Chapter 110 - Countering a Night Attack
Chapter 110 - Countering a Night Attack
As a result, the two of them appeared before Li Qingshan once again. The man cut straight to the chase, tossing a wad of silver notes before Li Qingshan. “Take the money and go downstairs!”
Li Qingshan slapped the wad of notes back into the man’s hand. “You’d better ask someone else instead!”
The woman stopped the man who wanted to lose his temper. She introduced with a smile. “I’m Qian Rongzhi. This is my elder brother, Qian Rongming.”
The manager interrupted them in shock. “Are you perhaps from the Qian family of Ancient Wind city?” Ancient Wind city was a relatively larger city. The manager was a person who travelled around on ship, so it was impossible for him to not have heard about the great clan that could produce Qi Practitioners.
Qian Rongming snorted proudly, while Qian Rongzhi nodded in a reserved manner. She continued towards Li Qingshan, “I’d advise you to accept it. When my elder brother loses his temper, he ends up killing people.” Since they came from a large clan, they had to take the image of the clan into consideration. They could not afford to lose their bearing at any times, and she preferred scaring away the enemy instead of fighting straight away.
Li Qingshan crossed his arms. “Really? That’s something I’d like to see actually.” This was the second they had come for him. There was a limit to his patience.
Qian Rongzhi’s expression changed slightly. Originating from a large clan, she was born with the talent to practise qi. Moreover, she was beautiful, claiming the title of greatest beauty of Ancient Wind city. She could be described as a woman of influence and talent. Since she was young, everything she mentioned would end up happening one way or another. In particular, those stinky men were willing to toil about like beasts of burden for her. She had never been turned down before. Compared to the patience she showed on the surface, the arrogance in her bones even exceeded her elder brother, Qian Rongming. She said coldly, “You’ll be refusing a toast only to be drinking a forfeit.”
“I like drinking, so I welcome both toasts and forfeits!” Li Qingshan looked at her face seriously, wanting to see how a young lady from a large clan would react. It was as if he was watching some kind of show.
Qian Rongzhi sighed deeply and took a step back. She said nonchalantly, “To think that a person of the jianghu who has just practised some external martial arts would be bold enough to be unreasonable to Qi Practitioners. You’re as reckless as they come. Even if you remain alive, it’s redundant for idiots like you. Killing a few won’t matter at all.”
Qian Rongming smiled viciously and took a step forward. The manager sighed. He had already prepared people to collect the corpse. Confronting the people of the Qian family was far too foolish of a choice.
“What Qian family of Ancient Wind city? Are you supposed to be very impressive?”
At this moment, a voice suddenly rang out. Everyone looked over and saw a man in his thirties emerge from his cabin. He was not tall and had a dark-skinned face with a pair of upward-slanting eyes. He looked over in contempt.
“Who are you supposed to be?” Qian Rongming was furious as he walked over, but he was stopped by Qian Rongzhi once again. She looked over cautiously. “May I ask who you are, sir? And what do you plan on doing?”
Li Qingshan’s heart skipped a beat. It was another Qi Practitioner, and one that had reached the third layer. It was no wonder that he was bold enough to look down on the second layer siblings.
The man with a darker skin tone mocked them. “If it’s just the two of you, you’re nowhere close to joining the Hawkwolf Guard. Why would you waste time going to Jiaping city? You’d better get off the ship and go home quickly!”
Only now did Li Qingshan understand that this person was not standing up for him, but because the positions open in the Hawkwolf Guard were limited. He managed to read the siblings’ purpose of travelling, which was why he had come to launch a verbal blow against them.
Qian Rongming and Qian Rongzhi looked at each other. Although the difference between their strength was a whole layer, they might still have a chance if they worked together. However, they would definitely use up their precious talismans and lose their opportunity to contend for a position in the Hawkwolf Guard.
“Just you wait.” After a moment of hesitation, they threw behind a threat before leaving in a hurry. However, those words were not solely directed to the small, skinny man. They also glared at Li Qingshan viciously.
Li Qingshan said, “Thank you for helping me out. May I ask for your name?”
“Kid, you better not think that you can fool around just because you have a bit of money. There are far too many people you can’t afford to provoke in this world. I’d advise you to leave the ship as soon as possible!” The man said coldly before slamming his door shut.
Li Qingshan shrugged; this was just how weaker people were treated.
The ship moved slowly. It steadily broke through the waves on the river, moving with the flow and gliding towards Jiaping city.
There were just a few cabins at the very top of the ship, and all of their doors were firmly shut. Only Li Qingshan paced around on the deck, admiring the scenery from the two banks. With too much to see, he immediately put the incident from before to the side.
Night descended on the ship. Currently, Li Qingshan was meditating and practising in his room. Right now, he possessed four cultivation methods, the Ox Demon’s Fist of Great Strength, the Tiger Demon’s Fist of Bone Forging, the Spirit Turtle’s Method of Sea Suppression, and the Innate Method of Practising Qi. All of them had nine layers, and he had attained the first layer with every single one of them. The former three were daemon abilities, which would become more difficult the more progress he made. The amount of time they would consume with each subsequent layer would multiply as well.
Instead, he made much more rapid progress with the Innate Method of Practising Qi, as it was the lowest grade and was a human cultivation method. In order to obtain the items in the sumeru ring, Li Qingshan had devoted great effort into practising this technique as well. With his powerful body, the rate at which he refined his vitality into qi was startling. After just a few days, he was close to the second layer.
Xiao An did not practise. Instead, he crouched in a corner of the room, holding and reading a book. There were two bookshelves in the room, which held many books of songs and poetry for leisure, as well as some common buddhist scriptures and books from the daoist canon. Xiao An was reading a buddhist scripture.
Although the eminent monk who tried to attain the fruit of bodhisattvaa fell into the demonic path, and the Path of White Bone and Great Beauty was also an ability of the demonic path, its essence still originated from the buddhist dharma. Naturally, Xiao An had to comprehend it. The blood-red flames in his eye sockets illuminated the words of the book, forming a rather strange sight. Suddenly, he raised his head.
Li Qingshan opened his eyes as well, looking at the door. They had both sensed it. One of them used their senses towards living creatures, while the other used their powerful senses as a daemon.
A figure silently made it to the highest floor of the ship, arriving outside Li Qingshan’s eyes. Killing intent shone in his eyes.
Qian Rongming believed he had not produced any sounds or given off any aura at all. Obviously, he was not worrying about Li Qingshan. Instead, he was guarding himself from the neighbouring Qi Practitioner. He only wanted to kill Li Qingshan tonight. He thought viciously inside, I should have killed him the first time I saw him.
As for the Qi Practitioner next door, he had already come up with a plan to deal with him. When they sparred to become a member of the Hawkwolf Guard, he would definitely use his trump card against him to show him what was what. Alternatively, he could become a member of the Hawkwolf Guard, and there would be no need to hurry his revenge if that happened.
The heart of the dark-skinned man neighbouring Li Qingshan skipped a beat as well. He also sensed Qian Rongming. However, he had no plans to interfere. In his eyes, Li Qingshan was just someone insignificant, and he had blindly confronted a Qi Practitioner, ignoring his warning. Even if such a person died, he would have deserved it.
He considered if he could derive any benefit from this issue, killing Qian Rongming while he was alone. The people of the Qian family from Ancient Wind city should possess some good things on them. Afterwards, he could go down and kill Qian Rongzhi, which would increase his chances at joining the Hawkwolf Guard. His lips curled into a smile as he stood up silently.
The door opened by a crack, and Qian Rongming entered in a flash. He saw Li Qingshan on the bed and raised his right hand, Utilising his true qi, he delivered a palm strike, resulting in a soft thump. Qian Rongming smiled in delight.
“What are you smiling about?” Li Qingshan suddenly opened his eyes and red light shone in them.
Qian Rongming was shocked inside. His muscles seized up. He wanted to follow up with another attack, but his body slackened again. He gazed at his chest in disbelief. A sword had pierced his heart.
He was unable to believe that someone had dealt a sneak attack to him. Even more terrifyingly, he had yet to feel the existence of anyone behind him even right now. It was impossible for them to have no presence at all, unless they did not breathe or have a beating heart. Afterwards, he turned around with difficulty; the last sight of his life was a skeleton with rolling flames in its eye sockets. The Blood Flames of Corpse Incineration permeated his body and converted him into a part of it.
This was not because Qian Rongming was far too weak or far too careless, but because Xiao An’s current strength was on par with third or fourth layer Qi Practitioners. Before absolute strength combined with a sneak attack, it would be strange if he had not been slain in a single stroke.
Li Qingshan sighed slightly. “It was just a slight disagreement, so why must you go as far as to try to kill me? Were you far too haughty, or was I far too discreet?” Even back then on that day in the restaurant, Li Qingshan possessed the strength to kill this person. However, Li Qingshan did not attack him; it was not because he was afraid of trouble, but because he did not want to kill indiscriminately. He would only be a ruffian if he attacked and killed over the slightest disagreement. When he killed, he wanted a good reason for doing so. However, others might have different thoughts. Perhaps in their eyes, everyone really were ants, to be squished whenever they felt like it.
He casually searched through his spoils, but he failed to find any talismans or pills like he had been expecting. All he found was a black, embroidered pouch, which seemed rather familiar. It was very worn out and dim, where even many of the stitches had broken. It formed quite the contrast for appearing on a young master like Qian Rongming.
With a thought, Li Qingshan channeled his feeble spiritual qi into the embroidered pouch, and suddenly, a wondrous space opened up in his mind. It seemed like he was looking into a small, virtual box that held all sorts of things.
There were obviously plenty of silver notes, as well as a few small bottles and talismans. With a thought, the items inside appeared in his hand.
Li Qingshan was overjoyed. As it turned out, this was the legendary hundred treasures pouch. In the past few days, he had asked Yan Song many things about the common knowledge of Qi Practitioners. He learned that sumeru rings were items that only truly powerful cultivators could use, and these rings possessed extremely vast spaces. As for just how vast, Yan Song had only heard about it before. He had never seen one with his own eyes. It was rare for regular Qi Practitioners to even possess a hundred treasures pouch.
The reason why he found this embroidered pouch familiar was because he had seen one the Scarlet Hawk commander, Wang Pushi, before. However, Wang Pushi’s hundred treasures pouch was much more impressive than this, and it must have had a much larger storage space as well. Without much thought, he knew Qian Rongming’s hundred treasures pouch was just the standard, inferior version. It could not even hold a longer weapon.
However, even an inferior hundred treasures pouch was extremely rare. At the very least, a second layer Qi Practitioner like Yan Song did not possess one. He really did live up to his background. He was quite impressive.
Li Qingshan examined the items from the hundred treasures pouch. Out of the bottles, one was a bottle of healing pills, with three bottles of Qi Gathering pills. They were not the random pills refined by regular people of the jianghu, but actual spiritual pills. Of course, there was no point in trying to compare them to the spiritual pills that Xuanyue gave him. However, they were actual pills that Qi Practitioners ingested. They were exactly what Li Qingshan needed right now.