CH 24

There were only two pairs of ice clogs. Chi Tong and Su Yang each had on a pair and were speeding across the icy surface. The others had gathered under the hanging ice waterfall in preparation for the climbing competition.

Su Yang skated with Chi Tong for a while and the two gradually neared the ice waterfall to watch.

The first pair to compete was Xu Yunzhan and Gu Feidi.

Both their light footwork skills were about the same, but after Gu Feidi had achieved Restoration Scripture’s breakthrough, his internal strength was more profound than Xu Yunzhan. His dagger pierced deeply into the ice waterfall, providing him with a more stable point of support.

In the end, there was no doubt that Gu Feidi was the winner.

The two descended from the ice waterfall slowly with the support of their daggers. Once on the ground, they gave each other a playful punch and smiled in passing.

Immediately afterwards, Pu Lingyun directly challenged Fan Xi.

They both were training under Li shijie at the same time and were practicing light and dexterous martial arts. Although Pu Lingyun’s internal strength was better than Fan Xi’s, Fan Xi’s light footwork was more exquisite than Pu Lingyun’s. Both skills more or less offset one another, so it was really unpredictable to determine who was better without having them compete against one another.

Fan Xi was expectedly unafraid of Pu Lingyun’s provocation and readily responded.

Each of them wielded a dagger and were making preparations under the ice waterfall. As the referee, Xu Yunzhan gave the signal and the two immediately leapt up.

They pierced the tips of the daggers into the ice waterfall with internal force. Their figures were like swallows flitting about in the air. They turned over and up with great dexterity. With a leap, the dagger in hand, they quickly withdrew out of the ice and pierced deeper into a higher spot.

In the blink of an eye, two figures: one yellow and one green, had quickly climbed to the center of the ice waterfall.

“Although the Qinglian Sect’s Hanging Dragonfly Verse cannot compare to the Devil Sect’s Prized Flower Steps, it is indeed an extremely rare light footwork skill.”

Beneath the ice waterfall, Xu Yunzhan looked at the two people above and laughed: “No wonder Tengyun Pavilion’s Swiftlet Strike Breeze is not yet known in the martial arts circles.”

Gu Feidi nodded and said: “That’s true. But Tengyun Pavilion focuses on internal strength and is a pure and upright way, we do not really put research into light footwork. Besides, Swiftlet Strike Breeze is not so much a light footwork skill; more of a close combat technique.”

Xu Yunzhan said: “Lingyun has learned a lot of new things from following Li shijie’s teachings. Her handling of Swiftlet Strike Breeze looks more impressive than yours.”

Gu Feidi said: “Martial arts are not static. If she can find a way to change the Swiftlet Strike Breeze to better suit herself, my father would be very pleased.”

While they were talking, the two competitors were about to reach the top of the ice waterfall.

Pu Lingyun was a woman after all. As such, her strength was a bit weaker than that of a man’s and she was slightly behind. Seeing that the situation wasn’t in her favour, she pursed her lips, stabbed her dagger into the ice, flipped over and stepped on the handle. She pulled out the soft whip from around her waist, swung it towards Fan Xi, catching his ankle and was about to pull him down with it.

“Lingyun! Danger!” Xu Yunzhan immediately mobilized his internal strength and shouted: “How can you act like this!”

Fan Xi was unstable, but reacted very quickly. He immediately pulled out the dagger, did a backflip and drove the blade into the ice wall under his feet. He balanced steadily on the tips of his toes.

“No harm done.” He smiled and made a gesture down the waterfall and shouted: “I can handle this situation!”

After that, he turned around and leaped up slightly. Pu Lingyun was about to jump higher when her ankle was caught by Fan Xi who pulled her down.

There were two daggers nailed into the ice waterfall, one high and one low, their blades were buried in the ice and only the hilts were exposed.

Obviously, there were only two extremely narrow footholds, but Pu Lingyun and Fan Xi actually started to exchange moves at the top of the ice waterfall while standing on these dagger hilts. Everyone who was witnessing the scene from below were frightened, but they couldn’t help secretly applauding.

Pu Lingyun’s and Fan Xi’s physiques were very light and dexterous, their toes balanced lightly on the handle of the daggers and their clothes fluttering with their movements. The two were entangled with each other’s moves, unwilling to allow either to take the lead, but they used each other’s body as a landing point to provide themselves with the support to jump upwards.

For a moment, the two silhouettes of goose yellow and green resembled two birds fighting in the air.

This was a very theatrical match, much more exciting than the contests on the ground in the martial arts field.

Even Su Yang couldn’t help but stop skating and watching the two with admiration as they danced on the daggers hanging in the air—although they were dancing on the hilt of blades, it was just as thrilling as dancing on the tip of a knife. There was no difference.

Pu Lingyun and Fan Xi fought inextricably for some time.

Pu Lingyun looked at Fan Xi’s beastly smiling face. She suddenly narrowed her eyes and made a misstep with her feet, missing the handle of the dagger and abruptly tumbling.

Xu Yunzhan and Gu Feidi subconsciously rushed forward to rescue her.

But Fan Xi was quicker than them.

——He used the bottom of his foot to hook onto the handle of the dagger and hung upside down. Then, he reached out and grabbed Pu Lingyun’s wrist and hauled her upwards while trying hard to stabilize her figure in the air.

Pu Lingyun looked up and saw Fan Xi’s horror-filled expression gradually dissolve and finally turn into a relieved smile.

“You scared me to death,” he said.

A sly smile pulled at the corner of Pu Lingyun’s mouth and she winked at Fan Xi.

Before Fan Xi had time to react, he saw Pu Lingyun use the force of his pull to flip upwards. She swung her soft whip to wrap around the handle of the higher dagger and haul herself skywards. Then, she tiptoed on the dagger handle which was supported by the blade lodged in the ice and leapt from the dagger onto the top of the waterfall.

Pu Lingyun peeked out from above the waterfall, looked down at Fan Xi who had just stepped back onto the dagger and smiled, “You fell for my trick! Do you accept defeat?”

Fan Xi squatted helplessly and admitted, “Fine, you’ve won.”

Pu Lingyun said: “Naturally, I won. Since I’ve won, naturally I should receive an accolade!”

Fan Xi raised his eyebrows and asked, “What do you want?”

Pu Lingyun tapped her cheek and looked to the bottom where Su Yang was standing on the ice surface of Jade Mirror Pond: “I want you to teach me how to play ice games!”

Fan Xi laughed, “That’s easy.”

After the two had reached a deal, only then did they descend the ice waterfall one after another.

Fan Xi sought Chi Tong to discuss the return of his ice clogs so that he could give them to Pu Lingyun to use, but Chi Tong wasn’t happy. Su Yang approached just in time to hear this and he relinquished the ice clogs that he was wearing.

“Having seen you scale the ice waterfall, I feel like having a go at it too.” He smiled, “This Young Saint shall naturally try; can’t undermine the prestige of Prized Flower Steps.”

As he spoke, he withdrew the dagger from his waist, twirled it between his fingers and turned to look at Gu Feidi: “Shall we compete for one round?”

Gu Feidi was silent for a moment, then he took out his own dagger, stepped forward and stood beside Su Yang.

Xu Yunzhan raised his eyebrows and said, “I’ll be the referee.”

Once the signal sounded, Su Yang mobilized his strength and leapt into the air with his Prized Flower Steps, piercing the dagger into the ice waterfall. He then turned upwards and quickly approached the top of the waterfall. Gu Feidi was on par with him. His martial arts proficiency made up for the gap between the two in light footwork exercises. They were almost evenly matched and neither showed a clear advantage.

The dagger was drawn out of the ice waterfall extracting a small piece of finely shattered ice.

The blade pierced into the ice again and with the help of internal force, it seemed to be slicing through a piece of tofu as it suddenly plunged into it.

The ice layer made a very slight crackling sound and it appeared to have fissures and cracks spreading within it.

Gu Feidi’s figure stopped completely.

He felt an abnormal vibration from the palm of his hand, it was fairly short, but very obvious.

“Su Yang, slow down—”

He looked up suddenly, attempting to stop Su Yang’s movements.

Su Yang stabbed the dagger into the ice waterfall and glanced back at Gu Feidi uncertainly.

In that instant!

There was a burst of widespread cracks in the ice waterfall. It only took a second for the inside and outside fractures from the place that Pu Lingyun and Fan Xi had fought earlier, to extend all the way to the base of the ice waterfall.

Su Yang’s pupils widened instantly and he clung to the handle of the dagger, not knowing how to react.

The ice waterfall completely ruptured and a huge wedge of ice as high as twenty seven feet crashed down onto the Jade Mirror Pond below!

Xu Yunzhan and Chi Tong who were standing below the ice waterfall instinctively tried to escape with light footwork, but they weren’t fast enough for the collapsing ice block.

The large chunk of the ice waterfall smashed onto the icy surface. The upper layer of ice which had originally appeared to be frozen solid became as brittle as a dry leaf under such an immense impact and promptly shattered apart into countless fragments.

The frigid icy waters beneath the fragments of ice cracks splashed onto the surface and made it even more slippery.

“BIAO GE!”

In the distance, Pu Lingyun, who had been learning ice games from Fan Xi, let out a scream and started to rush forwards.

Fan Xi grabbed her wrist in an attempt to hold her back.

Without warning, the cracks in the ice had quickly spread to their area and both of them were suddenly standing on broken slabs of ice. The ice slabs tilted due to their weight, causing them to lose balance and fall into the icy water.

Pu Lingyun was an average swimmer but she was hindered by the heavy ice clogs strapped to her feet, so for a moment, she couldn’t float properly and could only hold onto Fan Xi next to her.

Fan Xi gritted his teeth, not caring about anything. He held onto Pu Lingyun from behind as tightly as he could with both arms and swam them both to the banks of Jade Mirror Pond. It wasn’t until they both reached the shallows and could feel the ground beneath their feet that he breathed a sigh of relief and helped Pu Lingyun ashore step by step.

“Biao ge…” Pu Lingyun recovered from the shock, turned around and shouted into the distance, “Biao ge! Xiao shixiong——!”

At this moment, the pond below the ice waterfall was already a huge mess.

Even if the youngsters possessed martial arts, when faced with the unrelenting power of nature, there was a limit to what they could do. They had exhausted all of their abilities protecting themselves from being injured by the broken ice.

When Su Yang fell from the high portion of the ice waterfall, he had planned to use his Prized Flower Steps to help Gu Feidi, both of them supporting each other in mid-air while he tried to slow down the speed of the fall. However, when they finally fell into the water, the impact was too strong and they lost track of each other.

The icy pond water was numbing, mixed with large and small pieces of crushed ice, stirred up grit and silt from the bottom of the pond, making it almost impossible to distinguish the surroundings.

Su Yang reluctantly opened his eyes in the filthy water and swam to the nearest figure. The person was injured and blood had begun to spread in the water. He didn’t care to see who this person was, he just hauled him by the arm and brought the person to the water’s surface. After exhausting all his strength to drag the man up the shore, Su Yang realised that he had rescued Xu Yunzhan, who was teetering on unconsciousness.

A grey figure broke through the water beside him, staggering and dragging Chi Tong to the shore.

Fan Xi stepped forward to support the two of them and remarked in surprise: “Luo Yin? Why are you here!”

Luo Yin clung to the unconscious Chi Tong in his arms, his teeth chattered because of the cold and he couldn’t utter a single word.

Pu Lingyun was about to pull Xu Yunzhan over from Su Yang, but her expression suddenly changed.

——“Where’s xiao shixiong?!”