Qi Yu rode back to the estate. He hurried out of the carriage and strode all the way to Madam Liu's residence. Then, amid the old maid's announcement, he pushed open the carved wooden door to the inner room.
Behind the door, the fragrance of medicine filled the air. Several prescriptions lay scattered across the red sandalwood desk before Madam Liu, while the iron weight and medicinal herbs on the bronze scale to the left remained perfectly balanced.
Madam Liu held down a bluestone medicine grinder with one hand and added herbs to its groove with the other.
"Yu'er, what's the rush?"
"Mother, on the way back just now, I kept feeling as if something was following me."
Madam Liu paused, set down the grinder, and smiled. "Outside the city... surely no one would dare rob the carriage of the Qi family's Third Young Master in broad daylight, would they?"
Qi Yu said, "First there was a snowman, then a stone-and-earth puppet. I even saw Captain Zhao. Mother, are you hiding something from me?"
Madam Liu raised her eyes and studied him carefully. Seeing that the boy was sturdier than before and that his eyes were bright, she swallowed the perfunctory reply that had nearly slipped out. After thinking it over repeatedly, however, she still said, "Since you're devoted to martial cultivation, you should keep your mind free of distractions. The storms outside... haven't reached the point where you need to bear them. Just don't go outside the city anymore these days."
Qi Yu knew that Madam Liu still regarded him as a child and did not want him asking too many questions. Thus, he did not argue. He merely said, "Then Mother, Father must be careful too."
Madam Liu was stunned.
Could this really be her foolish son—the ignorant wastrel who had indulged in wine, women, song, and dance, and caused trouble wherever he went?
Amid her astonishment, a trace of warmth welled up in her heart and turned into a smile in her eyes.
She gently nodded.
Although Qi Yu had failed to learn anything from his mother, he had at least confirmed one thing: his parents were not completely unprepared for this matter.
That eased his mind somewhat. After hurriedly eating a meal, he returned to his own residence.
His courtyard lay toward the eastern side of the estate's inner residence.
Back in his room.
Inside the room.
The candle flame was lit...
Dim light spread in every direction, casting faint shadows from all the furnishings and tables and chairs in the room.
The young man sat quietly by the table and rubbed the spot between his brows with his fingers.
He was clearly exhausted, yet an inexplicable chill and sense of disgust lingered in his heart.
His hand suddenly seized the Spirit Serpent Skill manual, and he began flipping through it irritably.
At times he read, at times he pondered. Whenever he encountered something he did not understand, he grabbed the little booklet Song Xue had given him and compared the two.
The sky had darkened, and the fog outside... was growing thicker and thicker.
Lanterns hung beneath the eaves.
When the wind passed, the fog stirred, and the lanterns began to sway as well.
Tap, tap, tap...
Swaying lightly, they resembled red eyeballs rolling through the air one after another.
Qi Yu stared at those "eyeballs."
He abruptly rose, grabbed the manual, and stepped into the courtyard.
The night fog was damp and cold. Walking through it felt like being squeezed among writhing living things.
He drew a deep breath and lightly tapped the ground with his toes. His figure took on a clumsy, drifting quality. This... was precisely the Spirit Serpent Pathfinding Step.
Thud, thud, thud...
The green bricks occasionally gave off muffled thumps beneath his feet. Sweat mingled with the night fog and gradually soaked through his clothes.
Only when the fog grew thick as syrup and the lanterns vanished completely did he stop, panting.
Inside the room...
A Bi had already prepared the medicinal bath.
Steam billowed from the water. Qi Yu removed his clothes and comfortably sank into the warm medicinal soup.
His muscles and bones gradually relaxed, his fatigue slowly dispersed, and his body was nourished by the medicine.
Suddenly, he felt a wave of heat surge from the depths of his heart.
A martial artist's qi and blood were vigorous. Combined with the stimulation of that trace of fear today, they unexpectedly transformed into some inexplicable thoughts.
"Young Master, you..."
A Bi noticed the young master's abnormality.
In the next instant, her wrist was seized.
A force tugged her into the tub.
The charcoal fire in the room blazed fiercely, and the temperature was not low. A Bi wore only a silk robe.
The moment she entered the water, the silk robe and lotus-colored dudou clung tightly to her skin.
A Bi hurriedly raised a hand to cover her mouth so she would not cry out and alert the people outside...
The medicinal soup... began to ripple.
After the bath, they enjoyed another bout of passion.
It was not until midnight that A Bi quietly withdrew and said in a delicate voice, "Madam must not find out."
Then... in the faint candlelight, the little maid rustled into her silk socks, quietly climbed down, tiptoed forward several steps, picked up the embroidered shoe that had rolled beside the screen, then gently pushed open the door and returned to the side room.
"Phew~~"
Qi Yu let out a long breath.
The life of the wealthy was truly this plain and unadorned. Even without marrying or taking concubines, there would always be a thoughtful maid at one's side.
And now, he felt that his mood had calmed considerably.
Qi Yu lay on the couch, his body and mind at ease.
He once again examined the ghostly thing he had seen at dusk.
In martial cultivation, realm, killing moves, and weapons were all indispensable, so combat strength had both an upper and lower limit.
As for that ghostly thing, its lower limit was zero, yet its upper limit could reach as high as sixty.
This meant that the ghostly thing most likely appeared to be an ordinary person under normal circumstances, or even an ordinary animal... Perhaps it was a street peddler, a woodcutter in the mountains, or a farmer in the fields. Perhaps it was a bird or a rabbit.
That ghostly thing lived among dense crowds, yet no one could detect anything unusual.
However... once it suddenly erupted, it could directly kill martial artists like Old Gu and Green Bamboo.
"It's a monster!"
He desperately recalled the information he had seen before transmigrating.
Only "monsters" and "blessings" could cause combat-strength data to become "abnormal."
Interestingly, "monsters" and "blessings" shared the same system. From weak to strong, there were seven levels in total: Paper, Common, Strong, Ferocious, Calamity, Divine, and Beyond Heaven.
This system existed outside martial cultivation. The only way martial artists could come into contact with it was through "blessings," while the only way to obtain a "blessing" was through blood combat.
Blood combat took many forms. A battle to the death between strong opponents counted as blood combat; hunting monsters in a competition counted as blood combat; competing for survival time in a demon cave counted as blood combat...
Martial cultivation could make everyone resemble dragons.
This system, however, was a zero-sum game in which the total amount never changed.
Simply put, if one "Divine" being disappeared from the world, five "Calamities" might very well appear in its place.
If a Divine being bestowed a blessing, it would correspondingly lose a portion of the power contained in that blessing.
A combat strength of "0–60" should belong to a Paper-Grade monster, because "blessings" were based on martial artists, and their data could never start from "0."
Yet even a mere Paper-Grade monster could already kill him with ease.
Qi Yu clenched his fists.
He was still far too weak...
He had to become stronger.
Early the next morning.
The fog dispersed.
Dawn broke.
The blazing sunlight even lent the weather a trace of warmth. Compared to when the fog had appeared, it was utterly like two different worlds.
After finishing a bowl of red-date and ginseng porridge and eating two steaming meat buns, Qi Yu rested briefly. Then he removed his cumbersome padded robe, changed into a light brocade martial outfit and black lantern trousers, and began warming up, standing in a stance, and practicing his fists.
When he grew tired, he drank a bowl of Blood Activating Secret Soup. His qi and blood boiled throughout his body once more, and he no longer feared the cold in the slightest.
A sand vat half a man tall had already been placed in the bluestone courtyard.
Qi Yu rolled up his sleeves and carefully reviewed the skin-tempering essentials in the Spirit Serpent Skill. Then he sank his waist and sat into a horse stance, his palms like blades as he slowly chopped them into the iron sand again and again.
The speed was not fast. What mattered was the abrasive sensation of the sand grinding against his palms.
After a while...
Pain spread through him.
He gritted his teeth and persisted.
Once his hands had reddened and swollen, he applied some skin-tempering ointment and practiced again.
The second time, the pain was much stronger. Yet immediately afterward, the ointment seemed to take effect. His hands burned fiercely, while the pain had weakened considerably.
Coordinating with his breathing method, he rubbed his fingers against the grains of sand, producing a teeth-grating rustle. Beads of sweat rolled along the groove of his spine and into his waistband, and soon his entire body was soaked...
After a long while...
He stopped.
Both hands were extremely red and swollen, so swollen that he could not even apply the ointment himself.
A Bi knelt beside him, holding a ceramic medicine jar. Her eyes, gentle as water, were filled with heartache.
The little maid dipped her fingers into the ointment and lightly touched his swollen palm. Afraid of hurting him, she gently blew on it.
Her warm breath brushed over the wound, bringing a cool, tingling sensation.
"Young Master... does it hurt?"
"It's fine. Continue."
"Tell me if it hurts."
The little maid carefully spread on the ointment.
Since last night, her gaze toward Qi Yu had grown even gentler. However, she also kept her padded dress tightly wrapped around herself and no longer removed it so readily.
At dusk, Master Zhang arrived as usual to stretch his muscles and bones and massage him to activate his blood.
The days became simple and orderly...
Qi Yu no longer went out. He focused solely on cultivating at home, day after day—dull, yet resolute.
On the fifth day...
[Skill Point: 1] [Technique: Spirit Serpent Skill, Minor Accomplishment (1/8)]
Looking at the Skill Point, Qi Yu did not use it immediately.
When he had previously practiced the two nurturing forms of the Spirit Serpent Fist, he had already discovered that the first point of a technique had to be comprehended personally. During cultivation, the further one advanced, the harder it became to practice, and the more time it consumed.
Thus, if possible, he would cultivate on his own for as long as he could in the beginning, then use the points to increase it directly after he had passed the halfway mark.
Qi Yu gritted his teeth and continued this dull cultivation.
On the eleventh day...
[Skill Point: 2] [Technique: Spirit Serpent Skill, Minor Accomplishment (2/8)]
On the nineteenth day...
[Skill Point: 3] [Technique: Spirit Serpent Skill, Minor Accomplishment (3/8)]
On the thirtieth day...
[Skill Point: 4] [Technique: Spirit Serpent Skill, Minor Accomplishment (4/8)]
Without hesitation.
Qi Yu looked at the faint "+" after [Technique: Spirit Serpent Skill, Minor Accomplishment (4/8)]. Without hesitation, he tapped it four times in succession.
Boom~
A certain transformation suddenly occurred.
His qi and blood seemed to explode, becoming even more abundant atop their original foundation.
The sensation in his hands was especially obvious. The muscle fibers beneath his skin twisted together like steel wires, becoming dense and taut as iron. With the slightest clench of his fists, the joints stood out sharply, like a pair of iron hands.
Aside from that, the hands even seemed to gleam faintly with a sinister metallic luster.
"Why did they turn black too?" Qi Yu was stunned. He had never seen Old Gu, Chu Xiao, or even Uncle Song develop black palms.
"Shall I try?"
His gaze swept over a cobblestone. He picked it up and clenched his hand.
Crack...
The cobblestone instantly shattered.
His panel changed.
[Qi Yu] [Realm: Ninth Rank Leather Armor] [Combat Strength: 10–20] [Skill Point: 0] [Technique: Spirit Serpent Skill, Minor Accomplishment (8/8)]
"10–20?"
Qi Yu suddenly realized that perfection and completion were not the same.
Completion... was merely the limit of a genius.
And he was not a genius.
He summoned a servant and said blandly, "Go call Old Gu over."
After the servant withdrew, he looked at A Bi again, his voice steady. "Go invite Mother. Tell her... I'm going to fulfill my first blood duel."
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