Would You Become My Nominal Disciple?

"Damn it, I still lost! If I can't even win this, how am I supposed to avenge all those wrongs? I refuse to accept it! I refuse!"

Xiao Feng sat bolt upright, every muscle in his body wracked with heart-rending pain.

With a muffled groan, Xiao Feng collapsed back onto the bed.

"Oh? Awake already? You really are tough!" Ouyang said in surprise, watching Xiao Feng sit up like a corpse springing back to life, only to fall back down.

"Who are you?" Lying on the bed, Xiao Feng gritted his teeth against the agony and asked.

"My name's Ouyang. I'm the one who rescued you. You really were gambling with your life-all your meridians severed, all your bones shattered. Without me, you probably wouldn't have woken up at all," Ouyang said smugly.

"I, Xiao Feng, will repay this kindness. Sorry, but I'd like to rest!" Xiao Feng closed his eyes and spoke with a sour expression.

Fuck, he's exactly like Xiao Bai when he first came up the mountain.

Strutting around like he owns the place, acting as though the whole world owes him.

Ouyang had no intention of indulging these heaven's favorites and their rotten tempers. Xiao Bai had been just as arrogant back then, and hadn't Ouyang knocked him into line?

Ouyang threw back the covers, seized Xiao Feng by the neck, and lifted him straight up. Looking at him with a cold smile, he said, "Settle your medical bill. Ten top-grade spirit stones in total."

Xiao Feng had only just closed his eyes when a tremendous force yanked him up. He opened them to find Ouyang wearing a vicious expression. Unable to catch up with what was happening, he asked, "What medical bill?"

"What are you playing dumb for? Blood-Activating Pills, Sinew-Soothing Pills, bone-setting, wound salve... did you think all the medicine that saved your life fell out of the sky?" Ouyang demanded, pulling Xiao Feng right up to his face.

Xiao Feng swallowed. For five years, he had trained day in and day out by carrying iron-gold wood, making no contribution whatsoever to the Azure Cloud Sect. Naturally, he received no share of the resources the sect distributed each month.

Ten Top-Grade Crystal Stones? I can't even scrape together one low-grade crystal stone.

"I'll owe you this money for now. In the future, I'll repay you a hundredfold, a thousandfold!" Xiao Feng said with a displeased frown.

"Repay me? With what? You nearly went to see the King of Hell just fighting some trash in the Foundation Establishment Realm. You think you can do it?" Ouyang sneered.

Xiao Feng closed his eyes. He had heard mockery like this countless times over the years, so it stirred nothing in him.

Seeing that Xiao Feng was impervious to anything he said, Ouyang changed tack. "Root bone stolen, parents murdered, brothers' betrayal, fiancée breaking off the engagement-which of those happened to you?"

Generally, a failure-type protagonist like Xiao Feng was bound to have a tragic beginning. Ouyang just didn't know which category he belonged to.

At Ouyang's words, Xiao Feng's eyes snapped open. "Who exactly are you?" he growled. "How do you know about these things?"

"??? These things? Good grief, you got the whole set!" Looking at the furious Xiao Feng, Ouyang couldn't help clicking his tongue. Even he wouldn't believe anyone who claimed this fellow wasn't a protagonist. His buffs were stacked that high!

Looking at the furious Xiao Feng, Ouyang also understood that Xiao Feng now believed he knew about his past and had therefore come specifically to target him.

Ouyang tossed Xiao Feng back onto the bed and said flatly, "Does it matter who I am? What matters is that this is all you've achieved in five years. When exactly will you finish avenging all those wrongs?"

With the scars in his heart torn open, Xiao Feng couldn't take in a word Ouyang said. Like an enraged lion, he hurled abuse at him. "You bastard! Kill me if you've got the guts! Don't stand there pretending to be merciful. You want to use me again? On any other day, I'd smash you dead with one punch!"

Seeing that Xiao Feng was clearly somewhat out of his mind, Ouyang burst out laughing. He took a white jade bottle from inside his robes and tipped out a pill.

The moment the pill emerged, a rich medicinal fragrance filled the entire room.

Ouyang raised his hand and stuffed the pill into Xiao Feng's mouth, then worked his jaw to make him swallow it.

Xiao Feng was just about to curse at Ouyang and demand to know what he had made him eat when he suddenly felt warmth spreading through his limbs and bones, which had been in unbearable pain.

When the warm current faded, Xiao Feng discovered, to his astonishment, that his body had recovered by seventy or eighty percent!

Something that could heal my body so quickly must be at least a seventh-grade spirit medicine!

Pills were divided into nine grades. Starting with the lowest, ninth-grade Qi Refining Pills, the difficulty of refining them increased exponentially with each rise in grade.

To heal my body that quickly, it must be a high-grade pill of at least the sixth or seventh grade!

For a moment, Xiao Feng couldn't work out whether the Ouyang before him was an enemy or a friend.

But the pill he had swallowed was undeniably real.

Saving him one moment and mocking him the next-just what sort of person was Ouyang, and what did he want? For a moment, Xiao Feng was utterly bewildered.

But then he understood. A vast surge of true qi emanated from Ouyang, almost crushing him to pieces!

The entire room became thick and viscous, as though he had fallen into a vat of paste. Xiao Feng couldn't even muster the strength to breathe.

Xiao Feng looked in horror at the calm-faced Ouyang before him and said, "With the way you are now? You'll only ever be able to slaughter your way through the Foundation Establishment Realm."

Who exactly is he? Why is his aura so terrifying when he looks about my age? What kind of monster is he? Xiao Feng stared at Ouyang in horror.

Before such vast true qi, he was like a lone skiff upon the ocean. Forget resisting-even keeping himself seated there was extraordinarily difficult.

"Want to solve the problem of having no dantian and being unable to cultivate?" Ouyang whispered like a devil.

"You have a way to fix my body?" Xiao Feng's eyes lit up as he asked Ouyang eagerly.

Before Xiao Feng lost consciousness, Ouyang had discovered that, although Xiao Feng no longer had a dantian, his body still involuntarily absorbed the primal energy of heaven and earth and used it to strengthen itself.

Who knew how these heaven's favorites had grown up? Even with his dantian destroyed and his root bone gouged out, he could still absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth!

Comparing yourself to others really could make you die of anger!

However, the rate at which he absorbed the primal energy of heaven and earth was extremely slow. Had Ouyang not been well versed in medicine, he would never have noticed the clues.

A bold idea immediately arose in Ouyang's mind. Now the main issue was how to get this stubborn mule up the mountain.

"I do have a way, but you'll have to pay a price!" Ouyang said, looking at Xiao Feng, who seemed to have grasped a life-saving straw.

Xiao Feng said resolutely, "Whatever the price, as long as you can solve the problem with my body, I'm willing to do anything!"

"Then would you be willing to become my crotch... er, no, my nominal disciple?" Ouyang coughed and asked.

"Your disciple? Who are you?" Xiao Feng asked, looking at Ouyang in confusion.

Ouyang withdrew his true qi and stood with his hands behind his back. "I am Ouyang, eldest senior brother of Little Mountain Peak, one of the Azure Cloud Sect's twelve peaks!" he said calmly.