Turning Peril into Safety

Wang Xiaofeng stared blankly at the unfamiliar ceiling... What the hell? One second he had been pushing a cart, and the next he was soaking in a tub.

(◇)

Wait, soaking in a tub? Only then did Wang Xiaofeng realize he was sitting in a bath barrel. The pungent smell of Chinese medicine in the water made his empty stomach cramp.

"Now that you're awake, hurry up and get out to eat. The food's already cold." Only then did Wang Xiaofeng notice Wang Danu leaning against the doorframe.

"Old Dad, what is this?" Wang Xiaofeng climbed out of the bath barrel and pointed at the unknown herbs floating inside.

"This is Stasis Dissolving Grass. There's also Blood Activation Flower and a bunch of other herbs in there. It cost me quite a bit of money."

"Money, money, money! All you ever care about is your money! If anything happened to Xiaofeng, I'd fight you to the death!" A beautiful woman pinched Wang Danu's ear and scolded him loudly.

Wang Xiaofeng's mother was named He Li. She was no ordinary person. Like Wang Danu, she was a Second Ring Great Soul Master, and her Martial Soul was a Narcissus. He Li had thoroughly developed the toxic properties of this unremarkable Plant Martial Soul. Wang Xiaofeng had heard that she had once been quite a prominent figure in the Soul Arena.

Of course, Wang Xiaofeng had only heard people mention it in passing and had no idea whether it was true. At the very least, he had never even seen He Li's Martial Soul. Still, the villagers were all quite afraid of his mother.

"Alright, dear, I was prepared for this. That medicinal bath he took is insanely expensive. All the Gold Soul Coins I've saved over the years are about to be thrown into it."

"What? You actually had Gold Soul Coins saved up? Tell me the truth. Have you been hiding money all these years?"...

Watching the two argue, Wang Xiaofeng quietly finished his meal, washed the dishes, and shut his bedroom door. It had always been like this over the years, but for some reason, his heart felt warm.

The next day, before dawn, Wang Danu woke Wang Xiaofeng up again. The improvement was that Wang Xiaofeng woke up the moment Wang Danu entered the room, giving him no chance to launch a sneak attack.

During the second day's training, Wang Xiaofeng still passed out halfway through. However, with Wang Danu's massage and the medicinal bath that promoted blood circulation and dissolved stasis, Wang Xiaofeng was barely able to keep up with the training intensity the next day.

Spring passed, autumn came, and time flew by. In the blink of an eye, three years had passed.

Medicinal baths were simply too expensive. Even with Wang Danu calling in Wang Feng's connections at Spirit Hall, they had only lasted three months before exhausting the several hundred Gold Soul Coins Wang Danu and He Li had saved over the years. (Spirit Hall's stipends had time limits, after all. Ten Gold Soul Coins a month for a Great Soul Master was no small amount, right?)

Still, those three months had laid a solid foundation for Wang Xiaofeng. After all, every time he pushed past his limits was when he absorbed the medicine most effectively.

By the time Wang Xiaofeng was four, he could push a small cart loaded with twenty jin of firewood back and forth at a run.

Not long after turning six, he had even personally defeated a ten-year Blind Bear that had just wandered out of the Forest. The villagers were amazed and believed Wang Xiaofeng would surely become an extraordinary Soul Master someday.

"Old Dad, I'm back!"

Wang Danu was collecting eggs in the courtyard. The moment he heard that voice, he knew Wang Xiaofeng had returned. He clapped his hands, placed the eggs into a basket, and looked questioningly at Wang Xiaofeng, who seemed as though he had rolled around in a dirt pile several times and was filthy all over.

"What Soul Beast did you run into? Why are you back so late, and how did you end up like this?"

After three years of training, Wang Xiaofeng did not look like a six-year-old at all. Though he was only 1.2 meters tall and still looked like a little bean sprout, a closer look revealed the sturdy muscles hidden beneath his tattered clothes. His eyes sparkled brightly, and the gray dust could not hide his adorable face. I'm handsome, not adorable!

"Don't mention it. It was a nearly hundred-year Blood-Burning Boar." Wang Xiaofeng looked helpless. "Who would have thought I'd run into a Soul Beast that was nearly a hundred years old?"

Ever since Wang Xiaofeng learned that Soul Beasts occasionally came out of the Forest and were not very old, he had started causing trouble.

Setting traps and catching small animals had been what Wang Xiaofeng was best at in his previous life. Because of that, the director of Qidian Orphanage had scolded him bloody countless times.

Even now, recalling the incident still left Wang Xiaofeng shaken.

As usual, he had chopped fifty jin of firewood and loaded it onto his cart before going to check whether his trap had caught anything. It was a deep pit he had spent half a day digging. The spikes inside had been made from Ironblood Tree wood, after he had ruined three knives chopping it down and two more carving it. Spikes made from this kind of tree were not only as hard as iron, but they also numbed an animal's wounds, preventing injured prey from feeling pain. The animal would then bleed to death without realizing it.

While still some distance from the trap, Wang Xiaofeng heard the sound of a pig squealing. He looked up ahead and saw a one-meter-tall wild boar snorting nonstop at him.

"**!" Wang Xiaofeng did not dare think any further and immediately threw himself to the right.

With a bang, a tree so thick it took two people to embrace it crashed down.

"Why is there a wild boar here? Help!" Watching the wild boar shake its head as though nothing had happened, Wang Xiaofeng unleashed one hundred and twenty percent of his strength, using every last ounce of energy as he turned and ran.

Fortunately, the weeds around the outskirts of the Deep Forest had been cleared, and Wang Xiaofeng kept running in an S-shaped pattern. Otherwise, he would have been caught long ago. Even so, the distance between them continued to shrink.

His lungs felt as though they were on fire, and his legs were like they had been tied to blocks of lead, but Wang Xiaofeng still did not dare relax. Now it was a contest of endurance. He seemed to recall hearing in his previous life that wild boars did not have much stamina. Hopefully I can outlast it, or I'm dead.

After an unknown amount of time, Wang Xiaofeng suddenly felt a gust of wind at his back. Strength surged through his body from nowhere, and he used all his remaining strength to dive right. A large tree in front of where he had been standing toppled forward with a series of heavy thuds. Only then did Wang Xiaofeng clearly see that the wild boar chasing him had fiery red fur.

It was a Blood-Burning Boar, nearly one meter tall, making it roughly a hundred-year-old Blood-Burning Boar. Once a Blood-Burning Boar reached a hundred years, it would grow to one meter tall. For every additional hundred years, another ring would appear on its tusks. Of course, the white ring floating around the Blood-Burning Boar's body was the key evidence Wang Xiaofeng used to determine that it was under a hundred years old.

Looking at the Blood-Burning Boar, which had already stopped breathing, he finally noticed several spikes in its belly. Its blood had drained away completely, leaving only some pale white stuff of unknown origin.

No wonder the Blood-Burning Boar had chased him all the way here. It had fallen into the trap and caught his scent, so it had pursued him desperately, as if someone had stolen its wife.

If the Blood-Burning Boar had not used its innate ability at the end, burning its blood in a desperate final gamble, and if Wang Xiaofeng had not been lucky enough to dodge, it was hard to say whether Wang Xiaofeng would have been the one laughing in the end.

Wang Xiaofeng struggled to his feet. The Blood-Burning Boar's blood had flowed all along the way, and who knew how many Soul Beasts it would attract. He had to leave this place quickly.

When he reached the edge of the Forest, he faintly heard wolves howling. Wang Xiaofeng felt a wave of relief. After eating a little dry rations to recover, he finally returned home.

"Good thing you ran fast, or you'd have ended up feeding the wolves. Then all these years of spending my Gold Soul Coins would have been for nothing," Wang Danu said. Wang Xiaofeng looked at him speechlessly. "It's great that I didn't waste your Gold Soul Coins. I'm going to change clothes."

"Wait." Wang Danu stopped Wang Xiaofeng as he headed into the house. "Three days from now is Martial Soul Awakening. Don't forget."

"Got it..."