GA: Chapter 172 – Returning Blows with Their Own Methods—The Minor Formless Skill
Thinking of the righteousness these orthodox sects were parading, Dongfang Bai's eyes filled with contempt.
What exactly had she done to threaten all under heaven—what gave them the grounds to proclaim the world had long suffered under her?
Because they had once been rained upon, they knew to hold the umbrella for others.
In the territory under the Sun Moon Holy Cult's rule, the common people couldn't be said to live in great happiness—but they lived and worked in reasonable peace. At the very least, no sect dared stir up trouble on her turf.
Though, to be fair, it was perfectly normal. For these orthodox sects, what you actually did wasn't important. What mattered was that your existence was inconvenient for them.
The world was always like that—casting everything in simple black and white.
We are white, so whatever we do, we remain white.
And you are black, so no matter what good you do, you remain black.
Black was always black. White was always white.
This jianghu, this world—it was a chessboard with only two colors. If you wanted to change that, you had no choice but to break free from being a chess piece, become the one who moved the pieces—and then overturn the board entirely.
Ordinary Group Owner: "Seriously? Where did they get the nerve?"
Ordinary Group Owner: "And shouldn't they all be pretty busy right now?"
Ordinary Group Owner: "The contest over the Bixie Swordplay manual, the Golden Basin Hand-Washing ceremony, the great debate between sword and qi—all of that should be happening. How did they manage to unite?"
Su Yunqing asked in genuine puzzlement. Even without Dongfang Bai's involvement in the main plot, certain events should still be unfolding on their own.
The Five Sacred Mountains were neither united in numbers nor in spirit right now. How had they come together to jointly oppose Dongfang Bai?
And even if they had—who would lead them? Yue Buqun? Zuo Lengchan? Surely not Shaolin. Would Zuo Lengchan even agree to that?
Dongfang Bubai: "Because of Linghu Chong."
Dongfang Bubai: "His current strength is formidable. Even the me from back then might not have been able to defeat him."
Dongfang Bubai: "From the moment he left the mountain, he challenged the entire jianghu—Qingcheng, Hengshan, Songshan, Shaolin, Wudang, not one was a match for him. Even Feng Qingyang, once called the Sword Saint of Huashan, was defeated in under a hundred exchanges."
Dongfang Bubai: "And he seems to have mastered an inner cultivation method capable of mimicking others' martial arts and executing them with even greater power. In the jianghu, he's become known as: Returning Blows with Their Own Methods."
Ordinary Group Owner: "???"
Ordinary Group Owner: "You're sure you're talking about Linghu Chong?"
Ordinary Group Owner: "Challenging the entire world with a sword. Defeating everyone. Returning Blows with Their Own Methods."
Ordinary Group Owner: "When he first came down the mountain, wasn't he a third-rate fighter at best? Couldn't even win against Tian Boguang. And now he can beat even Feng Qingyang?"
Ordinary Group Owner: "This is NOT the Linghu Chong I know. Absolutely not."
Ordinary Group Owner: "He has to be a transmigrator. He has to be. Though I won't say that word yet—can't speak too soon, what if it's just a different version someone adapted where Linghu Chong got changed and I just don't know about it. That'd be embarrassing."
Su Yunqing ultimately held back the word—but this Linghu Chong that Dongfang Bai described, the one people called Returning Blows with Their Own Methods, felt deeply wrong no matter how she looked at it.
And that inner cultivation method—the more she heard, the more it sounded like the Minor Formless Skill.
If it really was the Minor Formless Skill, setting aside where Linghu Chong could have obtained that lineage, the key question was: how had he inherited Murong Fu's title?
Though that wasn't quite accurate either—he'd inherited the title of the art called Star-Shifting River Reversal.
Though thinking about it, that wasn't entirely unreasonable. She didn't know how Star-Shifting River Reversal worked exactly—but the Minor Formless Skill could genuinely replicate the martial arts of a hundred schools, and the power it produced wasn't weaker—often stronger.
Dongfang Bubai: "Perhaps it's the butterfly effect."
Dongfang Bubai: "Didn't you say that any change we make after learning the story's events could alter this world's future?"
Ordinary Group Owner: "But this change is too drastic."
Ordinary Group Owner: "And he already had this much power when he first came down the mountain—but he only met you after coming down."
Ordinary Group Owner: "That doesn't add up."
Ordinary Group Owner: "If he's not a transmigrator, I can only think of two possibilities."
Ordinary Group Owner: "One: your version of Smiling Proud Wanderer is an adaptation—heavily changed, keeping your template while also altering Linghu Chong's personality, cultivation, and talent, rewriting the entire plot into something barely connected to the original."
Ordinary Group Owner: "Two: some author wrote a Smiling Proud Wanderer fan work without a transmigrator—just changed Linghu Chong's setup to what they wanted."
Ordinary Group Owner: "Though strictly speaking, the second option is essentially a transmigrator too."
Ordinary Group Owner: "@Child of Nature—Watson, what do you make of this?"
Su Yunqing had analyzed it at length and finally decided to pass the microphone to Bai Xuan.
By now Bai Xuan had finished reading through the messages and understood why Su Yunqing had tagged him.
The current Linghu Chong in Dongfang Bubai's world—calling him similar to the original Linghu Chong would be generous. They were essentially unrelated.
But one thing puzzled him.
Child of Nature: "Dongfang—how did the Sun Moon Holy Cult's intelligence network determine it was his inner cultivation method that allowed him to replicate others' martial arts, rather than the martial art itself?"
Dongfang Bubai: "Is there a difference?"
Ordinary Group Owner: "Inner method would likely be the Minor Formless Skill. The martial art would be Star-Shifting River Reversal."
Ordinary Group Owner: "If Bai Xuan hadn't brought it up I wouldn't have thought to ask—is the Holy Cult's intelligence that thorough? They even know this?"
Dongfang Bubai: "No—he said it himself."
Dongfang Bubai: "When he was challenging the world, he defeated each sect using that sect's own martial arts techniques. In their shock and disbelief, those sects naturally suspected Linghu Chong had secretly studied their methods. His explanation was that this was the ability of his inner cultivation."
Dongfang Bubai: "At first they doubted this—no one could believe such an extraordinary inner method existed. But every time, Linghu Chong would defeat his opponents using their own sect's techniques, and with greater force than they themselves could produce."
Dongfang Bubai: "And given his age, no matter how gifted he was, it was impossible for him to have trained this many different martial arts to such a profound level through conventional means."
Dongfang Bubai: "With time, they came to accept the explanation."
At his level of strength at the time, Linghu Chong hadn't stooped to deceiving them either.
Later, many became covetous of his inner cultivation method and moved against him. Without exception, they all died by his sword.
Not just the assassins they sent—but themselves, their families, and the forces behind them.
Cutting the roots entirely.
In this, Linghu Chong had been utterly without mercy.
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