Legend of the Great Saint

Chapter 20

This was probably not just the power from the shred of qi, but even more so a wonderful effect from the green bull’s tears.

He lowered his body and flashed past a punch. The Bull Demon Horn Gored, two fists flew out, and he knocked down another young hunter.

But at the same time, a hunter had already circled behind him, and violently punched at the middle of Li Qingshan’s back, while the other two hunters clung to Li Qingshan’s waist one from the left and one from the right, fiercely trying to tackle him to the ground.

They hunted all day in the mountains and they were proficient in encircling the enemy. They were absolutely no street-fighting boors. Even if Li Qingshan could defeat any one among them, he could only fall downwind at this moment.

Seeing that he had no time to block, Li Qingshan’s mind entirely focused on the middle of his back, and the shred of true qi followed his thoughts to also flow there. The muscles of his back fiercely bunched together, faintly swelling up.

A heavy heavy fist hit Li Qingshan’s back, but it was like it hit the tough hide of a bull, and all of its strength was absorbed and disintegrated by the bunch of muscles. Except from a shudder, Li Qingshan’s body suffered no other effect.

At the same time, the two hunters who were hugging Li Qingshan’s waist felt as if Li Qingshan’s body had taken roots on the ground, and they had absolutely no way of moving it. The three men had used up their strength, and their vigor suddenly weakened.

In the meantime, Li Qingshan who had endured three layers of attacks had already regained his breath, and with an explosive shout, his two elbows fell down.

With the Bull Demon Horn Gore of the [Bull Demon Strong Fist], apart from the fists and feet, every part of the body could become bull horns, and even more so for the elbows that were the mightiest of bull horns.

Two hunters only felt pain in the center of their backs and felt the urge to puke blood. They couldn’t stop their bodies from dropping flat on the ground.

Li Qingshan fiercely turned around and pounced on the hunter who had sneak attacked him behind his back. With a fist on his chest, he hit him down on the ground.

The crowd watching around was bedazzled. They witnessed the young man seemingly in a vulnerable spot quickly and efficiently knock down five valiant and burly men from the Horse Rein Village, and they were all indescribably flabbergast.

Li Qingshan watched the five hunters groan in pain on the ground, then looked at his own two hands, seemingly not daring to imagine this was something he did. Without him being aware of it, his strength had already reached such a level.

But he didn’t have time yet to be happy that a large group of hunters charged forward, pulling their bows and drawing their hunting knives, circling Li Qingshan and glaring at him like tigers watching their preys.

The Horse Rein Village hadn’t sent only a few persons to the Cedar Creek Town’s market this time, but a full twenty persons. They had carried with them the beast skins accumulated by the whole village. The few young hunters just now were just younger generations following their elder generations to broaden their outlook.

They had trouble selling their own stuff and heard there was someone selling cheap animal skins, so they charged out together to bring bad luck to Li Qingshan. But they didn’t expect that they couldn’t find Li Qingshan’s bad luck and were taught a lesson instead.

The adults naturally wouldn’t sit there idle and not do anything. They reacted quickly, surrounding Li Qingshan. Those more than a dozen of pulled bows, the explosion of their auras, all of this made him feel like a cornered beast who fell into a hunting trap, the fate of his life or death taken out of his hands. It even gave birth to a sensation of despair.

In comparison, the “Feast at Hong Gate1” at Steward Liu’s house couldn’t have been more ordinary. His state of mind was stretched taunt just like the bowstrings. All of a sudden, he realized the opposite party’s status. Those were men who made a living out of hunting, and their expertise didn’t lie in fighting with the fist, but with the bows in their hands. His Bull Demon Skin Refining could resist punches but it could never resist sharp arrows.

At this critical moment, he coldly drew the thick backed steel blade from his waist. His vision searched all around, looking for a plan of escape. He never expected that selling animal skins would also provoke such a disaster. Although he would rather not, he might well have to kill people in this downtown area and forge out a bloody path out.

“You’re the one who did it?” A man in the prime of his years with a sickly face and a great bow on his back stood among the hunters, while asking in a voice resembling a great bell.

Li Qingshan smiled: “I did it!”

The man closely examined Li Qingshan with some surprise. An ordinary person would be scared into soft hands and feet faced with such a scene, while this kid was young but surprisingly so calm. Simply this state of mind was already far above any younger generation of his village.

He asked the short hunter that had been sent flying out by Li Qingshan’s shoulder strike: “Little Black, what’s this thing about?”

“Chief hunter, I reckon this kid is ruining our business on purpose!” Little Black forced his body to stand up.

The crowd was in an uproar: “Isn’t that the chief hunter of Horse Rein Village?” “It’s Sick Yellow Tiger!”

The so called chief hunter was equivalent to a village chief, but his power was different from the likes of the old people in the Crouching Bull Village. Those who could become chief hunters in Horse Rein Village were all the strongest of heroes and they commanded all matters concerning hunting in the village.

This Sick Yellow Tiger was the present chief hunter of Horse Rein Village. He was a famous and celebrated character. Li Qingshan had also heard of his renown since a long time ago, but he didn’t expect him to be the sick-looking man in front of him. He finally understood where the “Sick Tiger” words came from.

Men’s renown were a powerful influence, and Li Qingshan naturally felt a heavy pressure in his heart. But he already wasn’t the Li Qingshan from the past, so he laughed coldly: “You didn’t say two words and came to tear off my stall, now you spit venomous slanders on me, overturning it into me ruining your business. The Horse Rein Village is indeed really overbearing.”

Sick Yellow Tiger’s face sank down as he shouted: “You’re still not quickly crawling up? A group of men can’t even win against a single person, you even have the face to crawl on the ground and shout in pain, do you still deserve to be called men of Horse Rein Village?”

Li Qingshan knew that those few strikes of his weren’t light, but once Sick Yellow Tiger issued the command, those five young hunters unexpectedly supported themselves and stood up. In addition to the robustness of their bodies, it was even more due to their deep reverence for Sick Yellow Tiger.

Sick Yellow Tiger lifted his hand and all the hunters took back their knives and bows: “This this was our fault first, but kid you shouldn’t have used such a heavy hand either!”

“If I didn’t use a heavy hand, the one lying on the ground here right now would be me.”

“We rarely come down from the mountains to come sell our furs and clothes. The whole village’s rice, salt and everyday necessities all rely on it. It wouldn’t matter if you sold at market price, but this way of selling disrupts the pricing, it’s of great harm to us.”

Li Qingshan fell silent, this wasn’t something he had expected at first. Of course he could say that it was his own business how he wanted to sell. But a man with Sick Yellow Tiger’s reputation acknowledged his own faults in front of everyone, discussing calmly and reasonably with him, not oppressing him with the power of numbers. So he didn’t want to waggle his tongue and argue, making an endless annoyance of himself.

If the other side had truly wanted to fight and kill, he wouldn’t have sat and waited for death either.

Sick Yellow Tiger said: “I’ll buy all of those skins!” So saying some hunters came forward to pay the money and take the skins away.

The surrounding people all acclaimed Sick Yellow Tiger’s uprightness with clucks of their tongues. Li Qingshan was a little surprised. He looked at the bags of money handed in front of him: “No need!” He turned around and packed the bull cart. He wasn’t planning to rely on those animal skins to eat to begin with, and since the other party was being so forthright, others would despise him if he haggled over small amounts of silver.

The admiration in Sick Yellow Tiger’s eyes became even heavier. As he watched Li Qingshan disappear in the sea of men, he told the people beside him: “I took a fancy to this kid, does anyone know where he comes from?”

A farmer cautiously said: “It looks like it was the Crouching Bull Village’s Li the Second!”

Many people around heard, and they all said: “No wonder!”

Although the roads were difficult of access between the villages, those stories that carried the flavor of legendary sagas would always spread very fast. Li Qingshan didn’t know that in the surrounding areas, he had already acquired a little fame.

1. A famous cultural reference in China, a feast organized by Xiang Yu to entertain Liu Bang. Those two were the two biggest rivals for the reunification of China during the Chu-Han contention. Xiang Yu and especially his adviser Fan Zeng plotted to have Liu Bang killed at the feast, but Liu Bang managed to escape in the end.

He went on to defeat Xiang Yu. He became emperor of China and founded the Han dynasty that lasted around 400 years and ended with the era of the Three Kingdoms.