True Yang Arrow

Waking to find a blade before his eyes was bad enough, but stranger still, Hu Ma had only just awakened, and a dark red mist from that bizarre dream seemed to still linger in his vision.

Because of that, he could clearly see Cui Xie'er's current state. His face was twisted with terror and pain, while beside his head was another deathly pale head. His limbs, too, were bound and entwined by another pale, slender body.

There was actually someone else pressed tightly against him, their limbs wrapped around his, their head pressed close beside his ear. A pair of blood-red eyes stared at Hu Ma with greedy, savage excitement.

That white-faced monster?

Seeing Cui Xie'er like this, an image suddenly flashed through Hu Ma's mind. It was from when he had first awakened in this world and tried to flee the village, only to encounter three Evil Spirits at its edge.

The one wrapped around Cui Xie'er was precisely the white-faced ghost that had crouched in the tree back then. How had it suddenly become entwined with Cui Xie'er's body?

Before he could think further, ferocity flared in Cui Xie'er's eyes. He suddenly swung his blade down, stabbing it straight toward Hu Ma's face.

At that moment, Hu Ma's entire body went stiff and cold, as though it no longer obeyed him.

But with the blade's tip already driving toward his face, his heart taut with terror, inspiration suddenly struck.

Pfft!

At that critical instant, the furnace inside Hu Ma's body seemed to blaze fiercely to life, fire energy surging forth.

He bit through the tip of his tongue, and his blood, carried by that burst of fire energy, shot straight toward Cui Xie'er's face.

"Ah..."

Hu Ma clearly saw that rush of bloody energy spray across Cui Xie'er's face.

His expression seemed to falter from the spray, and he staggered a step back. The white-faced monster wrapped around him, meanwhile, shrieked in a piercing, horrifying wail as though it had been scorched by fire.

Its long, soft limbs abruptly slackened from around Cui Xie'er. Covering its face with both hands, it slammed its head into the window and, accompanied by a gust of yin wind, fled who knew where with a rattling rush.

Seizing the chance, Hu Ma sprang upright and quickly backed into the corner.

"What happened? What happened?"

The youths sleeping in the adjoining room were all startled awake by that scream, crying out groggily.

By the faint light outside the window, someone saw Cui Xie'er standing at Hu Ma's bedside with a sharp blade in hand and immediately screamed in fright.

"Second Master, Second Master..."

Before they could cry out more than a few times, the door was kicked open, and the tall Second Master strode into the room.

"Light the lamps!"

Without needing his reminder, Zhou Datong had already scrambled for the fire striker upon waking and lit the oil lamp on the wall.

Under the dim yellow light, Cui Xie'er stared blankly at the sharp blade in his hand, then looked up to meet Second Master's gaze.

Suddenly, the knife dropped to the floor. His eyes rolled back, and he fainted.

"What happened?"

At a time like this, Second Master was remarkably calm. He first stepped forward to check Cui Xie'er's breathing before barking a question at Hu Ma.

"A white-faced monster!"

The fire in Hu Ma's furnace was burning strong now, and so was his courage. He had already climbed out of bed and said calmly, "I saw a white-faced monster wrapped around him just now."

"He came in with a knife and wanted to... kill me."

"Light every lamp!"

Second Master had no time to question him further. The moment he heard this, his expression turned grave. "Light them all."

"Anyone who has Ancestor Ash, hand it over!"

He shouted orders, commanding all the youths to get busy and count heads, while he himself rushed out of the side room.

At the weapon rack against the wall, he grabbed a broadsword. Taking the Ancestor Ash the youths handed him, he inspected the front and back of the compound, then scattered the ash in a circle around it. Only then did he return, blazing with fire energy, his face burned bright red.

"Se-Second Master, what happened?"

The youths had long since gotten up and huddled together. Some still held tools in their hands as they asked in terror.

All around them was pitch-black darkness, as if it were squeezing in upon the feeble lamplight at their side, sending a chill rising through their hearts.

"It's nothing. Go to sleep!"

Second Master said in a low voice, "Don't sleep in two rooms. Squeeze into one room..."

"...And bring Cui Xie'er into my room. Little Hu Ma, you come with me too."

Under the youths' uneasy, suspicious gazes, Hu Ma followed Second Master into his main room.

Cui Xie'er still had not awakened. Second Master checked his breathing before finally relaxing, but he did not hurry to wake him.

"A white-faced monster?"

Second Master lit the oil lamp in the main hall as well, his expression equally startled and bewildered.

"Yes, it looked very strange..."

Hu Ma told Second Master what he had seen upon waking, but he did not mention the warning he had received in his dream. He only said that he had suddenly awakened to find Cui Xie'er standing by his bedside, faintly seeing the white-faced monster clinging to him.

"It was the white-faced mountain demon..."

After hearing this, Second Master's expression darkened beyond control, as if the lingering fear had only now caught up with him.

"How did that evil spirit dare enter my estate? And how did it latch onto Cui Xie'er?"

Hu Ma recalled something and said quietly, "I don't know about anything else, but after that incident, he kept staring at me."

"He looked very dissatisfied, as though he wanted to pick another fight with me."

"Staring at you?"

Second Master seemed to understand. He looked irritably at Cui Xie'er and muttered a curse, "I told this brat long ago not to haggle over every little thing, to be more open-hearted. But he wouldn't listen. He just can't shake that petty Cui Family habit..."

"He's been nursing that grudge against you day and night, and ended up drawing that white-faced mountain demon onto himself. He nearly brought about a terrible disaster..."

"That can happen?"

Only now did Hu Ma understand.

Normally, he was very safe in this estate. Whenever Second Master was around, even Xiao Hong Tang did not dare enter.

Yet now, deep in the stillness of night, everyone was here. It was as though the entire estate had lit countless furnaces.

And yet that evil spirit had attached itself to Cui Xie'er and even intended to use his hand to harm Hu Ma. That was inherently unreasonable.

But being hated by someone could also trigger something like this?

His understanding of this world truly was still shallow.

"Still..."

Only after Second Master had cursed bitterly a few more times did he turn to Hu Ma with a strange look. "How did you escape this calamity?"

"When I arrived, that Ghostly Puppet seemed to have already fled?"

"I..."

Feeling somewhat awkward, Hu Ma pointed at Cui Xie'er's face. "I was too frightened, and I couldn't move either."

"Then I remembered the method you told me about before, and bit the tip of my tongue..."

"Blood Yang Arrow?"

Second Master looked at Hu Ma in disbelief. Taking a closer look, he indeed saw the specks of blood on Cui Xie'er's face.

His eyes instantly went round, and he trembled as he said, "You used the Blood Yang Arrow?"

"You..."

Hu Ma was startled by his reaction too and cautiously asked, "Didn't you tell me about it back then?"

Besides you, there were movies and novels from my previous life—but of course, he could not say that.

"Back then, I was mainly telling you about the old techniques. The Blood Yang Arrow is a powerful method kept at the bottom of the chest..."

Second Master's expression became even stranger. "It's only been half a month, and you can already use it?"

Under the oil lamp, the two stared wide-eyed at each other.

Hu Ma thought for a moment, then slowly drew in a breath and abruptly shot out an arrow of air.

This time, he had not bitten the tip of his tongue. It hurt!

Yet that arrow of air was straight and fierce, blasting a chip of wood from the frame of Second Master's broken old window.

"My mother..."

Second Master was so startled he nearly jumped up. He stared at Hu Ma as though he had seen a ghost. "How is this the work of someone who's only trained for a month?"

"Your furnace fire is simply too strong—it's actively seeking a way out, helping you cultivate external techniques..."

Hu Ma felt a little guilty. "Is that not normal?"

"I've trained for sixty years and still haven't reached this step. Tell me, is it normal?"

Second Master let out a mournful sigh. "Looking at you, your furnace fire is even more vigorous than mine. No, that's not right—not more vigorous than mine..."

"No, it is more vigorous than mine."

"It's just that my sixty years of Boy's Skill is purer than yours."

Seeing how nervous Second Master was, Hu Ma thought it made sense, didn't it?

After all, his godmother had gone bald.

But after hearing Second Master's explanation, he understood. Compared with Mountain Cleaving, Shifting Block, and Hard Peach Plucking, True Yang Arrow was both the simplest and the hardest move.

It was simple because there was practically nothing to learn. Once one's mastery reached the right point, it would come naturally. Even Blood Yang Arrow, its upgraded version, merely added the step of biting the tip of one's tongue. Yet it was difficult because its demands on one's mastery were simply too high.

Second Master had only learned this move after accumulating more than ten years of pure yang furnace fire, and even then, he could use it no more than three times in a single day.

Hu Ma had comprehended it without a teacher. After using it once, he was still brimming with energy. In Second Master's eyes, that was an unimaginably bizarre phenomenon.

"Learned it no matter what..."

Seeing Second Master like this, Hu Ma could only ask cautiously, "Then what should I do?"

"How would I know? Master Craftsman never taught me that back then..."

Second Master sighed. He looked thoroughly shaken, but Hu Ma's rapid furnace-fire progress had already given him some advance warning. Slowly, he recovered and sighed.

"Second Master here has trained for sixty years and taught so many children in these villages, but honestly, I've truly never seen anyone like you... This should be a good thing, right? But there's also something I need to warn you about."

Hu Ma was slightly taken aback and immediately grew alert. "What?"

"There's trouble..."

Second Master looked at Hu Ma and lowered his voice. "For that White-faced Mountain Fiend to dare come here and cause you trouble—the problem is no small one!"