“Both the east and the west courtyard are Jiang Mansion’s properties. Your east courtyard is declining and short-handed at the moment. Many industries have been affected by this situation and they are making much less revenue now. In the end it’s your Jiang Mansion that will be troubled. That’s why I am here. I am trying to help you take care of the business.”
Jiang Chen saw Li Hong’s cheeky face as soon as he passed through the crowd. Li Hong totally ignored Fan Tu’s angry stare.
“Shut up! Get out of here!” Fan Tu didn’t want to argue with him at all.
“You ungrateful wretch. You think the east courtyard is still the previous east courtyard? Your lord has been gone. How dare you be so arrogant?” Li Hong flew into anger as well and said something strong.
“I still can give you a good punch.”
“I don’t think so.”
The two fell silent. The onlookers read the situation and stepped back to leave them more space. Fan Tu had no intention to argue, but rather, was willing to fight. So was Li Hong.
“Looks you are not convinced. Fine. I’ll convince you with my fists!” Li Hong had hardly started to attack before his voice faded away. He was using his palm to attack. A hot wave appeared from nowhere as his palm was moving. It would look like a fire dragon if the wave were stronger.
“Come on!”Fan Tu shouted loudly and threw his fist. The two big men soon crossed swords.
Pang!
The palm and the fist hit each other. The two men were as motionless as a statue. However the blue flagstones on which they were standing were crushed into numerous pieces. The spray of gravel struck through the billboard above them. The situation frightened the onlookers so much that they took some more steps back.
“Your state has been enhanced. That explains why you are so overconfident.”
Fan Tu curled his lip. Then he threw another punch. “Not only the state.”
Li Hong smiled mysteriously. His raised left palm produced countless shadows instantly, layer after layer. At the moment he threw his palm over they overlapped all of sudden. Another encounter between the palm and the fist. But this time Fan Tu suffered great loss. He couldn’t help stepping back in succession, and would have fallen down if he hadn’t made an effort to keep standing.
“You!” It was totally unexpected for Fan Tu that the man who used to be his punching bag could throw such a powerful punch.
“Haha, Fan Tu. How was it? My new palm method wasn’t bad, right? You’d better throw in the towel now and get away from here so that I can take over the Holy Clothing Shop smoothly!”
“You wish!” Fan Tu was in pain, but he insisted on fighting.
Jiang Chen, who was watching the fight, knew that Fan Tu had no chance to win. He stepped forward in time and said, “Stop.”
“Young Lord.”
“Young Master Chen.”
Li Hong wasn’t one of the descendants of the Jiangs, which was easy to tell by his surname, so of course he couldn’t insult Jiang Chen at will like Jiang Jian did. But there was still no respect shown at all in his greeting.
“Steward Li, Steward Fan has just recovered. His wounds haven’t been entirely healed yet. There is no honor in winning over him like this.”
“Oh yeah? He doesn’t look so weak.” Li Hong turned up his nose at him. Fan Tu was embarrassed. It wasn’t so terrible to lose. But it would be quite awkward if you didn’t want to admit the fact that you’d lost.
“Steward Fan would be fully recovered in seven days. You two will have another fight then.” Jiang Chen squinted at Li Hong, didn’t give him any chance to argue, “If Steward Fan loses, the Holy Clothing Shop will be handed over to your west courtyard.”
“Seriously?” Li Hong was overjoyed.
“Young Lord!”
Fan Tu was shocked. He wouldn’t hand over the shop that casually, even if he couldn’t win. Even though the east courtyard couldn’t keep the shop, he would in no way allow the west courtyard to benefit from it. But Jiang Chen was the Young Master of the East courtyard. The west courtyard would take advantage of his promise.
“Deal. Everyone here will be my witness. We’ll have another fight here in seven days.” Li Hong nailed it down immediately for fear that he would regret it.
“Don’t rush. It’s unfair that we only bet on my property. If, Steward Li, you lose, what will we get?” Jiang Chen said.
“If I lose?”
Li Hong hesitated. He asked, “What do you want, Young Master Chen?”
“One hundred Fiery Dragon Horses.”
It’s almost impossible for the average horse to walk in the mountains during wintertime, but it’s not the same for Fiery Dragon Horses. They are descendants of the ancient fierce beast, Fiery Dragon, and are not afraid of bitter cold. Fiery Dragon Horses meant everything in the Hundred Thousand Mountains in winter. In Fan Tu’s opinion, Jiang Chen had made a smart bet.
However…It was impossible for him to win!
“Sure. Deal.” Li Hong answered confidently.
Fan Tu felt a great responsibility.
On their way back, Fan Tu couldn’t let his loss go and finally said to Jiang Chen, “Young Lord, it’s no big deal that Li Hong’s state has been greatly enhanced. However, it looks he has learnt a very powerful palm method! I don’t think I can match it.”
“Take it easy. His palm method isn’t that frightful. Steward Fan, I’ll teach you a set of fist methods which can secure your victory seven days from now.”
“Fist method?”
Fan Tu looked at Jiang Chen doubtfully. Gao Yue told him not to inquire after any secrets of Jiang Chen after he was cured by him, unless Jiang Chen started to talk by himself.
After they returned to the East courtyard, Jiang Chen got a pen and a piece of paper and wrote down a martial arts lesson.
“Dorje Subduing Demon.”
Jiang Chen wasn’t strong enough to practice this fist method. But it was perfect for Fan Tu to practice.
“Wow…”
Fan Tu, who took the whole thing with a grain of salt, glanced at the paper Jiang Chen gave him and was immediately interested. He became too excited to talk. Jiang Chen said seriously, “As long as you get to the entry level, it will be a piece of cake to beat him. But you have to promise me to destroy the copy later and keep it a secret forever.”
“I see, Young Lord.”
They didn’t have too much time to waste. Fan Tu went back to his place with the copy of the fist method. Jiang Chen didn’t take this seriously since he was quite confident. The Dorje Subduing Demon was one of the collections of the Over Cloud Palace. This fact was enough to explain how tremendous it was.
I will start to practice seriously, too.
What Jiang Chen had been doing was only to recover his meridians, but at the time, he was going to practice a method for real.
The previous Jiang Chen, who already died, had practiced a method taught by his father. It was a great method that everyone in the Hundred Thousand Mountains would like to practice. Thanks to this method, he had been able to achieve Cloud Nine by sixteen years old. However, it was only okay for Jiang Chen.
He had some better options. Besides, practicing a method didn’t have so many requirements as practicing a secret method did. All methods aim to take in the spirits of the universe. There are only differences in characters. Those characters are obedience, willingness, pillage, and devouring.
The obedience is the most popular. Most of the methods will teach you how to communicate with the spirits of the universe, obey them and let the spirits in naturally.
The voluntary is more powerful. This character will attract the spirits of the universe to come to you voluntarily.
The pillage is easy to understand as well. It means whether the spirits are willing or not, you’ll take them in by pillage.
The devouring is the most powerful and the least popular. It’s quite similar to the pillage. But the pillage is such a bossy method that the spirits gotten from it are not pure enough. As a result, there will be risks as time passes.
But the devouring is different. No matter if the spirits are pure or not, the devouring will convert them to pure genuine Qi and store it in the body.
The character differences of these four methods are correspondent with four levels in the Nine Heavens Continent, which are sky, earth, black and yellow. The obedience is the yellow level and the devouring is the sky level.