Mutant Dragon Carp, a Super-Potent Medicine

The next day.

Before dawn had fully broken, the bluestone slabs in the Ye Residence's rear courtyard rang with another clattering racket.

Qin Geng stood bare-chested, the cold iron and black gold chains still wound around his waist and limbs, his feet in those fifty-pound iron shoes.

But today, the sound was nothing like yesterday's.

Yesterday, it had been bang, bang, bang—the sound of him hauling with brute force, pitting himself against dead metal. The chains had pulled taut, iron meeting iron.

Today, the sound was lighter, more scattered.

"Clatter—clatter—"

Qin Geng no longer struck those broad, sweeping stances.

He stood in place with his eyes half-closed, breathing slow and deep, as though he had fallen asleep.

But a closer look revealed the muscles across his body trembling ever so slightly.

He was not shivering. Beneath his skin, tendons were springing and flesh was quivering.

A current of force rose from the Bubbling Spring Acupoint in the sole of his foot, climbed his leg bones, passed his knees, entered his hips, traveled up the great dragon of his spine, then spread through every limb and bone.

"Rise."

Qin Geng barely moved his lips.

His body scarcely shifted. His shoulders gave the slightest sway, and his waist and hips settled.

The black chains covering him suddenly writhed like long snakes struck by lightning.

They were not trembling because they had been pulled taut.

A wave of force traveled through Qin Geng's flesh and into the iron links.

"Clang-clang-clang—"

The links struck one another in a string of crisp chimes. Gone was the dull sound of dead force; there was life in their movement.

That shaking force traveled all the way down the chain riveted to the Mount Tai Stone Guardian. Even the ten-thousand-pound boulder trembled faintly, shedding a fine dust of