Enlightenment into Rank, Mastery at Its Peak!

After that ecstatic shout of "I did it," Zou Feng could not stop himself from bursting into wild laughter.

It was as though he were the true mastermind who had plotted everything from the very beginning and finally gotten his way.

Yang Yanpeng used every last bit of strength he had left to force open his eyelids and look over.

Zou Feng's palms were bright red. His sleeves and hair stirred without wind, while invisible currents of air seemed to surge continuously around him.

Yang Yanpeng naturally knew what such a sight meant.

Not only had the Five Poisons Palm broken through to "Mastery at Its Peak," but Zou Feng had also naturally opened his channels in one stroke, broken through to the inner force realm, and entered the ranks!

And judging by the traits Zou Feng displayed after entering the ranks, this was unquestionably a superior rank-entry.

It might even be a higher level of rank-entry... enlightenment rank-entry!

In the future, the difficulty of climbing to greater heights would be vastly reduced.

No matter how unwilling or resentful Yang Yanpeng was, at this moment, he had to admit one fact.

That was... this boy's future was boundless!

And since Zou Feng cultivated an evil art as well, one more thing had to be added: he absolutely could not be allowed to live!

Damn it! Yang Yanpeng's resentment soared to the heavens.

All of this should clearly have been his.

He had been the first to lay out this entire scheme as well.

Limited by his talent, he had originally had no hope of entering the ranks. Yet he had unexpectedly discovered that his comprehension in the path of poison arts was exceptional.

So he had secretly practiced poison arts, meticulously plotted in the shadows, and lain low as he waited.

In the end, though, he had merely sewn a wedding dress for another...

"Pwah!!"

Yang Yanpeng suddenly spat out a mouthful of black blood, then toppled to the ground completely and lay still.

Who knew whether, at that final moment, the man had died from his poison acting up or had been angered to death alive.

On the other side, Zou Feng was still laughing wildly with utter abandon, letting out repeated sinister cackles.

He really was high, and there was no one else around anyway.

"Five Poisons Skill (Mastery at Its Peak), progress: 1%"

"Passion-Chaos Finger (Thorough Mastery), progress: 7%"

"Drunken Immortal Gazing at the Moon Step (Thorough Mastery), progress: 4%"

"Herbal Compendium (Minor Accomplishment), progress: 100%"

"Transfer targets available for selection: Yang Ling, Li Li."

The panel truly became more satisfying to look at the more he looked at it.

Five Poisons Skill in particular had reached Mastery at Its Peak. That was a realm even ordinary rank-entry martial artists—and perhaps even eighth-rank martial artists—might not attain.

Not to mention the immense changes advancing into the inner qi realm brought to his body.

Inner qi... how should he put it...

It felt as though the power in his body had suddenly come alive!

Or as if his body had somehow grown an additional organ.

It was worth mentioning that because Zou Feng had advanced into the inner qi realm with the Five Poisons Skill as his foundation, his inner qi was naturally poisonous.

Now, once he struck an opponent in battle, his poisonous inner qi would penetrate their body. Its destructive power was easy to imagine.

If their protective inner qi was not strong enough, merely grazing them might send them soaring high.

Zou Feng carefully examined his palms again.

The color of his palms was no longer purple-blue or black-blue.

They were an unbroken crimson.

And with the Golden-Scaled Plague Snake's venom contained within them, that red also carried faint glimmers of gold.

What delighted Zou Feng most was that the faint fragrance they had always carried, no matter how slight, had now vanished completely.

Before, when he encountered martial artists with especially keen noses, getting too close could easily expose him if he was not careful.

But now he no longer had that concern at all.

Even when he circulated his skill and attacked, his hands merely looked bright red. Judging by appearance alone, no one could conclude that he was a poison cultivator.

After all, there were countless martial arts in the world. What was so strange about hands turning red? There were even techniques that turned the weapon below black or green.

Seeing this, Zou Feng suddenly understood.

No wonder Yang Yanpeng had clearly trained the Five Poisons Palm to Thorough Mastery, yet had never been willing to open his channels and enter the ranks.

Even when he was suddenly tormented by that "strange illness," he had insisted on waiting for Xu Haoran, the "human gu," to mature.

What he had craved most was precisely what Zou Feng now possessed: hands that, in both appearance and scent, no longer looked as if they had cultivated poison arts.

If a rank-entry cultivator of evil arts emerged in the Yang Estate, then at least on the surface, it would not be something presentable.

Though being discovered cultivating poison arts would not necessarily bring punishment, people would always be on guard against him.

If some major unsolved case involving poison occurred in the city, there was no need to mention whom the government constables would suspect first.

Everyone knew that cultivating poison arts meant tormenting one's own body with all kinds of poisons. It was very easy for that to gradually affect one's mind, making one turn to tormenting others.

And secretly using living people for experiments was even more commonplace.

So even if a poison cultivator had not harmed anyone for the moment, there was no guarantee they would not do so in the future.

Thus, it was perfectly normal for them to be unwelcome among famous orthodox sects.

But if Yang Yanpeng had ostensibly entered the ranks through a normal cultivation method, the treatment he would have received would have been worlds apart.

And since he would have been a high-quality rank-entry cultivator, the Yang Estate would immediately have gained another martial arts genius.

A genius who had originally had no hope, only to suddenly defy fate and change his destiny through "sudden enlightenment," would be even more eagerly talked about.

His arrogant younger sister, Yang Qianqian, would also have looked at her "useless" elder brother anew...

The next moment, Zou Feng suddenly stepped forward and walked to the wooden table by the wall.

Then he circulated his inner force, grabbed a corner of the wooden table, and exerted hidden force.

With a crack, the wooden table remained intact, but the two stools leaning against it fell apart at once.

Having inner qi really was convenient...

Zou Feng was immensely satisfied. Now, whether it was the Eastern Depot or the Western Depot, he dared to meddle in their affairs.

"If anyone asks later, I'll say these hands came from practicing some temporarily made-up technique like Flaming Palm or Red Flower Palm. That shouldn't seem out of place, right?"

In any case, once he found a suitable opportunity before long, he too could enter the ranks openly and aboveboard.

But he could not display too much "talent." For someone without any backing like him, that might instead invite all kinds of trouble.

Displaying talent required knowing where to draw the line.

He raised his head and looked out the window. It was getting later and later, and this was not a place to linger.

He did not know whether the family that had originally lived here had been harmed by Yang Yanpeng or sent away, but in any case, there was no one else around.

Still, Zou Feng found a bedsheet and wrapped up the corpse, preparing to dump it in the wilderness.

The large clay basin used to refine the gu poison also had to be disposed of.

It was not that Zou Feng was being overly cautious. He simply could not underestimate the martial artists of this world.

Who knew whether they possessed some unimaginable methods for investigating cases?

No matter how poorly regarded Yang Yanpeng had been, he was still the third young master of the Yang Estate. Yang Wu, the family head, could not possibly let this go so easily.

Not only would the authorities be mobilized, but Yang Zhengfei, the Yang Family's eldest young master who was currently serving in the Great Yan Dynasty's military, might even make a special trip back.

In short, the trouble he had caused was truly no small matter.

But fortunately, Heaven had favored him today. It had been raining the entire time, helping him cover up all kinds of traces.

And best of all, everyone knew that the Blood-Handed Butcher had been seeking revenge for his son lately and could strike from the shadows at any moment.

If he did not take the blame, who would?