Romance of Dragons and Snakes

Chapter 9: Tang Zichen’s needle

After leaving the station, Wang Chao could only sigh in dismay and disappointment. Disappointment over the fact that he had lost all of his fighting strength in two blows as well as 2100 RMB.

“21 bills of cash.” Wang Chao lamented as if he had a piece of his body cut off. But, the pain in his fist had already receded, leaving him with a paralysis of the hand.

The entire arm had already lost feeling a long time ago.

Biting his lips, Wang Chao lifted his arm with some difficulty only to see the elbow caked with some blood and already some purple bruising.. As for his own fist, it had turned a blackish purple a long time ago to a stunning degree.

Pressing against it lightly, Wang Chao felt a shocking amount of pain similar to being stabbed with a thousand needles.

“Dreadful that attack was. But that means my own skill isn’t enough.” Wang Chao spoke to himself, wishing that he could just sit in a taxi to find Tang Zichen.

“Oh? Wang Chao, is that you? Just what are you doing here, are you looking for someone?” While walking home with a serious consideration on looking for medicine before going to find Tang Zichen, he suddenly heard a voice behind him.

Turning his head, Wang Chao realized it was the Cao girl who was the class officer and student council member.

“I….I was just taking a walk.” Wang Chao obviously couldn’t talk about his robbing act and then being arrested by the officers before being released.

“Jingjing, what are you doing?” Just as Wang Chao was preparing to say goodbye, the doors to the station suddenly opened, revealing officer Cao whose eyes lit up as he saw the girl.

It was then that Wang Chao suddenly remembered this girl was named Cao Jingjing.

“Dad! Mom was just telling you to come home.” When Cao Jingjing saw her father, she immediately turned away from Wang Chao to run to her dad.

“So Cao Jingjing is his daughter.” Wang Chao thought. But he had no intentions of staying here any longer, so he quickly turned to leave.

“Jingjing, was that person your classmate?” Officer Cao watched as Wang Chao turned the corner and disappeared from view first before asking his daughter the question.

“Yea, he’s our class’ most well-behaved student. Everyday, he doesn’t speak a word to anyone else or even get in trouble with the other male students.” Cao Jingjing spoke of her opinion of him.

“Most well-behaved?” Officer Cao was shocked.

Silently, Wang Chao returned home, but that night, sleep did not come easy for him. His entire arm was still numb, but the pain had entered his bones even. This feeling was even worse than being condemned to hell! Even after rubbing sunflower oil on it, it had done nothing to alleviate the pain.

Even as he woke up the day after, the pain had not yet subsided. Waking up early, Wang Chao had made sure to wear a long sleeve to cover his arm so that his parent’s wouldn’t find out. As he left the door, he yelled out to his parents, “I’m going to the bookstore to study!”

Both parents were always constantly busy, so they had no time to supervise him and could only shout out a warning and goodbye.

Wang Chao anxiously ran towards the bus stop to find the right station. And two hours later, he had finally arrived at his stop. After asking around, he had finally found the way to the Lake Tianxing district.

Seeing the luxurious neighborhood and the security around it with all of the fancy gates, Wang Chao couldn’t help but hesitate for a moment, “Is sis Chen’s house that wealthy?”

Arriving at a large gate, he was stopped by the security there. But when Wang Chao had taken out the card given to him by sis Chen and then inputting the password, the guards had politely allowed him access into the area.

The surrounding area around him was far too spectacular for Wang Chao to describe. It was a graceful yet quiet place that could normally only be seen on television or like the painting of Prospect Garden from Dream of the Red Chamber.

TL Note: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguanyuan

“Wow, there’s a lot of cool houses here! If my family were to have a house like this, that’d be great.” Wang Chao’s neck had hurt from all the turning to look at every house, but then he remembered that his goal was to find sis Chen.

“One building, two buildings, three buildings….” Wang Chao continued to count for a long moment before finally reaching the eighteenth building. Standing far away, he began to shout out, “Sis Chen, sis Chen!”

“Your sis Chen is right behind you!”

Just as Wang Chao had begun shouting, a voice could be heard right behind him. Sure enough, it was Tang Zichen that was slowly making her way towards Wang Chao.

Today, Tang Zichen was wearing a clean purple Tang suit that looked quite reserved that exudes a refined manner of grace. In fact, Wang Chao had never seen a girl wear a Tang suit so well before! In an instant, he had been caught dumbstruck.

“Ouch!” Suddenly, Wang Chao felt a shocking pain in his arm as he gritted his teeth together.

“Eh?” Tang Zichen quickly made her way forward before coming to Wang Chao’s side. Lifting his clothes out of the way, she saw the black and blue fist and elbow that he had been hiding.

When Tang Zichen had lifted her arm, the pain Wang Chao had experienced was so much that he felt like he was ready to faint.

Tang Zichen immediately pressed a finger to his skin like a chicken pecking at rice. But the only thing that Wang Chao could feel was a slight amount of numbness before his entire arm no longer hurt, instead, an itching feeling replaced it.

“Come with me!” Tang Zichen took him into the villa where the glass louge was.

The lounge was extraordinarily expansive with floors that seeme to shine brightly. Wang Chao didn’t know what material was used to decorate the interior, but the entire place was made of pure white with some veins of purple and gold.

There was a giant sofa, a suspended plasma screen tv, and even a giant crystal glass wall filled with tropical fish. These were all signs of a wealthy lifestyle.

“How did you manage to get yourself hurt like this?” Tang Zichen sat Wang Chao down and interrogated him.

Wang Chao naturally didn’t hide anything from her and began to speak of his tale.

Tang Zichen calmly listened to Wang Chao until he finished before nodding her head, “You’ve learned the three integrals in two months, that’s not bad. But the three integrals are for strengthening the foundation and strength, not for fighting. That officer Cao is not a bad external practitioner, and you’ve only learned the basics with no fighting experience. Obviously, he was never an opponent you could hope to win against.”

“Sis Chen, what is external martial arts Is there an internal martial arts as well?” Wang Chao asked.

Tang Zichen lifted up her right hand where saw a golden ring on her forefinger. But upon closer inspection, he realized that it was not a gold ring at all, but a golden strand of string. “Martial arts has no inner or outer or internal or external. There are only external and internal practitioners. Back when Sun Lu-Tang and Song Shirong were both alive, they clearly stated what it meant to be an internal or external practitioner. To be good at cultivating Qi was to be an inner practitioner, and to be otherwise was to be an external practitioner. That officer Cai most likely only hardened his muscles, skin and bones and probably isn’t at the Hidden Power stage yet. But, you aren’t either and cannot harden any part of your body, making you weaker than he is.”

“Okay, we’ll talk about that later where I can explain it slowly. First let’s treat your arm. The bruising in your arm is quite severe, if left alone, it may become deformed. But still, your talent is quite good, your sister didn’t choose the wrong person. I’ll teach you all that I know later so that this officer Cao will receive his dues later. We can even break his hand in return later.”

Tang Zichen slowly took the golden ring off of her finger and began to slowly straighten them.

Wang Chao couldn’t help but think about just how much these needles resembled those from acupuncture.

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