Half-Step Crushing Fist, Dragon Vein Shattered

Early morning, in the rear courtyard of the Ye Residence.

Dawn had barely broken. The air still held the night's chill, and a thin layer of white frost coated the bluestone paving.

Qin Geng stood before the Iron Pearwood post he had already battered and scarred, holding the Nine-Turn Bear-Snake Pill he had exchanged for at the Imperial Treasury.

The moment he opened the porcelain bottle, a pungent, fishy medicinal smell shot up his nose. It was anything but fragrant, carrying the rank musk and feverish heat of a wild beast.

"Swallow it."

Ye Lanzen sat in a wicker chair, rolling two iron balls in his hand without even raising his eyelids.

Qin Geng did not hesitate. He tipped his head back and swallowed.

The pill dissolved on his tongue and rolled down his throat. It felt less like medicine than a red-hot coal going down whole.

Boom!

Within three breaths of the pill reaching his stomach, a violently hot current exploded inside him.

It was not a comforting warmth. It was a wildfire.

The heat rampaged through his meridians and surged into every limb and bone.

Qin Geng felt all thirty-six thousand pores on his body burst open at once. The veins beneath his skin throbbed as though they carried magma instead of blood.

The feverish heat sent panic rising in his chest. He wanted to let it out, to kill, to tear everything before him to pieces.

"Chain me up!"

Qin Geng growled, his voice hoarse. His eyes turned bloodshot in an instant.

Xiao Wei hurried over and deftly fastened the two wrist-thick black iron chains around Qin Geng's waist and limbs.

Click.

The locks snapped into place.

Iron shoes went onto his feet. Cast from pig iron, they were cold, hard, and painful against his feet.

Qin