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The mysterious appearance with which he was standing was very peculiar; even though he was standing as steady as a mountain, there was also a strange impression that he might drift to a certain position at any time.

On the scroll that Yue Shan left behind, there was a detailed reference about Xi Ying’s demonic school’s brilliant skill of Purple Cloud Heavenly Mesh; otherwise Xu Ziling would not have known that when this demonic power has been successfully mastered, the practitioner would appear to have purple eyes and fiery eyeballs.

Purple Cloud [orig. purple qi] did not refer to the color of the true qi at all; rather, it referred to the skin pigment when the power was activated, hence it was called purple qi.

The most formidable aspect of the Purple Cloud Heavenly Mesh was that when the power was at its peak, the released power was able to form layer upon layer of nets of qi all around the enemy like woven cloth, constricting the opponent like the fish in the net, so that it would be difficult to escape death.

If Xi Ying had really been able to train to the highest level where he could spread the net according to his wishes, then he would be the first person who mastered the Ziqi Tian Luo in nearly three hundred years.

Although in the scroll that he left behind Yue Shan theorized on all kinds of method to defeat the Purple Cloud Heavenly Mesh, yet even he himself did not have any confidence that it would work; let alone when he and Xi Ying fought, Xi Ying’s Ziqi Tian Luo has not been mastered yet.

Xu Ziling was sizing Xi Ying up; Xi Ying was also examining him carefully, by walking and stopping around him, increasing the threat and the pressure indefinitely.

Practically Xu Ziling was not afraid Xi Ying would attack from behind. Relying on his spirited and acute senses, he would immediately feel it and come up with counterattack.

On all four rooms of the west wing, the windows were full of shadows; nobody wanted to miss this life and death decisive battle between the top martial art masters of Jianghu.

After two complete circles, Xi Ying stopped right in front of Yue Shan, with a hint of disdainful smile leisurely escaping from the corner of his mouth. The purple light on his eyes growing stronger, yet the tone of his voice was surprisingly calm. Shaking his head and sighing, he said, “Since Ol’ Xi made a breakthrough in the Ziqi Tian Luo, the number of those who can stand as my opponent really can be counted on one’s fingers. Yet even though Ol’ Xi knew that Yue Xiong is still in the world of the living, Yue Xiong does not have enough qualifications to be ranked among them. However, a figure like Yue Xiong dropping by to give Ol’ Xi an opportunity to test my moves, Ol’ Xi is still extremely grateful.”

From the purple qi emitted by his eyes, Xu Ziling was able to confirm that Xi Ying’s internal energy was of a common origin, yet different from Zhu Yuyan’s Tianmo Da Fa [demonic great method].

When Tianmo Da Fa was executed, it would create a vacuum-like phenomenon. But Xi Ying’s Ziqi Tian Luo was just the opposite; with Xi Ying at the center, the qi power was swelling in wave motion, as if space was unceasingly expanding.

Actually, when Xi Ying was circling twice around Xu Ziling, it was extremely deliberate. On one hand, he was feeling out the opponent’s real situation and seeking for any gap to exploit; on the other hand, he was luring the opponent to make the first move. Who would have thought that although Xu Ziling did not make any hand pose, in essence, the true qi within his body was already forming the Great Vajra Chakra pose; as steady as Mount Tai. Although he did neither attack nor defend, the fact was that he did not reveal the slightest amount of gap.

Hearing Xi Ying said that, he laughed hoarsely and said, “Xi Xiong, you are arrogant and conceited, and that still hasn’t changed. You need to take this move first before expressing your gratitude!”

Under the eyes of everybody upstairs looking down, Xu Ziling slowly raised his hand. He started with his five fingers open, and then slowly closing the hand into a fist. In a split second he created a condensing qi that rose violently like a river and mountain peak.

Such martial art, not only it was never seen, it was never even heard of.

For the first time that night Xi Ying showed a grave expression.

Only he could understand that the opponent’s every move was targeted at the marvelous move of his Ziqi Tian Luo.

Just now, when he was bragging that Yue Shan did not have qualifications to be his opponent, he was not being arrogant and conceited at all; rather, he intentionally wanted to provoke the usually hot-tempered and ruthless Yue Shan to make his move, so that he would fall into his trap.

Purple Cloud Heavenly Mesh could be compared to weaving spider web using qi; whenever a prey bump into the web, the more it struggled, the tighter it would be entangled inside the web; it was weird and sinister to the extreme point.

If the opponent grabbed the initiative by attacking first, Xi Ying might lure the opponent to have a free hand in violent attack, and then he would spit out a thread of power, using soft to control hard, until the opponent had his hands and feet bound, having power but unable to unleash it, and only then would he kill the enemy in one move.

How could he know that Yue Shan, who seemed to become another person altogether, appeared to be able to see through his mind, so that in this one move he seemed to be on the offensive yet not exactly attacking, he seemed to be in the defensive, yet not exactly defending; he appeared to not using the least bit of amazing stroke, yet he made Xi Ying completely lose the initiative, and momentarily was at a loss of how he ought to cope with it. Without any better option, he had to stay unmoving, waiting for a change.

A hint of smile escaped from the corner of Xu Ziling’s mouth; suddenly he shouted, “En garde!”

The fist closed.

Like running water the true qi flowed through the thousand streams, a hundred rivers of the meridian and acupoints within his body, converging into a powerful current. Although he did not strike a pose of sending out a punch, an enormous, swift and fierce qi power unexpectedly shot out of his fist, heavily striking the strongest point on Xi Ying’s invisible, yet real – Heavenly Mesh qi net; so accurate that Xi Ying was extremely shocked.

Upstairs, no one who watched this scene unfolded was not dumbfounded. Nobody could even imagine that Xu Ziling would be able to apply his energy and send out his power like this. His entire body was like a ten-thousand-catty boulder – formed entirely by true qi – that was launched by a trebuchet.

‘Bang!’

Qi power collided.

Xi Ying’s entire body shook severely; he was pushed one step sideways.

Xu Ziling’s upper body only swayed slightly, not because of his power surpassed Xi Ying’s, but because his power was concentrated on his fist, while Xi Ying’s power was distributed over a larger area’s net, hence he gained the upper hand.

Finally Xi Ying’s countenance changed, knowing that if he let Xu Ziling continued to take the initiative, in the end he would only fall into a one-sided situation where he could only take a beating.

Letting out a sharp whistle, Xi Ying’s legs moved with strange footwork, while the purple cloud was starting to appear on his face; he drifted indeterminately several steps backward to snatch the position to the left of Xu Ziling. His right hand swiftly chopped. It looked like an ordinary, nothing special move, but everybody upstairs felt that his palm strength was as powerful as three armies storming together, carrying a no-one-can-resist potential. It did not matter who was blocking it, he could only momentarily withdraw.

The more shocking thing happened to Xu Ziling; they saw him unexpectedly closing his eyes, and taking the palm by moving sideway, as if he already knew what would happen. His two palms coming together, all ten fingers made an exquisite, mysterious-beyond-human-comprehension – movement, like a blossoming flower without yielding at all he met Xi Ying’s world-shaking palm chop one step ahead.

The instant the Heavenly Lord Xi Ying evaded the fist by moving across, Xu Ziling was able to clearly grasp the movements and the shift in the central core of Xi Ying’s entire Heavenly Mesh Qi Net; thereupon he might as well close his eyes so that he would not be confused by his footwork, and meet this fierce-without-equal move head on.

‘Boom!’

Xi Ying let out a stifled grunt and flew back, as if he was afraid that Xu Ziling might seize the opportunity to pursue and attack.

Xu Ziling still had his upper body swayed backward, before returning to his original posture, which was as steady as Mount Tai. At the same time, he made a big decision.

Just now he was using the Inner Bound and Outer Bound, two poses from the Jiu Zi Zhen Yan Shou Yin [nine-character incantation handprints]; first, it was to take Xi Ying’s qi power as is, which he channeled via his fingers and disperse it out. And then he fiercely used someone’s spear to attack his shield [idiom: turning a weapon against its owner, attributed to Han Feizi (c. 280 – 233 BC, Chinese philosopher of the Warring States period ‘Chinese Legalist’ school], by piercing Xi Ying’s Heavenly Mesh Qi Net, which was coming to envelop his body. Even with his brilliance, Xi Ying’s only way out was to withdraw immediately.

After retreating for about a zhang, Xi Ying stopped. His eyes flashing with ominous glint, he spoke coldly, “What kind of ghost school way was that?”

Xu Ziling smiled and said, “Ziqi Tian Luo is nothing more than this; if your, Xi Ying’s, skill is limited to this, than this date next year will be the anniversary of your death.”

With a loud shout, he sent out a punch across the empty air.

Upstairs, the crow and peacock made no sound; simply because until this moment, nobody was able to tell clearly which side had the upper hand.

Seeing Xu Ziling took the initiative by sending out a punch, instead of alarmed, Xi Ying was delighted. Lifting both arms high like a giant roc spreading its wings, his ten fingers spread out and then rapidly closing together, he wrapped his arms around his own chest, while at the same time he took quick steps forward to meet the powerful wind of Xu Ziling’s no-stronghold-he-could-not-overcome fist momentum; this move was extremely weird.

Letting out a long laughter, Xu Ziling said, “You fell into the trap!”

Abruptly he pulled his fist back; the fist turned into a palm, the palm turned into fearless image. The qi power, in spiraling manner, was pulled back into the hollow of his palm, forming a vacuum similar to the Tianmo Gong.

He stole this technique from Wanwan. That night at the Da Shi Temple, relying on Tianmo power, Wanwan not only made Yang Xuyan not daring to press his attack, she also seized the opportunity to pursue and attack An Long, storming at him so that he escaped in panic.

But were it not for on the plank walkway the other night this ‘jiejie’ [older sister] transmitted her power via his channels to deal with You Niaojuan, he would not be able to grasp the profound mystery within it.

I feel bad for not finishing the battle, so I’ll try to post the rest of the chapter tomorrow.

Now with the true energy force field formed by his spiraling power, although compared to demonic-and-weird, exquisite-and-amazing Tianmo Da Fa – with its countless changes – was still a few notches inferior, it was actually just right, like the right medicine prescribed for a certain illness; it was just right to control Xi Ying’s full-forced strike.

Xi Ying was just unleashing the Ziqi Tian Luo by utilizing both hands to weave thousands of fine threads crisscrossing each other to form the Tian Luo net of qi, which he ‘drew’ out toward the opponent.

This formless net not only could withstand the fist wind and palm power from the opponent, it could also receive and send energy from his core, which could change shape at any time.

As he gathered his power in his arms, the Heavenly Mesh was pulled together into big and small qi power like wheels, striking horizontally across at Xu Ziling, with the intention of cutting apart the power of his punch, and giving Xu Ziling a heavy blow. Suddenly the Heavenly Mesh qi power became a void without any strength. But the one thing that shocked him the most was that unexpectedly the wheels of qi were unable to maintain their original state, because they were sucked by the powerful vortex of energy generated by the opponent’s palm image, so that the round wheels were pulled into ovals, and then into strips, which, in turn, were pouring down in torrents into the hollow of the opponent’s palm.

Xi Ying’s soul flew away and scattered; hurriedly he pulled his power back, and his retreat this time was even more awkward than the last time.

Inwardly Xu Ziling cried, ‘What a close call!’ If Xi Ying had not misunderstood his using Tianmo Gong and still used the original style without changing anything to meet Xu Ziling’s palm strike head on, based on Xi Ying’s demonic power level, which, by this time was still at least one notch above Xu Ziling’s, as well as that Xu Ziling did not know how to suck energy and borrow energy as he wished like Wanwan, Xu Ziling would have suffered big loss to some degree.

Fortunately, Xi Ying was very cooperative; instead of advancing, he retreated. How could Xu Ziling be willing to miss this golden opportunity? Letting out a long laughter, like a shadow-following-a-shadow, he followed Xi Ying closely behind to press down the attack.

None of the spectators was able to see clearly, but anyone could see that instead of attacking, Xi Ying was retreating, and hence lost the initiative.

‘Bang!’

After all, Xi Ying was a grandmaster of the demonic school; after retreating for a zhang or so, he swept back to attack Xu Ziling from the side. Both combatants were using exquisite, abstruse technique in a desperate exchange of moves.

The two men suddenly separated, so that once again they were standing face-to-face.

The spectators nervously watching the battle found it difficult to breathe, all because each flutter of the two men’s clothes, each brush of their sleeves, carried full strength, devastating qi power, ready for the next earth-shattering offensive.

Xi Ying shouted sternly, “I am afraid what Yue Xiong used just now is not Huan Ri Da Fa?”

Xu Ziling laughed slyly and said, “Actually, whatever skill, whatever method, please forgive Ol’ Yue since it is not convenience to divulge. May I ask, currently, how much confidence does Xi Xiong have that you will win?”

Upstairs, An Long laughed heartily and said, “Old Xi, no need to make an exception by telling the truth!”

You Niaojuan also let out a mocking, weird-sounding laugh.

Such battle outcome was indeed greatly beyond the two men’s expectation.

Xu Ziling cried, ‘Lucky!’ inwardly. Were it not for him taking risk by imitating Tianmo force field and was successful, the result would be different.

Instead of being angry, Xi Ying laughed. His palms fluttered like butterfly passing through the flower, fantastically filling the air with palm shadows, along with the footwork stepping forward, completely enshrouding Xu Ziling with hiding-the-sky-and-covering-the-earth attack, with gossamer of qi blanketing the space within two zhang radius. It was powerful and overbearing to the extreme point.

The skin of all the parts of his body exposed outside his clothes was imbued with purple qi, giving people stronger impression of the weird and magical character of his Tian Luo demonic skill.

Although he was in perilous situation due to the opponent’s full-strength attack, Xu Ziling’s, whose hands were performing the motionless JinGang [Vajra] image – mind was approaching the see-through and quick-witted realms like the moon in the well, not moved by the opponent the slightest bit.

The instant several strands of gossamer of qi attacking his body, he swiftly slid across, while launching three palm chops and one fist strike onto an empty air.

No matter how rich Xi Ying’s imagination was, he had never imagined that Xu Ziling would deal with his Ziqi Tian Luo with this kind of technique.

Ziqi Tian Luo’s most formidable aspect was that the gossamer of true qi could go round to attack the enemy from any angle. Xu Ziling’s three palm chops seemed to hack down on totally unrelated empty spaces, but they actually cut off his three streams of gossamer of energy. The last punch actually rendered a heavy blow onto the strongest point of his palm momentum, entirely sealing his retreat path.

Xi Ying suddenly realized that he could no longer understand the depth of the attainments of this ‘old friend’ standing in front of his eyes. Formerly, Yue Shan has never been this creative, with improvised moves like a heavenly steed soaring across the skies like this.

‘Bang!’

Vortex of energy shot out. Slow at first, but quickly becoming fast, accurately drilling its way into Xi Ying’s meridians. This move was even more beyond Xi Ying’s expectation. Immediately, because his hastily released Heavenly Mesh qi power was penetrated by Xu Ziling, it was difficult to concentrate the power on his palm to protect himself, his five viscera immediately received serious injury.

Under the spectators’ unblinking gaze, Xi Ying staggered and fell back, his awe-inspiring authority immediately vanished.

Xu Ziling inwardly cried, ‘What a close call!’ He had already taken out all the skills that he had kept at the bottom of his trunk and had been giving it his all to deal with Xi Ying. His only unfair advantage was that the opponent only knew Yue Shan and did not know anything about Xu Ziling.

The first one was ‘Zhen Yan Shou Yin’ [true statement (incantation) hand image], followed by an imitation of the ‘Tianmo Da Fa’, ‘Yijian Technique’, and the last one was looking-a-cun-out-of-the-doorway ‘Secret to Long Life’ and Jade Annulus of He Clan’s spiraling-wonder-energy’s one move to subdue the enemy. If Xi Ying were able to neutralize it just like he did a moment ago, it would be Xu Ziling who would be receiving the beating. Then naturally the end would be much different.

His spirit was greatly aroused, Xu Ziling pressed on the attack from all sides. For a period of time his fist power and palm wind permeated the battleground. Xi Ying, who had already lost the key moment, immediately fell into disadvantageous defensive position, where not only he was unable to unleash Tian Luo net of qi, he must use thousand ways, a hundred plans to protect his own little life. In such a close-quarter combat situation, he had to passively ward off Xu Ziling’s seemingly-clumsy-but-was-actually-ingenious, not-leaving-any-traces, brimming-with-foresight-aggressiveness violent attacks and fierce strikes.

None of the spectator was not moved.

The sound of qi power clashing against each other rang out incessantly. Enhancing the sinister nature of this battle was that the two shadows were alternately advancing and retreating in endless violent battle. Everybody watching was overcome with a feeling that their breathing could not flow freely.

In this close-quarter hand-to-hand combat, the two men had to use speed to defeat speed, to counter every move. Under this kind of circumstances, Xi Ying suffered more disadvantages. The problem was that Xu Ziling’s moves were basically without any specific palm techniques; every single move was unleashed in passing, created just in response to the situation. Plus his true qi was changeable, so that under this kind of attack, Xi Ying could only display less than fifty-percent of Ziqi Tian Luo’s formidable power, hence he was unable to turn the tide.

‘Boom!’

Two men’s four palms collided, both men retreated backward, but their fierce gaze was tightly locked at each other.

Bian Bufu thought that Xi Ying was going to snatch the initiative back. “Good!” he shouted loudly.

Xu Ziling laughed calmly and said, “How does Huan Ri Da Fa taste like?”

The pit of Xi Ying’s stomach suddenly moved up and down violently; he ferociously said, “You are not ...”

How could Xu Ziling let him finish saying, ‘You are not Yue Shan’? His hand made Great Sun Chakra image, astonishing qi power sliced the air, promptly cutting off the rest of the sentence already hanging at the tip of Xi Ying’s tongue.

Xi Ying roared and risking his life by blocking it with all his might.

‘Bang!’

The shadows suddenly separated.

Xu Ziling was back to his original place, standing as steady as a lofty mountain. [Translator’s note: play of words here. Yue Shan literally means highest peak mountain.]

As if he was drunk, Xi Ying’s face turned completely scarlet, as he tumbled back and spun around. Those with superior eyesight could see his fatal injury, which came from Xu Ziling’s heavy kick on his lower abdomen.

‘Bang!’

Another crashing noise came from upstairs. Bian Bufu broke the window and flew out; and just like that he fled in the direction of the courtyard’s wall. How could An Long and You Niaojuan be willing to let him go? They also shot out of the window to run after him.

Xu Ziling’s pair of tiger-eyes was still fixed on Xi Ying; he did not dare to relax at all. Immediately he transferred his qi to treat his own internal injury, which could not be called light either.

This nearly impossible thing was – after suffering untold hardships – finally accomplished.

There was a sudden rustling noise as two figures leaped down onto the garden, and completely sealed Xi Ying’s escape route. Obviously they were afraid he still had some strength left.

Without turning around, Xu Ziling spoke indifferently, “What advice does Feng Mengzhu [alliance leader] have for me?”

Feng Zhen came to his side and said with a smile, “Yue Lao is too polite! Xiaodi just want to know whether Yue Lao will stay over in Chengdu for a couple more days. If so, would you give Xiaodi and Fan Xiong the honor to act as the host?”

Xu Ziling replied indifferently, “Two gentlemen’s kindness, Ol’ Yue appreciate it wholeheartedly! It’s just that this person has never been good in social niceties; besides, I have another important matter to attend to. Please forgive me for failing to accompany you.”

Finished speaking, he leaped over the wall and left.