Lotus Lane, the Chen Family.
Chen Dashan held a plane as he shaved a piece of wood. Shavings peeled away, and chips flew everywhere.
His hands were practiced; he had spent decades honing his craft.
But when he took a step to change angles, his brows would crease in pain. His body was still aching.
Seeing this, Li's eyes brimmed with resentment. "That little bastard isn't human. How could he lay into his own father so brutally!"
Chen Dashan shook his head and sighed, speaking in a muffled voice. "Don't provoke him to his face again. We'll approach things through his aunt instead. We have to get some silver back, one way or another."
Li kept grumbling without pause. "Huang Juan's no good either. She says she cares about her nephew, but she just wants to mooch off the silver Chen Yuan can bring her, doesn't she?"
Crash!
A heavy kick slammed into the door.
"Chen Dashan, get out here! If you're not dead, open the door!"
The two hurriedly stopped what they were doing. They peered through the crack in the door, saw Qian Bao's face, and turned pale with fright. They quickly unlatched the door and forced out ingratiating smiles.
"Lord Bao, what brings you here? We've already paid the residence fee and the filial offering, haven't we?"
Chen Dashan's heart pounded with fear. With Qian Bao looking so aggressive, this couldn't be good!
Qian Bao sneered. "Chen Dashan, do I really need to spell out what you did wrong? You bullied my brother Chen and even went to cause trouble on Hundred Herb Lane? You're trying to break the rules of the residence, are you?"
Chen Dashan broke into a cold sweat.
Qian Bao was clearly using the residence rules to pin a charge on him. When had he ever cared about such things before?
It was most likely Chen Yuan's doing!
That wretch...
He could only bow and force a smile. "Lord Bao, I absolutely had no intention of breaking the rules. It's just that money's tight at home, so I wanted to borrow some silver to tide us over. My son Chen Kai is studying martial arts at Kaishan Martial Hall. It's just the time when he needs money."
Qian Bao gave a scornful laugh. "You think you can use that blockhead Chen Kai to pressure me? You're both stupid as they come. You've got a fine young talent like Brother Chen and don't want him, yet you throw money at that vile piece of trash Chen Kai..."
As he spoke, his eyes suddenly turned vicious. He waved a hand. "Beat them! Beat them until they don't dare cause trouble again!"
His underlings had been itching for a fight. They immediately bared their teeth and brought their wooden clubs down hard.
Thud! Bang!
Fists and feet collided with ferocious force, each impact landing with a muffled thump.
The Stone-Splitting Palm was all about one thing: hardness—firm bridges and solid stances, meeting force with force and breaking through head-on.
After a few probing exchanges, Chen Kai stamped his left foot down. Dust flew as he hurled himself at Chen Yuan like a cannonball. His right palm whistled through the air, chopping straight at Chen Yuan's face.
The blow carried tremendous weight, like a stone stele crashing down on his head.
Chen Yuan didn't retreat.
The Six Harmonies Mind Boxing taught its practitioners to step into the centerline and seize the ground. Even the immortals couldn't defend against it.
He pushed off with his rear foot and stepped into Chen Kai's centerline with his lead foot. Turning slightly, he thrust out his left arm like a bear's paw and firmly blocked Chen Kai's wrist.
Their arms collided with a muffled thud of flesh and bone.
Chen Kai felt as if his palm had struck bedrock. The impact numbed the web of his thumb and forefinger.
His heart tightened, but he reacted quickly. With his right palm blocked, he shot his left hand out from his waist, fingers pressed together like a blade, aiming straight under Chen Yuan's ribs.
The move was called Stone-Shattering Cloud-Piercing. It was the killing move he had practiced the most.
Chen Yuan brought his right arm down from his chest, countering a straight attack with a horizontal one—the Horizontal Fist force of Xingyi's Five Elements Boxing.
His knuckles intercepted the inside of Chen Kai's forearm. Chen Kai's entire left arm went numb, and his attack was knocked aside. It skimmed Chen Yuan's lapel without even brushing his clothes.
Chen Kai spun with the momentum and sent both palms flying, one blow after another, like a giant axe cleaving a mountain, relentless and unbroken.
The disciples watching from the sidelines saw his palms blur and heard the wind whistle with each strike. They couldn't help cheering loudly.
Yet Chen Yuan moved calmly in and out among the flurry of palm strikes.
His steps were small. His heels shifted inch by inch, as if plowing through the earth, and each step landed in the gap between Chen Kai's spent force and the force he had yet to build.
Chen Kai's palm wind skimmed Chen Yuan's nose and swept past his chest, but it always fell an inch short.
It was like a gale battering a mountain. The mountain didn't move.
Hong Tao watched from the side, his brow faintly furrowed. Outsiders watched for the spectacle; insiders saw the finer points.
Chen Kai's assault was fierce, but he had already thrown seven or eight strikes, while Chen Yuan had only defended. He hadn't even lost his steady breathing.
This wasn't a close match at all.
Chen Yuan was toying with him.
Chen Kai had noticed, too.
His breathing grew ragged. The veins on his forehead bulged, and his eyes reddened.
The cheers of his junior fellow disciples began to sound different in his ears, as if they were all laughing at him.
"Can you do anything but dodge?!"
Chen Kai roared and abruptly changed his move. His right hand curled like a hook and shot straight for Chen Yuan's throat!
At the same time, his left hand darted down, viciously grabbing for Chen Yuan's crotch!
A choke from above, a groin strike from below.
These were no longer moves for a spar. They were dirty tricks meant to cripple someone.
The cheers from the sidelines stopped abruptly. Hong Tao's expression changed, and he was just about to shout for them to stop—
At last, Chen Yuan's gaze changed.
The stillness of an ancient well gave way to the cold depths of a dark pool.
He raised his left knee with easy grace, like drawing water from a well, and blocked Chen Kai's low, dirty strike. Knee and palm collided, and Chen Kai's finger bones gave a brittle crack under the strain.
At the same time, Chen Yuan's right fist shot straight out along the centerline—Xingyi Crushing Fist, short and sharp as a clap of thunder.
Bang!
With a muffled thud, Chen Kai's right hand was knocked away from Chen Yuan's throat. His fingers sprang open in a spasm, and his entire arm went numb.
Chen Kai's centerline was wide open.
He looked up in terror and met Chen Yuan's calm gaze.
That calm unnerved him more than any ferocity could.
There was no anger in it, no killing intent. Chen Yuan didn't even regard him as an opponent.
It was as if he were looking at a piece of wood.
Chen Yuan stepped in with his right foot, turning his toes inward and aligning his knee and hip. The force of his whole body, like a steel cable being wound tight, surged from the soles of his feet through his spine and into his right fist—Six Harmonies Mind Boxing's inner and outer harmonies, unleashing unified force: power rose from the ground a mere inch before impact.
Crushing Fist.
The second Crushing Fist.
Chen Kai tried to retreat, but Chen Yuan's intent had already locked his body in place.
The fist landed squarely on his left ribs.
Crack.
The crisp sound of a bone breaking was like a dry branch snapping in two.
Chen Kai's eyes bulged, and his mouth hung wide open, but he couldn't even scream.
Both his feet left the ground. The punch sent him flying two feet through the air before he crashed heavily onto the brick floor, kicking up a ring of dust.
The courtyard fell deathly silent.
The disciples who had just been shouting, "Beat him to death!" now sat in stunned silence.
Chen Yuan lowered his fist and stood there, still expressionless. His breathing remained as steady as before.
He looked down at Chen Kai, curled on the ground with snot and tears covering his face. Chen Kai spat out a mouthful of blood, and only then let out a pig-like shriek of pain. Chen Yuan said coolly:
"You were gracious."
Hong Tao gave Chen Yuan a long, deep look, then slowly announced:
"The winner has been decided. Chen Yuan wins."
He glanced at Chen Kai, sprawled on the ground, his face full of unwillingness and his eyes full of resentment.
Several people had already stepped forward to check his injuries.
Hong Tao felt his heart grow somewhat heavy.
He had thought that even if Chen Yuan had come to challenge them with confidence, he couldn't be all that strong. His natural aptitude and the length of time he had trained were plain to see.
But that first fight had completely changed his mind. Chen Yuan's Six Harmonies Mind Boxing was in a different league from Chen Kai's Stone-Splitting Fist.
The gap was enormous!
Even across the entire Outer Court, only disciples with better foundations and more years of training could reliably suppress Chen Yuan.
But sending those disciples to fight him would hardly be a fair victory. Hong Tao couldn't help sighing to himself.
He would have to think it over. Then he said:
"Brother Chen Yuan, you have a quarter of an hour to rest."
Chen Yuan shook his head slightly. "No need. I've just finished warming up. Let's continue."
At those words, Chen Kai felt an unbearable humiliation. He flew into a rage, a mouthful of blood surged into his throat, and he fainted on the spot.
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