The innkeeper had been hiding on the floor below, but upon hearing his instructions and noticing that it had been quiet for a while upstairs, he immediately went to bring the bowls up.
Qiu Chuji instructed him to place the bowls in two rows and fill them to the brim with wine.
Turning to the Seven Freaks, he said: "I challenge everyone to a drinking contest. For every bowl you guys drink, I will drink one as well until there is a winner. What do you say?"
Han Baoju and Zhang Ahsheng were both huge drinkers, so they immediately agreed without any hesitation. Ke Zhen’E frowned and replied: "This is one against seven; even if we win we didn't win it fairly. Could Reverend please choose something else?" Qiu Chuji frowned: "What makes you so sure that you'll beat me?"
Even though Han Xiaoying was a girl, she was still quite macho, so she immediately answered back: "Alright, let's go at it then! This is the first time I have met someone that dares to look down at us so much." As she talked she grabbed a bowl of wine and downed it in one breath. It was obvious she drank it too quickly as her face flushed red immediately.
Qiu Chuji complimented: "Miss Han really is a man among females! Everyone… please!" The other six of the Seven Freaks each picked up a bowl and drank it. Qiu Chuji responded by downing seven bowls of wine in an instant; each with just one gulp and without a single pause for breath in between. The innkeeper immediately shouted praise for everyone and filled up the fourteen bowls, which the eight finished off immediately.
By the third round of drinks, Han Xiaoying could only drink half a bowl before having to pause because her hands were shaking. Zhang Ahsheng took the bowl out of her hand: "Sister, I'll finish this for you." Han Xiaoying inquired: "Elder Qiu is that alright?" Qiu Chuji replied without hesitation: "Of course, it doesn't matter who drinks it as long as it is seven bowls." Another round and Quan Jinfa had to back out as well.
Seeing that after twenty-eight bowls Qiu Chuji was still looking sober and normal, the Seven Freaks were quite shocked. Wanyan Honglie thought as he looked on: "Hopefully this Taoist will get drunk and these Seven Freaks will finish him off before he can do anything."
Quan Jinfa calculated that his side still had five men left, each a heavy drinker and could probably drink three or four more rounds, the opponent could not possibly be able to hold another twenty or so drinks in his belly… or could he? Even if he really could not get drunk, his belly could only hold so much. Figuring that victory was in hand, he was feeling pretty good; then he accidentally glanced down at the floor and saw that the floorboards under Qiu Chuji's feet were obviously soaked through. Shocked, he whispered to Zhu Cong: "Second Brother, take a look at his feet." Zhu Cong only looked down for a moment before muttering: "Not good, he's using his inner strength to force the wine out through his feet." Quan Jinfa quietly replied: "That's right; I didn't think that his inner strength would be so powerful, what should we do now?"
Eagle Shooting Hero
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Zhu Cong thought to himself: "With this little trick, he could go a hundred more bowls without any problem. I have to come up with another contest or something." He took a step back before suddenly falling through the hole in the floorboards that he caused earlier and then climbing back up through the hole, all the while shouting: "So drunk, I am so drunk!"
Another round of drinks and now the floor boards under Qiu Chuji's feet were saturated with wine and a little bit of a fountain squirted out from the boards onto the floor below. By now Nan Xiren, Han Baoju, and everyone else had noticed, and everyone was secretly admiring such a powerful display of inner strength.
Han Baoju put his bowl back onto the table and was just about to admit defeat when Zhu Cong shot him a look and turned to Qiu Chuji: "Elder’s inner strength is almost god-like and we can't but admire such a display. But it is still five against one; it doesn't seem quite fair really." Qiu Chuji was a bit surprised and asked: "Then what does Second Brother Zhu suggest we should do?" Zhu Cong smiled and said: "I say let the two of us battle it out to see who's best."
All the spectators were rather baffled by this; Zhu Cong was the one, of the group of five still going up against him, who was obviously losing, why would he go and lower his odds even more? But the other six Freaks knew that although this brother of theirs doesn't seem to take anything seriously, he's full of ideas and tricks and his actions were often pure genius. Figuring that he must have a plan in mind, the six of them didn't object.
Qiu Chuji let out a little laugh: "The Seven Freaks of the South really do want to look good no matter what. How about this? If Second Brother Zhu finishes the wine left in this vat with me, if neither is losing, then it'll count as a defeat for me...how about it?"
By now the vat was a little bit less than half full, with many bowls remaining; this would mean that only two drunken Buddha’s with their big bellies could hold all of it. But Zhu Cong didn't seem to mind that as he smiled and said: "Although I am not a very big drinker, I once beat several pretty big drinkers during one of my adventures. A toast," he said waving his fan in his right hand and his left shirt sleeve, he downed a bowl.
So the two of them downed one bowl after another; in between drinks, Qiu Chuji asked: "What kind of big drinkers?" Zhu Cong replied: "Well, once I traveled to India and the king dragged out a water buffalo to challenge me in a drinking match. But in the end neither of us won or lost."
Knowing that Zhu Cong was poking fun at him, he just snorted in response and downed another bowl. However, he noticed that even though Zhu Cong was waving his hands all over the place while talking nonsense, he was still matching him bowl for bowl. There wasn't any wine spilling out from his hands or feet, so obviously was not forcing the wine out of his body with inner strength; but there was a huge bulge in his stomach so he figured that Zhu Cong may know how to expand and retract his stomach at will. He was feeling rather puzzled when Zhu Cong spoke up again: "The year before last I went to Siam, ha, now that's even more ridiculous. This time the King of Siam got an elephant to challenge me. That huge thing drank seven vats! How much do you think I drank?"
Even though Qiu Chuji knew he was just making stuff up, he could not help but ask: "How much?"
Zhu Cong's face suddenly turned dead serious as he lowered his voice and said: "Nine vats!"
Suddenly he raised his voice again and shouted: "Drink up, drink up!"
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Eagle Shooting Hero
So he just went on like this, sort of drunk but not really, kind of crazy but kind of not, and soon the two of them had finished off the entire vat. The rest of the Freaks had no idea that he could hold all of that wine and all of them were pleasantly surprised.
Qiu Chuji gave him thumbs up: "Brother Zhu really is amazing!"
With a smile, Zhu Cong replied: "To keep the wine out of our bodies, Reverend used inner strength, but I had to resort to merely outer techniques. Here, have a look." With a hearty laugh, he suddenly did a back flip and when he landed there was a wooden bucket in his hand. With a slight wave of his hand, the fragrances of the wine that filled half the bucket came pouring out. All of the people present were martial arts masters and, with the exception of Ke Zhen’E, were sharp enough to pick up on any trickery or fake moves, yet not a single one of saw where the bucket came from. Looking down, Zhu Cong's belly had suddenly returned to its normal flat shape; obviously the bucket was hidden underneath his robe. The Seven Freaks of the South all burst out laughing and Qiu Chuji was shocked.
As it turns out, Zhu Cong was best at trickery and illusions and that was where the nickname
‘Magical Hands Scholar’ came from. This little trick that he just pulled was passed down by magicians all the way to today. A magician would walk onto the stage with nothing in hand, with one back flip a goldfish bowl would be in his hand, another back flip and a bowl filled with water appeared; this would go on until there were enough bowls on stage and suddenly there was one goldfish in each bowl. This is absolutely astounding when witnessed first hand and has to be seen to be believed. The second time Zhu Cong fell through the hole was when he hid the large bucket underneath his robe. All the crazy talk was to distract Qiu Chuji. When a magician does his trick right, even hundreds upon hundreds of pairs of eyes could not spot how the trick was done. Qiu Chuji did not even suspect that he would be pulling this kind of trick and was not able to catch him pouring one bowl after another into the bucket underneath his robe. Qiu Chuji snorted: "Hmph! You call this drinking?" Zhu Cong laughed: "And what you did was? The wine I drank is in this bucket, the wine that you drank is on the floor, any differences there?"
He paced back and forth as he talked, suddenly he accidentally slipped on the puddle of wine by Qiu Chuji's feet and fell towards Qiu Chuji. Qiu Chuji caught him and let Zhu Cong balance himself. After pacing back and forth once more, he suddenly said in a loud voice: "Wonderful poem! Such wonderful poetry! Mid-Autumn have always... moon most bright, cool winds lead the way... for refreshing night. A day's fortunes... sinks man and silver, the dragons in four seas... leap out water...." His voice was slowly dragging out as he began to sing the lines.