Chapter Thirty-Four: Spider Silk and Mighty Strike

The family gathering at the Shen household was still going on, though it was already drawing to a close.

Right at that moment, Shen Ye received a phone call.

He stepped outside to take it. It was Wan Peng on the line, saying that some of their high school classmates were planning to hold a reunion before this year’s Spring Festival and asking whether Shen Ye wanted to go.

Shen Ye did the math. There were still about two months until the Spring Festival, and there were still a few classmates from high school with whom he remained on good terms. So he agreed.

While Shen Ye was on the phone, the mood inside the private room had become rather subtle.

Lin Mei was fine; she was always gentle and mild in front of others.

But Shen Jiaping, who spent his idle time playing cards and never had much decorum to begin with, was also a troublemaker. Smiling as he held up a glass of wine, he said, “I hear someone here wants to make our shop at Silver Beach close down. Quite capable, aren’t they? Ha ha.”

Though he did not name anyone outright, the insult was plain enough.

It struck Li Lan squarely across the face, and her expression turned green and red by turns.

She could not sit still any longer. After snapping at Shen Die, she got up and stormed out. Seeing his wife upset, Shen Die hurried after her.

“Well done, Second Brother,” Shen Xiaofen, the second aunt, said with obvious approval when she saw Li Lan leave. “I’ve disliked Li Lan for ages. She’s not even that much younger than me, and yet she married my nephew and still acts as if no one in the world can touch her. Big Brother, you really ought to keep an eye on this daughter-in-law of yours from time to time.”

Shen Xiaofen was only forty now, and truly not much older than Li Lan.

Shen Jiaping laughed proudly. “I may not be good at much else, but when it comes to cards and putting people in their place, I’m a master.”

Lin Mei could only sigh helplessly. “You, honestly. Aren’t you afraid of offending people?”

“Who’s afraid of whom?” Shen Jiaping said carelessly.

Uncle Shen Baoping let out a long sigh. “How could I possibly keep this daughter-in-law in line? Sigh. The old one was better.”

By now, he had finally come to understand how good the former daughter-in-law, Wen Xiuting, had been. But some things, once done, could not be regretted in time.

...

At the same time, Wen Xiuting had already returned to the village where she was born.

This trip back, she had brought gifts worth two or three thousand yuan.

There was ginseng, notoginseng, and all kinds of clothes for the elderly.

Wen’s father and mother were overjoyed.

A few sharp-eyed neighbors saw it and the mocking voices toward the Wen family grew a little quieter. But the gossiping ones still muttered behind closed doors: “What’s so impressive about her? She’s just a divorced woman nobody wants. She doesn’t even have a husband. Maybe that money was earned by being some rich man’s mistress.”

Those words were not said in front of Wen Xiuting.

But they spread in private.

That was how things were in the countryside sometimes.

A divorced woman could never quite hold her head up.

...

Two days later.

In a forested mountain area in N County.

There were several lofty peaks in the forest, and many trees there stood dozens of meters high, some nearly ten.

By rights, trees of that height should long ago have been cut down. But in recent years, the government had sealed off the mountain forests and imposed severe penalties on illegal logging. On top of that, it had become easier and easier to make money outside these days, so few people had the patience to target these wooded mountains anymore.

Whoosh!

A strand of white silk shot out and stuck to a bluish rock on a mountain peak.

The white thread was very long, extending far into the distance. Following its line, one could see a young man about six feet tall, with long legs and a body full of sharp, formidable vigor.

Then the young man leaped.

Swoosh!

He sprang straight down from the height.

Under the pull of gravity, he plunged toward the ground.

When the white thread reached its limit, the thread itself rebounded with tremendous force, yanking the young man violently upward and hurling him back toward the bluish rock where it had first attached.

His speed was still astonishingly fast.

If it had been an ordinary person, that headlong rush toward the rock would have ended in a spray of shattered flesh and bone.

But the young man was anything but ordinary. At that moment, he slammed both feet down hard, and with a thud, he left a deep footprint in the ground, his body leaning slightly forward before he finally came to a stop.

“So Spider Silk really is hard to control.”

Shen Ye felt his whole body aching. When he had first begun controlling the spider silk, he had deliberately chosen easy targets close at hand. Who could have guessed that even though his physical attributes were far beyond those of normal people, he would still find it so hard to handle? He had crashed into things countless times.

Fortunately, his current defenses and constitution were monstrous, a full seven times that of an ordinary person.

Every impact against a boulder that would have killed a normal man on the spot had merely left him injured.

And with that sevenfold constitution came an astonishing rate of recovery. Injuries that would keep most people lying in a hospital bed for months were mostly healed within a single day for him. At this rate, he should be fully recovered in just a few days.

“Still, using spider silk for fake flight like this is really thrilling.”

With the telescopic sight of the Eye of Justice, Shen Ye fixed on a solid rock in the distance. The spider silk from his right hand shot out, cut through layer after layer of forest, and flew straight toward it. In moments, it had stuck.

“Ha!”

Shen Ye shouted, springing down from the bluish rock beneath his feet. He fell through the air, flying with the line, savoring the many thrills of it all. When the white thread reached its limit, the recoil pulled him toward the target he had first locked onto. With tremendous control, he barely managed to steady himself.

Then he stamped down hard, landing on the stone.

Time passed unknowingly.

Another three or four days went by.

Little by little, Shen Ye grew ever more skilled at controlling it, and he rarely made mistakes that sent him crashing into rocks anymore.

He did not hurry on to the next skill.

After all, these past few days had been exhausting.

He even slept one night up in a tree. Of course, no ordinary person should ever imitate that.

First, the forest was damp and cold. Unless one’s physique had reached several times that of a normal person, doing that would be nothing short of courting death and would very easily lead to illness.

Second, although there were no tigers in the forest, it was perfectly normal for a few wolves to wander out. With his current attributes, Shen Ye could easily defeat a wolf, so he feared nothing at all.

Only then did he begin training Mighty Force Strike.

Mighty Force Strike required first building up breath and power.

He assumed a forward-charging stance, gathering all his strength and driving it toward the front.

Then he let out a long cry.

With tiger steps beneath his feet, he gathered the strength of his right fist and suddenly blasted forward.

After testing the preparation work, Shen Ye roared like a tiger and stepped forward in tiger stride, punching out with all his might. The instant his fist flew, it felt as though the strength of his entire body had reached its peak.

All his ardor and heroism poured into that one punch.

There had once been a fairly large tree there.

But then—

Boom!

That single punch smashed directly into the tree, the overwhelming force even striking it cleanly in two at the waist.

And three meters farther on stood another tree.

It, too, was blasted to pieces.

This was the power of Mighty Force Strike.

Terrifyingly strong. Dominant beyond compare.

Still, after using the move, his body did seem to feel somewhat weakened, though that weakness would not affect the battles to come.

This technique was far easier to master than Spider Silk.

Now that he had trained both Spider Silk and Mighty Force Strike to proficiency, and his own attributes had risen from Knight-Errant Rank Four to Knight-Errant Rank Six, his strength had increased by a margin he could scarcely measure compared with the time he had faced Yang Feikuang, the Lightning King of Thunder and Lightning.

With such power in hand, he could slay even more terrible evil.

The first update is here. I posted earlier today, so everyone, throw me your recommendation votes. I need them badly!