Chapter 187

Romance of Dragons and Snakes Chapter 187

When Yong Xiaolong had pressed down onto Wang Chao’s shoulders, he had been startled to see Wang Chao’s reaction to say the least. He hadn’t expected that within Wang Chao’s crocodile fist, the characteristics of the snake would be seen. Yong Xiaolong had the previous notion that Wang Chao was a pure practitioner of the crocodile stance without any variations.

The snake coiled around the tortoise was an esoteric art from the Wudang style!

But Yong Xiaolong had naturally another move in store. After his first attempt to force Wang Chao down, he had made use of Wang Chao’s twisting motions with his upper arms to twist his own body like a snake as well. While it didn’t completely shake off Wang Chao, he had been able to push him away enough for him to twist his body and stamp his foot out in a backwards motion.

This was one of the three paths to Shaolin’s Mountain Suppressing Fist. “Tread the Mountain.”

Of the three paths to the Mountain Suppressing Fist, there was the “Tread the Mountain”, “Turn the Ocean”, and “Support the Heavens”. There weren’t any standardized forms, but rather, they were all movements to be emphasized.

To the Hsueh style Xingyiquan, there was the “pierce, flow, sway, shift, and rotate” sequences. Of the five, the Hsueh style Xingyiquan studied them to their limits for the sake of martial arts and emphasized the movements rather than forms. This movement of “stamp”, or “tread”, could be done whatever the situation.

This was the same as what everyone yearned for in the world. The power is with my movements, rather than my form. Like the how a millet could be used in place of a rifle to shoot down an airplane rather than a cannon, the power was with the movements and the utilization. No matter how one fought, there was a way to win.

But without one’s martial arts reaching a state of absolute freedom and enthrallment with the pursuit of it–that was to say, the realm of Transforming Jin–this type of philosophy with movements and forms could not be debated.

With Yong Xiaolong directing his kicking force outwards, it was like trying to push a mountain into the sea. Even Wang Chao would be pushed away from this.

But unfortunately for him, Wang Chao had not been pushed away. On the inverse, his body didn’t even move at all. With a twist of his body and locking of his arms, Wang Chao had adopted a form similar to a tortoise basking the shell on it’s back in sunlight.

The tortoise stays with the snake moves. This tortoise and snake sharing the same body had been shown through his martial arts vividly and with great detail.

As Yong Xiaolong tried his best, it had been for naught. No matter how much he tried, he had only managed to touch upon Wang Chao’s sleeves.

And Wang Chao’s sleeves had been like the waves to the ocean. As Yong Xiaolong kicked them out into the “sea”, there was no point in his movements however.

Next came the Rising Wave Momentum of the Assault of Dragon and Snake!

It was also called the Rising Wave of the Dragon and Snake

He had used this skill once in his match against Cheng Shanming back in Singapore.

But this time, Wang Chao had been even more skillful with it, and its display was ten times more brilliant.

It was from his match with Jiang Hai that Wang Chao had started to understand the concept of the snake being intertwined with the body of the snake from the Wudang styles. From there, he had managed to polish it into his own fighting philosophy.

This one move contained the spirit of a python twisting its body in its conceptual theory. At the last movement, the dragon and snake would coil around to bind the enemy before killing it. Wang Chao had turned his crocodile fist into the dragon and altered the artistic imitation to go with the transition perfectly.

The Crocodile was inherently based off of the dragon! The tortoise was the dragon, and the alligator was the dragon as well.

The sleeves to the camo suit hadn’t been too long to begin with. But Wang Chao had brought his arms inwards to his body so as to lengthen the sleeves to a suitable length for this one technique.

Tzk! Somehow, blood came splitting out from Yong Xiaolong’s mouth. After Yong Xiaolong’s attempt to throw out Wang Chao’s back and body, his arms had immediately felt that something had gone awry. And in the next second, Wang Chao’s arms shot out from his sleeves to scratch out his arteries with his fingernails.

The Rising Wave of Dragon and Snake was to fight with the sleeves and entangle the person. From the sleeves hid the hands, and that mimicked the dragon or snake hiding within the depths of the sea.

When his arms grew cold, Yong Xiaolong knew that he had lost. If he delayed for the next 0-1 seconds, he would definitely be in mortal danger.

Whoosh! His body flew up in a backwards retreat along with his hands to land far away from Wang Chao and for his Rising Wave of the Dragon and Snake to miss him. This was the “Falling Step of the Lotus” and was usually an escaping method.

“The retreat of a monk is quite fast!” At the same time Wang Chao had split apart Yong Xiaolong’s arms with his fingernails, he had tried to use his arms to put him into submission. After the Rising Wave of the Dragon and Snake came the “Capturing Dragon Tearing Snake”. If successful, Yong Xiaolong’s arm would be a complete and utter mess–even his bones would be utterly fractured.

The display of Wang Chao’s fight had been cheap to describe with words, but his actions were filled with the quintessence of all he knew of martial arts. Wang Chao had meant to depose of Yong Xiaolong now to prevent trouble in the future.

Since he and the Shaolin Temple had plenty of grudges with one another, Wang Chao had given up on a friendly reparation. From the start, him being called the “Crocodile Immortal” was a nickname based off of how he crippled all of his opponents.

Yong Xiaolong’s martial arts were outrageously strong. And with his young age, he was an unbelievable threat as an enemy.

To live in the Jianghu wasn’t as nice as having guests over for dinner. One had to fight with a sharp eye, a quick hand, and a vicious heart.

But who would have known that Yong Xiaolong would have dodged this strike without Wang Chao succeeding for once.

Wang Chao had not let up however. When Yong Xiaolong retreated, Wang Chao pursued him like the shadow to a tree. Like the tiger out from its nest or a bear from its cave, he gave chase. He wanted to capitalize on this golden opportunity to strike down or cripple this young monk in front of him.

There wouldn’t be any punishment or crimes to be seen here. Since the two of them were demonstrating, he could attribute Yong Xiaolong’s death to a slip up without much retribution.

He was putting his all into the next few moves of his. If Wang Chao couldn’t cripple or kill Yong Xiaolong now, then his opponent would definitely be on guard for the future. And there would be no guarantee that Wang Chao wouldn’t have the upper hand again.

Yong Xiaolong was far stronger than Zhou Binglin in his own ways.

But in this one movement of Wang Chao, Yong Xiaolong had been prepared. Instantaneously, his hand flew to a pouch near his robes and took out something.

Tinkle! Three flashes of silver could be seen as they flew towards Wang Chao’s face.

Leaning his head to the side, Wang Chao watched as the silver lights make contact with the reinforced concrete walls and stay embedded into it.

It was three coins.

If a poker card was spun fast enough, it could slit the throat of a person. A coin could do the same thing.

WIth Wang Chao’s movement halted, Yong Xiaolong had been able to take in a deep breath.

Widening the distance, Yong XIaolong had been saved. The chance Wang Chao had to kill him had been lost.

It was then that Yong Xiaolong looked down at where Wang Chao’s fingernails had scratched across his arms. It had not been that serious and wouldn’t pose much of a threat to his ability to fight. With the distance widened and his breathing back on track, if Wang Chao didn’t do something now, Yong Xiaolong would be able to run away without a problem.

There was no more meaning in trying to continue to fight.

“How unfortunate, he is neither crippled or dead. That means trouble for the future.” Wang Chao suddenly felt like Liu Bang when he failed to kill Xiang Yu at his own banquet.