Juicy gossip

Ye Wuyou was stuffing his face.

"Spring Peach, Summer Pear, Autumn Melon, Winter Jujube... that old man has no shame."

Lamenting the decline of public morals, he wolfed down the food prepared exclusively for him. Filling his stomach brought Ye Wuyou a small, contented sense of happiness.

After all, he was the only cultivator in the entire residence still tempering his body.

Everyone else was at the first realm or above.

Body tempering required not only medicinal baths, but also plenty of meat.

That was why he had gone to work at the Heavenly Prison in the first place.

With a lamb leg in one hand and a pig's trotter in the other, Ye Wuyou felt a little thirsty, so he raised a cup of medicinal wine supposedly specially prepared by Spring Peach and took a sip.

It burned going down, but cut through the grease just enough.

That hit the spot.

Just as Ye Wuyou was about to resume feasting, he looked ahead and suddenly froze.

Both his hands were holding food, so how had he drunk the wine?

He focused his gaze, then focused harder, staring at the wine cup floating before him.

At last, in what had seemed empty space, Ye Wuyou spotted a third hand.

The arm was an eerie blue, its skin somewhat shriveled, with sharp claws at its fingertips. It was holding his wine cup for him.

The corner of Ye Wuyou's mouth twitched. Some unpleasant memories from the Heavenly Prison resurfaced in his mind.

"I ate it... ate that anomaly, or rather, ate that great Dao remnant?"

Ye Wuyou had originally thought "eating" simply meant destroying the thing in the literal sense.

But now, what was happening to his body forced him to think hard about the connection.

Had I become an anomaly?

Or had I gained that anomaly's ability?

[What difficulty is there in devouring a mere great Dao remnant? Never mind a remnant-even if a true Great Dao of old stood before you, you could easily devour it and turn it to your own use.]

For once, the damned narrator's explanation proved somewhat useful.

That anomaly... could be put to my use?

At that thought, Ye Wuyou willed it to happen.

A second hand, a third, a fourth...

They slowly emerged from his chest, one after another, without damaging his skin or clothing in the slightest.

Ye Wuyou tried controlling them. These Ghost Hands seemed to obey his will, moving however he pleased. They were even... remarkably nimble.

It was as though they had grown on his body... though, right now, they really were on his body.

And not just his chest-these eerie hands could extend from any part of his body. Any part.

As for their number, that was tied to their strength.

Ye Wuyou left his room, checked that no one was around, and went to a corner of the courtyard where a stone training weight sat.

Dust had already settled on it. Clearly, this piece of equipment intended for body tempering had not been used in a long time.

First, he summoned a single Ghost Hand. It easily lifted the hundred-kilogram stone weight.

Then let's make more.

Only when he had ten Ghost Hands out at once did each individual hand begin to weaken, becoming unable to lift it.

"I can keep making more Ghost Hands, but the strength of each will gradually drop to that of an ordinary person.

"They seem much weaker than that monster in the cell, but strength isn't the key..."

Strength was not the key.

Invisibility-almost absolute concealment-was the key.

Imagine two cultivators of the same realm fighting: one's attacks were visible, while the other's "moves" could not be observed.

Ye Wuyou knew very little about cultivation and was unsure whether this world had methods for toughening the body, but at least from what he had seen so far...

Leaving aside the three middle realms, those in the third realm and below all followed the path of high offense and low defense.

One sudden sneak attack often worked better than going to the ends of the earth with all your effort.

Ye Wuyou stared at his Ghost Hand for a long while before finally willing it back into his body.

Gaining an unexpected power certainly delighted him, yet he could not shake the vague feeling that something was wrong.

Could humans subdue anomalies?

Or rather, what had these monsters called anomalies-or great Dao remnants-originally been?

"Young master."

A soft call interrupted his thoughts.

Autumn Melon came jogging over with a plate of melons. With every step, both the melons on her plate and the melons on her chest bounced.

"Young master, you're working so hard at your cultivation. I imagine you'll finish tempering your body in just a few days. Have some melon first."

Ye Wuyou reined in his wandering gaze, silently picked up a piece of melon from the plate, and took a bite, savoring it.

"How is it?" Autumn Melon tilted her head up and asked with a beaming smile.

Ye Wuyou considered for a moment, then raised a thumb.

"Fresh and tender, crisp and refreshing. Delicious and juicy."

He had already lived in this little courtyard for half a month, and his body-tempering practice was nearing its end.

Of course, that was with the help of a heap of medicinal herbs and precious ingredients that Ye Wuyou could never have afforded before.

Body tempering was the starting point of cultivation, so naturally, it was not particularly difficult. Spend enough money, and even a pig could temper its body.

Zhao Changhe had not shown his face again after that first visit, and Ye Wuyou had grown considerably more familiar with the four women.

Only then had he learned that, apart from Spring Peach, the other three were not Zhao Changhe's disciples. Even Spring Peach was only half a disciple.

These four were the Heavenly Prison warden's maids, sent to look after him.

"The warden is busy. Often, ten days or half a month goes by without a single visit home. We have nothing else to do anyway, and with Lord Zhao's fiery temper, how could he possibly look after your daily needs, young master...?"

The image of that middle-aged scholar in gray from the other day surfaced in his mind, along with the words he had exchanged with the "him" of that moment.

He had been outrageously arrogant then, only to have the other man slap him down the very next second. A classic villain moment.

And the man had seemingly been able to see the "anomaly," too.

Then had he noticed that I swallowed Ghost, and was that why he was taking such good care of me?

Or perhaps this wasn't care at all, but surveillance?

Ye Wuyou's gaze swept over Autumn Melon as he asked casually.

"Autumn Melon, you're in the second realm too. What cultivation method do you practice?"

Autumn Melon, who was holding the melons and eating some herself, paused, then answered with a bright smile.

"I practice formations... why the sudden question, young master? Could it be you've taken an interest in me? That won't do. I'm the warden's maid."

Ye Wuyou gave a light cough. "Just curious. Take Spring Peach-she's already a second-realm physician, but she's still studying under old Zhao. Doesn't your warden teach you?"

Although his impression of the warden who had sent him flying with one punch was hardly favorable, the man's strength was beyond question.

With someone like that around, what was there to learn from Zhao Changhe?

But as soon as he spoke, a faint trace of melancholy flickered across Autumn Melon's smiling face, vanishing in an instant.

"What the warden studies... isn't something we can learn."

Ye Wuyou blinked. Sensing something amiss in the atmosphere, he did not press her further.

Still, Ye Wuyou did not think the words "can't learn" applied to him.

With the Formless Heart Sutra in hand, techniques were just like wives-the best ones in the world were always someone else's!

Autumn Melon left, carrying her heavy melons.

But just before leaving, she stood at the courtyard entrance and said with a somewhat affected, bashful smile,

"If any of us catches your eye, young master, you can have a word with the warden someday."