Chapter 116 - 92: Shift
At that very instant, Chen Cheng’s body shifted horizontally by an inch, as if out of thin air.
The Arrow that should have whizzed past was now clutched tightly in his right hand.
Inconstant Moon Step!
Half a month of training had granted him the extraordinary ability to shift an inch in an instant.
However, this shift couldn’t be used consecutively. There was a ten-breath interval between uses, so he could only deploy it at critical moments, like right now.
SWOOSH—
It all happened in a flash. Liu the Crooked and his two men couldn’t react in time to the sudden turn of events.
Chen Cheng used the momentum of his right arm’s spinning slash, his waist and abdomen twisting violently. He spiraled up from his low stance with perfect Harmony.
The movement was as smooth and fluid as the turning of Tai Chi, yet it concealed the explosive power of a Thunder Burst.
Immediately, his right arm rode the momentum of his spin. He swung it in a wide arc, driving the Arrow in his hand down into the skinny man’s shoulder.
The shaft pierced diagonally, burying itself deep in the man’s chest cavity, straight through his heart and lungs.
Dark Force immediately surged through and exploded inside his chest.
BOOM—
A muffled explosion, like a firecracker smothered in a quilt, echoed from deep within the skinny man’s chest.
His body stiffened, pupils dilating. He knelt down rigidly, dead before he could even make a sound.
With Chen Cheng’s Dark Force—pure, powerful, and far superior to others of the Same Tier—amplified by the implosive power of the Thunder Burst Trait, this single strike was enough to blast the man’s heart and lungs into pulp.
SHING—
As the skinny man’s corpse fell to its knees, Chen Cheng snatched a Crane Beak Needle from him and, in the same motion, threw it.
While his accuracy at a distance was atrocious, at such close range, Chen Cheng couldn’t have missed even with his eyes closed.
TSK—
In the blink of an eye, the Crane Beak Needle was buried deep in the one-eyed man’s forehead, right between his brows.
Dark Force detonated inside his skull. His brain was instantly pulverized into paste, which oozed from his mouth, nostrils, and even the corners of his eyes, trickling down his contorted face.
WHOOSH—
His Familiar Copper Rod slipped from his grasp, but Chen Cheng caught it in mid-air.
The moment the rod was in his hand, he swung it in a full circle, sending it whistling through the air straight at Liu the Crooked, whose eyes were still filled with a fading excitement.
For a split second, Liu the Crooked’s mind went blank. He reacted on pure instinct, flicking his hand and releasing a cloud of green poison mist from his sleeve.
However, the powerful, heavy swing of Chen Cheng’s rod created a gale that swept down like a torrent, forcing all of the poison mist back onto Liu the Crooked’s face and body.
BAM—
With a dull thud, Liu the Crooked’s head exploded like a ripe watermelon.
Crimson blood and gore, mixed with the green poison mist, sprayed backward, resembling a splendid firework blooming during a New Year’s festival.
FWOOSH FWOOSH FWOOSH—
From a short distance away, the sharp whistle of several more Arrows cutting through the air sounded out.
The bald man had fired another volley, his speed and aim both impeccable. Each Arrow was aimed at a vital point.
Unfortunately, without Liu the Crooked and the other two to tie him down, these Arrows no longer posed the slightest threat to Chen Cheng.
He closed the distance with the ease of a stroll in a courtyard. With casual movements—a turn of his side, a tilt of his head, a twist of his waist—he effortlessly dodged every Arrow.
The bald man’s trembling hand reached for the Quiver at his waist, only to find it empty.
He was out of chances.
’My turn...’
At the same time, Chen Cheng had closed to a suitable distance. He gripped the middle of the Familiar Copper Rod with one hand, his arm bent back like a fully drawn Hard Bow, poised as if to throw a javelin. The rod, as thick as a child’s arm, felt as light as a feather in his hand.
WHOOSH—
The next instant, the Copper Rod left his hand.
It tore through the air, spinning and whistling as it carved a straight, violent trajectory.
The bald man had just turned to flee...
THWUMP!
The Copper Rod slammed into his back, right through his Heart, and burst out of his chest, carrying a spray of blood as it pinned him to the ground.
The rod sank several inches into the earth, where it stood trembling Unceasingly.
The bald man’s life was extinguished in an instant, before he could even let out a grunt.
「Afterward.」
Chen Cheng ignored Liu the Crooked’s corpse for the moment, first looting three Money Bags from the other men.
After untying and emptying them all, he had a total of fifteen Golden Blade Coins and about seven or eight taels of broken silver, which he put directly into his own Money Bag.
Next, he picked up an Arrow and used the Arrowhead to slowly push aside Liu the Crooked’s thick lapels, prying out a Money Bag and a small, pink-covered booklet from within his robes.
This Money Bag contained five Golden Blade Coins and several dozen copper plates. Chen Cheng took them all.
As for the pink-covered booklet, a four-word title was written on the cover...
Brocade Tent Spring Depths.
’...An erotic book?’
Chen Cheng scoffed. He was about to turn and leave, but he felt that something wasn’t quite right.
He composed himself and used the Arrowhead to slowly flip open the first few pages...
Illustrated... and obscene.
Until the ninth page.
The text next to the stimulating pictures suddenly changed into something completely different.
The vulgar words were gone. In their place were neat columns of fly-head script, densely packed into every white space on the page.
Chen Cheng focused on it. It looked like some kind of medicinal formula.
He read it through, word by word, and the confusion in his heart was completely resolved.
This was no ordinary formula, but a method for gradually cultivating one’s own resistance to poison.
In short, by consistently chewing more than ten types of medicinal herbs in a specific order, quantity, and combination, and by regularly soaking in medicinal baths, one could slowly develop a resistance to toxins.
While it wouldn’t grant complete immunity to all poisons, it could make one immune to most poisons encountered in the Jianghu, as well as common miasmas and venoms from snakes and insects in the forests and mountains.