A day's plans began in the morning; a year's plans began in the spring.
Under the brightening sky, Qingyun City's streets were already teeming with people. Vendors had set up stalls along both sides of the streets and were hawking their wares. The grim-faced Robe Guest emerged from a medicine shop and disappeared into the crowd.
He then slipped quietly into a small alley. When he came out again, he had become a young man.
He pushed open the gate to the residence north of Sparrow Street. The courtyard looked just as it had last year, except that several stones of varying degrees of smoothness now lay in one corner.
These were the stones Su Mu had used while practicing Adamantine Body. As one of the top eighth-rank Hardening Martial Arts of Vajra Temple, one of Qingyun's five major powers, Adamantine Body had an extremely high threshold and was exceedingly difficult to cultivate.
Its training was agonizing, a form of self-torture that ordinary people could hardly endure. The first stage of Adamantine Body was Adamantine Skin. It required one to pummel the entire body with blunt objects, while also using a corresponding breathing method and circulating one's force along a specific route.
So Su Mu had gathered these stones. At first, he used smooth ones, yet even then, when he had just begun training, his skin had turned red here and purple there.
His whole body had swollen and throbbed with pain, as if someone had beaten him black and blue.
"Young friend Su, did someone beat you up again last night?"
The physicians often teased him like this while using silver needles to draw out the poisonous blood. Su Mu knew they were joking and merely smiled it off, but whenever the Young Physician saw him, she would hurry