Romance of Dragons and Snakes

“Chief Ma!”

Many startled cries could be heard from the door. In the moment when Ma Huajun had been grabbed onto by the clothes and thrown up onto the rooftops, many of the members of the 18th bureau had coincidentally come running in.

All 30-40 members of the 18th Bureau of the Ministry of State Security had filled up the courtyard so tightly that even water wouldn’t be able to get past them, but not a single one of them had made a step forward past the doors into the inner yard.

“Instructor Yin!” At the same time, several people had noticed the fainted Yin Manchuan off to the side as well as the blue-clothed Wudang instructor Xu Benliang.

“Instructor Bai, Instructor Wang, you’re all here!” Someone from the crowd had recognized the practitioner of the Wudang Pure Yang Sect, Bai Xianyong of the Central Safeguard Regiment, as well as the Yiquan military instructor of the 1034 Regiment, Wang Lianyun.

In ordinary times, these men were all said to be legendary figures that were as rare as seeing the tail of a dragon. Some of these members had only seen them once or twice, but they’ve all heard that “Men like them are unparalleled in skill. A single fist could kill an elephant, and they are capable of flight almost. Even amongst the central government they work as military instructors.”

To see them all here was unfathomable, let alone see them fight. All in all, for those members of the Ministry of State Security who rushed on over, they were both excited and nervous.

They were excited to be able to see these legendary military instructors partake in a competition. But they were nervous because of the unstoppable might of a war machine Wang Chao had with him. Even these legendary figures in front of him were having difficulty maintaining their advantage as being called unequaled.

Ma Huajun had the bone in his arm fractured, and while the injury was something he could handle, he had been thrown up onto the rooftop. This was an utter disgrace–death was not as bad as this humiliation. With all his might, Ma Huajun clenched his teeth in pain before using an arm to prop up his broken one. Kicking off the roof, he landed back down onto the ground with an ashen face and eyes that looked quite similar to the oily eyes of an evil wolf.

When Wang Chao saw Ma Huajun leap down with eyes that contained no fear in them, his own eyes stared back. With a slight tremble of his arms, numerous dark green veins began to protrude up his skin in a grotesque manner

Ma Huajun had instantly read the look of Wang Chao’s expression and the meaning behind it, “If you still wish to fight, be prepared to follow the same path Duan Guochao did.”

“Xuuuu!” Ma Huajun felt his heart skip a step. His eyes lost the earlier glow to it, and with a long sigh, he knew that his courage was gone. Even uninjured, he was no match for Wang Chao. Regaining the color in his face, he spat out some words, “The man of the Military Commissioner is quite indeed an expert.”

“You let me win, chief Ma.” Wang Chao’s expression didn’t change, but he had uttered a sentence without sustenance behind it.

“Lieutenant colonel Wang has already arrived at the realm of Transforming with his Xingyiquan. Your Taichi is refined beyond measure as well with your Pounding Hammer that is so easily capable of shocking the earth. Even I, a man whose skill in Taichi is superb, am your inferior. You are truly a young hero, akin to Gan Luo who becomes prime minister at 12. I am but an empty age to you.”

After Ma Huajun had finished speaking, another middle-aged master had suddenly come forward. This practitioner wore a white top with black trousers. His face was quite pale, and his beard was nice and tidy, illustrating a neat, relaxed and cool appearance.

Most particularly to him, whenever his eyes blinked, there would be a sparkle in his eyes that had given the feeling of being looked at from far away.

“Master Chen Tianlei, did you wish to exchange fists as well?” At a glance, Wang Chao saw the Taichi master of Chen Village, Chen Tianlei.

“Your footwork is inconceivably nimble, and your robustness is uncomparable. You are in your prime peak in life while I am already 45 years old. An age far past the prime, thus, my martial arts has already been eaten away by my body. If we were to fight, then I doubt I would be an opponent for you. But I have seen the profound abyss that is your martial arts. The strength of your Taichi. The incredible pureness of it. I wish to test my five hammer fists against your own, what say you?”

Chen Tianlei smiled as he walked forward.

“Very well!” Came Wang Chao’s reply. He welcomed all with fairness without a change in his expression or emotions.

Chen Tianlei’s meaning had been as so, “I’ve grown old. If we fought, my footwork would be less than yours. My breath is not as long as yours. I would not win. Let us forego any other moves and use our five hammers to see which side’s fist is harder.”

Chen Tianlei came to a stop two steps away from Wang Chao with his hands at the ready.

Wang Chao had adopted the same posture as well.

Chen Tianlei’s eyes closed suddenly with his clothes moving up and down like a wave. His muscles began to move and expand everywhere before a long breath could be heard like a bolt of lightning.

Wang Chao could only see that with each time Chen Tianlei’s abdomen let loose a thunderous sound, the bricks under his feet had let out a loud breaking sound before cracking up into powder. At the same time, his body seem to slightly sink into the ground as if the quagmire under his feet could not support his weight.

He could see that with each breath Chen Tianlei took, his toes would curl inwards before flattening out over and over again with the force of five hundred kilograms. An outside observer wouldn’t be able to detect this slight movement of his. They would only think that the bricks underneath had cracked for no reason.

This was a clear sign of the highest levels of moving the muscles and tendons without moving. Where was the old body unable to fight that Chen Tianlei said he had?

At his reveal of Jin, Wang Chao instantly realized that this man was a wolf wearing the skin of a lamb. In action, he was far more amazing than Ma Huajun, Xu Benliang, and Yin Manchuan on a completely different level.

This man’s skill was not inferior to Cheng Shanming. He was truly deserving to be called a master from Chen Village.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

After 9 cracks, Chen Tianlei’s feet had already been completely submerged into the ground, his might and power completely off the scales.

At the ninth burst of Chen Tianlei’s Jin, Wang Chao abruptly closed his eyes and moved his legs into a stance forming the character ‘八’. Emptying his mind for that moment, he formed a fist with both hands so dense, it was even harder than the mercury-filled ball.

From the outside, Wang Chao’s dark green skin colored arms had suddenly lost its dark green tint and regained the original white with a red hue.

Boom! The entire courtyard let loose a rumbling sound as Chen Tianlei’s feet scattered the stones, cement and dirt everywhere. The pillars to the courtyard began to creak as if it was on the verge of collapsing.

With a “Forward Blocking Blow”, Chen Tianlei’s burst of Jin had made him seem like an immemorial giant that wielded an equally giant hammer to strike at Wang Chao.

Within the courtyard, a strong gust of wind began to echo and streak across clothes like an arrow. With the might of a hammer, it had a fierce ripping effect!

Originally, within any other match, even if Chen Tianlei were to be even stronger, he wouldn’t be able of such a fist like this.

In a fight between experts, victory was determined in an instant. There was no time given for either side to prepare or accumulate strength. Chen Tianlei’s fist this time had been given at least ten seconds of preparation. With such a long duration, he would be able to kill a man 30 times over.

But like he said before, he had only wished to compare firmness of fists with Wang Chao, thus he was able to take such a long time to prepare.

Wang Chao had let loose the “Forward Blocking Blow” at the same time as well. The ground beneath him began to shake as he drew power from the Pounding fist of the hard style Taichi. Only a genuine expert would be able to do such a thing.

This fist of Wang Chao carried no wind and was relatively slow. In the time span of its movements, his arm seemed like it was pressing against a giant mountain.

Bang! The two sides collided, causing the sleeves to their garments to rip. Water began to splash out everywhere as if a faucet had been turned on. In this split-second, the Hidden Jin in both men had forced out their sweat.

Wang Chao let loose a grunt as he was forced back eight steps before finally stopping. With each step, the ground beneath revealed a clear impression of his feet while his shoes had already deteriorated to a state of belonging to that of a beggar.

He wore leather shoes that the Military Commission had given him, meaning that the quality of these shoes was beyond decent. But in these eight steps, the power that had run through his feet would have destroyed shoes made of iron, let alone leather.

Chen Tianlei wasn’t in a better position either. The cloth shoes he wore had been reduced to a clothy mess that revealed his feet within. The sleeves to this clothes couldn’t be seen, and the remnants of it were scattered everywhere.

In the instant Wang Chao’s fist had collided, Chen Tinlei felt as if his muscles had been pinched. Immediately falling apart from exhaustion, his muscles grew soft and lost all of their strength.

Chen Tianlei’s face had been slightly red and his throat had revealed a gulping sound as if he was swallowing something. In the moment he opened his mouth to take a breath, Wang Chao could smell a fishy scent from Chen Tianlei’s maw.

“I’ve managed to injure his internal organs, causing his blood to well up. But he managed to swallow it back down.”

With this keen observation of movement, Wang Chao had immediately deduced the situation. Immediately reigniting his spit, his legs spread out while he took in a deep breath. His Jin exploded once more with the sounds of thunder and arrived at Chen Tianlei’s front with a Force Punch ready to fire.

“The second hammer, Master Chen!”

His lungs were incredibly strong, and with him reaching a state of “Inner Sight” with it, Wang Chao could tell that his lungs hadn’t suffered any damage from the earlier collision.

Chen Tianlei resumed a tranquil look back onto his face and met out an “Under Elbow Punch”. With these two fists colliding once again, Wang Chao was sent back two steps while Chen Tianlei stepped back thrice.

“The third hammer!” Wang Chao was relying upon the incredible endurance he had built up from underneath the ocean combined with the robustness that came with his young age to deal out the first blow again.

The “Seafloor Smash” and “Lower Point Punch” had been used in conjunction by Wang Chao. Just briefly, the intent of the “Seafloor Smash” had brought out the the Jin of the “Lower Point Punch”. For that moment, Wang Chao was back on the seafloor with the invisible currents acting against him. It was only with this all-out effort that he was able to stabilize his body.

The empty air around him had transformed into the turbulent currents of the seafloor.

In the water, his body moved as freely as he would in air.

On land, his body was firm and stable while bearing the heavy weight of air as if it were water.

Genuine or artificial. Fake or true. In an instant, Wang Chao had reached a deep state of creativity.

Boom! Another collision of fists could be seen. While Chen Tianlei did not move a step this time, the creaking sound reminiscent to a pillar unable to bear any more weight could be heard from his backbone. His throat trembled once more, allowing Wang Chao to smell the heavy scent of blood.

“Enough, your martial arts is perfect and pure–enough to be a grandmaster. Do not be imperious.”

“For the next two fists, allow me to receive them then.”

Just as Wang Chao was preparing his fourth blow, two different voices rang out before a figure flickered in front of Chen Tianlei and pushed him behind.

At a glance, he could see the dark red clothing and big-eared man that was Song Anran of the Tianjin Song Style Xinyiquan. On the other side was the deep-set eyes of the host of this place, Yiquan master Wang Yunlian.

“Come then!” Wang Chao had known in that moment that these two men had come forward to stop the fight. But in the time they pushed Chen Tianlei back, Wang Chao called out to them before they could even speak. Before he could even take in a new breath of air, he struck.

The tremors of his body had resembled the snapping jaws of an alligator hunting its prey. With these tremors, he seemed ready to tear apart his prey.

Neither of the two had expected to see Wang Chao strike so decisively without hesitation. He had pounced forward with the force of a tornado even. The two fists coming at them had enlargened at a quick pace with the force being hard enough to ram a mountain.

“I’ll go, you stay back!” As he spoke, Song Anran’s torso began to shift before teetering and tottering with a cumbersome weight. It was as if his body had become as fat and heavy as a grizzly bear.

But the chop he had sent out had been as nimble and graceful as a bird–fast as well.

As Zhuangzi once said, “Bear by the Bird.”

A unison style of Xingyiquan, “Dual Form of Bear and Eagle”. This was the most esoteric and terrifying skill of the northern school of Xingyiquan.

Wang Chao had only felt that Song Anran’s body was immovable and heavy when his fist had been intercepted. At the same time, his opponent’s chop and claw had grabbed onto his fist.

“A good skill of Xingyiquan. The torso of a bear, but the arms of an eagle.” Wang Chao laughed out loud while his blood coursed with fighting spirit. His fist loosened and extended to form the head of a python while the other hand spiraled around. His waist gave a turn in following to get closer to Song Anran.

This intertwining killing skill was not the handiwork of the snake stance, but rather the close combat capturing skills of the Assault of Dragon and Snake. This was a wrestling move that Tang Zichen had synthesized to lock the joints and part the muscles in an act of contortionism. It had blended in the secret of “Strike man from within the circle, and push man from outside the circle” from Taichi.

The circle was the bones of man.

Wang Chao’s legs coiled around Song Anran’s body and immediately began to emit Jin, causing Song Anran to feel as if there was a man-eating python coiled around his body. Especially around his torso was the inexplicably heavyweight from Wang Chao, making it hard for him to breathe like he was in a vacuum without air. Likewise, his throat had been tightly constricted as well so that even the veins were being squeezed.

Boom! His eyes grew dark before crashing back down to the ground like a mountain.