Becoming an immortal from a canal worker

Chapter 188: Gentlemen, I've kept you waiting.

After leaving Xinglong Trading Company, Chen Ping first found the place where the caravan's guards were recuperating and asked about the specific location where the goods were intercepted.

Fifty li outside the city, there is a grove of trees beside the official road to the north.

He made a note of it and turned back to Cangwu.

The gate to Qin Ya's courtyard was ajar.

Chen Ping stepped forward and knocked on the door knocker.

After hearing a "Come in" from inside, I pushed open the door and stepped over the threshold.

Today, there are no other students practicing martial arts in the academy except for Qin Ya.

He was holding a long white waxwood spear with both hands, thrusting it forward one thrust after another in the center of the courtyard.

The movements were not fast at all, and each shot looked ordinary, without any dazzling or mysterious moves.

But with each thrust, the spear tip leaves a condensed and persistent vortex in the air.

Chen Ping stopped at the courtyard gate, clasped his hands in a fist salute, and spoke in a deep voice, "Instructor Qin, I have come today with a request."

Qin Ya thrust his spear forward again before turning around, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh? Tell me about it."

Chen Ping recounted the whole story.

The Xinglong Trading Company intercepted the goods, and behind it was the Black Tiger Gang. The Black Tiger Gang had the shadow of a powerful family behind it. In the woods fifty miles outside the city, there were also two Yuan Gang martial artists and more than a dozen Hua Jin thugs guarding the intercepted goods.

"So, you came to me today wanting me to take action," he said, looking directly at Chen Ping, "to use that magical ability of 'mountains and water within a pot' to cover up and isolate the sounds of your battle, so that your true strength and trump cards won't be completely exposed to the spies of those powerful families?"

Chen Ping nodded solemnly: "Exactly."

Upon hearing this, Qin Ya suddenly smiled.

He casually tossed the spear in his hand, and the spear flipped once in the air before landing steadily on the weapon rack.

He put his hands behind his back and strode towards the outside of the courtyard.

"Lead the way."

The two men each led a fast horse from the stables in Cangwu, left the city, and galloped north. The fifty-mile journey was covered in less than half an hour by fast horses.

Looking from afar.

At the edge of the desolate woods beside the official road, several once sturdy cargo wagons were now broken and crookedly blocking the way in the weeds.

Most of the wooden planks on the carriage were broken, the wheels were stuck in the mud, and the Huai River Chamber of Commerce emblem was still hanging on the carriage body, which had been slashed several times with a knife.

The goods are no longer on the truck.

Chen Ping reined in his horse and glanced into the depths of the woods.

The water-observation method operates on its own, and perception unfolds.

More than a dozen streams of transformed energy and blood appeared in various parts of the forest, some hidden behind trees, some lying in the bushes, creating a semi-circular ambush circle.

Among them were two exceptionally intense bursts of qi.

Yuan Gang.

However, both of them showed signs of declining vitality, their fiery energy tinged with a sense of weakness, clearly indicating they were no longer in their prime.

He's old. But even a starved camel is bigger than a horse; Yuan Gang is still Yuan Gang. Even in his old age, he can still crush those below the Transformation Realm.

Chen Ping turned his head and glanced at Qin Ya beside him.

Qin Ya sat on his horse, casually glancing towards the woods, and said, "Just two old men at the First Refinement Realm. They're hiding in the woods behind those broken carts."

He looked at Chen Ping and said.

"Go. Finish this quickly."

Chen Ping bowed respectfully, saying, "Thank you for your support, Instructor."

Qin Ya sat on his horse and tapped his fingers lightly in the air.

A scroll of ink painting unfolds silently.

The ink flowed out of the scroll, across the ground, through the trees, and across the sky, enveloping the entire area within a radius of a hundred feet.

Chen Ping could sense that the surrounding space had changed.

The sky turned into an ink-wash color. The trees were still there, but their outlines became blurred, like blank spaces left by an unpainted brush.

A landscape within a teapot. From the outside, nothing appears to have happened in this grove.

Those inside can't get out either.

Chen Ping dismounted and walked towards the several broken carriages.

The pace was neither fast nor slow.

He had only walked a dozen steps or so from the vehicle when a furious shout rang out from the woods.

"Arrogant little thief! A mere greenhorn, fresh out of school, dares to come alone to his death!"

Before he could finish speaking...

The sound of taut bowstrings rang out simultaneously from all directions.

Buzz buzz buzz!

Like a swarm of locusts, a rain of arrows tore through the air, bursting forth densely from the depths of the forest.

A vast expanse of darkness instantly blocked out the already dim light above Chen Ping's head.

Chen Ping glanced up at the arrows, then casually pulled a piece of the broken carriage plank and held it above his head to shield himself. *Clang, clang, clang.*

The arrows were stuck in the cart floor, densely packed, like a hedgehog covered in thorns.

Several arrows pierced through the carriage floor, their arrowheads stopping before Chen Ping, their tips gleaming with a dark sheen.

Black Iron Arrow.

The arrowheads are made of black iron, and their lethality is enough to pierce through even a master of internal strength, while a master of external strength can only withstand a few arrows.

The first volley of arrows had just stopped for a brief moment.

The real killer move has arrived.

Two figures suddenly sprang up from the forest.

One from the left, one from the right, one with a knife, one with a spear, they descended from the treetops, heading straight for Chen Ping.

Two blazing streams of energy exploded simultaneously, the sword energy and the spear energy converging in mid-air to form a barrier of energy that surrounded Chen Ping on three sides.

Chen Ping dropped the cart plank in his hand, loosened the opening of the troop storage bag, and the black horse-slaying saber fell into his hand.

Golden-red energy surged into the blade. A sweeping strike, entangling the head, was unleashed.

boom!

The 600-pound weapon, glowing with a golden-red light, crashed into the barrier of qi. The barrier shattered upon contact, but the momentum of the blade remained undiminished, slamming heavily into the weapons of both men.

The two Yuan Gang martial artists were simultaneously knocked back, their feet carving two deep furrows in the soil beneath their feet. They each took three steps back before regaining their footing.

Chen Ping glanced at the arrows still falling sparsely from the sky and frowned.

"It's in the way."

He took a step forward, casually scattering more than a dozen golden-red qi.

The powerful energy rained down, piercing through the forest and shattering all the arrows, while simultaneously piercing the bodies of more than a dozen martial arts masters hidden in the woods.

Muffled groans, screams, and thuds of people falling to the ground echoed through the forest for two breaths before falling silent.

Take a breath.

The clearing took only a moment.

The two Yuan Gang martial artists opposite him stood rooted to the spot, staring at Chen Ping and the black horse-slaying saber in his hand. Their hands trembled slightly.

They exchanged a quick glance and both saw the shock in each other's eyes.

The knife that the young man in black was carrying.

It's fucking heavy!

Just now, with that slash, the two almost lost their grip on their weapons.

The man wielding the knife, his temples graying, raised his longsword, his gaze falling on a nick in the blade, and exclaimed in surprise, "Is this kid's knife a top-tier magical artifact?"

The one with the gun gritted his teeth and hissed angrily in a low voice.

"You're in deep trouble, why are you wasting your breath talking to him!"

His already somewhat cloudy eyes quickly scanned the distorted and blurry edges of the surrounding space.

"Such earth-shattering sealing methods can only be used by experts at the Divine Transformation Realm. This kid must be a prodigy that Cangwu is heavily cultivating. Since he was able to bring in an expert of this level to help him today, he has no intention of letting us leave alive!"

"Both of us are destined to die here today!"

Despite his words, a resolute glint appeared in his eyes. "Since this brat is so arrogant as to come up here alone and risk his life, then we brothers will grant him his wish!"

"Either way, I'm going to die, so I might as well take him down with me!"

A sense of isolation and desolation rose from both of them simultaneously, their inner energy surging as they no longer held back.

Chen Ping held the sword upside down, calmly looking at the two men.

He knew it perfectly well.

Since these two people were in this line of work, they knew they wouldn't survive today, yet they still thought of fighting like cornered beasts to kill him.

Before charging forward, the swordsman let out a roar at his companion.

"Fight him! Force him to use his full strength!"

"Even if he has supernatural powers to block the outside world's view, as long as we force him to use his trump card, the traces of his techniques left on the ground during the battle will be indelible! As long as the main family members investigate the scene afterward, they will definitely be able to deduce his true strength and trump cards from these traces!"

Chen Ping's eyes flickered slightly.

clever.

The landscape in the pot could obscure the view, but it couldn't hide the traces left by the battle. The cracks on the ground, the broken tree stumps, and the scorch marks from the qi—afterwards, when the aristocratic families came to investigate the scene, they could piece together most of these traces and deduce his background.

Chen Ping's lips twitched slightly.

If you want to see the traces, then look.

But you two will die here today.

All he needs to do is reveal his swordsmanship and true intent.

These things are meant to be used in the competition anyway, so there's no need to hide them since they can't be hidden.

As for the Dragon Python True Qi and other methods, they will not be used at all.

As the power was activated, golden lines lit up beneath her fair skin.

The 600-pound horse-slaying saber hummed in his hand, golden-red energy filled the blade, and crimson fire patterns flowed in the grooves on the edge.

The two moved at the same time.

One on the left, one on the right, one with a knife, one with a gun, their coordination was extremely perfect.

The one wielding the knife slashed diagonally down from the left, the blade surging with a fierce, desperate energy. The one wielding the spear thrust low from the right, the spear tip skimming the ground, a cunning and ruthless attack.

The two of them did have thicker internal energy than him, and they had traveled further on the path of first-level refinement. Their internal energy was also more dense and comprehensive.

But it lacks lethality.

Both of their qi were attribute-less, lacking the sharpness of metal and the burning of fire; when they hit him, it was just a pure impact.

Chen Ping met their attacks head-on with a sweeping slash.

The 600-pound craftsman's tool stirred up a gust of wind, and the leaves were swept up by the wind and flew everywhere.

boom!

The swordsman raised his sword to parry, his arms jerking violently, the ground beneath his feet exploding, and he was slammed back two steps, the cracks on his long sword deepening.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, the armed man thrust at Chen Ping from the side, the tip of his spear aimed straight for Chen Ping's ribs.

Chen Ping twisted his waist, changing the horizontal sweep of his saber into a downward slash. The back of the saber struck the spear shaft, deflecting the spear tip. At the same time, he kicked out, striking the spear-wielding warrior in the abdomen and sending him flying.

Instead of retreating, the two men advanced. The swordsman went berserk and slashed five times in succession, each slash coming at a different angle, forcing Chen Ping to respond in different ways.

After regaining his footing, the gunman immediately circled to the side, his spear tip darting from various tricky angles like a venomous snake, specifically targeting the gaps in Chen Ping's attacks. The two coordinated flawlessly, one facing forward and the other side, one pressing and the other disrupting, effectively slowing down Chen Ping's offensive by half a beat.

Chen Ping's eyes turned cold.

I don't want to drag this out any longer.

The true meaning of the tide is revealed.

On the surface of the horse-slaying sword, countless black vortexes appeared simultaneously, densely packed, slowly rotating.

Chen Ping met the swordsman's blade with a slash.

The two swords clashed.

The martial artist's inner energy, which he channeled into the blade, was torn apart by the vortex and swallowed into the abyss the moment it touched the sword.

His sword strike instantly faltered.

Chen Ping did not stop.

The abyss is full.

He stomped his foot hard. The ground cracked, dirt flew everywhere, and he was launched into the air.

The 600-pound horse-slaying saber was raised high above the head in mid-air, and golden-red qi spread along the blade to the tip, condensing into a dazzling arc of light at the highest point.

Spitting up fluid.

The absorbed qi merged with his own qi and was poured into this strike.

The swordsman looked up at the falling black shadow in the sky, his pupils reflecting a golden-red light, his face filled with horror.

He raised his knife.

He gripped the blade tightly with both hands, channeling all the remaining internal energy into it, and pressed it firmly against his head.

Chen Ping landed.

A knife.

boom!

The moment the blade struck the longsword, a crisp sound of metal shattering echoed through the forest.

The longsword that had been with the swordsman for most of his life was broken in two from the center of the blade. The broken blade flew out and embedded itself deeply into the trunk of a nearby tree.

The momentum of the saber did not stop; carrying fragments of the broken blade, it cleaved down from above the head of the swordsman.

From the top of the head to the hip bone.

Cut it all the way through.

The swordsman's body split into two halves and fell to either side.

Chen Ping landed, smashing two deep craters into the soil beneath his feet.

He straightened up, the tip of his knife touching the ground.

The gunman saw his companion's dead body, and his pupils contracted sharply.

He did not run away.

With a roar, the qi at the tip of the spear surged to its limit, and the entire spear transformed into a beam of light, thrusting towards Chen Ping.

This is real.

A desperate, all-or-nothing attack. Chen Ping walked towards the spear.

He raised the saber high and cleaved it down.

The moment the spear tip touched the blade, the spear broke into three pieces.

The blade's momentum didn't diminish; it slashed from the gun-wielding warrior's left shoulder to his right waist.

One cut, two ends.

The gun-wielding brute's lifeless upper and lower body remains.

Amidst the gushing blood mist, they collapsed helplessly onto the muddy ground scorched by the qi.

The woods fell silent.

Chen Ping sheathed his sword and stood up.

The tip of the blade touched the ground, and the golden-red light slowly faded, the blade returning to its original black color.

He looked around.

Several deep cracks appeared on the ground, three or four trees were snapped in half, and charred marks from the qi energy were scattered within a radius of several dozen feet. These marks were enough for the people of the aristocratic families to deduce several things: he possessed an extremely heavy broadsword, his qi energy had both metal and fire attributes, and he knew a true technique that could devour qi energy.

That's it.

Let them see what they want to see.

Chen Ping turned around and walked towards Qin Ya.

The scroll was closed.

The floodwaters receded, and the forest returned to its original state.

Qin Ya sat on his horse, watching Chen Ping walk out. His gaze swept over Chen Ping, and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

"Clean and efficient."

Chen Ping mounted his horse: "Thank you for your support, Instructor Qin."

Qin Ya didn't say much.

He just let out a hearty laugh.

They turned the horse around and squeezed its flanks with their legs. The two rode side by side.

Facing the afterglow of the setting sun, they transformed into two frantically running afterimages.

They sped along the official road toward Tianyan City.

......

The sound of horses' hooves gradually faded into the distance.

The woods remained quiet for a long time.

There was no movement until the sound of the two horses completely disappeared at the end of the official road.

Two figures emerged from the depths of the woods.

The man on the left has a dark complexion and a tall, upright figure, standing at least six feet tall.

He was wrapped in a thick gray coat, with no weapons hanging at his waist.

But his burly body walked silently on the fallen leaves and branches, without even the slightest sound of leaves crunching.

The other man was half a head shorter, wearing a pure black mask that revealed only his eyes, which gleamed with a scrutinizing light. The two walked to the area where the battle had taken place and split up to investigate.

The masked man walked up to a tree that had been split in half and reached out to touch the cut on the broken surface.

I placed my fingertips on the cut surface, feeling the lingering warmth of the residual Qi.

"It has dual attributes of metal and fire, and its true meaning follows the path of devouring. It is a heavy sword of the craftsman level, weighing no less than 500 catties."

He withdrew his hand, muttering to himself.

"It's truly unexpected that Chen Ping was able to get Qin Ya to back him up."

The six-foot-tall man squatted in front of the two corpses of Yuan Gang martial artists, reaching out to feel the wounds and then the broken bones.

He plucked a small bone fragment from the flesh, rubbed it between his fingertips, and brought it to his nose to smell it.

He stood up and shook the blood off his hands.

"This kid actually practiced the 'Blazing Sun Burning the Sea True Scripture' that the Lu family gave him for their offerings."

He looked at the corpse on the ground and chuckled coldly.

"That's a good thing." The masked man turned around upon hearing this, about to speak.

suddenly.

"Gentlemen, I'm sorry to have kept you waiting."

A flat, emotionless voice.

Without warning, the sound came from directly behind them.

They suddenly turned around.

At the edge of the woods, in that dense shadow that should have been empty, all I could see was...

Two familiar figures stood side by side.

The six-foot-tall man's pupils suddenly contracted.

The horse hoof has clearly gone far away.

When did you turn back? How long did you watch from the shadows?

A young man dressed in black stood in front. His hands were free, and a cloth bag the size of a palm was tucked into his waistband.

His expression was calm, as if he were watching two prey walk into a trap.

Half a step behind him.

Qin Ya stood with his hands behind his back, not saying a word, not even looking at the two people. His gaze was fixed on the treetops in the distance, as if he were admiring the scenery.

But it was this nonchalant attitude that instantly soaked the back of the six-foot-tall man with cold sweat.

Divine transformation.

The masked man didn't move, but the scrutinizing glint in his eyes behind the mask vanished.

The woods were quiet for a few moments.

Chen Ping took a step forward.

The bag containing the weapon loosened, revealing the dark hilt of a sword.

"Those things we just found out."

He gripped the hilt and slowly drew the sword. The 600-pound saber dragged on the ground, its tip carving a long groove in the soil.

"No need, don't bother taking it back."