Qin Fen exhaled a long, troubled breath. Ten minutes had passed with absolutely no progress. This Zhenqi behaved like guerrillas—if he pursued them, they scattered in all directions; if he paused even momentarily, the internal energies began to batter his meridians, gnawing at the passages like a plague of locusts devouring a harvest.
A bizarre Zhenqi! Qin Fen’s two eyebrows furrowed so tightly they formed the character for "well" () on his brow. No wonder that man dared to withdraw after just one punch, showing no concern for the recovery of his target. Had it been anyone with a less robust physique, they would have been exhausted to the point of collapse long ago, left helpless as the strange Zhenqi consumed their body.
How to annihilate this strange internal energy? Qin Fen’s index and middle fingers tapped the edge of the bed, their rhythm constantly shifting.
Clang... slap...
The silence of the corridor was abruptly shattered by a series of sharp noises, causing nearby personnel to turn their heads.
A young nurse in a white uniform, her cheeks flushed, hurried to crouch down, retrieving the tray that had slipped from her grasp due to momentary inattention, along with the shattered glassware that had been resting upon it.
Sound? Qin Fen’s tightly knotted brows suddenly unfurled. He tilted his head, listening intently to the peculiar sound made by the falling tray striking the floor.
This is it? Qin Fen slowly closed his eyes, sinking once more into the world of Zhenqi within his body.
Sound is produced by air oscillating at a specific frequency. If he could disperse the Zhenqi throughout every single meridian, causing the energy to vibrate incessantly, perhaps those bizarre Zhenqi...
Qin Fen dissipated the Zhenqi gathered inside him, which had felt like heavy hammers. He distributed it bit by bit, aiming for absolute evenness across every meridian. The Zhenqi trembled simultaneously.
Vibration... Failure.
A bitter smile touched the corner of Qin Fen’s mouth. Controlling every unit of Zhenqi in every meridian to release the exact same degree of kinetic force at the precise same moment—this was infinitely more difficult than the sequential control he had managed before.
Control? The bitter smile deepened. He had felt quite pleased with the level of Zhenqi control he displayed earlier that day when fighting a Four-Star with only Two-Star power. Who would have thought that, in the blink of an eye, that level of mastery was no longer anything to boast about?
He required a far stronger control to generate the necessary resonance. Only through vibration, and the subsequent mutual influence it created, could he shatter that aberrant Zhenqi.
Slowly, he took a deep breath, immersing himself again in the internal world of his energy. Strands of Zhenqi were meticulously spread out, striving for the most uniform allocation possible.
Vibration... Failure... Vibration... Failure...
Qin Fen’s body, lying on the bed, convulsed periodically, as if undergoing electric cardioversion via a pacemaker.
Zhao Huzi stroked his chin, grinning repeatedly. “What kind of therapy is this?”
Thump... thump...
His back lifted off the bedboard. Qin Fen sighed internally; another failure. When the synchronous vibration of his internal Zhenqi was achieved, his body should have been as still as a corpse.
“Huh? Why is it jumping again?” Zhao Huzi pressed his face close to the glass, his eyes wide. “His complexion seems a little ruddier; he looks like he’s recovering?”
Success! Qin Fen excitedly opened his eyes. The Zhenqi within him had finally achieved synchronous vibration at the exact same moment. Those rogue, strange energies coursing through him reacted, albeit slightly.
This is it! With a smile in his eyes, Qin Fen closed them again. The Zhenqi vibration could indeed eradicate this invasive energy.
Thump...
Qin Fen’s back lifted from the bedboard once more. The level of precision he could initially command was far from absolute mastery. He grimaced, sinking back into concentration.
Zhao Huzi watched the prone Qin Fen with bewilderment. His body would periodically twitch as if shocked by a defibrillator, then return to the death-like stillness. Moreover, these shocks were growing less frequent, and the intervals of corpse-like repose were lengthening.
Vibration... Vibration...
With each instance of Zhenqi oscillation, the invading energy was gradually suppressed and disintegrated. The internal organs, damaged by the initial assault, were slowly mending.
Qin Fen completely forgot to concern himself with the disappearance of the strange Zhenqi; his entire focus was locked onto the internal vibrations. With every pulse, beyond destroying the foreign energy, his body’s cells seemed to undergo a fresh reorganization through the shaking.
Every vibration generated mutual influence between the streams of Zhenqi. Amidst the oscillation, the energy subtly showed a trend toward enhancement.
Initially visible currents of Zhenqi flowing beneath the skin vanished without a trace. Zhao Huzi’s anxiety and unrest faded, replaced by utter bafflement. How had Qin Fen managed this?
Hum... hum... hum...
The mutual influence between the vibrating Zhenqi intensified. His blood also began to respond to the oscillations; the sound of rolling blood faintly pulsed beneath the insistent beeping of the monitoring equipment.
“General,” the Lieutenant Colonel said quietly into the phone, relaying the news near Zhao Huzi’s ear. “The assailant has been caught. Shall we go take a look?”
“Looks like this kid is completely stable now,” Zhao Huzi let out a long breath. He turned to Xing Wuyi and the others nearby. “You all watch him closely. Nobody enters this room without my express permission. If anyone tries to force their way in, I don’t care who it is—shoot first! If anything goes wrong, I’ll take the fall!”
As Zhao Huzi turned, Xing Wuyi saw the fierce glare emanating from his General’s bell-like eyes. He muttered under his breath, “Who in the hell is trying to cross my Old Zhao? Trying to sever my path to promotion? You better be well hidden! Because if I find you, you’re finished.”
“Who could it be? Who does Qin Fen have an enemy so deep that they wish him dead?” Xing Wuyi pushed up the thin-rimmed gold glasses on his nose, his gaze fixed intently on Qin Fen. “He’s taken such severe injuries. How will he compete in the upcoming Martial Arts Tournament? Characters like Caesar and Yang Lie are already tough nuts to crack. Now, what chance does Qin Fen have?”
Vibration. The last trace of the aberrant, invading Zhenqi dissolved into nothingness under the special frequency of the energy oscillation. Qin Fen opened his mouth again and expelled another cloud of stale air. His eyebrows lifted slightly. His Zhenqi had actually improved amidst the vibration—it was minuscule, but it had improved! What if, while maintaining the vibration, he guided a stream of energy from the same source to travel through his meridians, constantly subjected to that vibration?
Crack!
The hand holding Xing Wuyi’s gold-rimmed glasses violently trembled. His eyes widened in astonishment as he stared at Qin Fen’s back suddenly recoiling off the bed.
What? Xing Wuyi removed the glasses gifted by Du Zhanpeng and gently rubbed his eyes. The height and force of that single rebound—if translated into pacemaker readings, it would probably require three times the maximum pulse to achieve that level. The man had sprung nearly half a foot off the mattress.
Pfft...
As Qin Fen fell back onto the bed, he spat out a mouthful of blood. The Zhenqi inside him seemed to detonate like a bomb barrel, followed by his viscera feeling like a massive, blazing inferno.
“Hoo... hoo... hoo...” Qin Fen gasped for air in huge gulps. “As expected, simply synchronizing the Zhenqi vibration is the temporary limit of my control. I absolutely cannot afford to divert focus to guide another stream of energy simultaneously. I never expected that scattering the frequencies of the oscillating energy to impact the circulating Zhenqi would cause this outcome.”
“Qin Fen,” Xing Wuyi pressed the intercom button for the room, leaning close to the microphone to speak softly. “Are you alright?”
“Fine,” Qin Fen wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with the stained sheet and managed to sit up, shaking his head with a wry smile. “A small accident occurred.”
Xing Wuyi lightly patted his chest. “That’s a relief. You rest up; just ask if you need anything.”
“Understood.”
Qin Fen lay back down, assessing the condition inside his body.
The unhealed internal injuries had been compounded. That recent shock had even aggravated the slight fracture in his arm. Aside from the absence of that grotesque, bone-maggot-like Zhenqi, his physical damage was worse than before.
“Control... control...”
Qin Fen clenched his left hand into a fist and lightly tapped the bed frame. If his control was strong enough, he was certain that using the Zhenqi vibration method for training would drastically accelerate the progress of the Dragon-Elephant Prajñā Paramita technique. What he lacked now was mastery over the degree of control. As for his physical wounds, with modern technology combined with the Zhenqi vibration therapy, he believed he would recover quickly.
Xing Wuyi gently slid his fingers over the bridge of his nose, staring at Qin Fen with confusion, muttering softly, “What is up with this man? He’s clearly severely injured, yet his brow radiates immense confidence? He shows no concern about how the injury will affect his combat effectiveness?”
Qin Fen’s room returned to silence. The hospital functioned as usual, with over a dozen soldiers maintaining armed patrols around the perimeter.
Xing Wuyi looked out at the night sky and sighed deeply. “I wonder who the assassin was? Someone capable of inflicting such heavy damage on Qin Fen?”
“Ninth on the Blood List?” Zhao Huzi held up a small red metal plaque he had taken from Xue Tian. “That’s right! This plaque is the identification marker for the Blood List. But when did the Blood List gain a ninth member? Weren’t there always just eight known names?”
“General...” Xue Tian pointed at the red metal tag. “The Blood List, what is that?”
“The Blood List.” Zhao Huzi raised his thick eyebrows. “What? You all don’t know?”
Lin Liqiang, Xue Tian, and Chen Feiyu exchanged glances, shaking their heads and shrugging.
“It’s not surprising you don’t know,” Zhao Huzi said, kicking the corpse of Xue Wuying lightly. “You’ve heard of the assassin profession, right? In the world of assassins, there are three major rankings: the Death List, the Fierce List, and the Blood List!”
Xue Tian also kicked Xue Wuying’s body. “Is the Blood List the weakest of these three?”
“You can’t say that,” Zhao Huzi replied, settling onto a sofa brought by his aide. “The reason for the ranking differs among the three lists, so you can’t definitively say one is the strongest. For instance, the Death List is generally considered the most powerful. But the Seventh on the Blood List holds the title of King of Assassins; even the First on the Death List admits this. Rumor has it that the Blood List was founded by the Seventh on the Blood List.”
“The Seventh on the Blood List?” Xue Tian was puzzled. “If he’s that formidable, why isn’t he ranked First on the Blood List?”
Lin Liqiang and Chen Feiyu nodded in agreement; the structure of the Blood List and the hierarchy of the assassin world sounded somewhat chaotic.
“The Seventh is ranked there because he has killed fewer people; his data doesn't qualify him for the top spot,” Zhao Huzi sighed, shaking his head. “But he is the most expensive, costing more than even the First on the Death List.”
“Oh, I see,” Xue Tian then kicked the corpse of Xue Wuying a few times. “So what does this Ninth on the Blood List mean?”
“I’m not sure about that either,” Zhao Huzi spread his hands. “The only certainty is that anyone qualified to enter the Blood List is absolutely not weak.”
“Hmph...” Xue Tian smirked coldly. “I imagine the price for the Ninth on the Blood List wasn’t cheap either? Who exactly held such a deep, irreconcilable hatred for Qin Fen to be willing to pay such a high price for murder? This isn’t something an ordinary family could afford.”
“Whoever it was, the person who hired this killer is about to have a very bad day,” Lin Liqiang stretched languidly. “That person probably doesn’t realize they’ve offended the one person they absolutely could not afford to cross.”
“The one person you shouldn’t cross?” Zhao Huzi looked at Lin Liqiang with surprise. “Boy, who is that?”
“Heh heh,” Lin Liqiang grinned mysteriously and lowered his voice. “A secret.”
...
Zhao Huzi stared blankly at Lin Liqiang, his fierce mouth slowly splitting into a grin. “Hahaha! It’s been a long time since someone dared to play games with my Old Zhao like that. You’ve got spirit, kid! Now, you all can go get some rest. There’s a competition tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, General,” Xue Tian and Chen Feiyu snapped crisp salutes. “We’ll leave the handling of this corpse to you.”
“Got it, off you go,” Zhao Huzi closed the door, his eyes shifting to a rare expression of caution. “Who on earth seriously injured this man? Why did I not sense the presence of the attacker at all? With the Ninth on the Blood List dead, Qin Fen is probably in trouble. For the sake of the Blood List’s reputation, those assassins on it will come after him even without payment. That kid Qin Fen should be much better by now, right?”
“Qin Fen is much better,” Xing Wuyi gestured toward the Qin Fen visible behind the glass. “Look, I don’t know if he’s asleep or practicing his skills.”
“Is that so?” Lin Liqiang lifted his chin to examine Qin Fen closely. “He still looks pretty heavily injured.”
“Nothing can be done,” Xing Wuyi shook his head. “The one who attacked Qin Fen was overwhelmingly superior in strength. It’s a miracle he survived at all. If someone of Qin Fen’s own strength had taken that punch, they’d have been killed instantly.”
Chen Feiyu nodded lightly. It was only Qin Fen’s incredibly tough physique—the same one that could fell an Eight-Star Scaly Ape while only at Six-Star strength—that allowed him to retreat with severe injuries rather than die.
“Surviving was luck, but what happens next...” Xue Tian rested both hands on the window frame of Qin Fen’s room. “Old Qin is probably facing trouble. The Rookie Competition won’t pause just because he’s injured, waiting for him to fully recover. If he insists on competing, he’ll have to fight wounded.”
“Yin Shao, this is Qiangzi.” Lin Liqiang leaned against the window. “Old Qin was ambushed and seriously hurt. The hospital here is decent, but there aren’t any truly capable apothecaries...”
“Get the doctor’s full medical report and forward it to me online,” Inzarota hung up the phone and reached over to turn on the computer beside the bed.
“My God,” Lin Liqiang stared at the phone that had just been hung up, grimacing. “Old Qin’s charisma is boundless. He actually got Old Yin, who barely speaks, to utter a complete sentence.”