A Falling Defeat

"Please!" "Amitabha..." Their salutations completed, the duel between Lei Buji and Chun Kong commenced. After his previous bouts, Lei Buji was brimming with confidence. He had assumed only a fraction of the assembly's contenders were subpar and that advancing further would inevitably pit him against an opponent who could give him a proper test. Little did he expect that four matches in, he had yet to encounter a single capable fighter... With little experience in the world, he was already getting a bit ahead of himself. Right from the outset, he seized the offensive, intending to dispatch the young monk in two or three moves. To his surprise, this was precisely the match where he ran into a tough customer. Whoosh— Chah— A fist shot forth; a palm met it head-on. As their figures crossed, the sharp crack of colliding blows rang out instantly. From that single clash alone, Lei Buji knew this little monk could not be mentioned in the same breath as the four opponents he had faced before. Shock and delight surged through him in equal measure; at long last, he had encountered a true rival. From this, it was evident that Lei Buji did not particularly care whether he claimed the championship in the end. His mindset in attending the gathering was much like a theatergoer who felt the stand-up comic on stage was worse than himself and, unable to sit still any longer, decided to jump on stage in person. Consequently, as long as he could relish a thorough, hearty clash against a formidable opponent, he would gladly accept defeat without resentment. On the other side, Chun Kong was much the same, harboring little desire for victory. Before Chun Kong descended the mountain, however, Master Jichen had instructed him to "do your utmost," which was also a mark of respect toward one's opponent. Chun Kong therefore had no intention of going easy on him. Both men possessed excellent temperaments, allowing them to bring forth the essence of their martial arts in a relaxed, untrammeled state. Once the first exchange concluded, Lei Buji abruptly arrested his momentum. With a brief check and draw, both fists rose together. In a bizarre rhythm that would strike any onlooker as defying orthodox boxing principles, he transitioned into his next technique—which turned out to be an ultra-high-speed barrage of wild, flailing punches. Most spectators below found it baffling. Though Lei Buji had revealed few techniques in his earlier bouts, all of them had been exceptionally refined and brilliant. Why was he suddenly throwing such an incoherent mess of punches? Yet a select few—the true masters—swiftly saw through the method in his madness. Lei Buji's flurry only appeared mindless at first glance, but in truth it followed a strict pattern. In every ten punches, three or four were feints driven by pure speed with no weight behind them; another four or five carried solid force, targeted at areas that could only be blocked rather than evaded, such as the chest and shoulders; and concealed among them was a final strike—both swift and vicious, aimed straight for soft vulnerabilities like the neck and armpits. Clearly, far from being some crude brawl anyone could throw, this was a consummate boxing technique that could only be mastered through the most rigorous training. Without hundreds of thousands of repetitions, executing such an ultra-high-speed barrage—seemingly chaotic yet concealing a hidden rhythm within every sequence—would have been impossible. Lei Buji had not resorted to this style previously only because none of his earlier opponents had warranted being "treated" to such an ace in the hole. Chun Kong, however, was different. After trading just one blow, Lei Buji had immediately discerned that Chun Kong's internal force surpassed his own by at least thirty percent, leading him to conclude that even if he unveiled this signature technique, Chun Kong would still have ways to handle it. And Chun Kong indeed did not disappoint. Confronted by Lei Buji's assault, Chun Kong directed his breath through his Shanzhong acupoint, sank into a horse stance, and extended his arms without dodging or yielding an inch. In that instant, Chun Kong first deployed "Four Symbols in One," drawing upon his internal energy to shield his torso, followed by "Heavenly King Supporting the Pagoda" to establish a guard. He then seamlessly transitioned into sixty-four successive palm variations, warding off ninety percent of the openings across his front—barring a few of the fastest feints that broke past, every other punch was met squarely by his palms. Chun Kong's Great Compassion Thousand Leaf Hands was certainly not an empty boast. Though it lacked the Lei Family Fist's synthesis of a hundred styles, it remained one of the most intricate and sophisticated palm arts of the Chan sect. Facing Lei Buji's yet unripened Lei Family Fist, it was more than capable of holding its own. Seeing his proudest technique parried, Lei Buji grew genuinely impatient. Hurriedly shifting moves and footwork, he deftly glided through five steps, his form trailing like a shadow. A flurry of afterimages flickered as he launched several more blows. As the wind of his punches rose, Lei Buji splayed the five fingers of his right hand like a basket while bunching his left fingers like a hoe, combining grapples and thrusts, parries and strikes in seamless succession. This style resembled the Tiger-Crane Double Form yet differed from it; Lei Buji's father had refined and honed every fist art he ever mastered, infusing the Lei Family Fist with many routines that appeared similar on the surface but were far sharper and more efficient than their originals. Regardless of whether it was genuine Tiger-Crane Double Form, however, it still carried traces of Buddhist boxing. To a Shaolin disciple like Chun Kong, it was familiar—and even easy to defend against. Chun Kong had once sparred with masters from the Bodhidharma Hall and witnessed far more formidable variations of the Tiger-Crane Double Form, so Lei Buji's current maneuvers posed no threat to him. Amid intersecting gusts of palm wind, Chun Kong once again suppressed Lei Buji's barrage. Now hotheaded, Lei Buji figured that if he could not break through the upper body, he might as well try something else. Leaning low, he swept out with a sweeping leg kick, hoping to shatter his opponent's rock-solid stance. Yet Chun Kong simply shifted his knee and thrust it outward, knocking back Lei Buji's unpolished kick. Having defended the strike, Chun Kong saw that Lei Buji had lost the initiative, leaving a glaring opening before him. Chun Kong did not hold back. "Amitabha..." Chun Kong chanted softly in the next breath, channeling force into his palm. Before striking, he offered a gentle warning: "Patron, please be careful." Lei Buji was momentarily dazed. When someone told you to be careful, you could just dodge, but he felt that since his opponent had put it that way, refusing to meet the blow head-on would look cowardly. Thus, he threw out a palm to clash directly with Chun Kong. With seven years of the Lankavatara Cultivation Method cultivating orthodox Chan internal energy combined with the force of the Prajna Palm, even Shen Youran would tremble if asked to take it head-on right now, let alone Lei Buji. Boom— A gust of palm wind stirred, accompanied by a resounding crash. Under the impact of that clash, Lei Buji's right hand instantly went completely numb, devoid of feeling. Stumbling sideways half a step, he lost his footing. Chun Kong did not press his advantage. He assumed that after this clash, the match was effectively his; after all, his opponent's right arm would be immobile for the foreseeable future, so conceding was the natural course. Lei Buji, however, saw things entirely differently. Having sparred with his father, the Fist Saint of the Eight Wastes, since childhood, he was long accustomed through countless father-son beatdowns to carrying on even when at a disadvantage in internal force—or even when half his body was battered numb. In this perilous moment, inspiration struck instead. Yielding to momentum, he let himself drop, rolling sideways across the challenge arena twice like a tumbling kite spool. Using his left arm, he sprang off the deck in a one-handed pushup and vaulted high into the sky. Immediately after, he flipped upside down, feet in the air, diving straight toward Chun Kong from above. Harnessing gravity and channeling his full internal strength, he threw a downward left-fist strike. This diving fist from the heavens was definitely not something his father had taught him; it was pure improvisation. "Aaargh—!" Lei Buji roared as he plummeted, inwardly proud of coming up with such a magnificent counterattack. Down below, Chun Kong was astonished by this bizarre maneuver. When someone was startled, they tended to lose their composure briefly and act purely on instinct. Thus, Chun Kong instinctively glided three paces sideways, dodging the moronic vertical assault. "Aaargh—huh?" In the wake of that anticlimactic, comical shout, Lei Buji smashed straight through the wooden arena platform with his vertical plunge, vanishing into the space below. Had he not scrambled to adjust his posture just before impact, there was no telling how many bones he would have broken. * * * "Dammit, are you an idiot? If you had just worn him down with techniques, you would've won clean! Or even if you'd just backed off after that palm clash to stall for time and waited for your right arm to recover before fighting again, you still would've won... But no, you insisted on jumping right back in with such a moronic move! I can't even look at you." A cup of tea's time later, disciples from the Justice Sect finally finished repairing the arena. Throughout the entire interval, Huang Donglai had been ruthlessly roasting Lei Buji's performance. Lei Buji was thoroughly annoyed, but there was nothing to say. A loss was a loss... He was lucky he hadn't seriously injured himself in the fall. In truth, Huang Donglai's analysis was spot-on. Although Chun Kong's internal force was superior to Lei Buji's, had Lei Buji not made consecutive blunders, Chun Kong would not have been able to defeat him. On the level of pure martial techniques, Lei Buji held an unshakeable advantage. The Lei Family Fist possessed an enormous repertoire of forms, and Lei Buji had barely scratched the surface. The most intricate palm art Chun Kong commanded was the Great Compassion Thousand Leaf Hands, which could not counter everything. Had Lei Buji exercised a bit of patience, used his head, and tested a few contrasting boxing styles, one of them would inevitably have countered the Thousand Leaf Hands. Given Chun Kong's nature, once he was outmatched in techniques, he would basically have bowed out. He was not the sort of person who, upon seeing his forms bested, would taunt his opponent with, "Do you dare take a direct Prajna Palm from me?" Only someone like Sun Yixie would pull a stunt like that. Yet a match was decided by results. It was precisely because of these unpredictable factors—the very possibility of the weaker overcoming the stronger—that martial contests remained compelling. If victory went strictly to whoever possessed the greater raw power, there would be no point in competing at all. To make a long story short, the subsequent two matches held little suspense, both turning out to be one-sided stomps by Lin Yuancheng and Song Zhixiu. Since both claimed victory with effortless ease, there was no need to dwell on the details of their lopsided bouts. And so arrived the final match of the quarterfinals... That man was about to take the stage once again.