Chapter 166: Chapter 109: Third Limit Break of the Twelve Forms Fist, Great Success in the Ghost Shadow Illusionary Body Step! Late-Night Corpse Handling, An Unexpected Crisis
By unspoken agreement, neither pried into the other’s motives. They simply turned their attention back to Liang Yuhen up ahead.
’Let her be the one to clean up the battlefield.’
Time passed, little by little...
About an hour later, the distant shouts and clashes of battle gradually subsided.
Liang Yuhen moved out again, expertly searching for her "spoils of war."
But then, the unexpected happened!
As she drew near what appeared to be a corpse, the "body" suddenly shot up, viciously slamming a palm into her shoulder!
"Pfft!"
Caught completely off guard, Liang Yuhen spat out a mouthful of blood and staggered back.
The ambusher was clearly seriously injured himself, but he still had considerable strength. His Cultivation was at least at the Entering the Realm of Strength. A savage grin spread across his face as he gave chase, vowing to strike down the woman who dared to loot his body.
Forcing herself to ignore her injuries, Liang Yuhen didn’t hesitate for a second, bolting for her life in the direction of Chu Fan and Zhao Tianxing’s hiding spot!
"She knew we were here?"
Chu Fan and Zhao Tianxing exchanged a stunned glance.
’This woman must have cultivated some kind of Secret Technique that enhances her perception.’
’When I get back, I need to ask Master Cao about any Cultivation Techniques for concealing one’s aura,’ Chu Fan mused.
"It’s you two!" Liang Yuhen cried as she rushed over. She recognized the two Evil Ghost Masks, especially Chu Fan’s—he was the lecher who had taken advantage of her and groped her chest during their last encounter!
But circumstances were dire. Suppressing her shame and fury, she cried out, "Help me! Six hundred taels of silver, plus a Fragment of a mid-tier Cultivation Method!"
A glint flashed in Chu Fan’s eyes. "One thousand taels!" he said in a low voice.
Liang Yuhen was furious.
’The nerve of him, asking for such an outrageous price!’
She gritted her teeth. "Deal!"
Before the word was even out of her mouth, Chu Fan shot forward like an arrow released from its bow, intercepting the pursuing Martial Artist from the Entering the Realm of Strength.
"Another one looking for a death wish!"
The Martial Artist from the Entering the Realm of Strength sneered and swung his palm, the attack generating a whistling wind.
Chu Fan neither dodged nor evaded. The qi and blood surged through his body, and a faint, nearly invisible metallic sheen appeared under his skin.
"BAM!"
Their palms collided with a muffled thud.
The face of the Martial Artist from the Entering the Realm of Strength contorted. He felt as if he had just struck a piece of steel, forged and tempered a thousand times. The Rebound force made his arm go numb, his qi and blood churned in his chest, and he almost lost control of the injuries he had been suppressing.
"You..." he stammered, staring at Chu Fan in horror.
Chu Fan pressed his advantage, unleashing the Twelve Forms Fist without mercy.
The agile Dragon Form, the ferocious Tiger Form, the steady Bear Form, the striking Eagle Form... He transitioned between the various forms with practiced ease, his movements perfectly fluid, his assault a veritable storm.
"A man from the Seven Stars Gang!"
The Martial Artist was already grievously wounded. Now, facing Chu Fan and his Twelve Forms Fist that had reached the Third Limit Break, he was immediately overwhelmed and unable to properly defend himself.
"CRACK!"
In under ten moves, a vicious strike from Chu Fan’s Eagle Form claw crushed the man’s throat.
His eyes wide with disbelief, the man collapsed limply to the ground, his life extinguished.
Chu Fan bent down and pulled off the man’s mask, revealing the unfamiliar face of a middle-aged man.
"That’s Guardian Liu of the Giant Shark Gang!" Liang Yuhen, who had approached, gasped. Her eyes, fixed on Chu Fan, were filled with utter shock and disbelief.
’An expert at the Entering the Realm of Strength was killed by this lecher in under ten moves?’
’He was seriously injured, true, but even so...’
’Just who is this Ghost-faced Man?’
’What power could have produced such a monster?’
Chu Fan ignored her shock, searched the dead man’s body, and pocketed a few items. Only then did he dust off his hands and extend one toward Liang Yuhen. "Done. The silver, and the Fragment of the Cultivation Method."
Liang Yuhen’s eyes darted around. Clutching her still-aching shoulder, she said in a weaker tone, "I... I don’t have that much silver on me..."
"What?" A cold glint flashed in Chu Fan’s eyes. Without warning, he drove a fist into her soft abdomen.
"Ugh!" Liang Yuhen doubled over in pain, tears instantly springing to her eyes.
Before she could react, Chu Fan had already zipped behind her. His arm clamped around her pale neck like an iron band, locking her in a textbook rear-naked choke.
"A person without credibility is worthless." Chu Fan’s cold voice whispered in her ear. "You dare default on a debt to *me*?"
"You... Let me go!" Liang Yuhen was terrified, furious, and humiliated all at once. Her neck was constricted, she was struggling to breathe, and her face was flushed red. "Who carries a thousand taels of silver on them at night?! Did I ever say I wasn’t going to pay you?! Stop manhandling me! This is completely improper!"
Zhao Tianxing, standing off to the side with his arms crossed, commented languidly, "This doesn’t look like ’manhandling’ to me. It’s clearly more of an embrace."
His words were like fuel on a fire. Liang Yuhen thought about last time, how she’d nearly been killed and then had her chest groped. Now she was seriously injured again, and on top of it all, being so brutally restrained...
The injustice, the shame, and the pain all mixed together. She finally couldn’t take it anymore and burst out crying with a loud "WAAAH!" Her tears fell like pearls from a broken string, splashing onto Chu Fan’s arm.
"..." Chu Fan let go and said coldly, "What are you crying for? You’re the one who tried to back out of the deal. You should count yourself lucky I didn’t just kill you!"
"Running around doing this kind of work without the skills to back it up... I’ve never met a lunatic like you!"
Hearing him call her a "lunatic," Liang Yuhen crouched on the ground, her shoulders shaking, and cried even harder, as if trying to vent all the frustrations and grievances she had bottled up.
Never in her life had she suffered such repeated humiliation and brutal treatment.
Chu Fan impatiently extended his hand again. "All right, all right, stop crying! You can owe me the silver, but give me the Fragment of the Cultivation Method now!"
Liang Yuhen lifted her tear-stained face, got to her feet, and reluctantly took a small, rather ancient-looking booklet with yellowed pages from her robes and held it out.
Chu Fan reached to take it, but felt resistance—Liang Yuhen’s fingers were still clamped tightly on the other end, refusing to let go.
