I stood there looking into the empty room, unable to clear my mind from all the thoughts that were currently on it, but one thing was certain, I was quite looking forward to what might happen in the future .
The problem with Lu Chiang would probably end in either him going far away or one of us two ending up killing the other, Master said that he wouldn't interfere or carry favors for one over the other so that was quite relief, I trusted this new Master of mine to be a man of his words, I looked towards the doors of the hall and felt quite warm being here .
My life was beginning to become quite good, even though I'm a bit nervous with all the information that Master was able to tell about me after only reading my pulse, I still believe that my core secret was still safe, that panel being safe from the peering eyes of someone as strong as Master was enough to make my tensed mode calm down instantly .
Releasing a deep sigh, I discarded of all the unnecessary thoughts and instead began to check the Martial Skill book that was given to me earlier, The Gliding Swallow Martial Skill, I opened the book and began to browse through its pages .
It was talking a bit of time to memorize all the content of the book, so I sat down, my knees already gave up a long time ago, it was my resolve that kept me standing, in addition to the pressure that made my whole body go numb, but now I directly fell on my back and the strains that was beginning to accumulate in my lower body began to be cured, it really was a nice feeling to finally set down like this .
I finished memorizing the book in hand, but I couldn't help but feel that the book in hand seemed to incomparable to the Crouching Tiger book, not to mention the Charging Tiger, which should be nothing but a Yellow High-grade Martial Skill, not a Black Low-grade one like the skill in hand .
My head buzzed a little at this, after all I understood that Master will never fool me, yet I can't seem to let go of feeling like this, I looked at the content of all the three books that I had already memorized and start comparing them with one another again, but every time I reach to the same conclusion, in short both the Mid-grade Crouching Tiger and the Charging Tiger were both better than it, I was unable to shake this feeling .
But if Gliding Swallow had an advantage over the two, then it will be the fast speed of movement it gave its practitioner, unlike both the Martial Skills from the Tiger's series, it really allowed me to move on the ground as a Gliding Swallow, using burst of Blood Qi can now allow me to move and dart from one place to another, it indeed consumed a lot of Blood Qi, but I deemed that I would be able to use it for at least 10 to 20 times before I began gasping for breath .
So I was already cool with that and I really began to take a liking to this skill, I was quite enthusiastic to start practicing, but I understood that it will be difficult to do this in this Hall, I didn't want Master to teach me a lesson over breaking something that I shouldn't have, I finished memorizing the book then began to look for the place he mentioned as' there ' .
I kept searching around trying to find a place where I could put the book and get out of here, after all misunderstanding will happen, if I were to be seen rummaging through the Hall here without master being no where in sight, I finally found a cupboard that had one of its doors being slightly opened and went to check on whether I had finally found the right place or not .
I opened the cupboard's door completely and saw that inside the cupboard, a lot of precious things were stored, pill vials, silver taels and golden taels that were filling the bottom of the cupboard, I found my eyes glimmer at the scene in front of me, but as if that wasn't enough, I began to see all kinds of weapons hanged on the walls inside the cupboard .
Each and every piece of weapons laid in front of me were quite sharp, I felt that my whole body had chills just by looking at them hanged like this, bows, spears, axes, swords, pointed swords and short knives like daggers that was dark in color but shimmering brightly, I was as if looking at the starry skies, all those weapons were shimmering in front of me, together with the money, the pill vials .
All seem to be enticing me to directly grab something from inside and make a run for it, but just as this thought appeard on my mind, I directly throw it to the back of my mind, if this opportunity were to have been presented to me the day before yesterday, when I had just arrived here, I might have really decided to grab something from here and try leave the city with it .
After all anything presented here, excluding the silver taels, could allow me to live a happy life until I die, but now, now I'm certain that if I were to lay my hands on any of the stuff here, I really might drop dead instantly, but even if there would have not been such a cruel punishment, I would have still decided against doing something like this .
Even though the things displayed here could be said to be treasures, I still believed that the newly acquired relationship with my Master still worth much more than the value of the things displayed in front of me, I shook my head, trying to shake the temptations away, the more I looked, the more I felt that the temptations grow stronger .
I began to believe that by closing my eyes, the temptations will cease to exist, but if I did close my eyes then how should I found the place where the books were stored in then, I kept trying to find my inner peace while darting around the cupboard with my eyes, trying to found where master sorted the books in .
Phew, I finally found a stack of scrolls that looked quite important together with a row of books that all had their title covers removed, I was curious about their content, but in the end, I still forced myself to let go of this cursed curiosity of mine and put the book on top of the other books .
I was taking one last look at the treasures trove in front of me, when I suddenly heard a deep voice coming from the entrance of the Hall saying :
What do you think you are doing back there, thief ? .
Huh, thief, who me, that guy voice was filled with so much authority that had me doubtful about whether I had unknowingly stuffed something from the things in here and hid it in my pocket or something like that, the tone of his seemed to imply him getting offended as if I was stealing from his own things .
I turned my head to the Hall Entrance and saw a shadow there, we weren't night yet, that shadow was nothing but an afterimage left by the sudden burst of movement speed that the other guy was moving with, in a second, another shadow was stopping right in front of me and was stretching his hands towards my neck .
Even though my combat experience was quite shallow, I had already learned quite an important lesson yesterday, run first then deal with everything one step at a time, I directly propelled myself away using Crouching Tiger, the guy who was trying to catch me just now tried to obstruct me .
But using the different tight angles in the hall and it being perfectly compatible with my Martial Skill, I once again was able to evade him, but this time I kept propelling myself for a few more times, just to be certain of keeping a distance between us two, but just as I tried to use Tiger's Pounce to achieve this .
My body become completely sore all of a sudden, then wave after wave of exhaustion washed over me and I was once again reminded of the feeling I got when I was in the chariot, I felt so weak and my legs gave out, but I didn't collapse, no instead I was being held by the neck by none other than the first Senior Brother Gu Chu that I had seen earlier .
You have nowhere else to go, thief .
I was once again reminded of disparity between my strength and his, he had the advantage of the Realm, him being able to appear instantly in front of me was an indication of him training in a good footwork Martial Skill as well, getting hit with this realization again, didn't shook me as much as before .
I was now in a similar position to the position I found myself in yesterday, being held by the neck, but unlike yesterday, I can't just use my secret technique and strike the guy in front of me and kill him like I did with the last guy who held me like this, in this situation, I can only prove my innocence and try to get him to let go of me through logic .
That would have been a lot easier, if he wasn't holding my neck my neck so tight, that it seemed about to snap any second now, trying to make my words and intention of being here as clear as possible, I said :
" Senior Brother Gu Chu, I was accepted by Master as his 8th disciple..., Senior Brother, I was here on Master's orders, he asked me to finish reading a Martial Skill book....., senior brother just happened to see me standing in front of the cupboard because I was putting..... the book back to its place, as per master's commands, I'm not a....thief, call Senior Brother Fu, he would... confirm .
I noted that the guy tightened his holding of my neck, after I mentioned that I was his new Junior Brother, why was that, I'm currently unclear about the reason, but I was now already gasping for breath and unable to say a complete sentence anymore .
I was unable to even use Blood Qi and try to regulate the state I was in, my face was getting paler and paler due to the lack of breathing air, I was completely at the guy's in front of me mercy, unable to even show the slightest resistance .
Oh, what Martial Skill that took you so long to stay standing in front of the cupboard like that, I'm not buying it, hand over your Beast Pouch for me to inspect, or else I would directly cripple you here and wait to give Master an explanation later .
That guy in front of me seemed to be completely unnerved by the fact that he was blaming me for a crime I didn't do, after he finished saying this with his free hand, he was trying to reach the Pouch on my waist, but just as his hand was about to reach it .
All the grievances and resentment towards the guy in front of me that I had accumulated began to be released, with me a few breathes away from my imminent lose of consciousness and seeing that it seemed that I was on my own .
I decided to fight back, I for a fraction of a second, decided to run the secret technique of Charging Tiger, then I looked at the guy in front of me and once again tried to imagine killing him with one sword like I did with Lu Sun, but I imagined the scene more vividly this time, I imagined cutting his hands first then his feet, then his tongue, his ears, plucking his eyes, shattering his teeth .
Unconsciously, my stare was beginning to unsettle the guy in front of me to the point that, one second I was there hanged up in the air and the next second I was on the floor, the killing intent that I unconsciously started to show, unnerved him and forced him to let go of me, I was about to call for help with all that I got, but it seemed that there was no need to do so .
Almost as if teleporting here, Guardian Li directly appeared in between me and the guy who was currently laying on the ground with a pale face that seemed to imply that he was quite scared, without even asking about what was going on, the guardian just looked around the room and then said :
Gu Chu, get out .
His voice was neither loud nor faint, but it was just enough to shock that Senior Brother back to reality, he stood up bowed his head at the Guardian in front of us, glared at me and went away, I was still releasing my killing intent, but it wasn't on purpose, it was just that this was my actual first time releasing it completely like this and I was unable to contain it back .
Regulate your breath, it should allow you to regain control of yourself, reminde yourself that there is no more enemies in front of you, everything was in peace now .
Even though I was short of breath and my head was unclear in the moment, the moment I heard Guardian Li's voice in my ears, I without a second to waste, began to do as he was telling me to .
I took a very deep breath then began to release it from my nostrils, I repeated that 8 to 9 times, then as he instructed began to really dart my eyes around the room and saw that it was exactly as he said, no enemies on sight, so my killing intent began to dissipate on its own .
I seeing that I had calmed down and other than the little pain and soreness in my neck, I was live again, I directly got up from the ground and said :
" Junior Disciple Tian Long, greets uncle Li, thanks for lending me a helping hand .
Don't keep creating much a fuzz over something so trivial and congratulations on your new state as a disciple to senior brother Chen, keep working hard, the three of us brothers are looking forward to see what you might achieve in the future .
" Thanks for uncle's praises, I will do my best .
As I said this I finished bowing in front of him and straighten my back again, then the scene fell into silent, I wasn't able to understand what else to talk about with the stern expressionless guy in front of me, so I was about to take my leave, but then he called me and said :
I won't be interrogating you about how you come to posses such a deep killing intent so don't worry about it, nor I will be asking on the reason that made a conflict between you and your Senior Brother Gu arise .
But what I will tell you is this, try and get stronger as possible, after all, no matter how much you unnerved your opponent, making him lose balance, if he much stronger than you, he can still kill you, even if he was unbalanced, do you understand .
" Junior here understand and I'm thankful for senior's guidance .
All what I got as a response was the whistling of air and the silence that followed after, he left without saying anything, it seemed that it was a habit of those guys, just as I was thinking this, I heard a hurried steps coming from the Hall's Entrance again and almost cursed my luck out loud, thinking that the guy who just got out, came back to settle the score, but that wasn't the case .
The person who appeared at the door was actually Senior Brother Fu, seeing my nervous expression, he said :
That guy must have done something terrible again ? .
Hearing the fun tone, he was speaking in and seeing that there was no longer danger in sight, I calmed myself down and nodded at him, he then continued to say :
I was waiting with Mu Lu outside, seeing Senior Brother Gu Chu ashen face and him running away from the Hall told me that there must have been something fishy going on, what exactly happened ? .
I briefed him on what I just went through and his face became quite ugly, he looked at the entrance and seemed to be quite angry, but soon he calmed himself down and said :
Let's go, Mu Lu should have finished making arrangements for you, then we will continue to talk about this later on .