Flaws

The sun was sinking in the west, and day was teetering on the edge of evening.

Inside the two black-lacquered gates of the South Third Guard Patrol Office, duty runners began to file out in groups of twos and threes at the end of their shift.

The common folk making a living in the vicinity had also reached the hour to pack up. Carrying poles, pushing carts, and toppling baskets, human figures hurried through the thickening dusk.

Stalls along the street selling steamed pancakes, noodle soup, and spiced braised meats seized the moment to cry out their wares, creating a boisterous, bustling market atmosphere.

Chen Cheng squatted in the shadows of a narrow alley entrance directly across the street, his back pressed against the chilling earthen wall, his entire person nearly blending into the dim gloom.

He tilted his head slightly, his gaze piercing through the bustling throng of humanity to lock firmly onto the entrance of the Patrol Office.

Relying on that brief, face-to-face encounter earlier, he had quickly identified Zhao Chuan along with the two young duty runners who had followed behind him that day.

For several days running thereafter, Chen Cheng would change his attire and squatting spot, like a silent shadow tailing those three.

Bit by bit, he firmly etched their daily movement routes and behavioral habits into the depths of his mind.

During this interval, Chen Cheng had also stolen the time to make a trip to the old-goods market on the outskirts of the Outer City, picking out several thick, opaque, black old rags from a pile of tattered junk.

That very night, taking advantage of the cover of darkness, he concealed all those black rags inside that long-abandoned, thoroughly ransacked dilapidated shed at Zhou Long's home.

The following day.

The sky had yet to fully brighten.

Chen Cheng rose somewhat earlier than usual, yet no matter how early he got up, there were forever disciples in the Outer Hall courtyard practicing their martial arts.

Under the hazy morning light, most of those figures had white badges hanging from their waists.

Their movements carried an obvious, overdrawn hollowness.

Some staggered in their steps, yet still struck against the iron-wrapped wooden dummy blow by blow.

Some squatted on Dragon-Subduing Stakes, their bodies trembling uncontrollably, veins bulging on their foreheads as sweat or dew dripped down along their chins.

In a somewhat more distant corner, a lean, short-haired disciple was repeatedly drilling the Crouching Dragon Fist.

One time, two times, three times...

His complexion was sallow, his eye sockets deeply sunken, his lips cracked and bleeding, and every breath carried the wheezing, grating hiss of a bellows, yet his gaze remained locked dead on his own fist, as though so long as he still drew a single breath, he would never stop.

"What are you looking at?"

From the neighboring room, Qian Baolu stumbled out rubbing his eyes and, catching sight of Chen Cheng planted there, followed his line of sight over.

"That kid's name is Lin Fengxiao. Back in the day, he was a glorious figure—it took him only half a year to refine one-incense blood qi. He was the cream of the crop among the Outer Hall black-badge disciples, and everyone felt his future was bright."

"Later on, heaven knows how, his family suffered a massive upheaval... to the point that he couldn't even pay the tuition fees for the hall, and only then did he change his registration to a Death-Pledge Contract, sinking down into a white-badge..."

"Ever since then, he's worked himself to the bone practicing every single day... I've personally witnessed him practice until he vomited blood, wiped his mouth, and then went right back to practicing."

Qian Baolu couldn't help letting out a sigh.

"To be honest, there aren't many people in the Outer Hall who can make me admire them, and he, Lin Fengxiao, counts as one... It's just a pity that, without the resource supplements of the past, his blood qi hasn't swelled by the slightest fraction in several months..."

"At the next Outer Hall assessment, if he still hasn't made any headway, he'll likely be deemed to have exhausted his potential and be sent straight away..."

Chen Cheng listened in silence, a very faint ripple skimming across the deep bottom of his pupils before swiftly returning to stillness.

Over these past few days, Chen Cheng and Qian Baolu frequently huddled together to practice martial arts and eat meals.

This fellow Qian Baolu was well-informed, yet lacked any lock on his mouth; whatever Chen Cheng asked him that he didn't understand, he would for the most part tell him everything he knew.

As things went back and forth, their relationship was indeed much better than it had been at the beginning.

Only, there were some things Chen Cheng ultimately found hard to spell out clearly to Qian Baolu.

Take, for instance, the present moment: the Crouching Dragon Fist Lin Fengxiao was tempering harbored two obscure and imperceptible flaws. It was one thing if Outer Hall disciples couldn't see them, but even the Inner Hall mentors hadn't pointed them out or corrected them...

Chen Cheng had watched with cold detachment these past few days, and that lofty Master Ye rarely ever showed his face in the Outer Hall.

On the occasional time when Senior Brothers and Senior Sisters from the Inner Hall came out to inspect, their gazes would likewise only land on those black-badge disciples, offering brief points of guidance.

As for white-badge disciples like Lin Fengxiao, unless they stood on the right side of a faction, they were otherwise like wild weeds in the wilderness, left to fend and die on their own with no one paying them any mind.

This circumstance was likely not unique to Dragon Mountain Hall alone.

How many martial artists formed bottlenecks at some stage in the future due to minute flaws in their early years, finding it difficult to break through or even remaining plagued for their whole lives? The number of people who accumulated years and months of effort only to brew up a set of irrecoverable hidden injuries was even less few.

Within this Outer Hall, Lin Fengxiao was likewise no exception.

Chen Cheng saw through it with cold eyes, yet thought better of saying too much; he had no wish to intervene in other people's karma, and even less desire to challenge this long-standing unspoken rule.

When all was said and done, when one was weak and of lowly station, all thoughts ought to take self-preservation as the absolute priority.

In the distance, Lin Fengxiao's fist wind stubbornly whistled sound after sound, destined to be futile, yet reflecting the most cruel and truest underlying hues of this world.

Approaching noon.

Chen Cheng's martial practice uniform was long since soaked through with sweat.

Every single punch blasted out with full force not only whipped up sharp tearing sounds through the air, but even more produced fine beads of sweat erupting from his knuckles, bursting into blossoms of watery mist under the sunlight.

As of today, the two bottles of Blood-Boosting Powder in his possession were completely spent, and the enhancement effect had been exceptionally pronounced; the single strand of blood qi at his spinal great dragon had grown ever more robust, solid, and lustrous like jade.

He had carefully observed and prudently, conservatively weighed it: right now, across the entire Outer Hall, among the disciples at the one-incense blood qi level, not a single one was his match.

Yet if he were to face a disciple who had refined a second-incense blood qi head-on, he practically had no chance of victory.

Judging by my current estimated progress, if I can acquire another two bottles of Blood-Boosting Powder, within half a month I will be able to condense and refine a second-incense blood qi.

Yet if I have no Blood-Boosting Powder to give a push, relying solely on bitter toil and ordinary meat nourishment... I'm afraid it will still consume well over another month.

He pondered silently, well aware in his heart that this progress, compared to others, actually could not be considered fast.

This was primarily because, after Health-Preserving Taiji reached minor accomplishment, his blood qi had swelled by a full fifty percent on top of its normal foundation.

This fifty percent was not a matter of cultivation realm, but of foundational bedrock.

A solid foundation and thick base were without doubt a good thing; this signified an absolute advantage under the same realm, as well as a higher and broader martial Dao upper limit for the future.

Yet correspondingly, if he wished to condense a second-incense blood qi upon this robust foundation, the difficulty would likewise rise along with the tide.

This manifested specifically in the growth of his tempering progress.

He expended just as much sweat and time as before, yet the growth of his tempering progress was slower by roughly fifty percent.

This meant that without the propulsion of Blood-Boosting Powder, Chen Cheng's speed in expanding and condensing blood qi simply could not compare to those genius disciples with high comprehension and fine bone-structure.

However, Chen Cheng possessed one advantage upon his person that others could never compare to.

That was the fact that any skill bestowed upon him by the Vertical Eye Mark would never experience the slightest flaw during tempering, and moreover, every single drop of growth in his tempering progress would be thoroughly solidified by the mark—it would only ever increase, never regress.

Precisely because of this, even if his current progress was somewhat slower, so long as he forged ahead steadily, step by step and tier by tier, he could accept it.

Of course, if there were an opportunity to acquire Blood-Boosting Powder or even better Great Medicine to nourish his physique and propel his progress forward, that would undoubtedly be better.

Right at that moment.

An irrepressible commotion suddenly erupted in the distance.

Many disciples halted their movements, as though drawn by some rare spectacle, and surged in a swarm toward that direction.