"Bang!"
On the second floor of the Peaceful Inn, the sound of shattering porcelain came from the room next door.
A porcelain tea bowl lay in shards on the floor, its tea splashed across half the wall.
Yi Zhanzhi sat on the edge of the bed, his right arm secured with bamboo splints and wrapped in painfully tight bandages. Beneath them lay shattered bones that had been reset and torn fascia.
His young face was dark and brooding, utterly devoid of the vitality a seventeen-year-old should have possessed. All that remained was resentment and bitterness toward the world.
"Why had he alone ended up like this?"
"Why had he been made Zhang Songqing's opponent?"
"Why had he lost to Zhang Songqing, beaten like a dog in just a few moves and defeated before everyone? Wasn't he a genius?"
"Why?!"
Now that Yi Zhanzhi had awakened, a roar burst from the depths of his heart: "Someone tell me why!"
After treatment from the physician the martial arts hall had summoned, he could finally walk again.
But now, with every step Yi Zhanzhi took, fine threads of pain shot from the tendons in his feet all the way to his spine. The pain was not intense, but it lingered, lingering long enough to drive him mad.
That pain made him limp when he walked.
And he remembered every word the physician had said: "The deep damage to your muscles and bones has affected your meridians. My ordinary ointments can only keep it from worsening. To truly restore your martial foundation, you may need a restorative spirit medicine of Treasure Pill grade..."
A Treasure Pill-grade restorative spirit medicine?
That was something only Inner Qi Realm experts were qualified to touch, a resource for their cultivation. How could a small-town Lineage like his possibly