Chapter 93: The Inn of One Alone

The inn in Fuyang City occupied an imposing stretch of ground for a place in such a lawless border town, and with the land around it open and sparsely peopled, it stood in the wind and snow like a lonely island.

At that moment, the temporary master of that island was Lin Zhan. He stood proudly atop the outer wall, a heavy black sword resting on his shoulder, his gaze sharp, his robes whipping in the gale.

“Patriarch, let Yuan Kai take this boy’s life!” From the formation of the Wei family’s men, a young man in black stepped forward and cupped his hands in request to Wei Xiaoran.

At the sight of him, Wei Xiaoran nodded in relief. Yuan Kai was among the finest of the younger generation in the estate, and had already spent more than three years at the first rank of the yellow level. With his current mid-stage strength, he should soon reach the pinnacle of that rank.

Yuan Kai cultivated the Wei family’s ancestral marvel, Heavenly Saint Hands. His force of hand had been honed to exquisite perfection: with a single finger he could sever blades, with one palm he could shatter millennia-old ice, and within the clan he overwhelmingly surpassed others of the same level.

It was worth noting that Yuan Kai was cruel and merciless. When he went out to handle affairs, his methods were sinister and overbearing; those who fell into his hands usually found it harder to live than to die.

When Yuan Kai reached a few zhang from the wall, he stopped, pointed one hand toward Lin Zhan atop the battlements, and called out, “Wei Estate’s Yuan Kai, at your service. Care to come up, or shall I come down? And I do not use weapons!”

“Very well.” Lin Zhan glanced over toward the second-floor guest rooms, then turned back and planted the black sword atop the wall. “In that case, I, Lin Zhan, will offer the hospitality due a host. Come down and meet me.”

With a backward sweep of his hand, he drove the black sword into the ice-brick wall. Half the blade sank in, leaving only the pitch-dark hilt visible, solemn and severe against the white world around it.

Lin Zhan leaped down from above. That night he had relied entirely on the White Bone Pagoda to hold off the invading enemy, and though his spirit had been somewhat exhausted, his body had only just been warmed up.

Now he let go of his playful expression. His face was calm as still water, his eyes without wind or wave. Facing the people of the Wei family, he no longer revealed his true thoughts—only a stern, outwardly blazing will to fight.

Since the other side had already seen through his true strength, there was no need to keep hiding it. There was only one path left: battle.

Though the difference in numbers and strength made no one mistake this for a fair fight, this was the world of cultivation. Only the final outcome of life and death was truly fair.

Spiritual power flowed slowly through his body and gathered in both fists. The Wind-and-Rain Cloud Steps had already made him light and agile. Lin Zhan did not hold back; he struck first. At such a moment, only combat could reveal the other man’s true measure.

Seeing Lin Zhan move, Yuan Kai also surged forward, drawing in his breath. His hands traced several strange seals in the air, and at once a chain of sonic booms rang out. When the seals were complete, he slowly sent a seemingly weightless palm toward Lin Zhan.

The air had already grown suffocating. Lin Zhan knew he had to throw his full strength into the punch, or if he were killed in the first exchange, it would be beyond humiliating.

Not merely humiliating—he might lose his life.

Flame Fist Technique!

Heavenly Saint Hands!

The two seemed to shout the words in unspoken accord, equally confident, though the first sounded somewhat cruder by comparison.

All this happened in the blink of an eye. The explosive fist-flame erupting from Lin Zhan’s knuckles, carrying tremendous shock force, collided head-on with the palm power of the Heavenly Saint Hands.

Even the snowflakes drifting through the air seemed to freeze for a moment, before the impact altered their fall, scattering outward from the center of the clash.

Fist met palm, thrust against thrust, the two of them trading blows in relentless succession, with no sign of separating.

Their figures also slammed together, sprang apart, slammed together again, and sprang apart once more, as if evenly matched and impossible to distinguish by victory or defeat.

What Yuan Kai did not know was that in his heart, a storm was already raging. He had always been confident, and battle had proven it: against those of the same rank, not one had ever lasted past three moves under his furious palm arts. Even against ordinary yellow-level second- and third-rank opponents who were a step stronger, Yuan Kai still possessed some chance to fight.

And yet this Lin Zhan? Why did it feel as though he grew fiercer the longer they fought?

Yuan Kai shook his head inwardly. He could not keep trading blows like this. If his spiritual power could not replenish itself in time, and he unleashed several dozen more palm strikes like these, he might end up collapsing from exhaustion.

With so many clan members watching, such a stalemate was intolerable.

The Heavenly Saint Hands were meant to be swift and changeable, blending fists, palms, and fingers into one another. To rely solely on brute force was foolish.

Thinking this, Yuan Kai changed from his earlier force-against-force approach. His body flowed like water, circling Lin Zhan from all sides.

At once the scene became dazzling. His attacks were so fast, his shifts in position so swift, that Yuan Kai’s black-robed silhouette blurred, leaving only a gray curtain of motion seeming to envelop Lin Zhan.

Not far away, Wei Xiaoran watched and nodded repeatedly. The younger generation of the clan had such mastery of the Heavenly Saint Hands—it truly pleased him.

Wei Xiaoran was, in truth, a man who relished conflict. No matter what feud arose, no matter what sort of opponent he meant to deal with, if he had the leisure, he would always gather most of the clan’s capable fighters and lead them himself.

Whether besieging a sect, subduing some local power, or merely teaching a townsman who had stolen his family’s chickens and ducks a lesson, he would lead the whole contingent there together.

He trained them how to kill, and more than that, how to speak with strength.

It was precisely that temperament that had allowed him to rise so powerfully in a place as complicated and lawless as Fuyang City, until the Wei family became the greatest force there, while all the smaller powers had nearly vanished.

“Brother Yuan Kai, hurry and cripple this bastard for me!” The young master of the Wei family squeezed out from between two men in black. Seeing the present state of battle, his face lit with wild excitement as he began shouting arrogantly.

“Peng’er, be quiet and watch. Do not make a scene. All of you, observe closely as well.” Even as he scolded his son, Wei Xiaoran was also reminding the younger clan members who were craning their necks and looking about.

Unbeknownst to them, Lin Zhan had already fallen into a peculiar state of realization. Around him, Yuan Kai’s rapidly changing, dazzling techniques flashed and shifted, and the combination of strike and footwork was indeed extraordinarily refined.

He could have used the spiritual power stored within his sea of qi to blast the opponent away with one punch, but Lin Zhan’s entire attention had been seized by this perfect combination.

“So that is how one can strike in this posture... and when withdrawing the fist, if the footwork shifts, the retreat can become release; there is almost no pause at all, and retreat can be turned into advance, a dead move brought back to life...”

As Lin Zhan absorbed more and more, secretly learning in the midst of battle, what should have been a fight resolved in only a few exchanges turned into a deeply tangled contest, dragging out far longer than anyone expected.

Among the Wei family’s men in black, some had actually begun looking around while silently thinking, This is exhausting. If only there were a chair here to sit on!

When would this “lesson and training session” finally end?

In Lin Zhan’s heart, however, the thought had already formed: Almost enough. Whatever this Heavenly Saint Hands may be, it is time it became the Heavenly Saint Severed Hands.