The Nine Cauldrons

Chapter 5: Powerful Enemies

In the White Cloud Cafe located next to the Willow Tea House, Teng Qingshan and Lin Qing sat opposite of each other. As time flew by, the sun went down the mountain.

“So fast.” Lin Qing glanced outside the window. She had no idea that a day had already gone by. She then looked towards Teng Qingshan, who was across from her, and a serene smile crept onto her face. Whenever she looked at Teng Qingshan, she would always feel very comfortable, and her helpless and lonely heart would finally feel at peace.

She thought about the time when Teng Qingshan carried her on his back and walked twenty miles on the mountain road. She would never forget the feeling of being on his back.

Never before in her life had she felt that safe and calm in her heart.

“If only I could look at him like this forever until the earth and heavens grow old,” Lin Qing said to herself in her heart. However, a person’s image materialized in her mind, and Lin Qing’s heart immediately shuddered as she thought, “No, I cannot continue to pester Teng Qingshan like this anymore. It did not matter when we were at An Yi County, but now we are in Yangzhou City. If he finds out, Teng Qingshan will be doomed!”

However, when Lin Qing thought of not seeing Teng Qingshan ever again, she started to feel slightly bitter in her heart.

The encounter at Great Xing’An Mountain was fate.

The encounter in An Yi County was fate as well.

Now, meeting again at Yangzhou City, Lin Qing felt that heaven was fulfilling her wish.

***

Teng Qingshan shook his head slightly. Today, he had waited an entire day and had not been able to meet with his brother ‘Qing He’ again.

“Eh?” Teng Qingshan suddenly noticed the music that was playing in the cafe. It was Chyi Chin’s «One Game, One Dream».

“Lin Qing, how is this song from Chyi Chin?” Teng Qingshan asked with a faint smile.

Lin Qing grinned involuntarily for a moment as she listened. ”One Game, One Dream? Chyi Chin did sing it, but this song belongs to Wang Jie Di.”

“Oh. I only listen to Chyi Chin’s songs,” Teng Qingshan responded.

Lin Qing was surprised. How was it possible for someone to only listen to and like songs sung by just one person? It was also not possible to entirely screen out other people’s songs. She asked out of curiousity, “Why do you only listen to only Chyi Chin’s songs?”

“Because he has a song named ‘Wolf’,” Teng Qingshan answered casually.

“Wolf?” Lin Qing felt a bit suspicious.

“Alright, I have to go back. I will see you next time if there’s a chance.” Teng Qingshan stood up with a smile. Before Lin Qing managed to say anything else, he turned his head and walked outside. Lin Qing opened her mouth to say something but sat down helplessly in the end. As she listened to the sad and beautiful song, she couldn’t help but smile bitterly. “One Game, One Dream? Just think of all of this as a dream.” She then lifted her cup of wine and gulped it down.

To Teng Qingshan, the sudden appearance of Lin Qing at Yangzhou was just a minor event. He could only sigh emotionally. Great Xing’An mountain, An Yi County, or Yangzhou City. At these three destinations, Teng Qingshan had met Lin Qing three successive times. It was really coincidental.

“Huff, huff”

The branches of a peach tree waved helplessly along with the howling night wind as the shadow of a person flashed continuously. The sound of air cracking, and the sound of the sharp howls could be heard from time to time. Because the sounds were deep and the houses were distant from each other, it did not affect the residents living around.

Immediately, Teng Qingshan stopped moving his body; in his eyes was a sign of doubt.

“Grandmaster realm? How can I attain the Grandmaster Realm?” Doubts filled Teng Qingshan’s heart. “I have been practicing for many years and now this internal force can burst out from the skin of every part of my body. All that remains now was the most difficult part, my facial skin! How do I break through this last step?”

“Even my mentor was stuck at this last obstacle for a dozen years. In the end, he still couldn’t enter the Grandmaster Realm.” Teng Qingshan wept and sighed continually as his desire for the Grandmaster Realm was increasing more and more in his heart.

He then stopped thinking about these things.

“I have been in Yangzhou City for eight days, during these eight days I didn’t get to see Qing He even once.” Teng Qingshan felt slightly anxious. “I asked Elena and she was very confident in herself, she was certain that Qing He is responsible for the Yangzhou region and gave me this address as his.” Teng Qingshan had no other solution.

He could only sigh and closed his eyes as he continued to practice in silence.

……

At dawn, the heaven and earth were only mistily bright and the weather was very cool and refreshing.

Teng Qing Shen closed his eyes and continued to sit cross-legged in the courtyard.

Everything between the heaven and earth was silent.

“Bang!” The heavy wooden door of the yard suddenly got blasted opened as if it had been struck by a cannon and a lot of wooden pieces scattered into the yard like arrows, heading towards Teng Qingshan.

While sitting in cross-leg position, Teng Qingshan formed his hands like tiger claws and scratched the ground forcefully and instantly made a few holes on the concrete ground. He charged forward as he tumbled and kicked simultaneously. Then he leaped up to the rooftop like a monkey as soft sounds rang consecutively.

“Piu!” “Piu!” “Piu!”

Three successive sounds.

Amongst three of the bullets, two actually swept past Teng Qingshan’s body, almost hitting him.

“The gun is equipped with silencer? Sun Ze and Dolgoterov, those two have finally arrived.” Bending on the rooftop, Teng Qingshan’s eyes were indifferent like an apathetic lone wolf. He secretly rubbed his pants with his right hand and a knife appeared in his hand. However, it was just an ordinary fruit knife.

With a flying knife in hand, Teng Qingshan felt even more imposing.

“Whew,” a deep howling sound resounded in the air. Then, a tall and strong figure charged in from the door of the yard like a speeding tank. This figure instantly noticed that Teng Qingshan had already went up the rooftop. Without any hesitation, he immediately stomped in the yard and leapt up to the rooftop. In an instant, Teng Qingshan could tell that this was a bald white man!

Almost at the same time, an Asian man who looked small and skinny appeared at the door of the yard with a silver-colored gun in his hand. This Asian man had eyes as cold as an icy mountain that wouldn’t melt for ten million years. At the same time as the tall and big figure leapt up, he fired his gun towards Teng Qingshan.

“Piu!” “Piu!”

Two successive shots.

The Asian fired the gun as the sturdy white man jumped; they cooperated with each other perfectly.

If Teng Qingshan tries to use the flying dagger against that white man on the rooftop, he would have to face the bullets of the S-Rank hitman ‘Sharpshooter’ Sun Ze. However, if he dodged the bullets with all his strength, he would be in trouble against the powerful ‘Bodycrusher’ Dolgoterov.

For a moment, Teng Qingshan seemed to have no solution.

“Humph!”

The instant Sun Ze fired as Dolgoterov leapt up, Teng Qingshan did not hesitate. He stomped forcefully and the tiles on the rooftop broke into pieces as Teng Qingshan dropped straightly towards the ground.

His fall made the other two people’s attack useless.

As Teng Qingshan fell, he stared upwards with eyes like lightning, and he suddenly swung his arm with his right hand, which was so steady that it did not even quiver once.

“Whew!”

In the misty dawn, Teng Qingshan’s dagger flashed like a streak of lightning as it slashed through the air and pierced through the tiles on the rooftop.

“Shew!” That familiar sound rang out and a smile formed on the corner of Teng Qingshan’s mouth. It was obvious that the flying knives had already hit its target.

Teng Qingshan jumped like a cat and nimbly dashed into the house. From under the bed, he grabbed ten fruit knives and grasped the first five knives with his right right hand while grabbing the remaining five with his left. Buying fruit knives was an easy thing in any city. Teng Qingshan reached down to his pant legs with both of his hands and inserted these ten fruit knives into the knife holsters.

“Bong!”

Suddenly, the tiles and bricks above Teng Qingshan’s head exploded and a terrifying figure fell down from the sky like a prehistoric monster.

“Dolgoterov! If I fight against this monster, the chances of winning won’t be high. Moreover, if he catches me and Sun Ze fires his gun again simultaneously, I will definitely die!” The expression on Teng Qingshan’s face changed, and he kicked out like a clumsy elephant. However, with that kick, he moved back numerous meters, which was weird. Both his hands and legs exerted force and with one leap of a tiger, he entered the yard.

As an expert in Xing Yi Martial Arts, Teng Qingshan’s speed was extremely fast.

As he sprinted into the yard from the room, the cold air hit his face and bullets followed!

“Piu!”

Sharpshooter’ Sun Ze seemed to have precisely calculated Teng Qingshan’s jumping speed and position as his bullet was directly coming towards Teng Qingshan. However Teng Qingshan was well prepared as he immediately threw out a knife.

The edge of his flying knife flashed a metallic glow, and travelled several meters through the air, precisely clashing with the bullet. “Clang!” That bullet was immediately hit and rebounded to the other side.

But at the same time, another bullet had already been fired. In terms of power, Teng Qingshan’s flying knives were stronger than the power of normal bullets. However, concerning speed, while Teng Qingshan was throwing a single knife, modified guns could fire a few bullets.

“Humph.” Teng Qingshan started to twist his body in the middle of the air, looking like a dragon. That bullet shot directly at Teng Qingshan’s right arm and his right arm instantly became like a string of stretched cow tendons. His right arm simultaneously twisted and revolved, resembling the strings of cow tendons which were rebounding and twisting. With that movement, a powerful spiral of inner strength was produced.

“Poof!”

That spiral of inner strength struck the tip of the bullet like needles spurting out and reduced its speed greatly. The moment the bullet hit the muscles, its force was repelled before it was able to do serious damage.

“Humph.” Almost in an instant, the bullet was squeezed out by his muscles and dropped to the ground. The sound of the bullet hitting the ground made ‘Sharpshooter’ Sun Ze smiled while the corner of Dolgoterov’s mouth curved up into a smile as he was coming out of the room.

One stood in front of the yard’s entrance, and the other stood next to the door in the room.

The two of them were just staring at Teng Qingshan with a smile on their faces.

Yet, Teng Qingshan was standing under the peach tree in the yard, with a face as calm as water.

“The Lone Wolf of the Flying Knives, as expected of the powerful professional who had obliterated the Red Organization alone. My two bullets just now only managed to wound you a little.

“Your ability of controlling your muscles is on a level that I can’t be compared to. I admire you!” Sharpshooter ‘Sun Ze’ was a handsome young man. However, his eyes were icy cold like a poisonous, apathetic-looking snake in the Amazon forest.

Teng Qingshan knew very clearly that Sun Ze was a professional practitioner of one of the three major Internal Martial Arts, ”Eight Trigram Palm”. His real age was probably the same as mine and he also managed to cultivate the inner strength. Coordinating it with his pistols, he became the Messenger of Death who terrified many people.

“Wolf, you are strong. I, Dolgoterov, admire you. You should kill yourself.” The white-skinned man whose figure was as big as a polar bear uttered deeply…

Teng Qingshan’s eyes swept past the bullet on the ground, which was stained with some blood.

Teng Qingshan let out a sigh in his heart. Although he was only one step away from reaching the Grandmaster Realm, and even though his ability in controlling his muscles had reached an extremely high level, he still couldn’t defend against those bullets easily. In fact, this bullet had affected his right hand, which weakened his ability and strength.

“Seeing your bullet resistance, I suppose that you have attained the peak of Internal Martial Arts, just one more step and you will entered Grandmaster Realm.” Sun Ze let out a sigh, “What a pity! Another expert of the major Internal Martial Arts is about to die.” Since the two were working together, they had the advantage. Teng Qingshan was injured; this gave them no doubt about their victory.

“Wolf, as a practitioner of Internal Martial Arts, I respect you. You should commit suicide and have a decent death,” said Sun Ze.

During fierce fights between super strong hitmen like them, having heads exploding or bodies getting crushed in the end was considered normal. Letting Teng Qingshan have a decent death was the only bit of mercy that the two enemies could show.

“Suicide?” Teng Qingshan looked at them with eyes like knives. “What a joke! Who lives? Who dies? No one knows. My life is here. Come and take it if you can!”