Chapter 111: Sick Body, Fierce Qi, One Palm Spits Lotus

In the middle of the night at the Protectorate Temple, only the sound of hundreds or thousands of long banners being blown by the wind remained.

The remains of dozens of envoy group members lay peacefully in coffins, placed on the square in front of the Maitreya Hall.

Above each coffin was a white canopy supported by four bamboo poles.

The crowds who came to pay respects during the day would walk through the middle aisle to the Maitreya Hall to offer incense and pay respects to dozens of spirit tablets on the offering table.

The spices used to cover the smell of the corpses, the incense on the clothes of the worshippers, and the burning incense in the temple.

All kinds of smells and sounds were mixed together.

At night, it became deserted here.

The moonlight sprinkled on the aisle like a layer of silver frost, and the night wind blew away most of the miscellaneous smells.

In the Maitreya Hall, only Guan Changling remained, sitting cross-legged on a cushion beside the offering table.

He faced the offering table, staring intently, neither looking at the scenery outside the hall nor at the Buddha statues inside.

This internal guard left division commander seemed to be wholeheartedly guarding the mourning for the victims.

At this moment, the sound, color, light, and smell of the entire temple all revealed a kind of stillness and coldness.

The light flames of the two large white candles on the offering table were that kind of quiet, dim yellow color.

Even swaying with the night wind, the candle flames were bright without smoke, flickering without sound.

*Whoosh! *

The firelight elongated inexplicably, flat like a tongue, and the speed of flickering also quickened, making noise.

Suddenly, a mist blew across the threshold and invaded the hall.

Haidong Lai, holding a red cloud black umbrella, stepped into the hall amidst the yin qi of the soldier spirit.

Guan Changling raised his eyes and was moved: "Commander Hai, you really came."

"You killed the Tubo High Priest, which can be considered as having avenged them; coming again tonight, they can rest in peace even more."

Haidong Lai looked at those spirit tablets and did not step forward to take incense.

"I have already come, what are you still pretending for?"

He didn't look at Guan Changling either, "A gathering tonight; there are some things that you and I know in our hearts."

Guan Changling's smile remained unchanged.

"Commander Hai, you can become famous by relying on martial arts, but being able to become an internal guard commander is really not just about using force."

"I moved my hands and feet on the Nanzhao internal guards extremely secretly, yet you were still able to notice, destroying part of the files; looking back now, the physician Seeing Chu Tianshu who blocked the Yuwen family's assassins was in the files you destroyed, right? Truly a very good subordinate."

"Did you come today because he also came, perhaps along with Zheng Hui and that batch of people?"

Haidong Lai's gaze shifted: "It seems you admit your identity as a traitor, but you are already in a high position with great power, why betray?"

Guan Changling smiled: "Do you remember the Princess Gaoguo?"

Back then in Great Tang, Princess Gaoguo had great power and was in close contact with imperial guard generals, the Crown Prince's attendant, and the Shuzhou governor; at first, she was reported for cultivating a party for the Crown Prince, and later reported for suspicion of rebellion.

The emperor demoted several ministers for this, beat several people to death, and confined the princess in her mansion.

Haidong Lai had read this file.

"Under the princess's door back then, there was a guest expert, with exquisite saber technique and a mysterious identity, who acted for her many times; after the incident, this person's identity was also revealed, said to be a leader of rangers in Chang'an at the time."

Haidong Lai said, "I remember that the ranger's wife left him and his family was broken, and he fled Great Tang, and his whereabouts are still unknown."

"Looking at it now, that person was framed by you, right? The true swordsman under the princess was you."

Guan Changling sighed: "Not bad, it was me."

"The princess was confined for three years and then died of illness; how much hatred could she have with the imperial court? And how much kindness could she have toward you?"

Haidong Lai let out a low laugh. "If it was truly a deep hatred that couldn't be forgotten, and you wanted to take revenge on the emperor, why wait until today instead of planning an assassination earlier?"

Guan Changling was completely able to see the emperor.

If he had risen up to assassinate when the guards were thin, it might not have been impossible to succeed.

"No, no, no, just killing someone, does that count as revenge? The emperor acted against the princess to stabilize the throne, so I just want to make his throne unstable."

Guan Changling showed a passionate smile.

"Do you know? Poison is actually countless small insects with strange shapes; the damage to the human body is all caused by these small insects."

"A huge country is also like a person; the emperor is only a part of the brain; to make the brain suffer, you cannot just attack the brain."

"Scholars, farmers, workers, merchants, soldiers, national territory, national treasury, all hide poison power; poisoning an entire country, detonating all the toxicity, and watching how this poison acts."

"This will be the highest achievement of poison art."

Guan Changling's eyes were full of anticipation, saying, "Nanzhao is the needle I use to poison, and it cannot be broken by you in advance."

As soon as he finished speaking, mold suddenly grew on Haidong Lai's umbrella.

Those patches of mold, some white and some green, grew fluffy fungal hyphae rapidly and emitted heat.

Guan Changling's face changed.

He had long laid poison in this hall, and from the moment Haidong Lai stepped in, he had been poisoned.

But now it seemed that all the poison power had been taken over by Haidong Lai's soldier spirit.

That boiling intention also caused the toxicity on the umbrella to be rapidly destroyed.

Guan Changling had always known that Haidong Lai was an anomaly.

He was someone whose achievements in endurance methods were higher than in blood-refining military law.

The soldier spirit was just a tool for him, not an absolute killing method that other martial artists cherished.

Such an attitude must have made him unable to master the soldier spirit in detail.

But now, the fit between the soldier spirit and Haidong Lai was clearly beyond previous estimates.

Guan Changling's figure retreated, suddenly detaching from the cushion, reaching a distance of a zhang away.

Haidong Lai did not attack.

He continued to look at the spirit tablets.

When a person pays respects to spirit tablets, the most comfortable distance one would subconsciously choose should be about three feet.

Haidong Lai was more than six feet away from there.

His gaze was not focused on the spirit tablets, but three feet in front of him.

A figure fell silently from the rafters.

It was Zhong Jinqiu; his robes bulged in mid-air, and when he landed, there was no sound, his position exactly at three feet.

"Rusu and the others did not die in vain."

Zhong Jinqiu mentioned his dead nephew, his voice peaceful, his eyes black and white, clear and shocking.

"From the moment you stepped in here, there wasn't a single flaw, even that retreat by Guan Changling just now couldn't induce you to make a move first."

At this moment, it was past midnight.

The number one experts of Great Tang and Nanzhao truly met on March 15th.

Haidong Lai's eyes were full of interest, saying frankly: "You are also very good, extremely good!"

"I've seen someone in mid-air, with no support, give others such a strong sense of threat for the first time."

As the two talked, the surface of Haidong Lai's umbrella rotated slowly.

Zhong Jinqiu's sleeves bulged to the side, then suddenly shriveled, which was the airflow expansion and contraction caused by the change of cold and heat.

The two candle flames on the offering table, for a moment, tilted and elongated toward Zhong Jinqiu's back.

Their killing aura, transmitted through the soldier spirit, was strong enough to make people's hearts and livers numb.

Zhong Jinqiu thought of the stone lion thrown into the mansion gate, the pavilion that had collapsed by half.

Haidong Lai should have been injured at that time; now he probably had recovered.

Stronger physical strength than that, plus the eyes and killing aura that had no flaws now...

"Guan Changling."

Haidong Lai suddenly said, "Are you going to risk your life for your ally to create a flaw for me?"

Guan Changling smiled, blowing a whistle sound from his mouth.

The one who really wanted to risk his life to create a flaw on Haidong Lai was someone else!

Haidong Lai's helpers, Zheng Hui and those people, even if they came, would naturally be dealt with by the Yuwen family.

Who else could stop all the Kunlun slaves?

Behind the Maitreya Hall was also a square.

From the buildings on the edge of the square, black shadows were darting out.

In front of the Maitreya Hall, there were too many people coming and going during the day, and those corpses and coffins were all arranged by Nanzhao people, so there was not much opportunity to move hands and feet.

Guan Changling's manpower had to be hidden, naturally hidden in the back.

Dozens of Kunlun slaves gathered and ran toward the back door of the Maitreya Hall.

But behind them, on the roof of the Mahavira Hall, two figures also jumped down.

One figure landed, rolling forward smoothly.

The other figure, at the moment of landing, used one right foot to shatter and sink a thick stone brick five feet square.

His left foot had already stepped forward.

*Peng, peng, peng!! *

The ground rang three times in succession, and that figure had already caught up with the Kunlun slaves.

The last two Kunlun slaves noticed something wrong, turned around suddenly, and four hands reached out simultaneously.

Their hands could pierce through three-inch thick wooden boards, and their fingernails could leave clear dents on marble.

But the figure chasing them just spread his arms and continued to charge forward.

The chests of the two Kunlun slaves were both hit by the horizontal arms.

The dull sound from their bodies didn't sound like flesh and blood, but like solid wooden piles wrapped in thick iron skin.

But under the impact of those two arms, their chests directly sank, and their backs exploded with blood color.

Several broken ribs flashed with a forest-white color, shooting out in the blood spray.

*Dang, dang, dang, dang!! *

Those Kunlun slaves hit by the broken bones all trembled slightly, but the broken bones were also bounced away.

Only one unlucky one, who just turned his head, had his eyelid pierced by a broken bone, and without even a groan, he died on the spot.

The corpses of the two Kunlun slaves also fell over, being held by seven or eight black palms simultaneously.

Under this collision by Seeing Chu Tianshu, he only killed two enemies, and his figure felt a slight setback, pausing in place, and he was also very surprised in his heart.

He changed his fighting style instantly, crashed toward the side front, and his right arm reached out rapidly, grabbing onto a Kunlun slave's belly.

The Kunlun slave's belly was also as hard as iron skin, but under this grab, it softened like a pile of fat deforming, and he was grabbed firmly in his hand.

Then this Kunlun slave was thrown out, smashing toward seven or eight zhang away in the back.

Cheng Xiazi happened to arrive there, heard the enemy flying over, and dodged to the side.

*Peng!! *

The Kunlun slave smashed onto the ground, his body hard enough to bounce off the ground.

The Listening Wind Saber slashed onto his chest, making a *dang* sound.

This saber only left a dented white mark, not even breaking the skin.

But the saber had remaining force, and after one slash, borrowing the lingering sound of the saber's vibration, it suddenly wiped horizontally.

On the Kunlun slave's belly, there were still the five-finger marks caused by the grab just now.

This saber wiped past, and the arc of the saber cut through the internal organs, sweeping to the spine.

That Kunlun slave jumped like a dead fish, covered his belly, turned to the side, and curled up without moving.

*Dong, dong, dong, dong, dong!! *

In an instant, most of the Kunlun slaves were thrown over, smashing onto the ground.

Either on the belly or on the neck.

On their bodies, there was always a five-finger grab mark caused when they were thrown out.

Because the grabbing was too fast and the throwing was too fast, only pursuing efficiency, the inward force was insufficient, and it didn't cause much damage.

However, after they landed.

What greeted them was a saber that could hear the flaws just by rubbing against them.

The grabbing force, the impact force of smashing onto the ground, and the stress changes caused by this were all utilized by Cheng Xiazi.

His body circled and wandered, as if chasing his own shadow under the moon.

The saber dragged in his hand flashed and swept, the sound of the saber's singing rising wave after wave.

Those Kunlun slaves by his feet were either throat-broken or waist-broken, and after his footsteps swayed past, they all died one after another.

If the two of them faced these Kunlun slaves head-on, even with Seeing Chu Tianshu's strength and Cheng Xiazi's alertness, I'm afraid it would take close to half a quarter of an hour to wipe them all out.

The trouble was that these Kunlun slaves were originally dead soldiers.

If it took that long, the other party would have completely achieved their goal.

Therefore, Seeing Chu Tianshu only threw them without killing.

Utilizing the impact force of the earth, he let Cheng Xiazi's Loulan Slash be brought into full play.

It was just these three or four breaths, and those Kunlun slaves had already died in a large area.

A slight change in battle strategy resulted in a world of difference.

The Yuwen family subordinates who just rushed out from the side couldn't believe their eyes.

Only Yuwen Qing reacted quickly.

This old man held a long bow and grabbed a handful of pellets in his right hand.

Since ancient times, slingshots were divided into two types.

One was a wooden fork tied with ox tendons, the launching force relying entirely on the expansion and contraction of the ox tendons.

The other was using a bow for shooting arrows to launch pellets, the power mainly coming from the deformation of the sturdy bow back.

The force of the latter was generally stronger than the former.

But when the latter was launched, the hand had to have enough strength to twist the bow waist and turn it slightly, so that when the pellet was shot out, it wouldn't hit the bow back or one's own hand.

Yuwen Qing used the latter.

His "Copper Sparrow Bow" was practiced to perfection, and he was confident it was almost not inferior to his ancestors.

However, although the range of arrows was long, the target was also large, and one didn't need to hit the arrowhead; as long as an expert hit the arrow shaft, it would be deflected.

Therefore, he switched to using pellets, which had a smaller target and were harder to block.

*Hum!!! *

Yuwen Qing's bowstring snapped into a blur.

A handful of pellets in his right hand were fired in succession.

In the time of a breath, more than twenty pellets were all shot out.

All of Seeing Chu Tianshu's important joints and the few directions where he might dodge were all covered by the pellets.

With such a unique skill, Yuwen Qing had originally suggested that he himself create a flaw for Haidong Lai.

However, the trajectory of things like pellets was straight, and once fired, they couldn't be stopped.

If Haidong Lai dodged, it would easily affect Zhong Jinqiu and Guan Changling, and it was hard to say who the flaw was created for.

Guan Changling was too wary of Haidong Lai, and this opinion was rejected on the spot.

Now that it was used on Seeing Chu Tianshu, there were no scruples.

The pellets were about to arrive, and in the night, one couldn't see a trace of the trajectory at all.

Seeing Chu Tianshu, however, did not miss it; his feet, at some point, had already shoveled into the gaps of the floor tiles, and he suddenly kicked.

*Bang!!! *

The stone floor tile, five feet square, did not shatter at all under such short and rapid force.

The effect of Immortal Force made the entire floor tile suddenly bounce into mid-air.

Seeing Chu Tianshu's figure disappeared in this instant.

His head and shoulders dodged downward, his feet retracted upward, and his body was completely shrunk behind the stone slab.

*Ta! Ta! Ta! Ta! *

The remaining few Kunlun slaves around burst with blood flowers.

The skin that could withstand small crossbows couldn't withstand this kind of pellet, which was embedded in the flesh.

That thick and large stone slab was also hit by six or seven pellets, shattering in an instant.

However, when the pellets shattered the stone slab, the force had already decreased sharply.

A palm suddenly roared out from behind the shattered stone slab.

This palm, five fingers spread, as large as a peck, launched like thunder.

What the palm could hit was only a piece of position in the middle of the stone slab.

But the stone slab, at the moment of being shattered, was impacted by this force, and even the stone slab at the edge was affected, collapsing and shooting out.

Under the moonlight, it was like a gray dust lotus blooming.

The huge lotus, five or six feet in size, faced those Yuwen family people.

*Boom, ka!! *

Yuwen Qing's heart shook, as if he really heard a thunderclap in his ear.

His hand was taking out the second handful of pellets, just leaving the deer-skin bag, but his fingers suddenly lost strength, letting the pellets fall from between his fingers.

Yuwen Qing looked down and saw a small hole in his heart, which was bubbling with blood.

Vaguely, one could see it was a small piece of stone fragment embedded there.

This was the true target of Seeing Chu Tianshu's palm, the fragment contacted by the palm center position.

*Woo!! *

Golden light suddenly illuminated Yuwen Qing's face, and a golden divine weapon blocked in front of Yuwen Qing.

That weapon was more than nine feet long, but the top was forged like a phoenix.

Both blade edges resembled phoenix wings, and the tip resembled a phoenix beak.

This weapon came extremely fast.

Yuwen Chiming, holding this weapon, was actually able to capture the trajectory of Seeing Chu Tianshu's small fragment in the night environment.

But that danger, after all, was not aimed at him personally, and when his weapon blocked over, it was still a bit late.

Qing-shu!!

Yuwen Chiming only roared in his heart.

His face turned as pale as gold in an instant, majestic and awe-inspiring, the muscles on his cheeks tightened, leading straight to his temples.

The aura of the evil weapon was released, making the Yuwen family people nearby all have the illusion that their bodies were rising and falling with the waves.

Seeing Chu Tianshu shook his feet and charged violently, his trajectory straight, splitting the illusion of the environment rising and falling, and punched toward their family head.

The blue-black fist was condensed like steel.

However, when he was within seven feet, even Seeing Chu Tianshu felt that the situation in front was truly strange.

Dark golden light suddenly flipped over his head.

It smashed down heavily!

A dark golden light suddenly flickered above his head.

It smashed down with a heavy thud!

(End of chapter)