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The Benefits of Body Tempering Through Bitter Cultivation Become Apparent
### The night grew deeper, and the courtyard lay utterly silent. Only the broken door remained, creaking mournfully in the night wind, like a storyteller who could never finish recounting a tale of desolation.
Ye Qingxuan, who had been trembling like a sieve with panic all over his face just moments ago, slowly straightened. The fear and pleading on his face had vanished completely the instant Duan Tianbao and the others disappeared, leaving behind only a profound, bottomless calm.
He walked to the courtyard gate, picked up the broken door panel, and leaned it against the wall.
Everything that had happened just now had been an act.
He had to be "panicked." He had to "plead." He had to look like a helpless youth driven into a dead end. Before someone like Duan Tianbao, any calmness or reason would be interpreted as "having something to rely on" or "plotting something else," inviting deeper probing and harsher exploitation.
Only by showing weakness, disguising himself as an ant that could be casually squeezed, could he lower Duan Tianbao's guard and win the most precious thing of all—time.
The period had been extended from five days to ten. The price was that the two taels of silver Duan Tianbao had "waived," as Hu Jiudao put it, had been added back in.
But Ye Qingxuan did not care.
To him, sixteen taels and fourteen taels were no different. Both were astronomical figures he could not hope to reach at present.
Those extra five days, however, would allow him to do many things.
He slowly exhaled a breath of foul air. The feeling of having his fate placed in another's hands, of relying on acting and begging to exchange for a sliver of life, filled him with disgust from the depths of his bones. In this filthy, turbid world, without strength, there was no dignity. So-called calculation and so-called caution were merely the survival arts of the weak, never a lasting path.
He turned and walked into the house.
His younger sister was sleeping soundly on the bed. Tear tracks still marked her thin, small face, and even in sleep her brows were tightly furrowed.
Ye Qingxuan reached out and gently smoothed the creases between his sister's brows.
"Big brother..."
Ye Caiwei had woken at some point. Her large eyes gazed at him in the darkness, filled with terror.
"Nannan, don't be afraid. Big brother's here." Ye Qingxuan sat beside the bed, his voice exceptionally soft, afraid of disturbing this fragile dream.
"Will... will they come again?" Ye Caiwei's small hand clenched the corner of the quilt.
"They will." Ye Qingxuan did not lie to her. He merely took her small hand in his; it was ice-cold. With his own palm, he gradually warmed that chill. "But next time they come, they'll be here to collect the debt. Once we pay them back, we won't owe them anything anymore."
"Fourteen taels... How could we possibly have that much money?" Ye Caiwei's voice was choked with sobs. She was far more sensible than children her age and knew what that sum meant.
"Big brother will find a way." Ye Qingxuan watched his sister and spoke each word as if making an oath. "Nannan, do you believe that Big brother will let you live a good life someday? You won't have to worry over a few copper coins, and you won't have to eat husks and vegetables anymore. If you want meat, you'll eat meat. I'll fatten you up until you're fair and plump, put you in the prettiest flower dress in the city, and make you a carefree little princess."
Ye Caiwei stared at him blankly. In the darkness, her brother's silhouette was not imposing, but the certainty in his voice was like a mountain, calming her frantic heart. She nodded hard.
Ye Qingxuan smiled and tucked the quilt around her. "Go to sleep. When you wake tomorrow, everything will get better."
Only after Ye Caiwei's breathing had once again become even did Ye Qingxuan quietly rise and leave the room.
He stood in the courtyard, his gaze falling on a dust-covered weapons rack in the corner. It was completely empty.
His father, Old Ye, had once been a leading figure in the Fengtian Division of Linyuan Prefecture. With his Thirteen Blades of Fengtian, swift as a startled swan and fierce as thunder and fire, he had forged a resounding reputation through battles against bandits of the martial world and fiends of the demonic sects. Among the neighbors, who had not respectfully called him "Constable Ye"?
Back then, the Ye Family had not been rich or noble, but it had still been a household everyone in the Southern District envied. In Ye Qingxuan's childhood memories, his father had always stood ramrod straight, a long saber at his waist, his body brimming with Killing Intent yet his face carrying a smile. He had been the hero who held up the heavens in Ye Qingxuan's heart.
But even heroes could not withstand the grinding of this world.
During the campaign to wipe out the Myriad Tribulation Sect, his father had slain three hall leaders with his saber, only to be struck by a strange poison himself, leaving his meridians shattered. His former reputation could not buy miraculous medicine, and the Fengtian Division's relief payments were only a drop in the bucket. To treat his illness, the family fortune had been emptied, and they had even incurred a debt to Fierce Tiger Hall.
A hero at the end of his road—nothing more than this. From the universally revered Constable Ye, to the medicine jar wasting away on a sickbed, and then to a name crossed out in the household register, with a son who was merely a "temporary constable not entered in the register"—this was the portrait of the Ye Family these past few years. It was the beginning of an inspirational tale, yet the ending of a tragic one.
Ye Qingxuan was unwilling to follow the same path.
He withdrew his gaze and drew a deep breath. From the water vat in the corner, he ladled up a dipper of cold water and poured it over his head. The icy well water made him shudder, but it also cleared his mind more completely than ever.
He returned inside, found several old cloth strips washed pale with age, then took some still-warm wood ash from the stove and wrapped it in one of the cloths.
The cultivation method of Indestructible Vajra Body had already emerged clearly in his mind. This art required no breathing exercises or qi circulation through the meridians. It sought only one word: "endure."
He would wrap his body in cloth, rub it with objects, and strike it with his hands, tempering his sinews, bones, skin, and flesh through the clumsiest methods.
Ye Qingxuan removed his shirt, revealing a lean upper body with a well-proportioned frame. He first wrapped both arms tightly with cloth, then picked up the cloth bundle of wood ash and began rubbing it forcefully against one arm.
The coarse fabric, packed with hard grains of ash, scraped back and forth over his skin like a dulled whetstone grinding away at it.
Before long, his skin flushed red.
He gritted his teeth. Rather than easing his grip, he pressed harder and harder.
The redness gradually deepened into a searing burn. His skin felt as though it were being roasted over a fire. Every inch of flesh protested and screamed.
Beads of sweat rolled from his temples, struck the ground, and spread into small dark stains.
This was only the beginning.
After rubbing a hundred times, he unwound the cloth and began striking his arms, chest, and back with his palms and the edges of his hands, blow after blow.
"Smack!"
"Smack! Smack!"
The dull sounds echoed through the silent night.
Every strike felt like a red-hot iron rod branding his body. The searing pain bored through his flesh and sank into his marrow, making every muscle tremble uncontrollably.
His teeth clacked together, while a muffled growl remained trapped in his throat.
This was body tempering: like a blacksmith forging iron, hammering it a thousand times to purge the dross and preserve the essence. Ordinary people practicing martial arts needed a master's guidance and medicinal baths to advance step by step. But he had no master, no medicinal baths—only this scroll of the Heavenly Machine Codex and a fierce refusal to accept his fate.
Sweat soaked his hair and glued it to his forehead. His vision darkened in waves, and every part of his body screamed for him to stop.
But he did not.
He thought of Duan Tianbao's smiling face, Hu Jiudao's hideous scar, and his sister's terrified eyes.
Stopping meant death.
He raised his hand and delivered another heavy blow, bringing it down viciously on his shoulder.
A stabbing pain surged through him. His body swayed, and he nearly collapsed.
At that moment, that ancient and boundless voice rang out in his mind once more.
[Relentless bitter cultivation, not an inch of effort wasted... Merit +1]
The instant the voice faded, the writing on the illusory scroll in his mind quietly changed.
[Martial Art: Indestructible Vajra Body (Progress: Zero Inches, Merit: 1/5)]
At the same time, a faint yet distinct current of warmth appeared from thin air in the depths of his limbs and bones. Wherever it passed, the fiery, scorching pain from moments ago was unexpectedly diluted. It was like drinking from an icy spring in the height of summer. The pain remained, but it was no longer so unbearable.
His body, which had been trembling from the agony, gradually settled.
Ye Qingxuan froze.
He slowly raised his hand and looked at his flushed arm.
It worked!
Those two words exploded in his heart like thunder.
The Heavenly Machine Codex was not an illusion! This bitter cultivation truly worked!
All his efforts and all his pain had transformed into the clearly visible "Merit: 1/5."
The ethereal martial path and the distant, unreachable hope had, at this moment, become a staircase he could touch and accumulate step by step.
An indescribable ecstasy erupted from the depths of his heart, instantly sweeping away the fatigue and pain in his body.
He clenched his fists.
There were still four points of Merit.
Not only did he not stop, he seemed to have been infused with endless strength. The sound of his strikes grew heavier and denser than before.
Tonight, no one slept.
In this small courtyard in the lanes of the Southern District, there was only the dull thud of flesh colliding again and again, and the heavy breathing of a young man, accompanied by the oil lamp swaying in the night wind, until dawn.
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