Purple Cloud Void Scripture

The voice came out of nowhere. Er Gou's heart clenched, and he instinctively looked up.

A masked person sat there, letting the rain fall on him without moving.

"Y-you... who are you?"

Er Gou hadn't expected to wake up and find someone else there.

But he was cautious. His circumstances left him no choice.

Tang Xi was like a vengeful ghost clawing his way out of the underworld. Ever since Er Gou had met him, his life seemed to hold nothing but despair and hatred.

He found it hard to believe that some kindhearted stranger would suddenly appear and help him.

"I'm an assassin."

The answer made Er Gou's heart clench again, as if a sharp knife had been aimed straight at it.

With just a thought, the other man could kill him.

But the next moment, his spirits lifted.

An assassin... wasn't killing people exactly what an assassin did?

Yet his newfound hope seemed to be doused by the rain. He gave a bitter laugh.

"I... don't have any money."

But as soon as the words left his mouth, he suddenly looked up at Chu Qing.

"But if you really can help me kill him, I can give you my life!"

When he finished, he stared nervously at the person on the wall.

He didn't know whether the other man would turn and leave, or fly into a rage and kill him on the spot.

After all, this looked very much like trying to get something for nothing.

Unexpectedly, the man suddenly burst out laughing, then spoke in a low voice.

"It's a deal!"

"What?"

Er Gou stared blankly. He'd agreed?

"Tell me where you live. Once the job is done, your life is mine.

"But first, I need you to explain the whole story to me, from beginning to end, in every last detail!"

The rain was heavier than he'd expected.

By the time Chu Qing returned to the inn, the downpour had turned the world outside into a murky blur.

He asked the waiter for a bucket of hot water and took a good, hot bath, going over Er Gou's story in his mind.

The whole thing had unfolded more or less as Chu Qing had guessed.

Er Gou said that he and Tang Xi hadn't known each other at first. Tang Xi had merely spotted them on the street, and that very night, Er Gou's fiancée had been abducted.

He'd searched frantically for several days, only to find her disfigured corpse by the town monument.

He was consumed by despair and had no idea what to do.

He'd planned to die for love, but then... Tang Xi had appeared.

Tang Xi told him how he'd abducted the girl and how she'd died, describing every last detail with chilling clarity. Er Gou had been so enraged that he tried to rush at him and take revenge then and there.

Unfortunately, he didn't know martial arts. All he got for his trouble was a beating from Tang Xi.

But from that day on, he'd been consumed by a single obsession: killing Tang Xi!

He'd pursued him and tried again and again, right up until now.

Today's despair had weighed so heavily on him that he could barely breathe. He'd tried every possible way, but none had worked.

He was tired. He wanted to die... but Tang Xi had shown up again.

Whenever Er Gou wanted to die, Tang Xi appeared and recounted, as if he were listing cherished keepsakes, every way he'd tormented the girl. That stopped Er Gou from killing himself and added yet more fuel to his hatred.

"It's the Hate Heart Demonic Art..."

Chu Qing murmured, climbed out of the tub, changed clothes, and sat cross-legged on the bed.

A thought brought up the system panel.

[Assassin System]

[Host: Chu Qing]

[Current Contract: Assassinate Tang Xi, young hall master of Luoyu Hall (Incomplete)]

[One unopened Martial Arts Treasure Chest. Open it?]

"Open it."

Chu Qing rubbed his hands together and spoke softly.

He prayed that it would give him a decent reward. Otherwise, this next target would probably be a tough one to kill.

[Opening successful. Obtained Internal Energy Technique: Purple Cloud Divine Skill!]

Chu Qing's eyes lit up.

"The Purple Cloud Divine Skill!"

Among Mount Hua's Nine Skills, Purple Cloud came first!

Now that was something!

At the same time, a stream of Internal Energy arose beside his dantian. Before Chu Qing could properly sense it, the Internal Energy of the Void Scripture surged into motion and pounced straight at the energy from the Purple Cloud Divine Skill.

The two streams of Internal Energy suddenly began fighting inside him.

Chu Qing could swear the Void Scripture had thrown the first punch, but the Purple Cloud Divine Skill wasn't backing down either.

This was no small matter. The slightest mishap in the flow of his Internal Energy could leave him injured at best—or dead at worst.

As he circulated his Internal Energy and absorbed the Purple Cloud Divine Skill's incantations flooding his mind, he cursed under his breath.

"The Void Scripture is a Daoist martial art, and so is the Purple Cloud Divine Skill.

"Can't two Daoist martial arts just get along?

"Why did they suddenly start fighting?

"People say the orthodox Daoist tradition is balanced and harmonious... This doesn't look very harmonious to me!"

He tried to do three things at once: calm the two streams of Internal Energy, make them stop fighting, and understand the techniques.

But it was no use. So he tried to fuse the two streams instead.

The moment he began, a prompt appeared before his eyes.

[Purple Cloud Divine Skill conflicts with the Void Scripture. Merging Internal Energy Techniques!]

As soon as the prompt appeared, Chu Qing realized that the two streams of Internal Energy, which had been mutually incompatible, were beginning to blend.

A sudden inspiration struck him. He sat cross-legged, his mind filled with the techniques of the Purple Cloud Divine Skill and the Void Scripture. At the same time, new incantations, derived from both, rose in his heart.

In less than the time it took an incense stick to burn, the two streams of Internal Energy inside him had become one, each containing the other.

[Merge successful!]

Only then did Chu Qing let out a breath. He was secretly relieved that he'd had the patience to wait until he was back at the inn before opening the chest.

Out in the wilderness, even a three-year-old passing by could have taken his life during that brief span.

He kept his eyes closed. A great deal of Internal Energy still needed to be brought under control. Following the incantations, he guided it through his meridians. From time to time, his body shuddered as another acupoint opened.

As Chu Qing sat cross-legged, his sleeves stirred as though caught by a wind, and his hair fluttered. A faint purple glow appeared between the slits of his tightly shut eyes.

More than an hour later, Chu Qing's eyes flew open. Two purple gleams flashed across them and vanished, while the surging Internal Energy made the bed curtains tremble.

The window flew open with a crash.

Chu Qing brought his hands together and slowly pressed them down, drawing all his Internal Energy back into his dantian.

Only then did he let out a long breath, delight in his eyes.

"In just over an hour, I've already opened the Ren and Du Meridians. If word got out, wouldn't it shock the world?

"Still, this Internal Energy Technique, born from the fusion of the Void Scripture and the Purple Cloud Divine Skill, hasn't reached the pinnacle."

His delight faded a little as he carefully considered the differences between the two manuals. Soon, understanding dawned.

"Ultimately, the Purple Cloud Divine Skill focuses on 'wielding' Internal Energy, not 'accumulating' it. What I got from the system must have been the fully mastered Purple Cloud Divine Skill.

"After the two merged, the Internal Energy of both techniques pushed this new one to the seventh level.

"Now wielding and accumulating Internal Energy have become one. Every movement holds its own mysteries.

"This martial art isn't purely the Void Scripture, nor is it purely the Purple Cloud Divine Skill.

"I'll call it the Purple Cloud Void Scripture."

P.S. I've been reading everyone's comments these past couple of days, and I know you're eager for the protagonist to open the chest and get his reward. But really, don't worry... The plot is proceeding just fine, and I haven't been putting off opening the chest. After all, I wrote the martial art inside it a long time ago—there's no reason to delay.

From the protagonist's perspective, only half a day has passed since he got his reward.

He killed Xin Youhen in the afternoon, then went straight on to kill Bai Qi.

Afterward, he returned to town, ran into Er Gou, took on a new job, and went back to the inn to open the chest. It all followed naturally~

The reason it feels like a delay is mostly because there haven't been many updates. If I were updating ten thousand words a day like after the book goes on sale, we'd have reached this point in two days.

That's the helplessness of the new-book phase. Please bear with me.

Thank you, everyone~~~