Chapter 9 - Pursuit
The Tranquil Fist was merely a bravado and Xu Yi had already seen through this trick.
With hundreds of kilograms of weight removed, Xu Yi ran like a thread of smoke. Before Elder Feng could lift his feet, Xu Yi had already appeared in front of him. Without any hesitation, Xu Yi threw his fist towards Elder Feng. The strength was more than tripled after the removal of his armor, and you could even feel the surrounding air quietly vibrate.
Unfortunately, Xu Yi failed to hit Elder Feng, as the latter jumped up in the air and shrunk his body like a turtle. However, the momentum of the fist caused lancinating pain on the surface of Elder Feng’s skin.
Though Elder Feng narrowly managed to escape this blow, he knew what was bound to happen to him. He understood that, right now, in terms of speed, Xu Yi was peerless. Leaving only defeat for him.
Since he had no possibility to escape, Elder Feng played his final trump card – a long and thin sword. He wielded the sword and aimed it at Xu Yi’s incoming fist. Xu Yi didn’t even dodge this attack, and continued his fist’s attack until it rested on Elder Feng’s left shoulder. The cutting edge of the sword had scratched the surface of Xu Yi’s fist, dealing no real damage. Elder Feng, however, was knocked down, together with two nearby trees, due to the immense power of Xu Yi’s blow.
When Elder Feng was about to stand back up, Xu Yi stamped his feet upon his face. As soon as Elder Feng lied motionless under the great pressure, Xu Yi started to ceaselessly punch him. In order to kill Elder Feng once and for all, Xu Yi didn’t give him any chance to fight back. After a storm of blows, the body of Elder Feng had become soft and slack.
The place where Elder Feng lied, soon became a big hole, as deep as one’s leg. Surely, this was the result of Xu Yi’s continuous blows against Elder Feng. It was true that the latter was, the same as Xu Yi, in the peak state of a forged body, he also possessed ox-like skin and iron bones. But, by Xu Yi’s ruthless and crazy attacks, even a real iron ball would be beaten into a flat disc.
Xu Yi stood up with great satisfaction – as Elder Feng’s head was deeply buried into the soil, bruises all over his body, showing no sign of life.
The experienced Elder Feng was killed by a newcomer in Wu Dao, Xu Yi was rather proud of himself. This was proof of his ability, with which he could march a step further towards his revenge. He bend down and searched all over Elder Feng’s body, finally, he harvested ten gold coins.
Holding one coin in his hand, Xu Yi stared at it for quite a while. He then blew against the coin and put it beside his ear – instantly, waves of soothing sounds could be heard, just like Buddhism Music. Because of the sound, Xu Yi’s poker face changed into a smile, with the corners of his mouth slightly raising up.
Xu Yi had already heard of these gold coins. As far as he knew, currency was categorized into two groups. One was for the ordinary people, like the bronze coins and the silver Yuan bao, these were exactly what Xu Yi got from his job as a storyteller. While the other was for Wu Dao cultivators, the dominating party, including gold coins (or gold Yuan bao) and gold discs (an ancient currency).
Without gold coins, Xu Yi had no access to the precious herbs needed in cultivation. Before, he could only use some oolong herb, which he bought from villagers, to revitalize his strength. In this world only gold coins were recognized as a legitimate currency to exchange for the best herbs.
Now, with these ten gold coins, Xu Yi was able to buy the herbs he deeply desired. He quickly tucked the coins into the bag around his waist. Collecting the thin and long sword nearby, Xu Yi put great pressure on it and bended it in the shape of an arc, but surprisingly, it bounced back without any damage being done to the blade. It was a resilient sword, which would be of great help in battle. So Xu Yi decided to take it with him and moved on.
When Xu Yi rushed back to where Junior Zhou was supposed to be, he found nothing but the bodies of the servants. He predicted that Junior Zhou wouldn’t make it far in such a short period of time. So he climbed to a higher vantage point and in the northwest, he spotted a man on horseback, galloping as fast and far away from him as possible. Xu Yi deducted that this must be Junior Zhou, who whipped the horse, impatiently, in an attempt to escape.
Right now, Junior Zhou was as terrified as a rabbit, hastily running away. He had to get rid of Xu Yi as quickly as possible, out of fear that Xu Yi would otherwise take away his life.
Knowing that Junior Zhou was seriously injured, Xu Yi was confident in capturing him. What he needed right now was a horse. So he quickly searched around the previous battlefield and found a horse standing beside some thick bushes.
“Though most of the horses have died in the previous battle, this one was smart enough to escape the chaos.” A happy Xu Yi thought and then, without any further delay, he jumped onto the horse’s back and pursued Junior Zhou.
In the middle of the pursuit, Xu Yi suddenly took out his sword and stabbed it into the carotid artery of the horse. Oddly enough, there was no bleeding on the horse’s neck and the speed of the horse was even multiplied several times.
Since Xu Yi was in the peak stage of a forged body, he was almost a professional in the knowledge of the relationship between qi, blood, bones and organs.
When the horse was running, the qi and blood would surge and the bones would vibrate. Xu Yi selected the best position to stab in, in order to unleash the true potential of the horse.
Initially, Xu Yi was not quite sure if this stab would make the horse run faster or kill it, because it was only theoretically correct. But when the sword stabbed into the neck, the outcome was astonishing.
On the contrary, Junior Zhou whipped the horse too frequently and too harshly, leaving blood all over the back of his horse. Thus, the speed of the running horse became slower and slower.
A surge of anger and hatred bursted out underneath his arrogant self-esteem.
“How can the powerless Xu Yi be this strong? He is supposed to be a dumb clown, for us to toy with. The reason why we let him live until today is because we’ve never considered him a threat. Unexpectedly, he dares to cut my arm off! I will get him punished for what he has done to me.” Junior Zhou murmured to himself. He imaged how he would torture Xu Yi with all the brutal corporal punishments available. Thinking of this, he grew more and more excited.
However, the clip-clopping sound behind Junior Zhou made him quickly feel frightened again, almost making him fall off his horse. Xu Yi was quickly closing in on him!
Junior Zhou suddenly became wilted, like a flower at dusk. The hatred was overlapped by horror. He even trembled a little bit. “Elder Feng has failed to kill him!” He was so scared, that he kicked the belly of the horse to make it run faster.
At this very moment, Xu Yi’s horse was too tired to go any further, as it crashed onto the ground. Looking back, Junior Zhou found a string of hope once again and laughed loudly: “Xu Yi, listen, I swear to skin you alive and extract your bones!”
Xu Yi didn’t pay much heat to these words, as he quickly stood up and pursued Junior Zhou like a bolt of lightning. Out of sheer terror, Junior Zhou actually peed his pants. He whipped and kicked the horse like crazy, trying desperately to escape Xu Yi’s close pursuit.