But if he told the young lady, she would surely be heartbroken, and might do something desperate; yet if he kept his silence, once she learned the truth she would harbor a grudge against him in her heart... For a time Elder Li stood caught between two evils, at a loss for what to do.

"Wei Zhao, you are far too unfitting a bodyguard, to desert your post at a time like this! Should anything happen to the little miss, I will never let you off!" Elder Li ground his teeth and thought to himself: "The day of the Heaven Rank Tournament draws ever nearer. Once it arrives and the Supreme Elder is away from the Dark Night Palace, I will go down that mountain and slaughter every last one of you, leaving no chicken and no dog alive! The Yu family, the Xiao family, the Golden Bell Sect, the hidden Pi family, the hidden Zhao family - I will lead men and wipe out your entire clans!"

Meanwhile, at the gate of the Gu family villa, the tension was still running high.

"Then I'll hit you, alright?" Er Goudan looked up at Jin Wudi standing before him, head thrown back and chest thrust out, and asked.

"Go ahead and hit me!" Jin Wudi stood proudly in the courtyard, his eyes brimming with contempt. "Forget some ignorant pup like you - even those renowned masters of the hidden families would not dare claim they could kill this old man with a single punch. Never mind killing; ask them whether one punch could even wound this old man! Snapping a single one of this old man's bones would be utterly impossible!"

Er Goudan nodded, set his teeth, gathered his breath, leveled both fists, took aim - and threw his punch with all his might!

With a thunderous crack, Jin Wudi vanished.

"Huh? Where'd he go?" Er Goudan blinked in blank surprise.

Zhen Yingjun let out an explosive guffaw: "Ha ha ha ha! Ancestor Wudi simply dodged, that's all - and here you are asking where he went. Look at that stupid face of yours!"

But had Jin Wudi really dodged? Er Goudan felt certain he had landed the blow, and with every ounce of strength he possessed! Though Er Goudan had no idea just how formidable an Earth Rank master truly was, one look at those smug faces told him they must be terribly strong.

To kill this man, Er Goudan had been forced to pour all his strength into that single punch, meaning to finish Jin Wudi off in one blow and be rid of him for good! As it happened, there had been no need for a sneak attack - Jin Wudi had handed him the chance to strike at full power all on his own!

The instant the punch left his fist, Er Goudan felt a surge of blood and qi rush upward through his body. The gu poison inside him could no longer be held down, and began to stir restlessly! The strength Er Goudan could draw upon was finite - each use left him with less than before - and having spent it all on this one blow, he had pitched himself to the very edge of his limits.

Still, for all his simple honesty, Er Goudan was no fool. At a moment like this he must not betray a single sign of weakness, or Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu would be in mortal danger, and the task his leader had entrusted to him would be lost!

A pang of regret struck Er Goudan. The first time he had laid eyes on Pi Yangyang and Mr. Pi, he ought to have killed them with one punch, instead of wasting so much strength - and now, in the end, having to throw a second one after all!

Only a simpleton like Zhen Yingjun still believed Jin Wudi had dodged. Pi Zhishan's face, by now, had gone thoroughly ghastly...

"Jin Wudi is dead!" Wu Chengtian suddenly cried out in excitement, pointing at the wall across the street outside the villa!

Everyone followed Wu Chengtian's gaze. There was Jin Wudi, his entire body driven deep into the wall opposite the villa, both sides of his chest caved in, his eyes bulging from their sockets, his lips running with fresh blood - plainly beyond any hope of life.

Er Goudan let out a breath of relief. Dead was good enough! He simply hadn't reckoned that his punch carried such force it had hurled Jin Wudi clear across the street - no wonder he had still been looking around for the man, thinking he had up and vanished!

"Huh?" Zhao Qibing froze on the spot. "Beaten to death?"

Pi Zhishan drew a deep breath and strode toward Er Goudan.

"What do you want? Don't tell me you want to die too?" Er Goudan blustered, fierce of face but hollow within - for asking him to throw another punch like that was beyond him now.

"Hero Goudan, you misunderstand..." Pi Zhishan checked his steps without thinking and dared not go another pace forward. The creature might look guileless and slow-witted, yet it was ready to beat a man dead at the drop of a hat. Pi Zhishan was not about to presume upon himself; to be slain by this thing as a "dangerous person" would be a gain far outweighed by the loss!

"Misunderstand what?" Er Goudan asked.

"There seems to have been some misunderstanding between the Pi family and you before. I am Pi Zhishan, young master of the Pi family. On behalf of our two Pi family men, I offer you our apologies. Our Pi family has no wish to make enemies of you and your leader Wei Zhao. I beg Hero Goudan not to hold it against us!" Pi Zhishan could bend as well as stretch. For the proud first-in-line heir of the hidden Pi family to utter such words was no easy thing, but a man under another's roof has no choice but to bow his head. Pi Zhishan had read the situation clearly: this Er Goudan was simply too savage. A practitioner who had brought the Golden Bell Shield to such perfection as Jin Wudi, and he could be killed with a single punch at a word? Then beating Pi Zhishan would be nothing but child's play!

Even his own father, Pi Jiake, had been helpless against Jin Wudi. So if this man were to strike his father, he would probably find it easy and pleasant enough!

"Oh, those two from before I already beat to death - they've had their lesson. I won't be troubling you. If there's nothing else, be on your way!" For all the easy air Er Goudan put on, he was inwardly in a desperate hurry. He was fighting back a mouthful of blood, and the struggle had already made him wretchedly ill.

"In that case, Pi takes his leave. Consider it a debt the Pi family owes you, Hero. In future, should you ever need anything, you have only to give the word and it shall be done!" Seeing that Er Goudan had no wish to be bothered with him, Pi Zhishan cupped his fists in salute, gestured to the Xiao brothers, and led them away.

At this moment Xiao Wangba and Xiao Wangdao were bitter with regret. The fault lay in their own big mouths - had they known Wu Chengtian's leader was so formidable, why ever had they run on so? If only there had been a pill of regret to swallow, how gladly the Xiao family would have thrown in with Wei Zhao from the start, how dazzling that would have been! And just look - the Wu family's glory was now only a matter of days.

Zhen Dazhou and Zhen Yingjun, father and son, stood gaping. Just like that, the man was dead? Heavens above, what manner of nightmare were these people? Last time, though Ma Zhu had been gravely hurt, he had at least survived. This time they had barely exchanged a few words before the fellow was beaten to death!

The two exchanged a glance and saw the same fear mirrored in each other's eyes. When Ma Zhu was injured last time, father and son had still nursed thoughts of revenge. But now they knew revenge had become a laughingstock. If an Earth Rank master could be killed with a single punch, then what difference, in those people's eyes, was there between the two of them and a pair of ants?

Had they known this was how it would turn out, they should have listened to Zou Ruoming! It turned out his words had truly been counsel of gold and jade, not one lie in them - this Lord Lin was genuinely not someone to provoke!

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