Romance of Dragons and Snakes

Wang Chao took a handful of non-stick powder and began to rub his hands before sifting the rest of the powder all around his feet.

The meaning behind this was quite clear. Even if you tried to shoot at me with a gun, I will not move. I will not step on the powder. If I step on it, then it’s my loss and the martial arts I practice is fake.

“Having two people shoot at him while he stays still? That’s impossible.” Several of the second generation males and females couldn’t believe it. But seeing how Wang Chao had been smiling without any anxiety, they begun to feel that it was perhaps possible to accomplish.

“You may begin. I won’t care if you decide to shoot at me from behind either.”

After finishing sifting through the powder, Wang Chao’s eyes had stared to the unresigned female standing in front of him.

This female sharpshooter was named Han Xiaoqing. Her marksmanship was quite decent, and judging from her shooting stance, she practiced quite regularly with a gun. When Huo Qiyun had introduced her before, he had only mentioned her name and not of her status or which family she belonged to.

But it didn’t need to be said for Wang Chao to know that this woman’s identity wasn’t a normal one. Perhaps it was this woman who secretly lead this group of youths.

“Do you mean what you say?” Han Xiaoqing had been like the snake that appears when the bushes were beaten. Her eyebrows rose into the air almost before walking towards Wang Chao’s back after hearing him give permission to shoot at his back.

Huo Qiyun hurriedly moved out of the way to walk to Wang Chao’s left side.

Staring carefully at Wang Chao’s back, Han Xiaoqing’s eyes began to flash with a hint of craftiness. When she saw the people in front of Wang Chao move away from his front, her arm rose into the air quickly! Pulling the trigger, the gun in her right arm began to fire at Wang Chao.

Bang! The bullet impacted against the cushion on the ground.

Han Xiaoqing’s iris had immediately shrunk back a little. She had clearly seen how in the instant she fired, Wang Chao’s right arm seemed as if it had vanished into thin air.

It was as if he had been born without a right arm all along. Or perhaps it was as if his right arm had been like the head of a turtle that retreated into its shell.

“Okay!” Huo Qiyun brought his hand down to signal for Han Xiaoqing to stop. In several stops, he moved towards Wang Chao’s back, he whispered to Han Xiaoqing. “You’ll aim at his arm, I’ll aim at his legs. Let’s see him try not to move now.”

Han Xiaoqing gave a smile and a nod before the two of them shot at the same time. Bang, bang! Han Xiaoqing’s bullet had fired accurately at Wang Chao’s right calf while Huo Qiyun had fired at the left arm.

But, neither bullet had struck their targets. At the same time the guns were fired, the two targets they had aimed at had disappeared instantaneously, resulting in the bullets striking against the wall and the ground.

“I don’t believe this!” Han Xiaoqing hadn’t seen just what type of movement Wang Chao had done, this speed had been even faster than what Huo Qiyun had been able to witness. The two of them nodded again and lifted their guns to fire again and again in varying patterns between Wang Chao’s arms and legs.

In this manner, it was practically putting a lockdown onto Wang Chao’s four arms without escape. According to logic, there would at least be one bullet that would hit.

All of a sudden, Wang Chao’s four limbs had disappeared without a trace as if his entire body had actually been a sphere. In that split-second, he was like a startled turtle that brought all of its limbs back into its turtleshell.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! The four bullets impacted against the wall in a sign that they had missed.

This move that Wang Chao had just done had been a show of Wang Chao bursting with Jin with his legs so that he would hop to a knee level height while bringing his legs inwards like a sphere. Hugging his arms tightly to his body so that it formed a sphere in midair, he was able to dodge the four bullets.

This one moved was well known as “Tortoise Hearing Thunder”

When a tortoise or turtle heard thunder, they would instantly bring its head, limbs, and tail back into its shell. Only the shell would remain open to the elements while looking as if the rest of the turtle had never existed.

In this move of “Tortoise Hearing Thunder”, it was far more elaborate than the Monkey Crouch. In a moment’s contraction to become small, it would have to appear to any observer that the four limbs and the head had disappeared without a trace.

When learning the monkey stance, the Monkey Crouch was enough to bring the human body size down a fold. But with the “crocodile” stance, the “Tortoise Hearing Thunder” was enough to make the body disappear in an instant.

“Impossible, this is impossible!” Han Xiaoqing had seen how Wang Chao’s limbs had disappeared after firing twice, leaving behind only the torso. After the bullets had passed on by, swish! The four limbs and torso had been as good as new. Even where he stood, the powder nearby had not been disturbed at all.

“If I can’t hit your arms or legs, then I’ll hit your body!”

Han Xiaoqing responded before firing at the right side of Wang Chao’s back. The right side was where the heart was not so it would not be fatal if struck.

But almost as if Wang Chao’s back had grown a pair of eyes, it arched in a way that made the bullet go whistling past his clothes.

“Very good!” Huo Qiyun had not fired again after that and had only spoken those two words. He had was already adulating Wang Chao of his superior martial art skills.

Han Xiaoqing put down her gun as well with a surprised look that contained both bafflement and shock.

“Haha.” Seeing how neither of the two had moved to fire, Wang Chao leapt out from the ring. From all around, the audience had indeed been thoroughly awed by him.

“Master Wang, just what style of martial arts was that? Are you even faster than a speeding bullet?” Han Xiaoqing spoke with a deferential tone that contained a clear amount of respect.

Her marksmanship was accurate and could hit a moving target six times out of ten. But Wang Chao hadn’t moved from his stop and she was still unable to hit him. In this movement, she had already been confused to the point of becoming delusional in thinking that Wang Chao was some sort of Immortal.

“It’s not that I am faster than a bullet, but that I am faster than you. A gun is dead as a human is alive. If a bullet is fired, it requires the human to pull the trigger first. It was only my reaction, hearing, and movement that was more responsive than yours. If you are capable of training the gun to becoming alive, then I can say that no expert of the Wulin would be a match.”

“Training the gun to become alive?”

“Every single weapon has intelligence to it. Training it so that it becomes alive is to reach the pinnacle with it.” Wang Chao spoke vaguely as he thought about Cheng Shanming. Cheng Shanming’s capabilities with the gun had brought it to life. He would only need a gun to be able to shoot down any single expert in his path.

“Naturally, your guns were only a single-fire. If it were the strafing AK-47 that could fire at an entire area, martial arts is completely useless. My body only has so many eyes to look from, and using a rocket launcher doesn’t even need to be said.” Wang Chao wiped off the dust on his shoulders with a smile.

“Heehee.” Han Xiaoqing couldn’t help but laugh at Wang Chao’s joke.

“Master, you’re amazing!”

After this demonstration ,Wang Chao had seen that his figure had grown in the eyes of Huo Ling’er. He was practically a god to her with no comparison. After all, in the current era where the gun reigned supreme, being able to dodge a bullet was basically the same as being a god almost.

In the present world where it was highly developed in science and technology, people were still easily controlled by tricks. If not for that, then there wouldn’t be so many people in such evil cults or organizations. The certain masters of Qigong that were said to be able to treat all injuries or illness were cheaters of the masses to cheat millions and millions of RMB from people. If not for money, they cheated people for sex.

Wang Chao was a person with genuine skills in martial arts. In this recent display, he had shown the most exquisite style of movement from Xingyiquan. If one did not train the bones, ligaments, and muscles to a robust degree, then it would be impossible to achieve this.

So thus this development was naturally not for those who relied on the martial arts of their mouth. Or those who tried their hand at being mysterious to cheat or lie like the same masters of Qigong mentioned above.

The practitioners of the past society had displayed an excellent display of martial skill in order to win success and recognition.

The “crocodile stance” contained the flickering movements from the many grappling techniques where the body would stick close and stick to the body. It was a most exquisite of movement. The “Tortoise Hearing Thunder” was a technique to contract the body.

After the “Tortoise Hearing Thunder” came the “Turtle Exposing Back”. This sequence of two was meant for close combat. With a fierce contraction like the rolling of a dragon, it was also like the mountain turtle would whirl around the enemy before exploding with the back, shoulder, waist, pelvis bone, butt, chest, and even abdomen to strike similar to how a turtle would ram with its shell.

These were the moves meant for close combat and were similar to the philosophy in Taichi where one “Fights from inside and pushes from outside.” The philosophy to Yiquan was the same as well.

If in a match with an expert, if the “Turtle Exposing Back” was used to ram the opponent, there was no possible way to subdue the opponent afterwards, so there was yet another follow up move. After ramming the enemy to throw them off their balance, the Jin had to remain as it were and take advantage of the opportunity to pull of the “Turtle Floating in Water”.

As long as contact was made with the hands, then strike with an upper palm and down with the tail to tear apart the enemy. This was what the killing move “Cutting Tail of the Crocodile” meant.

The “crocodile stance” had four primary styles of intent, “Tortoise Hearing Thunder”, “Turtle Exposing Back”, “Turtle Floating in Water”, and “Cutting Tail of the Crocodile”.This was also the penultimate art of killing in terms of grappling techniques. An unpredictable spirit shows not itself when there is no chance, but with a chance, it will strike to kill, if not maim.

So in Wang Chao’s battle with an expert like Zhou Binglin, he didn’t dare hold back. It was only after using his strongest and most terrifying moves to guarantee a victory over his enemy.

If it were someone on the level of calibre as the Three Tigers of Guangdong or Ye Xuan, then Wang Chao would have been easily able to play around with his opponent with his current level of skill.

In all of martial arts, the “dividing the muscles and misplacing the joints” and “crocodile stance” was the most vicious methods of grappling, the most unfixed style of the Longfist, and as fierce as the Hammer style in Taichi. In these two aspects, Wang Chao had reached perfection. With his aptitude, he had indeed reached his peak as a youth.

But to crawl to an even higher height of enlightenment, the path would be even more challenging from there on out. Before one could talk about progression, one must first address the issue of maintaining his height. To maintain his height without a regression of martial arts, drive, and courage would require a refined way of cultivation to impact his state of mind.

In the flow of time that was history, there were many youths that made themselves known as experts. But with time, only a few experts were left remaining. It was easy to marry and settle down, but difficult to provide for them. Giving birth to a child was easy, but raising a child was not. The way to martial arts was the same.

“Master Wang, I can see that you know genuine martial arts. I can be at ease to know that my younger sister will learn martial arts with you as her master. Nguyễn Hồng Tú may be well known, but with his malevolent face, he will not be a good master. Yet, I have already asked him before, to say that my younger sister will not be his apprentice now will seem as if my family was playing around with him. Although the Huo family will not care much, it is still not so pleasant to have such a matter.”

After Wang Chao’s demonstration, they had all sat back down in the lounge. Huo Qiyun lit his cigar and gave it a puff before explaining the situation to Wang Chao.

“That will be easy then, he and I will compete against one another.” Wang Chao had naturally understood what Huo Qiyun was getting at.

“That’ll work!” Huo Qiyun put down his cigar. “Our Huo family are quite avid supporters of sports. We have even seen several fights amongst the masters of the Southeast Asian world of martial arts. But the match between master Wang and Zhang Wei was one I did not have the opportunity to see, I still feel much regret about that. But this time, I cannot afford to miss it. How about you let me arrange this next match. I can guarantee that it won’t be as small of a scale as that match.”

“That’ll work.” Wang Chao nodded. “I’ll write the invitation. Unless Nguyễn Hồng Tú doesn’t wish for his reputation, he will not decline it.”

From the start, Wang Chao had been forced into situations where he had to fight the others. But now, he was taking the initiative to do so. In any case, to receive Huo Ling’er as a disciple would involve the master of Muay Thai, only a match would resolve this.

“You’ll be fighting someone?” Han Xiaoqing perked up in interest as soon as she heard Wang Chao. “I’ve only heard about the matches between masters in the world of martial arts, but I’ve never actually seen one take place. I cannot miss this opportunity either. How about I make a bid of ten million on you.”

Afterwards, the other aristocratic children had been excited as well. Placing their bets on him one after another, some of them had even expressed their interest in learning martial arts from Wang Chao.

To be strong in martial arts as well as being an outstanding youngster from a rich and powerful family. These were the characteristics of any main character in the novels, and naturally many people would love to be described as such as well.

At the same time as master Wang was “swindling money” from them.

In the suburbs of Beijing, there was a rather isolated courtyard house that was symbolic of Beijing at the end of an alley. It was nice and clean without a single speck of dust. Even the grass growing between the limestone steps were plucked and the moss cleaned off.

A strong scent of herbal medicine could be smelled from the interior of one of the rooms.

“Master Zhou, I’ve come to see you.”

Choi Jang Baek and Nguyễn Hồng Tú were both seated within the room. Laying on top of the bed was a single elder with bandages wrapped tightly around his shoulder. This elder was the very same grandmaster of Taichi that had fought and lost against Wang Chao, Zhou Binglin.