Blood of the Beast Boils

"Sikong Jing, as an Invincible Divine General of the Great Shang Dynasty and a King of Equal Rank, you have abused your power."

"Self-important due to your contributions, you have committed an act worse than a beast against the Ninth Princess, Yan Ruyu. You are hereby demoted to a commoner, exiled to Yun Province, and shall never be employed again!"

On the border of the Great Shang, within the territory of Yun Province!

From a thatched hut came a heaven-shaking roar: "I am not reconciled!"

Inside the hut, a man of about twenty years old sat up violently from a straw bed, his teeth chattering. His face, however, was deathly pale, as if he were suffering from a grave illness.

He was none other than the former Invincible Divine General of the Great Shang Dynasty, the King of Equal Rank, Sikong Jing!

At twelve, he joined the Great Shang army.

At fifteen, he wiped out a million roaming bandits in the north with eight thousand remnants and was conferred the title of General.

At seventeen, he ventured deep into enemy territory alone to rescue the Great Shang Emperor, Yan Tianmo, who was leading the campaign in person, and was titled the First Warrior of Great Shang.

At nineteen, he led troops to quell the rebellion of seven kingdoms, slaughtering countless enemies, and was titled the Invincible Divine General of Great Shang and the King of Equal Rank!

With such illustrious military achievements, he had no equal; he was the greatest general in the history of the Great Shang!

Time froze at that very moment.

When Sikong Jing stepped into the Great Shang Imperial City carrying the heads of the seven kings, what greeted him was the butcher's knife of the Emperor, Yan Tianmo.

At the victory banquet, Sikong Jing was poisoned and thrown onto the bed of the Ninth Princess, Yan Ruyu.

When Yan Ruyu awoke, her hair was disheveled, her clothes in disarray, and she was streaming with tears, looking pitifully beautiful.

On the spot, Sikong Jing was thrown into the imperial prison. Yan Tianmo personally dug out his dantian and shattered his meridians. The next day, he was shackled and exiled to Yun Province. In less than a day, he went from an Invincible Divine General to a prisoner.

"Ugh!"

Inside the hut, Sikong Jing spat out a mouthful of fresh blood, which seeped into the straw bed.

He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and rasped, "Yan Tianmo, you are ruthless. A single accusation of being too powerful for the throne was enough to destroy me."

When he was in the imperial prison, Yan Tianmo had patted his face with a smile.

"You, Sikong Jing, were conferred the title of King of Equal Rank at only nineteen. Was your next step to seize my throne?"

"Therefore, you had to be destroyed!"

At this moment, Sikong Jing continued, "Yan Ruyu, you are venomous. The vows we once made have turned into me being a beast."

The Ninth Princess, Yan Ruyu, was as beautiful as her name suggested, possessing an unparalleled beauty.

She was recognized as the greatest beauty in the Great Shang, and before this, she had often expressed her secret affection for Sikong Jing, vowing to marry no one else.

In the end, all that remained was a single sentence spoken in the imperial prison.

"I, Yan Ruyu, am a princess of the Great Shang. How could a commoner like you, Sikong Jing, ever be worthy of me?"

"I will give your dantian and your martial arts talent to the man who truly deserves them."

With those words, Yan Ruyu took the dantian that had been dug out of Sikong Jing's body from the Emperor, Yan Tianmo, let out a series of giggles, and turned to leave without casting another glance at Sikong Jing.

"Creak..."

Just as Sikong Jing was lost in the memory of this monstrous blood feud, the hut's door, riddled with holes, was pushed open.

A slender figure entered the room, carrying a bowl of medicinal soup.

She had a graceful physique, but her face was covered by a thick black veil, making it impossible to see her features.

"Ah? You're awake." The woman exclaimed subconsciously upon seeing Sikong Jing sitting up.

The next second, the woman saw the blood on the corner of Sikong Jing's mouth and hurriedly asked, "You vomited blood? Are you alright?"

In two or three steps, the woman reached Sikong Jing's side and pulled out a white handkerchief to gently wipe his mouth. Her boneless, slender, jade-like fingers caused the hatred in Sikong Jing's eyes to soften slightly.

"Miss, who are you? Where am I?" Sikong Jing asked.

The woman's hand paused slightly, her eyes involuntarily showing gloom and shyness as she replied softly, "Have you forgotten? My name is Su Yuexi, and I am now your wife."

Sikong Jing was stunned. Wife? What an unfamiliar title.

His memory was quickly unlocked. When he was shackled and exiled to Yun Province, an old eunuch of the Great Shang Dynasty had ridden hard to catch up and asked the Lord of Yun Province in front of Sikong Jing.

"Within the territory of this Yun Province, which woman is the ugliest?"

Shortly thereafter, a veiled woman was brought before the old eunuch; she was the very same Su Yuexi standing before him.

On the spot, Su Yuexi had her veil ruthlessly torn off by the old eunuch. Her ugly and terrifying face greatly satisfied the old eunuch, who immediately announced the marriage between Sikong Jing and Su Yuexi before laughing and riding away.

At the same time, Sikong Jing had vomited blood and fainted, remaining unconscious until now.

Seeing Sikong Jing in a daze, the gloom in Su Yuexi's eyes intensified as she said, "I'm sorry. If you feel this title is unworthy of you, then I shall not mention it again."

Sikong Jing came back to his senses and smiled bitterly, "It is not a matter of being worthy or unworthy. How long have I been asleep?"

To him, beauty and ugliness no longer mattered. What use was Yan Ruyu's celestial beauty if her heart was as venomous as a scorpion?

As long as someone treated him with genuine kindness, Sikong Jing would repay them a hundred or a thousand times over.

Su Yuexi replied, "It has been five days."

Five days. Sikong Jing looked at his clean clothes and the tidy straw bed beneath him. He understood that he had been meticulously cared for by Su Yuexi during these five days, and a trace of warmth welled up in his heart.

Faint memories of the past few days flickered in his mind.

Su Yuexi had been changing his clothes, wiping his body, and feeding him water, food, and medicine with meticulous care.

Across from him, unable to withstand Sikong Jing's gaze, Su Yuexi hurriedly set the medicinal soup on the wooden table and said, "I have other things to attend to, so I'll be heading out. Can you drink the soup yourself if I leave it here?"

Sikong Jing nodded, watching as Su Yuexi hurried away.

He glanced at the medicinal soup on the wooden table and gave a bitter laugh. "I, Sikong Jing, am nothing but a cripple now. How could mere ordinary medicine possibly heal me? And yet, I cannot accept this!"

He struggled to sit cross-legged, attempting to circulate the true qi within his body, but his dantian was gone, his meridians were shattered, and he had nothing left.

Hum!

Suddenly, the mouthful of blood he had just spat onto the straw mat began to glow with a blood-red light.

In the blink of an eye, the light intensified, coalescing into a translucent blood bead.

Even though Sikong Jing had been reduced to a cripple, he could still feel a vast, oppressive aura emanating from within the blood bead.

Sikong Jing was filled with disbelief; this was definitely not just his own blood.

The next moment, a cold, vast voice echoed in his mind: "Swallow the Blood of Ten Thousand Beasts, and you shall become the Lord of Ten Thousand Beasts!"

Sikong Jing's entire body shuddered, his eyes widening. "Who is there?"

"Swallow the Blood of Ten Thousand Beasts, let the beast blood boil, and be reborn. Do you dare? Do you dare?"

The voice remained vast, as if goading Sikong Jing, yet it carried an unquestionable authority.

Sikong Jing stared fixedly at the blood bead and asked again, "If the beast blood boils, will I still be human?"

"Do you dare? Do you dare?" The voice did not answer, merely urging him on.

Slap!

Just as he hesitated, a heavy sound of a lash echoed from outside.

"Ah..." Su Yuexi let out a sharp cry as she was thrown into the thatched hut, causing straw to fly everywhere and the dilapidated door to shatter.

A fierce woman stepped inside, grabbed Su Yuexi by the collar, and snarled, "You ugly freak! A pig is missing from the Su Family Pig Farm. Did you slaughter it to feed your sickly husband?"

As she spoke, the woman pointed toward Sikong Jing on the straw mat.

Su Yuexi shook her head vigorously. "I didn't."

Slap!

The woman struck Su Yuexi across the face again, viciously saying, "You still dare to deny it? In the Su Family Pig Farm, who else besides a freak like you would dare to steal a pig?"

A drop of blood trickled from beneath Su Yuexi's thick veil as she shook her head desperately. "It really wasn't me."

Witnessing this scene, Sikong Jing's eyes instantly turned blood-red.

He wanted to strike out, but his body refused to obey, and the vast voice of "Do you dare? Do you dare?" continued to echo in his mind.

Suddenly, Sikong Jing roared to the heavens: "What is there to fear!"

He reached out, grabbed the blood bead, and swallowed it in one gulp. Within his body... the beast blood began to boil!