"The cold wind was like a blade, taking the earth as a chopping block and all living beings as fish and meat.
Ten thousand miles of flying snow turned the vault of heaven into a great furnace, melting all things into white silver.
The snow was about to stop, yet the wind had not settled. A carriage came from the north, its rolling wheels crushing the ice and snow on the ground, yet unable to crush the loneliness between heaven and earth..."
He was telling the story of "Little Li Flying Dagger." The two women exchanged a glance, each seeing excitement in the other's eyes. As women of the martial world, they were naturally familiar with tales of the martial world, yet his story still felt fresh and novel to them, especially when he described the characters' inner thoughts with such delicate detail...
Lin Su had only told a small part of the story when he suddenly stopped.
Zhang Yiyu said, "Why did you stop...?"
"Little Li Flying Dagger, never missed its mark! Little Li Flying Dagger, never missed its mark..." Lin Su murmured. "I think... I've found the direction of my martial path... Yes! This is it! I simply don't have the time to practice martial arts slowly and improve bit by bit. Then I'll find the most effective way to write my martial path. Just as Old Man Heavenly Machine said later: if you, Li Xunhuan, had cultivated Wang Lianhua's 'Flower Cherishing Manual' back then, perhaps you would never have reached such heights. Martial techniques are not better for being numerous; what matters is refinement, not quantity. A single skill as king surpasses mastery of ten thousand skills..." The more he spoke, the more excited he became.
A single skill as king, surpassing mastery of ten thousand skills?
Dark Night's heart stirred violently!
She was about to step into the "Peeking Void Realm," and she faced the same question of martial cultivation. Which martial techniques should she practice? How could she use techniques broad enough to fill all the "voids" in her body?
Hearing those words so suddenly was like hearing the morning bell and evening drum...
Did every void in her body truly need to be filled?
If her attacks were sharp enough, she would not need defense at all.
If she possessed one skill sufficient to suppress the world, why did she need to cover every angle?
She cultivated the sword. If her sword path reached great completion, why should one sword be unable to break ten thousand laws?
At that thought, Dark Night's blood surged through her entire body, and her realm abruptly opened wide...
Zhang Yiyu sensed the change in her and was utterly shocked. A single skill as king, surpassing mastery of ten thousand skills—could those words truly carry such a massive impact? Why did Dark Night seem to have opened up her realm?
Heavens! Tonight, this brat had racked his brains trying to make Dark Night teach him martial arts. Why had it ended with Dark Night saying nothing at all, while he kept talking and talking, only for Dark Night to seem as though she had reaped enormous gains?
With a sharp hiss, Dark Night suddenly pierced through the air and shot straight up to the pavilion. She sat cross-legged, dark currents surging around her. This was clearly a sign of a breakthrough in realm.
Once Dark Night left, Lin Su froze. He looked at the pavilion, then at Zhang Yiyu, scratching his head. "Was my story really that awful? Did she just run away?"
"..." Zhang Yiyu could not be bothered to explain. "You can tell it to me. I guarantee I won't run."
"Forget it. I overlooked the fact that stories have their target audiences too. What young girl likes hearing this sort of thing?... Can you do me a favor?"
"What?"
"Let me shoot you..."
Zhang Yiyu's expression changed. It became exceedingly strange, as though she could not believe what she had heard, yet also seemed furious...
"I mean, I'll get a flying dagger and throw it at you. You catch it and throw it back to me. I definitely can't hurt you anyway, and you can tell me whether I've made any progress as I practice..."
That word, "shoot"...
A sparring partner?
Lin Su took out a small knife and walked to the base of the courtyard wall. The true qi from his Martial Root slowly gathered at his fingertips. With a hiss, the flying dagger shot out toward Zhang Yiyu. She seemed not to notice at all. Without raising her head or lifting a hand, the flying dagger flew straight back.
Lin Su caught it, hurled it again with force, and it flew back once more.
Martial true qi had already changed him.
If his flying dagger had been on twenty-first-century Earth, it would absolutely have been trump-card level. At the very least, it was incredibly accurate, immensely powerful, and exceptionally stable. Yet here, he could not even make the beauty lift an eyelid.
After going back and forth more than a hundred times, he felt he had improved considerably, but Zhang Yiyu merely covered her mouth and yawned.
That yawn made Lin Su go limp all over.
It was like when he was working himself desperately over a girl, only for the girl to suddenly yawn—an utterly crushing blow.
"Forgive my bluntness, but even if you practiced like this for a hundred years, it would have no effect."
Lin Su collapsed on the spot. "You mean... my direction was wrong after all?"
"The direction is not wrong. What is wrong is... you have overlooked the most crucial thing in martial cultivation: cultivation power! You have too little true qi, and its quality is too poor. No matter how you practice, it will still be useless."
"Then what should I do?"
"I'll give you a stroke of fortune... Though in truth, it cannot really be counted as something I am giving you. You earned it yourself."
With a flick of her hand, the bead suddenly shot into Lin Su's dantian. The instant it entered, his entire body became incomparably hot. A strange energy rose from his dantian, and the amount of true qi within his meridians increased in an instant by who knew how many times. No, it could not be measured in multiples. If it had initially been the drip-drip of brewing wine, it was now practically a mountain flood bursting through its banks...
His meridians were forced open at the same time—simple and brutal...
"It may hurt a little. Bear with it. Don't worry; even if all your meridians shatter, I can reconnect them."
Damn it, was this what she called hurting a little? It hurt worse than childbirth, all right?
Lin Su's teeth ground with loud clacks. "What exactly is this thing?"
"The demon core of the black flood dragon from the river yesterday! That flood dragon possessed dragon-like traits, so the energy in its demon core is extraordinary. I used a secret method of my sect to restrain its violent nature, allowing it to continuously feed energy into your body over forty-nine days. So long as you can survive this trial, at least ten percent of the demon core's power can be transformed into your true qi..."
"A flood dragon's core? You..."
Before Lin Su could finish his sentence, an agonizing pain crashed through his body like rivers and seas overturning. He curled into a ball...
"Yesterday in the river, you severely wounded the black flood dragon with a War Poem. Without that blow from you, I could not have killed it either. That is why I said this stroke of fortune was earned by you yourself!"
"Can I not have it? It hurts... Ah..." Lin Su cried out.
"A man of indomitable spirit, and you fear a little pain?"
"I'm the provincial exam top scorer. I'm a scholar..."
"Enough, enough. If you keep crying like you're dying, I'll remove the sound barrier and let everyone outside hear how their top scorer sounds just like a woman..."
Lin Su shut up. You could call him a scoundrel, but you could not call him a woman...
For a full hour, Lin Su rolled from the west side to the east side. In his belly, he cursed Zhang Yiyu until one Buddha was born and a second ascended to heaven. No wonder Zhang Haoran had such mixed feelings toward his own sister. She was truly a freak whose appearance and reality were severely divorced. On the surface, she was quiet and refined, like a celestial maiden, but when she acted, she was simple and brutal. She did not even ask whether he was willing before shoving such a huge bead straight into his stomach. What was that supposed to be? If he forcibly stuffed something into her body, how would she feel?
Suddenly, a fierce pain struck his back. His entire skeleton cracked, and Lin Su abruptly felt something in his body open up. The pain was gone! Completely gone!
Eh?
"Your foundation is not bad. Your meridians are actually completely intact!" Zhang Yiyu approached him with lotus steps. "The Ren and Du Meridians have been opened! You have finally reached the Martial Ancestor realm."
Martial Ancestor?
Lin Su sprang up violently. The moment he exerted force beneath his feet, he shot directly into the sky. Zhang Yiyu reached out and pulled this human cannonball back down. Lin Su stared blankly at her. Why did she seem especially beautiful at this moment? Her scent was especially pleasant, and her chest was so high, so beautiful... he wanted so badly to take a bite...
With a whoosh, Lin Su flew far away.
Anger appeared on Zhang Yiyu's face. What did this mean? The moment the pain was gone, he started entertaining crooked thoughts? What was he staring at so fixedly? He even dared to lean closer? When her gaze dropped, she was thoroughly enraged. This shameless bastard...
Lin Su's entire face was red, his whole body burning hot. The heat in his bones instantly brought him back to The Plum in the Golden Vase he had written the night before last...
Zhang Yiyu suddenly shuddered. Heavens, she had forgotten something!
The black flood dragon had been male, and flood dragons were lustful by nature...
That black flood dragon had massacred twelve villages back then, which was why Zhang Yiyu had been so enraged and insisted on killing it.
Now that its demon core had been forcibly driven into his body, how could an ordinary human like him possibly endure it?
"Miss Zhang..."
"No!" Zhang Yiyu's heart leaped, and she cut him off at once.
"I want to..."
"Don't even think about it..."
"I can't take it anymore. I need release!" Lin Su leaped up. "Take my dagger!"
Before you continue