Forbidden Medicine

In a corner of the Training Ground, a foul stench seeped through the cracks in the outhouse's wooden walls, making people cover their noses.

Chen Ping squatted in the cramped stall, paying no mind to the filth around him. His eyes were fixed on the pale blue screen that only he could see.

With one last empty-handed palm strike in this secluded corner, the words he had been waiting for finally changed.

[Skill: Shattered Stone Palm (Transformation Realm 1/5000)]

[Effect: Split steles and shatter stone, drive force through the body to damage the organs, combine hardness and softness, and wield power at will.]

A strange warmth enveloped both palms. The rough, thick calluses did not disappear, but beneath his skin, his muscles and bones seemed to have been reforged through countless hammer blows.

Chen Ping tried loosely closing his fist.

His knuckles did not crack. His fist closed with a smoothness like flowing water.

This was what it meant to control one's strength to the utmost.

"Transformation Realm..."

Chen Ping let out a long breath, easing the weight that had hung over his heart.

With this ace up his sleeve, even against the Jin Family's endless underhanded tricks, he finally had the nerve to flip the table.

After straightening his clothes, Chen Ping pushed open the outhouse's battered wooden door, put on his timid, shrinking expression again, and crept along the wall back to the contestants' rest area.

As soon as he sat down, a burly figure edged over.

Tie Niu's injured leg was still wrapped in thick white bandages, and he limped as he walked, but a simpleminded grin spread across his face.

"Brother Ping, I just heard. That Young Master Jin is a ruthless one."

Tie Niu glanced around. Once he saw that no one was paying attention, he pulled a piping-hot object from his shirt and quickly pressed it into Chen Ping's hand.

It was a freshly boiled egg, its shell marked with tiny cracks.

"My mother boiled it for me this morning. I couldn't bring myself to eat it. You're going up onstage soon. Eat it to build your strength."

Chen Ping held the egg in his palm. Its heat seeped through his hand, warming him to the depths of his heart.

In a world where even coarse rice had to be rationed, an egg was the greatest gift a poor family could offer.

He didn't refuse. He lowered his head, peeled the shell, and swallowed the egg in two or three bites. He nearly choked, but it tasted better than anything he had ever eaten.

"Don't worry."

Chen Ping patted Tie Niu's rough hand. His voice was low, but there was a steely edge to it.

Meanwhile, in the Jin Family's canopy on the other side of the Training Ground, the atmosphere was so heavy it felt ready to drip.

Jin Zhenshan sat in the Grand Master Chair, fixing his son with a sinister stare.

"Shijie, that dirt-poor nobody is a little strange. Even Ghost Hand Seven fell to him. You may win this match, but you must not lose."

Jin Shijie's face was dark as he nodded.

A servant came forward carrying a brocade box. When its lid opened, a blood-red pill was revealed, giving off a pungent, sickly-sweet smell.

The Bloodburst Pill.

A vicious drug that burned through one's blood and energy in exchange for a brief burst of strength.

Jin Shijie hesitated, but when he saw the defiance in his father's eyes was not an option, he gritted his teeth, grabbed the pill, and swallowed it.

In just three breaths, the veins in his neck bulged, writhing like earthworms. His once-clear eyes quickly filled with blood and turned scarlet.

A savage aura burst from his body.

"BANG—!"

The copper gong rang, its sound shaking the entire grounds.

"Four-person semifinal! Number two from Group D, Chen Ping, versus number one from Group A, Jin Shijie!"

At the announcement, the entire Training Ground erupted.

One was a poor kid who had scraped through on luck and dirty tricks; the other, a famed young prodigy of Jinguang City's Aristocratic Clans.

In everyone's eyes, this was a one-sided slaughter with no suspense.

"Young Master Jin! Cripple that worm who only knows how to dodge!"

"Show him what true martial arts look like!"

Amid the jeers and cheers, Chen Ping clutched his nicked Steel Saber and shuffled toward the ring, shoulders hunched.

At the steps, an examiner responsible for checking weapons stopped him.

Under the guise of searching him, the examiner leaned close to Chen Ping's ear. His voice was faint as a mosquito's, but carried a bone-deep chill.

"If you don't want to die, surrender as soon as you get onstage. The Jin Family might still leave you with your corpse intact."

Chen Ping trembled, as though terror had robbed him of his wits.

"Y-yes... yes... I understand, sir. I understand..."

He answered obsequiously, his knees knocking as if he might drop to the ground at any moment.

The examiner gave a contemptuous snort and stepped aside.

Chen Ping lowered his head and walked onto the ring, but the fingers hidden in his sleeve gently rubbed the hilt of his saber.

Understand?

Of course I understand.

You want my life. Why wouldn't I want to send you to your deaths?

Across from him, Jin Shijie had already drawn his saber.

It gleamed brilliantly in the sunlight. The blade wasn't the usual silver-white of steel; instead, it shimmered with an uncanny layer of blood-red light. It looked like a weapon forged with black iron.

Jin Shijie said nothing. He didn't even bother with the customary fist salute before the match.

The drug's power rampaged through his body, leaving him with only one desire: to kill.

"Die!"

With a furious shout, the bluestone slabs beneath Jin Shijie's feet shattered.

Fast.

Blindingly fast.

Chen Ping saw a flash of blood-red light, and the long saber was already at his face.

Even with the heightened senses granted by the Longevity of Pine and Crane, that drug-fueled strike was still so fast that his heart leaped in terror.

Chen Ping instinctively leaned backward.

"Whoosh—"

A strand of black hair drifted before his eyes.

The fierce blade wind grazed his cheek, leaving a stinging, fiery welt.

If he had been half a beat slower, it wouldn't have been his hair that was cut off, but half his skull.

The spectators below burst into cries of alarm, already picturing blood spraying across the ring.

Chen Ping's feet seemed greased. His body slid away like a loach.

Light Body Movement Technique, unleashed to its limit!

He no longer deliberately faked those clumsy rolls. Instead, he pushed his footwork to its utmost.

Like a startled rabbit, he darted wildly around the tiny ring, leaving afterimages in his wake.

Jin Shijie unleashed eighteen consecutive slashes, each one deadly, yet every one missed.

Each strike fell a hair's breadth short, hitting only the edge of Chen Ping's clothes or cleaving through the afterimage he had left behind.

"Is that kid a rabbit or something? How can he run so fast?"

"What nimble footwork! Is this really Chen Ping, the one who only knew how to brawl?"

The mood among the spectators shifted a little. Their mockery now carried a trace of surprise.

The red light in Jin Shijie's eyes grew more intense. Two streams of white vapor poured from his nostrils. At that moment, the drug's effects reached their peak, and madness began to devour his reason.

Unable to break through after so many attacks, he lost all patience.

"Dodge? Let's see where you can run!"

Jin Shijie roared, the blood and energy within him thundering like molten mercury.

He gripped his saber with both hands and raised it high. The blood-red light along its blade flared three feet, and it seemed to suck all the air from around him.

The Jin Family's secret art, the ultimate move of the Golden Crow Saber Technique—Golden Crow's Fall!

The killing strike's aura locked onto every one of Chen Ping's escape routes.

The ring was large, but there was nowhere left to run.

Chen Ping stopped.

He stood with the sunlight behind him, shadow covering most of his face.

As he looked at the killing strike crashing down on him, the panic vanished from his eyes.

In its place was a terrifying ruthlessness.

If he couldn't dodge it—

Then he wouldn't.

Chen Ping released the battered Steel Saber he had been using for show. His right hand clenched into a fist, and his waxen-yellow skin took on a blue-black, metallic sheen.

Shattered Stone Palm, Transformation Realm.

Today, he would use the blood of this Aristocratic Clan brat to consecrate his iron fists!