Not Worth a Single Blow!

The snow at Hai time fell thick and dense.

It was as though someone had ground the silver flakes of an entire mountain to powder and scattered them from the sky.

Inside one of the dilapidated houses, Liu Da and his two sworn brothers were drinking deeply and tearing into chunks of meat.

After several cups of wine, Liu Da suddenly wiped the smile from his face and said irritably, "Who knows where that little bastard from the Chu Family is hiding..."

"Today, we turned his home upside down and still didn't find the House Deed. How are we supposed to explain this to Young Master Huang?"

Third Brother, whose face bore a scar, viciously bit into the Chicken Leg in his hand. "I say we just seize the Chu Family Ancestral Mansion. Why go through all this trouble?"

"The Chu Family only has that little bastard left now..."

"Just beat him to death. Who would care?"

"That's true..." Fourth Brother, broad-shouldered and thick-waisted, said, "but the Chu Family Old House is a little strange... Back then, quite a few people coveted that house, yet they all somehow ended up as corpses in the street."

"Only because the Huang Family has the Blood Saber Sect backing them do they have the nerve."

"That house could sell for more than thirty taels of silver, easy! Who wouldn't want it?"

"Alas, we acted too late..." Liu Da nodded. "After that Chu couple died two years ago, Second Brother's woman told us to kill the kid and take the house."

"Now that Young Master Huang has his eye on the house, we're too late!"

"A bunch of grown men with less courage than a woman—if word gets out, we won't be able to show our faces around here anymore!"

Third Brother and Fourth Brother were filled with regret, doing nothing but gulping down wine.

Just then, the door was pushed open.

A short man with sharp-mouthed, monkey-cheeked features entered with a fawning smile. "Liu the Elder, that little bastard from the Chu Family has come back!"

"What?!" Liu Da leapt to his feet in wild delight and grabbed the short man by the front of his clothes. "Are you sure?!"

"I saw it with my own eyes!" the short man said. "He really came back!"

"Good!" Liu Da picked up a Chicken Leg from the table and tossed it to the short man. "It's yours!"

The short man was not one of Liu Da's sworn brothers, merely a vagrant living amid the Ruins.

He caught the Chicken Leg, and his Eyes immediately lit up.

"Come on, brothers. Let's pay that little bastard from the Chu Family a visit and teach him a good lesson!" Liu Da shot the other two a meaningful glance.

The other two nodded slightly and rose at the same time.

Inside the pitch-black house, Chu Fan sat cross-legged on the bed with his Eyes closed.

The bed and the floor beneath it were covered in cotton stuffing and straw.

Even his two ragged quilts had been torn to pieces by Liu Da and the others.

The one hundred and twenty coins hidden beneath the bed, along with the few Wheat Cakes and Sweet potatoes in the jar, had also been taken by Liu Da's group.

The fishing net he had once relied on to survive had been ripped apart. The one hundred and twenty coins he had painstakingly saved were gone, and his two quilts had been reduced to scraps...

For an ordinary person, this was a dead end.

Without the Mountains and Rivers Map, without joining the Seven Star Gang to learn martial arts, only one road would have remained for Chu Fan...

A road of death!

Either freeze to death.

Or starve to death.

Or be beaten to death...

Yet Chu Fan was now extremely calm, his heart as still as water.

His Eyes watched his nose, his nose watched his heart, as he silently sensed the Qi and Blood Force within his body.

It was a most wondrous feeling...

After coming infinitely close to Blood Nourishment, whenever he concentrated, he could clearly hear the rolling flow of Blood Qi through his body, like the Yangtze River.

Not only that, he could even vaguely "see" his own Bones and blood vessels.

According to what Cao Shi had taught, at this stage, a martial artist had to find the scattered Qi and Blood Force coursing through the body.

Then, through the breathing techniques and stance training within the boxing art, drive and circulate those scattered strands of Qi and Blood Force to one place, finally condensing them together and bringing them fully under control.

Condensing just one strand of Qi and Blood Force was not enough.

For Blood Nourishment, three strands had to be condensed!

After returning home, Chu Fan began trying to sense the scattered Qi and Blood Force in his body.

Two hours later, he had found every strand of Qi and Blood Force scattered throughout his Limbs and Bones.

"Strange. This is much easier than Cao Shi and Tianxing said..."

Chu Fan opened his Eyes.

Zhao Tianxing had spent a full two days sensing and condensing his first strand of Qi and Blood Force.

Even so, Cao Shi had praised him again and again.

Yet Chu Fan had taken only two hours to sense his Qi and Blood Force.

"The next step is to use the breathing methods and stance training of Twelve Forms Boxing to drive and guide this Qi and Blood Force together, then condense it into shape... Is that step difficult?"

This afternoon, Chu Fan had originally wanted to ask Tianxing for some advice.

But before he could say more than a few words, Cao Shi had taken that fellow away to visit a master archer.

Chu Fan jumped down from the bed, spread his feet apart, and prepared to try Circulating Qi and Blood.

But the moment his feet parted, he immediately drew them back!

Someone was coming...

Four people.

Three had fairly strong Auras, but their stances were unstable and their footsteps disorderly.

The other had a weak Aura and did not seem to be someone who had trained in martial arts.

Chu Fan focused his senses slightly and immediately heard Liu Da's voice coming from the courtyard. "Chu Fan, after hiding for so many days, Old man finally caught you, huh!"

"Get the hell out here!"

Chu Fan frowned.

To be safe, he had intended to wait until Zishi before going to kill Liu Da and the others.

He had not expected Liu Da to come knocking first.

These men arriving at his door had disrupted his plans.

The deaths of a few hoodlums would not stir up much trouble.

But dying in his own courtyard would still be quite troublesome.

Forget it...

Using these three to test his current strength was not a bad idea either!

Chu Fan slowly walked out of the room.

He saw Liu Da standing in the courtyard with two others, all three staring coldly at him.

One of them held up a lantern.

Under the dim firelight, the faces of Liu Da and the others looked somewhat savage.

Behind the three of them, by the main gate, stood the sharp-mouthed, monkey-cheeked short man.

"One is still missing..."

Chu Fan narrowed his eyes and sensed the surroundings. Hearing no movement outside, he knew that Second Brother of Liu Da's group had not come.

"Liu the Elder, see? I told you I wasn't wrong!" said the short man standing by the gate.

"So he was the one who tipped Liu Da off..." Chu Fan swept a glance over the short man.

The lantern's light reached only so far, yet Chu Fan had come infinitely close to Blood Nourishment, and his Twelve Forms Boxing had already reached Major Accomplishment. In such darkness, at such a distance, he could actually see the short man's features clearly!

"So you really did come back!"

The moment Liu Da saw Chu Fan emerge, he was overjoyed. "You little bastard, you made Old man wait all these days and got me scolded by Young Master Huang several times. At last, I've caught you today!"

Young Master Huang...

Huang Yu, Huang Shouliang's son?

Chu Fan raised an eyebrow.

Fourth Brother, the man holding the lantern, said impatiently, "Big Brother, why waste words with him? Break both his legs first, so he can't run away again!"

"Then make him hand over the House Deed!"

"If he doesn't hand over the House Deed obediently, kill him tonight!"

The Outer City was truly becoming more and more chaotic...

A few street thugs had become so arrogant that they dared come straight to someone's door to murder them!

Chu Fan silently watched Liu Da and took two steps forward.

"Huh, this kid..."

Liu Da noticed that Chu Fan's bearing was entirely different from before. Surprised, he reached out to seize Chu Fan by the chest.

Double Peaks Through the Ears!

Ignoring Liu Da's grasping arm, Chu Fan raised both hands and struck the sides of Liu Da's head with his fists—fast and fierce!

When a person's head took a punch, the brain within the skull would be jolted.

If the punch was not too heavy, the victim would likely suffer only a brief dizziness before recovering, with no serious harm done.

But if both Temples or both ears were struck at the same time, it was like an iron hammer ringing a bell, the shock traveling straight through to the Mud Pill Palace!

Even one with skin of copper and bones of iron could not avoid having darkness cloud his vision!

Chu Fan did not wish to kill these men in his own home, so he had not used his full strength.

Even so, with that single strike of both fists, Liu Da instantly fainted!

Without pausing, Chu Fan clasped Liu Da's head with his right hand and violently twisted, flinging him toward the lantern-holder on the left!

At that moment, Scarface on his right let out an enraged shout and threw a punch at his chest!

Chu Fan spun swiftly, leaning to the left to evade the punch. At the same time, his right fist slammed into Scarface's abdomen.

As Scarface let out a muffled groan, a knife-hand strike from Chu Fan's left hand had already chopped into his neck, followed by a lightning-fast Low Sweep from his right leg...

Bang!

Scarface crashed heavily to the ground and fainted!

Still as a crouching tiger, silent.

Moving like a bowstring snapping!

In just a few exchanges, the advantages of having mastered all Twelve Forms of Twelve Forms Boxing were displayed one by one!

At this time, the man holding the lantern behind them had only just managed, in a fluster, to catch Liu Da.

Liu Da clutched his head with both hands and shook it violently twice.

Chu Fan took one great stride forward. Before Liu Da could react, he drove a Front Kick into Liu Da's left knee.

Bang!

Liu Da let out a miserable howl and dropped to one knee.

Following the motion, Chu Fan lashed out with a right Whip Leg, striking Liu Da's head like a whip!

Bang!

Liu Da, the most heavily built of the three, flew like a kite with its string cut and landed in the corner of the courtyard where Dry Wood had once been piled!

"..."

The lantern-holder and the short man by the gate stared at the scene, dumbstruck!

"Not worth a single blow..."

Chu Fan raised his hands and glanced at his fists.

From Liu Da's group's movements, he had known they were no match for him.

But he still had not expected that these pieces of trash, who had trained at the martial academy for over half a year, would be this utterly useless!

Or perhaps Major Accomplishment in the Twelve Forms was already powerful enough to crush ordinary Blood Nourishment martial artists?

Seeing Chu Fan remain silent, Fourth Brother, holding the lantern, rolled his eyes and quickly stepped forward, kicking at Chu Fan's abdomen!

Unhurried, Chu Fan retreated one step, then darted swiftly to the left. A Bear Form Chop Fist smashed into the man's chest...

Bang!

The punch was immensely forceful and directly knocked the man to the ground!

Seeing that things had gone badly, the short man at the gate turned and tried to flee.

Chu Fan bent down, picked up a piece of firewood from the ground, and hurled it violently at the short man, striking him squarely between the shoulder blades!

That man had never trained in martial arts. His Blood Qi, muscles, and Bones were far inferior to Liu Da and the other two. After taking that blow, his entire body flew through the air before crashing heavily into the snow outside the Chu Family Ancestral Mansion.

Liu Da and the other two scrambled up from the ground, their courage shattered. They fled the Chu Family Ancestral Mansion, rolling and crawling in panic.

Chu Fan rushed into the room, stripped off his padded coat until he wore only a thin shirt, then tucked the Cleaving Knife from the bed into his waistband and swept out the door like a whirlwind.

Keeping close to the walls, he followed far behind Liu Da and the other four.