Chapter 18: Thunderclap Hand Duan Lei

After eating, Lu Xuan headed to the escort agency. He sat in the gatehouse as usual, quietly watching the escort warriors practice their saber techniques in the courtyard.

Everything seemed peaceful, almost as if the bloody battle three days ago had never happened.

Xiao Lin eventually wandered over and leaned against the doorway. "Brother Xuan, about the other day..." He looked at Lu Xuan with some sympathy. "You must have been terrified, right?"

"Mm." Lu Xuan nodded solemnly. "My legs were shaking."

Xiao Lin sighed. "Me too. I've been on quite a few escort trips, but it's rare to encounter so many bandits at once. If it weren't for Thunderclap Hand Duan Lei, we might have lost several people that day."

Lu Xuan turned his head. "Thunderclap Hand Duan Lei?"

"You don't know?" Xiao Lin's eyes widened. "Those bandits were all killed by someone punching straight through their chests!"

He lowered his voice, his expression becoming mysterious, like he was about to reveal some incredible secret.

"Old Guo said that person is at least an expert of the Martial Artist Realm. Only Thunderclap Hand Duan Lei could have used such a fierce technique."

Lu Xuan remained silent for a moment. Then, inwardly, he almost laughed. Fine. This was perfect.

Having someone else take the credit made things infinitely easier. The fewer people who connected those deaths to him, the better.

Xiao Lin continued, completely unaware of what was going through Lu Xuan's mind.

"I just don't understand why Thunderclap Hand Duan Lei didn't show his face. Our escort agency owes him a huge favor now!"

Lu Xuan nodded with an extremely serious expression. "Yes, yes, yes. It's all thanks to him."

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In the courtyard, Old Guo's leg still hadn't healed. He leaned heavily on a crutch, cursing loudly enough that the entire neighborhood could probably hear him.

"Those bastards from Flying Cloud Fortress... don't let me run into them again. If I do, I'll chop off their heads and use them as chamber pots!"

Several escort warriors gathered around him.

"Old Guo, it really was dangerous this time. It wasn't easy for the seven of you to return safely after facing more than twenty bandits."

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"Bullshit!" Old Guo immediately waved his crutch. "Six, alright!"

The others blinked. Six? Then they understood.

Old Guo's gaze had already shifted toward the gatehouse, where Lu Xuan was sitting and quietly watching the courtyard.

Old Guo looked at him with pure, undiluted contempt. "Can that one even be counted?"

He snorted. "I have a whole body of martial arts skills, and my leg ended up like this. Yet that waste, who only knows how to drive a cart and run away, didn't even lose a single hair."

His voice became louder. "Tell me that's not bizarre."

The others exchanged glances.

They understood. Old Guo was still holding a grudge. In his mind, if Lu Xuan had been replaced by a real escort warrior... someone who could actually fight.... then perhaps he wouldn't have ended up with his leg in a brace.

One of the warriors suddenly asked, "Old Guo, was the person who killed those ten bandits really Thunderclap Hand Duan Lei?"

Old Guo immediately straightened. His expression became solemn, almost reverent. "How could it be fake?"

He tapped his crutch against the ground.

"How many people in this world can kill armed bandits with their bare hands? And didn't you hear how brutal those deaths were? Punches straight through the chest!"

He shook his head. "If it wasn't him, who else could it be?"

Old Guo's expression became nostalgic. "I haven't seen that old brother of mine in years. I never expected his cultivation to have reached such a level."

"Then why didn't he show his face?"

Old Guo sighed heavily, as though carrying the weight of a profound secret. "Ah... That brother of mine has always kept a low profile. Maybe he had some urgent business to attend to."

He paused, then patted his chest. "Regardless, I, Old Guo, will remember this favor for the rest of my life."

The surrounding escort warriors nodded solemnly. "Mm, mm, mm. It's all thanks to this brother of yours!"

In the gatehouse, Lu Xuan had heard every word.

He kept his head lowered and quietly sipped his tea, his expression perfectly calm. This Old Guo... He was an insufferable bastard. But at least he was a useful one.

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In a quiet corner of the courtyard, Ye Qingyi sat alone, wiping her blade. The conversation between Old Guo and the other escort warriors had reached her ears, every word.

She had been thinking about the ambush for three days now. Could the mysterious expert who hadn't shown his face really be Thunderclap Hand Duan Lei, as Old Guo claimed?

From the outside, there were indeed similarities: the overwhelming power, the bare-handed kills, and the one-punch lethality.

But the more Ye Qingyi thought about it, the more she felt that something didn't fit.

Thunderclap Hand was a martial art built around explosive palm strikes and shock force. It was devastating, but it wasn't simply one technique repeated over and over. It had different forms, different variations, and different ways of attacking and countering.

Those dead bandits... They hadn't been killed by palm strikes.

They had been killed by fists. A single fist, straight through the chest, every time. The same location, the same angle, and the same terrifying depth.

Ye Qingyi's hand slowly stopped moving.

She stared at the blade resting in her hand. If it had been her facing those ten bandits, could she have killed each of them with a single strike? Perhaps. But she couldn't punch through their chests.

That wasn't simply a matter of technique.

It required overwhelming physical strength, a level of power so great that the opponent couldn't even resist.

Ye Qingyi slowly lifted her eyes toward the gatehouse. Lu Xuan was sitting there, talking to Xiao Lin with a lazy smile and looking completely relaxed, as though the events of three days ago had never happened.

Her fingers tightened slightly around the blade.

That night in the forest, with more than ten bandits dying one after another, had he really seen nothing?

Did he really just "run fast"?

Or rather...