Tianguanzhi

Chapter 145 Unfinished Project and Demise
"..."

After collecting the remaining coins on the ground, Gu Jianqiu disappeared into the dark buildings without looking back.

He felt nothing, neither about the lost fortune nor about Wei Pingshu, who died with his eyes wide open in disbelief.

Perhaps these deserters have some stories to tell, but he has no interest in hearing them.

Fifteen minutes ago.

Gao Zhanlin stretched out his left hand, wiped the raw flesh on his chest, put his bloody finger in his mouth, savored it for a while, and then spat it out. He tilted his head and looked at the two people in front of him.

He had just tested the waters a few times, without even wearing his mobile armor, and fought the two of them with only a shockwave blade. He suffered a small loss, but judging from his expression, he clearly didn't take it to heart.

The ground was littered with crooked bodies and groans. Apart from a few civilian corpses that had already lost their warmth, most of the bodies belonged to the Spirit Cultists who had committed violence in the street. Those who were still alive were basically the ones who had been attacked by Zhen Ding. As for Fu Lemei, because of her nervousness, she attacked even harder, and several people had clearly died under her Phoenix Blood Cudgel.

A cultist with a blood-smeared face and ruddy skin, who looked quite old, walked out of the building, shouting in the local language, and threw him the Garand bomb gun that Gao Zhanlin had left in the room.

Gao Zhanlin reached out and caught the explosive rifle, flipped the black barrel over, and placed it upright next to the fire hydrant, seemingly having no intention of using firearms.

He stood bare-backed, casually brandishing the vibrating blade in his hand. He didn't even glance at the furious Shaolin monk Zhen Ding, but instead stared intently at Fu Lemei, whose hair was disheveled, whose breathing was heavy, and whose arms were trembling uncontrollably.

"Little beauty, you also have a mutated electrocardiogram? Aside from Lao Gao, this is the first time I've seen one. Hmm, but it doesn't quite seem like it... and you're a martial artist? I haven't dealt with people from the martial arts world in a long time. Shall I play with you today?"

Fu Lemei, who was in a bow stance with her staff in hand, remained silent, only blinking her right eye with difficulty. Because of the kick Gao Zhanlin had given her to the temple, half of her vision was now bloodshot, and one ear was ringing, making it almost impossible for her to hear Gao Zhanlin's words clearly. The monk Zhen Ding was not in much better condition either, with a bit of skin and flesh cut off from his left cheek by the shockwave knife, and blood was flowing profusely.

That's terrifying. Even if Master Shouhe were to intervene, he probably wouldn't be able to handle him. This is definitely at the level of a Level II Heavenly Official.

No, that's not right. Master Zhen Ding's heart rate was only at the standard Level II. As for this bandit with the goatee, his heart rate is probably approaching 60, and he's about to touch the threshold of Level III Heavenly Official.

I, this rotten plank of wood, really ran into a saw shark. If it weren't for Master Zhen Ding sharing the burden, I might already be dead.

Fu Lemei tugged at the corners of her mouth, revealing a bitter smile, but she showed no fear or regret, which was also reflected in her high-spirited heartbeat.

"I said, are you even listening to me?"

Gao Zhanlin looked displeased, and the corners of his mouth involuntarily turned down. A venomous, viscous electrocardiogram enveloped the two of them, but as if he was wary of something, he did not make any further moves.

Fu Lemei narrowed her eyes. The man with the goatee in front of her was of unknown origin. His Mandarin was not standard and had a slight accent from the Southern Flower Country. However, once they started fighting, he displayed the authentic Begonia Martial Arts sword stance. Moreover, the exquisiteness of his swordsmanship was something Fu Lemei had never seen before. Calling him a master of swordsmanship would not be an exaggeration.

That swordsmanship, it's absolutely flawless...

She tried to soften her tone and tentatively asked, "Xin You Single Blade?"

Gao Zhanlin raised an eyebrow and then casually admitted, "Ah! That was more than ten years ago. I graduated from the National Military Academy in Haitang."

You beast, what a joke!
Two veins bulged on Fu Lemei's face, and her murderous aura intensified.

The Xinyou Sword Technique was created by Qi Wuxiang, a famous general who fought against pirates and protected the people four hundred years ago. It is one of the top martial arts techniques of the National Martial Arts Academy. Qi was a martial arts master of his time and a national hero recorded in history. To this day, there is still a shrine to him in Haitang.

Gao Zhanlin's reckless use of Qi Wuxiang's swordsmanship enraged Fu Lemei, who was born with a passion for martial arts, to the point that she almost couldn't resist launching an attack.

The monk from Zhending raised the nicked and chipped dagger in his hand and chanted Buddhist mantras.

Fu Lemei felt a jolt in her mind, and a sense of tranquility and coolness surged up her head. She couldn't help but exhale a breath of stale air, and immediately calmed down a lot.

"Thank you, Master."

Fu Lemei said softly.

“Young benefactor, you possess the spirit of a swordsman and the heart of a chivalrous man. Given time, you will surely achieve great things. However, this is not the right time for you to show your talents. This fiend is dangerous, so you should plan your escape route as soon as possible. I will hold him off.”

The monk Zhen Ding remained expressionless, and his lips did not move. He simply sent a telepathic message to Fu Lemei.

"And what about you, Master?"

“Monks have long since disregarded life and death; they are simply willing to sacrifice themselves for righteousness.”

Fu Lemei's right eye was bloodshot, and she looked quite disheveled. However, she smiled and gently tapped the ground with the Phoenix Blood-shaped sword in her hand: "Master has the courage to sacrifice himself for righteousness, and I am not lacking in the determination to give up my life for justice. If I had known that I was pulling teeth from the tiger's mouth, how could I have given up halfway?"

The monk Zhen Ding fell silent, but his blood-stained features softened somewhat.

"Master, be careful!"

Fu Lemei suddenly opened her phoenix eyes wide. Gao Zhanlin had disappeared without her noticing. A scorching blade protruded from the shadows where Zhen Ding's feet met the buildings, thrusting straight at Zhen Ding's groin. It was the Shadow Strike technique from the Xin You Single Blade.

Despite having the lowest electrocardiogram reading among the three, Fu Lemei noticed Gao Zhanlin's actions before Zhen Ding did.

Thanks to Fu Lemei's reminder, Zhen Ding reacted in time, spun around and flew away, and the three of them were fighting again.

Meanwhile, people in the hall were pacing anxiously.

"Does our insurance policy with Zhen Ding include a clause on terrorism? He jumped down himself, so wouldn't that be considered force majeure? How will we handle the lawsuit against Shaolin then?"

"What did the organizers of the Brahma Cup say?"

The employees of Mammoth Energy were arguing heatedly.

On the other side, Shukaku's expression was conflicted, his face shifting between light and shadow, as if he were deep in thought.

"Taoist Master! We can't just stand by and watch!"

Seeing that Fu Lemei, who came from the same background as them, was fighting alongside Shaolin monks and was locked in a stalemate with the villains, the candidates of the National Martial Arts Association were immediately filled with enthusiasm. Many of them were eager to try, and their desire to uphold justice and eliminate evil was rekindled.

Separated by about a hundred meters, most of the examinees couldn't hear the conversation or understand what had happened in the brief skirmish. They only thought that if Junior Sister Fu and Monk Zhen Ding could hold off the knife-wielding bandit for so long, wouldn't it be a piece of cake for them to swarm in? They just had to watch out for stray bullets…

"Shut up, everyone."

Shukaku's voice wasn't loud, but she deliberately used a bit of intimidating telepathy, and the candidates who had just been so passionate felt their hearts clench and immediately fell silent.

“If you can’t even withstand my heartbeat, don’t even think about going down there to die in vain.”

Shouhe's face was extremely grim. The current situation was difficult to manage, but no matter what, she would never allow these candidates to be involved in a riot of this magnitude. That would result in the largest number of casualties among the candidates in the Heavenly Official Examination in a hundred years. These noisy hotheads simply couldn't see the situation clearly.

only……

Shuhe glanced deeply at Fu Lemei below.

Her flowing hair obscured the girl's bloodshot right eye, revealing only half of her calm face.

She subconsciously touched the heat gun on her back. As a guide of Doumu Palace and a director of the association, should she really let such a martial arts prodigy perish here?
clang!clang!clang!
The knife mark, more than two meters long, was like splashed ink, haphazardly embedded in the marble wall. Even with Fu Lemei's keen senses, she was still caught off guard by the onslaught of this fierce attack and a strand of her long hair was accidentally ripped off.

Gao Zhanlin wasn't fully armed; he only possessed a high-level shock blade with eight electrical charges—a cardinal sin in warfare, demonstrating his excessive arrogance. Yet, even so, he still managed to put Zhen Ding and Fu Lemei in grave danger, leaving them with virtually no chance to defend themselves.

A few days ago, Zheng Yuanfu's riot control unit launched a surprise attack on the Aotuxiao Club, but was completely wiped out by Gao Zhanlin and his men who had been lying in ambush. In fact, after confirming that only McDonald's regular security forces were present and no regular army was involved, Gao Zhanlin almost single-handedly destroyed dozens of riot control exoskeletons of the security force in less than ten minutes, indirectly causing the security of McDonald's city to be paralyzed. That was when he went all out. In his opinion, this little disturbance was just a minor skirmish.

In the blink of an eye, Gao Zhanlin kicked Zhen Ding's forearm, using the momentum to fly backward and land on the neon sign of a delicatessen. He glanced at the vibrating blade; a strand of Fu Lemei's black hair was gradually disappearing under the burning heat of the blade. A frivolous smile appeared on Gao Zhanlin's face. He picked up the burning strand of hair with his bare hand, stuck out his scarlet tongue, opened his mouth, and swallowed the hair. Finally, he gave Fu Lemei a lewd look.

Fu Lemei snorted coldly, reached out and gathered her messy long hair, her fingernails emitting a faint electric current. She then cut off the large, charred curls of hair with her bare hands, which were blown into the air by the hot wind of the city.

After tossing her hair back, she held the long stick horizontally, displaying an unyielding stance.

Gao Zhanlin was taken aback at first, then his chilling smile deepened, but his smile quickly froze under a golden-red blade of light.

Thus I have heard. At one time, when the Buddha was in the country of Kushinagar, about to pass away…

Zhen Ding's face was flushed red, and the boiling blood energy gathered on the blade of the monk's knife, forming a line of blood that cut down Gao Zhanlin's body. From Gao Zhanlin's shoulder down to his waist and hips, bright red blood gushed out, as if he had been cut in two by this knife.

The Seventy-Two Shaolin Arts: Ananda's Breaking the Precepts Knife.

Zhen Ding's face turned from red to white, his once strong muscles withered, and his heart rate plummeted until it was completely depleted. That one cut had exhausted his heart rate.

Gao Zhanlin leaned back, almost falling off the neon sign, but then he kicked off with his riding boots and stood up straight again. His eyes, which had rolled back, straightened up, but his face was ugly and he was no longer as composed as before.

The exaggerated wound on his body visibly began to writhe, the pink granulation tissue intertwined, and the bleeding stopped very quickly.

"What kind of monster is this?"

Zhen Ding was speechless. He had been practicing diligently in the Shaolin Temple for over thirty years and had learned about all kinds of techniques, but he had never seen such a strange thing before.

Gao Zhanlin's eyes were bloodshot, and he was no longer as calm and playful as before. Zhen Ding's silent question seemed to have stung him. The dark, vibrating blade was like a dark cloud covering the sky, threatening to shatter Zhen Ding into two pieces.

Zhen Ding softly chanted a Buddhist prayer, then lowered his eyelids. At this moment, he lacked even the strength to move, so he could only close his eyes and await death.

A long, charged staff inlaid with a red jewel was placed in front of Zhen Ding, barely managing to deflect Gao Zhanlin's murderous blade. This time, without Zhen Ding's cover, Fu Lemei had to face Gao Zhanlin alone. With just one strike, Feng Xue was almost knocked out of her hand by the opponent's terrifying blade!
Now that it was a matter of life and death, Fu Lemei was free of distractions and entered a state of tranquility, recalling her father's words.

The Yellow Emperor said: "I have heard that humans have essence, qi, body fluids, blood, and vessels. I think they are all one qi."

"The Qi here is what modern people call electrocardiogram. The skill I am about to pass on to you is named after this, and its name is Zhou Tian Yi Qi (Circulation of Qi)."

"Le Mei, the reason I haven't passed on this secret skill to you for so long isn't entirely because of ancestral precepts. A large part of it is because I didn't want you to practice such a dangerous skill. Modern practitioners call these difficult, dangerous, and uncertain methods 'Hundred Refinements of the Heart and Lightning,' as if they were some kind of peerless martial art. This is really an outsider's view and it's easy to mislead others."

"This is actually an incomplete technique that has been left unfinished for thousands of years. It is indeed an unfinished skill. Not only is it extremely dangerous to practice, but it is also incredibly difficult. For more than 4,600 years since the Yellow Emperor passed on this skill, there have been at least a dozen large-scale disseminations of it. The patriarchs of all generations did not keep it to themselves. On the contrary, they publicly disseminated all the knowledge in the Inner Canon of Medicine, including this technique of circulating qi! But today, this skill has almost disappeared on our home planet."

"Hehe, you might ask, if that's the case, shouldn't everyone know about the Yellow Emperor's teachings, and shouldn't his disciples be all over the world? How come they've fallen to such a scattered state today? Let me tell you, it's because most of the knowledge in his teachings, such as pharmacology, clothing, farming, music, and vehicles... has long since become well-known and prominent fields of study. There's no need to cling to the Yellow Emperor's name anymore. The Yellow Emperor is known as the progenitor of Chinese civilization, so why would he need a few fierce and ruthless sects to bolster his reputation? We martial artists who claim to uphold the Yellow Emperor's teachings are actually just passing on some difficult and obscure secrets under the long night. There's nothing remarkable about it at all."

"The reason I'm telling you these discouraging things is because I'm afraid that once you learn a new skill, you'll think you've mastered a peerless martial art, and you'll devote all your energy to trying new tricks and techniques, ending up empty-handed after a lifetime of hard work, or even going mad from practicing qi deviation... Never mind, let's not talk about it."

"In my opinion, the truly remarkable skills in the world should be those that everyone can learn, that everyone can use, and that can benefit all people. My lifelong wish is to figure out some skills that can be passed down, so as not to live up to the name of the Yellow Emperor's teachings! Unfortunately, such a great wish is really not something that a nobody like me can achieve. Don't laugh, be serious!"

"If you cannot maintain a righteous and peaceful mind, then this method of circulating Qi will eventually harm you. I have seen many of your senior uncles and elders fall before this hurdle. These are all bloody lessons. Therefore, you must keep everything I say to you today firmly in mind!"

The golden electrocardiogram in Fu Lemei's eyes suddenly exploded. The electrocardiogram on her body was originally not much different from that of an ordinary electrocardiogram except for its color. But now it was like the golden radiance of the sun shining directly, completely different from the twisting sparks of an ordinary electrocardiogram.

boom!
The moment the Vibrating Blade came into contact with the Phoenix Blood, cracks immediately spread across the blade, and the shattered blade exploded in all directions. The golden light, like the sun, pierced the twisting and healing flesh on Gao Zhanlin's body, like sunlight melting ice and snow, causing the huge wound caused by the Breaking the Rules Blade Technique to burst open again.

The pained Gao Zhanlin kicked Fu Lemei in the stomach, and he himself couldn't help but take two steps back.

Fu Lemei's vision went black, and she felt as if her internal organs were being churned up. She opened her mouth and spat out a mouthful of blood mist, flying more than ten meters away before losing consciousness.

The Phoenix Blood Staff spun twice in mid-air before finally crashing to the ground with a clatter.

"It wasn't a mutated ECG; it almost fooled me."

Gao Zhanlin tried to cover his ruptured wound; the dripping blood soaked his pants, making him look disheveled, but still incredibly menacing.

吒！
A silent shockwave struck the back of Gao Zhanlin's head. Gao Zhanlin instinctively turned his head, and the fierce shockwave rushed back. The young monk Jieyan on the balcony trembled, and small snake-like blood oozed from his face. He collapsed to the ground without uttering a word.

"Overestimating yourself, you dare to embarrass yourself with a mind blast of this level?"

Gao Zhanlin didn't have time to figure out who attacked him. Just as he was about to take a step forward, he suddenly covered his head and rolled to the side. A blue electric jet of heat had already burned the spot where he had just been standing into a small patch of lava.

Shukaku held the rifle with both hands, aimed at Gao Zhanlin who was staring at her coldly, and started firing in burst mode without hesitation. Now that she had made her move, she no longer held back.

"Save Junior Sister Fu first!"

It was Gu Yiqiu who shouted the words. He didn't just shout empty slogans. Almost the instant he spoke, he flipped over the iron railing again, trying to go down and save people. But after taking only two steps, he felt a white light before his eyes and was kicked back by the Taoist priest Shouhe, who was holding a gun on the balcony.

This veteran celestial official, who has maintained a sweet, youthful image for years but is actually nearly forty, finally lost her temper and roared at the group of examinees, "You all better stay put and stop causing me any more trouble!"

Meanwhile, the employees of those large companies finally reached a conclusion after arguing, and at least twenty fully armed, legitimate celestial officials jumped off the building to protect the monk Zhen Ding.

“Master, although it’s not explicitly stated in the contract, your act of graffitiing across the peace zone without permission is suspected of being a deliberate breach of contract. Once this matter is resolved, Meng'e Energy and Shaolin Temple will have a long lawsuit to fight.”

Zhen Ding shook his head, his face pale, as if denying something.

Seeing the situation becoming increasingly lively, Gao Zhanlin remained completely unafraid. He lifted the explosive rifle with one foot, grinned, and looked around, seemingly not taking the officials around him seriously at all.

31, 29, 36...

Are there not even 40 people with an electric shock score? The quality of the officials staying at McDonald's is truly exceptionally low.

"Huh? What is this?"

Gao Zhanlin's expression suddenly changed.

A figure shrouded in a gray robe, whose gender was indistinguishable, suddenly appeared behind him.

"I'm sorry, if you keep causing trouble like this, the Brahma Cup will most likely be canceled, and that would be a real headache for me."

The person's voice was hoarse and inhuman, inexplicably reminding one of the blind noises of low-frequency radio interference.

A black, hemispherical force field emerged around Gao Zhanlin, a harbinger of a mental storm. However, before the storm could gather, the perpetrator's mental energy inexplicably vanished, and the mental storm naturally ceased to continue.

Gao Zhanlin stared wide-eyed in disbelief, then collapsed to the ground. Blood helplessly spread from the hole in his chest. The once arrogant man died silently. Everyone present was speechless, staring in disbelief at the gray-robed figure standing there.

It took a while for someone to recognize it.

"You, you are, Number Seventeen?"

It was the lucky number seventeen who received a bye in the semifinals and went straight into the finals.