Five Poisons Palm

The Yang Estate in Yuan Guang County.

My butt hurts so much...

The burning pain jolted Zou Feng awake from a ratty bed made of straw.

That was too close... He almost got beaten to death this time...

Zou Feng had transmigrated here with no one to rely on, forced to sell himself as a servant and eke out a living in this Yang Family.

Yesterday, he had merely eaten some leftover food from the masters of the Yang Estate, only to be accidentally betrayed by a petty person, earning himself a round of wooden boards.

The reason was that these leftovers were originally prepared to feed several guard dogs.

Therefore, simply because he ate dog food, he almost got beaten to death.

What a damned world...

Although Zou Feng had already known when he sold himself as a servant that in this otherworld where martial arts reigned supreme, the lives of servants were worth even less than domestic livestock.

Yet it was not until yesterday that he truly felt it firsthand.

Compared to the burning pain on his butt right now, that humiliating feeling of living worse than a dog was even harder for him to bear.

To change his fate, he could only practice martial arts.

Yet as a mere servant, how could he possibly have the conditions to practice martial arts?

Gritting his teeth, Zou Feng got out of bed and walked shakily to the corner of the woodshed.

Then, with light and cautious movements, he pulled out a loose clay brick at the base of the wall.

Hidden right behind the clay brick was an animal-skin book wrapped in oiled paper.

The cover had only three characters, yet they exuded an eerie aura.

These three characters certainly were not Plum in the Golden Vase, but rather... Five Poisons Palm.

That was right, Zou Feng had studied it for a long time; this truly was a cultivation technique.

Unfortunately, it was an evil technique.

When practicing it, one needed to soak both hands in specially prepared venom.

During this process, one first had to drink a corresponding detoxifying medicinal soup, supplemented by a few very unseemly movement postures.

Clearly, the practice process of this technique was not complicated, and one could even call it an idiot-proof mode.

However, the expense of purchasing the detoxifying medicinal soup was simply unbearable for an ordinary household, let alone the fact that Zou Feng was a servant.

In addition, since it involved testing poisons with one's body, the greatest difficulty lay in the fact that the slightest carelessness would cause one to practice oneself to death.

Yet high risk usually came with high reward.

The greatest advantage of evil techniques was precisely that they allowed for rapid mastery.

This was a gambling match; win and he would go to pleasure houses to listen to music, lose and he would be cast into the sea to feed the fish.

But if he wanted to change his fate, Zou Feng had no choice.

As for why he managed to obtain this Five Poisons Palm manual...

It was almost certain to have been left behind by the servant who lived in this woodshed before him.

The moment Zou Feng arrived at the Yang Estate, he heard that his predecessor had inexplicably died a sudden death right here in the woodshed.

This was almost certainly a case of practicing the Five Poisons Palm and practicing oneself to death.

Therefore, even though he had been mentally prepared for a long time, Zou Feng had previously not dared to truly make up his mind to practice it.

The specialized venom required to practice this technique only used five common poisonous creatures: snakes, spiders, centipedes, toads, and scorpions.

Such unremarkable venomous creatures frequently came to the woodshed to live with Zou Feng, so gathering them was not difficult.

As for the detoxifying medicinal soup...

As a wealthy clan, the Yang Family consumed various medicinal diets every day without fail.

Taking advantage of his chores in the back kitchen, Zou Feng had plenty of opportunities to secretly pilfer a tiny bit of the medicinal ingredients he needed.

Accumulated over many days, he finally managed to barely scrape together the materials for brewing a bowl of detoxifying medicinal soup.

Having personally experienced living worse than a dog this time around, Zou Feng finally made up his mind to throw caution to the wind.

Practice!

Otherwise, this life was truly no way for a human to live.

No matter how much he played it safe, he might still one day be beaten to death by a Yang Family master using a justified excuse along the lines of "I don't eat beef."

Fortunately, only his butt was injured this time, which wouldn't affect him striking his cultivation poses later.

Right now, he only hoped that the detoxifying medicinal soup brewed according to the method written in the manual wouldn't run into any problems.

The servant who previously sneaked practice of this technique and died a sudden death might simply have slipped up in other aspects...

Without delay, Zou Feng began brewing the detoxifying medicinal soup right there in the woodshed.

He had not been lightly beaten during his punishment earlier, and an older brother he was on good terms with had immediately sent over a package of healing ointment.

Therefore, even if the woodshed was overflowing with medicinal odors at the moment, it wouldn't arouse suspicion.

The detoxifying medicinal soup brewed for a little over an hour; the further along it got, the more unbearable the stench became, and Zou Feng almost passed out from the fumes.

How the hell was this drinkable?!

He felt lightheaded just smelling the odor; wouldn't drinking it send him straight up to heaven?

Yet Zou Feng's mind was already made up: succeed or perish.

The next moment, he pinched his nose, tilted his head back, and downed this bowl of Meng Po Soup.

Suppresing the urge to vomit wildly, Zou Feng hurriedly thrust both hands straight into the earthen jar containing the specialized venom.

At that moment, it felt as though he had plunged his hands into a pile of red-hot iron nails.

"Ooh-ooh-ooh--"

Zou Feng wailed repeatedly, sounding like a baboon in the middle of mating.

Yet he stubbornly refused to pull his hands out.

Only by consuming poison amidst poisons can one rise above the masses!

While undergoing intense torment, several lines of text flashed abruptly in his mind.

"Five Poisons Palm (Entry-Level), Progress: 1%" "Cultivation Side Effect: Unbearable pain, chronic poisoning." "Choose whether to transfer side effect?" "Current available target for transfer: Li Rui"

Zou Feng was stunned, then overwhelmed with joy.

Sure enough, what was bound to come would come!

Moreover, the function of his golden finger was simple and clear.

Aside from the most common proficiency display, it also possessed the ability to transfer cultivation side effects.

For his current situation, this was no different from someone delivering a pillow just as he felt sleepy.

As for the available target Li Rui, Zou Feng naturally knew him.

That he was reported for eating leftovers was entirely thanks to this petty person.

As fellow servants of the Yang Family, everyone turned a blind eye to many petty actions.

Occasionally stealing leftover food to supplement nutrition was originally an unwritten, hidden perk for back kitchen laborers.

Yet this petty person just had to make a federal case out of it.

Zou Feng couldn't even remember when he had ever offended him.

Since he was an enemy, however, transferring the side effects came with zero psychological burden.

Thus, Zou Feng chose without the slightest hesitation to let Li Rui suffer in his place.

At the same time, though, a few doubts arose within him.

While Li Rui, who reported him, was certainly an enemy, Yang Yanpeng, the third young master of the Yang Family who had casually ordered thirty heavy boards to be dealt to him, should rightfully be on the list as well.

Yang Yanpeng was a notorious villain in Yuan Guang County, and those ferocious guard dogs of his estate that had tasted human flesh were his playthings.

Therefore, if any other member of the Yang Family had handled the matter, it would have most likely been punished with just a day of being barred from eating.

It certainly wouldn't have reached thirty heavy boards.

Zou Feng even suspected that Yang Yanpeng's original intention was to beat him to death, seeing as those guard dogs hadn't eaten human flesh in quite a few days...

Still, since Yang Yanpeng didn't make the list, there was no need to worry too much for now; perhaps there were other triggering conditions.

He would fleece Li Rui's wool first.

Once the selection was complete, the transfer took effect immediately.

The burning itch and pain in Zou Feng's hands vanished instantly, and his dizziness faded.

It was as if the specialized venom soaking his hands had suddenly been replaced with a basin of cool mountain spring water.

The beaten butt of his, however, still burned with pain.

After all, this wasn't a side effect brought on by cultivation, so there was no way to transfer it.

The subsequent cultivation process, on the contrary, made Zou Feng feel uneasy.

After all, this was originally an extremely perilous evil cultivation technique, yet now it was merely equivalent to soaking in cold water...

It felt so refreshing that Zou Feng even wanted to scoop some up to wash his face.

He only thought about it, of course; he wasn't stupid enough to court death like that.

One had to know that washing one's face with venom did not belong to the practice method of the Five Poisons Palm, and heaven knew whether that could be transferred.

Having practiced like this for a full half-hour, Zou Feng finally stopped.

It wasn't out of pity for Brother Li Rui, but rather because according to the introduction in the manual, when one first began practicing the Five Poisons Palm, the daily time limit was precisely half an hour.

To force things to continue past the time limit was basically a fast track to sudden death.

In reality, being able to hold out for the span of a cup of tea was already quite good.

Half an hour fell into the category of maxed-out intensity.

It had to be someone with a special constitution, a naturally high resistance to poison, and astonishing willpower-a freak of nature when it came to toxic arts-who could dare attempt to max out the time every single time.

Zou Feng asked himself if he was anything like a toxic-art genius, but fortunately, someone else was carrying the heavy load for him.

With his cultivation completed, Zou Feng looked once more at the words in his mind.

Five Poisons Palm (Threshold), Progress: 9%

To achieve such progress after only a single session of cultivation clearly relied on maxing out the duration and intensity.

However, the two characters for "Li Rui" appeared noticeably dimmer at this moment.

It seemed this wool couldn't be sheared for much longer.

He just hoped Li Rui could hold on until he cultivated the Five Poisons Palm to the next stage.

Or that a successor would appear as soon as possible...