantastic sword net filling the air, completely sealing his retreat path.
This was the first time that Xu Ziling encountered such a formidable joint-attack tactics. Not only 'empty' could turn into 'real', 'attack' could change into 'defend', the worst thing was that their internal power was of the same origin and flowed in the same direction, coming together and converging into a seemingly 'heavenly mesh earthly net' [idiom: inescapable net] force field. It felt as if his body was entering an icehouse, and the cold energy was increasingly getting stronger, so that surrounded by it, his power decreased greatly. Worse yet, the intensity of the force fluctuated countless times, so that it was really difficult to fathom.
But instead of being afraid, Xu Ziling let out a long laugh, and suddenly flashed to the right, while spinning around at the same time. His long robe flared and flew, sweeping toward the sword net and hook shadow, his left hand slapped toward the flying ring, while simultaneously his right hand secretly performed Lion Image, and shouted heavily, "Duo!"
Seeing how he rose vigorously to fight them, the three women were inwardly very happy. They thought that under the momentum of the three of them joining hands, surely he would be seriously injured. Who would have thought that when the victory seemed to be imminent, Xu Ziling's incantation pierced their ears? Immediately the bitter and dense murderous aura pervading the battleground subsided.
This sound seemed like Buddhist chant and the ring of the bell from a Buddhist hall in the middle of the night. It seemed to be coming from afar, from the ends of the earth, yet it also seemed to be close by their ears. The feeling was mysterious and peculiar beyond human comprehension; it could shake the heart and move the spirit, fantastic to the extreme point.
The three women were from demonic school, their innate tendency in subjected to this kind of Buddhist chant was to be subdued, plus it caught them off guard and was too late to guard against; hence their heart and mind were severely shaken. Not only their hands slowed down a hairsbreadth, as a result, their power was also drastically cut.
With repeated 'Whoos.h.!.+ Whoos.h.!.+', Xu Ziling's rising robe separately swept the sword and the hooks, his left hand struck the flying ring.
The three women were immediately jolted backward, and were no longer able to maintain their advantage of forming encirclement around the enemy.
Xu Ziling cried out, "You let me win!" His right palm feigned a push down to the ground, he flew at an angle, and while still in the air, he unleashed his unique school's amazing ability to rapidly take a breath and changed direction to flee the three women's pursue and attack. Landing on a distant house, he swiftly disappeared without any trace.
Looking at his speed, the three women knew it would be difficult to run after him. Discouraged, they stared blankly on the spot.
Bai Qing'er appeared from the direction Xu Ziling was fleeing; leaping down into the battleground, she spoke in amazement, "Who is this person?"
Pulling the gauzed veil covering her face, Wen Caiting's beautiful eyes gazed at the direction where Xu Ziling was disappearing, and spoke heavily, "Were it not for this man has the ability to perform Buddhist's marvelous skill of Lion Roar, I might guess that he is either Kou Zhong or Xu Ziling in disguise. But the fact is obviously not so."
The other woman said, "I don't care how superior this man called Gong Chenchun is, as soon as he appears again, it will be difficult for him to escape the disaster of losing his life. Back to our urgent business; Du Fuwei is our target this time. Let's go!"
Finished speaking, the four women swiftly floated away.
In a tranquil corner of the wine shop, Du Fuwei, with grave expression, appeared to be deep in thought, as he stared at the good wine inside the cup, without speaking at all. Kou Zhong was waiting respectfully for him to talk, without showing the least bit of impatience.
Along the way, until just now, after they finished three large cups of wine, Du Fuwei did not utter more than half a sentence.
Finally Du Fuwei let out a hint of smile br.i.m.m.i.n.g with mocking-himself overtone. Laughing involuntarily, he shook his head and said, "If it were yesterday, I would have moved an army and sent a general, and disregarding everything to kill you, this pestering and unfilial son, to vent the resentment filling my heart. But now there's only the feeling of tender love, the affection between father and son. Tell me, isn't life strange?"
Severely shaken, Kou Zhong said, "Lao Die [old dad], you are finally moved by s.h.i.+ Feixuan!"
