When Lu Zhen shouldered the heavy redwood chest and pushed open the dilapidated gate of his courtyard in Pig Cage Alley.
Inside, the stove fire was roaring.
Shen Yun was sitting with Lu Wan at the table, working by the firelight to paste paper kindling. Hearing the courtyard gate creak open and steady footsteps enter the main room, they both instinctively looked up.
"Brother?"
Lu Wan's eyes widened as she looked at Lu Zhen, his clothes covered in dust and grime, with even a few dark-red bloodstains on them. Her face was full of astonishment. "Didn't you say the water route would take four days? How are you back after only half a day?"
Lu Zhen lowered the redwood chest from his shoulder with a thud in the corner, then pulled off his sheepskin vest, stained with river water and the smell of blood. His tone was calm.
"I ran into the Black Dragon Water Bandits. We fought on the river, and the boat couldn't go any farther, so the job was cut short and I came back."
"Water bandits?!"
At those words, Shen Yun's needlework came to an abrupt halt.
She sprang to her feet, worry surging in her eyes like a tide.
"You ran into water bandits? Are you hurt anywhere? Are you bleeding? Quick, take off your shirt and let me have a look..."
Her slender hands were already reaching for Lu Zhen, about to search him for hidden knife wounds.
But just as her hand reached halfway, Shen Yun's body suddenly stiffened.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Lu Wan, still sitting nearby.
The little girl looked concerned too, but at that moment she was staring fixedly at Shen Yun with a slightly startled, strange look.
Shen Yun's mind went blank with a buzz.
Only then did she suddenly realize: his own younger sister was sitting there perfectly still, while she, a widow staying in someone else's home, had gotten so frantic with worry that she was about to start stripping a man's clothes. It was far too much, far too out of line!
This was nothing like a neighborly older sister. She looked just like a young wife, terrified that something had happened to her husband and so panicked she'd lost all sense of propriety!
"I... I..."
Shen Yun's hand snapped back as if she'd touched a live wire, and she clasped it tightly with the other.
She lowered her head in a fluster, biting her lower lip hard. So awkward she wished the blue-brick floor would open up and swallow her, she didn't know what to do with her hands or feet.
The atmosphere in the room turned painfully awkward in an instant. The only sound was the coal crackling in the stove.
Seeing Shen Yun so mortified that she wished she could bury her head in her chest, Lu Zhen felt a trace of warmth in his heart. The murderous anger he'd built up during the slaughter on the river vanished completely.
He didn't point out the awkwardness. He only smiled gently.
"Sister Shen, Wan'er, don't worry. I'm fine. I haven't even got a scratch."
He rolled his shoulders, and several crisp bone cracks sounded. "Those bandits didn't even get close before I dealt with them. With my current body-hardening, ordinary blades and swords can't hurt me in the slightest."
Hearing Lu Zhen's calm, robust voice, Shen Yun's racing heart finally settled a little. The blush remained on her face, though, and she murmured so softly it was almost inaudible, "As long as you're... as long as you're all right. I'll get you some hot water to wash your face..."
With that, she turned and fled into the kitchen.
Deep in the night.
The battle at Soul-Falling Gorge, and the terrible fear of death at the edge of life, had not only pushed Lu Zhen into the Late Force Refining Realm; his abundant qi and blood, along with his martial skills, had also been tempered to the utmost in the brutal fighting.
[Daily Settlement Panel activated] [Today's settlement: Half a day escorting cargo by water, one life-and-death battle, dozens of enemies slain!] [Base rewards: Silver dollars +100, one chest of Red Scale Treasure Fish, one Century-Old Mountain Ginseng. Profession Experience +5, Martial Skill Experience +50, Physique Experience +30, General Experience +50] [Level bonus triggered: Daily Settlement Level Lv.3 (daily rewards multiplied by an additional X3)] [Final rewards: Silver dollars +300, three chests of Red Scale Treasure Fish, three Century-Old Mountain Ginseng. Profession Experience +15, Martial Skill Experience +150, Physique Experience +90, General Experience +150!] [Lu Zhen (30 years old)] Money: 346 silver dollars (plus three chests of Red Scale Treasure Fish and three Century-Old Mountain Ginseng) Current profession: Boat Guard Level: Daily Settlement Lv.3 (155/800) Skills: Cart-Pulling Lv.3 (50/800) Boat-Sailing Lv.2 (15/20) Coiling Dragon Stake Lv.4 (150/3000) Iron Wire Fist Lv.4 (150/3000) Physique: Copper Skin Iron Bone Lv.4 (270/3000) General Experience: 255 points
Lu Zhen took out a coarse clay pot, cut off half a dried Red Scale Treasure Fish, then carefully shaved off a thin rootlet from a Century-Old Mountain Ginseng. He added well water and set it to boil over a roaring fire.
In less than half an hour, the pot was bubbling with dark-red broth. A fiercely potent medicinal aroma, mingled with a strong earthy smell and an exotic fragrance, rushed into his nose.
The fish transformed qi and blood; the ginseng sustained life and fortified the body. Together, these two things were the finest "Dragon-Tiger Great Medicine" in the saying that the poor studied and the rich practiced martial arts.
Lu Zhen didn't hesitate. He picked up the pot and gulped down the scalding broth, meat and all, in one go.
"Boom!"
As the broth entered his stomach, it felt like he'd swallowed a piece of red-hot charcoal.
A violent surge of heat unlike anything he'd ever felt burst from his gut. Like a wild horse breaking free of its reins, it charged along his extraordinary meridians and eight channels, flooding his every limb and bone.
Lu Zhen's skin, which had already taken on a faint blue-black sheen, now flushed as red as a boiled shrimp.
"What overbearing medicinal power!"
Lu Zhen didn't dare slack off in the slightest. He stamped both feet in the cramped inner room.
Lv.4 Coiling Dragon Stake!
He lowered his body, and his spinal column straightened like a great dragon. As his bones crackled in a dense burst like beans popping in a pan, a low rumbling sounded faintly from his chest and abdomen, like the Tiger-Leopard Thunder Sound.
Under the extreme pressure and circulation of the Lv.4 Coiling Dragon Stake, the violent medicinal power was absorbed bit by bit, forced deep into his marrow and organs.
Sweat poured from him like a stream, but before it could hit the ground, the terrifying heat radiating from his skin steamed it into white mist.
Two full hours passed. Only when the sky outside began to brighten with the first hint of dawn did Lu Zhen slowly finish his training and exhale.
A breath of Turbid Qi shot more than three feet from his mouth and lingered for a long time.
He summoned the Panel and took a look. With the treasure fish, ginseng, and triple settlement bonus, his Physique Experience had surged by another large amount.
More than that, when Lu Zhen closed his eyes, he could clearly feel the abundant qi and blood that had once flowed only through his skin, flesh, sinews, and bones now beginning to seep into his five viscera and six bowels.
He had taken another solid step toward the Bright Force threshold of "cultivating a breath within, projecting strength like a shield without."
Early morning, the Inner Courtyard of the Iron Arm Martial Arts Hall.
When Lu Zhen crossed the tall threshold in his black silk Inner Sect uniform with gold trim, the atmosphere in the courtyard was completely different from usual.
The battle at Soul-Falling Gorge had cost the Gu Family Chamber of Commerce men, but Lu Zhen's breakthrough to the Late Force Refining Realm in the heat of battle, and his fearsome reputation for holding the line alone with an iron staff and smashing several tough bandits to pulp, had already spread through the martial arts hall.
As soon as he appeared, several senior Inner Sect disciples who had been building their strength stopped what they were doing and greeted him with warm smiles.
"Good morning, Junior Brother Lu!"
"Junior Brother Lu, you really brought glory to our Iron Arm Martial Arts Hall on that water route! I heard you turned the bandit chief into a pulp with one swing of your staff. What a fine technique!"
That was how the martial world worked.
A thirty-year-old in the Mid Force Refining Realm was an old soldier just biding his time. But a thirty-year-old in the Late Force Refining Realm, with that unreasonable, monstrous strength, was a true expert who could hold down the fort. Who would dare look down on him now?
Only Zhang Lei, standing bare-chested in a corner of the Training Ground, had a face dark as water. With a bang, he slammed a heavy punch into the iron-bound wooden dummy, making it shake violently.
Gu Yanzhi strode over, waving his folding fan, and slapped Lu Zhen familiarly on the shoulder.
But unlike usual, his smile carried a hint of heaviness.
Yan Shanshan came over too and said in a low voice, "Junior Brother Lu, you've certainly made a name for yourself, but... something happened to Zhao Peng and Song Shi."
"Something happened?" Lu Zhen asked, startled.
Gu Yanzhi sighed softly and lowered his voice. "Just last night, the Four Seas Escort Agency took an outside escort job and ran into a gang of tough bandits who'd come drifting up from the south. The group was scattered.
"That stuttering Junior Brother Song Shi, who'd only just entered the Inner Sect, was hacked to death in a shower of blades while protecting the client."
He paused, his expression complicated. "Senior Brother Zhao Peng, the smooth operator, had his hamstrings severed. They saved his life, but his martial arts and leg are completely ruined."
Lu Zhen fell silent.
Song Shi. The lowly apprentice who'd desperately forced out a Triple Resonance in the training ground just to beg for a chance to live. He'd thought he'd finally leaped over the Dragon Gate, only to find that behind it lay a bottomless cliff.
Even Zhao Peng, so calculating and adept at protecting himself, had ended up crippled in the face of absolute violence.
As expected.
A living earned in the martial trade, with a blade at one's throat, was bought with one's life.
Lu Zhen sighed inwardly. Luckily, he hadn't chosen to go to the Four Seas Escort Agency, a place rife with infighting and thick with murderous intent.
The water routes for the Gu Family Chamber of Commerce weren't peaceful either, but Gu Yanzhi was loyal and generous. In this world, if you had to risk your life regardless, you might as well follow a decent employer.
This cannibalistic, chaotic age left no room for the slightest bit of luck.
"Creak—"
The door to the main hall opened.
Xiong Yue walked out and came straight to the crowd. She cupped her hands toward Lu Zhen.
"Junior Brother Lu, Master is drinking tea in the rear hall. He asked you to come in alone."
The laughter and chatter in the courtyard abruptly died away.
Being summoned alone to the rear hall by the hall master was a privilege in the Iron Arm Martial Arts Hall reserved for disciples he truly valued.
Lu Zhen nodded to everyone, straightened his collar, and strode into the main hall.
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