In the courtyard, Chen Ming and Louis Fan assumed their stances once more, while a group of onlookers gathered by the corridor to watch the excitement.
Seeing that Chen Ming made no move to attack, Louis Fan assumed the younger man was simply too polite to strike the first blow against a senior. He stepped forward and threw a simple straight punch at Chen Ming.
The moment he threw the punch, he instantly regretted it!
As Louis Fan struck, Chen Ming moved in tandem. His left hand shifted into an open palm, lifted slightly, and accurately struck Louis Fan's fist from above.
Leveraging the momentum of Louis Fan's punch and his downward chopping force, Chen Ming instantly threw him off balance, leaving his center completely exposed.
Louis Fan thought to himself, *I'm in trouble!* He tried to recover, but he already saw Chen Ming tracing a circle with his feet. The footwork appeared unhurried, yet the frequency was blindingly fast. In the blink of an eye, Chen Ming's right palm came to a halt right at his throat!
If... if that palm had landed solidly, he probably would have met his end right here today.
He stared at Chen Ming in utter shock, his eyes filled with lingering fear and dread!
*You... didn't you say you only spent two days learning flashy routines? I gave you an opening to spar, and you little bastard were trying to take my life?!*
Standing nearby, Jet Li straightened up and muttered, "That's not right. Why is the kid using outright lethal moves?"
As his voice trailed off, Zhou Xun opened her mouth to speak, but Tsui Hark eagerly interrupted, "What do you mean? Is little Chen that good, or did Louis Fan pull his punches?"
Jet Li hesitated, glanced left and right, and then replied, "The boy didn't learn the flashy moves of a stunt actor. It's the real deal... the kind of stuff that kills people."
Hearing this, Tsui Hark grew excited and quickly shouted, "The last round doesn't count! Louis Fan, put up a real fight!"
With beautiful, surprised eyes, Zhou Xun looked over at Chen Ming, who had already retracted his palm and was standing upright, a warm, harmless, and handsome smile on his face.
The early morning sunlight happened to fall upon him, casting a mysterious veil over his figure.
"Well... apologies, Brother Fan. My training still isn't refined enough, and I can't quite control the output yet. I couldn't hold back just now."
In truth, he was just as surprised. After practicing against the stick figure in his dream last night, this was his first actual combat test. He knew the techniques were formidable, but he never expected them to be *this* powerful.
This moment only strengthened his resolve to practice this palm technique diligently. If nothing else, it was great for self-defense; if some perverted big-shot in the industry ever tried to force themselves on him, he'd at least have a way to fight back, right?
Hearing Chen Ming's words, the corners of Louis Fan's mouth twitched uncontrollably.
*You couldn't hold back?*
*You can't control your output?*
*Do you have any idea that if you had messed up even slightly, I'd be six feet under and you'd be sitting in a prison cell?*
His eyes were now filled with absolute seriousness. After all, having trained in martial arts since childhood, he naturally had a competitive streak, and he had only let his guard down earlier out of carelessness.
This time...
This time, Chen Ming made the first move!
He once again approached Louis Fan swiftly with that strange, eerie footwork. As he probed forward with a right palm strike, Louis Fan adopted a defensive posture, crossing his arms to block. But the moment his arms lifted, Chen Ming shifted his vertical palm into a horizontal one.
He changed the motion from a "strike" to a "lift."
Caught completely off guard, Louis Fan's arms were batted aside, leaving his entire flank wide open to Chen Ming.
Riding the rebound of that counterforce, Chen Ming's palm came to a rest just beneath Louis Fan's ribs on his side.
Right there... that was the location of the liver and spleen.
If that palm had landed without holding back, it probably... probably wouldn't have been easy to save him.
At this point, Louis Fan understood completely. The kid definitely possessed genuine martial arts mastery. If Chen Ming was willing to cooperate on choreographed moves, they could spar a bit; but if it came to a one-on-one real fight...
Didn't he just see it?
Targeting the throat, striking the internal organs—what good could possibly come of it?
He wasn't fighting anymore!
Shooting a movie like this, the risk factor was simply too high!
"Director Tsui, I honestly didn't expect our actor playing Yu Huatian to be this formidable in a real fight. If that's the case, I think we can dig a lot deeper into the final action sequence with Jet Li! Let's do full-contact combat!"
Said martial arts director Sun Jiankui. He was a fight choreographer specially recruited by Tsui Hark, holding immense prestige in Hong Kong. Yuan Bun and Lan Haihan had also been brought on, but they held nominal titles while Sun Jiankui took the lead.
There was a lot of politics behind the scenes.
Before Tsui Hark could respond to Sun Jiankui's words, Jet Li, standing with his back to them at the very edge of the corridor, felt his temples throbbing violently.
*Dig deeper?*
*Dig deeper into what?*
*This kid's moves are way too vicious. You want me to fight him for real?*
*It's not you stepping into the ring, is it?!*
Had it been Jet Li in his younger days, he probably would have agreed without a second thought. But with his physical condition deteriorating day by day nowadays, he couldn't guarantee he'd withstand high-intensity action choreography.
Yet Tsui Hark was thoroughly tempted.
"Old Li! What do you think?"
*What do I think?!*
*I think I'll sit and watch!*
Jet Li muttered under his breath, fell silent for a moment, and then turned to Chen Ming: "Little Chen, what else do you know? Show our action director. And you, old Fan, stay put. Don't move—he knows what he's doing and won't hurt you!"
He wanted to see just how far Chen Ming's Baguazhang had progressed before making a final decision.
Unaware of the underlying tension, Tsui Hark looked at Jet Li's back with an expression of deep admiration.
*Tsk tsk tsk, as expected of a veteran actor—so dedicated to his craft!*
Louis Fan: *So I'm just the sacrificial lamb here?!*
Helplessly, he stood in place, shooting Chen Ming a grievance-filled look.
Seeing that expression, Chen Ming felt a twinge of guilt and offered, "Shall we try again?"
"Bring it on!"
Louis Fan closed his eyes, resigned to his fate, and assumed a defensive stance.
"Then... let me simply demonstrate the Three Penetrating Palms!"
As Chen Ming spoke, his footwork began to shift.
"Teacher Li, what are Three Penetrating Palms?"
Standing nearby, Zhang Xinyu watched Chen Ming in the courtyard with shining eyes, asking a question everyone else wanted answered as well.
Keeping his eyes locked firmly on Chen Ming without looking back, Jet Li replied, "You'll see in a moment... it's pretty vicious."
*Vicious?*
*What does that mean?*
Hearing Jet Li's response, Zhou Xun joined Zhang Xinyu in turning her gaze toward Chen Ming, who had already initiated his attack.
"Watch closely... Brother Fan, throw a punch at me just like before."
As Chen Ming spoke to Louis Fan, he explained to the sidelines. Louis Fan threw a punch just as he had previously, and Chen Ming replicated his previous response.
"This is the first palm: targeting the liver and spleen."
As his voice fell, his movement suddenly shifted. His left hand caught Louis Fan's deflected arm, and with a light, graceful half-spin, he slipped underneath the arm while striking toward the side of Louis Fan's face.
"This is the second palm: rupturing the eardrum."
Without pausing, he moved again.
Louis Fan was completely numb.
*I've already died twice,* he thought, *why are you still desecrating my corpse?*
Tracing another circle with his feet, Chen Ming twisted his body once more, gripping Louis Fan's arm as they turned together. The two of them looked almost as if they were dancing, except every step within the dance was a lethal blow.
Returning to face forward, Chen Ming transformed his palm into a claw and lunged toward the other's neck.
"The third palm: the carotid artery."
"..."
The onlookers were left completely speechless, yet Chen Ming in the center of the arena was still diligently explaining, terrified they might miss a detail.
"Internal organs, eardrum, carotid artery. One, two, three—Three Penetrating Palms."
The expressions of Tsui Hark, Jet Li, Zhou Xun, Zhang Xinyu, and the other spectators shifted from curiosity to shock, and finally settled into utter wariness!
*You kid... there is something seriously wrong with you!*
Amidst the silent surroundings, Sun Jiankui exclaimed excitedly, "They always say Baguazhang practitioners play dirty, but this is my first time seeing it! Those martial arts troupe graduates just make things look pretty and can't use it in actual combat at all! Director Tsui! This is brilliant! I want this!"
Jet Li turned his head away in silence, staring blankly at him. But upon seeing the yearning gleam in Sun Jiankui's eyes, he quietly turned back around.
Noticing the lack of strong reactions from the group, Chen Ming assumed he hadn't explained clearly enough, especially since his movements had been too fast.
He spoke up once more: "Actually, there are other variations."
*You have other variations?!*
*Will you please stop!*
Louis Fan felt like he was falling apart.
Tsui Hark gestured for him to demonstrate.
Then...
"Groin strike!"
"Heart crusher!"
"Eye gouge!"
"Throat seal!"
"It's different, I'm telling you, Director Tsui! It really is different!"
Sun Jiankui continued chattering endlessly in Tsui Hark's ear, while Jet Li quietly turned around at some point and walked toward the cafeteria.
*I'm exhausted!*
*You want him to play Yu Huatian?*
*Just wait for the entire main cast to die!*
*They're all going to die!*