“Ah, yes, of course you would have fought him,” nods Qi Liuwu. “He used to be a cook at the temple. One day he injured the Abbot and escaped from Shaolin. Apparently he learnt some of their techniques without permission.”
“Isn’t that a matter for Shaolin to handle, however?”
“Not if one of those techniques was the Xiaoming Jiuyang Divine Skill,” grins Qi Liuwu.
“You mean…”
“Yes, we believed that his drastic increase in inner strength was due to that particular manual. In the last struggle for the manuals, Shaolin Temple was rumoured to have kept a copy of the Xiaoming Jiuyang skill, though they have always denied it. They still do. Jiu Mou talked to Xuxian, however, and we can confirm they have at least a copy of the first part, which advances the neigong of the practitioner.”