The one who could sit still even less was Huang Rong. The helper had come. Drive off Ouyang Feng now, and they gained an Innate-realm ally—there was no way to run those numbers at a loss.
Even if all they did was tell the rank and file before the battle that Xiangyang had gained an Innate-realm powerhouse, morale would surge.
"Brother Jing!!!"
Hearing his wife call, Guo Jing understood her meaning at once—not that he would have stood by in any case.
"Everyone—we pause here. I have urgent business to see to."
With that, Guo Jing strode out the door in great steps; then the Spiral Nine Shadows unfurled, and his figure was simply gone.
"Chief Huang, our thanks for the help. We go to welcome our senior brother back."
Li Zhichang couldn't stay seated either.
It was only because he and the others had been too weak that Senior Brother Yin had risked himself drawing Ouyang Feng away in the first place.
Now, with Hero Guo Jing lending a hand—two against one—if that still couldn't drive Ouyang Feng off, then the man might as well ascend to heaven on the spot.
Zhu Ziliu and the others still had no idea what exactly had happened; Guo Jing and the Quanzhen disciples were already gone. Burning with curiosity, they could only press Huang Rong, who had stayed behind to tidy up.
"Chief Huang, what has happened? Why is Ouyang Feng here? And fighting someone? And who is this 'Senior Brother Yin' Taoist Master Li spoke of?"
Huang Rong had known the question would come. She'd stayed precisely to steady the room—and to lay the ground for the moment Guo Jing brought Yin Zhiping back and she could put him forward to lift morale.
"The leader of the Quanzhen delegation this time is Taoist Master Li's senior brother—Taoist Master Yin Zhiping. They met Ouyang Feng on the road. To see his juniors safely away, Taoist Master Yin drew Ouyang Feng off alone. His heart was set on Xiangyang, so even with Ouyang Feng dogging him, he has fought his way here to join us.
Rest easy, everyone. Brother Jing has already gone. With him and Taoist Master Yin joining hands, Ouyang Feng will raise no great waves."
Huang Rong gave the story simply.
But Zhu Ziliu's puzzlement only deepened.
"It's not that I doubt you, but what you describe borders on fantasy. Ouyang Feng is Ouyang Feng—mad or not, he is one of the Five Greats. Even Taoist Master Qiu himself would find no profit in that fight. How could Taoist Master Yin, a third-generation Quanzhen disciple, possibly be his match?"
Zhu Ziliu wasn't challenging Huang Rong; the tale as told simply had holes too large to swallow.
"And if I told you that Taoist Master Yin is a prodigy—that he has already attained the Innate realm?"
Huang Rong had deliberately left that out before, waiting for someone to ask. Volunteering a fact and revealing it under questioning did not land the same way.
Sure enough—cries of astonishment rose on every side. No one had imagined an Innate among Quanzhen's third generation. The Seven Masters of the second generation had not produced a single one!
Even without an Innate, the Quanzhen Sect was already the foremost of the Taoist orders. Among all the sects under heaven, only the Beggars' Sect, by sheer weight of numbers, stood above it.
Now an Innate had appeared. Guo Jing notwithstanding—with Hong Qigong's whereabouts forever unknown—the Beggars' Sect's title of the world's first sect might well have to change hands.
***
Yin Zhiping did not yet know his strength had been sold to the crowd by Huang Rong. Not that he'd have minded—hiding it had never been the plan.
Having come to Xiangyang, his strength was always going to be laid before the world.
At the moment he was still entangled with Ouyang Feng.
Gone was the measured restraint of their earlier sparring. The closer they came to Xiangyang, the harder Ouyang Feng pressed.
Mad fit or no, one thing stayed nailed in Ouyang Feng's mind: his son must not go to that place. That place was dangerous.
He had just slipped Yin Zhiping's Mutual Demise Sword; now, catching the sliver of an opening as Yin Zhiping turned side-on, Ouyang Feng drove both palms out—the accumulated learning of a lifetime, the Toad Skill.
The twin palms came laden with hard, ferocious power; the very air rippled. Their target: Yin Zhiping's back.
Yin Zhiping felt not a flicker of panic. Truth be told, the opening had been sold to Ouyang Feng on purpose.
His sword-tip touched the ground. Borrowing that thread of leverage, and pairing it with a Golden Goose Art trained to its limit—the ability to walk on empty air—his whole body wrenched sideways and upward, evading Ouyang Feng's palm-force by a hair's width.
Only then did Yin Zhiping reveal his coiled, waiting left palm. The mightiest strike in the Quanzhen Palm Technique—the Three Flowers Gathering Palm—came down at Ouyang Feng's shoulder.
Ouyang Feng's mind might be broken, but his body's instincts lived on.
Danger touched his senses, and his signature Toad Skill answered instantly: the mirror of Yin Zhiping's escape—his whole body plunged straight down, dodging by that same hair's width the strike Yin Zhiping had plotted so long.
Then he lay flat against the earth, sprawled like a toad, and the gukk-gukk croaking rose again.
The sound had none of the crispness of summer pond-frogs. It just made your skin crawl...
Landing, Yin Zhiping felt a pang of regret, but let it go quickly. That was Ouyang Feng over there. If he could be hit so easily, he'd never have ridden roughshod over the martial world all these years.
Xiangyang stood in plain view now, and Ouyang Feng's obstruction grew wilder by the moment—it had devolved into shameless clinging, dragging, hauling.
Yin Zhiping's forehead streamed black lines. If Ouyang Feng ever recovered his wits and remembered this, whether he'd still have the face to appear before him was an open question.
The thought flashed and was gone. What mattered now was reaching Xiangyang. With Guo Jing's help, driving Ouyang Feng off would be no great labor.
Speak of it, and it comes: an earthshaking presence surged in from afar at tremendous speed—one blink, and it was upon them. A rough-hewn giant of a man.
"OUYANG FENG!!!"
With that great roar, the burly man drove out a single palm. A dragon's cry rang through the air as true essence became a streak of light hurtling at Ouyang Feng—the Proud Dragon Repents, of the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms.
Under Guo Jing's grinding practice, the technique had long since entered the realm of perfect fire. Add that Guo Jing stood now in the very prime of a man's strength, with the Nine Yin Manual's internal energy beneath it all—and if Hong Qigong himself had stood here, he would have been no stronger than Guo Jing.
The familiar voice, the familiar technique—one thread of clarity flickered through Ouyang Feng. Then the madness swallowed it again.
His feet kicked back; both palms pushed flat.
Ouyang Feng did not dodge. He met it head-on.
Perhaps some buried instinct refused to lose to the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms. Perhaps his brain simply wasn't lighting all its lamps.
After long years, the old duel returned to the jianghu: the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms against the Toad Skill.
A pity the only audience was Yin Zhiping.
BOOM!!!
Three palms met, and honors stood even. Both men shuddered; Guo Jing and Ouyang Feng each fell back.
Only then did Yin Zhiping have leisure to study the Guo Jing of today.
Still the same honest, artless look he remembered. The difference was a settled maturity through the whole man—the fruit, no doubt, of Huang Rong's patient tutelage...
It really was good to have a wife...