Bone Forging

Dark clouds drifted across the sky as moonlight spilled down, illuminating Lu Wangchuan's icy face. The last man saw him and his pupils instantly contracted; every hair on his body stood on end, his heart racing.

Wasn't Lu Wangchuan always a waste in martial arts—training for two and a half years without even reaching Blood Coagulation?

Yet the strength he'd just displayed had to surpass Blood Coagulation, didn't it?

Was this guy playing the fool to catch his prey?

But now wasn't the time to think about that. He dropped to his knees and begged for mercy.

"Young Master Lu, spare me! Young Master Lu, spare me! I lost my head and came here with them. I still have an eighty-year-old mother to support. I swear I won't tell anyone about today. Please, just—"

Bang—!

Before the words finished, Lu Wangchuan's fist shattered his throat, sending him flying several meters. When he hit the ground, his throat bones were crushed. He convulsed a few times, eyes bulging, before dying in unwillingness.

That was the one who'd said he'd cripple Lu Wangchuan's third leg.

Killing for the first time was nauseating, but Lu Wangchuan knew he couldn't escape this hurdle the moment he came to this world.

The strong kill; the weak are killed!

If he hadn't trained hard, he'd be dead or crippled today!

He had to grow stronger—only then could he protect himself!

Just then, Xiao Wu and Xiao Yue were startled awake. They crawled out of their room, saw the scene, and couldn't help covering their mouths.

"Y-Young Master... this is...?"

"Don't make a sound."

Lu Wangchuan said coldly:

"You two get some cold water and wash the blood off the ground."

Then he grabbed the corpses, vaulted over the wall, and headed straight for the moat under cover of night.

He didn't sleep a wink. The next day, Lu Wangchuan went to the martial arts hall as usual.

When he arrived, he saw a crowd gathered at the entrance, wailing and crying. Several bodies lay on the ground, covered in white cloth.

"What's going on?"

He put on a calm face and went up to ask. A martial hall disciple said:

"Some of our disciples were killed. Their families are begging the hall to step in and find the real culprit."

"Why not go to the authorities?"

"People die every day in Jianghai City. How can the authorities handle it all? Otherwise, why would they come begging the hall? Speaking of which, those guys bullied you yesterday, and now they're dead. You should thank the killer—he got your revenge for you."

The hall had no choice but to help investigate.

Those men stirred up trouble every day and had made plenty of enemies. The hall questioned a few people, and Lu Wangchuan was among them. But he'd already anticipated this and answered smoothly.

"Everyone in the hall knows I've trained for two and a half years and I'm still trash. You're questioning even trash—do you have any decency?"

"Not only have you insulted me, you've insulted these fellow disciples too!"

The reasoning was solid, solid enough that no one could suspect him.

So Lu Wangchuan was firmly removed from the suspect list.

Good fortune lifts the spirits; lunch needed an extra bowl of soup.

But when he got home, he was surprised to find the meal was mostly vegetables, with only one meat dish: a small stir-fry of peppers and pork.

"Why so many vegetables today?"

Xiao Yue lowered her head, looking uneasy.

"Young Master, our household expenses have been too high these past three months. If we keep buying meat, we'll run out of food sooner or later."

Lu Wangchuan froze. He'd almost forgotten about this.

Ever since he'd crossed over, he'd been boosting his blood and qi. As his cultivation rose, his appetite grew. Meat wasn't cheap in this world, and Body Strengthening Soup drained money like water. Their silver was nearly gone.

He couldn't help sighing.

"Poverty for scholars, wealth for warriors. Martial arts really burns through cash."

Without silver to support it, he couldn't quickly raise his blood and qi. Was his path to strength going to end here?

Just then, Xiao Wu suddenly ran in holding a letter.

"Young Master, a letter from the young lady."

Lu Wangchuan's eyes flickered. It was his older sister, the one who'd married into a wealthy family and always helped him out.

He took the letter. The envelope bore a few not-so-pretty characters:

"To My Dear Brother Wangchuan."

He opened it, and inside lay a letter and three silver notes.

He pulled out the letter paper, covered in the same slightly childish handwriting as the envelope.

"Little brother, bet you didn't see this coming? Your big sister has learned to write! Now I can write to you often."

"Are you okay? Big sis misses you so much."

"Let me tell you a secret—you're going to be an uncle."

The letter was long and rambling, with a few wrong characters and clumsy sentences, but between every line shone a sister's longing for her brother.

This sincere affection made Lu Wangchuan's nose sting a little. In his past life, he'd also had a sister, and their bond had been deep—but he'd likely never see her again.

"The banknotes miss sent this year came earlier than usual."

Xiao Yue spoke with delight. Her simple heart wasn't chasing money; it was just that with funds, the young master wouldn't have to live frugally, and they could eat meat again.

If the young master was happy, she was happy.

Lu Wangchuan put away the family letter, but he wasn't particularly joyful.

Having lived two lives, he wasn't as naive as his former self. A wealthy household's madam wasn't an easy position to hold. His sister, a commoner by birth, had married into it—her days might not be truly happy; she was likely treading on thin ice.

But he had no way to change that now. He could only grow stronger. Once strong, he could become her solid support and repay her familial love.

He gave Xiao Yue one of the banknotes for daily food expenses, along with two taels of silver, telling her to go to the merchant guild in the afternoon to send a reply to his sister. The remaining notes he kept to buy herbs for brewing Body Strengthening Soup.

A high-nutrition decoction like Body Strengthening Soup was hard to digest at first. Lu Wangchuan might need to perform the Eight Section Brocade several times to fully absorb it. But as his cultivation grew and his technique improved, digestion sped up. Now, one round of Eight Section Brocade could digest half a bowl of the soup—and silver flowed out like water.

Still, Lu Wangchuan wouldn't slow his pace for that. Gold and silver were mere external possessions; only cultivation was truly his.

With cultivation, it was easier to acquire wealth. He couldn't put the cart before the horse.

And so time slipped by, and another few months passed.

One evening, Lu Wangchuan was practicing the Eight Section Brocade in his training room.

Over half a year of unbroken, grueling training had transformed him completely from when he'd first crossed over.

Now, not yet fifteen, he stood nearly one meter seventy-five tall. Sweat-soaked clothes clung to his body, revealing explosive muscle lines that seized the eye.

If not for his still-youthful face, no one would doubt he was an adult.

And as a crackling series of pops rang out from every bone in his body, his cultivation successfully broke through to the third realm of the Physical Body Realm—Bone Forging!