Truly a Divine Being

"Strongman, are you feeling any better?"

Huang Shang let Xu Feng lie on his bed and asked with concern.

Xu Feng's injuries looked serious, but to a one-star peak Reincarnator like him, they barely counted as more than superficial wounds.

Xu Yue was his biological older sister. She had a sharp tongue but a soft heart; how could she really hurt him?

Of course, to gain Huang Shang's trust, shedding a little blood was still necessary.

Not only had the wound needed to look gruesome, they'd also made up a whole story—

There was a traitor among Great Song's high-ranking officials who had colluded with Jing Xun. With his help, Western Xia experts had infiltrated the imperial palace, intending to harm the Emperor.

As soon as Huang Shang heard this, he knew the woman knew a great deal about history.

From the plot of Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, Great Song's main foreign enemy seemed to be Great Liao, while Western Xia posed little threat.

In truth, it was exactly the opposite.

In 1005, Song and Liao signed a treaty at Chanzhou, known as the Treaty of Chanyuan.

By then, the two countries had already been at war for twenty-five whole years.

Twenty-five years!

Both sides were exhausted. It wasn't just Song that wanted peace; there were voices against the war within Liao, too. So, for a hundred years after the treaty was signed, Song and Liao never fought another war.

Of course, that wasn't a good thing.

Born in hardship, dead in comfort. More than a century without a major war had directly left both Song and Liao lax in their military preparations. Later, they were defeated by the Jin Kingdom, founded by the Jurchen.

But even with Liao at peace, Song still had an enemy.

Western Xia.

Historical fiction wasn't the same as making things up, and adaptation wasn't the same as nonsense. The traitors in Great Song that Xu Yue had written into her script really had existed.

There were quite a few Han traitors in Western Xia's court.

The most famous in history were Zhang Yuan and Wu Hao.

Both had been scholars who failed the examinations time and again. In a fit of anger, they turned against Great Song and defected to Western Xia.

This was during Li Yuanhao's heyday. The two men made the destruction of Song their goal and offered up many schemes, becoming a grave threat to the dynasty.

Later, Li Yuanhao grew arrogant and issued an imperial decree proclaiming to the people and soldiers of Guanzhong in Great Song, "I shall personally go to the Wei River and seize Chang'an." Those words, too, came from Zhang Yuan.

Of course, Li Yuanhao had now been murdered by his own son for more than a decade, and Zhang Yuan and Wu Hao were both dead as well.

But traitors kept appearing in every generation. Now the role had fallen to the scholar-official Jing Xun.

He hadn't failed the examinations; he had fled to Western Xia after committing a crime. To gain a foothold, traitors were at their most vicious when killing their own countrymen. Jing Xun plotted for Western Xia day and night, and Li Yuanhao's son—the current Emperor of Western Xia—trusted him deeply.

All scholars hated Jing Xun to the point of gritting their teeth. Xu Yue hadn't just plucked his name out of thin air, so Huang Shang naturally played along.

Now he asked, "Who in the court is secretly colluding with Western Xia and plotting against the Emperor? Do you have any leads, strongman?"

Xu Feng panted as he replied, "I only know they're in the imperial palace. I don't know anything else. But they have influence in the Capital City, too. Even some of the Beggar Sect's scoundrels are their spies!"

What a tangled plot. If he really were Huang Shang, he'd surely be united with Xu Feng against their common enemy.

Reincarnators really were good at grasping the personalities of people from the original story.

Huang Shang played along with Xu Feng, denounced the Beggar Sect scoundrels, then carried the basin of bloody water outside.

When he returned, Xu Feng's face had grown even paler. He said in a low voice, "I can't hold on much longer. If the scoundrels come, how will you fend them off?"

Huang Shang's expression turned resolute. "Rest assured, Brother Xu. I'll protect you, even if it costs me my life!"

"Giving your life for righteousness is certainly noble, but it won't solve the problem!"

Xu Feng hurriedly shook his head, then took a book from his robes and shakily held it out. "This is my family's secret art, never taught to outsiders. But with the fate of Great Song and the safety of countless people at stake, I have no choice but to make an exception!"

Huang Shang hesitated and was just about to speak when Xu Feng's eyes rolled back and his neck lolled to the side. He fainted.

"Young man, you're really going all out!"

That over-the-top acting made Huang Shang think of himself when he'd first arrived in Hengdian and been torn to shreds by one rejection after another. A look of nostalgia crossed his eyes.

But when he looked down at Xu Feng's "family heirloom" in his hands, his heart couldn't help but jolt.

"The Dao Scripture from the Yang God world!"

Huang Shang was overjoyed.

Yang God was a fictional world with the Great Gan Dynasty. The Dao Scripture was a book of cultivation compiled by the Great Gan Dynasty from the Daoist books gathered throughout the land.

Compared to truly profound secret arts, the Dao Scripture was only a basic introductory guide. But that world's power level was far beyond that of Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils.

"This unique opportunity has finally turned into a real gain!"

Huang Shang had chosen the Heavens Consciousness faction. After taking on far greater risks than ordinary Reincarnators, at last he'd gained far more than they had, too.

No Reincarnator could obtain such a high-level cultivation method in their very first official world.

Everyone worked their way up, step by step. They started with weaker methods, then switched to stronger ones, inevitably wasting time along the way.

What delighted Huang Shang even more than the cultivation system of a powerful world was that this had solved a major problem of his—

Even the cleverest housewife couldn't cook a meal without rice.

No matter how brilliant Huang Shang was, he'd had to bury himself in the Daoist Canon for years before comprehending the principles of martial arts.

Now he had no chance of accessing the Daoist Canon. He'd studied only Confucian classics, and could do nothing but let the Beggar Sect bully him.

He hadn't obtained the Daoist Canon, but now he had the Dao Scripture.

Which was more impressive?

Without a doubt!

Huang Shang was impatient to read it, but on the surface he pretended to hesitate. Only after a while did he slowly open the Dao Scripture.

At that moment, Xu Feng cracked open his left eye and watched in secret, quietly delighted.

He was waiting for Huang Shang to fail.

This volume of the Dao Scripture contained methods for cultivating five stages: Settling the Spirit, Soul-Exit, Night Wandering, Day Wandering, and Object Manipulation.

The method the protagonist of Yang God, Hong Yi, had first used to let his spirit leave his body—the Pagoda Visualization Soul-Exit Method—was among them.

To practice it, one had to calm the mind and visualize a towering, seven-story pagoda. One climbed it step by step, then leaped from its highest floor, and the spirit would leave the body.

But in truth, this path wouldn't work in the world of Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils.

The world's elemental energy was too thin.

Yang God had a saying: the world was a sea of suffering, and the physical body was a raft for crossing it.

When a person's spirit left the body, it was like jumping into the sea naked.

When elemental energy was abundant, one could use various methods to protect oneself, achieving Night Wandering, Day Wandering, and even Object Manipulation.

But in a place where elemental energy had dried up, the spirit had to withstand everything on its own. Forget the blazing sun; even a gust of wind at night could scatter a weakened spirit.

So Xu Feng waited.

He waited for Huang Shang to run into trouble with his cultivation.

Then Xu Yue would appear and save Huang Shang.

That was the siblings' plan.

Xu Feng would appear wounded, Huang Shang would save him, and he'd pass on a cultivation method. Huang Shang would run into trouble practicing it, and then Xu Yue would save him.

That way, you owed me and I owed you, entangled in a sweet, lingering bond, and things could unfold from there.

However, Xu Yue had also mentioned another possibility.

It was better to have no books at all than to believe every word in them.

Scholars weren't like martial artists, who would be itching to practice as soon as they got their hands on a divine skill or secret manual.

Huang Shang might not start practicing right away.

He might have insights of his own.

Xu Feng didn't believe it.

Among the five peerless masters praised in the Golden Book, Huang Shang was the most divine, but the Huang Shang of today was still young. He couldn't possibly be that extraordinary.

And yet...

A quarter of an hour.

Half an hour.

An hour.

Two hours.

When the rooster crowed at dawn and the sky began to lighten, Xu Feng's eyes were sore and his neck ached. Watching Huang Shang sit as still as a mountain, he couldn't make head or tail of it.

Could it be that even with this master's talent, he couldn't grasp the Pagoda Visualization Soul-Exit Method and begin cultivating?

That was impossible!

But it was true. Huang Shang kept reading through the entire day.

He turned the pages one by one, neither hurried nor slow, yet so engrossed he forgot to eat and sleep.

Time flew by. By the time Xu Feng really had fallen asleep on the bed, night had descended.

Huang Shang suddenly closed the Daoist volume, picked up a brush, and wrote a line on rough paper.

"The movement of Heaven is vigorous; thus the superior man strives ceaselessly to strengthen himself."

As the last character touched the paper, the scholar's aura changed. It truly transformed into a force that was still weak, but extraordinarily special.

Xu Feng was jolted awake. He felt that aura of uprightness and stern rectitude, one that made evil men afraid to trespass, and stared in stunned silence for a long while before exclaiming from the heart:

"Truly a divine being!"

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