Unexpected Turn

"I don't care whether you're the real Zhao Hu or a fake Zhao Hu. As for tonight's last meal at Drunken Immortal Inn—whether I eat it or you do—we'll ride the donkey and read the playbook. We'll just wait and see!"

Yang Xiao withdrew his gaze, sat cross-legged and regulated his breathing for a while, then pushed open the door and walked out of the servants' room. As if nothing had happened, he stood quietly outside the door to the private room Ding 527.

A moment later, The private room door slowly opened.

"Zhang Long" was the first to walk out, looking weighed down with worries. Without even glancing at Yang Xiao, he left in hurried steps.

Only then did "Zhao Hu" slowly walk out of the private room.

"Brother Zhao, take care on your way. This humble little brother can handle cleaning up the private room. Tonight at the Hour of the Dog, I'll host a banquet at Drunken Immortal Inn. I hope Brother will honor me with your presence."

Yang Xiao nodded and bowed, his face full of flattery and smiles.

"Mm!"

With his hands clasped behind his back, "Zhao Hu" gave a cold snort through his nostrils and left with an aloof air.

"Right now, you can't be bothered with me. Tonight, I'll have you wailing to heaven and earth!"

Smiling as he watched Zhao Hu go into the distance, Yang Xiao turned and returned to the private room. The smile vanished, and a vicious glint flashed through his eyes.

"So many honored guests came today, with such plentiful wine and meat, and these two damned bastards actually gnawed nearly all the meat clean, leaving me not a single bit..."

Sweeping a glance over the table full of leftovers, Yang Xiao's expression looked rather ugly.

Forget it!

Even a mosquito, however small, was still meat. First, he would eat his fill!

Circulating the Myriad Phenomena Heaven-Swallowing Art, Yang Xiao willed it, and the phantom instantly emerged from his body. It unfurled the black-and-white taiji diagram, enveloping the entire banquet table in the blink of an eye.

Splash~

Along with a flash of flowing light, all the food and wine on the table vanished in an instant. Even those shattered bones disappeared without a trace.

That was... it?

Yang Xiao waited for a long while. Seeing no change in his body at all, he was immediately stunned.

"No, it's not that there's no increase."

"It's that after my meridians were tempered by the vast righteousness qi, they became even more refined, so the flesh and blood I need to raise my realm also increased along with it... tenfold?"

Yang Xiao quickly saw where the problem in his body lay, and was immediately dumbfounded.

Didn't that mean that if Yang Xiao wanted to advance in the future, he would need to consume ten times more resources than others?

Who could withstand that?

No, no!

"When Lei Jie lectured on martial arts at the top floor, he once said that for us martial artists, the sturdier the foundation, the stronger the strength after advancing—one might even be invincible in the same rank!"

"My true strength now is definitely not that of an ordinary Iron Skin realm!"

The more Yang Xiao thought about it, the more it made sense, and he suddenly felt it had not been a loss.

But as for the specifics of his own strength, because he had no point of reference and had never fought anyone head-on, he was not too clear for the moment.

"Zhao Hu, tonight I'll use you as my whetstone!"

Yang Xiao clenched his fists, his eyes filled with ice-coldness.

After the time it took an incense stick to burn.

Ye Feng appeared inside private room Ding 527, carrying two heavy swill buckets.

"Big Brother, with the five hundred taels in silver notes you gave me, I spent four hundred taels on the top floor. Everything is in these two buckets."

Ye Feng took out the remaining silver note and handed it to Yang Xiao with both hands.

"Brother Ye, you've entered the Martial Hall on the top floor, and this is exactly the crucial moment when you need flesh and blood to practice martial arts. Though your big brother's talent and constitution are inferior, I still understand that right now is when you need money."

"Same old rule. Consider this one-hundred-tael silver note a temporary loan from your big brother. Another day, once you succeed in blood exchange, you can slowly repay it. Go on."

Yang Xiao waved his hand, his tone brooking no refusal.

"All right!"

Ye Feng's eyes reddened. Forcing down his emotion and the urge to cry, he respectfully gave Yang Xiao a salute, then turned and left.

"Brother Ye, my money isn't so easy to take. I hope you're smart and sensible enough not to waste all the cultivating I've done for you."

Yang Xiao watched Ye Feng's departing back. Only after he had gone far away did he gently close the private room door.

Tossing aside the vegetable leaves covering the two swill buckets, two tightly sealed sheets of yellow wax paper immediately appeared in Yang Xiao's hands.

Snakes had their snake paths, rats had their rat roads!

Menial servants like Ye Feng, because their monthly pay was too low, mostly found some crooked side doors in secret, quietly making a bit of extra money.

Swill buckets were dirty, but if they were rinsed clean in advance, then things could be hidden inside, with a cover laid over the top. Naturally, it could deceive the eyes and ears, easily transporting the concealed goods away.

Everyone among Vermilion Bird Tower's waiters and menial servants knew about this. They all understood tacitly, and no one would ever poke a hole through it.

Yang Xiao opened the two yellow oil-paper packets one by one, and a thick, nose-stinging reek of blood immediately hit him.

Two bloody great chicken legs appeared before Yang Xiao's eyes.

"Fresh Tiger Chicken legs at two hundred taels each. A pair comes to exactly four hundred taels. This thing really is valuable!"

Yang Xiao could not help sighing with emotion.

Ever since the founding emperor of Great Yan had settled the realm and the martial path of qi and blood had begun to flourish throughout the world...

Because fierce beasts were being hunted down nonstop, while martial artists were only growing more numerous and their demand for flesh and blood greater and greater, the large-scale artificial rearing of fierce beasts had begun to grow popular.

Ancient sages had attempted to fuse pheasants with fierce tigers, cultivating them with secret methods, and in the end they had produced an entirely new kind of fierce beast—Tiger Chicken!

Though Tiger Chickens were not as ferocious as fierce tigers, they were fiercer than wolves, and their bodies contained an extremely majestic power of flesh and blood.

To ordinary martial practitioners, being able to eat a meal of Tiger Chicken meat was absolutely an opportunity they yearned for even in their dreams!

Even First Blood experts flocked to Tiger Chickens like ducks to water.

In Ye Feng's view, Yang Xiao intended to use the Tiger Chicken legs to curry favor with "Zhao Hu" and resolve the grudge between them.

Yet after Yang Xiao took out the Tiger Chicken legs, he directly summoned the phantom and devoured the Tiger Chicken legs without the slightest hesitation.

"Huh? The Myriad Phenomena Heaven-Swallowing Art devours all things, yet it actually can't swallow these two pieces of Tiger Chicken leg meat in one go?"

Looking at the two Tiger Chicken legs slowly vanishing, Yang Xiao was slightly startled, then immediately understood.

That made sense!

The majestic qi and blood contained in a single Tiger Chicken leg was comparable to the qi and blood of ten oxen!

He was only at the Iron Skin realm. If it were that easy to digest, that would obviously make no sense.

Half an hour later.

Looking at the two Tiger Chicken legs before him, now with only bones left and not even the tiniest scrap of meat remaining, Yang Xiao's eyes could not help filling with bitterness.

The two Tiger Chicken legs were worth a total of four hundred taels of silver, comparable to the qi and blood power of twenty oxen, yet they had only strengthened Yang Xiao's meridians by the slightest trace, and his strength had not improved in any obvious way.

Yang Xiao immediately understood: although his strength was ten times that of others at the same level, the flesh and blood he would need for cultivation in the future was probably also ten times that of others at the same level!

"Fortunately, my current realm is already at the extreme of the Iron Skin realm. As long as I have the secret blood-changing medicine in hand, I can attempt a breakthrough at any time. For now, I don't need to consider the problem of insufficient flesh and blood."

"It's just that with my inferior aptitude and bones, even if I truly have the secret blood-changing medicine in hand, I'm afraid I still have to think three times before acting, rather than use it casually."

Shaking his head, Yang Xiao stopped thinking about it. His gaze fell on the two Tiger Chicken leg bones on the ground.

Even in his dreams, Ye Feng would never have imagined that Yang Xiao had asked him to buy Tiger Chicken legs not to make amends to "Zhao Hu," nor to eat chicken.

The flesh and blood on the Tiger Chicken legs had merely been a cover.

What Yang Xiao truly wanted were the two Tiger Chicken legs'—leg bones!