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Wang Ming looked at the Mount Hua before him, and a sense of how things remained while people changed could not help but well up in his heart.

A wave of melancholy washed over him!

Those martial brothers who had once grabbed medicinal porridge together in the dining hall—he feared they would never be seen again.

Master and Mistress—they probably would not have a chance to reunite either.

A parting was indeed eternity!

The Mount Hua of the Eagle Shooting Heroes World had a path up the mountain far more precipitous than that of the The Smiling, Proud Wanderer World.

The Mount Hua of the Smiling, Proud Wanderer World had a sect upon it that had forcibly constructed plank roads.

In this era roads were built too, but unless one was a trained person, walking them was difficult.

Those winding and twisting mountain paths, the continuous mountain ranges in the distance, and the familiar scenes one after another conjured up the memories buried deep in the bottom of his heart.

He could not help sighing.

Before he knew it, he was alone again.

No!

He should say that he had always been alone.

He was subconsciously distancing himself from others, keeping a distance from people.

Whether it was toward old Yue, or Guo Jing, or even Li Mochou, he kept a neither too close nor too distant distance.

Wang Ming suddenly realized this problem and could not help asking himself:

"Why?"

After a burst of contemplation, Wang Ming understood.

"The Buddha says: Life has eight sufferings: birth, aging, illness, death, the parting of loved ones, resentment at being together for long, not getting what one wants, and being unable to let go."

His subconscious distancing of himself from others was precisely because he feared these eight types.

The lifetime when Yue Buqun had taken him in, Wang Ming had always acted like a transparent person to lower his own sense of presence, simply because he did not want them to give him too much care and affection.

He was afraid of sinking into it and developing genuine feelings.

When the time came, watching them age and turn into burial mounds—the grief in his heart would go without saying.

With emotions too deep for them, the feelings of reluctance to part would shackle his footsteps.

Because this parting meant eternity!

Wang Ming had subsequently pushed horizontally through the The Smiling, Proud Wanderer World, which could actually be considered running away out of fear that he would really get too deeply invested.

Wang Ming had never been fond of killing.

In the end, he still went and slaughtered all the Songshan Sect experts and elite disciples.

It was precisely to repay Yue Buqun's kindness, as he did not want to leave behind a debt in his heart in the future that he could not repay.

Suddenly,

Wang Ming's skin felt a fierce wind heading toward him, and he subconsciously dodged to the left.

"Clang!"

A sound like steel clashing rang out on this sparsely populated mountain path, startling countless birds into flight.

Then Wang Ming plunged from this cliff into the bottom of the ten-thousand-foot abyss.

After a short while,

an old man with graying hair, a short stature, and wearing a short yellow-brown cloth tunic appeared at the spot where Wang Ming had just been.

This person was an expert no less than the Five Greats—Qiu Qianren.

Qiu Qianren walked to the edge of the cliff and looked down to inspect it.

"This old fellow—judging by his relaxed posture climbing the mountain, his martial arts are not the least bit inferior to mine. I didn't expect his vigilance to be so poor; it's only right that I easily eliminate an opponent," Qiu Qianren said with a smiling face, stroking his graying beard.

It turned out that Qiu Qianren had noticed Wang Ming coming up behind him and saw that his martial arts were not inferior to his own. If he were allowed to come up the mountain, when the Mount Hua Sword Debate arrived to contend for The First Under Heaven, there would be one more formidable rival.

So he suddenly conceived a trick, utilizing the terrain to lie in ambush and deliver a fatal blow to this mysterious expert.

He looked down again and only saw misty clouds and fog, figuring he must be dead for sure, then turned around intending to continue toward the mountain.

Suddenly, a figure surged straight up from below, and Qiu Qianren reflexively thrust out a palm.

"Slap!"

Because he was in too much of a rush, Qiu Qianren did not put much force into this palm strike. At the moment of the palm clash he was sent flying, crashing and snapping a tree as thick as a man's arm.

He had no time to worry about the pain in his back; he adjusted his state and prepared to meet the enemy before him.

The one who had batted Qiu Qianren away was precisely Wang Ming.

He had fortunately deflected his body slightly, which caused Qiu Qianren's must-kill strike to land on the greatsword carried on his back.

However, that palm strike was also no small matter, and the internal force transmitted through the sword was extremely fierce.

If he had not practiced the Indestructible Vajra Body, that palm would have caused Wang Ming no small amount of injury.

Although the Indestructible Vajra Body could not yet transform him into a golden man, he could employ some body-protection methods to block certain less formidable qi energies.

Then, relying on the Nine Yin Divine Claw and the Horizontal Void Shift, he had climbed back up. Entering his field of vision was the figure of an old man. Without needing to think, he knew this fellow had ambushed him, so how could he stand on ceremony? It was straight into a palm strike containing his full strength.

"Who are you, and why are you here ambushing me, Wang?" Wang Ming said after coming up.

The old man did not speak, directly throwing a palm strike at Wang Ming.

Wang Ming received this person's palm, knowing deeply how terrifying this palm force was. This palm force was even above Hong Qigong's Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms, being extremely fierce and tyrannical.

He dared not trade palms with him casually, as he had never studied palm techniques.

"Nine Yin Divine Claw!"

Wang Ming suddenly executed the Nine Yin Divine Claw, wanting to use cleverness to defeat strength, unwilling to clash hard with him, and looking for an opportunity to pierce his wrist with a single claw.

Yet upon exchanging blows, Wang Ming discovered something was wrong.

This person's palm technique was not only fierce and tyrannical, but the moves were also exquisite beyond compare, and Wang Ming simply could not out-clever him.

"I know. You are Iron Palm Water Glider Qiu Qianren," Wang Ming suddenly blurted out, revealing this person's identity.

The two temporarily separated, but their bodies remained tense, ready to trigger at any moment to settle the opponent.

"How did you guess it was the old man? We shouldn't have met," Qiu Qianren also said with puzzlement.

"In this world, of those whose martial arts are at the level of the Five Greats and who are still so tasteless as to ambush others, apart from Ouyang Feng and Qiu Qianren, there is no one else. I have met Ouyang Feng, so it can only be you."

Hearing this, Qiu Qianren flew into a rage out of shame and engaged in combat with Wang Ming once more.

The two began to slaughter each other on this mountain path. The tyrannical, fierce wind of their palms and the sharp, piercing claw strength caused the surrounding trees to suffer collateral damage.

The earth and stones flew where they exchanged blows. Qiu Qianren's Iron Palm Technique was actually even more formidable than Hong Qigong's Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms; the reason its presence was so low was simply because its name was too commonplace, often causing people to mistake it for the ordinary Iron Sand Palm.

The Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms had a great reputation because two generations of protagonists used this martial art, and its appearance frequency was extremely high.

The few people who used the Iron Palm Technique were all supporting characters who crashed and burned, and upon hearing the name, one would feel that this martial art was unrated.

If Hong Qigong had not obtained the Nine Yin Manual, during the second Mount Hua Sword Debate he might not necessarily have been able to defeat this Qiu Qianren.

The offensive methods of the Four Peaks were all extremely brilliant, but they were slightly inferior in internal cultivation alone, which dragged them down.

This was also why they were all so enthusiastic about obtaining the Nine Yin Manual, wishing to break through their own shackles with it.

And ascend to an even higher level.

The two exchanged blows among the mountains for nearly a hundred rounds, still unable to tell victory from defeat.

Qiu Qianren no longer had any interest in entangling with the person before him; he knew that if he did not break away, he might take a fall.

The person before him had at first been inferior to him, but for some reason, his claw strength was growing stronger and stronger, and the piercing power at his fingertips was becoming increasingly fierce.

If this dragged on any longer, that claw force could crack the Iron Palm he had practiced for half a lifetime.

Moreover, the greatsword on the back of the person before him had not been used up to now because the narrow mountain path restricted him.

He could not drag this out.

Qiu Qianren made a feint toward Wang Ming and then sped away in flight.

Seeing the enemy trying to run, how could Wang Ming allow that?

"Old scoundrel, don't run!"

He regulated his breath and gave chase.

After a long while, he stopped helplessly.

"This old scoundrel's lightness skill is truly remarkable; Iron Palm Water Glider is no empty boast. I'd better find a place to recover first," Wang Ming muttered to himself.

Wang Ming's battle with Qiu Qianren had lasted half a day, and the consumption was not small.

At the level of Wang Ming and the others, without an ambush, wanting to instantly flash-kill someone and decide the victor in a short time was very difficult.

One had to know that thirty or forty years later, Qiu Qianren and the Golden Wheel Monk—who had cultivated the tenth layer of the Dragon Elephant Prajna Skill—fought a great battle for a day and a night before deciding victory and defeat, and he still relied on his lightness skill to escape heavily wounded.

Although he was not that strong right now, Wang Ming was not as strong as the Golden Wheel Monk either; the Golden Wheel Monk of that time was probably stepping into the Innate realm.