Thus begins Yang Guo's dual life. In the mornings, he plays the servant-pupil to the All True Sect Taoists while in the evenings, he sneaks out and reports back to his godfather, who is actually the great Ou Yang Feng, nicknamed West Poison. Then one night, Ou Yang Feng suffers a relapse of his illness and suddenly leaves as though in a trance. When Yang Guo comes to the forest for his nightly training, the old man is no longer there. Yang Guo tries to find him but to no avail.
After some time, the Taoists hold out the traditional yearly contest for their young disciples. They choose Yang Guo to spar wth Cui Zhi Fang, one of the advanced pupils. Yang Guo realizes that the Taoists merely want to humiliate him for they know that his skills are much more inferior compared to the other young disciples. Unwilling to let the Taoists get the better of him, Yang Guo turns the formal sparring into a brawl as he goes against the pupil in an artless fistfight. Cui Zhi Fang hits him several times but each time, Yang Guo never fails to get back on his feet.
The Taoists are unused to this kind of unorthodox kung fu for it is a rule in sparring that once the opponent falls down, the fight must stop and the loser must accept his defeat. The fat Taoist orders Yang Guo to stop but when he doesn't, he hits the boy. He never expected him to fight back. Extremely riled now, Yang Guo suddenly holds out his hands and shouts in the stance taught to him by Ou Yang Feng and releases his chi, injuring the Taoist in front of him, Lu Qi Du.
The rest of the All True Sect disciples stare speechless at their fallen comrade's body. They never expected Yang Guo to possess such a strong nei gong and to display a technique that is obviously not All True Sect. When they observe that Lu Qi Du is still motionless, they go after the boy who runs in sheer terror of what he had done.
Yang Guo gets cornered in the cliffs beyond Chong Yang Palace. With the enraged Taoists closing in on him, he makes a drastic choice and plunges head on into the dense forest below.#
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