Eagle Shooting Hero 1(5)

meters / approx 11ft] even though he is only walking. Such levels of qing gong [lightness kung fu]

are rarely heard of in the world.

The two of them looked at each other in astonishment. Yang Tiexin yelled out: "Reverend, please stop!" The Taoist turned around and nodded at Yang Tiexin. Yang Tiexin continued: "With such weather outside, Reverend, why don't you come inside and drink a couple of bowls to warm up."

The Taoist sneered and in an instant arrived in front of them. Face full of disdain, he asked coldly:

"You want me to stop, what for? Be frank and tell me!"

Yang Tiexin thought the Taoist's rudeness was completely uncalled for, so he just lowered his head and didn't bother to answer. Guo Xiaotian cupped his fist and replied: "The two of us were just sitting by the fire keeping warm and drinking wine when we saw the Reverend walking alone in the snow. So we boldly asked Reverend to join us, please forgive us for our offenses." The Taoist rolled his eyes and said rather loudly: "Alright, alright! If you want to drink, then let's drink!" And he walked through the door.

This made Yang Tiexin even madder, he grabbed the Taoist's left wrist, and with a pull he shouted:

"You still haven't told us how to address the Reverend." Suddenly he felt as if he was grabbing onto a slippery fish rather than a hand as the Taoist's hand escaped his grasp. He knew he was in trouble and tried to back away; but before he could a pain shot through his wrist as the Taoist grabbed it. It was as if he was cuffed, and feeling both enormous pressure and heat, he hurriedly tried to struggle out of the Taoist's grasp. His entire right arm felt lifeless and weak, and his wrist was in great pain.

Guo Xiaotian knew, judging from his blood red face, his adopted brother was getting the worst of it.

He just wanted to make an acquaintance and wanted to avoid offending the Taoist; or anyone in the martial world for that matter. So he spoke up: "Reverend, please sit here." The Taoist sneered a couple of times more and let go of Yang Tiexin. He walked to the center of the room and sat down with a rather arrogant matter before saying: "The two of you are obviously from Shangdong, yet are Eagle Shooting Hero

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here pretending to be farmers. It’s a pity that your accents are still obviously the Shangdong accent.

Why would a peasant know any kung fu anyway?"

Yang Tiexin felt both embarrassed and angry as he walked into the backroom. He took out a small dagger from the drawer and hid it in this shirt before walking back out again. He poured out three bowls of wine and toasted one for himself, all the while not saying a word.

That Taoist just stared at the snow outside of the house with an arrogant look on his face, not drinking any wine nor saying anything. From the hostility on the Taoist's face, Guo Xiaotian figured that he is suspicious of trickery in the wine. So he took the bowl of wine in front of the Taoist and drank it. Then he said: "Wine gets cold very quickly. Reverend, let me get another warm one for you." He poured another bowl for the Taoist, which the Taoist drank down in one gulp. Afterwards the Taoist said: "Even if there were knockout drugs in the wine, it wouldn't affect me." Yang Tiexin finally had about all he could take: "We nicely invited you to come and have a drink with us, why would we try to harm you? If you plan to keep talking to us in such a manner, then please leave now! It's not like we had sour wine and rotten food that we can't get rid off!"

The Taoist ignored him and grabbed the wine gourd. Pouring and drinking, he downed three bowls in a row. Then he suddenly took off his bamboo hat and cape and threw them on the floor. Guo Xiaotian and Yang Tiexin looked him over carefully. The Taoist is about thirty or so, squared faced with slanted eyebrows and a hint of redness. His eyes were bright and piercing. Next he untied the leather bundle on his back and threw it on the table. Immediately, Guo Xiaotian and Yang Tiexin jumped up. Because from the leather bundle rolled out a bloody human head!

Bao Xiruo screamed in fear and ran into the back room. Yang Tiexin felt his chest to make sure the dagger was in place. The Taoist gave the leather bundle a shake and two more bloody objects fell out: a heart and a liver. From the looks of them they are probably not a pig’s heart and pig’s liver, but very likely human. Yang Tiexin shouted: "Taoist bastard!" as he took out the dagger and thrust it towards the Taoist's chest.

The Taoist snickered: "Eagle Talon. So you want to fight now?" He lightly hit Yang Tiexin's wrist with his left hand. Yang Tiexin felt a numbing pain in his wrist as his fingers lost all their strength.

Before he knew it, his dagger had been taken away.

Guo Xiaotian was shocked to see all this. He knows that his adopted brother is the descendant of a renowned hero and, from their daily sparring, knows his family's kung fu is slightly superior to his own. But seemed as though he was nothing in front of this Taoist; the move that he just pulled off was obviously the ‘Bare Hand Seizes Blade’, was a skill that he had only heard off in the martial world. He immediately picked up the wooden bench that he was sitting on, waiting to block the dagger when the Taoist inevitably stabbed his sworn brother.

But the Taoist completely ignored them. He just wildly cut the human heart and liver to pieces with the dagger. Suddenly, he let out a huge roar, so loud that it rattled the tiles on the roof. He lifted up his right hand and brought it down hard, so hard that the contents on the table jumped at the impact.

The two men looked over and saw he had just smashed the head’s skull bones to smithereens; even the middle of the table was cracked. The two of them were still recovering when the Taoist shouted:

"Shameless scoundrels, the Reverend will today have to really break the no-killing rule!"

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Eagle Shooting Hero

Yang Tiexin couldn't get any madder; he grabbed the iron spear that was leaning against a corner of the room and jumped outside. He shouted back: "Come on! Let's teach you a lesson in the art of the

'Yang Family Spear'!" The Taoist snickered a bit: "You think you are worthy enough to use the

'Yang Family Spear' based on all this fake bravado?" He walked out of the door as he was finishing the sentence.

Seeing the situation deteriorate to this point, Guo Xiaotian ran back to his house and got his double halberds. When he got back the Taoist was still standing there with his sword still in it’s sheath and his sleeves flapping noisily in the wind. Yang Tiexin yelled out: "Unsheathe your sword!" The Taoist replied: "Even if the two of you come at me together, I would still fight you with my bare hands."

Yang Tiexin made a gesture signaling that he is about to start and followed it with a ‘Poisonous Dragon Coming Out from the Cave’. The red tassel on his spear shook, creating a huge flash of red heading towards the heart of the Taoist. The Taoist was briefly surprised and praised: “Excellent!”

His body went along with the spear and dodged to the left. His left palm spun around and came up to meet the spearhead in an attempt to grab it.

Yang Tiexin has worked hard with this spear since he was a little kid and had fully received his father's skills. The ‘Yang Family Spear’ is nothing to scoff at. Years back, Yang Zaixin took a spear and three hundred Song soldiers into battle against forty thousand Jin soldiers at the Little Merchant Bridge. In the battle, they killed more than two thousand Jin soldiers, not to mention one commander of ten thousand men, as well as more than one hundred commanders of one thousand men and one hundred men. Actually, the Jin arrows came flying in like rain; as soon as he was hit by an arrow he would break the wooden part off and keep on fighting. At last his horse got tripped up in mud and he finally gave his life for his country. When the Jin army burned his body, the amount of melted metal from the arrowheads topped an amazing two jins [1kg / 2.2lbs]. This battle shocked and frightened the Jin army and made the ‘Yang Family Spear’ famous in all of China.

Although Yang Tiexin is not as great as his forefathers, he does almost fully understand the spear skill inside out. So there he is, parrying, thrusting, swinging, flicking, blocking, fending, and obstructing. The point of the spear flashed silver, the tassel blurred red. What a spear skill!

Yang Tiexin pulled out all the stops and his moves were swift and agile, changing and faking as if they were an illusion. But the Taoist's body followed the spear around, easily dodging forward and back, making him almost impossible to hit. After using all seventy-two moves of the ‘Yang Family Spear’, Yang Tiexin couldn't help but be anxious and upset. He turned around and walked away carrying the spear backwards. As expected, the Taoist started to chase very close behind. Yang Tiexin let out a big shout, held the spear with both hands, suddenly twisted his waist and extended his arms, and thrust the spear back right at the Taoist's face. This move was ferocious, for it is the move in ‘Yang Family Spear’ that is used to break an enemy formation and kill enemy generals, called the “Return Horse Spear”. Back before Yang Zaixin changed his allegiance to the Song army, when he battled Yue Fei, he used this exact move to kill Yue Fei's younger brother Yue Fan.

The Taoist, seeing that the spears had already arrived in front of him in an instant, couldn't help but praise: "Excellent move!" Smacking his hands together, he was able to clamp onto the spear point.