THE SMILING PROUD WANDERER by Jin Yong

Collaboration Part 3

"Senior master of the Hengshan School, may I ask for your respectful name? Many thanks for showing mercy with your palm strike," Linghu Chong said with a smile.

"I am Yue Hou," the man replied. After a short pause, he spoke again, "You sword skills are outstanding, indeed. But your combat experience is too little."

"How embarrassing! 'Great Yin-Yang Palm' Uncle-Master Yue, you are too fast for me," Linghu Chong said.

"Uncle-Master? I really don't deserve that!" Yue Hou replied.

Brining his left hand upward, he threw a knife-hand chop with his right hand. Though his appearance was ugly, as soon as his move started, his entire body looked as solemn as a mountain with imposing bearings and became indescribably attractive. Linghu Chong couldn't find a single flaw around his entire body.

"Excellent palm skills!" Linghu Chong acclaimed and swung his long sword upward. Because he couldn't find a single flaw in Yue Hou's palm form and his movement, this thrust of his had both defense and offense, ninety percent of it was false while only ten percent of it was real.

But in Yue Hou's eyes, this upward swing was brilliant. Regardless of which part of Linghu Chong's body he planned to strike using his two palms, he would always end up sending the center of his palm toward the tip of the sword. So only half way through the palm strikes with his two hands, he immediately retracted his palms and leapt backward.

"Excellent sword art!" he shouted.

"Pardon me!" Linghu Chong replied humbly.

"Watch out!" Yue Hou yelled as he pushed out with both palms and a strong gust of energy force blasted toward Linghu Chong.

"Oh no!" Linghu Chong groaned inwardly.

At the time Yue Hou was at a good distance from him. When Yue struck out with his two palms remotely, he had no way of warding the attack off using his long sword. Just when the thought of jumping out of the way popped in his mind, a freezing sensation had shot up his entire body. He couldn't help but shiver. The palm strike from each of You Hou's hands had different attributes. One had the force of Yin while the other had the force of Yang. The Yang palm strike was launched earlier, yet the Yin force reached the target first. Linghu Chong only had a fraction of a second to pull himself together when the burning hot energy force struck his body and shook his body violently, almost knocked the wind out of him. When one was struck with both the Yin energy force and the Yang energy force, normally he would have no chance of surviving, but in Linghu Chong's case, though he had lost all his inner energy, his body was filled with abundant inner energy, among which were the inner energy from the Peach Valley's Six Fairies, also the inner energy from Monk No Commandment, and when he was in the Shaolin Temple, he also received a good amount of inner energy from Great Master Fang-Sheng. Any one of those energy streams was vigorous enough, not mentioning he had many of them inside him. When the two energy forces, one Yin and one Yang, struck his body, the inner energy streams inside him naturally reacted by creating energy shields around his internal organs and his vital channels, preventing any injuries. But the strike still gave a tremendous shake to his entire body and he felt indescribable suffering. Afraid that Yue Hou would strike him again with energy forces, he dashed out of the pavilion and thrust his sword out rapidly.

Succeeded with his remote palm strikes, You Hou figured that his opponent would at least drop down with severe injuries if not drop dead. He had not expected to see Linghu Chong getting off without a scratch. Then immediately after, many reflections from the sword tip flashed, all aiming at the center of his palms. Astounded, he crisscrossed his palms and struck out, one striking toward Linghu Chong's face, the other one striking toward Linghu Chong's lower abdomen. Just when he was about to release the energy forces for the strikes, he suddenly felt a violent pain: his one palm on the back of the other, both had been stringed together by the blade of Linghu Chong's long sword. It was unclear whether Linghu Chong had penetrated his two palms consecutively or he had struck his palms to the tip of the sword himself. All he could see was that his left palm was in front, his right palm was behind, and the exposing blade behind the back of his right palm was as long as five inches.