Chapter 234 The Consequence of Being Wordy
“You are… Zhen…” Mrs. Tang appeared to have recognized him. But as she was about to blurt that name, she caught the look of that lanky young man and hastily swallowed it. Then, she added, “It’s not what it looks like. It’s he who saved me…”
In fact, even without her remark, the lanky young man in white had realized the whole thing by that point.
“My apologies,” he said in a rasping voice, that sounded like the noise of two pieces of iron rubbing against each other.
After listening to his voice, Li Mu immediately knew that the man had employed a certain enigmatic voice-changing technique on purpose, to disguise his true identity. Although he did not mind that, he was really a little vexed by that flat apology that the man offered after beating him by mistake.
“Hey, if you want to apologize, why not be a little more earnest?” Li Mu curled his lips.
“Sorry.” The lanky young man still apologized rather curtly.
His figure wobbled a bit; another wisp of blood spilled out from under his mask.
‘Was he injured that seriously?”
Li Mu was taken aback.
A moment ago, he did deliberately shove Mrs. Tang at the lanky young man in white, to force him to reverse his Cultivation Method and withdraw his sword. Doing so would slightly injure him, which would serve as Li Mu’s small retaliation. After all, he shouldn’t have launched a strike without figuring out who the enemy was in the first place. But that shove could not have caused him such severe injury anyhow.
“You’re hurt?” A look of astoundment surfaced on Mrs. Tang’s exceedingly beautiful face. She hurriedly lunged forward to support the lanky young man in white, as though she had no care for the social code that forbade body contact between unrelated men and women. After that, she wheeled around to look at Li Mu and explained, “Hero, please don’t take this personally, because prin… Young Master Zhen is a very taciturn man. For him to have said ‘My apologies’ to you is already an expression of profound regret…”
Li Mu’s mouth twitched and he said, “He is a grow-up but doesn’t know how to make a proper apology…”
Though that comment sounded rude, it actually manifested that he had accepted the young man’s apology.
He took it that the man was just extremely introvert.
“You can go.” Li Mu started stepping back. He had no intention to dawdle there, for there were other matters he needed to deal with.
However, at the precise moment, a sharp crack was heard from a distance.
Next, a jet of white light flashed over.
“Hahaha, brat, turns out you escaped to this place.” That jet of white light landed on the ground and materialized into a zombie-like old man, with a face as white as chalk. A brutally playful smile played around his stiff lips, as though he were a cat catching a rat. He was wearing a livid robe, which was strewn with holes left by a sword.
At his appearance, the eyes of the lanky young man in white revealed a hint of grimness behind the mask, and he instantly directed the tip of his sword at that white-faced, zombie-like old man.
Seeing his reaction, Li Mu already worked out what had happened.
In fact, that lanky young man in white had fought and had gotten wounded. That was why he spilled out blood when reversing his Cultivation Method a short while ago… ‘Er… in this case, it’s me who behaved like a child and injured the lanky young man in white even more, isn’t it?’
“Just go! I will handle this old bastard!” Li Mu leaped forward to shield the lanky young man in white and Mrs. Tang as fast as a flash of lightning.
“Ah-ha, a brat with no fear pops out… Tut-tut, I’ll send you all to hell.” It was obvious that the zombie-like old man with a pair of puffy, protruding eyes and ghastly white complexion did not regard Li Mu as a threat. He sneered and said, “I’ve seen you. You are the man with the silver smiley-ghost mask. Humph, you ruined the second prince’s splendid plan tonight. So, you have to die, too.”
The grimness in the eyes of the lanky young man in white further thickened. Grasping his sword, he forcibly activated his Cultivation Method, took a step forward to stand side by side with Li Mu, and pointed his sword to the zombie-like old man.
His action made it clear that he believed Li Mu was not a match for that opponent, so he decided to join hands with him.
Li Mu shouted with a frown, “You take Mrs. Tang out of here now. Tonight is really action-packed. You still need to rescue Tang Tang and Tang Mi. Don’t waste time here.”
The lanky young man in white looked a little less resolute.
Li Mu continued, “Wang Chen’s strength is not strong enough, so don’t think your plan is foolproof. Those who target you in the dark probably have made a more careful plan than you did.”
Upon hearing those words, the lanky young man in white hesitantly took a step back and asked, “Could you inform me of your name, sir?”
Li Mu spat, “What do you want my name for? Are you gonna set up a tombstone for me or what? Stop talking about those infelicitous things. Go now! I can’t die… I still got something to attend to after finishing this old jerk off. So, see you.” But in truth, what Li Mu murmured in his brain at that time was: ‘To hell with the last part. The last thing I want is to be dragged to the political vortex of your royal offsprings. I wish we don’t meet ever again!’
The lanky young man in white was left stupefied for a moment. The corner of his mouth twitched, plainly indicating the disperse of his gratitude that had just surged up. He then said, “This man is one of the two Netherworld Elders who works for the second prince. He is in the Natural Realm, and his Netherworld Chill can freeze anything… Well, take care.”
After telling Li Mu that tip, he gripped Mrs. Tang’s arm and made to take off.
“Haw-haw-haw…” That puffy-eyed, zombie-like old man bounced up. Like a trunk that sprang from the ground, he darted towards the two in that bizarre posture and yelled, “How naive to say things like that in my presence! Today, none of you can slip off!”
“Fu*k! Why can’t the supporting role just stay by the side and play his part?” Li Mu looked back and shouted disgruntledly, “Have some sense, okay?”
As he spoke, a punch had already been fired at the opponent.
The fist strength was roaring like a dragon, while the fist energy was raging violently.
“Oh?” The look of the white-faced, zombie-like old man turned serious, and then he thrust his palms forward in parallel as he was still in midair.
Dark blue torrents of chilling energy burst out from his palms.
Boom!
Li Mu’s punch crashed into the chilling energy.
The zombie-like old man was thrown to the air by the collision.
Li Mu, on the other hand, found a layer of dark blue frost was spreading up from his arms to his shoulders like vines.
The lanky young man in white, who was just about to leave, went aghast at that frost. But just as he wanted to say something, he saw Li Mu flicked his wrists and that layer of dark blue frost was all shattered into dust and then fell off, whereas, Li Mu’s sleeves were still undamaged.
It immediately dawned on him that Li Mu’s strength was more impressive than he thought and the chilling power could not hurt him. That realization allowed him to draw a breath of relief.
“You only need to bar his way for a while instead of fighting him for the long haul.” After giving Li Mu another advice, he took Mrs. Tang along and leaped out of sight among the darkness in the distance.
“How womanishly fussy!” grunted Li Mu.
Up in the sky far away from Li Mu, the lanky young man in white who was leaping from one roof to another at full speed caught that dim remark and almost fell off. ‘That man with the silver smiley-ghost mask does have an ability to drive people nuts with just a few words.’ In that instant, he was suddenly reminded of another man.
That man was also full of rubbish and capable of making him want to pull his hair out. Nevertheless, he found him reliable.
‘Where is that guy now? Did he listen to my advice and left Chang’an?’
The puffy-eyed, zombie-like old man gave up chasing after the two. At the moment, he concentrated his internal qi and goggled at Li Mu with a look of an aggravated dead man.
As they both launched a strike a moment ago, he also learned of Li Mu’s toughness.
In particular, the fact that Li Mu had no fear of his Netherworld qi gave him a huge shock.
“Who on earth are you?” The puffy-eyed, zombie-like old man demanded coldly. His voice seemed to come from the throat of a dead man.
Li Mu said, “Why not take a guess?”
“You’re doomed!” The puffy-eyed, zombie-like old man bent his knees a little and started jumping like a real zombie. He moved incredibly fast. In a flash, he was already in front of Li Mu. He thrust his palms forward again. But that time, all his fingers had turned dark blue, which looked extremely dreadful.
Resolute to do a quick fight, Li Mu raised his hands and bombarded him with the first style of the Zhenwu Boxing.
Li Mu had inserted his strength in the depths of his fists, so it appeared that the strike was quite ordinary. However, when the punch came into contact with the opponent’s palms, the energy tornado he reserved broke out at once.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
As if claps of thunder had descended, the endless sound of explosions was heard at the place where the two’s fists and palms collided.
The expression of the zombie-like old man changed drastically as he stuttered, “Your power… No way…”
“Bang!”
The sound of the last explosion spread out.
At the spot where the fists pressed against the palms, it looked as if a T.N.T bomb had just blasted.
An enormous torrent of energy burst out, flattening everything within a radius of thirty meters in a trice.
Li Mu stumbled backward.
The terrible power contained in the opponent’s palms was much fiercer than he had imagined.
Yet, the zombie-like old man seemed to have suffered a lot more from his blow.
The arms of the old man were torn off.
And to Li Mu’s astonishment, the broken arms of the puffy-eyed zombie-like old man simply shot sideways like two pieces of rotten wood, while no blood was seen squirting out from the gashes; his black muscles collapsed like fiber texture that lost its flexibility and flew in all directions; the old man himself was tossed to the air and flew dozens of meters away until he clashed with a stone tower in the distance, causing the stone tower to cave in and dust roamed everywhere.
‘What Cultivation Method is this? It’s kind of interesting!’
Li Mu was bemused.
‘Whatever the case, that old jerk must have died.’
He had put at least half of his physical force in that punch. Given the strength of his current physique, it could smash a mountain, let alone a human being.
Reckoning that he had already gotten rid of that spooky opponent, Li Mu turned around, ready to hit the road.
At that point, however, a jarring voice sharp as a night owl sounded from the ruins of the stone tower.
“Hah-hah-hah-hah… It’s really… been a long time… since I fought such a satisfying fight!” Through the swirling dust, Li Mu saw an armless figure leap up and bounce towards him. That was exactly the puffy-eyed, zombie-like old man. He not only did not die but emitted a more imposing aura. Dark blue light extended from the hems of the broken arms and took shape resembling the lost parts.
‘Not dead?’
Li Mu cocked his brow.
‘How troublesome!’
Without asking the reason for the old man’s miraculous return, he simply launched another punch attack.
It was the second style of the Zhenwu Boxing.
“What I’ve been practicing is called the Supreme Divine Art, so the closer I get to death, the stronger I become. Haw-haw-haw, I’ll never be killed. How can you…” The zombie-like old man roared with laughter. Attributable to the unique body traits he and his fellow brother had, the two of them were able to practice that demonic Cultivation Method. Aside from gaining the Netherworld Chill that could freeze anything, that method made their flesh as lifeless as rotten wood. Thus, their body had long since differed from those of ordinary men. As long as their hearts were not penetrated and their brains were not smashed, the rest of their body parts could be renewed, just like a trunk sprouting new twigs at places where the old ones were chopped.
However, the old man did not make it to the last word.
Blast!
His body, including his heart and brain, burst open under that hard punch.
How terrifying the power of the Zhenwu Boxing was!
That time, Li Mu did not reserve any power. With all the strength in his body, that punch could even crumble a holy mountain in primitive times, not to mention the old man’s wrenched flesh.
“He was too wordy!” Li Mu withdrew his fists and muttered, “Many bad-ass roles have died because of their wordiness.”