The Immortal Emperor Returns C305 – The Tortoise and the Hare

Zang Fengling, who had just been following Chu Xun and Yan Wushuang at the back, had only just arrived when he heard Chu Xun yelling his head about him having shenkui problems.

To have himself humiliated before so many people, it was all he could do to prevent himself to show his anger.

“Surely it's not courteous for you to be badmouthing people behind their backs, friend,” growled Zang Fengling darkly.

With feigned ignorance, Chu Xun said loudly, “But I didn't, did I not? You had two women with you the last time we met. If this goes on, won't you be having shenkui problem eventually?”

And before Zang Fengling could protest, Chu Xun droned on, “And before you disagree, remember: everyone from last night's episode can be witnesses to the two naked women in your room.”

Curious stares came from everywhere, training in on Zang Fengling.

It was hard for anyone to forget that it was Chu Xun who had redirected everyone's attention back to Zang Fengling's servant girls who were bundled in nothing but towels following Zang's battle against Yan Wushuang.

Like the keen tip of a spear, Chu Xun's words drove straight into the point, leaving him speechless and embarrassed.

Roar!

The tiger never left its perch on a giant boulder, letting loose a majestic roar that shook the air. Then it glowered fiercely at Chu Xun. Having developed sentience of its own, it had a mind that could eclipse even that of a human.

“Whatcha roaring at?” Chu Xun muttered, curling a finger at it to taunt it, “Come fight me if you dare and I'll show the others how I'll turn a tiger like you into a cat.”

Cat?!

There was hardly anyone who was not taken aback by this remark.

Accepting his challenge, the mammoth tiger unleashed another sonorous roar and leaped off the rock, pouncing straight at Chu Xun.

“Goddamn, are you serious?!” yelped Chu Xun and he ran for dear life.

The weight and strength of the tiger cracked the ice under its paws as soon as it hit the ground that the icy surface of the frozen lake looked as if it was going to crush as the mighty beast snarled ferociously again.

Using the opened fan-shaped rock as a barrier, Chu Xun ran around it like children playing tag. The tiger roared angrily and it lunged again and again after him, nearly catching him each time.

Worried for his friend's safety, Yan Wushuang ripped his sword out and was about to help when the purple-haired woman stopped him.

“Don't worry. Can't you see he's just having fun with that stupid cat?”

Stupid cat?! Is that what this beastly monster is to you both?

With a sudden burst of speed, a bawling Chu Xun began running in circles around to evade the tiger until he suddenly stopped to extend a leg around the corner.

Huh?!

Dubious looks hung off everyone's faces.

What does he think he's doing? Is he trying to trip the tiger?

Stifled giggles broke out from several quarters. Could an ant ever hope to trip down an elephant? Talk about overestimating himself.

With the speed of wind, the tiger wheeled around the corner with hardly any drop in speed, and its front right paw banged squarely into Chu Xun's outstretched leg.

Thud!

And the monstrous hulk of the tiger that resembled an orange little hill fell and rolled on the ground like a barrel.

Could this even be true?!

Everyone was left petrified with dumbfounded looks on their faces. The only words which could fully describe the emotions now written on their faces.

Unable to believe their own eyes, some had to rub their eyes and look again.

He did it! He really did it! Like the tortoise in its race against the hare, he really did it!

What an unbelievable and incredible feat!

The striped tiger rolled more than a dozen meters before it finally got to its feet where it wheeled back around and gave an unrelenting roar.

With the speed of an arrow, Chu Xun shot at it with the blink of an eye and wrapped his arms around the erect fur of its paw and grunted hard as he twisted and flipped the monstrous tiger over his shoulder!

Bang!

He slammed the beast's gargantuan mass into the ice with webs of crack that began extending underneath it, eliciting an angry and painful roar from the animal.

Every single explorer nearby watched wordlessly with their eyes as wide as saucers, awed, and dumbstruck like statues while not being able to believe what they were seeing.

The tiger roared again and clambered back to its feet.

With the speed of wind, Chu Xun raced, bounded, and vaulted himself up the back of the tiger like how one would when riding a horse and sat himself comfortably right behind its nape.

“Hya, hya!” he cried.

Some began to feel as if their knees were buckling under their weight.

How on earth can anyone ride on a tiger like a horse?!

Peals of frustrated roars and snarls came again and again from the tiger, shaking the earth and quivering the misshapen stone columns that towered all around the clearing. The tiger was running mad. Never had it ever foresee that such ignominious a fate would befall him – that it, a proud Beast Lord that ruled supreme over hordes of other lesser beasts, would be ridden by a young human fledgling like a common mule!

Yet despite its incessant tries to buck around violently, it persisted in failing to have Chu Xun tossed off its back.

Out of desperation, it raced headlong into a boulder and leaped, trying to smash its back into the rock.

Boom!

The impact blasted the rock into bits and pieces and the tiger crashed to the ground, rolling like skittles with splinters of granite strewn everywhere.

Apparently, Chu Xun had leaped off its back right before the tiger hit the boulder, and with astonishing dexterity, it kept up with the rolling mass of the tiger when it crashed to the ground and sprang back up its back easily.

“Give up, you lousy cat, or I'll carve up your phallus and sell it to Zang Fengling,” Chu Xun cried again, hoping to tame it.

Roar!

But that only sought to fuel the tiger's defiant belligerence.

Bang!

With zero scruples, Chu Xun hammered a fist into the tiger with such force that it nearly collapsed.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

With one punch after another, he pummeled at the tiger with the staggering force of a piledriver, bringing the ferocious beast to its knee.

Gods in Heaven, some began thinking with horror, How great a force would that be?!

The tiger must be wondering the very same. Chu Xun's first blow landed on its skull with so great a force that it wondered for one split-second if its skull had been fractured.

Nevermind for the other blows that continually rained upon it.

Dammit, I've been hoodwinked, it thought, This human's too powerful for me!

“Be nice and answer me: do you have Spirit Cores in your brain?” the tiger heard Chu Xun's voice asking.

The tiger felt a shudder running down its spine as every hair of its fur standing on ends. Dammit, Human! You're after my Spirit Core!

While it could live even when losing its phallus, it would rather die than to lose its Spirit Core.

But its fearful reaction was enough to tell Chu Xun what he needed to know. “So you really have one, do you?” he grinned.

His fist came up again.

Rumble!

A sudden burst of iridescent lights sprayed from the back of the tiger like a dazzling fountain of destructive rays with the intensity that dwarfed even a lightning bolt, catching Chu Xun off-guard and blasted him off the tiger's back.

Bang! Bang!

The destructive rays of light burst like a ripple of death rays, destroying any stone columns in its path and laying waste to the terrain around it.

With Chu Xun tossed off, the tiger bounded away quickly and vanished out of sight into the granite jungle of stone columns.

Being more monster than beasts, Beast Lords usually have powerful capabilities of their own.

On the other hand, Chu Xun was left despondent at his futile attempt to procure another Spirit Core. But he could ill afford giving chase for his gigantic feline prey. There could be many more Beast Lords lurking within the frosty wilderness of stone monoliths that would easily make any attempt of pursuit a foolhardy attempt.

All around him, the rest of the explorers were stunned. How could a monster tiger as powerful and humungous as that be routed so effortlessly?!

Watching from their midst, Zang Fengling wallowed with dismay. He had been cheering for the monster tiger, hoping to witness Chu Xun being mauled by it.

In fact, Chu Xun's brief bout with the Beast Lord tiger had compelled everyone to look at him with a different eye. He really turned out to be as invincible as the legend went with hardly any exaggeration.

“Master Zang!” Chu Xun yelled finally, “I'm afraid your tiger phallus is no more.”

Zang Fengling's nostrils flared at that as he glowered at Chu Xun. Why didn't that blasted tiger just kill this oaf and be done with it!?

Sss...! Sss...!

Another Beast Lord – a titanic python with scales gleaming in dark-emerald hues – coiled its tree-trunk thick torso like a corkscrew. Hissing with its tongue poking out again and again like a spear, it kept an intense stare at Chu Xun.

“And whatcha staring at?! Come on, let's see how I turn you into a worm!” With a tongue as ripping as a shark's jaw, Chu Xun prodded, “After eating roasted snake meat just now, some snake meat stew would be good.”

Heavens Almighty, does this fool not fear death at all?!

Strangely, the gigantic python made no attempt to attack Chu Xun. It towered over him, gazing down at him with contempt and disdain.

With just as much apathy towards the monster snake, Chu Xun projected his Divine Sense, permeating it through the fan-shaped rock, down underground through the thick layers of ice underneath their feet where he finally saw the rapid rushes of icy waters far below. Still, he failed to notice anything amiss.

Strange, Chu Xun wondered. How could the ancient ruins appear in this place? Unless... His eyes wandered and gradually rested on the opened fan-shaped rock.

Nevertheless, no matter how carefully he studied the rock with his Divine Sense like X-ray, he failed to find anything wrong with it. For all intents and purposes, it seemed as harmless as any other pebble or stone around them.

Unwilling to give up, Chu Xun gave a few more rounds of observation and study, yet still his efforts yielded nothing. In the end, he knew he had to call it quits and wait until the ancient ruins appear.

“Have you found anything, Liu?” Yan Wushuang asked when Chu Xun rejoined him.

Chu Xun shook his head.

“I told you,” Yan Wushuang remarked, “As I told you before, there's nothing wrong with the stone. You should have believed me.” For one moment, Chu Xun wondered if he looked awfully eager to prove that the rock was ordinarily mundane and he wasn't as stupid as Chu Xun liked to believe.

Only, that almost earned him a scowl from Chu Xun instead. Why are you being so happy for?! Because I failed to find anything?! What an idiot!

That left Chu Xun and his companions with only one last option: wait. It was all they could do since no one knew when the ruins would appear.

And in his boredom, Chu Xun decided to derive some entertainment by teasing Zang Fengling.

“Say, Zang. How much were you going to pay me if I really managed to get the tiger's phallus for you?”

It was excruciating for Zang Fengling. He could not ignore him – not when almost every pair of eyes were upon them. But if he couldn't find any ways to silence Chu Xun, word of his shenkui problem would spread far and wide like a raging bushfire!

“As I said before, I don't have anything remotely close to shenkui at all!”

“Come on, let's be frank here,” yelled Chu Xun, his voice growing louder by piecemeal syllables, “You have two naked girls to satisfy you every day. Would anyone really believe that you won't suffer from shenkui problems? In fact, there's nothing to be ashamed of. I bet many here are rather envious of you, Master Sexual Dysfunction!”

Master Sexual Dysfunction?!

The explorers who heard this struggled to stifle their laughter. If word of this newly-coin nickname reaches the cyberspace, Zang Fengling would be the newest laughing stock in the domain of the Martial Tao World!

“DAMMIT YOU! I HAVE NO SHENKUI, NOR ANY SEXUAL DYSFUNCTION! HOW DARE YOU HUMILIATE ME! I'LL HAVE YOUR HIDE FOR THIS!”

Huh?!

Looking absolutely innocent, even Chu Xun had not expected that Zang Fengling would suddenly lose his temper.

Yan Wushuang interjected suddenly, saying, “That's unkind of you, Liu.”

“What about me being unkind?” gasped a dubious Chu Xun?

“You should have known better than to air Zang's dirty laundry in public like that. Surely you should understand that problems like these should be kept under wraps?” muttered Yan Wushuang somberly.

“Oh!” exclaimed Chu Xun with comprehension. He spun around and yelled loudly for everyone's benefit, “My apologies, Master Sexual Dysfunction! Pray forgive my straightforward crudeness!”

Zang Fengling was so angry that he was teetering on the verge of going mad. Who would've expected that a usually-stern and dour Yan Wushuang would join in teasing him as well!

“Everyone,” Chu Xun announced loudly and sarcastically with a straight face, addressing the explorers listening to the little brouhaha, “I was just having a joke with Master Zhang. He doesn't any shenkui problems at all, nor is he sexual dysfunctional. Please don't say nothing of this to other people or friends and please refrain from posting anything about this on the Martial Tao Forum and your online circle of friends in WeChat.”

Everyone giggled.

“Come on, Master Sexual Dysfunctional! Let's have a private talk of our own!” His voice toned down a little, but still loud enough, “Tiger phalluses might be useful to your predicament, but I have a few prescriptions which might remedy your shenkui problem. Let's talk if you have interest.”

“Enough of this!” Zang Fengling snarled so sternly and vehemently as if he was trying to disprove what Chu Xun accused him of.

“Liu,” quipped Yan Wushuang, tugging at Chu Xun's arm, “Since Master Sexual— Master Zang, I mean— has no interest in taking up on your offer, we should just leave him be and not bother him.” He pulled Chu Xun away, just in case Zang Fengling might really succumb to a rampaging streak of insanity.

“Remember to call me if you change your mind, Master Sexual Dysfunction! My number is—”

Fuming, Zang Fengling's face contorted with rage, disgust, and frustration as he snorted. His scarlet-red robes snapped in the icy winds as a cold fury emanated so greatly about him as if he relished swallowing Chu Xun whole. Even his own household retainer-warriors cowered in his wrath.

“Ah, yes! You there! Yeah, the Chamber of Purple Garments! You haven't told me from where you bought your lipsticks!”

With the sudden squeal from Chu Xun, every pair of eyes in the clearing panned in on the contingent of the Chamber.

Pan Chengfeng and his men were just in guffaws over Zang Fengling when the grins on their faces froze at Chu Xun's sudden exclamation and they grew stiff tensely.

Chapter end