57 The Fourth Flashed

WEI Gaoyuan's face turned red.

Zhu Qinglong knew from the beginning that he would be totally outmatched, he just wanted to add condiment to WEI Gaoyuan's dish.

As a disciple of the Dark-Feather, he certainly knew who was the man with the fake spiritual root. In the genius name of junior brother Wei, WEI Gaoyuan enjoyed the treatment that Wei Gaoyuan should have received, even with that mean, vain, ugly face.

Unlike Hu Xiaoshu, he wouldn't speak it out or jumped out directly to cry for Wei Gaoyuan — somethings might be more serious than he an ordinary disciple could imagine, or somethings that he should never touch.

Yet, he could try to touch WEI Gaoyuan's face, by his way, that feigned attack, for example. It was yourself who said I would be sent off the platform in one pattern~ You put your face on my hand, and I slapped it, gently.

After a short embarrassment, WEI Gaoyuan quickly realized that he was trapped in the fatty's script, and without any hesitation, he launched his second attack. Zhu Qinglong, however, who did not fight back or resist, ran away, like a fat dog~

His plump body didn't make his movement slow or awkward, instead, he seemed to run fairly fast and flexible. Even four patterns WEI Gaoyuan'd made in a row forced him to get off the platform.

After that, the face of the winner, WEI Gaoyuan, was as black as the rock of the Dark-Feather; Zhu Qinglong looked like a winner, his head up high. People who just arrived would be confused about who was the virtual winner.

Back at the camp the Dark-Feather, Zhu Qinglong cast a look of asking credit at Wei Gaoyuan, and said, "Junior brother Wei, leave that guy to you. You must beat his ass, kick his head till he calls you daddy~"

Wei Gaoyuan was amused and laughed, "Brother Zhu, you wanna a son, that kind?"

A number of disciples of other Peaks were discussing about it, and a few brothers said with a smile, "That fat, a real creepy gross…But I just love it. Haha ..."

Although WEI Gaoyuan did lose his face, slightly, he was the first to get into the top-three.

The following second competition began soon: Li Xiaochun VS Zhong Yifan, it would be a predictable tug-of-war, right-left, left-right, since the two were estimated to be almost the equal strength, not easy for either to take his opponent's advantage.

After more than 300 patterns, as expected, the two just fell off the platform at the same time, who'd both run too much of their Internal Qi and were unable to continue competing.

As a consequence, this competition was suspended.

The third: Wei Gaoyuan VS He Zhenhai. When the two stood and faced each other, He Zhenhai drew out his weapon, a long sword. He stared at Wei Gaoyuan and asked, "Where is your weapon?"

"Forget to bring," Wei Gaoyuan spread his hands and replied,

Forgot to bring the weapon in a competition? Was your head kicked by the donkey?

He Zhenhai's face changed, "Junior brother Wei, here is not the playground…"

Wei Gaoyuan was the youngest of the 12 freshmen, so all of other 11 were his brothers. He said, "Frankly, I wanna have a try, to borrow your sword."

He Zhenhai's face became even more black. Wei Gaoyuan's meaning was obvious— he wanted to take He Zhenhai's sword in the competition.

He Zhenhai snorted coldly, threw his sword out of the platform, and raised his head, "A fair competition, you forget your sword, I drop mine."

"Brother He truly deserves the virtue of Xia. Alright! Please give your fist pattern!" It was better, Wei Gaoyuan thought, anyway, the result wouldn't change, a fair competition could be helpful for brother He to lose less face.

He Zhenhai was not weak. His Internal Qi felt abundant and thick, which indicated that he might have got a tough foundation of Martial Arts before he entered the outer section. That would enable him to exhaust his opponent if encountered a equal-strength battle.

However, Wei Gaoyuan was two stages higher than him, a too big gap to skip. And He Zhenhai just felt it not long after they began fighting— He'd planned to make his strong Internal Qi burst out at one point to blow up Wei Gaoyuan off the platform; Wei Gaoyuan, in response, used "one stream leads three seas" of Tai Chi patterns to lead his Internal Qi to another direction and made his attacks in vain. Hence in a few rounds, He Zhenhai stopped, and admitted he'd been lost because few Internal Qi could sustain his next move.

Leaving the platform, He Zhenhai shook his head, not too frustrated, though. After all, the opponent was significantly stronger than himself. In a sense, he became more interested in the following competition, between genius WEI Gaoyuan and this boy.

...

Days in winter were usually short. At the end of dinner, the moon began rising quietly.

It was another full moon, impressively bright.

At the back of the Dark-Feather, Wei Gaoyuan was practicing the swordsmanship in CHASING WIND SWORD in the bamboo forest, with a common long sword he'd spent two silver coins buying in the Exchange House.

After refined in his dreams, "Chasing Wind Sword" was slightly different from the original version, but it was more powerful and efficient, he could feel it.

"Chasing Wind Sword" and "Eight Clouds in Dream" appeared to be two totally different types of swordsmanship: the former, like his name, was fast, accurate and destructive, easy to use, more like a pure tool for killing or combating; "Eight Clouds in Dream," on the contrary, was too deep and profound, like a fantastic flower in a mysterious dream, easy to feel, difficult to grasp. Therefore, he'd been still unable to fully comprehend the first of the eight patterns so far. In contrast, he'd begun practicing the third pattern of"Chasing Wind Sword" now.

"Chasing Wind Sword" was just the fundamental swordsmanship in CHASING WIND SWORD. Its first pattern was simple, as if anyone could learn it; but the second turned out to be almost twice as difficult as the first, and the third was nearly twice as difficult as the second.

As for the fourth, he hadn't begun yet, knowing not much about it.

Moreover, there were totally twelve patterns in "Chasing Wind Sword." According to the first three, he estimated that the twelfth should not be inferior to the eighth of "Eight Clouds in Dream."

"A great stroke of sword!"as he immersed himself in practicing the third pattern, a sudden voice behind him came.

Wei Gaoyuan didn't stop until he leaned his strength to complete the last action of the third pattern. He then slid his sword into the scabbard and turned around, seeing Chu Yuntian standing not far away, with a little surprise in his eyes.

"Good evening, brother Chu," Wei Gaoyuan saluted, and smiled, "Congratulations to Brother Chu, entering the top-three in the evaluation, and the No.1 was awaiting you tomorrow."

"Thanks, I also hope to get the first this year," Chu Yuntian turned serious. "Last year, I lost to Xie Liancheng of the White-Feather, lost to his last stroke of sword…So, druing the past year, I kept thinking about every details of that stroke, but I'd still found no way to crack it, I am afraid…tomorrow, to meet him again, I could do nothing but give my best pattern, just to try my luck… "

" Are you sure to crack it by that, your best pattern?" Wei Gaoyuan asked.

"50% to win," Chu Yuntian replied calmly, "and 50% to lose again."

"But when I saw the pattern you were just doing, something just… I'm not quite sure about it, seemed clicked in my head. It might increase my chance to win, if I could learn more from you tonight~ May I ask… that pattern… whether you learn it from some scroll in the library?"

Wei Gaoyuan shook his head and said, "No, I create it."

Everything about Lie Qianshan and his gifts was an absolute secret. And "Chasing Wind Sword" did get modified by his dream space, counted as 20% or 30% self-creation for that reason. So, he gave the shameless answer without any hesitation. Any hesitation might arouse his suspicion—Chu Yuntian was not a stupid.

His reply astonished Chu Yuntian, though. To create a new pattern of swordsmanship?! How deep was this junior brother's understanding towards swordsmanship? Or how talented could he be in it? And that mystic pattern he created, it even made himself learn something he'd never figured out...

Having seen the expression of Chu Yuntian, Wei Gaoyuan realized that he boasted too much…If he knew exactly how talented an expert of swordsmanship must be to create a new pattern, especially that sort of magic pattern, he mustn't have been that shameless...

Chu Yuntian's interest seemed to be suddenly aroused, and asked for a swordsmanship competition right now, simply in swordsmanship, without applying Internal Qi. He didn't want to take his junior brother's advantage, who'd just been in the Dark-Feather less than one year.

A competition without using Internal Qi? That was what I want! Wei Gaoyuan got relieved.

In addition to a set of basic enlightenment swordsmanship, Wei Gaoyuan had merely learnt four patterns, the first pattern of "Eight Clouds in Dream" and the first three of "Chasing Wind Sword".

At the beginning, he just used the enlightenment and was soon overpowered by Chu Yuntian. So, he had to let out the first of "Chasing Wind Sword", and struggled to balance the bad situation by using it three times in a row.

Then Chu Yuntian changed and strengthened his pattern, forcing Wei Gaoyuan to give the second.

And when the third came out, Chu Yuntian's pattern fell into a disorder for the first time, which made Chu Yuntian startled somewhat.

Before Chu Yuntian could calm himself down and steady the pace to find a chance of fighting back, the situation had changed again!

Wei Gaoyuan's pattern changed again, all of a sudden, it was the fourth!

Each pattern in "Chasing Wind Sword" appeared twice powerful than the previous. So the fourth didn't gave Chu Yuntian even a slim space and time to resist, who just saw the flower of sword in front of him blossomed in a flash, and next moment, the point of Wei Gaoyuan's blade just touched gently on his shoulder.

Until now, Chu Yuntian had never got the path of Wei Gaoyuan's last sword-strike though he knew in his heart that junior brother Wei, since the outset, had exerted four patterns, 11 strokes of sword.

Then the two men stopped at the same time, standing quietly, lost in deep thought. They were both pondering what had happened just now.

Except for the night wind whistling, there was only silence in the moonlight.

The chilly night wind could merely wave the two men's long hair and gowns.

After a long while, Chu Yuntian laughed suddenly and said in a loud voice, "I see it! I see it!! Thank you! Brother Wei! I've gotta go! I've gotta go right now! I'll visit you someday… to reward you for the instruction tonight!"

Wei Gaoyuan returned from meditation, gazing unseeingly at the back of Chu Yuntian quickly disappearing into the darkness…

"You figured it out…but I don't! Who can tell me how I gave that fourth pattern!"