From the moment the innkeeper brought Yin Na upstairs, he understood that the elderly man made preparations. The order of the questioning was intentional, which was why Yin Na dismissed the first farmer curtly and skipped the mother at first.
These people were all the close friends of the innkeeper, who intended for all of them to partake in the rich stranger Wayseeker Crow’s basket of wealth. Their words were carefully prepared to correspond and confirm each other’s accounts, so that Yin Na may reward them all a pretty silver each for their time.
Did they lie? Probably not. But this blatant, cheap attempt at acquiring benefits was too pathetic for Yin Na’s standards.
He disdainfully scored it a D!
But who was this Yong Fei fellow?
When Yin Na was a cultivator visiting the village with his Dao Brother-to-be-betrayed Deng Ping, this fellow made zero impression on him. His power was simply too weak compared to a Foundation Establishment cultivator.
However, now that Yin Na was reborn into the Qi Refining stage, this martial artist named Yong Fei with the superficial appearance of a buff farmer was impressing him greatly with his surging levels of qi.
Song Ying Jie himself lacked long term fighting experience, despite killing most of the bandits that destroyed his village three nights ago. But above all, he lacked people experience, and unbeknownst to him, every stranger he met was exacting a mental toll on his anxiety, especially this mysterious fourth figure in the hall who was also a fellow martial artist. If Crow Bro wasn’t with him, he’d feel hopeless!
“Have I somehow offended you, mister?” Although Yin Na’s words seemed like polite inquiry, his tone was pugnacious and invited provocation.
“Hmph!” Yong Fei harumphed loudly. “Just because you have money and a little gong fu you think you can treat us like dogs?”
Yin Na said: “My questioning is fast and thorough, I like to cut to the matter of things, rather than waste banter on rot and flowery nothings. Now good sir, when exactly did I treat you like a ‘dog? It’s my turn to ask you: why are you putting on this show of anger? It’s really unhealthy and unbecoming for a man your age to be blazing with such a temper.”
“Very well! I will tell you: I came here today on the pretext of Lao Hu (the innkeeper)’s scheme, who told me that two martial artists wandered into our village today, but in actuality I came to fight you two.”
“You also cut to the matter!” Yin Na nodded. “Let’s do it then!”
“Not inside the inn, please!” the Innkeeper wailed, to the deaf ears of all involved.
“Ying Jie!” Yin Na shouted.
The most obedient, well-trained war dog could not have acted swifter than Song Ying Jie, who leaped over Yin Na with a soaring kick towards Yong Fei. With casual balance, Yong Fei side-stepped, and Song Ying Jie’s feet crashed into the wooden floors, sending splinters flying everywhere. All the other people in the hallway scrambled, while the guests in their rooms on the second floor trembled behind their doors.
Yin Na did not allow Yong Fei to react. He closed the space and entered with a punch that rolled into an elbow. Yong Fei blocked with a raised forearm, and the resulting impacts sounded like bags of rice being dropped from the second floor!
In combat, Ying Jie was like a different person compared to the socially awkward presence he held in public. He attacked in high volume strikes and did not get in Yin Na’s way. On the contrary, Yin Na’s slower pace, especially with him possessing only one arm, was actually impeding Song Ying Jie’s flow of assault. He immediately allowed Ying Jie to lead the assault while attacking off-rhythm to fill his attack gaps.
Yong Fei retreated, having no space or time to counter-attack, and jumped to the end of the hall, whereupon he took a strong inhale through his nostrils.
Yong Fei’s entire body seemed to inflate with qi, the gust rattled the nearby doors in the hallway from the force seeming to travel from his feet upwards to his face. The seams of his clothes began to tear as his muscles hardened, and he charged.
Yin Na took immediate mental note of this observation: This type of body-hardening was indicative of someone who opened meridians under Buddhist martial arts. Perhaps Yong Fei was properly learned in the martial arts, instead of being self-taught like Song Ying Jie.
Yong Fei’s muscle fibers toughened, strengthened by mind and qi, and his bones became like steel. His back increased twice in size as he flexed his lats, and thick forests of veins erupted over his limbs, with a thick notch ripping across even on his forehead! He could now endure harder punishment, while dealing great amounts of it as well.
Song Ying Jie’s limbs began hurting, almost bruising from repeatedly getting his strikes blocked. This was quite humbling if not demoralizing for him, who up until now, had never faced an opponent in the martial arts that even came close to his level of skills. He had been concealing his level of true killing potential, as those bandits that night didn’t even come close to pushing him to the edge.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Even Yin Na did not know what the total number of opened meridians Song Ying Jie possessed. This is because in the martial arts world, the amount of acquired and mastered meridians an individual possesses is a taboo topic to disclose.
Clearly-defined power levels like in the Cultivation world are less prominent in the mortal realm, as martial artists’ powers are most saliently defined by their quantity as well as specific groupings of opened meridians. They are unable to use true magical techniques, nor employ truly magical artifacts or weapons. When you remove the sword or armor from a martial artist, all he has left are his meridians.
Meridian points are blockages on certain meridians, or qi highways, which upon becoming unblocked unleashes vast innate power within the individual. The unblocking of every meridian always results in breathing becoming more profound, resulting in greater of intakes of qi, but not all meridians grant the same benefits.
The unlocking of Yin Meeting was a basic starter point in most martial artist’s bodies, beginning from two fingers’ lengths away from the navel, right in the center of the Dan Tian. Unlocking this enabled one to establish strong roots, meaning a better defensive base as well as vast storage of qi for basic conversion into attacks. The most basic punch is capable of delivering the delayed effect of a hammer on a chain once someone acquires this basic and necessary meridian point.
Crooked Bone was another basic meridian point, it was in the direction of a human’s left hip. It increased one’s reaction time, which made it be known in some martial texts as the “time-slowing” meridian. It also increased the quantity of qi one could use at a time, which meant they could breathe more and recover faster.
So far, Yin Na unlocked these two meridians out of desperation during his violent introduction with Song Ying Jie, and did not unlock anymore because Ying Jie was not seriously intending to kill him. The combination of these two meridians resulted in overall increase in durability and longevity, but Yin Na was not satisfied. In fact, he was worried that he might have to resort to some hidden, forbidden technique in the future in order to undo the unlocking of these two meridians.
This is because one cannot recklessly unlock meridians! Depending on an individual martial artist’s attainment of gong fu and qi reserves, they could only possess a limited grouping of meridians at a time. The top martial artists in the realm could only hold a maximum of three completed meridians, and they had to achieve it through painstaking research, experimentation, and training in order to make sure that these three opened pathways in their bodies delivered optimum benefits while not conflicting with each other.
Of course, the best groupings of meridians are a closely guarded secret in the Jiang Hu world, to say even less of a basic meridian pathway. There is more misinformation spreading out in the agrarian, mortal world about basic meridians such as “Liver Meridian” or “Spleen Meridian” than there were among martial artists themselves, who passed down training methods and meridian honing techniques only to their clans and Sect members.
Yin Na had abundant remaining qi from drinking the 1,000 year spirit sap, but if he recklessly unlocked meridian points he could easily waste his efforts and end up not having unlocked a single meridian pathway at all. Without the necessary knowledge, randomly allocating meridian points was like trying to recklessly toss ingredients in a cauldron and hoping that something edible would come out.
Speaking of cooking, the life skills such as the professional attainment level of cooking and basic adept attainment level he acquired in farming affected the ease of unlocking certain meridian points, as well as the amplification of their benefits. It was Yin Na’s auxiliary goal to locate a martial arts’ master who specialized in life skills, or at least a Jiang Hu denizen who had proper training and education in gong fu to enlighten him on basic principles such as properly existing meridians and their combination of meridian points needed to be unlocked.
Perhaps this man who evidently was cultivating a Buddhist-like, hardened body build and was named Yong Fei would be one of these men who can enlighten him!
“Watch mine!” Yin Na shouted. Using Jumping Across Clouds, Yin Na’s feet ran alongside the wall, where he landed behind Yong Fei.
Yong Fei snorted.
He was being attacked by both front and behind, he turned so that Yin Na was on his left and Song Ying Jie was on his right.
Yong Fei’s movements became absurdly fast, until it appeared as if he had eight arms sprouting from his torso. His legs were implanted firmly into the wooden floor, and kicking them was like kicking a pillar of stone. His Arms of Thathgata technique began parrying attacks from Yin Na on his left and Song Ying Jie on his right.
Several residents at the inn took their opportunity to burst out of their rooms and flee the scene. Cries of “Aiya!” could be heard not only from the guests but the innkeeper and his family as they lamented this loss in business and damage to their property.
After defending for a while, Yong Fei bought enough time to build up energy for his counterattack. He unleashed the second half of his Arms of Thathgata technique with a cruel laugh and vengeful glee.
His arms, which had been absorbing and deflecting blows at inhuman speed should logically have been weighed down by fatigue and strain, but instead seemed to have unleashed the built up pain and abuse they were enduring for the past twenty breaths in a blinding flurry.
Song Ying Jie was able to block and survive all these blows, but Yin Na only had one arm. He felt his brain being rattled inside his skull everytime Yong Fei’s punch slipped through his defenses; he felt his oxygen being stolen from the lungs everytime a punch struck him in the ribs! The damage to his organs was not light, as he coughed blood.
“Crow Bro!” Song Ying Jie cried out. He let out a howl as he emitted a gust of qi from his own body.
“Not good,” thought Yong Fei. “I ought to finish this one off, then turn my attention to this whelp to my right!”
It was a gamble for Yong Fei. If he turned to focus on finishing off Yin Na, then he’d break the stance for his Arms of Thathgata technique. He would lose his temporary position of invulnerability for a brief window, during which Song Ying Jie on his left could perform a swift attack that could potentially cripple him.
All decisions made in the Jiang Hu are gambles. Yong Fei took his gamble, and it was a mistake!
Song Ying Jie roared, unleashing power that Yin Na did not realize the youth was still hiding. As soon as Yong Fei turned his back to him, Song Ying Jie’s right fist became a dagger of qi, stabbing mercilessly into Yong Fei’s liver.
“Guh!” Blood erupted from Yong Fei’s mouth.