A Game of Chess, No Regrets

"Ah!" Seeing those two hands reach out through the empty air toward him, Zhuang Cheng, the Little Ape King, went cold all over, as if plunged into a cavern of ice. This wrestling maneuver might not have been the absolute fiercest or the most powerful, but it arrived with fatal, uncanny perfection. Everything came down to timing. Who could have guessed that Lian Youming also knew wrestling—and that he had held it in reserve through several vicious battles against the Eagle Claw Sect, keeping it concealed so deeply, all for this one lethal blow? Yet none of them knew that Lian Youming had not been deliberately keeping his skills under wraps; he simply had never found an opportunity to employ them. Each past clash of life and death had been decided in the blink of an eye, and Tan Fei had consistently seized the initiative, leaving him no room to test such methods. If Xu Tian had not cautioned him that these rivals would likely formulate targeted counters, Lian Youming would never have spent his time in the back courtyard hammering out this technique. Moreover, who could have anticipated that wrestling and the silk-reeling force of tai chi would dovetail so seamlessly? It adhered and entangled, blended hardness with softness, used internal force to shatter the opponent's balance, and then exploded through the waist and hips. Once locked in, if an adversary could not break free in time or command an overbearing internal force to withstand him, they were as good as caught in a whirlpool, their odds of victory microscopic. No wonder Yang Luchan had once relied on his wrestling to leave opponents without a single matched exchange. And for the King of Scraps to have gifted him that manual showed genuine foresight. "Hm?" Lian Youming's eyes narrowed suddenly. His left hand had intended to prop Zhuang Cheng's floating ribs while his right seized the great dragon of his spine. If that grip and lock clamped down true, even a living dragon would be brought crashing to the dirt. Yet a true disciple was, after all, a true disciple. After a fleeting moment of alarm, the Little Ape King's breath plunged down through his throat. Along with the ripple of his Adam's apple, strange noises rose faintly from within his chest and abdomen, resembling both a dragon's chant and a tiger's roar. His sharp-beaked, ape-cheeked face twisted ferociously in an instant, the bones and sinews throughout his body snapping and popping, and his falling frame came to a miraculous, momentary halt in midair. In that split second of suspension, Zhuang Cheng shrank his body like an ape. Facing Lian Youming's eyes, his cheeks puffed, and he spat out a jet of blood mixed with a small piece of his bitten tongue. Scalding blood struck his face. Caught off guard, the wind and snow in Lian Youming's sight turned instantly crimson, blinding the greater part of his vision. He had never expected his foe to unleash such a desperate move at the critical juncture. Ruthless indeed! Startled, Lian Youming's right hand twitched involuntarily in its descent, lagging by half a beat. "Die for me!" Capitalizing on that solitary delay, Zhuang Cheng pressed forward rather than yielding. His eyes tore at the corners as he pounced, his hands moving like lightning, ten fingers hooked inward in monkey-style seizing hooks to gouge the eyes, rip the ears, crush the throat, and dig for the heart. His hands darted left and right, his ape-like arms shooting out and retracting like flashes of light in a wildly frantic assault. Lian Youming's eyelids fluttered rapidly. Allowing his arms to float, his palms turned and kneaded, gathering the dense flurry of fists entirely into his grasp. Yet in a few short breaths, a heavy punch slammed into his chest, and several bloody gouges were raked across his cheek. Seeing Lian Youming shift into a wrist-lock, Zhuang Cheng seized the opening to counter-hook his wrists. At the same time, he drove his knee upward, aiming straight for Lian Youming's neck and throat. Evidently backed into a corner, he was resorting to a desperate gamble to drag them both down together. Now their hands were mutually locked. Lian Youming stood planted on the earth while Zhuang Cheng hung in the air, driving a single knee toward a lethal vital point. Formidable indeed. The seasoned ruthlessness of his combat experience alone was undeniable; to escape peril in an instant and reverse the roles of attacker and defender was extraordinary. And what of Lian Youming? A tremor ran across his cheek, trails of blood hanging from his jaw. One eye bulged wide, radiating a grim, menacing malice; the other, dyed red with blood, burned with a feral glare that almost condensed into a tangible, frigid flame. Watching the heavy knee rush in, the breath in Lian Youming's throat also sank. The spine behind his back arched like a bow, and his vertebrae tightened section by section like an iron whip, sending ripples through his clothes. Gritting his teeth, he jerked Zhuang Cheng's wrists downward, instantly sapping the momentum of the rising right knee. Seeing this, Zhuang Cheng's expression turned vicious. He abruptly redirected his attack, driving his knee straight down into Lian Youming's chest with pinpoint accuracy. Lian Youming staggered, the blue-brick pavers beneath his feet cracking soundlessly. Red trickled from the corner of his mouth—no telling whose blood it was—yet his dark, brooding brows snapped upward. Not just his brows. The instant the knee struck home, Lian Youming threw his entire body backward, channeling power through his waist and core. Gripping Zhuang Cheng's wrists in a death lock, his silk-reeling force erupted in full fury, whipping his opponent up into midair. "Ah!" Zhuang Cheng had never imagined in his wildest dreams that Lian Youming would brave grave injury to unleash a killing move. His face turned ashen. He bent his legs to counter, but an upward whip kick crashed brutally into his chest from below. As the force drove through him, the breath Zhuang Cheng had quietly gathered shattered completely. He managed only a stifled grunt before being slammed violently into the ground. It was over. Before the onlookers could even react, a sharp crack resounded across the blue-brick martial arts arena, and two figures tumbled to the earth together. "Wah!" Falling from the air, Zhuang Cheng coughed up a violent surge of dark blood from his mouth and nose. His five viscera churned as if knocked out of place, and his eyes filled with crimson. Yet in the face of this mortal crisis, he had not a moment to breathe. Hurriedly shrinking his sinews and drawing in his frame, he reconstructed his form and spirit. With a snap of his waist, he flipped over to face the ground, driving his legs against the stone to rise into a half-kneeling crouch. Almost simultaneously, Lian Youming mirrored his movement. Their hands remained mutually locked. Both knelt halfway on the ground, and after exchanging a split-second glance, they drove their knees forward in unison into each other's chests. Thump! Thump! As two dull impacts struck the ground, thin lines of blood dripped from the corners of their mouths. The killing intent on Lian Youming's face vanished entirely, replaced by an eerie, terrifying calm. The moment their knee strikes landed, both men raised their right knees again without a word. Thud, thud, thud— A succession of monotonous yet scalp-numbing thuds exploded, neither yielding an inch. It was the purest collision of flesh and bone, bloody and savage, sending tremors through every watching pupil. After only a few strikes, blood streamed from Zhuang Cheng's ears, and a violent torrent welled from his mouth and nose. His chest had collapsed into a shallow depression. Only then did Lian Youming release the man's wrists. "A dying struggle!" After that initial throw, Zhuang Cheng had already lost any shred of a chance. Considering Lian Youming possessed both the Golden Bell Shield and the Toad Fishing Skill, his opponent's attempt to trade injury for injury had played directly into his hands. Wiping away the warm blood trickling from his own nose and mouth, Lian Youming licked the salty tang from his lips. Watching Zhuang Cheng lurch forward in a frantic, twisted attempt to attack, he casually swept his palm out, effortlessly catching the incoming fist. At that moment, Zhuang Cheng also understood that the tide had turned against him; his time had come. "Heh... you still have four vicious battles left... I'll wait for you... on the Yellow Springs Road... cough, cough..." Lian Youming replied in an even tone, "Worldly affairs are like a game of chess; once a stone is played, there are no regrets. Keep your eyes wide and watch closely from down below!" With that, his fingers curled around Zhuang Cheng's hand. A whip kick lashed out like a bolt of black silk, sweeping across his flank. As the sharp crack of fracturing bone rang out, Lian Youming pivoted to release his force, fully extending his right arm to hurl his opponent with a savage swing. Zhuang Cheng's limbs flailed wildly. Tracing an arc through the air like a torn sack, he crashed into the flagstones. The disciples of the other sects felt their throats tighten, sweat beading on their brows, their faces turning a stark, frightening white. A few novices who had only recently entered martial circles began to dry-heave, only to be glared down fiercely by their own masters. At the focal point of every gaze, splayed out on the blue bricks, lay a mangled figure like a puddle of mud. His legs were bent at grotesque angles, broken bone jutted from one arm, and an eyeball had slid slowly from its socket like a glass marble, rolling across the stone. With a vicious sneer, Lian Youming strode forward and crushed the eyeball beneath his heel. Just as he raised a hand, Zhuang Cheng, impossibly clinging to life, scooped up a handful of dirt with one hand in a desperate bid to retaliate. Yet before Lian Youming could strike, blood abruptly gushed from all seven orifices of Zhuang Cheng's face. He collapsed limp onto the ground, every bone in his body shattered. That throw had been devastatingly fierce, augmented by the spiraling torsion of the silk-reeling force and Lian Youming's own monstrous physical strength. Its power was nothing short of terrifying. Glancing toward the master of the Dasheng Sect, Lian Youming kicked Zhuang Cheng in the chest, sweeping him across the ground. Gazing down at his almost unrecognizable disciple, Wei Boyuan, master of the Dasheng Sect, remained expressionless, merely turning his head toward the Yanqing Sect nearby. A tall, slender young man walked out with his arms crossed over his chest. He casually tossed a bamboo lot into the air; etched clearly upon it was the numeral "Two." "You may pretend nothing is wrong, but Zhuang Cheng's Dragon-Tiger force is equally overbearing and ferocious. With your blood churning and your viscera throbbing in agony, how much strength do you have left to wield?" Smiling faintly, the youth strolled toward the table bearing the life-and-death covenants, laughing lightly as he signed his name. After all, Lian Youming had slain Tan Fei. Whoever killed him would naturally claim immense fame—a glory one could rarely even dream of winning. In this day and age, it was too difficult for a martial artist to make a name for himself, let alone achieve legendary renown. Lian Youming narrowed his eyes in a ferocious grin. Signing his own name on the covenant, he wasted no breath on pleasantries, uttering a single, flat word: "Enter!"