Romance of Dragons and Snakes

Chapter 174: Even Disciples Have Killing Intent

“Cough, cough cough!” The more and more Liu Qing felt Wang Chao’s curious glance at him, the more he tried to use his coughs to divert the attention and Huo Ling’er’s attempt to dredge up his old past.

“So miss Ling’er was at that diner party as well?” Liu Qing replied while wiping at his nose. The faint smile on his face had looked rather embarrassed, but he had looked quite pleasant to the others.

Liu Qing had been every bit the conversational person. His bearing and speech would sometimes reveal the frivolous nature of his. It was similar to Lu Xiaofeng and Chu Liuxiang’s nature from the works of master Gu Long. A man of riches, sex appeal, women, and capable of martial arts, such were those characters.

Young, handsome, carefree, distinguished, rich, a senior colonel, cocky, and strong in martial arts. These factors were more than enough to win over the heart of any woman.

From what Wang Chao knew of the martial arts world, the only person who could possibly compare to Liu Qing in appearance and nature was the “Little Ape Immortal”, Liu Chia-chun. But even while Liu Chia-chun was warm in nature, he wasn’t as carefree as Liu Qing. Even in his manner of speech to women, Liu Qing was far more entertaining and light-hearted.

The other young martial artists like Chen Aiyang were approaching their thirties, but they were modest gentlemen.

Even the Japanese martial artist Ye Xuan had been very cold. For the sake of pursuing his Martial Way, he had forsaken everything else including his emotions.

Duan Guochao had been gloomy and a calculative one while Jiang Hai had been proud in nature.

The inheritor of the Nine Palace Sword Style had looked soft on the exterior, but he was quite tranquil and firm in truth.

Liao Junhua was a rich and wealthy individual. With each and every action he made, his noble aura was noticeable to everyone. But sometimes, another incredible aura could be felt from him. This was what had been trained into him as a result of his overseas moniker of “Twin Flower Red Pole”.

Wang Chao himself was an accomplished youth. In each move, meal, and sleep, he would live appropriately while carefully sticking to his discipline of life. It was almost as if he had been born living this way instead of persistently trying to adhere to such a way of life.

Borrowing the words of Confucius, he once said that once man reached past the age of seventy, they do as they please as long as it is within their own rules. With each action, they are not forced but instead follow their ideology of cultivation to become one with the heavens.

“Carefree without deviation” was one step. And after that step was the “Most Sincere Way leads to foreknowledge.”

When Wang Chao looked at Liu Qing, he had a sudden moment of inspiration. His eyes glazed over as he thought back to the moments from when he made his way into the world of martial arts. From all the youths he had seen; whether they were opponents or friends, their faces and personalities had all unfolded in front of him in clarity as if drawn on a scroll within his mind.

At the same time, Wang Chao was examining himself on a closer level. Without even knowing it, Wang Chao’s own knowledge of himself had increased to an even deeper level.

This type of acknowledgement wasn’t something the body could explain, or what the written word could describe, or what the spoken speech would clarify. It originated from within the nature of the soul and gave a new source of knowledge to oneself.

And such a level of martial arts, Wang Chao was already attuned with his own body to know each and every part of it. Every muscle, every pore, every organ, he was capable of “Inner Sight”.

But to know himself was not something that could be so easily limited to the human body. Each and every outstanding youngster was like a mirror that reflected themselves rather than what Wang Chao saw.

To liken man to a mirror was to learn the good and the bad of the reflection.

“Ah, our food has arrived. Let us all drink and be merry. Sister Ling’er, will you be drinking juice or alcohol?” Liu Qing had once more the frivolous expression on his face and had immediately diverted the topic, “Instructor Wang, would it be possible for you to describe your battle with Duan Guochao to us, and perhaps the one with Zhou Binglin as well? With my strength, do you think I have any chance of winning? To tell you the truth, I have not found many people that could beat me in my entire life. You are among one of the only few. If you would please, let us have a toast.”

Breaking open a new bottle of Maotai, Liu Qing began to pour every a cup. Wang Chao had not declined one and took the cup into his own hand to drink. Soon enough, a warm and cheerful atmosphere had filled the room as everyone began to talk.

“Duan Guochao was an expert in many techniques, such as the Iron Eagle Claw, Iron Body, Shaolin Imitation Boxing, Eight Arts of the Snake and Crane, and even the dragon stance. He was pure in each discipline, but our fight in Hong Kong been a rather ordinary battle. He slipped up, and I killed him. As a result though, I was treated to the Shanggui treatment. The story with Zhou Binglin is a rather ridiculous story, so I won’t share it. But from what I’ve seen, your chances with Duan Guochao would be fifty-fifty. And with Zhou Binglin, I’d estimate thirty-seventy in his favor.”

“But why?” Liu Qing couldn’t help but question. “Zhou Binglin might have been great a long time ago, but he has to be around sixty years old by now. Could he even fight as well? How could he be stronger than Duan Guochao?”

“By the time I fought Zhou Binglin, his physical strength hadn’t lost any of it youthfulness, but he had indeed lost some of his drive. Like two opposing armies of equal strength, I managed to tear off his arm, but he managed to injure my internal organs so that we both ended up with major wounds. The Sun style Taichi emphasizes the cultivation of health so that strength does not atrophy with age. This particular secret is easy to hear, but hard to implement.”

After some thought, Wang Chao had then been hit with a moment of realization. “There is an expert of Baguazhang that has done plenty of things overseas before. Would you hapen to know the North American Cheng Shanming?”

“Cheng style Baguazhang?” Liu Qing raised his eyebrows up at that name. “Cheng Shanming is a big shot of the North American Hongmen Society. After establishing his own school, his disciples number in the hundreds. He used to be the boss of the Chengshi Corporation as well, which was involved in both the good and the bad side of the law. There’s plenty of people in the know that know about him. But he’s a rather low-profiled person. In the last few years, he hasn’t taken part of any official match. The common person wouldn’t even know much about him. Why do you ask, have you fought him before?”

“I have.” Wang Chao closed his eyes. “But Cheng Shanming was a boss before? I didn’t think that.”

“The Chengshi Corporation started out as a family business making glasses. But now that they’ve grown, they’ve become an international business that’s primarily handled by his son Cheng Zhang and daughter Cheng Xiaohui.”

“Glasses makers? Must have been the family business then.” Wang Chao didn’t pay much attention to the rather artificial sounding voie Liu Qing had made when he mentioned Cheng Shanming’s daughter Cheng Xiaohui.

When Cheng Tinghua was in Beijing, he worked on making spectacles and was known throughout the Jianghu as “Eyeglasses Cheng”.

In the current industry boom of real estate, eyewear, funeral arrangements, communications, medicine, highways, cosmetics, physical sports, wedding photography, and video games, eyewear was ranked second. From that, one could extrapolate that Cheng Shanming’s business in North America was a big one. This family business had been enough to make Wang Chao ponder about the situation.

“What people do you know from the Hongmen Society and the Chinese Associations within the European nations?” Wang Chao suddenly asked while everyone drank.

As a senior colonel, Liu Qing would have a wide network and list of missions he had accomplished in the European Union. He would know all sorts of people as a result, and so Wang Chao had wanted to know if there were any concrete information on Tang Zichen.

The deeper into the waves Wang Chao waded in, the more his name grew, and the deeper his martial arts became, the more he made contact with the world he had been unable to enter from before. After putting his ear to the ground for so many years, he was finally able to spin yet another strand of string into the web of information he had. This world Tang Zichen belonged in. This environment. It was all beginning to appear in his mind at its most embryonic stage.

“The European Union you say? That’s a complicated place with complicated information.” Liu Qing shook his head. “Even if I had half an hour, I wouldn’t be able to say all of it, even the newly formed Political, Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union. Each nation has their own umbrella of people. And even the Chinese Associations is far more irregular. Big or small, black or white business, they have their hands in it all. The English Hongmen Society, the German Hongmen Society, and the Italian Hongmen Society, each one of them have their own hotshots. And I can’t even start counting really. The higher ups sent me and plenty of others plenty of times to inquire about the situation despite all that.”

“Then what major organizations do you know?” Wang Chao spoke in a careless manner as if randomly asking. “When I fought Nguyễn Hồng Tú in Hong Kong, Zhu Hongzhi of the American Hongmen Society had came to talk.”

“There is, but….” Liu Qing’s head looked up to stare at Wang Chao as if on guard for something. Then, with a rather hesitant way of speech, he began, “There’s the Tang Alliance. In the last century when the Anti-Chinese wave was at its peak, the Chinese formed this alliance for the sake of self-preservation. Their organization is formed of many big and smaller groups, businesses, and other cliches. Time and time again, they help one another for their mutual benefit. But today, they’ve grown even larger and their core organization has grown even more hidden. I’ve heard that the big shots leading the core use black gold politics in order to control some of the European nations from behind the scenes even. Even the higher ups take this organization seriously.”

What Liu Qing had said didn’t differ too much from Cao Yi but it was still a little more informative. Wang Chao didn’t pursue the question so as to avoid any trouble and had instead started to talk about several topics on martial arts with him.

Out of the four of them Liu Qing had the best martial arts, but the others weren’t too far behind. In terms of fighting, they were comparable to the Three Tigers of Guangdong perhaps.

After all, these four men were the strongest men that million strong army had to offer from their martial arts competition to become one of the top five. Although one had been a master of the Jianghu and another was an expert for the inner workings of the government, the rankings of them four were on par with the Three Tigers of Guangdong in status as well.

The four of them were all inheritors of a discipline. Needless to say, Liu Qing was a part of the orthodox school of Baguazhang. From the other three, one practiced the Iron Palm, one practiced the Paochui, and the last had practiced Yanqing Fanziquan and the Labyrinthine Fist. Wang Chao reckoned that even his own disciple, Huo Ling’er, would not be able to defeat them all in a decisive battle despite knowing Hidden Jin.

Huo Ling’er had only learned roughly two thirds of what Wang Chao had expected her to learn from his fighting style and history, and he was more than aware of the fact. Although Huo Ling’er herself had said that she had fought plenty of times in Japan, Wang Chao himself did not feel at ease throwing her into real combat just yet.

The normal competition and sparring were completely different than a battle to the death. Whether it was in atmosphere or mind, they were as different as night and day. But Wang Chao didn’t know of any other method that could let his disciple fight in a battle to the death.

Huo Ling’er was the golden daughter of the powerful Huo family. If something bad were to happen to her, then that would spell trouble for Wang Chao.

The true fighting styles of martial arts would only be comprehended through the body by fighting in a battle to the death. After several battles in war against the charge of a bayonet, the rain of bullets or the forest of spears, even one that didn’t know martial arts would become a splendid fighter. A person that had never experienced a death battle would become a genuine and capable fighter after experiencing it for years.

As Wang Chao discussed martial arts with the four, he had been wracking his brains on the best way to get Huo Ling’er to experience actual combat. Halfway through his thoughts, Wang Chao had realized that his mind had become that of a concerned parent trying to do their best to help prepare for their child’s success. Like hoping for their son to become a dragon, they would similarly hope for their daughter to become a phoenix.

“Huo Ling’er isn’t younger than me by that much. In terms of age, we’re more of a brother and sister, there’s no need to so worried about this then.”

Just at that moment, there had been a strange clamor from the other side of the wall separating them from the other room. At the same time, there had been a flurry of footsteps from the other side of the door as if there were plenty of people rushing about.

The ears of the six had immediately perked up at that sound. Huo Ling’er herself had wiped her mouth before excusing herself to pull open the door. Three or four rather fiendishly looking men in leather corset were glaring around themselves.

“What are you looking at, eat your own meal!” One of them men had seen that Huo Ling’er had been looking at them and moved to kick the door frame with a large crack.

Huo Ling’er’s eyes narrowed as she began to exude a murderous intent from her body. In a smooth motion, her spine had been like a snake in its movements as her hand came chopping down with the Chopping Jin from the tiger stance. The air around her hand had practically crackled with energy as it came into contact with the face of the man who kicked the door. He flew into the opposing wall two-thirds of a meter away and slid down to the ground with his face in a mangled mess and his nose mangled beyond belief.

“Huo Ling’er said she fought in actual combat in Japan before, but from this, she has probably killed before as well!” Wang Chao had been somewhat startled to see how Huo Ling’er had moved.

At the same time, his ears had twitched slightly. In the next room over, the sound of a gun being cocked could be heard.

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