Outside Jiaxing...
"Left side, lower belly, back, chest! Faster, Qiu Qianren, faster! Hahaha!" Each time Zhou Botong named a spot, a fist or palm struck Qiu Qianren in precisely that place.
Qiu Qianren guarded each spot as instructed, but he was always half a beat too slow. Fortunately, Zhou Botong put no real force behind his blows. They merely knocked Qiu Qianren off balance without injuring him. Yet being toyed with like this was worse than death to Qiu Qianren.
"Left shoulder!" Zhou Botong called again. As Qiu Qianren moved to defend it, Zhou Botong punched his right shoulder instead.
"Hahaha! You actually believed me, Qiu Qianren!" Watching Qiu Qianren stumble and fall again, Zhou Botong clapped his hands and roared with laughter.
"Old Imp, a man can be killed, but not humiliated! I'll fight you to the death!" Even an ordinary man would have struggled to bear such mockery, let alone the leader of a sect like Qiu Qianren.
Qiu Qianren sprang up in a fury and drove an Iron Palm straight at Zhou Botong.
Zhou Botong did not meet the ferocious palm head-on. He advanced instead of retreating, slipping past the strike by a hair's breadth even as he faced Qiu Qianren. He slapped Qiu Qianren on the back, then withdrew at his leisure. The bowl-thick tree behind him was not so fortunate.
The Iron Palm Technique was fierce to begin with, and this blow carried all Qiu Qianren's anger. The tree shattered under its force, spraying splinters everywhere.
"Haha! That won't work, Qiu Qianren!" Zhou Botong was about to charge in again when his eyes flew wide. "A snake!"
With that terrified cry, Zhou Botong leaped far away. No one had expected a little snake to be hiding in the tree Qiu Qianren had smashed.
Qiu Qianren