The Nine Cauldrons

Book 2 Chapter 26 Defeating the enemy’s leader

When the bandit archers placed at the back of the group saw Teng Qingshan, they felt as if a fierce tiger had come down from a mountain to ruthlessly slaughter their 16 brothers. Watching him charge towards their leader, they grew incredible terrified.

“Shoot him!” the handsome youth anxiously commanded.

‘Phew!’ ‘Phew!’ ‘Phew!’ ‘Phew!’ ……

Like a swarm of locusts, volleys of arrows were fired towards Teng Qingshan.

While Teng Qingshan attracted the bandits’ attention, pressure on the other clansmen was greatly reduced. Teng Yongfan and Teng Qinghu, who were rushing at the enemy, felt anxious and roared: “They are surrounding Teng Qingshan! Everyone, let’s slaughter our way towards him!”

“Kill them!”

The Teng Jia hunters’ eyes turned crimson.

Their training that started since childhood paid off as they easily formed a formation. Raising their spears into the air, they stabbed the bandits to death.

……

“Hmph.” Teng Qingshan simply ignored the incoming arrows as he swung his Damascus steel spear. With a strange power, he deflected all the arrows that were nearing him.

The spear art–“Transmutation Unity Qi”!

The ruthless bandit leader sneered. “Boy, you are courting death!” Refusing to run away from a young boy, the bandit leader furiously roared and and waved the machete in his hands in a big arc, producing a loud whistling as it cut through the wind. As the blade fiercely swung towards Teng Qingshan, the Damascus steel spear in his hands seemed as if had a life on its own, and the spearhead easily slammed against the machete’s blade.

“What crazy strength.” The bandit leader’s complexion turned pale. “My machete…” After the spearhead had made contact with his blade, he felt that his hand was caught in a vortex, involuntarily pushing the bandit leader to one side.

“Huh?”

Teng Qingshan also felt that his spear’s movements were slightly off balance after hitting the machete’s blade. Spinning the spear in his hand, it was immediately stabilized and was directly stabbed towards the ruthless bandit leader’s throat.

Its speed was as fast as lightning!

“Huh!” The bandit leader started to panic as he watched the sharp spear shooting towards him. “How is this possible?!”

The ruthless bandit leader was confident of his strength, and even if the long spear managed to block his blade, the spear should have also been deflected. How could the spearhead turn and directly stab at him as if it were completely unaffected? He would never understand the profound mystery behind the spinning spearhead.

The secret behind the spear art Pursuing Shadow was ‘a spin’.

It could be said that this spin added rotational strength.

The spear art ‘Pursuing Shadow’ was derived from the five element boxing technique ‘Smashing Fist’. Even as a master of Xing Yi martial arts, Teng Qingshan needed to spend many years before successfully evolving his ‘Smashing Fist’ into ‘Pursuing Shadow.’

‘Smashing Fist’ was like an arrow, and the main characteristic of ‘Pursuing Shadow’ was its incredible speed! It was faster than an arrow and an afterimage!

The second characteristic was the rotational strength the spin gave the spear.

Even if an enemy’s machete was chopped or if a spear was thrusted towards him, Teng Qingshan’s spear could easily block it. Moreover, with the rotational strength, his spear could deflect the opponent’s weapon while his own spear remained unaffected. Teng Qingshan would be able to kill his enemy with ease.

Killing an enemy with just one move!

This move might look simple, but it was very challenging to execute because one had to have a good understanding of his or her own strength. Teng Qingshan needed to perfectly understand his opponent’s strength as well as his own in order to force their weapon to rotate to one side while killing his opponent. This technique alone needed the user to reach the realm of ‘One with the Spear.’

In addition, an expert level skill on creating rotational force was needed in order to deflect the weapon from one side to another.

Only a master in Smashing Fist who reached the realm of ‘One with the Spear’ could perfectly use this technique.

In a real fight, one only needed one move to kill an enemy. It may look simple, but in fact it took years of detailed researching and thinking.

“Ahh!!!” The ruthless bandit leader, facing his certain death, roared and used his left hand to grab Teng Qingshan’s incoming spearhead.

“Chi!” The Damascus steel spear maliciously stabbed the bandit leader’s palm and pierced both muscles and bones before coming out of his shoulder. Blood gushed out from his wound. “Humph!” With a push of his spearhead, Teng Qingshan forced the bandit leader onto the ground while increasing the size of the bandit leader’s shoulder wound.

With a pull, he removed his spear from the bandit leader’s body and pointed it towards the ruthless bandit leader’s eyes.

“Stop!” Teng Qingshan ferociously shouted.

On the open field, the bandits were startled to see their boss lying on the ground with his life at the mercy of the hands of a youth. The bandits could not help but stop attacking.

Lying on the ground, the bandit leader’s shoulder wound caused acute pain that made his face twitch. His eyes suddenly carried a hint of madness, and then he suddenly used the hand holding the machete to chop at Teng Qingshan’s thigh as he lay on the ground.

“Go die!”

With a roar, Teng Qingshan’s right leg flashed as fast as lighting before smashing against the bandit leader’s right wrist, his leg infused with inner strength.

Crack! – A bone crunching sounds could be heard!

The machete rose high up in the air and fell on the ground far away from the bandit leader.

The bandit leader’s right hand hung loosely in the air while his bones were completely smash into powder.

“Another move and I will kill you!” Teng Qingshan’s eyes flashed like lightening as he stared towards the bandit leader.

The ruthless bandit leader, who was normally violent to the extreme, was scared from being stared by Teng Qingshan. He clearly felt…. that if he moved, this youth would definitely pierce his skull with his spear. In a trace, the bandit leader felt as if… this youth holding a spear was Master Hong Si from the White Horse Gang.

Master Hong Si travelled the world with his three brothers and spread fear under their name. Even bandits that were notorious from taking countless lives would go limp under a stare from Master Hong Si.

And at this moment, Teng Qingshan’s imposing manner and eyes made the bandit leader feel fear.

“Father, are you alright?” Teng Qingshan asked.

Teng Yongfan rushed towards Teng Qingshan with rest of his clan, carrying injured men on their shoulders. He shouted from afar, “Some are alright, but…” Teng Qingshan swept his sight over them, and saw a clan member’s right leg missing with a cloth wrapped tight to stop the bleeding, and another member had a knife in his eye, his eye dangling out, making him look hideous.

Almost all of the clansmen were bloodstained.

Fortunately, they had used a spear formation to assist each other and therefore didn’t have any casualties. If it wasn’t for Teng Qingshan capturing the bandit leader, the fight would have taken a longer time, and some clansmen would have most likely been slain.

“Humph, Qingshan, we also kill some of them,” Teng Qinghu said.

Teng Qingshan sighed, relieved that it was just a short encounter. Fortunately, he captured the bandit leader quite fast and didn’t let the situation get out of hands. Teng Qingshan lowered his head and looked toward the bandit leader on the ground. “Talk, who wanted us dead? If you lie, I’ll let you taste my spear.”

“We are bandits, of course we rob people.” The bandit leader raised his head as he roared.

Puff!

With a stab, the bandit leader roared in pain as Teng Qingshan’s spear pierced his right shoulder. More blood gushed out as Teng Qingshan pulled out his spear.

“Motherf*cker, we are no fools.” The nearby Teng Qinghu roared, “I have been to the city many times, and yet I have never come across a bandit willing to rob us hunters! If you don’t spit it out now, if my brother doesn’t kill you, I will.” With spear in hand, he rushed towards the bandit leader.

The Teng clan people knew very clear that bandits normally wouldn’t rob poor but tough hunters.

Moreover, the Teng clansmen deliberately took a detour around the fields, yet the bandits still came out from their ambush to attack them.

What exactly could make these bandits try to kill this group of hunters?

The Teng clansmen naturally thought of the ten thousand taels of silver! It was enough incentive for the bandits to attack them.

“Let our boss go.” The bandits were also anxious.

“Shut up.” Teng Qingshan’s eyes swept across the group of bandits.

A moment ago, Teng Qingshan swept through several bandits like cutting weed, terrorizing the bandits. Even their boss lost to Teng Qingshan after one small exchange. Which one of them would dare to fight against Teng Qingshan? The bandits were worried, but they didn’t dare open their mouth. Most of them glared at the triangular-eyed guy with malicious intent.

The triangular-eyed guy was also frightened.

He wouldn’t have thought that amongst the thirty hunters, the youth he looked down on the most was the most terrifying one.

“I will speak.” The ruthless bandit leader finally submitted and looked towards the triangular-eyed bandit. “It’s him, Er Gouzi! This bastard and his dumbass brother, who works for a salt merchant, told me you have a bill worth 10000 taels of silver! I am now a cripple thanks to this Er Gouzi!”

Of course the bandit leader would hate this triangular-eyed fellow.

Both his hands were crippled, and his shoulders had been stabbed. He would be a cripple for the rest of his life.

“So that’s how it is.” Teng Qingshan wasn’t surprised at all.

The only ones who knew that they had 10000 taels of silver, except those from their clan clan, were the people who worked for the salt merchant.

“That man is called Qin San!”, Teng Qingshan clearly remembered the scene at Yangzhou Guild and the cavalry leader’s name. The culprit was most likely him.

“Which one of you is Er Gouzi?” Teng Qingshan looked towards the other bandits.

“Ah!”, the triangular-eyed fellow became pale from panic and turned around to escape. Seeing his actions, the bandit next to him gave a strong kick to the triangular-eyed man’s butt, pushing him on the ground in pain.

“Still want to escape?” The handsome young bandit grabbed the triangular-eyed fellow, before pulling him towards Teng Qingshan and throwing him to the ground.

The handsome youth cupped his hand and said to Teng Qingshan, “Fellow brother (TL: he’s referring to Teng Qingshan), we believed the words of this Er Gouzi that there was a fat sheep coming our way, which was why we dispatched our brethren. Meeting this fellow brother, who resembles a tiger coming down from the mountain, was our bad luck! Please release my brother. Everything can be discussed!”