Chapter 90: How Annoying!

A faint, thunderous crack suddenly rang out.

The students might not have heard it.

But the martial arts experts representing all the various schools present all sensed that disturbance in the air.

And, whether it was imagination or not, at the instant of impact, there seemed to be a strange distortion in the air at the point where his fist met the palm.

Then came a terrifying series of cracking sounds.

Park Dosi froze, then searing pain shot through his arm.

He let out a shriek.

Only then did everyone realize in shock that rivulets of blood had already stained his white taekwondo sleeve red.

Instinctively, Park Dosi tore at his sleeve. What he saw nearly scared him out of his wits.

The skin of his entire arm was still intact, with not a single wound in sight.

But his whole arm had turned blue, red, and swollen.

Tiny beads of blood seeped out from the pores in his skin, little by little.

The bleeding was not rapid, yet it spread across every inch of his arm. Minute droplets, as though breathing in unison, slowly painted his arm into a ghastly red.

“Ah!”

A few timid girls, standing closest and witnessing the scene firsthand, screamed and covered their eyes.

The others, only then realizing what had happened, all turned deathly pale and sucked in sharp breaths.

Countless eyes instinctively turned toward Ling Qiu, yet the instant they met his face, they darted away again.

Because they were afraid to look him in the eye.

How had he done it?

How?

He had only slapped Park Dosi’s fist with his palm, and yet he had turned the entire arm into that state?

What had he actually done?

Ling Qiu stood calmly where he was, one hand hanging loosely at his side, the other in his pocket, regarding the kneeling Park Dosi with cold detachment. Park Dosi clutched at his own ruined arm and wailed miserably. It now hung from his shoulder like a limp, dead thing, like a dead snake.

Even now, Park Dosi still did not understand what had happened in that exchange with Ling Qiu.

To the onlookers, it had seemed like nothing more than a single blow.

But under Ling Qiu’s palm blade, that one strike had been like a bolt of lightning, shattering every bone in Park Dosi’s arm.

Yes.

The instant their forces collided, Ling Qiu’s inner strength had crashed into Park Dosi’s arm like thunder.

Every bone in that arm had been ground to fragments by the shock.

Amid the horrified stares, Ling Qiu said slowly, “What I used just now was the Splitting Mountain Palm, from Baji Boxing, a Chinese martial art. Liu Donghai, translate that for him, and ask him whether Chinese martial arts gave him a pleasant surprise.”

Being suddenly singled out, Liu Donghai shuddered all over. His face went pale, and his legs trembled uncontrollably as he stared at Ling Qiu, too stunned to react for a long moment.

Ling Qiu stepped forward, one pace at a time.

The closer he came, the more frightened Liu Donghai became.

He looked down at Park Dosi’s blue-red, blood-seeping arm and kept sucking in cold breaths.

Ling Qiu narrowed his eyes. “I told you to translate it for him. What is a surprise?”

“What... translate... what!” Liu Donghai stammered, backing away involuntarily.

“Translate it. What is a surprise.”

“W-what?”

By now Ling Qiu was only about two meters away. As Liu Donghai backed up, he misstepped and nearly fell flat on his backside.

“What are you ‘what’-ing for?”

At that moment, the short, fat man rushed over. He had long since been unable to stand Liu Donghai’s bootlicking, collaborator-like expression, and his anger finally erupted. He barked furiously, “Didn’t you just love being Park Dosi’s little lapdog? Ling Qiu told you to translate for this bastard... what the hell is the damn surprise?!”

“Sur... surprise... surprise means! Just now... Ling Qiu... used Chinese martial arts... the... that fist...”

The moment he heard that, the short, fat man’s cartoonish brows shot straight up.

Enraged, he raised his hand and slapped Liu Donghai across the face.

Smack!

A sharp crack rang out.

“That was Baji Boxing, the Splitting Mountain Palm!”

“Oh, oh, oh!”

Already terrified out of his wits by Ling Qiu’s methods and presence, Liu Donghai trembled and hurriedly told Park Dosi, “Sur... surprise means! Just now Ling Qiu used... Chinese martial arts!! Baji Boxing... Splitting... Splitting Mountain Palm!!”

Ling Qiu’s eyes narrowed. “I told you to translate it.”

“I... I did translate it... ah...”

The short, fat man snapped, “Translate it, and you don’t use Korean?!”

Liu Donghai immediately understood and hurriedly rattled it off in Korean, telling Park Dosi exactly what had been said.

By then, Park Dosi could not have listened to another word.

He was still kneeling on the ground, tears streaming from his eyes and snot running all over the floor. The agony of having every bone and tendon in his arm shattered was a pain he had never known in his life.

Only then did Ling Qiu slowly walk up to Park Dosi and look down on him from above.

“You love taekwondo, and you love your nation. I don’t care about that. But when you insult the Chinese and insult Chinese martial arts, I’m sorry.”

As he spoke, Ling Qiu bent down slightly and whispered into Park Dosi’s ear, “I will make your life full of surprises.”

No translation was needed for that.

Even just the tone and the pressure in his voice were enough for Park Dosi to understand.

More importantly, as Ling Qiu spoke, a thread of baleful aura seemed to spill out by reflex and plunge straight into his skull.

At that moment, Ling Qiu’s voice boomed in Park Dosi’s mind, rumbling like the gaping maw of a fearsome ghost king, as though it would swallow him whole.

“Ahhh!”

That kind of sinister pressure was not something a man with a swollen ego and a weak will could withstand.

Park Dosi was so terrified that he lost control of himself entirely, clamping one arm to his body as he scrambled and rolled away in the opposite direction.

As though Ling Qiu were a demon who could tear him apart at any moment.

He fled all the way, leaving behind a trail of foul-smelling liquid on the ground.

This scene utterly stunned everyone present.

Especially those students who had followed the crowd and blindly joined the taekwondo club.

At that moment, from the depths of their hearts, they felt only disgust toward Park Dosi.

In truth, they had long since been fed up with the ugly faces of Park Dosi and Liu Donghai.

It was just that in the face of the strong, many students would only shrink their necks and keep silent.

But now, in their eyes, the so-called black belt master Park Dosi, reputedly strong enough to kill ten Chinese martial arts practitioners with one punch, had been sent fleeing in terror by Ling Qiu with a single palm strike.

And so the courage buried deep within them, along with their sense of national belonging, suddenly ignited once more.

“Damn it, I couldn’t stand it from the start! What the hell black belt master? And they even claimed Chinese martial arts originated in Korea? I’ll take that origin and shove it where the sun don’t shine!”

One burly student sprang to his feet, tore off his taekwondo uniform, and strode straight toward the Chinese martial arts club.

“I’m joining the Chinese martial arts club! I’m learning our own nation’s real stuff!”