Qing Shan was only able to watch helplessly as the Young Miss began to go on a rant. She started listing out every bad feature of Qing Shan's from what she had seen and what she had fabricated. Somehow, she soon began taking about the first time that she saw him.
"I had just been walking with a group of my friends for some fun in the District. I had decided to treat myself to some jewelry to celebrate raising my cultivation, as I had been at a bottleneck for a while. While debating where to go, one of my friends had told me of a very reputable smith, Senior Teng. Unfortunately, after I arrived at his shop he would not shop me any jewelry, even though he obviously had made some. I do not like when people lie to me, so I called him out. Then, he audaciously kicked ME out of his shop. What was he thinking? Then as I was leaving, my good day ruined, I heard this idiot burst into laughter. When I confronted him, he pretended to be a kind and polite child, while obviously mocking me. After that day, I had been keeping an eye out for this boy, hoping to teach him a lesson. Who would have known that I would be lucky enough to run into him while I was with Elder Brother…"
The Young Miss trailed off. A crowd had now formed around the brother-sister pair from the Rising Sun Clan and Qing Shan.
'Pitiful, the girl just wants attention. Now that she has everyone's eyes on her, she will try to punish me. Hilarious.'
While Qing Shan was somewhat concerned about the man that seemed especially strong, this concern was entirely overshadowed by Qing Shan's disgust at the pampered girl. In the beginning, he had felt pity that she wanted attention so much that she would go through all this trouble, but that pity had entirely dissolved. Qing Shan hated being bullied, almost as much as he hated being negatively before others.
Qing Shan was the kind of person that would definitely not mind being viewed positively, and grudgingly accepted being viewed according to his actions. However, he now found out that he really loathed people wrongly portraying him for their gain.
The Young Miss turned toward her Elder Brother.
"Seeing as this boy has raised no complaints to my few criticisms, I suggest we let him off lightly. Please beat him so that he will not feel comfortable for the next month. Breaking bones is okay too."
At this, it was not only Qing Shan who looked disgruntled. Black lines ran down the heads of almost everyone present. They almost all thought the same thing simultaneously.
'You call that a few criticisms!?'
The bystanders quickly discarded their annoyance at the Young Miss. There was no point holding such feelings toward someone as untouchable as the third daughter of the Rising Sun Clan's Clan Master. They were all excited to see the brutal beatdown that they felt was about to occur.
Unfortunately for them, Qing Shan was not going to take all of this lying down. While his arm was still held immobile by the strong grip of the Young Master who had not yet spoke. Surprisingly, that man had not loosened his grip at all while the Young miss was talking. This was surprising, as it meant that he had actually stayed vigilant for the whole half hour his sister was talking. However, even though the man had stayed vigilant, his reaction speed was still dulled because he had been mentally quieting his sister's voice.
Suddenly, Qing Shan who had been immobile until now, moved. His right arm that was being held by the man's left stayed in place. Qing Shan knew that this man was to powerful for him to break his grip. Thus, Qing Shan tightened up his body and exploded upwards, jumping with a burst of Qi to the loop at his Second Meridian. He compressed his body again in midair, and catapulted back toward the other side of the man. The arm that was being held by the man actually had the act of holding the other man in place, as Qing Shan could mist likely dislocate his shoulder from his position above the man. Qing Shan landed in a peculiar position.
Qing Shan's legs were rapped around the man's sides tightly, pressing inward. Qing Shan's right arm pulled around the right side of the man's neck and down, effectively using the man's own arms to put him in a chokehold. Qing Shan's left arm was wide upon to defend against any attacks from the man's free arm.
At this point, Qing Shan had activated the Qi loop on his Fifth Meridian, evenly strengthening his whole body. Unfortunately, this meant that Qing Shan was not nearly as strong as when he only strengthened one body part.
Almost immediately after Qing Shan placed him in the chokehold, The move Qing Shan had been awaiting had arrived. The man had used his right arm to reach onto his back. His moves where not overtly fast, but they contained an unspeakable power to them. Qing Shan quickly raised his own free arm, trying to block the hand that suddenly grabbed toward his face.
Puchi!
Against Qing Shan's expectations, the man was way stronger than Qing Shan had thought. His hand literally pierced through Qing Shan's, blowing away some of his bones in an explosion of gore.
"Oh God Damnit!"
Although people around thought that Qing Shan was cussing due to being in pain, and actually sent looks of sympathy toward him, the truth was that Qing Shan was cursing himself for underestimating his opponent. He had overcome pain like this a long time ago while tempering his body.
From this point on, the fight turned into an anticlimactic beatdown. The man grabbed Qing Shan by the face and easily pulled him over his body before slamming Qing Shan against the ground. He then proceeded to stomp on Qing Shan until all of his ribs were broken, and he was bleeding from his seven orifices. His arms had been smashed until his bones had split, but his legs were untouched except for some heavy bruising.
The man then looked toward his sister.
"Can I be done now? You know I do not enjoy beating people too easily. And by the way, you owe me for this."
The Young Miss nodded that she understood, and walked away happily. However, if she could heart he thoughts of her brother, she would surely be surprised.
'That kid… He could certainly be a fun opponent in the future. I have never seen a movement skill like that that allows someone to change direction in mid-air. And using my own arm to try to strangle me was ingenious! Unfortunately, once that kid reaches my cultivation level, he will most likely be far stronger than me. If it were not for the differences in our cultivation, I would not have been confident.'
The Eldest Young Master of the Rising Sun Clan was usually someone who looked down on all of the people around him. People called him arrogant, but the truth was that his 'arrogance' was well deserved. He was after all, the youngest Peak Formation Soul cultivator in the history of the Rising Sun Clan, Xuri Qiang, twenty-three years of age.
The brother-sister pair walked away, an undertone of arrogance within their every stride. Watching them leave, the crowd also began to disperse, leaving the broken and bloodied Qing Shan on the ground.
No one offered to help Qing Shan. The most that Qing Shan got was a few pitying glances. After all, everyone felt that Qing Shan had gotten what he deserved. He had stupidly offended the Rising Sun Clan.
Soon, Senior Teng, who had been manning his shop as per usual, got the news. He had not thought that Qing Shan had been beaten beforehand. This was because it had become quite common for Qing Shan to skip his meeting a day or two every week.
Naturally, when one of his regular costumers came in and told him that he had seen Qing Shan get beaten up by the Eldest Young Master of the Rising Sun Clan, Senior Teng immediately rushed out to the scene. He knew that this costumer had seen Qing Shan plenty of times as he came to the store, more than enough to memorize the boy's face.
When Senior Teng arrived over Qing Shan's now-unconscious form, a grim look ran over his face. There were a few things that he wanted to do at the moment, but his student came first. He brought Qing Shan back to his shop and brought him up to the second floor, a place where Qing Shan had never been. Now, there was not anything special about this space, it just had a bed and a few of the old man's belongings. After laying Qing Shan on the bed and carefully applying a few medicinal pastes and bandages to the boy's body, Senior Teng bolted from the room, rage quite apparent on his face.
After he felt his Teacher was gone, Qing Shan opened his eyes.
'Fhew, he did not check my pulse. However, with the state he was in, Qing Shan would not be surprised if Senior Teng checked his pulse, but still missed the fact that he was actually conscious.'
Weakly, Qing Shan tried to move his hand.
He felt a large jolt of pain rush through him.
Even Qing Shan, who was well acquainted with pain, had trouble keeping silent as he moved. However, he knew he would be able to heal as long as he could move his damned arm!
Crack!
With a loud sound, Qing Shan managed to jolt one of his arms toward his neck, crying out in pain for the first time as the bone cleanly cracked due to the motion of his arm.
Qing Shan let out a mental sigh of relief when his hand touched the locket, and yet another sigh when he found himself standing before the Primal Water in the pocket dimension.
Qing Shan took a few steps forward, the motion of his legs not nearly as painful as motion of his arms, and fell headfirst into the Primal Water. As Qing Shan felt the warm healing sensation of the Primal Water, he had trouble convincing himself to get up. However, now that he was healed he knew that he should get back to the real world.
'I wonder what the old man would think if I tell him that I have a fast recovery speed… There is a chance he will believe me, Right?'
Once he found himself sitting back on Senior Teng's bed, Qing Shan began to wonder how he would explain his healing to Senior Teng.
Suddenly, Qing Shan heard a loud series of noises.
He felt the ground and building rumble around him, and heard countless explosions in the distance. The sounds all seemed to be coming from the North. However, since the sounds seemed to be coming from a distance away, Qing Shan concurred that they were not coming from the northern part of the Market District, but instead from the Northern District of the city.
Qing Shan felt a sinking feeling in his gut, and internally begged that his suspicion was false.
Unfortunately, he did not think that he was wrong. The Northern District belonged to the Rising Sun Clan, after all.
Not caring to think about his own transformation from half-way crippled to perfectly healthy and how it would be viewed, Qing Shan ran out into the streets, hoping that he would be able to stop what he expected was Senior Teng's rampage.
Qing Shan had good reason to believe that Senior Teng had the power to make explosions such as the ones that he could still hear ringing out every few seconds. He knew that his Teacher had a wide amount of knowledge and was from a lower layer. For all Qing Shan knew, Senior Teng may very well be in the realm beyond Origin Soul.
Pushing his body to its limits and running like he had a spring inside his body, Qing Shan reached the entrance to Rising Sun Clan's territory in less than a minute.
What he saw astonished him.
Qing Shan saw the ground split with large fissures crisscrossing the area between the Rising Sun Clan's pagodas. He saw fires setting the grass alight, and the ruins of at least ten homes.
Qing Shan then saw something that finally confirmed his expectation.
Senior Teng stood looking at the largest pagoda in the Northern district, the dwelling of the Clan Master and his family. However, Qing Shan soon realized that he was wrong.
Senior Teng was not looking at the Pagoda, but the figures in front of it. Based on the fact that he saw that Young Miss cowering behind Xuri Qiang, Qing Shan guessed that this was the main family of the Clan.
In front of the group of twenty or so people, two men, one old and one middle-aged, stood, prepared to receive Senior Teng's attack.
"I do not want to kill you, but a few of your clan members have gone and crippled my student.
Senior Teng raised his hands, ad Qi began to glow brightly. Trying stop his master, Qing Shan ran forward.