The Most Painful Thing in Life

Yi Yun kept repeating the twelve movements of the Elephant Swallowing Art. For some reason, these movements consumed an astonishing amount of stamina. Yi Yun was in a half-dreaming, half-awake state, and after performing the set five times, he was utterly exhausted!

Yi Yun opened his eyes, only to find that his abdomen was burning hot, as if it had caught fire!

The power throughout his body surged toward his abdomen, along with vast amounts of blood and energy, flowing without end!

Under normal circumstances, after a person ate his fill, more blood would flow toward his stomach and intestines to digest the nutrients he had consumed.

Yi Yun was experiencing the same thing now, but it was a hundred times more intense.

Yi Yun felt that if he merely willed it, all the qi and blood in his body could gather in his stomach and intestines. Even iron nails and glass could be digested!

The bloated feeling caused by eating Guanyin Soil had completely vanished. Under the powerful churning of his stomach and intestines, all the Guanyin Soil that had clumped together was thoroughly broken apart.

Yi Yun raised his head and only then realized that everyone was watching him. Lord Zhang wore a smile, while the people from the Warrior Reserve Camp looked shocked, jealous, and hostile.

At that moment, Lian Chengyu walked over to Yi Yun with a smile.

"Yi Yun, I'm convinced."

Lian Chengyu said this, and under Yi Yun's astonished gaze, he patted Yi Yun warmly on the shoulder. "Yi Yun, to be honest, I once suspected that you had only passed the preliminary selection through sheer luck. But you've proven yourself now, so I apologize. I never imagined that you would possess such talent!"

Lian Chengyu did not stint on his praise. "Having you gather herbs in the mountains before this was a waste of your talent. From today onward, you'll enter the Warrior Reserve Camp, and the Lian Clan will give you priority in its training!"

"What a pity. There are only a few dozen days left before the Divine Kingdom Grand Selection. It's all because I failed to discover your talent earlier and let you waste all that time. Now you only have a few dozen days to practice martial arts. No matter what, it's impossible for you to pass the Divine Kingdom Grand Selection..."

"But it doesn't matter. If I, your foolish elder brother, become a Divine Kingdom Warrior in the future, I will certainly help you in return, Yi Yun. I'll make sure that one day, you can also leave the Great Wilderness. When that happens, our Lian Clan, which raised us, will share in the glory and perhaps even move into the cities as a whole!"

Lian Chengyu spoke with heartfelt sincerity, and there was not the slightest trace of falsehood in his eyes.

If Yi Yun had not known exactly what kind of person Lian Chengyu was, he felt that he might even have been deceived by him!

As the saying went, one could know a person's face but not his heart. As long as someone was slightly skilled at concealing the villainy in his heart, it was incredibly difficult to judge his true thoughts from his facial expressions.

Lian Chengyu was exactly such a person now.

Yi Yun understood perfectly that he was putting on this entire performance for Lord Zhang to see.

The moment Lord Zhang left, Lian Chengyu would tear off his mask.

How could Lian Chengyu possibly tolerate Yi Yun growing stronger?

Yi Yun gave a foolish chuckle and said to Lian Chengyu, "Thank you, Young Master Lian. I won't disappoint you."

Seeing that Yi Yun was so cooperative, Lian Chengyu smiled repeatedly. How could he have imagined that beneath Yi Yun's appearance as a twelve-year-old child lay experiences far richer than his own?

Lian Chengyu offered a few more words of encouragement before turning to Lord Zhang. "Lord Zhang, this student is dull, and my comprehension is inferior to Brother Yi Yun's. I still haven't mastered the Elephant Swallowing Art from earlier. Could I trouble Lord Zhang to demonstrate it once more?"

Since he had already decided to settle accounts later, Lian Chengyu appeared utterly humble on the surface. But when Zhao Tiezhu and the others heard his words, they felt so stifled that they could hardly breathe.

"Young Master Lian..."

Zhao Tiezhu was frantic inside. How could Lian Chengyu admire Yi Yun and say something like that...

"Shut up, all of you! You're nothing but good-for-nothings. The clan supplies you with fine food and meat every day, yet this is how you perform after learning a single move of the Elephant Swallowing Art. It's utterly disgraceful. If you still refuse to work hard, do you really want to eat Guanyin Soil until your stomachs burst?"

The moment Lian Chengyu brought up the words "stomachs burst," Zhao Tiezhu and the others' expressions changed. Indeed, this was no joke. If they failed to learn it completely, they would all be done for!

Seeing that Lian Chengyu handled matters appropriately and spoke with propriety, Lord Zhang nodded slightly. Lian Chengyu possessed decent talent and leadership ability. He could be considered a capable person.

Lord Zhang said, "Eating sawdust and Guanyin Soil with this move of the Elephant Swallowing Art is only the most basic stage. If you have the conditions, you can later switch to some Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures containing violent energy that are extremely difficult to digest. That will make the effects of your training even better."

Lord Zhang was saying this to Lian Chengyu and Yi Yun. In his eyes, only Lian Chengyu and Yi Yun would be able to leave the Great Wilderness and become true martial artists in the future.

He then turned toward Zhao Tiezhu and the others. "As for you, although you probably won't have the chance to eat those Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, once you master the Elephant Swallowing Art, you'll be able to fully digest grass roots and tree bark when famine strikes. That will be of great benefit to your survival. Even if you only learn a little of the Elephant Swallowing Art, it will still benefit you greatly."

"I'll demonstrate it again, but I'll slow down. Watch carefully. Whether you can comprehend the Mysterious Charm of the Elephant Swallowing Art will depend on yourselves!"

As Lord Zhang spoke, he moved once again.

He truly slowed down, yet he still failed to properly teach it to Zhao Tiezhu and the others.

Thus, that night, many of the Lian Clan's outhouses echoed with a chorus of wailing like ghosts and howling like wolves.

There was a saying that the most painful thing in life was having diarrhea and being unable to find a toilet, only to end up soiling one's trousers.

But compared with what Zhao Tiezhu and the others were experiencing now, did that even count as suffering?

Only after reaching Zhao Tiezhu's current state did they understand that being able to soil their trousers would have been immeasurably blissful.

That night, the Lian Clan's only physician boiled a huge pot of laxative and made everyone in the Warrior Reserve Camp drink it. But even so, they still could not defecate.

With no other choice, they really had to follow Lord Zhang's earlier instructions and use their fingers to dig it out. Later, they discovered that their fingers were not long enough, so they had to switch to bamboo sticks.

And when the bamboo sticks were thrust into their anuses...

That sensation... was simply both heavenly and hellish.

Actually, using bamboo sticks to dig out feces was a technical task. One person could hardly complete such a difficult mission, because he simply could not see down there.

With no other choice, they could only "help one another." One person would bend over and stick out his buttocks, allowing his brother to...

The image was too beautiful for Yi Yun to imagine.

Anyone who could burst his buddy's chrysanthemum could hardly be considered extraordinary. But someone who could dig feces out for his buddy was probably the truest of true love.

Moreover, merely listening to those shrill cries was enough to imagine the miserable state of the other person's chrysanthemum. It might even have been torn to pieces by the bamboo stick...

When they gathered to practice martial arts the next day, Zhao Tiezhu and the others were all ashen-faced, walking like soft-legged shrimps.

They had not slept all night, constantly running to the outhouse. Even after drinking laxatives, they could only produce a little yellow water, and then there were the repeated bamboo-stick procedures...

It was no different from torture.

Fortunately, they had not eaten too much Guanyin Soil. By taking laxatives again and again and sacrificing their chrysanthemums again and again, they had not yet reached the point where anyone would die.

The next day, when they practiced martial arts, Zhao Tiezhu and the others no longer dared to eat Guanyin Soil. Thus, Lord Zhang practically taught only Yi Yun and Lian Chengyu.

When Lord Zhang came to the Lian Clan this time, he did not even stay for three full days.

On the evening of the second day, however, a jade slip that Lord Zhang carried with him suddenly began to tremble, emitting a clear ring.

This jade slip was used by the Brocade Dragon Guard to send messages.

When Lord Zhang saw the jade slip trembling, his expression changed slightly. He left behind only a note, then mounted his Giant Beast and galloped away, vanishing into the vast night...