Aftermath II

Aftermath II

Duanmu Wan wistfully reached out and curled up a few loose strands of hair. She looked again at the scenery below the window, then suddenly smiled. "You people have it better. You know nothing, and there's no need for you to know. You only need to accept the outcome."

"Perhaps." Lu Sheng smiled and shook his head slightly.

"Sometimes, knowing too much only makes one more tired, more fearful," Duanmu Wan said softly.

"Even so, I'd rather know more. At least then I might still see hope of controlling my own fate," Lu Sheng said calmly.

"Perhaps." This time, it was Duanmu Wan's turn to sigh.

In truth, their meeting had merely been an accident.

Yet when she saw Lu Sheng, Duanmu Wan involuntarily thought of that person again—the one she had always admired, yet would never again have the chance to approach.

From his emergence, his blossoming, his ascent to the summit, and then his fall, she could only ever watch him from afar. She had not even possessed the courage to express her feelings.

When she saw Lu Sheng, she unconsciously saw that person's shadow in him again. That was why she had agreed to drink tea with him.

Looking at Lu Sheng across from her, Duanmu Wan smiled bitterly inside. If those people learned that she, in such pressing times, was leisurely drinking tea in a teahouse with an ordinary man, who knew what ridicule and mockery it would provoke.

But so what?

She was the Qingqiu Princess! A vicious beauty ordinary people feared like snakes and scorpions! So what if they mocked and sneered at her? She did not care in the slightest.

She did whatever she wanted. No one could point fingers at her.

"A word of warning: if you encounter people from the aristocratic families, try to avoid them, especially the direct line. Enough of that. Drink." Duanmu Wan raised her teacup and drained it in one gulp as though drinking wine. Then, no longer caring about her image, she reached out for the tea snacks and pastries.

Lu Sheng said nothing more and simply kept her company. He could tell Duanmu Wan was in a terrible mood.

He did not understand her world. That world was still far too distant from his current self. But that did not stop him from seeing clearly what Duanmu Wan needed now.

What she needed was merely someone to accompany her while she rested for a while.

Thus, though his stomach was full of questions he wanted to ask, he did not say a single word from beginning to end. He merely drank tea with Duanmu Wan.

It was not until evening, when mobile barbecue stalls began appearing along the streets outside, that Duanmu Wan rose and left.

She had come swiftly and departed swiftly, just as she had when she first appeared—mysterious and unfathomable.

When Lu Sheng stepped out of the teahouse, the entire street was filled with the fragrance of grilled meat skewers. Oil lamps and cloth banners hung from upright wooden poles, bearing the names of all kinds of stalls and vendors. Crowds flowed between the peddlers, stopping and starting, chatting and laughing.

Lu Sheng did not know how great the distance between his world and Duanmu Wan's still was, nor did he care. All he wanted was the strength to seize his own fate in this chaotic age. Nothing more.

The day after meeting Duanmu Wan, Lu Sheng returned to the small gorge where he usually practiced martial arts.

It was early morning. Rain had only just fallen in the forest, leaving it lush and verdant, with many droplets still hanging from blades of grass and leaves.

Lu Sheng hung up his outer robe, stood in the clearing, sank his body, calmed his breath, and once more activated the Black Fiend Skill and the Black Tiger Jade Crane Skill together, pouring inner qi into both hands at once.

Sure enough, the same immense force as that night began surging and trembling through his arms.

Lu Sheng spent considerable effort before finally managing to suppress the urge to unleash that power.

He carefully examined the skin on his arms and saw them covered in blackish-red patterns, like bloody marks left by some ribbons winding around them, looping from his wrists to his forearms.

After controlling his inner qi while standing there for a while, he found that he could use roughly twenty percent of it. Any more would cause his physique to change. This was a special state that had gradually emerged after the Black Fiend Skill broke through the Third Layer. At full power, his entire body would become engorged and swell, rapidly turning him into a burly man with knotted muscles.

After steadying his control of the inner qi, Lu Sheng suddenly swung forward.

Bang! The air before him was actually blasted into a puff of white vapor. Though it vanished in an instant, it showed that his speed and explosive force in that moment had reached an extraordinarily terrifying level.

"This move is immensely powerful, but my body can't withstand it many times." Lu Sheng felt his arms go weak and numb as he made a rough calculation.

"At most, I can use it three times in quick succession. After that, I must rest, or I'll injure my tendons, membranes, and bones."

For the second test, Lu Sheng gripped his straight saber and activated the Black Fiend Skill and Black Tiger Jade Crane Skill simultaneously again.

Swish!!

Amid the tiger's roar and crane's cry, a large tree used for testing was abruptly cleaved through more than half its trunk.

"Ten percent strength... tsk, tsk. Compared to the Black Fiend Skill alone, its explosive force, power, and speed have all improved considerably." He hesitated, then decided to give this move a proper name.

"I'll call it the Tiger's Roar Crane's Cry Saber. It'll serve as a trump card—a sudden massive increase in power that can catch an enemy off guard and decide the battle. But this thing can only be used briefly. After three saber strikes, my body won't be able to take it, and more than half my inner qi will be consumed." Lu Sheng sensed that nearly sixty percent of the inner qi in his body had been expended. This showed just how formidable the move truly was.

After testing the power and consumption of the Tiger's Roar Crane's Cry Saber, Lu Sheng began studying the jade hairpin he had obtained from the Red Chamber Painted Boat.

He took the Jade Hairpin from his Waist Pouch and held it in his hand. Lu Sheng immediately sensed threads of concealed Yin Qi flowing from it.

The Jade Hairpin was entirely purplish-black and semi-transparent. One end was carved with an exquisite plum blossom, while part of its sharp tip was completely transparent.

"This Jade Hairpin is finely crafted, but its Yin Qi is too heavy. Otherwise, it would make a fine gift. Purple jade hairpins are generally extremely valuable." Lu Sheng gripped the Jade Hairpin, bit open the index finger of his other hand, squeezed out a drop of blood, and let it fall onto the hairpin's surface.

Hiss. The instant the blood touched the hairpin, a layer of hazy white smoke rose up.

Lu Sheng held it farther away and blew the white smoke aside. He felt a large surge of intense cold continuously pour from the hairpin into his palm, then flow up his arm and into his body, vanishing in the blink of an eye the moment it entered his torso.

Deep Blue!

A blue square immediately appeared before his eyes.

At that moment, a dialog box had already popped up on the Modifier: 'Conduct a martial arts deduction?'

"Yes," Lu Sheng chose.

Then the entire square flashed fiercely. This time, modifiable buttons appeared behind every martial art.

"Just as I thought! There's enough Yin Qi this time to consume for deducing all of my martial arts!" Lu Sheng was overjoyed and quickly looked toward the Black Fiend Skill.

"More than half of my strength relies on the Black Fiend Skill. I must first improve and perfect it. That side effect that affects my mind also has to be removed."

His gaze fell directly upon the Black Fiend Skill entry.

"I wonder whether, with the knowledge I've accumulated now, I can deduce the subsequent cultivation method for the Black Fiend Skill."

He controlled his thoughts and was about to press the deduction button behind the Black Fiend Skill when something suddenly occurred to him. He abruptly stopped and carefully examined its status again.

'Black Fiend Skill: Third Layer. Special effect: Fire Poison.'

"There's an additional special-effect description. Also, I can't rush this. I can't hastily raise the Black Fiend Skill right now. The last time I raised it to the Third Layer, I spent half a year recovering from my injuries. That means my current body can no longer bear the enormous accumulation required when the Black Fiend Skill improves.

"To raise, in an instant, a realm that others need decades to reach requires an immense accumulation merely to meet the minimum requirements. I can't be so hasty now."

After calculating it over, Lu Sheng's thoughts stirred, and he closed the Deep Blue Modifier.

Standing in the clearing, he recalled the Yin-Yang Guiding and Azure Pine Single-Minded Art internal arts he had memorized earlier.

"The Azure Pine Single-Minded Art seems to conflict with the internal art and inner qi in my body. I can't produce even a sense of qi, much less enter the path. But I can try the Yin-Yang Guiding."

On a whim, he simply sat down cross-legged and began following the mnemonic verses of the Yin-Yang Guiding, focusing his spirit and calming his breath as he guided his thoughts to gather qi within his body.

The Yin-Yang Guiding referred to guiding the Yin Qi and Yang Qi that already existed within the body, regulating yin and yang, balancing the internal body, and achieving freedom from all illness and a long life. Judging from the words recorded in the booklet, its creator had likely been a physician.

Rather than an inner qi art, this internal art was better described as a life-nurturing practice. The inner qi it produced was not fundamental; it was merely the overflowing essence of life that naturally grew and accumulated in the body after yin and yang were regulated. It was not this internal art's primary purpose.

The difficulty of this art lay in needing to use one's thoughts to guide two circulations at the same time, separately controlling the Yin Qi and Yang Qi.

Lu Sheng had never practiced this before, but with his previous experience of the Black Fiend Skill and Black Tiger Jade Crane Skill erupting together, he quickly entered a shallow meditative state as soon as he sat down.

The so-called Yin Qi and Yang Qi within the body could not actually be perceived through thought. They were merely descriptions, a manner of speaking. Yin Qi and Yang Qi represented two opposing yet mutually dependent tendencies of change.

The human body constantly produced Yin Qi on one side and Yang Qi on the other. The two offset and opposed each other, maintaining a balance.

Lu Sheng carefully recalled the theories in the texts and gradually deepened from shallow meditation into deep meditation.

He sat cross-legged in the clearing. Small rabbits and squirrels occasionally passed nearby, yet none dared approach within ten meters of him, as though some venomous snake or savage beast lurked there.

Ever since Lu Sheng's Black Fiend Skill broke through the Third Layer, this phenomenon had often appeared. He could increasingly see just how extraordinary the Black Fiend Skill was.

After sitting on the grass for an unknown length of time, a faint trace of qi suddenly pulsed within Lu Sheng's lower abdomen. It then slowly traveled upward along the heart and kidney meridians inside his body.

"I have it!" Lu Sheng's heart shook. He knew this might only be a temporary wisp of inner qi that had appeared for a short time and could vanish at any moment. He immediately recited inwardly.

Deep Blue!

The Modifier interface appeared, still remaining in the state from after it absorbed the Yin Qi. Every cultivation method had a deduction button behind it.

Lu Sheng skipped over the other martial arts, and his gaze landed directly on the Black Tiger Jade Crane Skill.

'Black Tiger Jade Crane Skill: Peak of the Third Layer. Special effect: Rapid Hemostasis.'

Below it was the newly appeared Yin-Yang Guiding.

'Yin-Yang Guiding: Not yet initiated.'