Chapter 153

Romance of Dragons and Snakes Chapter 153

Clearly, this Zhou Binglin had already attained the Transforming Jin, and his understanding of martial arts was extremely deep.

Originally, Wang Chao had thought that there had been no real expert in Beijing. But what he didn’t expect was to come across a person like him in the Summer Palace. Like planting a flower in the garden, the roots unintentionally encroach onto the shade of the willow tree.

“Accept my move!”

Hu! Suddenly, Wang Chao’s foot pressed onto the ground with a drumming sound, causing a tornado of wind to blow around his body and sweep the grass and leaves. With a step and a push, he was already right in front of Zhou Binglin. Using the Smashing Jin, he delivered a punch trained under the oceans towards Zhou Binglin’s abdomen.

This Seafloor Smash traveled a short distance with an abundant level of ferocity and silentness. There wasn’t even the screeching sound of air as it traveled. But its speed was undeniably fast. In a moment, it had already made an impression onto Zhou Binglin’s black clothing.

Wang Chao’s Jin had entered transformation. The pores on his entire body could open and close at will as if he was breathing, so when he struck, his pores opened and allowed him to breath while also removing the wind generated by his muscles. It saved him energy, and saved him sweat. This was the skill of turning the sound of the fist into absolute silence.

For a person whose martial art that did not reach the peak or transformation, it was impossible to strike so silently.

“To practice from having sound to not having sound, that too is another world.” A master of martial arts had once said in this regard.

Zhou Binglin’s eyes suddenly grew even brighter than before as his iris registered the sight of Wang Chao’s body and immediately backed off.

Wang Chao’s fist was made of pure strength without leaving any margins to escape. Zhou Binglin had lacked the desire to meet fist to spear, so he had decided to retreat.

After all, Zhou Binglin had followed the reasoning of Confucianism to dictate his way of life. Unknowingly, he had carried on that Confucian air to him that brought etiquette and open-mindedness. These two factors had then influenced his ability to understand the tactics of his opponents.

Zhou Binglin took ten steps back, his entire body flashing through the trees. Wang Chao was like his shadow and chased relentlessly without taking a single stop to breathe.

Bang! Zhou Binglin stepped against a tree, causing him to suddenly turn around and whip his arms out. The entire ground shook as a “Seven Star Pound” met the “Seafloor Smash” that had transformed into the “Under Elbow Punch”.

When the Pound met Hammer, Zhou Binglin had moved back again to let the tree behind him support his weight.

The three began to shake and countless of leaves began to sprinkle towards the ground.

Zhou Binglin’s clothes near his abdomen suddenly had the hole in the shape of a fist on it.

Originally, he had been able to dodge Wang Chao’s “Seafloor Smashing Fist”, but Hidden Jin had already made its way towards his clothes and made an impression.

This fist had immediately shown the absolute skill Wang Chao had gained after his step into the Transforming Jin. Splitting a stone in two with a fist was nothing. Many experts, Karateka and Taekwondo practitioners most especially, were capable of such a feat. But leaving a hole in one’s soft clothing was an inconceivable feat.

In the middle of Wang Chao’s “Seafloor Smash”, he had transitioned it into the “Under Elbow Punch” which had collided with the “Seven Star Pound” which had sent Zhou Binglin closer towards a tree.

Crack! Both the tree bark and the back of Wang Chao’s clothes had begun to shred and rip.

Wang Chao had remained unmoved, like a bear scratching a tree. With a disharmonious collision, the clothes on his back had torn away and revealed the dark green tempered iron like muscles on his doughty body. He was like the valiant general Li Xuanba of the past. Despite his small body, his might was intimidating to all and could force any single other general to bow their heads to him.

Raising a foot, Wang Chao stomped against a tree behind him and borrowed that recoil to send him forward.

His feet flitted across the ground like a swallow cutting across water. In a blink of an eye like a bullet shot from a gun, he had arrived at Zhou Binglin’s side once more. Left and right, his fists were like the an alligator floating in the river. Pulsating with power, they suddenly stretched outwards to capture the shoulders of Zhou Binglin.

This style was concisely the crocodile stance in Xingyiquan, known as the “Turtle Floats in Water”. A move meant to capture, both hands would twist the opponent’s shoulders before the next move of “Cutting Tail of the Crocodile”. Using the Jin of the entire body, one would come in, shake, twist, pull, tear, and push.

When the crocodile bites into its prey, it would shake its body before rolling over with its teeth, causing the prey to be torn into pieces.

When a rooster pecks a centipede, its entire body would ruffle at moment of contact. Because of that influx of power, the centipede would be torn apart.

The crocodile stance was a generic name for the crocodile and turtle type of animals. The crocodile fist embodied the tortoise floating in the water and the alligator preying on the wounds of its enemy.

When Li Xuanba fought, aside from his sledgehammers, he would also grab onto his opponents and tear them limb to limb.

In the soul of Chinese boxing, the Longfist for example, the Pound and Hammer were considered the most fiercest of them all. But in close combat capturing, the most prominent was dividing the muscles and misplacing the bone.

Dividing the muscles and misplacing the bone, if not perfect, one would only be able to injure the two and strain the flesh.

But for one who learnt it to its limits like Li Xuanba, he could tear a person apart!

This was the most cruel, vicious and filled with the most self-preservation type of moves. A master would not use such a method unless faced with a genuine threat.

For Wang Chao to do so here was to say that Zhou Binglin’s martial arts was already more than enough for him to go all out at once.

There was no chance for mercy!

Guan Yu did not open his eyes, to open his eyes meant he was ready to kill!

After the Transforming Jin, Wang Chao’s Xingyiquan and the 12 stances had progressed unbelievably far to the realm of the masters. He had stepped into perfection, and to the point where the grandmasters stood.

When Zhou Binglin saw Wang Chao rushed towards him with a fiercely dauntless wind, he really did feel as if he was up against a crocodile in the Yangtze river. At the charge, his nose could just slightly smell the foul stench of blood.

At the same time, his heart knew that there was no time to turn around or to escape. Both hands raised upwards as his feet ploughed the ground. His vertebrae lifted and then brought both fists apart.

With a burst of Jin like pulling a bow, both arms rushed outwards like to grab onto Wang Chao’s arms.

This form had a name, “Draw the Bow to Shoot at the Twin Paws of the Tiger”. A combination of the “Draw the Bow to Shoot the Tiger” and the “Chain Pound” from Taichi. At the burst of power, it gathered shot, whip, smash, explode, and rumble into one and was considered one of the most powerful of moves in Chinese boxing.

If one did not learn to couple strength and gentleness together into their vertebrae, they would not be able to use this move. If done forcibly, they would damage their vertebrae and become a cripple.

Zhou Binglin’s usage of this move meant that he was truly the strongest foe Wang Chao had ever met in his history.

In his over 50 years of life, the man’s body had never lost strength due to age!

Bang! Wang Chao’s “Turtle Floating in Water” meant for capturing met with the “Draw the Bow to Shoot at the Twin Paws of the Tiger”. Four fists met one another with the usage of Hidden Jin in hopes of deposing of one another.

When he was pushed after making contact, Wang Chao had felt his joints, ligaments, muscles and pores all feel the powerful rebound. His blood vessels began to feel the giant shake, his heart rate began to leap, his blood began to boil, and his internal organs felt as if it was about to jump out from their original positions.

His two hands seemed to have been shocked by a hundred thousand volt strike, paralyzing his arms to the point of numbness.

Zhou Binglin had taken heavy damages as well. Both hands had been pushed away while his body was threatening to spin away. It was then that he had realized that Wang Chao had used the four ounces repel a thousand pounds principle from Taichi. It had gotten to the point where a redirection was done in smooth transition as if the person himself had altered his own attack.

At the same time when his body was rotating away, just as he was about to steady himself, his opponent’s Jin had altered once more to move to his fingers. With an iron-like grip, Wang Chao stabbed into Zhou Binglin’s fist with a tremendous stabbing sound.

While his twin fists had indeed injured Wang Chao’s muscles and bones, Wang Chao had dug deep into his fists as well.

Wang Chao’s gripping strength was his most terrifying aspect after learning to use the mercury ball to train himself. Circulating his Jin around his body, even a steel plate could be gripped.

It was with this contact that Zhou Binglin knew that the capturing method Wang Chao had used was of the Eagle Claw. There was such a strength to it that far exceeded anything else he had seen before in his life. It was no wonder that he had swept Beijing of its experts, defeated the number one secular disciple of Shaolin, opened his own school, and was known to be the number one amongst the army.

Meng! The sound of a bull could be heard from Wang Chao’s chest. His internal organs were beginning to shake and the fishy smell of blood could be smelt from his throat. He knew that he was injured from the intensity of his opponent’s hard Jin of Taichi. It was far stronger than Chen Tianlei’s.

A little bit of power that could destroy the entire body.

With his internal organs injured, he wouldn’t be able to fight for long. Wang Chao’s entire body unexpectedly began to release power, his eyes straining from his actions and all of his pores standing straight up like a needle. A sight like this was similar to the idiom, “hair standing up from anger”.

With a loud and mighty shout, Wang Chao’s entire body began to darken in color and fiercer in appearance as if he was the second reincarnation of Li Xuanba, or a war machine. With both hands restraining the fists of Zhou Binglin, he brought his Jin throughout his body once more before transmitting it from his feet past his vertebrae and up to his head.

Instantly, his entire body borrowed onto the strength of his Jin to divide, split, pull, advance, and strike. Charging in close, Wang Chao’s entire body trembled violently with a thunderclap like sound.

Zhou Binglin knew that it was an extremely dire situation with this sudden progressment. Both arms shaking tremendously, Zhou Binglin stamped down onto the ground so that he had left an impression onto the earth.

Dropping 500 kilograms worth of power downwards from his waist, vertebrae, and legs, his arms had been powered up to become like spears. In this tremble, he was prepared to send Wang Chao’s entire body flying away.

Wang Chao’s usage of dividing the muscles and misplacing the joints had already brought him up close to Zhou Binglin. Zhou Binglin hadn’t expected to see Wang Chao become like a wargod right in front of him and charge with the might of a million soldiers across the great river. A strike that covered thousands of meters, a strike that left no time to dodge at all. Only with the most fundamental pole techniques and the most steady of Taichi would Zhou Binglin be able to send Wang Chao sent flying away.

Zhou Binglin’s shaking Jin was very mellow and rich. He had once demonstrated in the past with four men at each of his arms. With a single shake and tremble, he had sent all eight men three meters away.

But Wang Chao wasn’t any ordinary person. At the moment, he was the valiant individual Li Xuanba. With the technique of “Cutting Tail of the Crocodile”, he was fighting with all his might now.

He was like a bulldozer knocking away all that he advanced towards while both sides of him divided, ripped, tore, and struck away. Realizing that his attempt was useless, he hastily turned around with a single foot as his axis. This transitioning of his body momentum had led him to strike against Wang Chao at a very close proximity between the two.

Bang! Both fighters struck against each other before being sent flying high into the sky.

As Zhou Binglin was in midair, he saw that Wang Chao’s hand had seemingly tore something from his own body. Falling back to the ground, he suddenly felt his right arm and shoulder sting in pain before blood gushed from that side of his body!

Glancing downwards, Zhou Binglin saw that his right arm had been torn away from him with Wang Chao’s “Cutting Tail of the Crocodile”. Flesh, blood, bone, and muscle, all had been revealed and torn away.

The object in Wang Chao’s hand was the right arm of Zhou Binglin!

Guan Yu did not open his eyes, to open his eyes meant he was ready to kill!

In a competition between experts, it was the exact same process of the ferocious beasts fighting their prey in the wild! The hand that divides the bone and misplaces the joints! It was the most cruel of methods amongst Chin Na, and one of the most cruelest of methods in Chinese boxing. Unless it was absolutely needed as a last resort, it could not be used.

Pft! Wang Chao struck the ground with a mouthful of blood spraying out. Seeing the arm that he had ripped away, Wang Chao had unexpectedly felt a deep sensation of sorrow and helplessness in his heart.

This type of sorrow and helplessness was the same feeling he had felt in his competition with Zhang Wei.

Brushing himself off, Zhou Binglin’s face had gone entirely white. His feet stepped forward before swaggering to the east and then breathing back towards the west two steps. With a bang, he fell back to the ground where his blood began to dye the grass red.

Any expert wouldn’t be able to continue fighting after having their arm torn apart in such a manner.

For the sake of their name, two experts had been led to such a state like this after a happenstance meeting. From this state, the cruelty of such a match could be seen, and how life or death could be decided within the blink of the eyes.

Wang Chao couldn’t hold back. If he lost, then his name, life and business would become a wasted effort.

After becoming known, not only did one’s name become his own shackles, it became his own responsibility to uphold.

It was at this moment that Cao Jingjing who was watching this scene with wide open eyes from nearby woke up from her dreamlike state. Seeing the scene in front of her, her mouth had dropped open as if wanting to yell. But the exclamation had died within her throat, unable to escape from it completely.

She was a person who had seen the aspects of society. After reawakening, her head had begun to consider just what step to take after this.

This battle was far more absurd than any other fight Wang Chao had ever been in, but it was absolutely necessary for him to fight in it.

The name of a grandmaster or master would be carried on their backs forever. A practitioner would always have to fight for the sake of their name.