Chapter 558: Double Swords
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
The technique consisted of seven different states: ‘Becoming Lighter than the Sword’ , ‘the Sword is Heavier than the Mountain’ , ‘Becoming One with the Sword’, ‘Intention Follows the Movement of the Sword’, ‘Heart and Intent are One’, ‘Containing Emotion in the Heart’ and ‘Not Allowing Emotions in the Heart’. Each state dealt with a different type of kung fu, targeting the practioner’s Lightness Skill, strength, speed, concentration, reaction, killing intent and determination. In the end, one would become an extension of one’s sword when striking.
After that, he learned a little of theDeath Scripture and Wayless Qigong from the Dragon King, and then received strict training as a killer. Six months ago, he began to practice ‘Sumeru Mustard Mantra’, which made him profit a lot.
But he was unable to forget ‘Emotionless Swordsmans.h.i.+p’.
When he was eight years old, he entered the Joy Pavilion, and became the disciple of Immortal Peng. He was the only person to be willing to practice kung fu from the beginning although being taught only for three years. At that moment, his heart was open to Immortal Peng without reservation and he had accepted every word in the ‘Secret of Love’.
After Immortal Peng died, his disciples went their separate ways. Some were led by the next Immortal Peng, while others came to Jianghu and only Chu Nanping was different. In his heart, the dwarf Immortal Peng was alive and still taught him to practice Emotionless Swordsmans.h.i.+p in the hidden corner.
Chu Nanping waited patiently for his practice partner to change his mind and then they could continue to practice the kung fu towards the fifth level. During this period, he compared every kung fu he saw and learned with Emotionless Swordsmans.h.i.+p. He knew more and more essence after a.n.a.lyzing them but couldn’t make them come true. He was like a scholar that had studied very hard for many years, and thought he had known lots of things about ancient and modern times, but had no money to attend the imperial compet.i.tive examinations in the capital.
When Yang San, with double swords in his hands, appeared, things had changed. He drew a circle for protection with one hand and attacked quickly with another. Therefor, a new idea suddenly came into Chu Nanping’s mind. Yangsan was like a good man, who not only subsidized the fare to the poor scholar, but also gave him the easiest way.
Why didn’t he practice Emotionless Swordsmans.h.i.+p alone?
Chu Nanping had been believing that most disciples of theJoy Pavilion should have practiced kung fu together but now changed his mind because he had waited his partner for so long. When he comprehended Swordsmans.h.i.+p alone, he also considered that of his partner and if the Dragon King could agree with him, he would save a lot of time.
Unconsciously, he was doing the duties of two persons and practiced Emotionless Swordsmans.h.i.+p at the same time. When he saw Yang San using double sabers, he realized that he could practice Emotionless Swordsmans.h.i.+p alone and perhaps get better result.
Two persons needed to practice Secrets of Love together in order to grasp it. If one practiced it alone, he not only had two minds and got half the result with twice the effort, but also would easily gothe wrong way. Fortunately, Nanping had pa.s.sed through the most difficult stage smoothly, because he held the idea of “training for the Dragon King”.
Therefore, he borrowed a sword from the Lotus maid to verify whether his idea was right or not at once.
Among the crowd, Gu Shenwei seemed to know the change of Chu Nanping,while the others thought that he had gone mad.
So did Shangguan Fei. Because his own life was related with the compet.i.tion, he had won, and didn’t want to lose the result. He asked, “Little Chu, what are you doing?”
Chu Nanping shook his head slightly and answered, “I have to try.”
“Ah? We can try it later. You can join the compet.i.tion carefully, okay?”
“No.” Chu Nanping said. He entered into the field with double swords, and stared at Yang San thensuddenly bowed deeply to him and said, “thank you.”
“Thank me for what?” Yang San retreated, feeling that the handsome young man had evil spirit in his body.
“I thank you for making me understand the true essence of being emotionless. Next, I will show two kinds of swordcrafts at the same time. I want to use my sword mainly with right hand and use my left as aid. I’m not used to using the sword with my left hand, so I’ll beat you within three moves.”
“Haha,” Yang San didn’t know how to express his own feelings. He was a famous kung fu master in the Central Plains and had met some insolent and malicious men, but had never seen such an arrogant young man. He didn’t look at Chu Nanpingandsaid to the Dragon King, “Is there any normal person? If you don’t want him to die, you’d better ask him to retreat.”
Many people couldn’t know why Chu Nanping thanked Yang San save for Gu Shenwei who nevertheless could figure out many things.
Wayless Qigong was an extremely domineering internal skill. It asked the learner to have no internal skill foundation or give up his previous kung fu. By doing this, he was unable to practice other internal skills thus the swordsmen from the Great Snowountain could learn it because their internal strength was poor.
But Chu Nanping was an exception. After he learned Wayless Qigong, he could still practice Sumeru Mustard divine kung fu smoothly. For him, there was no sign of Qigong Deviation .
Gu Shenwei finally knew why Chu Nanping could do that. Chu Nanping did not practice “two kung fu alone”, but practiced “two kung fu by two persons”. This was as dangerous as three-in-one qigong, but he succeeded and tried to make better achievement.
“I advise to care about your life.” Gu Shenwei said to Yang San, “Besides, you’d better keep calm in the face of death because someone is supposed since it is a compet.i.tion.”
Old man Mu liked the impudence of Shangguan Fei, and even appreciated the “boldness” of Chu Nanping. He said, “Yes. We learn kung fu for the purpose of killing others. Those people who were killed had worse kung fu and stewed in their own juice, so theyhave no right toblame others.”
Hesaud tgus to justifyhis previous behavior. However, when he found that Shangguan Ru didn’t look himself, he chose to stop his talking in time andthought to himself that he would have to make up rhetoric to fool the good girl.
Yang San was unable to defeat them orally, so he also didn’t speak and stared at the young swordsman hard. He planned to end the fight with one move, which could make his opponent’s”three moves” a big joke.
Yang San threw out the sabre in his right hand and flew out,meaning to stab the face of his opponent.
Surprisingly, Yang San was faster than his sabre andalmost jumped to the front of Chu Nanping at the same time it did then intended to slash his opponent with his left hand.
In fact, Yang San was good at using his left hand to fight and never failed in this respect.
But as soon as Chu Nanping began his action, everyone was surprised.
He seemed to stand still, but indeed moved. He used his long and short swords to stab Yang San’s heart and side abdomen respectively, the crowd only feeling that something had flown through,yet no one saw the figure of the swordsman.
Yang San was even more scared. He used one move to attack the upper and lower parts of the enemy, but the enemy stabbed him from all around. He didn’t think that one could do that alone.
Besides, it was obvious that his sabre touched the enemy, but missed at the last moment. He even didn’t know how the youth avoided being stabbed.
According to practice, Yang San should havegrabbed the throwing knife and then take back his weapon, which was the last step of the move. However, he had to roll on the ground to avoid being killed in panic and there was only one sabre in his hand.
Chu Nanping didn’t chase him but allowed another sword to fall to the ground beside him. He raised his head and then was lost in thought, seeming not very satisfied with that move.
“This, is this Dajue Book of Swordcraft?” Yang San asked without thinking and kept the shocked expression on his face for half a day.
Hearing this, Gu Shenwei and the Lotus maid looked at each other. Recently, the four words”Dajue Book of Swordcraft”, and everyone seemed to be interested.
“No.” Chu Nanping woke up and said, “I blocked all your roads. How did you escape from that?”
No one dared look down on the young swordsman, but Yang San still said, “What? You… blocked the upper part, but ignored the lower part.”
It was a simple problem, but Chu Nanping spent a lot of time thinking about it and came to the conclusion, “Yes, I can use both hands to display two sets of swordcrafts at the same time, but my legs and feet still exist. Okay, I will solve the problem in the second move.”
Yang San then felt regretful for what he had just said. He knew that he was supposed to fail in the compet.i.tion, but it was a shame to admit defeat at this moment, so he moved slowly and waved his short sword, preferring to protect himself rather than attack the young man.
Chu Nanping suddenly began his second move, which did fill up the loophole in the lower part, but they were still two swords from different directions. Each sword covered an enormous area and then enveloped Yang San.
Yang San had to fight hard against Chu Nanping because the only loophole had gone.
This time, he focused on guarding against the sword in the youth’s right hand.
He did it, but was hurt by the short sword.
Yang San staggered backward with the only saber on the ground, using both hands to cover his right rib tightly.
Chu Nanping still didn’t chase him, but said to himself, “I need to perfect the skill of using the left hand,” and then loudly to Yang San, “Pick up your knife and I’ll make the third move. This time I will solve the problem of my left hand.”
“I want to give up.” Yang San said caring least about his dignity with blood was oozing from his wound and hence wanted to get bandaged immediately.
“But the third move…” Chu Nanping was very stubborn about the compet.i.tion. He had known how to fill up the flaw and want to verify that immediately.
“I’ll fight with you.” A man said.
He was Gu Da who had disappeared after fighting with Long Fanyun.
Gu Da was also good with his sword, and he thought Chu Nanping’s swordcraft was extremely novel so wanted to learn it.
“Two wins and two losses.” Tuo Sai, the grandson of the king, declared the result with dissatisfaction, looking very angry. The Dragon King had such a superior kung fu master yet n.o.body told him. After he returned, he blamed those who provided the information for ignoring Chu Nanping.
Gu Da bowed to Tuo Sai before he took out his sword into the field and said to Chu Nanping, “Will you display two sets of swordcraft at the same time?”
“Yes.”
“But I think that these two swordcrafts are very similar.” Gu Da replied.
“This is Emotionless Swordsmans.h.i.+p. In fact, it asks two persons to practice and then pours what they have learned into the body of one. Therefore, the swordcrafts look similar. However, they are mutually reinforcing. If one displays one set of swordcraft, its power will drop a lot.”
Chu Nanping answered all the questions and didn’t conceal any secrets.
“I am indeed surprised that you have grasped such a magical swordcraft at such age.”
“It’s far from perfect. I only practice it on the fourth level and hope that I can make new achievement within a year.” Chu Nanping replied.
“I hope your wish will come true.”
“Thank you.”
They were becoming more and more polite, which made Old man Mu feel uncomfortable so he shouted, “Come on, I want to see the third move of Chu Nanping.”
Gu Da shook his head and said, “I also admit defeat.”
The crowd were stunned with this. Gu da offered to come out to fight with Chu Nanping making people think he was unique. But that he gave up even before the compet.i.tion started, showed he was worse than Yang San who fought with the enemy for a while.
Tuo Sai was even more difficult to accept the fact, “Mr. Gu, what do you mean?”
“We are careless today.” Gu Da answered. It seemed that he was very respectful of Tuo Sai yet he also dared to make his own decision. He continued, “the more people we send to fight with the young man, the more we fail. I suggest we stop the compet.i.tion and fight with him during the Tournament of the Royal Court.”
Tuo Sai still hesitated. But Shangguan Fei felt relieved as if the big stone in his heart had fallen to the ground and immediately said, “If you stop the compet.i.tion, you admit defeat. Don’t bother me in the future.”
Tuo Sai stared hard at Shangguan Fei, and turned his horse to leave as the cavalry followed him in panic.
Gu Da still stayed where he stood and asked, “Will you take part in the contest of the brave?”
“I haven’t heard of it.” Chu Nanping answered.
“You can meet many kung fu masters there, which will be of great help to the promotion of your swordcraft.”
Chu Nanping turned around to look at the Dragon King. Seeing the Dragon King nod, he said, “I will.”
“Okay.” Gu Da looked up again and said to the Dragon King, “I hope that I can learn the Dragon King’ssword skills by that time.”
Gu Shenwei didn’t respond, “The war is coming. The chivalrous people of the Central Plains are working for the North Court, no wonder you prefer to use pseudonyms.”
Gu Da began to panic, “haha, you also are of the Central Plain, aren’t you?”
After that, Gu Damounted his horse and left. TheLotus maid guessed, “he is from the Qingcheng Sect of the Central Plain, and intends to avenge the three Xia brothers.”