Condensing True Qi, First Glimpse of Martial Arts!

Ma Shan's death was like a stone tossed into a pond. After sending out a few ripples, everything quickly returned to calm.

After all, he had only been a servant.

In times like these, with chaos everywhere, a person's death was far too commonplace.

Though Mei Lan grieved for several days, Ma Shan had supposedly died while stealing and falling to his death. She could only hate him for failing to live up to expectations and let the matter pass.

But if she had known the true cause of Ma Shan's death, she would likely have felt even worse.

Meanwhile—

In an alley near the teahouse stood a modest residence.

Inside the main room, a pretty woman in her thirties, her charm still lingering, sat beside the bed. Her face was pale, and her hands kept wringing a handkerchief.

Her name was Zhou Lian, Mei Lan's sister-in-law.

A gaunt-faced man lay asleep on the bed. He was Mei Lan's elder brother, Mei Jing.

The Mei family had once been considered moderately well-off. Old Master Mei had run a tea business in Jiangning City in his early years, and it had been quite prosperous.

Unfortunately, storms came without warning. Five years ago, when Old Master Mei and his son Mei Jing went out to purchase stock, they somehow offended someone. Both father and son had their legs broken and had been bedridden ever since.

Not long afterward, Old Master Mei breathed his last.

From then on, the Mei family gradually declined. Only a teahouse and a few tea shops remained, all left for Mei Lan to manage, while Zhou Lian stayed home to care for her husband.

The entire family depended on Mei Lan alone to keep them afloat.

"Ma Shan is dead..."

Zhou Lian muttered to herself, her gaze unfocused, unable to conceal the panic in her eyes.

She had been having an affair with Ma Shan for two years.

That man was merely a servant, but he was strong and sturdy, and his honeyed words quickly captured her heart.

More importantly, Ma Shan had promised to help her free herself from that half-paralyzed, damned husband of hers, seize the Mei family's remaining property, and live a carefree, happy life.

She had long had enough of living like a widow with a husband still breathing!

But now, Ma Shan was dead?

"How could this happen..."

Zhou Lian abruptly rose and paced back and forth through the room, her mind a tangled mess.

With Ma Shan dead, what would happen to their plan?

More importantly, had Ma Shan left behind any evidence? Would it implicate her?

"No. I have to find out exactly what happened!"

Zhou Lian gritted her teeth, shot a disgusted glance at the man lying on the bed, then took out a silver ingot from the cabinet and hurried out.

Half an hour later.

In the teahouse's rear courtyard, a young servant with a sharp mouth and monkey-like cheeks was chopping firewood. When he saw Zhou Lian approach, he hurriedly set down his axe and went to greet her.

"Sister-in-law, what brings you here?"

This servant was called Sixth Son. He was the greediest person in the teahouse, as well as the spy Zhou Lian had planted there.

"Sixth Son, tell me. How exactly did Ma Shan die?"

Zhou Lian lowered her voice.

"Didn't the authorities say so? He died after falling while stealing." Sixth Son scratched his head.

"Bullshit!"

Zhou Lian spat. "Ma Shan wasn't brainless. How could he possibly steal Mei Lan's silver? Tell me the truth!"

Sixth Son looked around, leaned close to Zhou Lian, and lowered his voice.

"Sister-in-law, this really is a little strange."

"That day, Ma Shan went with Old Mister Jiang to hand out porridge, and something was off about him when they came back. That night, while they were drinking birthday wine, the way Ma Shan looked at Old Mister Jiang—he hated him to the bone."

"Then Ma Shan died that very night."

Zhou Lian's eyes sharpened. "Old Mister Jiang? You mean... that old storyteller?"

Ma Shan had mentioned to her before that this old man kept getting in the way of their plans.

But she had never expected it.

That old bastard actually dared to kill someone?

"Not only that."

Sixth Son grinned. "I heard that people from the Under-Heaven Society came to cause trouble while they were handing out porridge that day. Ma Shan abandoned Old Mister Jiang and ran off on his own. Yet Old Mister Jiang was completely fine and came back by himself."

"That old man is strange as hell!"

Zhou Lian fell silent.

Of course she knew Ma Shan had recently been in contact with people from the Under-Heaven Society. She had even paid two hundred taels of silver to help him, but she had never imagined it was all just to deal with some old man named Jiang.

"Jiang Yuan..."

Zhou Lian ground her teeth, a vicious glint flashing through her eyes.

That old bastard had ruined her plans again!

Even worse, Jiang Yuan had very likely learned about her relationship with Ma Shan from him.

The consequences...

No. Even if there was only a one-in-ten-thousand chance, she had to make Jiang Yuan disappear.

Just you wait!

Time flowed on, and in the blink of an eye, a month had passed.

The autumn wind grew colder.

In a secluded little room in the teahouse's rear courtyard.

Jiang Yuan sat cross-legged on the bed, his eyes slightly closed, his breathing long and even.

If a martial artist had been present, they would have been astonished to find that his breathing was steady as a mountain—the sign that one's cultivation had reached a critical stage.

Suddenly!

Jiang Yuan's eyes flew open, and a glint of sharp light flashed through his cloudy old eyes!

He slowly raised his right hand, his fingers slightly curled and palm facing upward.

A faint, almost imperceptible current of air spiraled over his palm, gathering into a strand of true qi nearly invisible to the naked eye!

"It worked!"

The corners of Jiang Yuan's mouth lifted slightly, unable to hide the excitement in his heart.

One month!

In merely one month, he had successfully condensed true qi and stepped across the true threshold of martial arts!

This step was immensely crucial—and immensely difficult.

An ordinary person progressing from the ninth level of body tempering to condensing true qi would need at least one or two years, often seven or eight, and some would never cross this hurdle in their entire lives.

Going from nothing to something had always been the hardest part.

The gap between having true qi and not having it was greater than the gap between man and dog!

Yet he, Jiang Yuan, had broken through at the age of seventy with only one month!

"Seventy times the cultivation speed really is terrifying beyond measure!"

Jiang Yuan drew a deep breath, feeling the true qi flowing through his body, his heart filled with countless emotions.

Over the past month, aside from eating, sleeping, and telling stories, he rose before dawn each day to cultivate the Everlasting Spring Technique. At night, he practiced the Five Animal Fist Zhang Yong had given him!

First, the Everlasting Spring Technique truly deserved to be called the technique most suited to him. The true qi it cultivated was not overbearing, but it was incomparably abundant.

When ordinary martial artists fought, once their true qi was depleted, they could no longer continue.

But those who cultivated the Everlasting Spring Technique possessed reserves of true qi far beyond martial artists of the same level, and their recovery speed was astonishingly fast.

Beyond that, it also seemed to nourish the meridians and bones.

The more he practiced, the younger he became!

As for the Five Animal Fist, though it did not seem particularly powerful, it balanced offense and defense alike: the tiger's ferocity, the deer's nimbleness, the bear's steadiness, the ape's agility, and the bird's ease. Once practiced to profound depths, it was equally not to be underestimated.

Jiang Yuan had practiced without pause this past month and had already brought the Five Animal Fist to the minor mastery stage.

Of course, what delighted Jiang Yuan most was the change in his body.

Though his hair was still streaked with gray, his once withered body had become straight and powerful. Dressed in a black-and-white martial robe, he actually carried a hint of a martial arts grandmaster's bearing.

Had he been in a park in his previous life, who knew how many old ladies he would have charmed senseless.

"What a pity..."

Jiang Yuan withdrew his true qi, his brows drawing together slightly.

Over the past month, he had also realized something.

Relying on cultivation alone was still too slow.

He lacked spirit stones!