MM Racing Chapter 335 Who Rids the Carriage and Lingers?
Chapter 335 Who Rids the Carriage and Lingers?
Chapter 335 Who rides in the carriage, halting their reins and lingering?
When Jiang Wen arrived, Sanliting was already enveloped in a chilling aura of menace. It was surrounded by layers of furious martial arts practitioners. These sects, which were somewhat renowned in the Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi regions, had gathered together in solidarity against a common enemy.
At this moment, the crowd automatically parted to make way, and everyone's eyes fell on Jiang Wen, who was walking slowly towards them.
"Sect Leader Jiang! You've finally arrived!"
A burly man strode out from the crowd. He was over eight feet tall with thick arms and was tightly gripping a stick. Jiang Wen vaguely remembered that he was one of Zhou Long's junior brothers and a leader of the Vajra Sect.
The man's square face was flushed red, his eyes were bloodshot, and his voice was filled with barely suppressed anger: "Master Jiang, you are the leader of the martial arts tournament, and you will be the one to make a judgment on this matter today!"
Jiang Wen raised his hand to help them up, and his gaze swept over the crowd. On the other side of the crowd, four young disciples dressed in Wudang sect blue Taoist robes and wearing Chunyang headscarves were surrounded by more than a dozen martial arts practitioners. Their weapons had been taken away, their hands were tied behind their backs with cowhide ropes, their faces were pale, and their lips were tightly pursed.
"Please calm down, everyone." Jiang Wen's voice was not loud, but it carried a calming power and clearly reached everyone's ears. "Tell us exactly what happened, and make sure every word is true."
Seeing Jiang Wen's resolute attitude, the man took a deep breath and recounted what had happened through gritted teeth.
The martial arts figures attending the gathering were all restless. Apart from the three from the Rattan Shield Sect who were experts in tomb raiding, most of them would not stay idle in the camp. Some liked to fish, while others would use what they had on hand to hunt in the mountains and cook their own meals.
Since the arrival of the Wudang Sect members three days ago, the hunters in the mountain valley behind Sanliting had frequently encountered people dressed in Wudang Taoist robes, sneaking around in the pine forest. However, since the Wudang Sect was known for its domineering behavior and its large numbers when traveling in groups, the hunters assumed that the Wudang Sect had some secret business and did not dare to interfere.
The incident occurred at noon today when a disciple of the Vajra Sect suddenly disappeared.
This was an extremely alarming situation for the Vajra Sect, whose leader had already disappeared. Therefore, disciples immediately searched along the way and eventually found a pool of blood and the Vajra Sect's token that the disciple was wearing in the dense forest outside the Sanli Pavilion. However, the person had already vanished without a trace.
The Vajra Sect disciple's voice suddenly rose, pointing towards the mountain hollow behind the pavilion, "Luckily, I kept a close eye on things and discovered these Wudang disciples sneakily digging a pit! There's even blood on the ground!"
These words immediately caused an uproar among the surrounding martial arts practitioners, with discussions rising and falling. Their gazes toward the four Wudang disciples became even more contemptuous and angry.
"A prestigious and righteous sect? Is this how the Wudang Sect acts as a prestigious and righteous sect?"
"To kill someone and bury the body—that's incredibly cruel!"
"I was wondering why I'd seen Wudang people loitering around the area these past few days, acting all suspicious. Turns out they were up to this kind of shady business!"
Jiang Wen frowned slightly, his gaze falling on the four bound Wudang disciples. Just as he was about to speak, a voice suddenly came from outside the crowd, like a thunderclap from a clear sky: "Nonsense! Our Wudang Sect is a righteous sect of the Xuanmen. How could we behave like this!"
The crowd parted again, and a dozen or so swordsmen dressed in Wudang Taoist robes strode over. The leader, with a thin face and narrow eyes, was none other than Feng Daode, the head of Wudang.
The disciples behind Feng Daode all had serious expressions, their hands on their sword hilts. As soon as they entered, they stood in front of the four bound disciples, and the Vajra Sect members were locked in a tense standoff.
Feng Daode looked at the Vajra Gate, but spoke to Jiang Wen: "Sect Leader Jiang, these people detained my Wudang disciples based on only one side of the story, and even threw such mud at the Wudang Sect. Aren't you afraid of damaging the harmony between the two sects?"
"Then how do you explain these people sneaking around in the woods digging a hole? Didn't they kill someone and then destroy the evidence? Feng Daode, if you don't give us an explanation today, my Vajra Sect will fight to the death and we will never let this go!"
The disciples of the Vajra Sect were also known for their unyielding spirit, and upon seeing this, they also retaliated sharply, with the surrounding martial arts figures echoing their sentiments.
"Master Feng, you need to explain this matter clearly!"
"Yes, the night before last, when I got up to use the restroom, I saw two Wudang people peeking around on the mountain path."
Feng Daode remained composed, his tone as calm as still water, and said, "Wudang's actions have their reasons, but there is absolutely no murder involved. If this continues, I, Feng, will no longer be willing to negotiate."
But to everyone else, this was nothing more than a weak excuse. After all, there was witness testimony and physical evidence, yet he couldn't even explain why the Wudang disciples were acting suspiciously in the mountain valley. He could only vaguely deny it, which only made him seem more guilty.
As the anger between the two sides grew, some people drew their weapons, and it seemed that a fight was about to break out on the spot.
"Stop it, all of you."
Jiang Wen's voice rang out again. He slowly walked between the two groups of people and his gaze swept over everyone.
Jiang Wen's skills over the past few days have already made him famous among martial arts practitioners, especially among the bloodthirsty spectators who have witnessed his prowess. Therefore, whether out of respect or fear, everyone has temporarily quieted down.
"Human life is at stake; it can't be resolved by drawing swords against each other." Jiang Wen's gaze first fell on the people from the Vajra Sect. "Where is the pit you mentioned? Has it been dug?"
"Uh...it's in the ravine. After we captured him, we didn't dare move an inch and just had the Beggars' Sect disciples guard him." The Vajra Sect member's tone softened instantly when he spoke to Jiang Wen.
Jiang Wen nodded, then looked at Feng Daode: "Sect Leader Feng, this matter concerns the reputation of the Wudang Sect. I will go to the scene to examine the body and investigate the situation first. Please be patient and wait here, okay?"
Feng Daode's expression was somewhat strange, but he agreed, saying, "My Wudang sect is upright and honest."
But as soon as he finished speaking, the martial arts practitioners around him erupted in uproar.
"No, Master Jiang! You can't leave!"
"What if the Wudang Sect takes the opportunity to attack us or runs away if you leave?"
"Yes, things haven't been peaceful around Sanliting these past few days. I heard there have been bear sightings, and several hunters have already been injured!"
Jiang Wen raised his hand to quiet everyone down before slowly speaking: "I understand everyone's concerns. How about this, everyone, regardless of which sect, will move to the Great King Peak for temporary accommodation today. With everyone gathered together, we can look after each other and no one can take advantage of the situation to cause trouble."
His gaze swept over Feng Daode: "As for Wudang, I'll trouble Sect Leader Feng to keep them in check and accompany me to examine the body and investigate the case, how about that?"
Once these words were spoken, no one objected. Jiang Wen gathered everyone together at Da Wang Peak. Even if the Wudang Sect was furious, they wouldn't dare to make a move in front of everyone, thus completely eliminating the possibility of a fight.
The matter was settled, and Fan Xinghan immediately sent the Beggars' Sect disciples to go up the mountain first to arrange accommodations on Dawang Peak. The remaining martial arts practitioners also lined up according to their sects and staggered up the mountain in batches.
The disciples of the Vajra Sect kept a close watch on the four Wudang disciples, but they also untied them and confiscated their weapons before joining the main force to go up the mountain.
Feng Daode's face remained grim, but he didn't say another word. He just kept glancing towards the mountain valley with a complicated look in his eyes.
Jiang Wen's brows remained slightly furrowed. He felt that something was amiss, because he also felt that there was something wrong with the Wudang Sect. They hadn't received much courtesy and had many reasons to leave first, but they seemed to be intentionally staying in Wuyi Mountain, which was rather strange.
This time, the eyewitnesses, the traces at the scene, and the motive for the murder all pointed to the Wudang Sect. If it were just a coincidence, it would be even more inexplicable.
………………
By the time Jiang Wen and the Wudang Sect members arrived at the mountain valley, the sun had already completely set in the west, and the light in the valley had dimmed. The pine forest was so dense that it blocked out the sun, and the wind whistled through the pine needles, as if someone was whispering in the shadows.
The burial site was deep in a pine forest, in a low-lying area, with a sheer cliff opposite it, a place rarely visited by people.
The fresh soil on the ground was very soft, but the pit was not very deep, indicating that the work was done in a hurry. There were many footprints scattered around the pit, some deep and some shallow. Among them were several footprints of the cloud-patterned cloth boots often worn by Wudang disciples, clearly imprinted on the fresh soil.
Jiang Wen didn't rush to look at the body. Instead, he squatted down by the pit and carefully examined the footprints for a long time before glancing at Feng Daode.
"Master Feng, could you please explain?"
Feng Daode flicked his whisk and said with a serious expression:
"No need to say more. We buried the people, but we didn't kill them."
Jiang Wen nodded. Although he didn't know where the man's confidence came from, he didn't say anything more and simply walked slowly to the body.
This is a burly corpse with a ferocious face and wide-open eyes. It was clear that it had experienced great horror before its death. Judging from its clothing, it should be a disciple of the Double Blade Sect.
Jiang Wen touched the deceased's neck and limbs again to check for any external injuries. He found that the deceased's limbs were intact, with no signs of binding, and the clothes on the body were also intact, with no signs of fighting or tearing. The only fatal wound on the body was on the chest.
He reached out and unbuttoned the deceased's clothes, revealing the skin on his chest, and instantly gasped.
A clear handprint was visible in the center of the deceased's chest. The skin was bluish-black, and the entire sternum had collapsed, forming a shocking crater. It was clear at a glance that someone had struck the chest with a palm, shattering the heart meridian and causing death on the spot.
Jiang Wen feigned surprise and said, "This palm strike shattered the internal organs, yet it didn't cause any other damage. Could it be that it's not the internal palm force of Wudang Mian Zhang?"
The two Wudang disciples standing nearby paled and quickly said, "Nonsense! This is not our Wudang Cotton Palm!"
Jiang Wen immediately laughed and said, "Oh? Then tell me, what kind of palm technique is this? Besides the Wudang Cotton Palm, what other internal palm technique in the martial arts world can shatter a person's sternum with one palm without breaking the skin and flesh?"
The two Wudang disciples blushed, but were speechless for a moment. Wudang Cotton Palm was indeed a famous internal martial arts technique in the martial arts world, specializing in using softness to overcome hardness and injuring people through the bone. And this kind of injury that could shatter the heart with a single palm strike was indeed very similar to the characteristics of Wudang Cotton Palm.
The other corpse in the pit died in the same way: a palm strike to the center of its chest, its sternum collapsed, its heart meridian shattered, and it died on the spot. There were no other wounds on its body.
Two bodies, the same manner of death, the same method of murder—clearly the work of the same killer.
Jiang Wen remained silent, his gaze fixed on the Wudang Sect members. The inexplicable pressure he exuded caused unease to rise throughout the room.
Just as the anxiety and unease reached their peak, Feng Daode spoke first.
“Jiang Wen, you’re only half right. This palm strike is indeed an internal martial arts palm strike, but it’s definitely not the style of my Wudang internal martial arts palm techniques.”
Feng Daode's gaze swept over everyone, and he said, word by word, "Wudang Mian Zhang (Cotton Palm) is about going from soft to hard, accumulating softness to become hard. The power originates from the dantian, is generated from the waist and legs, and flows through the palm. First, one must practice soft power for ten years before seeking hardness and ferocity. It is a skill that is developed from the inside out. But the palm power on this deceased person is exactly the opposite—it is going from hard to soft."
Upon hearing this, all the Wudang disciples present were stunned, staring blankly at their sect leader.
Feng Daode squatted down and pointed to the palm print on the deceased's chest. "The edges of this palm print are clear and sharp, without any trace of spreading. The sternum collapsed as a whole, rather than shattered into pieces. This means that the force of this palm strike was extremely strong at the moment it was delivered, and it crushed the hard sternum with a single blow."
He looked at Jiang Wendao with a cold eye.
"This kind of powerful force is something that my Wudang Cotton Palm can never produce, because even if I were to personally take action, I could never unleash such earth-shattering and fierce power!"
Despite being relentlessly criticized and refuted, Jiang Wen smiled broadly, seemingly enjoying Feng Daode's intense emotions.
"Sect Leader Feng is indeed exceptionally knowledgeable. In your opinion, who is the murderer?"
Feng Daode paused, seemingly realizing something was amiss, but his fingertips continued tracing the bruised flesh of the deceased as he spoke.
"The most valuable aspect of this palm strike is not its force, but its ability to control the force—once a powerful palm strike is unleashed, it is like a flood that has been released from its dam, making it extremely difficult to control."
"But the murderer, at the moment when the palm strike was extremely powerful and shattered the sternum, forcibly withdrew all the force and transformed it into a soft force, locking all the power tightly in the heart meridian, without leaking out even a bit. That's why the sternum was completely shattered, but the skin and flesh were intact."
The Wudang disciples were all silent, especially the few who had been found buried earlier; their expressions were quite interesting.
Feng Daode slowly stood up, but his gaze darkened: "This kind of palm technique is an external palm technique that is extremely powerful and fierce. Only by practicing it to the extreme can one transform hardness into softness and achieve a balance of hardness and softness. This is completely contrary to the Wudang School's internal style of first being soft and then hard. And to be able to practice a powerful palm technique to this level, it is simply impossible without thirty or forty years of pure and profound experience."
“Jiang Wen, you are clearly proficient in an extremely powerful and fierce palm technique. Why pretend to be ignorant about this matter? You already knew that the murderer was not from the Wudang Sect. Why did you still put on this act with me?”
Jiang Wen was still smiling. Sometimes, the people who wrong you know best that you are innocent. What they want is for you to prove your innocence—otherwise, you can't just say that you are the prime suspect, can you?
He knew, of course, that the murderer wasn't from the Wudang sect, but to be able to use such a palm technique that transitioned from hardness to softness, and to have honed it for thirty or forty years—there were very few people in the martial arts world with such skill. Who was this person? What was his motive for killing? Did he kill these four people just to frame Wudang?
Jiang Wen is now genuinely starting to believe that a group of top-tier martial arts masters are hiding in the Wuyi Mountains, and they're about to kill two martial arts figures as a sacrifice to the heavens.
"Sect Leader Feng, as honored guests personally invited by me, I, Jiang, am naturally willing to believe that you are all innocent. However, my fellow martial artists still have doubts. If you can't even get past me, how can you convince the masses when you leave this mountain valley?"
Jiang Wen changed the subject and said in a seemingly relaxed tone, "Of course, I know that Wudang is a prestigious sect and naturally doesn't need to explain itself to these small, remote sects. But by being so secretive, you're essentially shifting the blame for the murderer onto Wudang. You need a reason to go back and explain to the elders in the sect."
Apart from Jiang Wen, everyone else present was from the Wudang Sect. The four people who buried the body were naturally under immense pressure from their fellow disciples and were now overwhelmed. They knelt down in front of Feng Daode and said...
"We disciples were ordered to patrol... When we arrived here, we found these four people dead, their wounds resembling those inflicted by the 'Cotton Palm' technique... In our anger and haste, we buried them, only to be discovered by others... We beg the sect leader to punish us! We will not disobey!"
Jiang Wen observed that Zhou Long's expression did not seem to be lying. At the time this happened, Zhou Long was already trapped in the Jade Maiden Counter-Suppression Formation and could not have had the opportunity to kill anyone. In other words, at the same time, there should have been another murderer.
Feng Daode looked displeased, but he didn't utter any words of reprimand. This was his consistent style: Wudang disciples could fight and scheme against each other, but they would never allow outsiders to provoke them.
At this moment, in front of Jiang Wen, he ignored his disciple's well-intentioned but misguided actions and coldly said—this was clearly another form of explanation to Jiang Wen.
"What did you find during your patrol? Did you find any trace of the murderer?"
The leader of the four Wudang disciples suddenly looked extremely frightened, and his lips trembled as he spoke.
"...We saw it, a wall—"
Feng Daode was taken aback at first, then snorted coldly and waited for an explanation.
The four Wudang disciples said that they were ordered to patrol this area. They felt that the dense forest blocked out the sun, and a chilling coldness rose from their bodies. The chirping of insects, birdsong, and the rustling of bamboo leaves that were just a moment ago seemed to be cut off by an invisible hand.
The whole world was eerily quiet, with only the pounding of my own heart in my chest, the muffled sound filling my ears, and even the sound of my footsteps on the fallen leaves barely perceptible.
But after their hearing was deprived, their vision was dramatically enhanced as compensation. They stood there staring at the black rock cliff several meters high on the other side of the mountain stream, covered with dark green moss, and suddenly realized that the "cliff" had moved!
It wasn't the cracking of collapsing rocks, but a sticky, fleshy writhing motion. The layer they thought was moss was spinning in unison in the gray-green dim light—it wasn't moss at all, but countless tiny pupils, each the size of a human eye, gray-green, covered with a murky white film, each one precisely locking onto them, these few ant-like people.
Then, the enormous "cliff" moved again.
It slowly and silently sank into the darkness at the bottom of the ravine, not into the rocks or the water, but as if it had merged into the void, gradually disappearing into the gray-green dim light.
At the edge of their vision, they seemed to see two ancient trees with gnarled branches growing on the top of the "cliff," like two sharp horns piercing the sky, but soon all that remained was a desolate mountain ravine and a mess of rotten leaves scattered all over the ground.
Only then did the light slowly descend, and the sounds of insects chirping, birds singing, wind rustling, and water rippling gradually returned to the world...
The Wudang disciples remained silent, seemingly unable to believe such an absurd claim, but the unwavering certainty of their fellow disciples prevented them from doubting that the other was lying.
After all, the tallest things people in the martial arts world have ever seen are probably mountains, cliffs, rivers, seas, and waves, but they have never imagined that there could be a creature as large as a cliff.
Jiang Wen, though he had witnessed far more ferocious beings, those that entrenched themselves beneath the entire Wuyi Mountains—these mountains stretching for thousands of miles were its dormant body—his intuition told him that this was something entirely different…
Jiang Wen looked at Feng Daode, his eyes flashing with an unusual light—a thirst for and pursuit of the truth, and an obsession with shattering lies and illusions at all costs.
Feng Daode realized Jiang Wen's intention, but Jiang Wen had already grabbed his shoulder in the nick of time, staring intently at him, and said, word by word.
"Sect Leader Feng, I can believe that the Wudang disciples are innocent, but please tell me frankly, what exactly are you desperately searching for in the Wuyi Mountains..."