Chapter 259: Can Only Teach Half

Chapter 259: Chapter 259: Can Only Teach Half

Yuan You landed on the bank, frowning slightly. She didn’t jump down. She wasn’t familiar with the pond’s layout, and it was hard to say whether she would be helping Zhang Yun or holding him back if she went in. But the man with the knife had just jumped in. Given the strength he had just displayed, assassinating Zhang Yun in the water wouldn’t be difficult at all.

She considered fetching the rechargeable lamp but quickly abandoned the idea. This was Zhang Yun’s territory; he had to know it like the back of his hand! He must have chosen to jump into the pond because he was confident in his chances. Shining a light on the water would only help the enemy.

Yuan You felt the best she could do right now was to keep a close eye on the shore. If the enemy came up first, she would rush over and apprehend him. If Zhang Yun emerged, she would provide cover while he got out of the water.

The spot where the middle-aged man jumped was exactly where Zhang Yun had entered the water. However, once he plunged into the pond, he was struck by a bizarre illusion. It felt as though... there was no one in the water at all!

When a grown man jumped into a body of water, even if he took a deep breath and immediately dived to the bottom, there would still be ripples and movement. Furthermore, it was impossible to swim far away quickly without causing a massive disturbance. Yet, he found absolutely no movement around him. Not a single trace of a living person.

"What is going on?" he wondered. "Even if it belongs to his family, it’s just a pond. Could it lead somewhere else?" Eliminating all other impossibilities left only one conclusion. Since Zhang Yun hadn’t left and hadn’t swum away, the only explanation was that he had rapidly sunk to the very bottom!

The middle-aged man took a deep breath and let himself sink, wildly swinging his knife around as he descended. However, he had severely underestimated the difficulty of underwater combat. This wasn’t a crystal-clear swimming pool or an aquarium like in the movies. The lighting was already poor in the dead of night, and once he reached the bottom, he could barely see a thing. All he could do was slash his knife frantically, treating the entire surrounding area as his target.

Zhang Yun, of course, was no longer in the water! Jumping into the fish pond had merely been a smokescreen for Yuan You’s sake. The moment the middle-aged man leaped in after him, Zhang Yun instantly retreated into his Personal Space and began counting the seconds.

Since Yuan You was out there watching, using a gun was out of the question. However, he still had the Blood Demon Blade and Yang Zhao’s longsword! Zhang Yun calculated silently. The middle-aged man had dived in to ambush him, but unable to see or locate his target, he would be reduced to swinging blindly. The perfect opportunity to counterattack would come exactly when the man surfaced for air!

A short blade and a longsword! Having timed it perfectly and repeatedly rehearsed various scenarios in his head, Zhang Yun reemerged just as his enemy came up for air!

The middle-aged man had spent quite some time stabbing into the watery abyss, but every strike hit nothing but liquid. He felt the muddy bottom beneath his feet, yet there was still no one around him. His eyes were useless, and his ears could barely distinguish anything underwater. After a while, he popped his head above the surface to take a breath, quickly glancing around to see if there were any ripples indicating movement. But aside from the woman still standing on the bank, the water was completely still. Zhang Yun seemed to have vanished into thin air!

Before he could even take a few breaths, the water right in front of him suddenly churned violently!

"Was he hiding right in front of me?" he thought in shock. "Impossible! I thoroughly slashed the entire area with my knife. How could anyone have lurked there undetected?"

His reflexes were sharp. He immediately thrust his knife down into the water! But before the blade even fully submerged, he felt a sharp stab in his leg, followed instantly by a vicious slash to his calf!

"Die!" he roared.

The middle-aged man hacked frantically into the water, but every single strike missed its mark. In the water, blood from a wound would flow out faster, and the more one struggled, the quicker it was lost... He felt his blood draining away exceptionally fast today!

"Come out! Come out right now!" he bellowed. He was left thrashing on the surface alone, his hand chopping wildly into the water without any rhythm or technique. It looked as if there was no one in front of him, yet a blade still seemed to be lodged in his leg. Little did he know, he had already taken a stroll past the Ghost Gate!

Zhang Yun hadn’t given him a single chance since reappearing. After driving the Blood Demon Blade into the man’s leg and sweeping the longsword through the water, Zhang Yun had already swum behind him while the man was busy flailing and hacking at empty space. He applied the Slippery Body Technique he had learned from Zhen Wei, which felt even more natural underwater. He glided smoothly behind his opponent without causing any major ripples.

Once in position, Zhang Yun’s initial thought was to simply slit the man’s throat with his sword! If he were alone, it would be easy to handle; he could just dump the body deep in the mountains. But with Yuan You watching from the shore, he couldn’t afford to casually hand her such leverage over him.

After a brief moment of hesitation, Zhang Yun surged out of the water and delivered a devastating punch to the back of the middle-aged man’s head! The rapid blood loss, combined with his own ceaseless slashing in the water, had severely clouded the middle-aged man’s judgment. By the time he realized Zhang Yun was behind him, it was already too late. The strike to the back of his head knocked him out cold instantly.

Zhang Yun sank back into the water, snatched the man’s knife, pulled out the Blood Demon Blade, and entered his Personal Space once more to stow away both the blade and the longsword. He felt like he was letting the guy off too easily; otherwise, he would have let the Blood Demon Blade drain a bit more of his blood.

Reemerging from his space, he dragged the unconscious man through the water and hauled him onto the bank. Yuan You had been watching the chaotic scene from above, completely blind to what was happening beneath the surface. As she rushed over to help, she was astonished to see Zhang Yun dragging the man ashore.

"You knocked him out?" she asked.

"I stabbed him. He might even be dead."

Zhang Yun hauled the middle-aged man up to the small wooden cabin.

"He’s not dead," Yuan You checked his vitals and breathed a sigh of relief. She had genuinely feared that Zhang Yun might have been too heavy-handed in the water and hacked the man to death.

"You’re actually pretty good. You couldn’t beat him on land, but you won as soon as you got into the water."

Zhang Yun rolled his eyes. "That’s because you were just sitting here doing nothing. I was worried about you, so I lured him away. Otherwise, I would have destroyed him long ago. I know every blade of grass and every tree around here. If you don’t believe me, you’re welcome to try your luck!"

"What do we do now?"

"He came for me, so of course I’m going to interrogate him. He won’t die anyway, so let’s discuss our deal first!" Zhang Yun noted that the Divine Master Card was still resting on the wooden bed.

"It does possess a certain amount of Energy, but it’s much harder to absorb than the coffin. I can’t really make a deal with you for just this." As Yuan You spoke, she used her knife to cut off some of the middle-aged man’s clothing, wrung out the water, and began bandaging his wounds. "He needs to be taken to a hospital," she added. "He lost too much blood in the water. His wounds will get infected, and he’ll likely develop a fever soon."

"What does that have to do with me? He should be grateful I didn’t kill him with a single strike," Zhang Yun retorted, steering the conversation back on track. "What if I offer you two of them?"

"Two... You have more?" Yuan You was quite surprised.

She then watched as Zhang Yun reached under the bed and picked up another mud-stained Divine Master Card. He had placed it there just before going outside. Thank goodness he had set it down; otherwise, if it had fallen into the Shantang, fishing it out would have been a massive headache.

"For two of them, I can consider it. But this man..."

"If you care whether this guy lives or dies, we finish our business first. Either you teach me or you don’t. Once you leave, I’ll interrogate him and then send him to the hospital. Dragging this out will cost him his life!"

Yuan You was rendered speechless. "Are you seriously blaming me?" she thought.

"Let’s trade," she said.

"Bring it on!" Zhang Yun handed both Divine Master Cards to her.

A sly glint flickered in Yuan You’s eyes. "You’re the reason I couldn’t absorb the Energy from the coffin, so one of these only counts as compensation. Furthermore, they are much harder to absorb; they aren’t ’better’ like you claimed. Therefore, I will only teach you half of it!"