Yellow Heaven Body-Forging Scripture

"Just standing at the gate to the kitchen's rear courtyard and glancing at Mute Uncle from far away made my head feel like it was splitting open, and my eyes weep bloody tears?"

Yang Xiao stood in the privy, panting for a long while, before his heart—which had been pounding wildly—finally eased a little.

Strangely enough, when Yang Xiao's headache stopped and his mind recovered, the bloody tears on his face vanished in an instant as well, as if they had never appeared at all.

Yang Xiao was somewhat puzzled by this, but he had no time to think too much about it. Instead, he began carefully recalling the scene he had just seen when he looked toward Mute Uncle.

It had been a youth who looked similar to Mute Uncle, with a yellow turban wrapped around his head and his upper body bare, standing amid a vast desert of yellow sand.

Beside him stood youths dressed in the same way, packed together in dense, endless ranks.

A towering figure stood on a mountain peak, his features hidden by the yellow sand.

No one knew exactly what he said, but the gathered youths seemed as if they had been injected with chicken blood. One after another, they raised their arms and shouted, then drank the murky talisman water in wild excitement.

One incense stick later, more than half of the tens of thousands of youths had collapsed to the ground, and fewer than three thousand had survived.

The scene shifted. "Mute Uncle" stood motionless beneath the blazing sun in the desert, while people beat him viciously with clubs.

Whenever "Mute Uncle" was on his last breath, as long as he drank a bowl of talisman water and rested for one night, he would be lively and kicking again the next day, ready to accept a new round of brutal beatings.

This went on day after day. In the blink of an eye, twenty years passed.

Through tenacious will, "Mute Uncle" endured bitterly. The wooden clubs were replaced by bronze rods, then gradually by iron rods.

When "Mute Uncle" withstood a sharp saber strike head-on without the slightest injury, and the great saber instead snapped with a crack, "Mute Uncle" raised his eyes and looked around. Of the little companions who had trained with him back then, only a few dozen remained.

The towering expert who had vanished for twenty years once again stood atop the mountain peak, looking down upon everyone like a god. His majestic voice resounded through the firmament:

"From this day forth, you are formal disciples of my sacred cult. I bestow upon you the name—Yellow Turban Warriors!"

At this point, the scene shattered completely.

Yang Xiao returned from the dream to reality, his whole body already drenched in cold sweat.

"Mute Uncle is actually a demon of the Peace Sect. Could he be the Peace Sect's grand elder that Fairy Bai and Song Que are hunting?"

Yang Xiao's mouth went dry, and he suddenly felt somewhat panicked.

The Peace Sect had a long history. Whenever a dynasty flourished, it would disappear from sight, its traces difficult to find, entering a dormant state.

But once a dynasty neared its end, or chaos swept the realm, the Peace Sect would spread its teachings everywhere, deluding the masses with demonic words, expanding madly like locusts.

This repeated for thousands of years. Through many changes of dynasty, the Peace Sect rose and fell, and had always been a thorn in the hearts of emperors throughout the ages, yet it had never truly been exterminated.

Even the current Emperor Ming had once launched three campaigns against the Peace Sect, each time mobilizing armies of a million at the drop of a hat, yet he had not even found where the Peace Sect's main altar was. Instead, he burdened the people, wasted the treasury, stirred Heaven's wrath and public resentment, and was cursed in private as a "muddle-headed tyrant!"

"Could it be that the golden radiance I saw soaring into the heavens wasn't the cultivation method Mute Uncle practices, but the Peace Sect's—sacred object?"

The more Yang Xiao thought about it, the more possible it seemed, and a bold, even insane idea suddenly arose in his heart.

"No, no!"

"Though the sacred object is tempting, my strength is insufficient. If I act rashly, even if I truly obtain the treasure, it will only bring fatal disaster upon me."

Yang Xiao quickly calmed down and tried his best not to think about the sacred object. He began pondering the martial technique he had obtained today from spying on the qi above Mute Uncle's head—the "Yellow Heaven Body-Forging Scripture: Warrior Chapter."

The so-called "Yellow Turban Warriors" were rooted in "talisman water." By continuously drinking "talisman water," combined with the body-tempering art of the Yellow Heaven Body-Forging Scripture and the aid of external beatings, the failures would be continuously eliminated. In the end, those who survived could temper their bodies until blades and spears could not penetrate them, and their strength became boundless.

"Getting beaten is impossible. This young master will never let anyone beat him in this lifetime!"

"But drinking talisman water can strengthen the body, and the body-tempering art can also increase defense. This sickly body of mine might even be cured?"

After studying it carefully, Yang Xiao's eyes could not help lighting up.

The reason the Peace Sect had viciously beaten those youths was to save cultivation resources, speed up absorption of the talisman water, and mass-produce Yellow Turban Warriors in a short time.

But Yang Xiao did not need to worry about that.

"If others used twenty years to become Yellow Turban Warriors, then at worst, I'll use fifty. Besides, I actually won't need twenty years..."

Closing his eyes and recalling Mute Uncle's twenty years of body-tempering experience, Yang Xiao felt as if his soul had transmigrated into Mute Uncle in his youth, personally enduring twenty years of beatings.

It was precisely this agony worse than death, this nightmare-like life experience of being treated as less than human every day, beaten cruelly like livestock, cursed more viciously day after day, that made Yang Xiao vaguely understand why Mute Uncle, though honored as the grand elder of the Peace Sect, had still chosen to betray them, and why his heart was filled with hatred.

"Mute Uncle is far too dangerous. In the future, unless necessary, I'd better avoid going to the kitchen's rear courtyard as much as possible, lest I arouse his vigilance."

After sorting everything out, Yang Xiao returned to the entrance of private room Ding Five-Two-Seven. His eyes watched his nose, and his nose watched his heart. He transformed into an utterly ordinary doorman waiter, secretly beginning to regulate his breathing while carefully organizing Mute Uncle's martial training experience.

During this time, Uncle Liu patrolled past several times, but Yang Xiao relied on the extraordinary hearing brought by the Nine Cicada Auditory Arts to end his breathing exercise in advance each time and bow with utmost respect.

"This boy does have a bit of cleverness. Unfortunately, his aptitude and bones are mediocre, and he is destined never to practice martial arts in this lifetime. A pity, a pity..."

Passing the private room once more and sensing Yang Xiao's heartfelt respect, Uncle Liu kept a cold face, yet felt extremely pleased inside. He could not help feeling even more regretful.

But Uncle Liu did not know that the reason Yang Xiao flattered him was because Yang Xiao had already begun pondering how to use Uncle Liu to come into contact with the follow-up techniques of the Nine Cicada Auditory Arts.

Life was like a play. It was all just routine.

Before anyone knew it, noon had arrived.

A young master in brocade robes came walking over with unsteady steps, sporting an exaggerated pair of dark circles under his eyes, looking utterly drained, with two guards in tow.

"This has nothing to do with you. Get lost!"

Behind the brocade-robed young master, an old man in black robes, dressed all in black and clearly an expert at a glance, impatiently waved Yang Xiao aside.

Before Yang Xiao could react, the two guards strode forward in a menacing rush, and one of them shoved Yang Xiao roughly to the side.

"Young Master, please, this way."

The two guards instantly changed into fawning faces, bowing and scraping to the brocade-robed young master with sycophantic smiles.

"What kind of people are these!"

Caught off guard, Yang Xiao nearly fell to the ground. He cursed inwardly, but his face remained very calm, not revealing the slightest displeasure.

But in his heart, Yang Xiao had already decided that when the dishes were served later, he would pretend to go up and help carry the plates, secretly spit into the wine and food, and give this brocade-robed young master a fine "reception."

Yet before Yang Xiao could leave, the brocade-robed young master spoke. "Stop right there!"

"Young Master?"

Yang Xiao froze, halting in his tracks.

"You. What're you looking at?"

After saying this with a cold face, the brocade-robed young master suddenly drew the saber from one of his guards' waists and thrust it viciously at Yang Xiao.

Before Yang Xiao could come to his senses, that bright, gleaming, razor-sharp blade had already landed at Yang Xiao's heart!