Even though he was laughing, Guo Jing could hear the desperation in his voice. “All right!” he shouted, “I’ll bet with you!”
“At least now I can die an interesting death!” Zhou Botong laughed. As he turned around to avoid the converging attacks of two sharks charging in together he suddenly saw a high white sail far away. In the dim light of dusk a big private boat was cutting through the waves and coming their way.
Hong Qigong also saw the boat; it was Ouyang Feng’s. They were exuberant knowing that help was on the way. Guo Jing immediately came near Zhou Botong to help him fight the sharks. A moment later the boat arrived and lowered two small boats to rescue the three people. Zhou Botong vomited some more blood, but he would not stop talking and laughing. He was waving his finger at the sharks and cursing them incessantly.
Ouyang Feng and Ouyang Ke stood on the bow of the big boat to welcome them. As far as their eyes could see, the water was full of shark fins; they were inwardly alarmed.
Zhou Botong was unwilling to admit indebtedness, he said, “Old Poison, it was you who came and rescued us; I did not call you for help so I don’t owe you anything.”
“Naturally you don’t owe me anything,” Ouyang Feng replied, “Today I come across the three of you engaged in a shark killing spree; Little Brother was fascinated.”
Zhou Botong laughed, “You came across us and prevented us from playing inside the sharks’
bellies, so I will still call it even; we don’t owe anybody anything.”
Ouyang Ke and a snake herder put some big chunks of beef on an iron hook as bait and in a short period of time had hooked seven or eight big sharks.
Hong Qigong pointed at the sharks and laughed, “Good, you didn’t eat us, but it looks like we are going to eat you.”
Ouyang Ke laughed, “Little Nephew has a way to avenge Uncle Hong.” He quickly cut some short sticks, sharpened both ends, then pried open a shark’s mouth with a spear and stuck the wooden stick in the shark’s mouth. Then he kicked the shark back into the water.
Zhou Botong laughed, “That way the shark won’t be able to eat anything ever; I bet it will die within eight to ten days.”
Guo Jing thought, “Only he would think of such an evil plan. This gluttonous shark will starve to death in the sea. That is so cruel.”
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Zhou Botong saw Guo Jing’s face showing a disgusted look, he laughed, “Brother, such a malicious trick is not pleasing to the eye, is it? Well, this is called ‘a poisonous uncle results in a poisonous nephew’.”
Hearing others cursing him as evil did not bother Western Poison Ouyang Feng at all; on the contrary, he was pleased. Listening to Zhou Botong he showed a faint smile and said, “Old Urchin, this small trick is nothing compared to what the Western Poison can do. You three are out of breath from fighting this bunch of baby sharks. Even though they are many, to me they are nothing.” After saying that he faced the sea, stretched out his right hand, moved it in a sweeping motion from left to right and said, “Even if there were ten times more sharks than these, I can annihilate them all without breaking a sweat.”
“Ah!” Zhou Botong exclaimed, “The Western Poison blows his horn really loud! If you can prove your great prowess and really kill the sharks, the Old Urchin will kowtow to you and will call you
‘Grandfather’ three hundred times.”
“I do not dare to accept that,” Ouyang Feng said, “If you don’t believe me, why don’t we make a bet?”
“All right,” Zhou Botong almost shouted, “I’ll bet you my head!”
Hong Qigong, on the other hand, was suspicious, “Even if his skills are as high as the sky, it is impossible to kill millions of sharks at once,” he thought, “I am afraid he has another evil scheme up in his sleeve.”
“I don’t need your head,” Ouyang Feng said with a smile, “If I win, I want you to do something for me and you must comply with it. If I lose, I won’t decline whatever difficult matter you want me to do. What do you think?”
“I don’t care, whatever you say!” Zhou Botong shouted.
Ouyang Feng turned to Hong Qigong, “I am asking Brother Qi to be our witness,” he said.
Hong Qigong nodded, “Very well,” he said, “But what if the winner assigns the loser something and he is not able to do it?”
“Then the loser must jump into the sea to be eaten by the sharks,” Zhou Botong said.
Again Ouyang Feng showed a faint smile but he did not say anything. He signaled a servant to bring a small wine cup. Two of his right fingers pinched the neck of the strange looking snake on his staff, forced it to open its mouth and venom gushed from its teeth. Ouyang Feng held out the wine cup and caught the venom in it, black and thick like China ink, almost filling half the cup. As soon as this snake ran out of venom, he pinched the other one and did the same, filling the whole cup with snake’s venom. When he was finished the two snakes wrapped around the staff quietly, no longer slithering up and down, like they were very tired.
Ouyang Feng’s servant hooked another big shark and placed it on the deck. With his left hand Ouyang Feng gripped the shark’s upper jaw, while his right foot stepped on the lower jaw, prying the jaws open. That shark was about two zhang’s long [approximately 20 feet or 7 meters], but it could not prevent its mouth being opened revealing two rows of dagger-sharp teeth. Then he poured 588
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the cup of venom into the shark’s mouth, right where the gaping wound caused by the iron hook was. With an abrupt movement his left hand lifted the shark by its belly and without much trouble swung it up. The 200 catty [about 100 kg / 220lbs] shark flew into the air and with a loud splash fell into the sea.
Zhou Botong laughed, “Aha! I understand now,” he said, “This is the old monk’s method of killing bedbugs.”
“Big Brother,” Guo Jing asked, “How did the old monk kill the bugs?”
“There was once an old monk who hawked concoctions for getting rid of bedbugs in a Bianliang [a city in Henan province] street market,” Zhou Botong told him, “He claimed his concoction to be very effective; once the bugs ate his product they would surely die. If not, he was willing to reimburse the customer’s money tenfold. Of course with this kind of guarantee his business was brisk. One of his customers went back home and scattered the concoction on his bed. Heh, heh …
that night the bedbugs still came by the thousands, biting him half to death. That customer was upset and early the next morning he went back to the market to find that old monk, wanting him to refund his money. That old monk said, ‘My concoction is very effective; if it did not kill your bugs, perhaps you did not use it correctly.’ The customer asked, ‘How do you use it?’” Reaching this point Zhou shook his head with a mischievous smile on his face, but did not continue.
“Then how do you use it?” Guo Jing asked.
With a straight face Zhou Botong said, “That old monk said, ‘You catch the bug, pry open its mouth and feed just a little bit of this concoction to it. If it doesn’t die, then you can come to the old monk again.’ The customer was mad, he said, ‘If I can catch the bug, I can crush it to death with my fingers, why would I need your effective concoction?’ To which the old monk replied, ‘Of course, I never said you can’t crush it to death, did I?’”
Guo Jing, Hong Qigong, Ouyang Feng and his nephew, along with everyone who listened to Zhou Botong, burst into laugher. “My concoction is somewhat different than that of the old monk,”
Ouyang Feng said with a smile.
“I don’t see much difference,” Zhou Botong said.
Ouyang Feng pointed his finger to the sea and said, “Well, just take a look.”
The shark fed the venom went belly up, and of course seven or eight other sharks were having a feeding frenzy over it. The strange thing was that the seven or eight sharks which ate their comrade’s flesh were also belly up not too long afterwards. Each dead shark was immediately eaten by another group of sharks, which, in turn, also went belly up in the water. One shark killed ten others, ten sharks killed a hundred, a hundred killed a thousand; in not too long the sea was full of floating dead sharks. The remaining sharks were not too many, but they were still feeding on their dead comrades. A while later the sea became calm, there were no more sharks left alive. When Hong Qigong, Zhou Botong and Guo Jing saw this chilling scene their faces paled. Hong Qigong sighed and said, “Old Poison, Old Poison…your evil plan was truly evil; only a small amount of poison from your two snakes is extremely deadly.”
Ouyang Feng chuckled and looked at Zhou Botong with a smug expression. Zhou Botong wrung his hands, stomped his foot, and pulled his beard and hair erratically. As far as anyone could see, the Eagle Shooting Hero
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sea’s surface was full of dead sharks with their white bellies upward, floating and bobbing on the waves.
“Looking at so many white bellies makes my tummy sick; thinking about that many sharks being killed by the Old Poison’s venom, also makes my tummy sick,” Zhou Botong said, “Old Poison, you need to watch out; once the ‘Dragon King of the Sea’ [hai long wang] finds out, he is going to send his shrimp army and crab generals to deal with you.” Ouyang Feng simply smiled without saying anything.