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Old Huang sweated like rain, letting out a low hiss. A thousand layers of clouds churned beneath his feet as his True Spiritual Realm shook, forcibly suppressing the rampaging Flesh and Blood Plague within him.

It was a struggle, but he succeeded in the end.

He coughed up blood in great mouthfuls. Clearly, he had been injured from forcibly activating the [True Spiritual Realm]—Huang Qiuxian's current body simply could not bear such immense spirit.

With the Flesh and Blood Plague active within him, he had even lost his Second Refinement cultivation, completely falling back to a First Refinement martial artist.

How could a First or Second Refinement body possibly command a True Spiritual Realm? Every use would injure the user.

Just as Zhang Fusheng had coughed up blood after briefly bringing his True Spiritual Realm into the hotel.

Huang Qiuxian raised his head and stared fixedly at this mysterious old man, speaking with difficulty.

"What did the name Your Excellency recited just now mean? Why did it cause the Flesh and Blood Plague to erupt?"

He panted, yet forcibly straightened his back. A sea of clouds rolled beneath his feet, and from the mist behind him emerged over a thousand armored soldiers carrying bows and sabers.

Every one of them had once been a true "person."

"Does Your Excellency come from the Western Sect?" Huang Qiuxian asked. The thousand soldiers moved as one, reaching into the quivers on their backs and pinching arrows between three fingers.

Huang Qiuxian had prepared himself to strike a stone with an egg.

"My name is Zhong Shan." Zhang Fusheng was panicking like hell inside, but his expression remained calm as he said lightly, "I have no connection to the Western Sect."

Huang Qiuxian relaxed slightly.

"Then—"

Zhang Fusheng continued.

"Are you asking about that name just now?"

After a pause, he spoke airily.

"It is the name of the so-called God of Plague."

Huang Qiuxian's mind exploded. He staggered several steps back, and amid his terror, a hint of despair appeared between his brows.

"You unearthed Its true name? Or was it the Western Sect that unearthed it?"

Zhang Fusheng:?

Was there really any need for such a huge reaction?

What hidden twist was there in this?

After considering it for a moment, he spoke unhurriedly.

"Unearthed? Why would something I already knew need to be unearthed?"

Huang Qiuxian froze. He already knew it?

He could not understand, but he roughly understood that it had not been the Western Sect that unearthed the God of Plague's true name, and quietly breathed a sigh of relief.

After a long while.

Huang Qiuxian asked cautiously.

"Who exactly are you?"

"Gaotian Association, Zhong Shan."

Zhang Fusheng answered calmly.

"You may also call me a True Person."

Huang Qiuxian's eyelid twitched. True Person was not a title one could casually claim.

He fell silent for a long time, still cautious.

"Can Your Excellency truly remove the Flesh and Blood Plague from my body?"

The old man leaning on a wooden staff nodded calmly, without the slightest ripple in his expression. He merely raised a hand and lightly tapped.

Two illusory crimson masses floated above his fingertips.

Flesh and Blood Plague.

Zhang Fusheng then closed his five fingers, and the two manifested clumps of Flesh and Blood Plague vanished, as though they came at his beck and call.

"Those who join the Gaotian Association may settle one troubled wish. I can naturally heal you of this grave affliction as well."

"I am willing to join." Huang Qiuxian spoke without hesitation.

But the old man shook his head.

"I need to see your sincerity. It is too early to speak of this now. Wait for the moment—wait."

He turned and left calmly.

It was not that Zhang Fusheng had suddenly changed his mind. Rather, he had just discovered something very serious.

He did not have enough Star Beast Meat.

He put away his True Spiritual Realm, then used his spirit to interfere with reality and distort the light, making himself invisible to the naked eye. Only then did he walk straight out of the Martial Arts Academy.

He kept moving farther away.

"What a miscalculation!"

Beneath a bridge pier by the Jiangzhou River.

The air twisted, and the figure of "Zhong Shan" slowly emerged.

"Accelerating the Contract Book twice took a total of 124 days. The first time consumed 35 grams of Star Beast Meat. The second time was also 62 days, yet it consumed 39 grams."

Zhang Fusheng was somewhat helpless. Although trading the middle-aged man forty years of Contemplation Time only required the Contract Book to cool down for one month.

The Contract Book seemed to have begun reaching "saturation" with Star Beast Meat—or rather, Giant Rhinoceros meat. The effect of the Star Beast Meat had plunged off a cliff.

Originally, one gram could accelerate time by two days. But after swallowing twenty-six grams of Star Beast Meat, he discovered that the Contract Book still had five days of cooldown remaining.

In other words, one gram of meat could no longer even accelerate a full day!

"It is fine to leave Huang Qiuxian hanging for a while, lest he think I desperately need him to join. Well, although that really is the case."

Zhang Fusheng muttered to himself.

"The urgent task is to find another kind of Star Beast Meat and see what exactly is going on with the Contract Book. And there is also the Western Sect."

Standing by the riverbank, he silently sorted through his own situation. The Perfection of the Visualization Method—or rather, the realm of [He Observes as I Should Be].

It was even more powerful than he had anticipated.

He could use his spirit to interfere with reality, even turn falsehood into truth and bring the things envisioned by his thoughts into the real world.

Of course, the consumption was terrifying beyond measure. Especially when forcing the Spiritual Realm to descend upon reality—even for a brief instant, his frail body could barely endure it. It would tear, sustain damage, perhaps even collapse.

"If spiritual will is the 'me' that makes up a person, then the flesh is a precious raft. When the 'me' becomes too vast while the raft is fragile, there is a danger of capsizing."

"Fortunately, as long as I do not directly bring the Spiritual Realm into reality, the consumption remains within acceptable limits. At least, it is more than enough for bluffing people."

He let out a breath and stretched out his hand, freely manipulating the shifting light and shadows.

Then he immersed his thoughts into his body. Under the interference of his spirit, his meridians widened, and every blocked node was forcibly opened.

The old impurities hidden within the gaps of his muscles and bones, inside and outside his organs, were also rapidly broken down under the interference of his spiritual will. In the end, they became a breath of black, turbid air that he slowly exhaled.

In just that brief moment.

Zhang Fusheng's "bone structure" had become comparable to—even superior to—that of many conventional geniuses: spotless, immaculate, without dust or filth.

Vast quantities of Mysterious Factor poured into his body, rapidly circulating through his entire body at several times, even ten times, their previous speed.

In merely a quarter of an hour, they had completed a full circulation.

In the past, Zhang Fusheng had needed seven or eight hours to complete one full circulation. The difference before and after was absurdly vast.

He recalled what Black Eyes had said when he and Chen Nuanyu entered Bar No. 19.

"Whether the meridians are unobstructed and how efficiently Mysterious Factor is absorbed—these things cannot truly be considered [bone structure]."

True bone structure was something like Black Eyes's Abyssal Black Eyes, or Chen Nuanyu's Unquenchable Heart.

Each possessed an unimaginable use. They were what drew an uncrossable line between one person and another.

"Ordinary physical aptitude can be completely improved through later effort, but those true [bone structures] are difficult to acquire afterward."

Zhang Fusheng's gaze blazed, but he was different.

"The effects of spiritual will seem to extend beyond this, but figuring it out on my own is simply too slow. Even though I have explored the Spiritual Realm for decades, I have likely yet to uncover even one-tenth or one-hundredth of its mysteries."

"The Spiritual Realm is a road to heaven."

His appearance transformed back into his true face. Leaving the bridge opening, Zhang Fusheng hailed a taxi and openly returned to the Martial Arts Academy.

The moment he got out of the car, that intense sensation of being watched struck him again. And this time.

He found the source.

The sky.

More than a hundred kilometers up in the heavens—was it that low-orbit satellite?

Zhang Fusheng resisted the urge to look up and smile, or flip it the middle finger. He calmly entered the Martial Arts Academy, then looked back toward a tiny point more than ten kilometers away.

It was the headquarters building of the Jiangzhou Public Security Bureau.

Three hundred years of Mental Accumulation allowed his thoughts, at their limit, to extend thirty kilometers away.

His spiritual will was rapidly draining away. Exhaustion surged over him like the tide, and his nose grew hot as blood threatened to flow out, but Zhang Fusheng forcibly held it back.

"So exhausting." He felt as if he might faint, and sighed inwardly.

His body was still far too frail.

Otherwise, how could he possibly be this exhausted?

At the same time, at Public Security Bureau headquarters.

Under the stunned, horrified gaze of the bureau chief.

The report he had just written slowly twisted on the paper before him. Ink flowed across the page, rearranging itself into a fresh line of words.

[The Eighth District's Ankang Tumor Hospital colludes with the Western Sect, breeding and spreading Flesh and Blood Plague.]

Report them first, then talk.