Chapter 15: Lightning Five-Strike Whip
“Just trying to make a living, big brother.”
Xiang Yu smiled faintly.
There were too many people in front of her. If they all rushed her at once, they might very well beat her to death.
But that was fine.
She had cheats.
In fact, she still had two of them.
The system’s Skill Card Roulette began spinning.
“Rip Devils Apart Bare-Handed.”
“Lightning Five-Strike Whip.”
“Spinning Top Mastery.”
“Thunder Hidden in the Crotch.”
“What’s the Point of This Iron Staff?”
…
Every single skill sounded like the kind of thing that would utterly destroy a person’s dignity the instant they used it…
But at a time like this, Xiang Yu no longer cared about pride or shame!
Even if it turned out to be Thunder Hidden in the Crotch, she’d have no choice but to pull it out and use it!
The pointer slowly came to a stop…
Lightning Five-Strike Whip.
Xiang Yu’s entire body shuddered.
Inside her mind, it was as though an invisible thunderclap exploded.
An overwhelming torrent of sounds and images poured through the crown of her head in chaotic disorder, crackling down her spine and into every limb.
Then…
An utterly unfamiliar power possessed her body.
She instinctively shifted her footing.
Her legs seemed to move with an ethereal martial art, filling her with absolute confidence that she could effortlessly dodge, kick, evade, and take on eight opponents by herself.
So this is what an empowerment feels like…
Understanding dawned on her.
Yet another question surfaced.
Why does the person demonstrating these techniques seem so familiar?
Could it be… that after transmigrating, I inherited a hidden family martial arts legacy? Was this body secretly that of an unparalleled martial arts prodigy?
No…
That familiar face…
It seemed she’d seen it years ago…
…in the “Guichu” meme section of a certain video-sharing website.
Like every fantasy novel protagonist who receives a supreme martial art through mystical initiation, Xiang Yu clutched her head in agony, desperately trying to remember which ancient internet meme this technique came from.
Unfortunately…
Time wasn’t on her side.
The gaunt man had already raised his knife.
It wasn’t an ordinary kitchen cleaver.
It was a narrow boning knife, its blade polished until it gleamed silver in the light.
At that moment, it was gripped tightly in the man’s dark, sinewy hand, thick veins bulging across the back of it.
He advanced toward Xiang Yu one step at a time.
The others closed in as well.
Surrounded from all sides, Xiang Yu stood rooted to the spot, just like Pingping had moments earlier, seemingly frozen with fear.
When the encircling group was less than half a meter away, she suddenly sank her qi into her dantian and slowly declared,
“I am Xiang Yu, head instructor of the Hunbian Xingyi School… Just now, a friend asked me, ‘Master Xiang, what happened?'”
“Well, just a moment ago… there was a man in his thirties. One weighed just over ninety jin (about 45 kilograms), the other weighed over ninety kilograms—a real powerhouse.”
Taking a deep breath, Xiang Yu shifted her gaze from the gaunt man to Sun Qiangyou, who was sprawled on the ground weighing close to two hundred jin (around 100 kilograms), her mind racing.
Every movement from the demonstration replayed itself in her head.
The secret martial art had already been imprinted into her mind.
A power that wasn’t her own coursed through her body.
Those half-familiar, half-forgotten lines poured from her mouth like water gushing from a spring.
But at this critical moment, one fatal requirement remained unmet.
Lightning Five-Strike Whip needed… a whip.
Setting aside the absurdly long wind-up, the skill’s activation requirements were ridiculously strict.
The gaunt man was already closing in.
She had no idea when reinforcements would arrive.
But somehow…
She needed to find a whip.
The skinny man was clearly experienced.
He paid no attention to her incomprehensible chanting or lengthy “casting animation.”
Knife raised, he charged straight at her.
“…The moment I said it, bang! He stood right up! So fast! He came prepared!”
Xiang Yu continued reciting the lines at machine-gun speed.
“And then… a left front kick!”
At last, the technique reached its climax.
Xiang Yu suddenly dropped her center of gravity.
With astonishingly smooth footwork, she slid backward, narrowly avoiding the knife’s edge.
Her right leg rooted itself firmly to the ground like a mountain.
All the power she’d accumulated exploded through her left leg as she drove a solid front kick directly into the junction of the man’s chest and abdomen.
His ribs are broken.
She knew exactly how much force that kick had carried.
The gaunt man had never expected her to fight back.
Caught completely off guard, he took the sudden kick squarely in the torso. His eyes bulged, and a muffled groan escaped his throat as his body instantly folded over like a cooked shrimp.
The other men froze in shock.
For a brief moment, Xiang Yu’s sheer momentum intimidated them into keeping their distance.
Then—
“Heh… heh-heh-heh-heh…”
Xiang Yu let out a villainous cackle.
Ignoring the numbness creeping into her left leg, she withdrew it and immediately whipped her right leg toward the leader’s side.
“A right roundhouse kick!”
Another fool lunged at her from the left.
Xiang Yu clenched her left hand into a fist and launched a punch straight at the man’s jaw.
“A left jab!”
The man didn’t even manage a grunt.
Blood spraying from his mouth, he turned and fled, howling in pain.
So these are the desperate criminals?
Nothing but paper tigers.
“I blocked all of that.”
Xiang Yu drew back her fist and laughed, exhilarated by the system’s sudden “divine possession.”
Standing upright with effortless swagger, she clasped one fist in her opposite palm in the traditional martial salute and bowed politely to those around her.
“According to traditional martial arts etiquette…”
“I stop when the point is made.”
“You’ve already lost.”
The battered gang of traffickers: “…”
Ridiculous as the whole thing was—and incomprehensible to any sane observer—the feeling of overwhelming power surging through her body was undeniably intoxicating.
Xiang Yu had completely synchronized with this inexplicable martial art.
At this point, she no longer cared whether she’d still get to be human in her next life.
If the system had granted her Lightning Five-Strike Whip…
There was no way she wasn’t going to use it.
She suddenly bent over—
Swish!
—and yanked the leather belt straight off Sun Qiangyou’s waist.
Then she turned and began lashing the men who had finally worked up the courage to rush her again.
“First strike! Second strike! Third strike! Fourth strike!”
“Fifth strike!”
“Followed by Flash Step!”
The Septwolves leather belt whistled through the air in Xiang Yu’s hands.
With a twist of her arm and a snap of her wrist, the belt cracked again and again, striking in rapid succession.
Its tip rained down upon the men’s necks, thighs, beer bellies, groins, and other vulnerable spots.
The blows, however, were nothing like raindrops.
Each strike tore through the air with a sharp whistle.
A lighter hit split skin and left bloody welts.
A heavier one bit deep into flesh.
Every lash was aimed squarely at ending the recipient’s hopes of ever fathering children again.
The leather belt lashed through the air like a relentless storm.
Crack after crack echoed as it struck flesh in an unbroken rhythm.
And while Xiang Yu unleashed this absurdly domineering martial art, she maintained a perfectly icy expression as she continued reciting its mandatory lines:
“Easy! Easy! Receive! Neutralize! Counter! Easy!”
She couldn’t help it.
It was the passive effect of Lightning Five-Strike Whip.
If her opponent failed to surrender during the “traditional martial arts—stop at the point” portion of the technique, she was required to recite every move’s name while completing the entire combo.
What most people didn’t know was that they actually had one opportunity to admit defeat and stop the sequence.
Of course…
Xiang Yu herself had absolutely no idea that rule existed either.
All she knew was that if these traffickers ended up beaten into the consistency of hand-pounded beef balls, then that was simply their fate.
The eight traffickers, now being driven into a panicked rout by a single woman, were nearly in tears from both the beating and her nonstop verbal assault.
Meanwhile, their leader, the tall, gaunt Sun Quanyou, had fallen into complete bewilderment.
Normally, human traffickers were greedy, not bloodthirsty.
They preferred to keep a low profile.
Today they had valuable “goods” in the van and had planned to leave as soon as possible.
While stopping near the village to rest, they’d decided they might as well abduct the little girl picking mushrooms too.
Everything had gone smoothly…
Right up until that woman came charging at them on an electric scooter like Zhao Zilong charging through enemy lines, sending Sun Qiangyou flying with one savage impact.
Sun Qiangyou was his younger brother.
Sun Quanyou had only gotten out of the van intending to scare the girl into silence with a knife.
If possible, capturing this unusually tall young woman as well would have been an even bigger profit.
But no one had warned him…
This wasn’t a mule.
No.
Calling her a mule no longer did her justice.
She was a donkey.
A horse.
A hippopotamus.
A heavy battle tank.
Like the Monkey King rampaging through Heaven itself.
She looked completely unhinged, muttering incomprehensible nonsense to herself the entire time—
Yet every punch and every kick landed with terrifying precision and brutality.
She looked exactly like the sort of person who could beat all of them to death…
…and somehow still be the one acting in lawful self-defense.
Meanwhile…
All the evidence of their crimes was still sitting inside the van.
“I got careless!”
“I didn’t dodge!”
Just as Sun Quanyou was desperately trying to figure out what to do, that devilish battle cry rang out beside his ear once more.
The belt came crashing down from above.
This time, it was the heavy brass buckle leading the way.
Without the slightest feint or hesitation, it came straight at his face.
The blow hit so hard that, for one glorious instant…
Sun Quanyou thought he saw his great-grandmother welcoming him into the afterlife.
“Boss! Boss, let’s go!”
One of the gang members crawled frantically toward the van, covered in blood and bruises, wailing as he ran.
“She’s a martial arts master! We can’t beat her!”
Someone shouted.
The traffickers, who had been beaten into utter disarray, immediately scrambled back toward the van, crying out in panic.
The middle-aged woman was already in the driver’s seat, starting the engine.
“This woman’s a freak! Don’t waste time fighting her!”
Sun Quanyou had taken the worst beating of all. Spitting out a mouthful of blood, he stumbled into the van and slammed the door shut.
“Go! Go! Drive!”
The driver floored the accelerator, steering the van toward the mountains.
Clearly, this was a retreat route they’d planned countless times before.
[Achievement Unlocked: Martial Arts Master
Reward Obtained: Shennong Jade Grain]
So defeating enemies can make equipment drop now?
The loot rate’s surprisingly generous.
Xiang Yu had only just finished her belt technique and still wasn’t satisfied.
Sun Qiangyou was still lying on the ground groaning like a pig awaiting slaughter.
Since she was still in rhythm, she canceled her recovery animation and casually gave the poor man another lash.
To her surprise, the traffickers simply abandoned him and sped away.
The moment Xiang Yu saw the direction the van was heading, her expression changed.
If they got deeper into the mountains, there would be no surveillance cameras.
Even if they abandoned the van halfway and fled on foot, the police might never find them.
There could still be victims inside!
Clenching her teeth, Xiang Yu used the second Skill Card she’d received for “Kicking a Child from Beihai Kindergarten.”
Please…
Anything that lets me fly or chase them down…
The roulette wheel spun…
…and stopped on:
Spinning Top Mastery
[Spinning Top Mastery · Tyrant of the Park
Upon activation, you automatically enter “Retired Grandpa Who Dominates the Park’s Spinning Top Circle” mode.
You gain the unhurried composure of someone with a guaranteed pension.
Your gaze becomes calm and detached.
Every whip movement flows as naturally as drifting clouds and running water, full of rhythm and artistic grace.
Special Bonus: You may choose the background music while using the skill.]
Instantly, an energetic electric guitar riff exploded inside her head.
“The boundless horizon is my love…”
(The opening line of the famous Chinese song “The Most Dazzling Folk Style.”)
I give up.
What the hell is this skill supposed to do?
We’re in the middle of a fight!
Grinding her teeth, Xiang Yu forcibly shut off the imaginary soundtrack in her head.
She watched helplessly as the van full of traffickers sped past her…
…
Wait.
Why had they stopped?
Had they not been beaten enough?
A tall figure was standing directly in front of the van.
It was the textbook pose of someone trying to stage a traffic accident.
The person was even using a cane, making him look like the perfect disabled victim.
The only unusual part was that people normally pulled this stunt in front of a Porsche Panamera or an Audi A8.
This beat-up Wuling van had probably never imagined it would receive such an honor in its entire existence.
It looked as though, at any second, the man would flop onto the ground and demand hundreds of thousands in compensation.
Then—
The roaring van suddenly stopped.
But Xiang Yu saw exactly what had happened.
It wasn’t because the heartless traffickers had suddenly grown a conscience and hit the brakes.
The man had simply raised his cane…
…and thrust it into the front of the speeding vehicle.
Then he pressed downward.
Sun Quanyou, who had been thrown headfirst into the windshield by the sudden loss of momentum, was already numb from the day’s endless stream of impossible events.
Ignoring the pain in his head, he stomped on the accelerator again.
And again.
The engine roared furiously beneath his foot.
Yet the four-wheeled machine—
which moments ago had been charging forward—
didn’t move even a single centimeter.
Then something even more unbelievable happened.
The front wheels, pinned beneath that simple wooden cane, began to flatten with soft pff… pff… sounds, as though crushed beneath an irresistible weight.
A moment later, the entire vehicle lurched violently.
With both front tires blown, the van collapsed forward into an almost kneeling position.
Shen Jiu withdrew his cane.
Then, with complete nonchalance, he flicked the engine oil from its tip, as casually as someone shaking rainwater off the end of an umbrella.
Xiang Yu: ∑(°□°)!!
“…F*ck.”
At long last…
Sun Quanyou’s mentality completely shattered.
They’d finally gotten their hands on some valuable “goods.” The plan had been simple: stop at the edge of the village, have a good meal with the boys, throw some wild mushrooms into a soup, maybe even snatch another victim before leaving.
Who could have imagined that first a lunatic on an electric scooter would appear—babbling about being a “manager,” shouting about “traditional martial arts” and “stopping when the point is made”—and then proceed to take on seven men by herself?
He’d already admitted defeat, abandoned his own younger brother, and fled.
Then, halfway through their escape…
A cripple with a cane showed up.
The guy could barely walk properly.
Yet with one casual lift of that cane…
He’d disabled the van.
Dear God…
If You want to punish me, just send me to prison.
Don’t send these supernatural freaks to torment me!
Have I finally started seeing ghosts because I’ve done too many evil things?
Consumed entirely by panic and rage, Sun Quanyou reached beneath his seat and pulled out an old hunting shotgun.
Bracing it against the open window, he fired at the man outside.
“They’ve got a gun! They have a gun!!”
Xiang Yu shouted at the top of her lungs.
But she was too late.
The barrels of the old double-barreled shotgun jerked upward with the recoil.
A puff of white smoke and sparks burst from the muzzle.
Loaded with old-fashioned black powder, it went off with a deafening BOOM, almost as though it had exploded.
Yet something miraculous happened.
The pellets did not continue toward Shen Jiu’s face according to any recognizable law of physics.
Just before they would have struck him…
They curved away.
Skimming past a few strands of his hair.
Like a slow-motion shot from a movie, the shockwave lifted the long hair draped over his shoulders.
Only after the echo of the gunshot had completely faded did those strands gently settle back into place.
Shen Jiu hadn’t even tilted his head.
He simply stood there with perfect composure…
Calmly lifting the lid off King Yama’s coffin. (As if casually inviting Death itself to come back out.)
Then—
The unruffled Shen Jiu drove one kick with his lame leg.
Bang!
The driver’s door crumpled inward.
He reached in and effortlessly seized the shotgun.
The traffickers scrambled out of the van like a flock of panicked ducks.
One man in the passenger seat stubbornly clung to the vehicle, refusing to get out.
Shen Jiu grabbed him by the collar as easily as picking up a chick.
Then he casually threw a punch.
The man’s face visibly caved inward.
Newton’s Third Law still applied.
The force of that punch was so tremendous that…
King Yama quietly slid the lid back onto his coffin.
(No need to come out after all.)
Xiang Yu: ???
The sheer violation of classical mechanics before her eyes left Xiang Yu’s pupils trembling.
This is way too violent.
She hurriedly changed what she was shouting.
“Don’t kill them! Don’t kill them!”
If anyone died, there was no telling how the case would be judged.
Besides, this gang almost certainly had accomplices and leads the police would need.
Shen Jiu paused.
He lowered his fist.
Then, instead of punching, he simply resumed using his cane.
Xiang Yu also jumped back into the fight.
A skill card was a terrible thing to waste.
Gripping Sun Qiangyou’s leather belt, she began whipping anyone within reach.
And she had to admit—
Spinning Top Mastery was absurdly effective.
One crack of the Septwolves belt, and whoever got hit would spring upright as though an engine had suddenly been bolted onto their backside, immediately spinning in circles.
The belt sliced through the air with one sharp crack after another.
The victims staggered over their own feet, turning and wobbling exactly like spinning tops.
The skill card wasn’t single-use, either.
Once Xiang Yu got into the rhythm, she even mixed in a few moves from Lightning Five-Strike Whip.
Every shout of “Ha!” and “Hah!” came with another mandatory voice line:
“Traditional martial arts—stop when the point is made!”
“Easy!”
“Easy!”
“I got careless!”
“I didn’t dodge!”
Before long, the entire vanload of traffickers had been whipped into running frantic circles, making complete fools of themselves.
She and Shen Jiu worked together with astonishing chemistry.
One knocked people down with a cane.
The other lashed them back to their feet with a belt.
A trafficker would be flattened by two strikes from Shen Jiu—
Only to be immediately spun upright again by Xiang Yu’s Spinning Top Mastery.
The two of them cooperated like adjacent stations on an assembly line.
It almost felt like they were seasoned partners fighting side by side.
By the time Xiang Yu had completely entered the zone, she no longer cared how Shen Jiu’s bad leg or mysterious cane worked.
She was fully immersed in combat.
Then—
A booming shout came from behind them, accompanied by the rumbling engine of a three-wheeled cargo bike.
“Boss!! I’m here!!!”
Liu Bo came roaring over in the three-wheeler, drenched in sweat, his face flushed bright red.
The cargo bed was packed with large barrels of water.
And wedged between them…
Sat a young woman with a camera hanging around her neck.
It was the same girl from that morning—
The one who had insisted on soaking in the hot springs as soon as they opened.
The aspiring content creator who had come at dawn to film the hot spring and review the place—
The very customer Liu Bo had welcomed when the day began.
Xiang Yu yelled,
“Liu Bo! Why did you bring a customer here?!”
Sitting in the back with her camera hugged tightly to her chest, Ning Qiaoqiao was just as stunned.
“I came to help put out the fire!”
Without pausing her top-spinning belt assault, Xiang Yu shouted back over her shoulder,
“…I meant for you to go get people! Did you call anyone?!”
If he’d shouted that there were vicious traffickers kidnapping people, not everyone would necessarily have come.
But if he yelled that there was a fire…
That would bring the whole village running.
Instead, this idiot had actually loaded up barrels of water and rushed over.
“They’re coming!!”
No sooner had Liu Bo finished speaking than another booming voice echoed down the mountain road opposite him.
It was Ji Kailang.
Her naturally thunderous voice carried all the way across the valley.
Behind her came a vast crowd of villagers.
And in the middle of the crowd…
They were carrying a coffin.
<< _ >>
**TN
Guǐchù is an internet slang for a highly popular genre of remix/parody videos.
