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Chapter 4: Popular Martial Arts Version

Following the threats, both sides start fighting, ShiMengJie flicks his wrist, immediately a pair of sharp iron pens are shot towards big-headed ghost.

At the same time, ShiZhongMeng with a silver pointed steel pen, fight life pursuing ghost with his scimitar, and funeral door ghost with his chain spear, in a one vs two. God of strength ShiLiQiang is fighting the old woman, who also known as the hanging ghost and fights with a long rope. ShiLiQiang’s strength is ridiculous, but the rope of hanging ghost makes it so that he can’t effectively utilise it, all he can do is roar non-stop, ShiBoWei wants to go and help, but he is held down by two other ghosts.

On the other side, big-headed ghost with his octagonal hammer is having trouble against ShiMengJie, so the pretty ghost in her red dress has to help out with her knife.

Four battles are going on within the giant snow storm, difficult to tell who will win or lose.

Western Hills Cave of Ghosts still have four people who haven’t joined the fight yet, while their opponent only has Golden Lion King left, and he is sickly leaning on top of a lion. In this battle the Western Hills Cave of Ghosts has the advantage, but if the Shi brothers just rally the beasts with a roar, then they will immediately become disadvantaged.

JiangChen’s blood starts boiling due to witnessing a real life version of master martial artists PKing*1, GuoXiang however gets scared due to being surrounded by beasts, but she also wants to see the Condor Hero so she yells:”Uncle Big headed ghost, stop fighting, you guys have more people, even if you win it won’t be honorable. You guys offended them first, just apologize!” However, everybody is fighting seriously, who has the time to care about her?

Both sides fought for a long time, long beaded ghost and ShiBoWei could only fight evenly, while the old grandma hanging ghost utilizing her variety of rope tricks, makes big and small circles, while ShiLiQiang is slightly not paying attention almost manages to tie a rope around his neck, fortunately for him she is also cautious of his strength. Big headed ghost and pretty ghost, one hard attcks and one soft attacks, make up for each other’s weaknesses, however ShiMengJie is surprisingly fast and able to fight one vs two to a draw. While big-headed ghost roars like thunder, pretty ghost laughs sinisterly to try to disperse the enemy’s attention, But ShiMengJie just pretends to be deaf, only focusing on their combat.

Although all ten ghosts from the western mountain have names, once “Western Hills Cave of Ghosts” started popping up around JiangHu, all ten of them gave up their names and took on the title of ghost. All ten of them originally had strange aspects about their looks, so they just said:”The heroes of JiangHu call us ghosts, so why not let us test and see whether ghosts are more powerful than humans?”

Like Debt collecting ghost, his original name is BinTiePai, just that even the smallest amount of resentment is enough for him to exact revenge on people, so those within the martial arts circles gave him the nickname of “Debt Collecting Ghost”. When he head that he rejoiced, and carved the names of each and every one of his enemies onto his blade, only once he kills them will he cross their name out.

Seeing life-pursuing ghost and funeral door ghost having trouble with ShiBoMeng, debt collecting ghost hurriedly goes to help. The silver pointed steel pen is already a mysterious weapon, what’s even more mysterious is the metal sheeted book, five pieces of metal creating “dang dang” noises as they clash into each other, ShiZongMeng only becomes disadvantaged when life chasing, funeral door, and debt collecting three ghosts start working together.

Thousands of beasts crouch and surrounds everybody. The members of Western Hills Cave of Ghosts can only see bright green eyes all around them within the dark, so even if they can kill the Shi brothers, getting out of the encirclement of beasts is going to be extremely difficult. The old woman, hanging ghost wants to take ShiLiQiang hostage with her rope to force them to call off the beasts and make a way out. But ShiLiQiang is originally stronger than hanging ghost, so is there any way it would be easy? Then smiling ghost says:”Second elder sister, let me help you.” while drawing his weapon and springing towards ShiLiQiang.

ShiLiQiang is just fighting stressfully, so he welcomes the addition of smiling ghost, yelling:”Come!” while swinging his bronze pestle*2 towards smiling ghost’s head. Smiling ghost tilts his body and use his dual whips to block, only to hear “Pu”, both whips are cut apart. Smiling ghost’s face contorts and quickly rolls out of the way, hearing a “Peng” sound as the bronze pestle hits the ground. Smiling ghost pulls some poison powder out from his chest, and throws it towards ShiLiQiang as he stands up. ShiLiQiang’s heart sinks when he sees a faint red mist appear in front of his face, messing up his footsteps and forcing him to fall. Immediately his feet became tied up by hanging ghost’s long rope.

ShiBoWei, ShiZhongMeng, and ShiMengJie all became shocked and angry once they see the god of strength unable to free himself after being captured.  GuoXiang exclaimed:”What are you guys doing? What kind of hero wounds people with tricks?” Originally she didn’t want to help either side, but she can’t help herself after seeing that what smiling ghost did was too despicable.

At this moment, suddenly a voice from behind can be heard from golden lion king as he slowly stands up and growls:”Put down fourth younger brother!”

ShiLiQiang is already fainted, due to his strength being too high, hanging ghost also ties up his arms and presses a few of his acupuncture points just in case he suddenly wakes up, then yells:”Shoo away these beasts, then we’ll release the hostage!” However, without a care, ShiShuGang with sunken eyes and cheeks, slowly staggers forwards, obviously very sick.

JiangChen knows that right now is the best time to acquire some goodwill, so he quickly shouts:”Hey, this big brother, you’re sick, don’t fight.”

GuoXian also chimes in:”Yea, everyone should just talk it out.”

ShiShuGang just looks towards JiangChen and Guoxiang, nodded and said:”Thank you!” But his feet did not stop, heading towards ShiLiQiang one step at a time, at this time smiling ghost winks at hanging ghost, to convey that they should advance from the left and right together, to also capture ShiShuGang.

Just as they arrive in front of ShiShuGang, with both hands stretched out, suddenly ShiShuGang roars and his left hand snaps towards hanging ghost, while his right hand whips smiling ghost on the back, these two can only feel some giant pressure squashing them, both staggering and almost falling, hurriedly backing off to recover, fortunately ShiShuGang doesn’t chase. At this time, both of them are aghast with fear, and covered in cold sweat, unable to believe that this sick ghost is actually so strong.

ShiShuGang releases the acupuncture’s on his fourth younger brother, lightly pulling on hanging ghost’s rope to instantly rip it apart, but ShiLiQiang is also poisoned, so he can’t wake up. ShiShuGang frownes and shouts:”Bring the antidote here!”

Smiling ghost replies:”Call off the beasts, then I’ll give you the antidote.”

ShiShuGang just grunts, and then staggers towards smiling ghost. Smiling ghost does not have the courage to face him head on so he quickly dodgs out of the way. Due to being sick ShiShuGang can’t leap, but he still weakly walks towards smiling ghost. At this time the other four ghosts who are still spectating spring into action, and smiling ghost also turns around to fight. ShiShuGang returns the attacks with a palm, but his power seems lacking, while five ghosts surround him, then start stabbing and slashing, but no one dares to get too close. While smiling ghost is afraid of poisoning his own brothers so he did not use poison. At this moment ShiBoWei let out a shout, and the beasts around roared in unison.

Although the Western Hills Cave of Ghosts are experienced in fighting, the scene in front of them still instills fear. An unending wave of beasts, start their stamped towards the ten ghosts of western hills.  GuoXiang cries out “Ah” while paling under the terror, JiangChen is also surprised, and just as a tiger is about to pounce on him, two hats from the Shi brothers fly onto their heads. Due to long-term training of the beasts, once they see that these two people wearing these hats, they stop attacking them, changing their targets to the ten ghosts.

Tigers, wolves, leopards, apes, black bears……. All sorts of wild beasts bite and claw at the ten ghosts, the ten ghosts of western hills can only kill seven or eight beasts, but all get wounds because of two reasons , one the Shi brothers pressuring on the side, and two the sheer number of beasts is just too many, pieces of cloth flying everywhere, blood dripping off everyone, seeing as they are all going to die here, no one will be able to escape the claws of the beasts.

GuoXiang sees three tigers attack big-headed ghost, observing that his hammer is already dropped on the floor, and another lion is biting at his arm, only barely holding out with his left arm, against two other tigers. Guo Xiang thinks about how it was him who brought her here, seeing him this beat up, her heart softens, and without a second thought, takes off her hat, and throws it on top of his head, and it is pretty funny and wobbly due to the size of his head. When the Shi brothers train their beasts, they all wear a special hat, due to the beasts intelligence, once they see big headed ghost wear that hat, they all go around him. While GuoXiang is now surrounded by four leopards.

At this moment ShiShuGang who just stole long bearded ghosts steel rod, to prevent him from hurting too many beasts, and is surprised when he turns around and sees GuoXiang call for help, but due to distance he can’t make it in time. But then a strange thing happens, the leopards don’t bite or claw at GuoXiang, they just circl her and sniff, sometimes rubbing against her, very affectionate. GuoXiang is already too scared to move, but once she sees that the leopards mean no harm, she suddenly remembers that her mother and sister once told her that she drank leopard milk growing up, now it looks like these four leopards smell a similar scent on her, so they think of her as the same species. She is surprised and happy, bending down and hugging the head of two leopards, while the other two lick her face and arm. GuoXiang feels a ticklish feeling and laugh out loud. Ever since the Shi brothers started training beasts, they have never seen such a mysterious scene, so they are both surprised and happy as well.

Big headed ghost stopped being attacked due to the hat, but how can he just live alone after seeing his nine brothers and sisters unable to escape? The ghosts of western hill’s cave aren’t gentlemen, and usually don’t do good deeds, but they have back-bone, immediately taking off the hat to throw towards the red dressed pretty ghost yelling:”Nine younger sister, quickly run away.”

Pretty ghost immediately catches the hat, and then throws it to bearded ghost saying:”Big brother, you go first, get revenge for us in the future.”

Long bearded ghost catches the hat and then puts it on smiling ghost’s head saying:”ten younger brother, ten years is not too late for a gentleman’s revenge, ten years is too much, your big brother won’t be able to live that long.” All ten of them don’t seem to want to accept this life saving object.

At this moment, suddenly a cold voice can be heard:”Western hills cave of ghosts don’t keep their word, making me waste half a nights time, only to see a bunch of beasts playing around!”

Once JiangChen hears this voice, his body can’t help but tremble, and he yells within his heart:”Holy fuck! Yang Guo has come!”

Translator Notes:

*1 Player Killing

*2 青铜杵 QingTongChu Bronze Pestle. Not to be confused with the pestles from pestles and mortars.   Here’s a picture