Crash—!
Outside the Wind and Moon Tower, the South Hall thugs scattered as if they had been granted a pardon, their foreheads drenched in cold sweat.
They looked at Fang Xuan, whose expression had not changed from beginning to end.
Then they looked at the East Hall thugs, all wearing disappointed expressions, and could not help wanting to curse.
They were thugs to make money. Were these people really risking their lives?
"Brother Xuan, we'll go in with you!"
One Line Sky, Water Monkey, and the others all spoke up.
"No need for so many people."
Fang Xuan shook his head, then crooked a finger at Chen Jingming, signaling him to come over.
"Brother Xuan?" Chen Jingming walked over.
Fang Xuan lowered his voice. "Take some men into the city and handle something for me. That Yuan Bo had a son in his old age..."
A moment later.
"Chu Chong, Monkey, and Li Can, come upstairs with me. The rest of you wait below."
After speaking, Fang Xuan stepped into the Wind and Moon Tower.
The Wind and Moon Tower occupied a considerable area, with a spiral staircase made of sandalwood leading directly to the second floor.
Fang Xuan climbed the stairs step by step.
He saw Yuan Bo, already past sixty, sitting in a large chair with an ugly expression. Han Xian stood beside him, his gaze locked tightly on Fang Xuan and following Fang Xuan's every movement.
"Yuan Bo, what fine leisure you have. At your age, instead of staying home to tend flowers and fish, you've come out to meddle in the affairs of the martial world? Aren't you afraid of ruining your good name in your twilight years?"
Fang Xuan walked forward with a smile.
Bang!
Han Xian slammed his palm onto the table, rose to his feet, and shouted angrily, "Fang, I'm warning you—just because others fear you doesn't mean I do! When I first entered the martial world, you were still playing in the mud at Bamboo Raft Houses! Stop throwing your weight around in front of me!"
He stood in Fang Xuan's path, widening his eyes and glaring at him viciously.
This seemed to be the pose all thugs used to show how fierce they were.
Fang Xuan raised his head and narrowed his eyes at Han Xian, who was even larger than him and stood before him like a mountain.
The next moment.
Boom—!!!
A fierce gust howled through the air!
An incomparably vicious backhanded slap struck Han Xian across the face in an instant, sending him flying and smashing through a string of tables and chairs!
"Know your place. Don't you know that when a hall master is speaking, juniors are not allowed to interrupt?"
Fang Xuan casually picked up a piece of coarse white cloth from the round table and wiped the crimson blood from his hand.
Then he lowered his head to look at Yuan Bo, whose expression had turned livid, and said with a smile, "Yuan Bo, if you're recruiting men, at least recruit some with quality. Taking in nothing but dimwitted crooked melons and cracked dates—aren't you ruining your own reputation?"
"Fang Xuan!!!"
Behind the round table, Yuan Bo took a deep breath and forcibly suppressed the fury in his heart.
"A Xuan, we're all from the same gang. Don't take things too far! Han Xian was in the wrong this time. I'll have him apologize to you. Why be so relentlessly aggressive—"
Before Yuan Bo could finish.
"Apologize? Yuan Bo, have you been retired for so long that you've gone senile?!"
Fang Xuan could not help laughing as if he had heard some hilarious joke.
The next moment, the smile on Fang Xuan's face slowly faded, and his tone turned cold. "Yuan Bo, Han Xian brought men into my East City and wrecked more than a hundred of my establishments. The losses are at least five thousand taels. And you think one apology settles it? Are you sure you're not joking with me?"
"I, Fang Xuan, have always repaid kindness with kindness and vengeance with vengeance! I said it before: whoever reaches a hand into East Hall, I'll chop off that hand! Chu Chong, Monkey, hold down this Mad Pig! Laosan, bring me an axe!"
Han Xian had been slapped so hard by Fang Xuan that the world spun around him and stars burst before his eyes. His head felt as though it had been struck by a giant hammer.
Before he could react, Chu Chong and Water Monkey viciously pinned him to the table.
Li Laosan's throat bobbed. He shuddered at the order, hurriedly removed an axe from his waist, and handed it to Fang Xuan.
"Stop!!"
Yuan Bo's face turned iron-blue as he roared and suddenly reached out toward Fang Xuan.
If Fang Xuan really chopped off Han Xian's hand right in front of him, Yuan Bo would have no face left to remain in the martial world!
Rip—!
The shriek of rushing wind was piercing. As Yuan Bo grabbed out, his blood and qi surged, and a thin golden layer emerged over the surface of his skin!
Fang Xuan abruptly turned his head, a sharp gleam flashing through his eyes.
Zheng Juexiong was too strong. Xie Han was too weak!
He had long wanted to test himself against someone and see exactly what level he stood at among Entry Realm Martial Artists!
And Yuan Bo, once at the completion of the Skin Arhat Middle Stage, was undoubtedly the best test subject!
"Whale Sand!!!"
Fang Xuan gave a low, savage laugh. Black Jiao Marks instantly appeared on his right hand as he threw a punch at Yuan Bo!
The blood and qi throughout his body roiled as if dragons were churning within him, producing an endless roaring sound!
Behind him, a blood-and-qi phantom seemed to appear—a great whale leaping from the sea!
Bang!!!
Fist and palm collided in an instant, producing a dull boom like a thunderclap exploding.
Yuan Bo staggered back three steps. With every step he took, the floorboards beneath his feet cracked like a turtle's shell, and the mouthful of rebellious blood in his chest could no longer be suppressed, surging from his throat.
He first looked at his right hand, its finger bones shattered.
Then he abruptly lifted his head and stared at Fang Xuan in shock and fury.
This Fang Xuan... what terrifying strength!
And beyond that...
That blood-and-qi phantom was clearly the phenomenon that appeared only when the Whale Sand Palm had been cultivated to great completion!
Fang Xuan had only joined the gang for a few years. How had he cultivated the Whale Sand Palm to such a profound level?!
"Yuan Bo, you're just a bag of old bones, with one foot already in the coffin. You should stay home and wait for death in peace instead of trying to play the hero!"
Fang Xuan withdrew his hand and gave Yuan Bo a disdainful look.
Compared with the fierce, powerful force behind Zheng Juexiong's palm, Yuan Bo's Charging Tiger Palm was so weak and feeble that it exceeded Fang Xuan's expectations.
The next moment.
Fang Xuan snatched up the short axe and viciously chopped it down toward Han Xian's hands, which were pinned to the table!
"No!!! Yuan Bo, save me!!" Han Xian was completely terrified. His eyes bulged wide, his eyeballs nearly popping from their sockets as he screamed in horror.
From beginning to end, he had never imagined Fang Xuan would act with such decisive brutality!
Even less had he expected Yuan Bo, who had been in the Entry Realm for decades, to lose in a single move to Fang Xuan, who was not even eighteen!
Bang!
A cold flash streaked through the air, and blood sprayed upward!
Both of Han Xian's hands were cleanly severed from the wrists by that axe!
The force of the blow was so great that it even split the thousand-pound solid wooden round table in half!
"Ah—!!!"
Han Xian's eyes bulged grotesquely as he doubled over, letting out a miserable scream and struggling violently.
Even Chu Chong and Water Monkey, who had been holding Han Xian down, were jolted backward.
Pfft!
A young tea servant responsible for pouring tea suddenly drew a dagger from his waist and, in the blink of an eye, rushed behind Han Xian and viciously drove it into his back!
Han Xian, who had been struggling in agony, went limp, and his cries gradually faded away.
The young tea servant clapped his hands, raised his face, and flashed Fang Xuan a smile.
"Master Fang, the knife you gave me was too big and hard to use. I used this little knife to stab him instead. Does that count?"
All of this happened in no more than a flash of lightning!
By the time Yuan Bo reacted, Han Xian had already collapsed to the floor. Blood seeped from the wound in his back, forming a pool of blood.
"Fang Xuan!!!"
In that instant, Yuan Bo's eyes nearly split apart with rage, his fury reaching its peak.
PS:
A revision concerning the earlier chapter, "In This World, There Are Always Those Who Do Not Know Whether They Live or Die."
Revision: the losses the South Hall thugs caused East Hall have been changed from fifty thousand taels to three thousand taels.
When Old Drunk wrote that part before, he really got carried away and wrote it offhandedly. It was not rigorous enough.
Later, after being reminded, I went to look through a great deal of material, such as the History of Ming, the Treatise on Food and Money in the History of Song, the Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government, Research on the Social Economy of the Song Dynasty, and so on. There is too much material to go into detail here.
But just consider the era of that "Perfect Old Man" from the braided dynasty: donating 13,120 taels of silver could buy an appointment as a circuit intendant—equivalent to spending 2.7 million to become a Fifth Rank official.
From this, one can see how exaggerated one hundred thousand taels of silver would be as compensation for damage to inns and restaurants.
Again using the braided dynasty as an example, even for a major corrupt official such as a prefect, there was only the saying, "A clean prefect for three years, and one hundred thousand snowflake silver."
And for one district of a county town, let alone mere smashing and looting, even rebuilding the entire place from scratch would not cost one hundred thousand taels of silver.
I hope all you great talents will overlook this and not quibble with a crude fellow like Old Drunk. Please.
Before you continue