All Rumors!

When Xia Ping walked in, his mother, Huang Lanxin, immediately came over and asked, "Son, what on earth is going on? How come I heard you got Ya Ru pregnant? When did that happen?"

"Why didn't you tell us about something this serious? Now it's even become a matter of life and death."

She looked at Xia Ping with a grave expression.

"Uh..."

For a moment, Xia Ping didn't know what to say. He had no idea the rumors at school had spread home so quickly. Rumors really did travel at an astonishing speed.

"Son, what you did was a bit too much."

His father, Xia Chuanliu, looked heartbroken. "You're still in high school, and already you're fooling around with women everywhere. You've even gotten someone pregnant. You're nothing like your old man was—mature and steady."

"Let me tell you this: before I met your mother, I was still a virgin. I hadn't even held a girl's hand."

Xia Ping looked at his father with disdain. Was that what being mature and steady meant? He'd simply been unpopular. Did his father think changing the way he said it would fool him?

"What's with that look, son? What kind of look is that?"

Xia Chuanliu was on the verge of a breakdown. "Don't think I can't tell what you're thinking. You probably believe your old man was unpopular back then, which is why he was like that.

"But you're wrong. Completely wrong. Back in the day, I, Xia Chuanliu, was the school heartthrob. I was the first love and dream guy of who knows how many girls. I nearly became a celebrity, you know?"

"Sure, I've put on weight in middle age now, and I've got a beer belly. My waist's gotten several inches bigger, and my hairline's receded. But you can't deny how handsome and dashing I was back then."

He almost wanted to dig out a photo of himself from his youth.

"All right, stop bragging."

His mother, Huang Lanxin, glared at Xia Chuanliu. "We need to deal with our son getting married. The girl's pregnant, and this is no small matter. Understand?"

"Ahem."

Xia Chuanliu cleared his throat and put on a serious face. "That's right. Son, tell us what you're going to do. Ya Ru is our neighbor's daughter. We've known her since she was little. She's pretty and has a good character."

"I don't know how she could've been blind enough to fall for someone like you, but what's done is done. The Xia Family isn't the sort to take what they want and then refuse to take responsibility."

"You have to take responsibility for what you've done."

Hearing this, Xia Ping looked at his father speechlessly. Was he really that bad? Did someone have to be blind to fall for him?

"That's not quite true. Our son does have his good points; they're just not very obvious," his mother, Huang Lanxin, chimed in. "He must have had smoke rising from his ancestors' graves to manage something like this."

Xia Ping's mouth twitched. What good points did he have that weren't obvious? If they weren't obvious, were they really good points? They might as well just say he had no good points at all. Why beat around the bush?

He coughed to stop his parents from going on. "You've got it all wrong. Those are just rumors. There's nothing between us, and she isn't pregnant."

"What?!"

His mother, Huang Lanxin, clearly looked disappointed, though she seemed to have expected it.

"I knew there was no such thing as a free lunch," his father, Xia Chuanliu, sighed toward the heavens. "Looks like you'll need to go on blind dates if you want to stop being single, son. You're going to follow in your old man's footsteps."

"But don't worry. It's a family tradition."

Xia Ping ignored his two eccentric parents, went to the living room for dinner, and then returned to his bedroom to rest.

Three days later, one morning, in the bedroom.

Bang!

Xia Ping circulated the Pure Yang Indestructible Art. His body trembled as surging true qi coursed through him. Sunlight streamed in through the window, transforming into boundless energy that poured into his body.

At the same time, the energy from the two or three bottles of Golden Potion he had just taken was rapidly refined with the help of the Pure Yang Indestructible Art, turning into vast amounts of true qi that flowed into the depths of his dantian.

Rumble!

In that instant, the air around him trembled. The true qi inside him surged like the tide, flowing through every meridian in his body. With a snap, a powerful force broke through a bottleneck.

At last, Xia Ping had opened his sixth meridian and advanced to the Martial Apprentice Sixth Heaven.

"Martial Apprentice Sixth Heaven!"

Xia Ping clenched his fist and opened his eyes, revealing a terrifying gleam. It was as if they held flames, with a sun symbol spinning deep within his pupils and giving off an enigmatic aura.

He felt that the moment he advanced to the Martial Apprentice Sixth Heaven, his strength and speed had increased tremendously—by at least forty or fifty percent.

Even the true qi within him had grown considerably stronger. With every gesture, he felt capable of shattering a mountain. His mental power had also improved significantly, extending his range of perception to thirty meters.

With just a thought, he could sense everything within thirty meters of himself. Whether a fly buzzed past or an ant crawled by, he knew it all with perfect clarity.

"The Northern Underworld Body Protection Art is incredible. No wonder it's the best supplementary cultivation art," Xia Ping couldn't help but exclaim. He had originally expected to need at least a month to advance to the Martial Apprentice Sixth Heaven.

But who could have guessed that after he started cultivating this art, other people would help him train, tempering his body and improving its ability to absorb energy?

In just three days, he had absorbed ten bottles of Golden Potion. His true qi had finally filled his dantian, allowing him to smoothly break through to the Martial Apprentice Sixth Heaven.

"But if I want to speed up my cultivation further, I'll probably have to find more opponents and get more powerful fighters to beat me up. That's the only way to improve my body's ability to absorb energy."

A glimmer flashed in Xia Ping's eyes, along with a hint of ambition. He didn't just want to advance to the Martial Apprentice Seventh Heaven. He wanted to reach the Eighth Heaven and the Ninth Heaven, too.

After all, they said that even prodigies at the Martial Apprentice Ninth Heaven would be competing in the high school Fighting Tournament. Martial Apprentice Sixth Heaven was nowhere near enough.

The problem was that if he wanted to cultivate using the Northern Underworld Body Protection Art, he needed to find more opponents. But at school, fewer and fewer people were strong enough to qualify.

If his opponents were weaker than him, they would be no use at all. Their attacks felt like ant bites, and it would be impossible for him to improve his cultivation.

"Looks like I need to find a place with lots of opponents—and they have to be strong, too." Xia Ping's gaze flickered as he thought about his next steps in cultivation.

That's right—the martial arts center!

His eyes lit up at the thought. There was probably no place in Tianshui City with more strong fighters than the martial arts center. Almost every expert in the entire city had trained at one.