Book 6 Chapter 2 - Old Cat Burning its Whiskers
Everyone, excluding Susu and Xu Ziling, had never imagine that even toward such a powerful hegemon like Li Zitong, Kou Zhong would still be this brave. They wanted to stop him, but it was already too late.
Li Zitong smirked inwardly. It should be noted that although nobody knew who started it, but the fact that Kou and Xu, two boys, joining hands in defeating Yuwen Wudi has been spread all over the world. Although upon self-reflection Li Zitong knew his martial art skill was above Yuwen Wudi's, how could he not have some misgivings? However, seeing Kou Zhong attacked alone, he reckoned that as long as he could put this kid under control, the other kid would be captured obediently.
Right this moment, a skin-piercing, bone-penetrating saber qi blasted directly toward his face.
Kou Zhong completely ignored Li Zitong's long sleeves, which were brushing toward the eardrum acupoints on both sides of his head. Focusing solely on the opponent's face, like a lightning bolt his saber struck down. It was a simple, straightforward, but also swift and fierce without equal.
Watching Kou Zhong's saber strike, unexpectedly a feeling of dread and astonishment grew in the hearts of the crowd of people on the ship standing silently in circle to watch.
Li Zitong's reputation was built not just in name only, but also in reality; in all his life, among the hundreds and thousands battles, there was no swift and fierce saber strike he had not seen, yet this single saber strike from Kou Zhong seemed to be able to tightly lock his state of mind, giving him a feeling like he could not unleash his ferociousness.
He was a great master of martial art; as soon as that feeling came, he immediately understood the reason. At the same time his heart shivered in fear, because he knew that unexpectedly Kou Zhong was able to merge the mind, qi and spirit [three energies of Chinese medicine] into one entity, blending it into his saber technique. Only someone who has reached excellent innate saber qi realm would be able to produce this kind of astonishing power.
Immediately he let out a cold snort and no longer dared to be careless, withdrew his sleeves, swiftly raised a mouthful of true qi, and threw his head backward as his body spun rapidly.
Plainly Kou Zhong's saber was about to hit, but Li Zitong suddenly circled around to his left side, while stretching out his right hand to knock Kou Zhong's wrist. The style was exquisite beyond compare.
Seeing Kou Zhong was able to force Li Zitong to change his move in meeting the enemy, everybody could not help cheering in unison.
Susu pushed Xu Ziling forward and said in a trembling voice, "Why haven't you helped Xiao Zhong?”
A thread of smiling expression escaped from the corners of Xu Ziling's mouth; he took three steps forward and stood guard at the perimeter of the fight.
Kou Zhong stayed calm without any trace of fear, his left hand launched the ‘Meridian-severing technique' taught by Tu Shufang, using his fingers as a saber to sweep aside Li Zitong's eagle claw.
‘Bang!'
Without anything fancy, without any trick, the two exchanged a move.
Kou Zhong let out a stifled grunt and staggered to the side as if he nearly fell.
Li Zitong also floated to the opposite direction. It was not until he reached the ship railing that he finally stopped; borrowing the bouncing momentum he soared high, like an eagle snatching a chick he aimed to grab Kou Zhong's head, who, by this time was nearly falling into the river. His two hands protruded from inside his sleeves, all ten fingers opened wide toward the tian ling acupoint on the top of Kou Zhong's head.
Xiang Yushan and the others were about to rush forward to help, but Xu Ziling stood in front of them and spread his arms wide to stop. Calm and composed, he said, "No need to be afraid!”
He was the only one who could see clearly that Kou Zhong was borrowing his own yang true qi within the yin true qi to completely neutralize Li Zitong's forceful internal energy.
Li Zitong's internal energy was of hard, yang-character, by lucky coincidence, it was curbed by Kou Zhong's soft, yin-character energy. Therefore, although his power was deeper than Kou Zhong's, he still was not able to harm Kou Zhong's meridians.
Xu Ziling took three more steps forward, maintaining the same distance to the two combatants, but still did not make any move. However, whenever Li Zitong was in the vicinity, he would feel Xu Ziling's powerful threat, so that he had to reserve some of his power and thus did not dare to go all-out in dealing with Kou Zhong.
It was a very strange feeling.
It was as if each and every move he made could not escape this observer, who glared like a tiger watching his prey. As soon as he had slight lax concentration, the opponent would hit his weak point or flaw with tens of thousands catties strong thunderbolt.
Naturally he could not protest Xu Ziling standing too close, because early on he had already said that he was not afraid of the two boys joining hands to take up the challenge.
His claw was about to hit Kou Zhong; who would have thought that it was as if there was oil on this kid's feet? With matchless agility he slid three chi away, just like a swimming fish. Not only Kou Zhong evaded his strike, he also sprang up high in the air and made somersault, which was about a chi higher than Li Zitong, who was on his way down. His saber drew an arc in the air, sweeping Li Zitong's flank.
Xu Ziling was pleased inwardly, knowing that Kou Zhong derived this skill based on the swimming fish, and was able to integrate it into the battle.
Seeing not only Kou Zhong was able to evade Li Zitong's strike and even able to launch counterstrike, and that not only his saber technique did not follow any established rules but as if it came naturally without extra trouble, his shenfa [reminder: body pose or motion in martial art] was weird beyond comprehension, Xiang Yushan and the others were stupefied; they could hardly believe their own eyes.
Li Zitong was also sighing inwardly; he had no choice but to take out his three chi, two cun ‘nine-section copper whip'. Applying his power to shake it, the nine-section whip pulled back and lashed out. ‘Qiang!' immediately Kou Zhong and his saber were thrown away and spun very fast like a windmill. But Li Zitong himself was also jolted by the reaction force that just like Kou Zhong a moment ago, he staggered toward the ship railings and nearly fell into the river; luckily his foot caught a piece of the railing and he swung himself up to pounce on Kou Zhong again.
Xu Ziling let out a loud shout and soared into the air; one fist flew toward Li Zitong's lower abdomen, a gust of burning hot wind accompanied the punch, the power was intimidating.
Seeing Xu Ziling dared to deal with this nine-section whip - with which he ran amuck in Jianghu for many years - barehanded, Li Zitong sneered inwardly. Focusing his inner power to protect his lower abdomen, he rose up and sent his whip toward the back of Xu Ziling's head.
Susu screamed.
‘Bang!'
‘Pow!'
After Xu Ziling's punch hit Li Zitong's lower abdomen, like a hawk circling in the air, unexpectedly he spun around and was able to evade the whip. His left hand swept across the tip of the whip, knocking the whip section off using his fantastic power and consummate skill.
Meanwhile Kou Zhong had just landed back on the deck, immediately he brandished his saber and charged forward.
Li Zitong let out a stifled grunt. He came to sudden realization that he could only neutralize half of Xu Ziling's burning hot fantastic force; there were at least forty-percent of that power penetrated his body. In shock he hastily transferred his own internal energy to resist, but he had already suffered minor injury.
This moment Kou Zhong arrived, pouncing down on him from the air, enveloping him with an arc of saber ray.
Even in his dream Li Zitong could not imagine that Kou Zhong's counterattack would arrive this quickly.
Just now, in order to save his face, he went all-out with the hope of inflicting damage to Kou Zhong that he would at least vomited a couple mouthful of blood, and then he would seize the opportunity to deal with Xu Ziling, meeting hard punch with hard punch, so that Xu Ziling would suffer some damage. But now as if he did not suffer anything, like a lively dragon and animated tiger Kou Zhong was charging ferociously; Li Zitong could not stop fear from creeping up in his heart.
For the first time he no longer dared to belittle the opponent. He secretly thought that over time, these two boys might grow to be more formidable than Ning Daoqi. At least from what he knew, before turning twenty, Ning Daoqi was not as formidable as these two boys.
The most amazing thing was that these two boys did not follow any specific method. He had neither seen nor heard anybody ever encountered combat tactic like these two's joint forces.
Li Zitong himself was crazy about martial art; he loved to discuss anything about real battle situation and military strategy, yet he had never heard anybody ever mentioned that they encountered similar situation.
‘Dang!'
Li Zitong carried out his ‘pressing the bottom of the chest/trunk' skill, his whip lashed out toward the tip of Kou Zhong's swiftly chopping down saber blade. In this split second, he continuously sent out nine different streams of qi, fully aware of the urgency of the situation.
The two combatants interlocked; they both used their elbows to strike each other.
‘Bang!'
By the time Kou Zhong's feet touched the deck, his entire body shook, his legs bent down and he rolled away, straight toward the stern of the ship, splattering fresh blood everywhere, shocking the eyes and astonished the hearts of those who watched the battle.
Susu screamed and disregarding everything she rushed toward Kou Zhong; anybody would think that Kou Zhong was seriously injured.
Li Zitong spun around on the tip of his toes, turning his back against Kou Zhong to face the rushing Susu, but did not do anything to stop her.
He was, after all, an overlord of a region, so naturally he had to have some dignity.
Xu Ziling suddenly appeared as if he had just dropped from the sky, his face showed neither anxiety nor delight, as calm as still water, both palms struck together toward Li Zitong's back. Li Zitong had just swallowed back the fresh blood bubbling up from his chest toward his throat, in order to avoid losing face on the spot; at the same time he started to regret his rash decision to brave the danger alone.