The Six Immortals

 The Friendly Jing Feng

Bi Fan asked for beef first, then a few more dishes and then a pot of wine.

There was a lot of wine in the bottle gourd but under the influence of wine, Bi Fan had a habit of raising his cup.

Anyway, the bottle gourd mostly contained spiritual and medicinal wine, and medicinal wine had a very strong smell, Bi Fan didn’t want to smell like a complete drunk.

Bi Fan had just started to eat, when the Long Diao popped out his head from under Bi Fan’s shirt.

“Hey!” Someone from a nearby table exclaimed in surprise: “look at that, its young Long Diao!”

“Brother, you recognize a Long Diao, well; this one is the greediest one ever.” Bi Fan said and laughed.

Throughout his life, Bi Fan had never had any friends, even if someone talked to him; it was usually accompanied by a dull look.

But right now, it didn’t seem so. So Bi Fan wanted to talk a bit more with him.

“Creak!” Long Diao jumped onto Bi Fan’s shoulders as he issued a protest.

“Little Brother, my name is Jing Feng; would you like to sell your Long Diao to me?” The stranger cordially asked?

Bi Fan shook his head and replied: “Brother Jing Feng, Greedy is my friends, I would never sell him.”

“Since you do not want to sell, I will not insist. Your build is pretty good; you must be a disciple at Quinyang door. My Door(school) is within Quinyang, I’m a disciple of Nei Men Door, and you can always find me there if you ever need help.” Jing Feng slapped his back in a friendly gesture.

“My name is Bi Fan; I practice outside the authority of Quinyang Door.” Bi Fan replied in excitement.

Jing Feng was the first person who had ever tried to be friends with him, in fact, no had ever been this friendly with him.

Of course, even though Jing Feng might become his friend, he still didn’t want to give up the Long Diao.

Selling the Long Diao would fetch him a very good price, as it was the ideal thing to impress women. Jing Feng didn’t have too many interests, but he liked chasing after women.

Naturally, Jing Feng had some morals, like he wouldn’t rob someone else’s woman, he always used the mantra “gentlemen always opts not wins over”, in fact he didn’t even like fooling around with other people’s women.

Jing Feng’s attention was directed towards Bi Fan but occasionally he would glance over at Greedy.

Whereas, Bi Fan was very hungry, so he was busy gobbling up his food.

Greedy did not like these things, well, apart from the wine. Bi Fan gave him a small cup of wine to drink, after drinking it, the Long Diao started feeling a little dizzy. He kept shaking his head in a manner that looked very adorable.

To look at the irresistibly cute Long Diao, anyone would start contemplating means to get their hands on it.

Jing Feng believed that there was nothing in this world that wasn’t for sale; the price simply had to be enough to fill one’s heart’s desires.

“Bi Fan, my little brother, you must have something very important to do here, right?” Jing Feng started to enquire.

Bi Fan replied: “Nah, nothing important, just came to the town to buy some daily items.”

“Oh? Then you probably have no interest in learning about the news surrounding Ting Feng valley?” Jing Feng questioned.

Bi Fan didn’t know what the Ting Feng valley was or where it was located.

So he listened as Jing Feng explained, Ting Feng valley is a place where practitioners go to make transactions.

Ting Feng valley was thousands of miles away from Quinyang Mountains and was the nearest market place to Quinyang, where martial arts practitioners could go and make sales or purchases. There were a lot of people there, who could even repair broken tools; it was very busy all year round.

Bi Fan had heard enough, he really wanted to visit the place, but then the thought of Yunufeng crossed his mind and he hesitated.

Jing Feng laughed: “Don’t worry, Bi Fan, I have a few divine essence seals, so we can travel very quickly.”

“Of course,” Jing Feng took out two divine essence seals and gave them to Bi Fan: “You need to travel with a companion who knows how to use them.”

He delightedly received the essence; he was even more delighted when he realized that he had found a few of them in the Yin Yang pouch, only he had no idea what they were and how they could be operated.

Bi Fan could not resist the temptation, and eventually agreed to accompany Jing Feng to Ting Feng valley.

“Great! It’s going to be a lot of fun, we will leave tomorrow morning.” Jing Feng said with a pleased look on his face.

Jing Feng’s eyes had been continuously on the Long Diao and his heart kept wishing for a way to get him away from Bi Fan.

After the meal, Bi Fan decided to take a walk and then returned to his room.

After returning to his room, he practiced for a while and then decided to read the three rare books he had acquired earlier.

He started with the book that talked about secret art of using a double-edged sword, it mostly talked about techniques that only core disciples could practice, at his current level, and he would not be able to practice them.

However, Bi Fan read the book again; he wanted to memorize it by heart.

‘Dance of mist’ is an agility trade secret, Bi Fan read it again, but could barely remember, as his underlying concepts weren’t clear, so he couldn’t comprehend the technique.

However, there were some basic techniques involved in the ‘dance of mist’ that could be used for dodging and shifting positions. Bi Fan memorized them.

And then, Bi Fan picked up the ‘free burst technique’ book and started reading it.

Bi Fan was astonished to find that ‘free burst techniques’ comprised of several techniques from ‘inner breath’ and ’spiritual intelligence’. In addition to this, ‘free burst’ could be practiced as early as the ‘inner breath’ level, but it would be extremely difficult.

‘Free burst’ had basically been born from ‘inner breath’ techniques, but the variations used, made the techniques deliver formidable power. However, one needed to be at least as strong as ‘spiritual intelligence’ to practice them properly.

Bi Fan tried practicing the first technique of the ‘free burst’, ‘the immortal finger’, ‘the immortal finger’ technique was used to concentrate power on the tip of the finger and then hit the opponent with a huge impulse, but he couldn’t feel the force being concentrated.

Having memorized the three books by heart and started practicing some of the techniques.

He started practicing some of the fundamental footwork movements of ‘the dance of mist’. Soon he realized that the footwork involved was very delicate and would require a lot of practice before it could be used in a fight.

Obviously, it would take a long time to master the fundamental footwork of ‘the dance of mist’, as it contained several delicate movements.

Later he tried practicing ‘the immortal finger’ again. Power needed to be concentrated on to the tip of the finger and then, could be directed as a burst of force towards the enemy. This burst could be used to a fatal effect. Moreover, it would be invisible to the enemy.

However, even at ‘inner breath’, a practitioner would only be able to harness a small amount of force, one would have to attain ‘spiritual intelligence’ before this technique would really demonstrate its purpose.

He practiced until dawn, but unfortunately wasn’t able to succeed in implementing the ‘the immortal finger’ technique.

Bi Fan groomed himself and walked out of the room, he knew that Jing Feng would be waiting in the hall downstairs.

He headed downstairs and met a smiling Jing Feng, who greeted him: “Brother Bi Fan, you haven’t even had breakfast yet, come on, let’s go and get something to eat, and then we will leave for our journey.”

His eyes were fixed at the projection that was protruding from Bi Fan’s chest, as the Long Diao lay inside, sleeping.

They quickly ate their breakfast and then left the inn.

Jing Feng taught Bi Fan the method to use the divine essence seals. One had to allow the wind to rush by as they use the essence.

As soon as he started using the divine essence seal, it felt to him like his legs were floating through the wind, he had never experienced such speed.

He followed Jing Feng, as the scenery around them flashed by.

Jing Feng laughed, “So Brother Bi Fan, how does it feel?”

He looked at Jing Feng and poked his back gratefully.

Since last night, Bi Fan had grown fascinated with the ‘the immortal technique’, he was constantly looking for an excuse to use his finger. He had been doing a variety of things; pick his nose, trying to catch flies and so on, especially touching his chin in search of hair, only he hadn’t grown a beard yet.

Time passed quickly as they raced through their route.

“Brother Bi Fan, we will have to ease up on the seal, up ahead, and go slower, through the woods. Otherwise there is a chance that we might get attacked by someone” Jing Feng said, giving any further explanations.

Bi Fan stopped immediately, and looked around but didn’t find anything strange about this place, except, not a single soul was in sight, it was completely isolated.

Suddenly, it struck him, is Jing Feng trying to dupe me? Maybe he wants to steal the Long Diao.

And in an instant, Bi Fan become very careful, he was on full alert.