Chapter 57  : One Punch Does It

Everyone looked at Chen Fan.

“Are you crazy? Sit down!” Xiao Wang growled at Chen Fan.

“Haven’t you seen that none of the tycoons of the Jiang Bei dare to speak a word, you are courting death!”

Xiao Wang was convinced that if Chen Fan ticked off Lin Hu, not only would Chen Fan be in trouble, but people around him would also suffer collateral damage.

So thinking, Xiao Wang glared at Chen Fan and wished that he could make the boy disappear.

Yang Li and the other girl’s faces paled. As they wondered if it was too late to pull Chen Fan back to his seat, they saw Lin Hu looking toward their direction.

Xiao Wang and his friends felt a chill down their spines after being glared at by Lin Hu’s murderous gaze. They looked down and didn’t even dare move a finger. Meanwhile, they hoped that Lin Hu would not drag them into his conflict with Chen Fan.

Suddenly, people around Chen Fan took a step away from him, as none of them wanted to appear to be related to him.

Brother Zhang was the first to distance himself from Chen Fan and stood the furthest away from him.

Song Tao’s performance had robbed him of his confidence, while the arrival of Lin Hu had shattered whatever ambition he still harbored to become the victor of the event.

Chen Fan was surrounded by onlookers and had become the center of the event.

Only A’Xiu stood beside him. Despite the girl’s destitute life, she was kind and had a heart of gold.

A’Xiu tugged at Chen Fan’s shirt and pleaded, “Brother Chen, sit down, I beg of you. That guy on the stage is too terrifying.”

“Fear not, I can handle him.” Chen Fan gave the girl a reassuring smile.

And then, he rubbed the top of A’Xiu head and said:

“Thank you for standing with me. You have my promise that I will give you an opportunity in the future, as long as you can catch that opportunity first.”

Without offering any explanation to his words, he brushed away A’Xiu’s finger on his shirt and walked toward the stage with his hands linked behind his back.

A’Xiu was left among the crowd. The image of Chen Fan’s caring and warm smile stayed in her mind and would not go away.

Out of the blue, she felt a sense of unnamed regret and sorrow as tears welled in her eyes.

Chen Fan sauntered toward the stage, and the audience quickly made way for him.

Most people glared at him as if he was a nut job. Some who still had a conscience urged the boy concernedly, “Hey, little guy. He is looking for Master Chen, not you. Stop!”

Everyone thought Master Chen was a middle age man in his forties, like Master Wu. However, this boy was only seventeen, and people found it hard to believe that he was Master Chen.

Chen Fan cracked a smile and kept his silence as he sauntered on.

When he arrived at the foot of the stage, he looked up at the deck of the stage above his head and started clambering onto the stage. His entrance was the least flattering compared to previous fighters who had leapt onto the stage heroically.

When Xu Ao saw the boy clambering onto the stage, he felt the boy looked very familiar, and therefore he narrowed his eyes and looked carefully. When he realized that it indeed was Chen Fan, he was seized by a fit of unease.

Although he was not pleased by the boy’s arrogance, his girl was infatuated with him, and as Xu Rongfei’s father, he couldn’t just sit around and watch the boy perish. Lin Hu’s nickname was Alaskan Tiger, and little did the boy know that the nickname carried countless unfortunate souls who once made the same mistake as he did.

“What the hell are you doing here? Get off the stage!”

Xu Ao shouted at Chen Fan.

Chen Fan said sarcastically, “He is looking for me.”

Xu Ao wished he could walk to the stage and slap the boy’s face. Instead, he shouted hotly, “He is looking for MASTER Chen, not you!

“Do you think anyone who has the last name Chen is a Master?”

Like most of the audience, Xu Ao couldn’t make the connection between the young boy and the image he had of Master Chen.

Chen Fan blinked dumbfoundedly and said, “Yes, I am Master Chen.”

Xu Ao’s mind reeled. He felt that he was barking at a tree stump.

By then, Master Gu had clambered onto the stage and walked over to Chen Fan and scolded him hotly, “Get lost, young boy. You can’t even defeat me, much less Lin Hu.

“Get back now! Lin Hu is an honorable fighter; he wouldn’t hold a grudge against an arrogant child.”

So saying, he squeezed his face at Chen Fan, willing him to get off the stage and save himself.

Lin Hu crossed his arms in front of his chest and regarded the boy perplexedly.

Based on his experience, he could tell that this boy had never undergone a full day of martial arts training.

He couldn’t even defeat any of the bodyguards, much less Linbao. In addition, it took a long time to cultivate Inner Force and therefore an Inner Force user would have to be at least as old as Master Gu.

However, the boy in front of him did match Xin Zhong’s description of Master Chen.

“Regardless, since he had the audacity of challenging me, I should make an example out of him and show everyone what will happen is they rise against me.”

Lin Hu thought to himself as his eyes darkened.

The other businessmen on the platform looked at Chen Fan with equal measures of lament and admiration.

They admired his mettle for rising against Lin Hu. However, they also lamented his short-sightedness due to his young age.

Miss Lu said under her breath:

“Fourth Uncle, can you save him? We can’t just sit around and watch a boy being killed.”

The Fourth Uncle shook his head helplessly.

“Rescue is unlikely to do any good. Lin Hu is determined to consolidate power in the Jiang Bei region. If we stand up right now, we will be the first faction to be eliminated.”

Miss Lu’s eyes dimmed as she lamented helplessly in her mind.

She had been very optimistic about the outcome of this year’s tournament and didn’t have a shred of doubt that they would emerge victoriously. However, the arrival of Lin Hu had completely ruined her plan.

Lin Hu was not what she really afraid of; it was the power behind Lin Hu, the power that had even more clout than all the factions at the table combined.

“It appears that I had been living under a rock all the while.” Miss Lu lamented.

Many audience members were thinking the same thing:

“This boy is a nut job, if he wanted to court death, then let him.”

A’Xiu was so distressed by the situation that she might break down into tears at any moment.

Suddenly, Lin Hu said thinly:

“I am looking for a Master, not just anyone whose last name is Chen. But of course, I will oblige if you really wanted to fight me. But I warn you; it’s going to hurt a lot.”

Chen Fan was unfazed by the water-walking and near invincible martial arts grandmaster. He rubbed his nose and said lightly:

“If you are looking for Master Chen who had defeated your brother, then you are looking at him right now.”

Everyone was taken aback by what they have heard.

“What did he say? Did he say that he is Master Chen?”

The business tycoons sitting on the platform were also shocked by the revelation.

“For real?”

Lin Hu was stunned and didn’t speak a word for a while.

Chen Fan said again, “Your brother, Linbao’s martial arts were laughable. I scared him with just one move, and he spun his tail, so I had to follow up with another one. ”

Chen Fan ignored the severe expression on Lin Hu’s face and continued: “I thought your teacher Lei Qianjue would come to avenge him, so I had prepared a few coups de grace just in case, but since it’s only you, I guess I didn’t have to prepare after all.

“Nonetheless, you have quite a creative mind. I have never thought of walking on water before, good for you!”

He had been mulling over the technique Lin Hu had used to walk on water and therefore was late to reply to Lin Hu’s challenge.

Although Chen Fan was impressed by the water-walking skill when he first laid eyes on it, once he thought it through, he realized that it was just a gimmick and lacked practical use.

Zhou Tianhao finally gathered himself and jumped out of his armchair.

“Master Chen, you are finally here!

“Master Chen, please teach Lin Hu a lesson on behalf of all the residence of Jiang Bei region.”

At first, the audiences couldn’t believe what they had heard, but after a while, they had finally come to terms with the fact that the young boy really was Master Chen.

He was the one who had defeated Linbao and caused the racket that spurred the overseas grandmaster to come to China and seek revenge.

So shocked was Xu Ao that he could only gap at Che Fan.

“Chen... Is Chen Fan, Master Chen? How is that possible?”

He had looked into all the details of Chen Fan’s background and found out that other than being a solid fighter, he was nothing extraordinary. He found it hard to believe that underneath Chen Fan’s ordinary appearance was a mighty, lightning-wielding grandmaster.

Xu Ao wagered that Linbao’s power should not be too far than Lin Hu. If Chen Fan could so easily defeat Linbao, how powerful exactly was the boy?

Yang Li and her friends stood with their mouth open in sheer surprise. None of them could form a word. After a while, A’Xiu seemed to have remembered something, and she shouted:

“No wonder Boss Zhang called him Master Chen. I thought that’s just some weird custom of the Chu Zhou City.

“So you really are Master Chen.”

A’Xiu gazed at the powerful Master Chen who smirked casually at his deadly opponent. She conceded that she was wrong about this boy.

“So it IS you!”

Lin Hu murmured to himself. Then he shouted with a booming voice.

“I don’t give a damn about who you are!

“You have defeated my brother and humiliated my sect! I will avenge my brother today!”

Before his voice faced, he stomped the ground as his body surged in size. All the while, a white mist formed around his burgeoning frame. He reached out both arms and brushed the mist with surprising deft fingers. In a blink, the shapeless mist had formed many thin threads.

The threads lanced about around Lin Hu. They were so sharp that they could pierce through metal with ease. If one such thread landed on a human body, it would almost definitely kill the person outright.

The surprised look on Fourth Uncle evaporated and was replaced by grave concerns.

“He had unleashed Internal Force and formed Qi threads. This was the infamous coupe de grace of the Hong Sect.”

“Thousand Trickeries! ”

Chen Fan smiled light-heartedly and then said:

“You have just reached the Perfected state, so in theory, you wouldn’t be able to project your internal force outward just yet. I bet you are using a Secret Art of your sect.

“Fine, fine. I guess I will show you the real power of Martial Arts.” Chen Fan lifted both hands and closed his fingers. It was as if he had grabbed hold of the very fabric of time and space.

“True Martial Thirty-Six Forms”

“First Form: Skyfall Hammer!”