Teaching Tang Sanmei a Lesson with Tang Buddha's Own Knowledge

Night fell. Cold rain still pattered outside the smithy, but a dim oil lamp burned inside the shabby wooden house.

Creak.

The battered door, only recently repaired, was pushed open with great care.

Tang Sanmei came in carrying a wooden basin wider than her waist, huffing with every step.

It held freshly heated water, carefully mixed until it was pleasantly hot but nowhere near hot enough to scald.

She carried the basin to the bedside, then knelt with practiced ease. Only after wiping her soft, fair hands over and over on her coarse clothes did she look up at Huo Yuhao, her clear eyes blinking.

"Senior Brother, the water's ready. Third Lady will wash your feet."

Sitting at the head of the bed, Huo Yuhao watched the surreal scene before him. He took a deep breath and forced down the urge to throw back his head and howl with laughter.

"Mm."

Huo Yuhao nodded without expression and extended his feet with an air of aloof authority.

Tang Sanmei cradled his rather skinny little feet as though they were precious treasures and carefully lowered them into the warm water.

Her touch was gentle. Her slender fingers kneaded the pressure points on his soles, and she even used massage techniques from the Tang Sect of her previous life to ease his meridians.

Comfortable.

In his heart, Huo Yuhao gave this VIP treatment full marks.

Not only was he unmoved, he deliberately found fault:

"You're pressing too hard on the left. Didn't the outer sect teach you to follow the meridians of the Mysterious Heaven Skill when giving a massage?"

"Yes! Third Lady was wrong. I'll fix it right away!"

Far from getting angry, Tang Sanmei hurriedly adjusted her touch. Her little face flushed red with guilt.

Just as Huo Yuhao was enjoying a future God King washing his feet as though it were his due, his keen senses picked up a murderous gaze fixed on him from outside the window.

Huo Yuhao turned his head slightly. By a faint flash of lightning, he met a pair of huge, bell-like eyes pressed to the gap in the window.

Outside stood the mighty Clear Sky Douluo, Tang Hao, his messy hair soaked by the rain. He watched his own daughter, whom he treasured above all else, kneeling to wash some wild boy's feet. His eyes looked ready to bulge and bleed.

Crunch, crunch...

Huo Yuhao could even hear Tang Hao grinding his back teeth to pieces outside.

Faced with that murderous stare, Huo Yuhao made no attempt to restrain himself. Instead, he leaned back provocatively and let out a contented hum.

"Third Lady, that feels good. Put a little more strength into the right foot."

"Of course, Senior Brother!"

Tang Sanmei's answer rang out loud and clear.

Tang Hao swayed outside the window and clutched his chest, nearly spraying a mouthful of blood onto the window paper.

Afraid he would flatten the smithy with one swing of his hammer if he kept watching, he could only stalk off next door, face black as thunder, to vent his rage at the forge.

Hearing the earthshaking clang of hammering from next door, Huo Yuhao sneered inwardly.

You can't take this much?

This is only the appetizer.

"All right. Dry them."

Huo Yuhao spoke coolly.

Tang Sanmei hurriedly took out a clean scrap of cloth and dried his feet with meticulous care.

Then she carried the basin away, poured out the water, and returned to stand properly before the bed, head lowered and tense as she awaited her test.

"Senior Brother... you said you would test how well I've mastered our sect's secret arts tonight..."

Tang Sanmei twisted the corner of her clothes around her fingers.

Huo Yuhao sat cross-legged on the bed and looked down at her.

He did not test her by making her recite formulas. He knew the little girl had memorized the Tang Sect Secret Arts in her previous life; recitation posed no challenge to her.

She knew the stages of the Purple Demon Eye and the blueprints for peerless hidden weapons like the back of her hand.

A sharp gleam flashed through Huo Yuhao's eyes, and he spoke without warning:

"While you were attending to me, I took the opportunity to examine your aura. The Mysterious Heaven Skill in your body is stuck at the peak of the first level, isn't it? No matter how desperately you meditate, you can't advance another inch."

At those words, Tang Sanmei jerked her head up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. Disbelief filled her clear eyes.

She had been stuck at the first-level bottleneck of the Mysterious Heaven Skill for months!

Countless times, she had wondered whether she was simply too dull in this life or had taken a wrong turn in her training. The worry kept her awake night after night.

Yet she had not told even her dearest father, Tang Hao!

She had only been attending to Senior Brother. He had not even taken her pulse, yet he had seen through her greatest difficulty at a glance!

"S-Senior Brother, how did you know?"

Tang Sanmei's voice trembled, her eyes full of awe for someone far beyond her.

The shock on this female version of Tang San's face delighted Huo Yuhao, but outwardly he remained cold and inscrutable.

"How did I know? Because you're stupid!"

Huo Yuhao gave her a merciless scolding.

"You think memorizing the dead rules in the Mysterious Heaven Treasure Record will let you roam the world unhindered? Where are we? This isn't Bashu! This is an entirely new world!"

Tang Sanmei trembled under the rebuke and hastily lowered her head, hardly daring to breathe.

Huo Yuhao pressed on with his overwhelming bluff:

"You cling to that pure internal-energy cultivation method from your previous life, building a cart behind closed doors. It's unbelievably foolish! This world has a strange energy of its own called Soul Power! For the Mysterious Heaven Skill to break through the first level here, you must adapt to this world and perfectly fuse its internal energy with this world's Soul Power System!"

"Once they're fused, your internal energy won't merely flow without end. It'll undergo changes you can't even imagine! You don't understand something as basic as adapting to local customs and improving a cultivation method, yet you dare boast that you'll rebuild the Tang Sect?"

Tang Sanmei stood there like a wooden chicken.

Fuse with the energy of another world?

Improve the Mysterious Heaven Skill!

To someone bound by the rigid traditions of her previous life, such a thought—one that shattered the rules laid down by her ancestors—was a thunderbolt from a clear sky!

But when she thought it over, Senior Brother was right!

"And it isn't just the Mysterious Heaven Skill."

Huo Yuhao decided to carry his show of superiority through to the end.

"So what if you know the theory behind the Mustard Seed stage of the Purple Demon Eye? In this world, you must link your training in the Purple Demon Eye to opening your own Sea of Consciousness before you can unleash a Purple Demon Light that takes tangible form! That method of staring stupidly at the sun every morning to absorb purple qi is as slow as a crawling snail!"

Tang Sanmei was stunned!

As she gazed at Huo Yuhao on the bed, every word from his mouth seeming a pearl, her admiration soared beyond the heavens.

So this was the breadth of vision an inner-sect disciple possessed!

Senior Brother had already fused the Tang Sect Secret Arts perfectly with this other world!

No wonder she was still struggling at the first level while Senior Brother could see so far ahead.

Thud!

Tang Sanmei's knees gave way, and she dropped heavily to the floor.

"Senior Brother's rebuke is deserved! Third Lady was foolish. I clung to old rules and nearly ruined the Tang Sect's future!"

Her eyes reddened, and Tang Sanmei shook with emotion.

"Senior Brother, please—no... Sect Master, please show me the way! Third Lady swears she'll obey you and never make such a basic mistake again!"