This Is the Burial Offering the Female Cultivator Left You

Lu Ping stared at the string of notifications. His heart, which had already resigned itself to lying flat, finally stirred.

Jiang Mutian had thought he would not last the night.

But a man with a system was just that unreasonable.

[You were in so much pain you nearly passed out.]

[The spiritual power forced your meridians open, your bones trembled segment by segment, and Qi and Blood rampaged through your body.]

[The Salted Fish trait remained active.]

[Your mindset was as steady as if you were watching someone else work overtime.]

[Unfortunately, your body reached its limit, and you passed out completely.]

When Lu Ping saw the words "as if," he nearly couldn't resist snarking.

The system certainly didn't shy away from figures of speech.

Still, the description was spot-on.

His body hurt so much it wanted to resign, while his mind was still writing its year-end summary.

Then, sudden death from overwork.

Screw this lousy script, I'm done playing...

[Your bottleneck shattered.]

[Late Body Tempering Realm.]

[Your bottleneck shattered again.]

[Body Tempering Realm Completion.]

[Breakthrough successful.]

[A night passed, and your body was still in terrible pain.]

[The tearing sensation from your meridians being forced open had yet to fade.]

[But the Qi and Blood in your Dantian was already several times stronger than it had been last night.]

[With just a gentle push, you sat up from the ground.]

[You were the only one left in the cave.]

[Jiang Mutian had left.]

[The restriction at the cave entrance was still there. However, it only allowed passage out, not in.]

[There was a storage ring on the ground.]

Lu Ping couldn't contain his excitement when he saw this.

A storage ring.

This was standard equipment in the world of immortal cultivation.

Hadn't he risked searching those corpses before precisely because he'd hoped to find a fortuitous opportunity for immortal cultivation?

But those three paupers had been dead broke. After all that searching, he'd found nothing but a tattered map.

The silver notes Lu Ping had lifted from the Black Tiger Gang were enough for someone to live in comfort for a lifetime in the mortal world.

But in a cultivator's hands, silver notes were just worthless mortal paper.

A storage ring was different.

The item itself signified a cultivator's status, and it might contain pills, Cultivation Methods, Spirit Stones, and Law Artifacts.

Jiang Mutian had said she would leave him some money, but she'd left a storage ring instead.

What did that make this?

Severance pay?

Or compensation for a workplace injury?

[You reached for the storage ring.]

[A faint layer of spiritual power lingered on the surface of the ring.]

[You tried to inject Qi and Blood into it.]

[Failed.]

[You tried to activate it using the circulation method of the Body Tempering Instruction.]

[Failed.]

[You pried at it with a short blade.]

[The ring showed no reaction.]

[You tried another approach, pressing the ring to your forehead.]

[Failed.]

[You tried biting it.]

[Your teeth hurt.]

[You finally confirmed that the storage ring required Divine Sense or a special imprint to open.]

[You were only a Body Tempering Realm martial artist, and could not yet project your Divine Sense.]

[You also lacked an opening imprint left by Jiang Mutian.]

[Oh.]

[So this was the burial offering Jiang Mutian left you.]

[She had even thoughtfully placed a protective restriction at the cave entrance to keep Demon Beasts from devouring your corpse.]

You lousy system, thanks so much for explaining it so clearly!

After cursing inwardly for a while, Lu Ping fell silent too.

She really might not have thought he could survive.

When she'd dropped the storage ring, she'd most likely just been going through the motions of fulfilling her moral duty to "not freeload."

It was like a boss in his previous life making employees work overtime all night, then sending a message to the group chat saying, "Thanks for the hard work."

And then, nothing.

You damned capitalists, at least throw in a two-hundred-yuan bonus at the end of the month!

By that measure, Jiang Mutian was more upstanding...

[You put away the storage ring and looked toward the cave entrance, where the restriction flickered faintly.]

[You walked to the cave entrance and took a tentative step forward. With that step, you passed outside.]

[Sure enough, the restriction did not stop you.]

[Mountain winds blew in through the gaps in the vines, and you caught the scent of the valley.]

[Your injuries had not fully healed, but you had already reached Body Tempering Realm Completion.]

[You had a fragmentary map tucked inside your robe, marking the direction of the Greenwood Sect.]

[Options appeared.]

[A: Follow the fragmentary map you picked up earlier and continue searching for the Greenwood Sect.]

[B: You've already reached Body Tempering Realm Completion. Fight your way back to the Black Tiger Gang and show its leader what it means when "a petty man takes revenge from morning till night"!]

[C: Follow Jiang Mutian's lingering presence and solemnly demand that she take responsibility for you, or at least sign a workplace injury compensation agreement after the fact.]

Lu Ping hesitated between options A and B for a moment.

The Black Tiger Gang's leader was merely at the Late Body Tempering Realm.

And Lu Ping was now at Body Tempering Realm Completion. Going back for revenge was not out of the question.

Lu Ping thought it over and gave up on the tempting idea.

Rather than dwell on the past, he should set his sights on the Greenwood Sect, a cultivation sect.

Once he had made something of his cultivation, the puny Black Tiger Gang would be dealt with at a mere thought.

Lu Ping chose A.

[You chose A.]

[You tucked the storage ring into the innermost layer of your robe.]

[The ring pressed against your skin, digging in a little.]

Lu Ping stared at the black words on the white background, his teeth aching a little.

The workplace injury compensation Jiang Mutian had left him was a high-end asset.

So high-end that he didn't even have permission to use it.

Wasn't this just like companies in his previous life issuing stock options that could only be cashed in after three years?

If the employee didn't live to see those three years through, the options automatically expired.

[You left the cave and first circled the entrance three times, jumbling your footprints, then covered the twigs you had snapped underfoot with rotting leaves.]

[Half a shichen later, you confirmed that there were no pursuers behind you, nor any lingering trace of Jiang Mutian's presence.]

[You began following the fragmentary map.]

[Your Body Tempering Realm Completion physique greatly increased your travel speed through the mountains.]

[Following the map, you skirted three animal trails, two mountain streams, and a miasma-filled forest.]

[The Heavy Tomato User trait remained active.]

[Miasma ineffective. Poisonous insects ineffective. Tainted water ineffective.]

[On the nineteenth day, you once again encountered the black-maned wild boar that had once chased you for half a shichen.]

[It stood nearly a zhang tall at the shoulder, with clotted blood stuck to its black mane. Its left hind leg dragged on the ground, and three claw marks scored its flank.]

[It was injured.]

[You had intended to go around it.]

[But it had already spotted you.]

[It lowered its head and pawed at the ground, flinging dirt a zhang away.]

[It began to charge.]

[Options appeared.]

[A: A gentleman can wait ten years for revenge. Keep running; safety first.]

[B: Strike while it's weak and take its life. That's what you get for bullying me.]

[C: Pull out the storage ring and apply to bribe the wild boar with an inaccessible high-end asset.]