Chapter 254: The Clouds-sealing Palm of Great Mercy
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
Han Qiu felt great relief after seeing Huo Jingcheng walk away. Glancing at the Blue-scaled Snake twined around the tree nearby, she closed her eyes and began to manipulate the dark Genuine Qi within her body to unlock Huo Jingcheng’s seal.
“Gosh! Huo Jingcheng used the Cloud-sealing Palm of Great Mercy to seal off all my meridians. It will take at least 6 hours for me to unlock the seal even if I could slowly corrode his blocking power with my dark Genuine Qi. Huo Jingcheng will be back by the time I’ve finished.” Han Qiu was a little anxious.
“What should I do right now?”
Han Qiu had no illusions about why Huo Jingcheng hadn’t killed her right away; it was because he wanted to grill her about the methodology needed to practice the Holy Universe Reaching Skills.
After all, Huo Jingcheng’s patience had limits. If he couldn’t get his answers, he would definitely kill her without hesitation to spare himself future troubles.
“I must unlock it anyway.”
A determined look appeared in Han Qiu’s eyes; even if she injured herself in the process, she had to escape before Huo Jingcheng came back.
Standing on top of a hill a few hundred meters away from Han Qiu, Zhang Ruochen used space power and warped the surrounding spatial layers to hide himself.
After seeing Huo Jingcheng leave, he hastened towards the location of Han Qiu.
When Zhang Ruochen drew within 33 meters of Han Qiu, the Blue-scaled Snake twined around the trunk seemed to sense something unusual. It looked up suddenly and lashed its tail towards Zhang Ruochen like a whip.
“Clap!”
The tail of the Blue-scaled Snake sparkled with a thud and unmistakably struck something right before Zhang Ruochen.
“It’s senses are keener than the average Heaven Realm warrior; no wonder it is a fourth-level savage beast.”
Now aware that he could not sneak attack the creature, Zhang Ruochen dissolved the power of his space warps and reappeared. He drew his Abyss Ancient Sword and chopped down at the snake tail.
“SWISH!”
Pulling back its tail quickly, the Blue-scaled Snake turned into a green light, wriggling rapidly on the ground towards Zhang Ruochen’s legs.
As an inferior savage beast of the fourth level, the Blue-scaled Snake not only had a swiftness comparable to warriors of the Mid Stage of the Heaven Realm but also strong power that rivaled warriors of the Completion of the Earth Realm. It was classified as just a weaker kind of fourth-level savage beast.
However, its teeth were extremely poisonous. Even one bite from it would instantly kill a medium-level savage beast of the fourth level.
“Hiss!”
Twin sharp fangs bared, the Blue-scaled Snake glared at Zhang Ruochen with sanguineous eyes and tried to bite his shank.
Since he could move as fast as the Blue-scaled Snake, Zhang Ruochen chose not to evade, but instead immediately displayed a defensive sword technique.
Countless streams of Sword Breath condensed into a big bell-like barrier of Sword Breath which spun around rapidly.
“Bang! Bang!”
The Blue-scaled Snake kept bumping into the big bell of Sword Breath; no matter how many times it smashed into the bell, it failed to breach the barrier due to a deficit of power.
Standing inside the big bell of Sword Breath, Zhang Ruochen kept observing the attack trajectories of the Blue-scaled Snake.
After a while, a thin smile crept across his mouth. “I see,” Zhang Ruochen said.
The Blue-scaled Snake moved at staggering speeds, which made it more difficult for Zhang Ruochen to launch a fatal attack with his excellent sword technique.
However, warriors with rich fighting experience would discover that the Blue-scaled Snake also had its weakness.
Their weakness lay in their head.
Every time the Blue-scaled Snake made an attack, its head would become a little sluggish.
“Bang!”
Zhang Ruochen stabbed at the Blue-scaled Snake through the Sword Bell and pierced its head, pinning it to the ground with perfect accuracy.
Zhang Ruochen strode towards Han Qiu. “I’ll help you unseal yourself,” he said.
“No!” Han Qiu hastily said. “Huo Jingcheng used the Clouds-sealing Palm of Great Mercy to seal me. Only he knows the seal sequence. If someone else tries to force a release, it will cause my Genuine Qi to flow in reverse and kill me instantly.”
The Clouds-sealing Palm of Great Mercy included 36 techniques which could be arranged into thousands of different seals.
By rerranging the sequences of each technique, a completely new seal would be formed. If somone used the wrong sequence in the unlocking process, the sealed person would surely kick the bucket.
“Really? I’ve also learned the Clouds-sealing Palm of Great Mercy. Maybe I can figure out the correct order of his technique.”
Standing before Han Qiu, Zhang Ruochen looked at this woman of startling beauty and hesitated for a moment. “Please forgive my offense,” he said.
Upon saying this, he pressed his palm above Han Qiu’s head and soon found the wisdom vein there. His hand descended to the the back of her ear, face and neck, and kept going down. Afterwards, he grasped the spirit-breaking vessels in her breast and the Sacred Meridian in her back.
Han Qiu had never been touched this way by any man before. “What… what are you doing?” She shouted, blushing.
“I’m exploring your Meridians! It’s the only way to know which technique Huo Jingcheng used on you,” Zhang Ruochen said.
His palm moved from her thigh to her ankle.
Every time he explored a Meridian, Zhang Ruochen would inject a thread of Genuine Qi into that Meridian to probe its seal.
Everytime he did this, Han Qiu would feel a sense of numbness, as if there was a warm current entering her body. It was a feeling that was indescribably comfortable.
Watching as Zhang Ruochen kneaded different parts of her body, Han Qiu was both annoyed and mortified. She glared at Zhang Ruochen while her body went stiff and her cheeks turned red like rosy clouds.
“Ok, finished!”
After checking the Meridians on her sole, Zhang Ruochen stood up and condensed Genuine Qi at the tip of his index finger.
Han Qiu became a little nervous. She looked at Zhang Ruochen: “Hey… Wait a minute. Are you sure you can unlock the Clouds-sealing Palm of Great Mercy?”
“Bang!”
Zhang Ruochen glanced towards at Han Qiu and quickly jabbed 36 times in succession.
By the time she saw the 36 jabs, he had already completed his motions. His fingers had moved so quickly they had formed 36 phantoms before Han Qiu’s eyes.
A moment later, Zhang Ruochen had withdrawn his fingers.
“Mmm!”
A muffled noise burst from Han Qiu’s mouth. The Genuine Qi in Qi sea on her glabella seemed to vent outward and immediately stream into all the Meridians in her body.
After regaining her strength, Han Qiu got an angry look on her face and tried to slap Zhang Ruochen.
Zhang Ruochen dodged and grasped her hands. “What are you doing?” he asked in a deep voice.
Since she had just recovered her cultivation, she was far from her peak; Han Qiu couldn’t resist being grabbed by Zhang Ruochen due to this lack of power.
“Let me go!”
Han Qiu got furious. “You are the Ninth Prince of Yunwu Commandery, Zhang Ruochen!” She shouted. “As a respected figure in society, you deliberately molested me while I was sealed by Huo Jingcheng. How can you call yourself a warrior?”
Zhang Ruochen squinted. “How do you know all that?” he asked.
Han Qiu clenched her white teeth and rolled her eyes. “Do I look like a goofball to you? Even if you were trying to unlock the Clouds-sealing Palm of Great Mercy, did you really need to touch and pinch my body so freely? You… you truly are a shameless loser!”
“Let me rephrase: how did you know my identity?” Zhang Ruochen asked coldly.
Dazed for a second, Han Qiu answered instantly: “So you really are the little brother of Zhang Tiangui! Zhang Ruochen, I thought you were a genius without peer in this generation who might transcend your brother to become the next prime genius of Omen Ridge. I never expected you to be such a despicable and shameless man!”
“Were it not for your aid in the Black Market, I wouldn’t have bothered to rush back and save you,” Han Qiu continued.
Zhang Ruochen released her wrist, no longer interested in arguing with her. He walked over to the dead Blue-scaled Snake with the Abyss Ancient Sword in his hand.
He carefully used his sword to cut the skin of Blue-scaled Snake and dig out a poisonous snake gall the size of a snake’s eye.
Noticing the serious looking on his face, Han Qiu subdued her anger and calmed down. She walked over with her arms across her chest. “What are you planning to do with this snake gall?” she asked sourly.
“The venom of a Blue-scaled Snake can kill warriors of the Dawn State of the Heaven Realm. I dug it out in case it might be useful in the future.” Zhang Ruochen pocketed the snake gall, stood up and glanced at Han Qiu. After a moment of contemplationg, he spoke: “I am sorry for my earlier offences.”
Han Qiu stared at Zhang Ruochen before replying: “I’m the one who should be apologizing. Thank you for coming back to save me. You really are a loyal friend.”
Han Qiu actually did understand how hard it was to unlock the Clouds-sealing Palm of Great Mercy; she also understood that Zhang Ruochen was actually exploring her Meridians and not actually molesting her back then.
But she still felt unbearably angry. After all, no other man besides her father had even laid a finger on her all her life. Zhang Ruochen, however, had pinched her whole body.
Because of this, she still felt annoyed even though she knew that Zhang Ruochen was helping her; she could only regain her mental balance after rebuking him.
To her surprise, Zhang Ruochen had apologized, which removed her exasperation and triggered a different emotion. She felt like she was truly being too unreasonable.
Han Qiu licked her lips nervously. She spoke in a low voice: “We… we had better leave here as soon as possible! Otherwise, we will get into big trouble when Huo Jingcheng comes back!”
Zhang Ruochen had been planning to do the same thing in light of his seriously injured body. “Let’s split up and go our separate ways,” he said.
Then he displayed the Shadow of the Royal Wind Dragon, stepped into the void space and took nine steps. Moments later he landed ten miles away.
As he moved, Zhang Ruochen heard the sound of wind from behind. He looked back and saw Han Qiu catching up to him.
Zhang Ruochen was constantly on guard against Han Qiu, so the sight of her catching up roused his impatience. “Why are you following me all the way?”
“I’m not trying to follow you, but Huo Jingcheng is coming! I cannot oppose him due to my injuries. If we joined forces, I think we might be able to defeat him,” Han Qiu replied.
In the distance, a raging hurricane of swirling black mud and dust rose right behind Han Qiu, giving off a noise just like the roar of a giant beast.
In the midst of that hurricane stood a figure who spoke with a shrill voice: “I won’t let you go this time! I only waited to see how you guys would flee.”