"Behave yourself!" "Treat his wounds first."
"Right. We don't want him dying on us."
In the restaurant's main hall, several soldiers showed the bound men no courtesy whatsoever. Nor did they need to worry about them breaking free of their ropes.
Acupoint Striking was a martial skill with extremely demanding requirements for Internal Energy. Not only did practitioners need to know the meridians like the backs of their hands and understand how to block the flow of qi in separate sections, they also needed exceptionally advanced cultivation.
Striking one's own acupoints to treat injuries was manageable, since the force came from the same source. Striking someone else's acupoints, however-especially those of martial artists with varying levels of Internal Energy cultivation-was considerably more difficult.
The Internal Force of an ordinary martial artist was essentially insubstantial qi. Once it left the body, it lost its source, and upon entering another person's body, it became foreign qi, swiftly dispersed by the great furnace that was the human body.
Thus, if a martial artist reached the point where he could immobilize others through Acupoint Striking, that alone revealed how advanced his Internal Energy cultivation was and how pure his Internal Force had become.
The captured men had clearly already tried to force open their sealed acupoints, but their Internal Force sank like stones into the sea, producing little response. Fear showed on every face. In this condition, even taking their own lives would be difficult.
Faced with six men bound hand and foot, one of them with blood soaking his clothes, the proprietor and several attendants stood uneasily by the counter.
Chu Hang's authority as the People's Magistrate proved quite useful as he reassured the restaurant staff.
"Proprietor, there's no need to worry. We're conducting official court business. Everything is fine."
"Yes, yes, of