"Junior Brother, you..."
Jiang Ziya stared at the three bloody scratches on Shen Gongbao's face, dumbfounded. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but in the end, nothing came out.
"Shrew! Virago! I've never seen a woman so unreasonable and impossible to deal with..."
Shen Gongbao touched the three bloody scratches on his face, both shocked and furious. "And she's a woman, too! Senior Brother, just look at this. So much as brushing against her means getting hurt! Calling her a tigress would be an understatement."
Jiang Ziya hung his head and crouched on the ground, silent and gloomy.
"Senior Brother, you saw it for yourself. It's not that I wouldn't help you, but... I really can't!"
Shen Gongbao was truly furious this time. He clasped his hands in resignation. "Anyway, I can't afford to provoke that tigress. Before we part, I hope you'll give the middle course some serious thought. Farewell!"
With that, he twisted around and flew off in a streak of light.
Jiang Ziya said nothing.
Whoosh!
But before long, Shen Gongbao returned.
This time, he had a sack of flour slung over his shoulder.
"Senior Brother, I've brought your flour back. You didn't manage to sell it today, either... Be careful."
Shen Gongbao set down the sack and gave a quiet sigh at Jiang Ziya's pathetic state.
Jiang Ziya crouched with his back against the corner wall. At Shen Gongbao's words, his lips twitched. Exhausted, he said, "Sorry for the trouble, Junior Brother."
"Don't mention it, Senior Brother. I've also thought it over. When you go back, that wicked woman will surely ask about me and use the excuse to take her anger out on you."
Shen Gongbao gave another bitter laugh. "So when you get home today... just pin all the blame on me."
"Tell her you don't have a junior brother at all, and that I'm a wandering swindler. Remember, stick to that story and don't let up. Even if she suspects something, she can't do anything if you deny it."
Jiang Ziya hesitated. "But... wouldn't that mean you'd be unfairly taking the blame for me?"
Shen Gongbao smiled helplessly. I suspect I came along this time just to take the blame for you. Then he turned and flew off in another streak of light.
After he left, Jiang Ziya remained crouched alone in the corner, brooding for a long while.
Chaoge.
After returning to the shop, Shen Gongbao passed Lu Chuan's room and glanced inside. There was still no sign of movement.
He went straight back to his own room.
"That shrew, that wicked woman... She's fierce."
In his room, Shen Gongbao applied medicinal powder to the wounds on his face while looking into a bronze mirror. His anger still hadn't faded, and his teeth ground together, but in the end, he had to admit just how formidable she was.
Before this, Shen Gongbao had never suffered such a huge loss or such deep humiliation, especially not at the hands of a woman...
If Ma weren't Jiang Ziya's wife, he would have taught her a lesson long ago. Why else would he have returned in such a sorry state, only to end up taking all the blame?
The key was...
Though he was somewhat eloquent, Ma had simply been unreasonable. She wouldn't listen to reason at all, and he hadn't even had the chance to explain himself. That woman wouldn't hear him out.
After just a few words, she'd sat down on the ground, throwing a tantrum and crying, accusing him of hitting her...
Ruthless!
Too ruthless. Losing to Ma had left him feeling as if he had strength but nowhere to use it.
Damn it, it was so humiliating, so infuriating!
"Forget it, forget it. I'm not getting angry. There's no point in arguing with a woman like that!"
Shen Gongbao tried to console himself, but when he pictured Ma's ferocious, clawing and snarling appearance that day, he couldn't help feeling a little shaken.
"I never imagined there could be such a terrifying woman in this world. And yet Senior Brother is so kindhearted that he can't let her go. She really is the calamity written into his fate."
Then another thought crossed his mind, and Shen Gongbao felt secretly relieved. "Fortunately, I, Shen Gongbao, attained the Dao long ago and severed my worldly desires. I won't suffer a calamity like this in the future.
"Mm. Once my disciple emerges from seclusion, I must tell him this bloody lesson his martial uncle learned and make sure he takes it to heart. He must never repeat the same mistake. Yes, he absolutely must learn from it..."
A day passed quickly.
The next day, Lu Chuan still hadn't emerged from seclusion. With his disciple away, Shen Gongbao had no inclination to open the shop, so he kept it closed for another day.
Then came the ninth day.
At dawn, as the sun rose slowly, the temperature in the courtyard began to climb strangely, little by little.
"Is he gathering fire-elemental qi?"
Shen Gongbao murmured, "It seems he's already refined the Samadhi and is nourishing the Li Essence. Good, good!"
At that moment, his eyes shone. The things he saw looked entirely different from what others saw.
The courtyard looked no different than usual, yet in his eyes, tiny red specks gathered from every direction. At last, they formed three scarlet streams that poured into Lu Chuan's room.
"Once the Li Essence is formed, the Samadhi True Fire should soon follow!"
Shen Gongbao nodded in satisfaction. Having practiced it himself, he knew exactly what the process entailed.
The Samadhi True Fire was a high-level Daoist art, and its power was no small thing. How long it took to master depended on one's aptitude.
Gifted disciples could master it within a month, while those of lesser ability could still succeed within a year.
But at the thought of this, he couldn't help remembering Jiang Ziya.
Of all the disciples under the Yuxu Sect, Jiang Ziya had taken the longest to cultivate the Samadhi True Fire and had been the slowest.
It had taken him a full three years of hard practice to master it, with no small amount of toil and difficulty. The Samadhi True Fire was also one of only two high-level Daoist arts he knew.
What others could accomplish in a few months took him several times as long and required several times the effort.
It was precisely Jiang Ziya's perseverance and determination that had earned Shen Gongbao's admiration when he learned of it. That was why he had gone to befriend him, and the two had become close senior and junior brothers at Yuxu Palace.
But effort and perseverance alone could not make everything possible. Immortality, for instance.
Without exceptional bones, extraordinary talent and understanding, and the good fortune and destiny to match, the Immortal Path was simply a road that led nowhere.
Jiang Ziya had poor bones, and his talent and understanding were merely ordinary. In seventy years of cultivation, he had mastered only a few arts: the Five Elements Escape Technique, the Samadhi True Fire, and the Five Thunders Method.
He had long since cultivated Refining Essence into Qi to its peak, yet he still hadn't managed to cultivate his primordial spirit. In the end, his master had sent him down the mountain.
At the thought that Jiang Ziya would become a heap of dry bones in a grave a hundred years later, Shen Gongbao couldn't help feeling sorrowful.
"Senior Brother, if you cultivate enough merit and good fortune in this life, your junior brother will guide you to immortality in the next!"
Shen Gongbao vowed silently.
At Yuxu Palace, he alone was closest to Jiang Ziya and knew just how much effort Jiang Ziya had put into cultivation.
If Jiang Ziya accumulated enough merit and good fortune in this life, then in his next incarnation, he would have exceptional bones for cultivation.
But even that wouldn't be enough. He would still need a wise master to lead him into the Dao and teach him how to cultivate. Otherwise, he would still waste his life like an ordinary mortal.
He had decided that, no matter how difficult it might be in his next life, he would find Jiang Ziya amid the vast sea of humanity, lead him into the Dao, pass on the teachings and the arts, and teach him to cultivate!
As time passed, the temperature in the courtyard climbed higher and higher, as if it had become a furnace, with invisible flames roaring within.
The plants in the courtyard were scorched by the heat. Their leaves gradually wilted, and some began drying out and turning yellow.
Shen Gongbao had been lost in his memories and hadn't noticed the heat, but suddenly he came back to himself.
He glanced at the plants with their yellowing leaves, then raised his hand and swept his sleeve forward. A force formed a funnel-shaped curtain of light, broad at the top and narrow at the bottom, covering Lu Chuan's room.
In an instant, the heat ebbed like a tide. The courtyard grew much cooler, while rolling waves of fire spirit qi poured in from above and entered Lu Chuan's room.
Looking again at the plants in the courtyard, Shen Gongbao sighed. "Heaven has a virtue of cherishing life!"
Before his voice had even faded, he waved his arm again, scattering a shower of tiny green lights over the yellowing leaves.
At once, the leaves regained their color, and the plants brimmed once more with vitality and green.
"They're much easier on the eyes like this!"
Shen Gongbao smiled faintly.
As he spoke, the sun in the sky suddenly seemed to grow several times brighter.
"It's noon!"
Shen Gongbao looked up and said, "Noon is when the yang qi between Heaven and Earth is strongest, and the third quarter of the hour is its peak."
Powerful yang qi could suppress many evil spirits and wandering ghosts. That was why criminals in ancient times were executed at the third quarter of the hour at noon—to prevent their corpses from becoming haunted by evil spirits.
Whoosh!
Another three quarters of an hour passed. At the third quarter of noon, when yang qi was at its strongest, the fire spirit qi finally stopped gathering here.
Shen Gongbao's eyes shone again. In the room, Lu Chuan's body was glowing. With his eyes half-closed, he slowly swallowed the fire spirit qi, which gathered in his chest and formed a glowing little thing like a miniature sun.
"It's done!"
Shen Gongbao clapped his hands and laughed.
Before you continue