The First Battle

With an outburst of power stemming from extreme fear and awe, Meng Qi's blade lashed out towards Cheng Yong. The vigor was so strong; it's as if a single slash could split a mountain in half.

Cheng Yong raised his palms. Crossing them together, he wanted to fight back the long blade recklessly. His Kungfu was much better than Meng Qi, and so were his sight and the accuracy and timeliness of his moves. However, the movement of his palms triggered the wound on his left chest and accelerated the outflow of blood. Consequently, his palms temporarily lost their strength, and the blade broke through Cheng Yong's defense, aiming directly at his face.

As a master who had gone through hundreds of battles, Cheng Yong remained calm even in such an emergency. Following the movement of the blade, he voluntarily fell and slid over Meng Qi's attack by rolling on the floor. On the other hand, Meng Qi didn't have any battle experience at all and didn't know that he should follow up with a series of attacks while Cheng Yong rolled on the floor.

Suddenly, Cheng Yong pressed the ground with both of his palms, and like a toad, his right leg kicked backward, pointing directly to where the heart of his enemy is located at.

In the past, this was how he turned the tables and successfully created comebacks in many fights. Now, he wanted to use the same move to finish off the battle.

However, his right leg didn't encounter anything. Cheng Yong jumped up and saw the weak-looking little monk staring at him in fear. Obviously, the monk was a complete newbie and didn't have any battle experience.

"Damn!" Cheng Yong cursed in his head. He didn't expect his ultimate move would fail because his opponent was a Jianghu newbie who missed the chance to follow up. This made him extremely unhappy. After all the fierce moves that he had performed just now, the wound on his chest had become even more severe. As more blood was lost, he started to feel weak and dizzy.

"I need to deal with my wound first." Even though Cheng Yong became reckless and impulsive after having the Mind-reaving Pill, and was too scared to disobey the commands of the owner of Yin Huang Castle due to the pain the pill could bring, he still possessed some extent of logical reasoning.

At this moment, he knew very well that if he didn't deal with his wound, after some dozens of breaths, he would lose his consciousness. By then, the little monk would be able to do everything he wanted.

Just as Cheng Yong was about to tear his clothes and wrap up his wound, he suddenly heard a deep roar from the little monk, who ran towards him with another slash!

"Bastard, why didn't you follow up earlier?" Cheng Yong had no choice but to cope with Meng Qi's attacks. He tried to end the fight as soon as possible so he could get to his wound.

Jiang Zhiwei sat on the ground and leaned against the stone gate. Meng Qi was like a crazy tiger. Even though his moves were a mess, his strength and the length of his blade gave him an advantage. On the other hand, influenced by his severe wound, Cheng Yong's Kungfu had become much weaker, and his moves were sluggish. At the time, he wasn't able to approach Meng Qi by taking advantage of the flaws in Meng Qi's blade moves.

"Random fists can kill an experienced master…" For some reason, Jiang Zhiwei thought of this old saying. Then an idea popped into her mind, and she yelled, "Top right!"

Although she had lost her strength, she still had good sight, and her eye Aperture was still opened. Therefore, she could easily spot the flaws in Cheng Yong's movements. Moreover, since Cheng Yong was very slow, she could instruct Meng Qi. Typically speaking, if it were two masters fighting against each other, everything would happen within the blink of an eye, and any instructions given by other people would miss the right timing.

Meng Qi continued the slashes. Seeing that his attacks were as fierce as a tempest, which forced Cheng Yong to remain distant from him, for a second he had the illusion that he had become a master too.

Of course, Meng Qi knew perfectly well that all his moves were a mess. If Cheng Yong weren't heavily wounded, he would have been killed instantly.

"Top right." Suddenly, Meng Qi heard Jiang Zhiwei's voice. However, as this was the first time he experienced an actual combat, and he didn't have previous experience collaborating with Jiang Zhiwei, he was unable to transform what he heard into a thought, and thus the thought into an action. Therefore, he still followed his own instincts and waved his blade randomly.

On the other hand, Cheng Yong heard Jiang Zhiwei too, so he kneeled down and directly hit towards Meng Qi's lower abdomen.

After a flash of the blade, blood burst out from Cheng Yong's left arm, and he stumbled back holding onto his wound.

Then, he jumped up like a carp bouncing out from the water and glared at Meng Qi with extreme anger. A moment ago, when he attempted to hit Meng Qi's abdomen, he encountered the blade instead, which led to the severe wound on his left arm.

"Didn't you say 'top right'?"

Meng Qi looked back at him innocently. It seemed like he understood what happened just now, too, and he said on purpose, "Sorry to disappoint you, but my reaction speed was too slow."

Cheng Yong was so outraged that he spat out some blood.

"Haha." Covering her abdomen with her hands, Jiang Zhiwei couldn't stop laughing. "I knew it! Haha, even if I get killed with this little monk together, I would have died because of laughter!"

Cheng Yong became overwhelmed by fury. He used his right hand to form a finger sword and pointed several times onto his chest. The blood was immediately stopped. Though the wounds were too deep, it was just a temporary relief. After ten breaths, the wounds would burst open again, and he would possibly die immediately. However, he didn't care. If he continued to badger with this little monk, he would die anyways as time elapsed, or even be killed by extreme anger!

Seeing Cheng Yong's moves and his resentful expression, Meng Qi put away his smile and became more serious. He knew that within the next few minutes, it would be either life or death. Shrouded by the high-pressure atmosphere, he subconsciously took a step forward and slashed his blade vertically.

Jiang Zhiwei stopped laughing and tried to stand up to help Meng Qi. Nevertheless, Dantian is the foundation for storing Qi. Although her Dantian wasn't destroyed, there was a considerable injury. For now, she was unable to compile her scattered genuine Qi.

After Cheng Yong temporarily stopped the bleeding from his wounds, he crossed his legs, and with his wounded left arm below, he drew a semicircle in the air with his right hand. It seemed like he wanted to disarm Meng Qi with his bare hands.

Meng Qi knew this wasn't a desirable situation, so he used all his strength to transform the vertical slash into an inclined one. However, although he successfully dodged Cheng Yong's right hand, Cheng Yong's left hand pressed onto the blade. Overwhelmed by the power Cheng Yong exerted, Meng Qi involuntarily took a few steps back.

Given his previous success, Cheng Yong followed up with a series of attacks which continued to counter Meng Qi's blade. It became increasingly dangerous for Meng Qi. If Cheng Yong didn't worry about the sharpness of the blade, Meng Qi would have already died under Cheng Yong's palms.

"I can't let this continue, or I'll be the one dead!"

Meng Qi's eyes turned red. While his hands didn't stop for a second, hundreds of thoughts flashed through his mind.

"Why haven't I learned blade arts before? If I knew the basics about blades, given Cheng Yong's current condition, I would at least be able to defend myself until his wounds burst again or until Jiang Zhiwei recovers. But now, all I can do is to slash around randomly!"

Suddenly, an idea popped into Meng Qi's mind. He recalled Cheng Yong's attempt to steal away his blade.

Gritting his teeth and slashing his blade vertically again, Meng Qi glared at Cheng Yong as if he wanted them to die together.

Cheng Yong sneered. With his right hand drawing a circle and his left hand moving upward, he pressed towards the blade. Since Meng Qi had used all the strength he had, he wasn't able to change the track of the blade.

With the movement of Cheng Yong's palms, the long blade instantly fell into Cheng Yong's hands. However, as he exerted power to seize the blade, he felt nothing from the other side. He was competing with nothing but the air!

"Damn!" Cheng Yong immediately lost his balance. At the same time, he saw with astonishment that the little monk solemnly took two steps forward and gave out a punch.

At the moment the blade fell into Cheng Yong's hands, Meng Qi loosened his right hand and abandoned the weapon!

After this, taking advantage of Cheng Yong's unguarded chest and stomach, he stepped forward and performed "Black Tiger Stealing Heart", a move in Luohan Fists, with his left hand!

Bang, Meng Qi's left fist heavily hit the wound on Cheng Yong's left chest. Immediately, blood burst out like a fountain and sprayed all over Meng Qi's head, face, and body.

Cheng Yong gasped for air and uncontrollably retreated back. He looked at Meng Qi with an extremely stupefied and shocked expression.

How could he be killed by a little monk who only knew such little Kungfu?

Cheng Yong fell to the ground, stirring up the dirt on the floor. His eyes remained wide open. He had died with everlasting regret.

"Hahahaha." Meng Qi burst into laughter as if he had gone crazy. A variety of negative emotions poured out from his heart and accompanied by the blood on his face and body, it made him seem extraordinarily ferocious. "Your father, I, know nothing about blades, but your father knows how to fight with fists! So stupid!"

After releasing all the negative energies he had, Meng Qi breathed heavily. The only thing he could feel now was extreme tiredness.

"Little monk, you have broken the rules. How can you call yourself your fa-fathe…?" With their greatest enemy eliminated, Jiang Zhiwei felt relieved, too. So, she joyfully began to tell jokes. However, she was aware that as a girl, she shouldn't say dirty words, so she restrained herself from fully saying the term "your father".

"Buddha would be happy for me that I survived a danger like this, so he wouldn't blame me…" Meng Qi said calmly, "Ms. Jiang, how is your injury?"

Seeing that Meng Qi wanted to turn around, Jiang Zhiwei quickly stopped him. "Don't worry about me first. Take my sword and stab his head. We are not sure if he's dead or just pretending."

Jiang Zhiwei was well educated about how to deal with situations like this.

Meng Qi nodded and took a few steps back. He kneeled down and picked up Jiang Zhiwei's sword while staring at Cheng Yong. Then he carefully walked towards Cheng Yong and stabbed at the point between his eyebrows.

Seeing that the sword penetrated Cheng Yong's head, Meng Qi was completely relieved. Now Cheng Yong was even "deader" than dead!

It wasn't until now that Jiang Zhiwei had the time to comment, "Little monk, you are pretty talented. Even though this was your first battle, you were able to have a clear grasp of the circumstances and remain calm. You set up traps for your enemy, overcame your own fear, and abandoned your weapon to use bare fists to give him a fatal attack. It's not impossible that you will become a famous Kungfu master in the future."

"Hehe." Hearing compliments from Jiang Zhiwei, who was very skilled at Kungfu, Meng Qi giggled proudly.

Suddenly, the blood on the floor started to wriggle and formed into characters:

"Jiang Zhiwei and Zhen Ding saved Cheng Yong from the pain of being controlled by the Mind-reaving Pill. Each of them will be awarded 10 Karma points for accomplishing this side quest."

Meng Qi and Jiang Zhiwei looked at each other, and knew that they were thinking about the same thing, "Why would killing him be considered as saving?"

But thinking it over again, being controlled by the Mind-reaving Pill was indeed worse than death!

"There are some mistakes in our previous analysis. If this is the case, where do we look for help?" A slight frown appeared on Jiang Zhiwei's pretty face. "Or do we not need any help at all?"

Meng Qi said with confusion and worry, "What is the meaning of this side quest then…"

"Maybe there is no meaning at all." Suddenly, Jiang Zhiwei cried out, "Oh no, Big Sister Qi!"