Yellow Millet Dream

Inside a private room on the second floor of the restaurant, hotpot broth churned with ingredients as steam billowed upward.

The obese Fat Yellow Man ate hotpot while holding up a sheet of paper covered in sloppy handwriting. He turned toward the person beside him and said:

"Hey, that Wang Chan guy really has something to him... Look at all this stuff he wrote from memory. It looks like an actual Qi cultivation art."

"Twelve Spiritual Qi Breathing Method? Never heard of it. I wonder if it can actually be cultivated..."

"Could anything spat out by Yellow Millet Dream be fake?"

"..."

A black cat was curled up on the window lattice, its limbs tucked beneath it like a ball of coal. A red cord around its neck held a Small Jade Pendant. From time to time, she glanced at the empty street outside, where that figure had already vanished, then turned to look at the two people from Green Deer Mountain inside the room, her eyes flickering.

Then the black cat let out a satisfied burp, narrowed her eyes slightly, and a bloodthirsty smile rose at the corners of her mouth.

"Screech!"

A large hand violently tore open the wooden partition door from outside, and a figure stepped in.

"Wang Chan—"

The two men stared at the young intruder in confusion for a long while. Then they exchanged glances, and Fat Yellow Man scratched his neck.

"Wang Chan isn't here... Who are you?"

"...Chen Xuan."

The man stepped inside, lowered his head to glance at the hotpot on the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. In a calm tone, he said, "It's the same if I ask you."

The two froze at his words and slowly lowered their chopsticks.

"Oh, that martial arts expert..."

There was a trace of dismissive mockery in his strange tone.

Chen Xuan's expression remained unchanged. "You're Qi Refiners from Green Deer Mountain?"

"A month ago, I was also a martial artist like you... But now I've undergone Feather Transformation and can be considered half a Qi Refiner."

Fat Yellow Man answered with a snort, his expression still carefree. He continued, "Yang, Yang... that stiff old man? Looks like you killed him. But I don't understand why you came looking for us. See, that brat Wang Chan wasn't wrong either. You really did betray and kill your master..."

"What's done is done. I have no interest in arguing right and wrong anymore."

Chen Xuan shook his head. One arm rested across the tabletop, while his other hand was clenched beneath the table in front of his abdomen, his fingertips seeming to rub something lightly.

"Haha, he's blaming us!"

The middle-aged man in hemp clothing on the left stood up, pointed at Chen Xuan's head, and laughed loudly at Fat Yellow Man. "He's blaming us! A martial arts expert—scaring people to death, huh? Hahaha... Wang Chan didn't even take you seriously. What are you, to put on airs in front of us? You're blind and courting death!"

Chen Xuan turned his head and stared at the middle-aged man's crazed, laughing face. "I also don't understand. You aren't true Qi Refiners, so why—"

"Clang!"

The howl of a sharp weapon suddenly rang through the air. Chen Xuan's arm lashed out like a black bolt of lightning, slicing across the middle-aged man's neck.

"Pfft!"

The middle-aged man instinctively raised a hand to cover it. A smooth slit immediately opened across his neck, like a zipper being pulled apart. Blood gushed between his fingers like a fountain, splattering across the entire table.

The man crashed to the floor.

"At this distance, I can strike eight times in one breath and kill everyone here."

Chen Xuan rose and braced both hands on the table, looking down at the pale, plump man in terror. He asked:

"Now, can you calmly tell me... where Wang Chan went?"

Killing intent surged.

In his heart, he did not understand how Wang Chan had deceived Master Yang... But that no longer mattered. In life, people would always encounter one inexplicable thing after another.

But once a piece had been played, there were no regrets. Once someone made a choice, they had to bear the consequences that choice brought!

"Young brother, let's talk this out..."

Fat Yellow Man's face went deathly pale with fright. He swallowed, rose from his seat, and hurriedly said:

"The people from Green Deer Mountain just took Yellow Millet Dream and rushed nonstop to Southern Wilderness in search of an opportunity. We two were disciples they accepted along the way, but we couldn't keep up and could only stay behind... Heh, you've never heard of Yellow Millet Dream, have you? It means someone reborn—Wang Chan is the one I mean. Attack!"

"Bang!"

The tabletop was flipped open from below in its entirety. Pots and bowls flew everywhere, broth splashed in all directions, and a figure pounced at Chen Xuan like a parasite clinging to bone!

It was the middle-aged man whose throat had been completely slit!

He still wasn't dead?

Chen Xuan's heart jolted. He had underestimated the cultivators of this era after all. But he had remained on guard, and his reaction was swift. He immediately swung his leg with all his strength into the head of the middle-aged man, who had just climbed to his feet, kicking him away.

The middle-aged man slammed into the corner of the wall with a smack. His entire neck bone had been kicked apart, and his head drooped against his chest. This time, he was finally dead beyond any doubt.

"Boom!"

The next moment, a violent roar erupted ahead, making Chen Xuan's scalp prickle instantly.

A fist-shaped imprint radiating white Treasure Light, as large as an iron basin, pierced through the tables flying in the air and shot straight at him. It rapidly expanded in his eyes.

"Young brother, this punch of mine carries a thousand jin of force. Can you take it—"

Before joining Green Deer Mountain,

Fat Yellow Man had also been a top martial arts expert in a major town. His martial arts were no weaker than Yang Qingshan's, and he was only in his thirties, at the peak of his vitality and blood!

Chen Xuan crossed both arms before him while forcefully kicking off the ground with both feet. His entire body sprang backward as he tried every possible way to dispel the force of that unavoidable punch.

"Bang!"

Chen Xuan was struck and flew out like a cannonball, crashing heavily onto the floor. He deliberately rolled backward several times until he hit the wall, only then barely shedding seven or eight tenths of the force.

He raised his head.

Fat Yellow Man had already torn through the tabletop. Blinding white Treasure Light suffused both fists as he pounced like a fierce eagle.

"If practicing martial arts were useful, why would we practice Qi at all—"

Though deeply shocked by the superb martial arts techniques this young man had displayed, he had to admit that in martial arts alone, the young man might already be firmly a level above even a veteran like himself. But as he had said, this was an era ruled by Qi Refiners!

"..."

Chen Xuan clenched his teeth and rolled aside. A fierce wind exploded across his back, and the brick wall was pierced straight through by two gaping holes.

This was the power of Qi Control Force, impossible to resist.

An ordinary person could exert at most one or two hundred jin of force with a punch. Even someone as powerful as Chen Xuan—the top martial artist in Willow Town, a martial arts prodigy whom even Master Yang and Master Pei willingly acknowledged—could normally produce only five or six hundred jin of force with a punch... If he simply gathered Qi and measured his strength, it would naturally be much higher. But in a fight, he might throw several punches in a single breath and could not pour his entire strength into every one.

Yet Fat Yellow Man's casual strike had already reached a terrifying thousand jin—twice Chen Xuan's strength!

Moreover, the white radiance suffusing Fat Yellow Man's fist was extraordinarily mysterious. It made his fist seem carved from jade, to the point that even sharp weapons would have difficulty breaking through its defense.

That fist could not be blocked head-on.

Chen Xuan understood that the consequences of being struck directly would be unimaginable.

"Whoosh!"

In the split second between lightning and flint, a viciousness flashed through Chen Xuan's eyes. He knitted his brows, grabbed Fat Yellow Man's arm, and suddenly dropped his entire body downward, trying to drag him to the ground with all his strength and engage him in a close-quarters brawl that would devolve into a muddy struggle.

...He couldn't move him.

After the two struggled for several breaths, Chen Xuan's entire body was instead lifted into the air by Fat Yellow Man's large hand, which was wrapped in Treasure Light.

"You asked for death!"

Fat Yellow Man was overjoyed. His tiger eyes widened, and his other large hand clamped toward Chen Xuan's head like an iron vise, wanting to crush it into a twisted lump.

"Ha!"

Rather than retreating, Chen Xuan advanced. Borrowing the momentum of Fat Yellow Man's raised arm, he turned sideways and slammed into his arms.

Fat Yellow Man realized he had fallen into a trap. The hairs all over his body stood on end, and a chill shot straight to the crown of his head. The decisiveness and viciousness the young man displayed in that instant chilled him to the bone!

"Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!"

In an instant, Chen Xuan launched a lightning-fast assault. Eight or nine ghostly flashes of cold light bloomed in the air, and countless ink-black lines sprayed from Fat Yellow Man's chest, waist and abdomen, neck, and face...

Fat Yellow Man fought to the death. The fist that had missed also smashed into Chen Xuan's back with the momentum of the motion, but after one vicious blow, its strength gradually ebbed.

"Clang!"

Then Fat Yellow Man's obese body collapsed like a small mountain crashing down.

After a while,

Chen Xuan's face was as pale as gold foil. He staggered up from the floor, braced himself against the wall, retched several times, and spat out a pool of blackish-red blood.

"As expected, practicing martial arts has no future. I still have to practice Qi..."

Chen Xuan's lips were pale as he smiled and sighed. This had been an extremely dangerous battle, and he had not won easily.

A month ago, Fat Yellow Man had still been a martial arts expert within the realm of ordinary mortals. But after being accepted by Green Deer Mountain as a Qi cultivator, he had immediately broken through the human limit of physical strength and become a transcendent existence.

Practice Qi.

I must practice Qi.

Thinking this, Chen Xuan surveyed the wrecked private room, then walked toward the two corpses on the floor.

"Twelve Spiritual Qi Breathing Method..."

Chen Xuan picked up a sheet of paper from the floor and glanced at it. With no time to examine it closely, he casually stuffed it into his robe, then quickly searched both corpses several times.

He found several Jade Stones shimmering with multicolored light... They should be a kind of currency in the Qi Refining World.

There was also a map.

Apart from that, there was nothing else.

In strange tales and legends, stories of cultivators killing people, searching their corpses, and making a fortune appeared all the time. In most cases, this was not reasonable.

The world was dangerous. When people went out, they did not carry their truly valuable possessions with them. Instead, they hid them somewhere.

"Southern Wilderness Mountains..."

Chen Xuan spread open the ancient map and searched for his target. "The route Green Deer Mountain took into the mountains... The legendary Peach Blossom Spring Village? Heh, isn't that near my old home..."

Three years ago, he had listened to the elders in his village. He had set out from the village, crossed more than half of the uninhabited territory of Peach Town, walked for over half a month, and finally reached neighboring Willow Town to study martial arts.

Peach Blossom Spring Village was a village beneath Peach Town... a village that existed only in legend.

"Wang Chan... This isn't over yet."

Chen Xuan clenched the map, tucked it into his sleeve, and turned to leave.

But at the very instant he turned around, an uncontrollable chill spread from his coccyx and swept through his entire body.

From the corner of his eye, he caught a fleeting glimpse.

"Whoosh!"

Countless round white paper offerings with square holes drifted down from the sky. Golden-white prayer banners fluttered and burned. A pyre with a ghastly pale flame swaying atop it stood nearby, accompanied by an extremely faint sound of weeping.

Black fog roiled, and the sky was dim and gray.

Faintly, a pair of terrifying, pure-golden eyes silently lit up within the black fog.

"What's happening? Who is mourning, who is burning paper offerings, whose eyes are those..."

Chen Xuan was stunned. Then his scalp went numb. He had no idea what had happened or where this place actually was.

In an instant,

Chen Xuan's hair stood on end. After three years, he had finally seen once more those unimaginable, utterly deranged things.

An accident. The end had descended.