I Have My Ways. Bend the Knee, Fool.
I maintained my big-man-hubristic sage pose whilst contemplating what to do. I could lose to a man, but there was no way I was losing a battle. “Hahaha, Brother Lang.”
“… Yeah?”
“Let’s negotiate, shall we?”
“How much more time do you intend to waste?” Lang Qing advanced towards me.
Fight, fight, fight, are you Tang Ye 2.0?! If you want to fight so bad, give me half a month, and I’ll happily whoop you! Stay back!
I swear to the mountains, seas and on my 108,000 greatest hits pornos that I was on the cusp of tucking tail.
Following an uncertain step, Lang Qing went “Mm,” made a small hop, uttered a confused, “Haa,” followed by eighteen legato consecutive thuds, he cursed, “Crap,” and then everything went silent. None of us, including the man who just tumbled into a hole, could keep up with what happened.
Still standing in my awe-inspiring pose, I was first to break the silence. “Hah, arrogant fool.”
That moment, I gained the respect and admiration of two idiots.
“Wu Ping!”
“Brother Lang, where are you?”
“What is this?”
“Good question. How come you’re in a hole?”
“You don’t mean to deny your involvement in these traps, do you?”
“Brother Lang, there are many surprises in life. How did you suddenly fall into a hole?”
I didn’t trip him up. Based on my design, Lang Qing was supposed to fall into the first hole, not the seventh hole. If you ask me, he deserved it for sprinting when he had excellent qinggong.
Lang Qing was as smart as his appearance suggested. Within moments of landing in the hole, he figured out he had unknowingly stepped into a formation. He calmed himself down after our brief round of verbal warfare to start analysing his own body as well as the formation. Unfortunately for him, no matter how smart he was, he wasn’t going to outsmart my shifu in his lifetime. If formations didn’t work on me, not even I would’ve been able to escape it, ahahaha!
Did I just insult myself? At any rate, he was screwed, hahaha!
My victory was supposed to be set in dirt when Lang Qing suddenly vaulted metres into the sky. Alas, he landed straight back where he started. Clearly, he underestimated the formation. If it was an easily-broken formation, would it have such an awesome name?
Lang Qing took a moment to gather his thoughts, then concentrated energy into his arms to slash and gash. I could describe it, but, regardless of what discipline it was or how sophisticated it was, all broadswords just made the “whoosh, whoosh” sounds, so whatever. Whenever he hit dirt, dirt would rise and spin comparably to a sandstorm. As a result of his wild swings, all of Gu Xianxian and Yan Jiangnan’s work came to light, much to their anger. I had to stomp on their heads to shut up their constant cursing from the ground.
Lang Qing eventually stopped. Even though he squinted, I saw the terrified look in his eyes once he realised that, even if he wanted to escape, he didn’t know where to start. When he leapt vertically, he must’ve saw a possibility, but it was different to what he eyes saw, so his efforts were misdirected.
The most challenging aspect about beating Lang Qing was moving faster than him. No matter what it was, hesitation wasn’t a part of his vocabulary. He trusted his own judgement, had plenty of experience, was strong and was correct more often than not by far. As such, he had very few weaknesses.
Lang Qing took a step to the side, then a quick step forward since he realised the formation was designed to zap the confidence of ordinary folks. From there, he jumped.
“What?! That’s…!”
… going to make you hit your head…
Before I could finish, Lang Qing had suavely dug his head into the ground.
Confidence is good, but don’t be so confident… You didn’t need to move so fast. I could’ve warned you, otherwise.
If just going the reverse direction was enough to escape the formation, my shifu wouldn’t have been called “The Martial World’s Most Troublesome Prankster” and remained the owner of the title for decades.
Lang Qing and I silently stared at each other. You know, I felt a little sorry for him. Although he had something to say, he tightened his jaws and stopped himself. Upon closer inspection, though, I noticed him swallow.
It’s dirt! You swallowed dirt, didn’t you?! Is looking cool really worth swallowing dirt for?! It’s not the end of the world if you spat out the dirt and let me laugh at you, sheesh. Plus, you do realise I don’t respect you any more just because you’re stubborn, right?!
Though Lang Qing eventually regained speech capabilities, due to how dry his mouth was, he had trouble, so he cut it short and said, “Come kill me… if you can.”
As the winner, I casually smiled and replied with… uh…
How shall I kill him?
The original plan was to have Yan Jiangnan fight Lang Qing in the formation. Once Lang Qing failed to win in his initial strike, we would turn him into a vegetable, like Tiangou, while he was demotivated. I had trapped him, but… how was I supposed to turn him into a vegetable when I wasn’t in the formation?
“Attack him with fire!”
“Use poison!”
“Pierce him with arrows!”
“Drown him!”
“Strike him with lightning!”
“Jump in and bite him to death!”
Can you two morons shut up? If I knew you two were so “smart”, I would’ve recommended you as strategists to Zero so that I wouldn’t need to endanger myself.
I could understand Gu Xianxian’s distaste for Lang Qing, but I guess getting whipped the way he did got on Yan Jiangnan’s nerves, too.
Lang Qing voiced, “No way. No way. No way. There’s no way someone would go through all this effort to trap someone, yet not have thought about how to finish the job. Nobody that stupid could possibly exist, could they?”
“Correct. Only a genius would fall into a hole and eat a mouthful of dirt.”
“Let me out, and fight me fair and square if you’re tough!”
“Hahaha, sorry, but I can’t help you.”
Unless we called a truce so that I could go and pull him up, I genuinely had no clue how to direct him out. After all, we weren’t seeing the same thing.
Mayhap he was incensed. Whatever the case, Lang Qing started swinging wildly. With his internal energy, he had no trouble making his hand as sharp as a blade. I didn’t really care that there was no visual of him due to the veil of dirt. After all, he had no chance of escaping unless he wrecked the entire formation. In the event that he did sabotage the entire formation, he’d be so fatigued by the time he escaped that Gu Xianxian would be able to demolish him.
My concern was what to do about Lang Qing. The formation couldn’t keep him confined forever. Even if I could dig a few more holes to confine him for a few more days, if “Zero” demanded us to call a truce, we’d have to make up. I didn’t want to give up, though, not after all the effort I invested into duping him.
Suddenly, a gust pulled me forwards two steps. “Hmm?”
My instincts told me we were in trouble, so I reached for Yan Jiangnan. Unfortunately, he was too slow and therefore missed the opportunity to resist the gust. As a result, Gu Xianxian and Yan Jiangnan fell into the formation, scattering the dust screen.
“You’re now stuck here with me.” Lang Qing had the eyes of a lone wolf that finally caught its prey after starving for days.
I knew he was tough to deal with! I didn’t know this guy was as nasty as me!
All the swinging was intended to make me drop my guard and obstruct my vision so that he could draw us in without me noticing. Had I been prepared, he couldn’t have possibly pulled us inward at our prior distance.
Lang Qing charged toward me.
It was my last chance.
Utilising my qinggong skill, “Tiger Steals the Meal”, I jumped into another hole whilst uncorking three consecutive palm attacks to keep my distance. Out of nowhere, Lang Qing felt a wind rise behind him. The three palm attacks I performed were the signal for Yan Jiangnan to strike. Due to the speed at which he advanced on me and his direction, Lang Qing had no choice but to turn around and defend the strike.
“Stop!”
Zero had arrived at the exterior of the formation with a group before I realised it. She was, without saying, mad at the sight she beheld, evident from the fact that she amplified her voice with enough energy to hurt someone. Her shout startled Yan Jiangnan, costing him a fraction of a second. Although that still wasn’t enough time for Lang Qing to evade, it was long enough for him to fortify his guard by multiple folds. Nonetheless, there was still enough force behind Yan Jiangnan’s attack to make Lang Qing gasp blood.
I had no idea why Zero suddenly showed up and how she found out about the duel. Su Qi wouldn’t have dared to stop me even if he found out about it.
That guy in black who tried to assassinate me… Yeah…
Lang Qing was undoubtedly injured, but he hadn’t lost his ability to defend himself yet. Sometimes, an injured lone wolf was more dangerous than when it was fresh. As he roared in pain, he leveraged the momentum of Yan Jiangnan’s blow as a launch pad to hunt me down. I was in a pinch as I couldn’t dodge again after using “Tiger Steals the Meal” three times consecutively.
“Lang Qing, I told you to stop!” thundered Zero.
Despite hearing Zero loud and clear, Lang Qing ignored her warning. I could see it in his murderous eyes; there was something more important to him than his own life. I could see it in his face; he was thrilled in spite of the situation he was in. Only a mad man could feel the sense of thrill that came on when triumph and their life were at stake. To savour it in its entirety, he finally drew his weapon.
Lang Qing performed two consecutive criss-crossing slashes. The reason he could execute two totally different styles simultaneously was because “Cross Phantom Soul Bladework” required him to wield two blades of different lengths at the same time.
Zero had a mask on, but it wasn’t hard to imagine her straight face when she saw Lang Qing reveal his true skill.
No matter how you defended, it’d be extremely difficult to defend when Lang Qing combined a fluid and rigid style simultaneously as he could adapt easily.
How does he know this discipline?
I clasped my hands together and smoothly snatched Lang Qing’s short blade from him as if I’d practiced it billions of times before. Even once we passed by each other, he still couldn’t fathom what transpired. The two of us looked at each other in puzzlement.
I heard over ten people yell, “Stop,” as they raced over, so I hopped to my left, and… I heard eighteen thuds.
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