Chapter 45
“Eldest brother quell your anger, eldest brother quell your anger!” Dragon Li tried to stop his elder brother. The eldest apprentice brother grabbed his shoulders and threw him to the side like a little chicken, then waved his fist in a punch toward Li Qingshan.
“Wang Lei stop!” At Liu Hong’s shout, the eldest brother’s fist steadily stopped in front of Li Qingshan’s face. He said: “Master, let me give a lesson to this kid who doesn’t know the immensity of heaven and earth!”
Li Qingshan was annoyed by this show: “I originally came to ask you some things, but since you’re all so busy I’ll say goodbye first.” If you have words to say just say them, what’s with all this posturing and showboating
“Kid, your little life won’t last you long.”
Li Qingshan indeed stopped his steps: “Oh, what do you mean?”
Liu Hong said: “Men of the Black Wind Camp are all over the place looking for you. It wouldn’t matter if you just hide carefully, but you still dare to expose your face in public, you’ll die without a doubt.”
Li Qingshan said: “Then I ask your honored self for guidance. If we followed normal developments, how could I escape this calamity?”
“As long as you agree to join the Iron Fist Gate, this old man has ways of safeguarding your little life.” This was precisely Liu Hong’s goal. The Iron Fist Gate was a faction and not a sect, it didn’t require everyone in the faction to be a sect disciple. The strength and natural talent Li Qingshan displayed at such a young age were enough to tempt anyone from the martial world.
But as an old hand of the rivers and lakes who’d been famous for a long time already, Liu Hong would naturally not request Li Qingshan to join in earnest. So perhaps he needed to first make an initial show of strength and weaken Li Qingshan’s aura and prestige, let him know the vastness of heaven and earth. After that he could persuade him with kind words and make him understand the bright prospects of joining the Iron Fist Gate, ultimately making him most willing to request his adhesion to the gate.
But Li Qingshan’s rudeness had also annoyed him: “However, this old man has changed his mind now.” You really think that you’re a grand figure now that you’ve killed a few dozen trivial robbers and a Black Wind Camp boss?
Li Qingshan said: “Then that’s really for the best! If there’s nothing else, I’ll leave first.”
“Stand still!” Liu Hong finally moved. He seemed ordinary when still, but once he moved he was like a wild lion hissing in anger. He crossed one step forward, and the next step already carried him in front of Li Qingshan.
Li Qingshan’s hair stood up straight all over his body, as if he was being stared at by a ferocious wild beast. Instinctive vigilance rose inside him as he smiled lightly: “A man of the rivers and lakes when all is said and done, just use violence when words don’t work.”
“Eat a fist from this old man!” Liu Hong originally wished to enlist Li Qingshan and didn’t want to make an enemy out of him, but it was impossible not to give him a little lesson since a later generation dared to be so insolent with him. Maybe he believed that the Black Wind Camp’s big boss Xiong Xiangwu and the third boss were the same grade of goods, and it was the only reason he dared to be so arrogant. In that case he could only let him experience the absolute difference between a second-grade master and a third-grade master.
“Wait!”
Liu Hong asked in a heavy voice: “What, are you afraid now?”
“Master’s power is divine!” The head apprentice Wang Lei shouted while lifting his fist. He watched Li Qingshan with a gaze filled with derision.
The other sect members also followed suit and shouted loudly: “The gate master’s might is divine!”
Li Qingshan said: “I once let Dragon Li throw three punches first!”
Liu Hong squinted his eyes and revealed a dangerous killing aura: “This is due to the lowly disciple’s meager martial arts. What, you also want to let the old man send you three fists?”
“No!” Before Liu Hong’s expression could ease off, Li Qingshan already said on: “Since you’re an old man, I’m thinking about letting you throw ten punches!”
Utter shame and humiliation! Those were the only four words inside Liu Hong’s heart. At this moment he seriously had killing in mind: “Then let me come!”
“Wait!”
“What now?”
“Old Hero Liu, you’re also a character with longstanding fame in the martial world, I can’t let you punch me for nothing!” Li Qingshan thought a little: “Ten taels of silver for one punch, it’s not too expensive right!” I have no grudge or hatred with you. If I fought with you, there wouldn’t be any benefits for me even if I won, not even a single copper coin. It’d only start a weird and inexplicable feud instead. It just happens I have no money for a weapon, so I have to think of ways to earn some in any case. Thinking back and forth about it, the only craft I have is still the supernatural skill.
Those words thoroughly angered Liu Hong. This was simply mixing him together with the sideshow performers of the martial world. His anger was extreme but he laughed instead: “Good good good, I’m afraid you won’t have a life left to spend it!”
Dragon Li went forward to block in great hurry. He’d seen with his own eyes Liu Hong crack open a stone stele with his pair of fists. If they fell on a human body, wouldn’t they hit someone into flesh paste. “Ma…”
But it was already too late. “Bang bang bang bang bang!” The punches were both fast and heavy like the gallop of an iron horse. Five punches landed upon Li Qingshan’s body in the space of a moment. Dragon Li’s “ster” didn’t have time to leave his mouth yet when the biting cold wind from the punches blew so near he could no longer keep his eyes open, to say nothing about going forward.
The momentum of the fists came very fast and left just as fast. Everyone was still immersed inthe might of the five punches when Liu Hong dropped his hands down. He stood straight, sighing softly: “Alas, today I once again broke my killing abstention.”
Dragon Li stared with big eyes and an open mouth. The words “please show mercy” couldn’t leave his mouth anymore either. The eldest brother Wang Lei was the first one to react as he yelled: “Master’s might is divine!”
“Fifty taels!” Li Qingshan suddenly said. Liu Hong stared with full round eyes. He heard Li Qingshan utter a praise: “Those are indeed heavy punches, I almost couldn’t endure!”
His expression was as usual, how was it like the face of someone who couldn’t endure. It was more like an unscrupulous businessman trying to swindle his customers into spending more so he could earn more.
The facts were also precisely like this. After cultivating to the strength of one bull, the “Bull Demon Skin Refining” had also gone through an earthshaking change. The sensation the original “Bull Demon Skin Refining” gave off was merely that of a strong outer martial art bitterly trained. Only now could it be said to manifest the genuine might of a supernatural skill.
A layer of a tough and tenacious membrane had formed between his skin and flesh. When those punches heavy enough to crack a stone stele open had fallen upon his body, it was as if they were hitting rubber. The strength had been entirely defused, while the unsophisticated inner strength contained within the fists had been dispelled by the true qi when it penetrated inside his body. A second-grade master’s fist was already unable to injure him.
Without any effort he’d earned fifty taels in one second. Even robbing the rich to help the poor wasn’t so time-efficient! Moreover, before it came to the very last resort, he had no desire to do that kind of shady wall hugging and door climbing business.
However, did this also count as flesh trade?
The Iron Lion pounced with an explosive shout without leaving him much time to think. How many years had it been. He hadn’t lost such an amount of face ever since returning to Suncheer City and enjoying his retirement. Moreover it was even in front of so many sect disciples.
Heavy punches drowned Li Qingshan like stormy showers.
“Eighty taels, ninety taels, one hundred taels, eh, you still want to keep hitting! Three hundred taels, five hundred taels!” Li Qingshan’s voice went clearly through the storm, continuously provoking Liu Hong’s nerves. The sect members had long ago been stunned into hanging their mouths open.
At first Liu Hong was as vigorous as a dragon and as ferocious as a tiger, but he was at an advanced age after all and his physique had fallen . In not too much of a time he was grasping for breath, his sweat dripping like rain.
Li Qingshan couldn’t bear to watch and wanted to say: “Grandpa, you can’t break my defenses!” But thinking about his grand money-making plan, he could only resist those benevolent thoughts and allow him to keep hitting on.
Liu Hong was being firmly repressed by Li Qingshan by just relying on the three words Iron Fist Gate. This wasn’t to say that fists had entirely no way to match up to weapons. When it came to this kind of masters of the martial world, it was even easier to exploit internal strength through fists and break the enemy’s internal organs in one blow.
Combined with the concussive effects, it was very easy to send the enemy to the land of the dead as long as one occupied the upper hand in a battle of flesh against flesh. But unfortunately he had met with a freak like Li Qingshan. Liu Hong wasn’t losing because his skills couldn’t measure up, but losing because he trained in martial arts while the other side cultivated a divine skill.
Liu Hong roughly gasped for air. Fist after fist pounded without strength on Li Qingshan’s chest.
Li Qingshan said: “Should be enough now!” He gave Dragon Li a look.
Dragon Li hurriedly supported Liu Hong to sit on the great lion chair. Liu Hong was still staring at Li Qingshan in disbelief: “What…what martial art do you train in? Even for a second-grade master, no, it’s impossible even for a first-grade master, impossible!”