Coiling Silk Shattered Jade Hand

Chen Yuan watched Lin Jingqi with great interest.

He had not expected there to be such hidden circumstances behind this matter.

He had actually sensed from the beginning that something was off. Lin Jingqi had acted far too cowardly and indecisively, not even as resolute as his wife.

Could someone with that sort of temperament really have seized a martial arts academy?

Now that it turned out Zhang Qiuhe had been the one calling the shots, it made far more sense.

As Zhang Qiuhe spat blood, she glared viciously at Lin Jingqi. "Trash! You're just like Duan Mubai—both of you are trash!"

Lin Jingqi looked hopefully at Chen Yuan, praying Chen Yuan would spare his life.

But in the next instant, a blade flashed, and Lin Jingqi's head fell to the ground.

Chen Yuan flicked the beads of blood from his blade, sheathed it, and said to Zhang Xiaoyi, "Take the head, and bring that woman along too."

Zhang Xiaoyi nodded. He immediately found a scrap of cloth, wrapped up Lin Jingqi's head, and escorted Zhang Qiuhe out of the academy.

The academy disciples were silent as cicadas in winter, all of them voluntarily making way.

In truth, Chen Yuan had not even needed to bring those Merit Transmission Hall disciples along to bolster the spectacle.

The disciples in the academy had all paid to learn martial arts. They did not share any true master-disciple bond with Lin Jingqi.

Once they learned that Lin Jingqi had offended the Heavenly Wolf Gang, they had even considered simply withdrawing from the academy. No one would lift a hand for him.

After taking a carriage to Black-Clothes Alley, Chen Yuan took the head and tossed it before Duan Mubai.

Duan Mubai seemingly had not expected Chen Yuan to move so quickly.

He stood stunned for a moment before lifting the rag with trembling hands.

When he saw the familiar head inside, Duan Mubai let out choked sobs that sounded both like laughter and weeping, his entire body shaking.

"Oh, right. There's one more thing I need to tell you.

"Before Lin Jingqi died, he said that he had not been the mastermind behind plotting against you. Your fiancée, Zhang Qiuhe, was the true mastermind. He had merely been bewitched by Zhang Qiuhe.

"I brought that woman here for you as well. Kill her or carve her up—it's up to you."

With a wave of Chen Yuan's hand, Zhang Qiuhe was thrown directly before Duan Mubai.

Duan Mubai looked at Zhang Qiuhe tremblingly. "It was really you?"

"Of course it was me. Did you think that trash Lin Jingqi could have done all this? Even if he had the heart, he wouldn't have had the guts!"

Facing Duan Mubai, Zhang Qiuhe showed not the slightest guilt. Instead, her face was full of hatred.

"Why!? My father took you in, taught you martial arts, and treated you like his own daughter. I treated you like my own little sister!"

"But I'm not your little sister! I'm your fiancée! I'm the academy master's wife!"

Zhang Qiuhe glared fixedly at Duan Mubai. "You could go out and find women, be as promiscuous as you liked, and I wouldn't care. But you should never have said you regarded me as a little sister and had no intention of marrying me!

"I prepared to become the academy master's wife for over ten years. Zhenshan Martial Arts Academy was my home. I had already lost one home—I didn't want to lose a second!

"You saw me as a little sister, but if you married someone else, would she see me as a little sister? Would Zhenshan Martial Arts Academy still be my home?

"I don't care who becomes the master of Zhenshan Martial Arts Academy, but I must be the academy master's wife!"

Duan Mubai looked at Zhang Qiuhe and suddenly burst into laughter. Yet as he laughed, he began to weep bitterly again.

He had never imagined, even in his dreams, that he would end up like this for such an absurd reason!

Having eaten his fill of the gossip, Chen Yuan waved a hand and had someone drag Zhang Qiuhe away.

"Alright, whether it was the one who acted or the mastermind, I brought them both to you. I've done all that duty and compassion could demand. It's time you handed over the Coiling Silk Shattered Jade Hand, isn't it?"

Duan Mubai said hoarsely, "Bring me paper and brush."

Chen Yuan had paper and brush brought over. Duan Mubai tremblingly wrote down the cultivation method for the Shattered-Jade Silk-Winding Hand.

Satisfied, Chen Yuan put away the manual and left behind fifty taels of silver. "Take the money and live out the rest of your life properly."

Duan Mubai waved his hand. "Don't waste the silver. I've been lying here for years. I'm used to it."

"And that woman Zhang Qiuhe? Should we deal with her?"

"Let her go. In the end, I was the one who failed her."

Chen Yuan glanced at Duan Mubai and shook his head lightly.

What a hopelessly softhearted fool.

Chen Yuan got into the carriage, called Zhang Xiaoyi over, and said flatly, "Later, take that woman somewhere remote and deal with her."

Zhang Xiaoyi asked in surprise, "Young master, didn't you promise Duan Mubai you would spare her?"

"I only asked him whether he wanted her dealt with. I never promised I'd do as he said."

Chen Yuan said indifferently, "That woman is no harmless lamp, and there's something wrong with her head.

"I killed her husband and destroyed Zhenshan Martial Arts Academy. Who knows what other mischief she might stir up.

"As the saying goes, when will vengeance upon vengeance ever end? Kill them all cleanly, and there won't be so many messy revenge tales."

Zhang Xiaoyi scratched his head in confusion.

Was that what "when will vengeance upon vengeance ever end" meant?

But since the young master had said it, there probably could not be anything wrong with it.

After returning to the Heavenly Wolf Gang, Chen Yuan immediately went into seclusion to cultivate the Coiling Silk Shattered Jade Hand.

Destroying Zhenshan Martial Arts Academy had been a trivial matter, not even worth specially reporting to Jiang Kaitai.

They only needed to tell outsiders that Zhenshan Martial Arts Academy had colluded with the Blackwater Gang and defied the Heavenly Wolf Gang.

Though Lin Jingqi, the academy master, could barely be considered somebody, in the eyes of the Heavenly Wolf Gang, he was just like Hu Laosan, whom Chen Yuan had slain at Worry-Free Tower before: a nobody unfit to grace the stage.

Chen Yuan had often done such things lately to earn favor with Jiang Kaitai, and Jiang Kaitai had long since grown accustomed to it.

Back in his room, Chen Yuan took out the manual and carefully studied it as he cultivated.

After transmigrating, Chen Yuan had inherited the memories of the "Chen Yuan" from the game, along with this body's exceptionally formidable martial talent.

Chen Yuan had practiced martial arts for only two years before taking charge of the Merit Transmission Hall. Even the old instructors within the hall respected him greatly, all because his martial talent was practically monstrous.

Any cultivation method only needed one glance from Chen Yuan for him to roughly grasp its basics. After cultivating it for a short while, he could understand it thoroughly.

The proprietress of Worry-Free Tower had said that Chen Yuan's Heavenly Wolf Saber Art possessed seventy percent of Jiang Kaitai's spirit, but she had actually underestimated him.

When Jiang Kaitai had been at Chen Yuan's current level of cultivation, his mastery of the Heavenly Wolf Saber Art had been nowhere near Chen Yuan's.

When he had first transmigrated, Chen Yuan had felt that he did not even possess a cheat, that he was a transmigrator in rather shabby circumstances.

But now, it seemed that the body he had transmigrated into was his greatest cheat.

So long as he could survive this calamity in Linked Mountains City and grow within the martial world, his future achievements would be boundless.

A genius who failed to grow was merely a dead man. One who grew up, however, could become a legend.

Duan Mubai had not held anything back. He had indeed written out the complete cultivation method of the Coiling Silk Shattered Jade Hand.

After reading it through in one breath, Chen Yuan let out a long breath.

He could now be certain that the Coiling Silk Shattered Jade Hand was absolutely not a hereditary cultivation method of the Duan Clan. Their family did not possess such foundations.

The core principles of the Coiling Silk Shattered Jade Hand were extraordinarily intricate. It was not entirely a grappling martial technique, but also a method capable of mobilizing internal breath and tempering the meridians.

Externally, it cultivated grappling techniques; internally, it cultivated Silk-Winding Force and Shattered-Jade Force. One hard and one soft, the two forces transformed into inner force and circulated through the body, secretly conforming to the principles of yin and yang as they continually tempered the meridians.

Even someone who had never cultivated internal arts could, after years and months of tempering, enter the Meridian-Unblocking Realm beneath the impact of that hard and soft inner force.

No wonder Duan Zhenshan had reached the Meridian-Unblocking Realm without cultivating internal arts. It was because he had cultivated the Coiling Silk Shattered Jade Hand to an extremely profound level.

Logically speaking, a cultivation method of this level ought to have a matching internal art to support its cultivation.

The Silk-Winding Force and Shattered-Jade Force only served an auxiliary role.

Yet no internal art had ever been passed down through the Duan Clan's ancestors, which was enough to show that this method had likely been acquired by their ancestors by chance.

Chen Yuan sat cross-legged on the bed, continuously circulating the Silk-Winding Force and Shattered-Jade Force.

He felt the hard and soft forces continuously clashing inside his body, bringing waves of needle-pricking agony.

Yet Chen Yuan's expression did not change. He still forcibly controlled the two forces, using them to carry the faint internal energy cultivated from the Azure Wood Method and crash through his meridians.

If Duan Mubai had seen this scene, he would surely have suffered a severe blow.

His martial talent was considered decent as well, but when Duan Zhenshan taught him the Coiling Silk Shattered Jade Hand, merely comprehending the Silk-Winding Force and Shattered-Jade Force had taken him an entire month.

As for controlling those hard and soft forces to temper his meridians, that had been pure fantasy.

He simply could not control the two forces. The moment they appeared together, they began to clash. Forcibly tempering his meridians with them would be nothing less than destroying his own meridians.

Thus, Duan Mubai had cultivated this method for over a year, yet he could not even be said to have entered its gates.

But Chen Yuan had used only a single day, and his command of the Silk-Winding Force and Shattered-Jade Force was now almost no different from that of his father, Duan Zhenshan.

Chen Yuan endured the agonizing pain and, bit by bit, forced open each of his blocked meridians.

This was not a game, where pain perception could be blocked. Chen Yuan had to endure every bit of pain himself.

Under the impact of the hard and soft forces, the Governor Vessel, Conception Vessel, Thoroughfare Vessel... were opened one after another.

He had already reached the peak of the Body-Tempering Realm. He had merely been unable to break through because the Azure Wood Method progressed too slowly.

Now, aided by the Silk-Winding Force and Shattered-Jade Force, his eight extraordinary meridians were completely opened. Internal energy flowed through his body like running water, circulating through the heavenly cycle, endlessly renewing itself.

The Meridian-Unblocking Realm was achieved!

Chen Yuan let out a long breath. His entire body was drenched in sweat, as though he had been fished out of water.

Compared to the Body-Tempering Realm, the greatest difference in the Meridian-Unblocking Realm was the increase in strength.

One merely used the strength of muscles, flesh, and bones.

The other could use internal energy to stimulate the eight extraordinary meridians and mobilize the strength of the entire body. Their explosive power was on completely different levels.

Moreover, after Meridian Opening, the body's heavenly cycle was fully connected. Even while Chen Yuan slept, his internal energy would unconsciously circulate, further increasing the speed at which it grew.

Yet at this point, a good internal cultivation method was needed all the more.

While Chen Yuan was focused on cultivation, it took a full shichen for the Azure Wood Method's internal energy to complete one heavenly cycle.

High-grade cultivation methods required only a quarter of a shichen, or even less. The gap was enormous.