Coin Armor, Guanyin Clad in Armor

South of the town, in the earthen pit.

The yellow talisman stuck to Shopkeeper Ma's face suddenly shattered. His eyes and mouth flew open, and his nostrils flared.

Every kerosene lamp in the circle around the pit went out.

Ever since Adjutant Zhou had told them the old eunuch's background, Shopkeeper Ma and the others had settled on this strategy.

They would use the connection between the coffin pit, the jade coffin, and the old eunuch to suppress him from afar with Mount Mao techniques and put him to sleep.

Chu Tianshu and Zhong Jinqiu would seize the chance to clip the old eunuch's wings and kill the other skilled fighters in the opera troupe.

Most of the plan had gone fairly smoothly so far. Now only the final, most crucial step remained.

"This old bastard's a bit too fierce, isn't he?!"

Shopkeeper Ma took a couple of breaths, climbed out of the pit, picked up his bamboo-strip case, and ran toward town.

Meng Lianfa and the others exchanged looks, then gritted their teeth and followed him.

The sun was still in the east.

Brilliant white sunlight, crystalline threads of rain.

The rain gathered beneath the eaves, and as the drops fell, they reflected a twisted old face inside the hall.

"Who fired that foreign gun?!"

The old eunuch's face twitched. The deformed bullet squeezed out of his cheek and fell to the floor. His eyes flickered, then locked onto the two men outside the hall.

"Ah!!!"

The strange cry pierced their eardrums. The two servants in the hall covered their ears, their faces contorted in pain.

The old eunuch looked just like a giant shrimp as he suddenly sprang.

But a shrimp sprang backward. He pushed off with both shoulder blades against the wall, launching his entire body forward.

His upper body leaned so far forward that, had he been standing still, he would certainly have crashed to the ground.

But because he was charging forward, the rain and airflow rushing toward him balanced perfectly against the angle of his lean.

With a rush of wind, the old eunuch was already on the stage.

Chu Tianshu and Zhong Jinqiu had both been shocked for a moment when their opponent caught a bullet with his face.

But neither was the slightest bit slow to react now. They sprang apart, one to either side, and dodged the old eunuch's lunge.

Chu Tianshu dodged left, turned his head, and swung his arm to the right, lashing out with a chopping saber strike.

Zhong Jinqiu dodged right, twisted at the waist, and turned back to the left, thrusting straight with the broken bamboo.

The saber struck the old eunuch's back with a harsh clang. The blade shattered along with his brocade jacket, sending iron fragments flying.

The broken bamboo stabbed toward the old eunuch's ear, but he caught it in one hand.

The ferocity of Zhong Jinqiu's thrust became clear at that moment.

The tough green bamboo pole split into eight strips. Squeezed and bent by the opposing forces at either end, it became like the frame of a great lantern.

The old eunuch turned his head to the left, judged this to be the greater threat, and spun at the waist, yanking with his arm.

The broken bamboo strips flew past his waist, all snapping straight as they shot toward Chu Tianshu behind him.

The old eunuch himself threw a punch like a cannon shot at Zhong Jinqiu.

In that instant, with the old eunuch's jacket torn to pieces, Zhong Jinqiu saw the tattoo on his chest.

The beast-head tattoo was made entirely of coin patterns.

Knife money formed its two brows, square-holed coins its pupils, gold and silver ingots its nose, and dozens of small copper coins overlapped and linked together to form thick lips and a gaping mouth.

Men died for wealth, birds for food; the divine power of money bought lives and ferried away the dead.

Five Rampancies Dharma, Coin Body Armor!

To cultivate this method, one needed a sufficiently substantial family fortune. One then set a scheme to let someone born on a yang day at a yang hour come into a windfall, before setting up an altar and performing the rite.

Within ten days to half a month, the person who had received the windfall would be drained to the heart and marrow. All his vital Qi would be bought away by the windfall and fall to the cultivator of the evil art.

An outsider's vital Qi was incompatible with the cultivator's own and could not be stored, but it could be worn over the body and layered repeatedly to form an invisible suit of armor.

Even cultivated to great mastery, this evil art amounted to nothing more than a layer of steel over the skin.

It could withstand ordinary blades and sharp weapons, but a powerful blow from a blunt weapon or a technique that twisted the joints would kill the user all the same.

Take that gunshot just now.

A Five Rampancies sorcerer alone, shot in the face, would have had his brain jolted unconscious even if the damage to his flesh was slight.

But this old eunuch cultivated both martial arts and sorcery.

Adjutant Zhou had said that the old eunuch had originally trained in martial arts for most of his life. When the Forbidden City fell, he had seized a set of "Golden Bottle Treasure Medicine" from the former Qing dynasty's secret treasury. Only after taking and refining it according to the prescribed method had he succeeded in cultivating the Five Rampancies evil art as well.

As for just how powerful he could be after cultivating both martial arts and sorcery-

Xu and Zhou had only made an estimate; neither had actually tested him in a fight recently.

Now it seemed that, at least where the defense of his old face was concerned, he was somewhat beyond Zhou's estimate.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!!

The old eunuch's fists left a string of afterimages.

Zhong Jinqiu retreated three steps in succession. He had no idea how many dozens of punches his hands had blocked.

His cloth robe burst apart, its sleeves flying in tatters.

In that brief instant, Zhong Jinqiu's arms had already turned red and swollen. A low growl escaped his mouth.

"Guanyin clad in armor!"

The old eunuch's martial arts had reached the realm of "Guanyin Bone."

When a martial artist who had reached this realm clashed head-on with someone, the other person would suffer damage to one part of the body, while he spread the force throughout his entire body. That let him fight with even less restraint, striking with savage force.

What was more, the old eunuch had Coin Body Armor protecting him. The two approaches were a superb match.

This was the true power of martial arts and evil sorcery fused together.

The Leopard Cat Warrior, of course, could not begin to compare.

Even Chu Tianshu's spirit-communing arts lacked sufficient killing power and could not be fused with martial arts to such effect.

But after dodging the bamboo strips, Chu Tianshu immediately lunged forward to grab him.

He had originally intended to kick the old eunuch in the groin, but then he thought that its defenses were probably extraordinary as well.

So, as he lunged, he reached out with his long arm and seized the white hair flying behind the old eunuch's head.

The old eunuch had already beaten an opening into Zhong Jinqiu's guard and was about to deliver the killing blow when his head suddenly jerked backward.

"How dare you!"

He gritted his teeth and pulled forward, snapping every strand of white hair in the middle.

But at that moment, Zhong Jinqiu opened his mouth and spat.

A martial artist who had mastered Eating Makes an Immortal could spit a breath of air from an empty mouth and, within half a meter, make someone's eye ache as though it had been struck by a stick.

What Zhong Jinqiu spat out, however, was not Qi, but a fishbone.

It was a fishbone he had held in his mouth while cooking that morning.

An old hand could usually tell at a glance when someone had hidden a needle or razor blade in his mouth.

Zhong Jinqiu had specially practiced this trick in his youth. He had held the fishbone in his mouth that morning, then eaten and talked for so long without showing the slightest sign of anything amiss.

The fishbone flashed and lodged in the old eunuch's left eyelid.

The old bastard had shut his eye quickly indeed. Even his eyelid seemed to be protected, but it was much weaker there than elsewhere, and he grunted in pain.

The moment he closed his eye, Zhong Jinqiu's palms landed on his chest.

The two hands struck so quickly that they made no sound of wind. Even when they hit his chest, it sounded like a slap against a thick cloth sack, muffled and low.

Taiji Immortal Force, Push the Moon Through the Window!

But at the same time, the old eunuch's fists struck Zhong Jinqiu on both shoulders, sending him flying four or five meters.

Behind the old eunuch, Chu Tianshu saw two indistinct palm prints bulge out of the skin on his back.

Brows bristling and eyes blazing, he let out a shout, stamped his foot, and thrust out his palms. Both hands slammed squarely into the two palm prints.

With a thud, the old eunuch flew backward as well, farther than Zhong Jinqiu. He crashed into the courtyard wall, his head smashing through it.

"Hah!"

The instant his feet touched the ground, the old eunuch pulled his head out of the wall and snapped around to glare at his enemies.

Zhong Jinqiu stood up, but his arms hung like dead snakes. His shoulders stung, and for the moment he could not muster his strength.

Chu Tianshu came to Zhong Jinqiu's side and swept his right hand behind his back. Four needles landed in his shoulders and back, clearing his channels and easing the pain.

But purple-red blood seeped from the needle sites. He was afraid the injury would not recover so quickly.

"Heh, heh heh!!"

The old eunuch's eyes roved as thick blood trickled from his mouth. "Immortal Force-after penetrating my protective art, only two parts of its force remained."

"That little bastard used both penetrating force and brute strength, and his timing was perfect. That one blow really did injure my lung."

There were originally certain relationships of mutual advantage and restraint in martial arts: Guanyin Bone countered Dragon Coils Around the Body, and Eating Makes an Immortal countered Guanyin Bone.

The old eunuch had relied on Coin Body Armor to overcome that disadvantage and gravely injured Zhong Jinqiu in the blink of an eye.

Chu Tianshu, however, was rather unusual. He could be said to have nine parts Dragon Coils Around the Body and four parts Eating Makes an Immortal, and he too had caught the old eunuch off guard.

"You're from the town, aren't you? Two experts, and someone casting curses from a distance. Your skill is nothing like anything I heard about. Traitors inside colluding with enemies outside!"

Even now, the old eunuch's tone was venomous, yet he still looked supremely confident. He raised a hand and patted his neck.

"This neck of mine has weathered decades of sun and rain in the Forbidden City. On orders, I arrested who knows how many disgraced officials and rebels, and sent heads rolling. I've always been harder to kill than they were. Let's see what you mud-legs can do to me today!"

Chu Tianshu said nothing, merely keeping his eyes on the old eunuch.

In the old eunuch's fight against two opponents just now, the key was not only Coin Body Armor, but also an insight into and control over the rhythm of battle.

Chu Tianshu was fierce enough, yet during their joint attack he had always felt he had not performed well. His own rhythm had been disrupted.

Experience? No, that's not it. If it were just experience, Uncle Zhong has that too, so why doesn't he have the same quality?

Thoughts flashed through Chu Tianshu's mind. He raised his left hand, held two fingers together like a sword, and positioned them upright before him.

It's dual cultivation!

His Aperture Opening state switched in an instant, turning from inward to outward.

Chu Tianshu's eyes shone, and an extremely light, faint mist of dust seemed to ripple out from beneath his feet.

It formed a perfect circle five meters in radius, one that was never truly there.

The old eunuch's expression darkened.