At the moment of crisis, Song Ying Jie, in true righteous fashion, drew upon inner strength to save his presumed benefactor and brother/mentor Daoist Wayseeker Crow, who was really Yin Na.
In actuality, there was no need for Song Ying Jie to suddenly imbue his strikes with even more qi than he usually did, because when Yong Fei turned his back to him he broke his defensive, charged stance which his Arms of Thathgata required two feet to be planted firmly in the ground as a base. Breaking the stance does not result in immediate, physical backlash, but instead invisibly lowered one’s vitality and therefore made one even more vulnerable.
However, Song Ying Jie was motivated by the desire to save Crow Bro, and thus used even more force than he usually did which was called upon from his hidden qi reserves. During the split second Yin Na witnessed Song Ying Jie’s qi-infused punch, he felt amazed and even lucky that he picked up this country bumpkin who could already manifest dagger qi. This youth was definitely more talented than he appeared, it was difficult to say if a proper education in martial arts would have increased his rate of learning or hindered it.
When one has attained a high enough understanding and mastery of qi, they could wield and almost mold the shape of qi to resemble the bladed edge of weapons. Cultivators could do this effortlessly, but only the most blessed and talented of martial artists could be able to form this special bond with the mere idea of a weapon and manifest its energy.
Yong Fei felt a pain that surpassed his memories of getting sliced and stabbed by actual swords. The target was his liver, and it made him vomit his partially digested food mixed with his own blood.
“What is this?” Yong Fei thought. “Have I, Yong Fei, bit off more than I could chew?”
Without a liver, blood cannot clot and all bleeding wounds will flow like rivers. Toxins and other infections will develop, and all other organs in the body will get damaged or even fail. Cultivators had various techniques and items to regrow destroyed organs from combat. Mortals, however, die if they lose a liver. There are no fast methods under Heaven to save a martial artist whose liver was obliterated.
“Ying Jie, stop!” Yin Na shouted.
Song Ying Jie stopped his hammerfist mid-swing, which was a move named as Lunar Hammer in the Rooster form of the 6 Zodiac Forms manual that Yin Na read.
Yong Fei was trembling on the inn floor, wheezing for air while vomiting in between breaths. Their first martial opponent of actual skill was defeated!
“Crow Bro!” Song Ying Jie rushed over to Yin Na. “Are you alright?!”
“I’m fine,” Yin Na said, even though the blood he coughed earlier stained his face veil. Yin Na was not the least bit concerned, for he possessed the secret Golden Core within his Dan Tian that made his cellular and skeletal recovery inhumanly fast, and thus he disregarded any worries about damages to his organs or bones.
Yin Na and Song Ying Jie lowered their gaze towards the bald-headed, middle-aged martial artist lying on the inn floor. Now that Yong Fei was incapacitated, his muscles had shrunk back to normal size. He was entirely at their mercy.
Yin Na thought to himself: “Killing him is out of the picture. That is illogical and will just make enemies with the villagers, and we’d learn nothing. Does this man need immediate medical treatment? If so, it looks pretty serious, I think Ying Jie just crippled some of his meridian points with that liver blow. Even if we had the means to treat him, is that the most beneficial action to take? Is he more use to us as a friend, as another tag-along, or can we immediately extract some information?”
Yin Na studied the sweating, pained face of Yong Fei on the ground.
In the Jiang Hu, it is common for foes to quickly turn into friends after a spar or even life or death battle. It’s almost another unwritten rule of the Wulin where the moment after sharing the thrill of blood and death creates an everlasting bond among martial artists. Even demonic martial artists form profound relationships with righteous ones like this, but demonic-aligned individuals especially need to have the right prerequisite character in order to evoke these feelings of honor, respect and camaraderie.
Yin Na observed in his mind: “This man below is not the kind to repay kindness with kindness should we revive him. He will not offer us with loyalty or friendship upon extending our hand. The man below our feet has the face of someone who respects power; is impulsive; holds grudges; and is desperate to save their life.”
Knowing this, Yin Na held back laughter as he knelt by Yong Fei who was still dry heaving on the floor.
“Well, mister,” Yin Na lowered his voice to a menacing growl. “Will you at least let us know your name before you die?”
“Y-you’re a Daoist!” Yong Fei managed to sputter through his painful gasps. However, he got the sense from Yin Na’s cold threat to kill that this was no Daoist but a demonic martial artist after all. Meanwhile, Song Ying Jie was still excited and enraged from Yong Fei hurting Crow Bro. During the heat of the moment, he saw nothing contradictory with Wayseeker Crow being a Daoist and yet threatening the stranger they defeated with death.
Yin Na slowly took off his face veil, which revealed his smashed up face. Some of his facial bones had almost shifted completely back into place, but the asymmetry of most of his face still resulted in a ghastly, ugly face.
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“What’s your name?” Yin Na asked menacingly.
Yong Fei began to panic.
“P-please, mercy!” Yong Fei cried. “Spare my life! Spare Yong Fei’s life! I was out of line, I had eyes but didn’t see Mount Tai! I’m a dog! You’re my ancestor!”
“Tch,” Yin Na clicked his tongue, as he thought, “He gave up so easily.”
“I can tell that my companion here crippled one of your meridians,” said Yin Na. “Help us during our stay in Spring Wind Village and we will not only give you medical aid but also look for methods to revive your lost meridian points.”
Yong Fei did not hesitate for a second. Yin Na’s domineering attitude also evinced an impression of cold brutal reason that reminded him of the transactional nature of merchants, convincing him that if he gave his word then his safety would be guaranteed in exchange.
“Yes, I swear it! I make a solemn oath on my ancestors.”
“Okay,” Yin Na stood up. “Innkeeper! Come tend to Yong Fei here.”
The innkeeper was too scared to hobble over to Yong Fei’s trembling body on the floor, so he urged his nephews and nieces to do the job for him.
“T-this stinky ‘Daoist!’” thought Yong Fei. “Promises to help me then throws me into the innkeeper’s hands!”
But he was in no position to protest. He was carried away by five of the innkeeper’s family members, on top of a gigantic chopping board from the kitchen reappropriated as a stretcher. Hauling him downstairs made for a comical sight and sound, as much cursing was exchanged back and forth between Yong Fei and the Innkeeper’s family members.
Yin Na made a show of not caring anymore the moment Yong Fei was dragged away, but he was probing Yong Fei the entire time he was down, even until he was out of sight.
Was Yong Fei a solo martial artist? Or was he a probe on behalf of some other martial arts clan? Can this seemingly insignificant battle maniac be a potential candidate influenced by Chosenism? These were the questions that ran through Yin Na’s head while he held Yong Fei’s life in his hands.
Surprise; unpredictability, deus ex machinas, these were all commonly expected in the Jiang Hu. The world of Wulin is such that after defeating an opponent and interrogating him their answers and confessions would be cut short with a poison dart to the neck from a quarter of a li away (Song Ying Jie nearby could be a potential deterrent against such would-be assassins, but Yin Na hadn’t observed any empirical evidence of Song Ying Jie’s dart-catching abilities).
“Crow Bro,” said Song Ying Jie. “Is this really okay? Shouldn’t we keep a close eye on him?”
“Don’t worry, Ying Jie,” smiled Yin Na, putting his face veil back on. “Couldn’t you tell that your move back there crippled a meridian point or two on his liver? He’s not going to be in any position to be getting back at us for that, soon.”
Song Ying Jie appeared persuaded, until his mouth slowly opened in an expression of shock.
“Could it be?” thought Yin Na to himself. “This ruffian doesn’t understand what he just did?”
Yin Na asked: “Did you not intend to cripple his meridians?”
“I know if you block someone’s meridian points they’ll lose a huge portion of their abilities,” said Song Ying Jie. “But I don’t know the locations of meridians, and I never learned medicine or any martial art that teaches about acupressural points.”
“How astounding!” thought Yin Na. “Dagger qi is powerful for beginner martial artists because it focuses so much qi to a fine point, which is also its weakness because you have to be accurate with it if you’re targeting something as small as an acupuncture point with a stabbing motion. Not only that, but it requires considerable power and concentration to be able to negate someone’s meridian point. You’re telling me that this welp managed to cripple someone’s meridians by pure accident?”
“It’s not good for you to recklessly cripple people’s meridians,” was advice for righteous martial artists. However, it was also good advice for prudent martial artists, especially demonic ones who did not want to grow their reputation disproportionately to their strength, because typically you had to be well acquainted with a meridian in order to cancel it. That is, one had to familiarize themselves with the angle as well as the amount of force necessary to apply to the target. However, if one recklessly went around crippling people’s meridians despite only knowing one or two acupressure points, then they may be asking for trouble from righteous martial artist sects.
“Wait, I crippled his meridians?” Song Ying Jie finally asked.
“Yes,” Yin Na said. “Ying Jie, you’ve killed most of the bandits who attacked your village. You couldn’t sense his durability and vital energy dissipating from that oaf’s body the moment you struck his liver? You probably struck a cluster of acupresurral points there, each one probably took him a year at least to break through.”
Hearing these words, Song Ying Jie’s face became ashen.
Yin Na understood his peasant empathy. Song Ying Jie was probably imagining the grueling training and study Yong Fei devoted into years of building his one meridian pathway, which Ying Jie had just undone in the span of merely half a breath with one punch.
“Why did I do it?” thought Song Ying Jie. “Why did I cripple a man’s gong fu abilities— almost killing him back there? It was just a martial challenge, clearly!”
Yin Na saw that Song Ying Jie was questioning himself, and immediately spoke to cut his introspection: “You did well back there, your gong fu was excellent. Hey, let’s go to bed. Tomorrow we need to question him.”
Song Ying Jie blinked, then nodded, “En.” He was not even aware that the secret diet of Ether grass and crushed Emerald Orb Spiders that Wayseeker Crow had been sneaking into his meals had conditioned his subconsciousness to overreact for Yin Na’s defense.
Such was Song Ying Jie’s brainwashing, and Yin Na was enormously pleased!
However, just as they were going to their room, they heard shrill cries from downstairs in the inn.
“Ahhh!” The nieces of the innkeeper wailed. “Yong Fei! What’s happening?”
“Yong Fei is bleeding! We can’t stop the bleeding!”
“He’s bleeding nonstop! Yong Fei is dying, somebody help!”
Yin Na snorted internally halfway through the threshold of his door, as he thought, “As I expected.”
Yin Na closed the door to their room, and grinned at Song Ying Jie with his eyes. “Come, Ying Jie. We’re not getting sleep anytime soon!”