Hoodwinking His Beautiful Master's Wife

"Thump! Thump!"

Two punches turned his junior martial sister into a national treasure once again, and one final punch knocked her unconscious.

"Women are nothing but trouble!"

After that grumble, Tian Hao hoisted the girl over his shoulder and headed toward his master's wife's courtyard.

"Didn't I tell you not to train her that way?"

Seeing her daughter's miserable state, Ning Zhongze was filled with heartache and shot an irritated glare at the disciple before her.

She had clearly told him not to use that training method. Why had he gone and used it today?

"Madam, here's what happened. My junior martial sister challenged me today, and after she lost, she refused to accept it. You know how determined she is to come out on top, so she specifically asked me to put her through orthodox Horizontal Crab Iron Shirt training."

Tian Hao delivered his spiel with a perfectly straight face. He would never admit that he had forced his junior martial sister to practice the Orthodox Horizontal Crab Iron Shirt. It was all because she was too determined to come out on top.

"Besides, once the Dictionary and Pinyin are released, the pressure our Mount Hua Sect faces probably won't come from the Jianghu alone. There will be pressure from outside it, too. If my junior martial sister becomes stronger, you and Master can rest easier, can't you?"

Tian Hao added that final point, knowing his beautiful master's wife would surely tacitly approve of the extra training he was giving his junior-martial-sister cheat.

"How soon can Shan'er bring her Horizontal Crab Iron Shirt to the entry-level realm?"

Ning Zhongze had still been displeased, but his last remark made her fall silent for a moment. Instead, she asked about her daughter's training progress.

The release of the Dictionary and Pinyin would indeed bring the Mount Hua Sect tremendous prestige, but fortune and calamity went hand in hand. Holding firmly on to that prestige would not be easy.

The coming storm would be no small affair!

"My junior martial sister has excellent natural aptitude. As long as she's willing to work hard and has enough medicinal cuisine to support her, she can bring the Horizontal Crab Iron Shirt to the entry-level realm and complete her first shedding of skin in twenty days at most."

Seeing that his beautiful master's wife was indeed tempted, Tian Hao hurried to give his assurance.

Yue Lingshan already had excellent natural aptitude, two points higher than even Ning Zhongze's, making her particularly well suited to external martial arts.

With the added benefits of the Hot-Cold Body Tempering Method, reaching the entry-level realm in the Horizontal Crab Iron Shirt within twenty days would be no problem at all.

"The Eight-Treasure Precious Soup is simmering over there. Go bring it over."

Without saying anything more, Ning Zhongze picked up her daughter and carried her into the inner room of her bedchamber, intending to examine her condition so no hidden injuries would be left behind that might prove difficult to heal.

Tian Hao eagerly trotted to the kitchen, brought over the finished Eight-Treasure Precious Soup, and grabbed two large bowls as well.

He sat down at the table in the outer room of his junior martial sister's bedchamber, first setting aside two large bowls of chicken soup for her and her mother. He polished off the rest himself, swallowing even the chicken bones and medicinal dregs.

"Shan'er broke through?"

After completing her preliminary examination and confirming that there were no serious hidden injuries, Ning Zhongze emerged with surprise and uncertainty on her face.

By her calculations, her daughter should have needed at least another six months before she could break through to the inner qi realm. Yet her examination just now had revealed a strand of inner qi in her meridians.

Though it was still very weak and clearly newly formed, she had indeed crossed that threshold.

"This is the AFK Training Method I developed based on the Self-Hypnosis Method. By circulating one's energy for long periods to resist external heat and cold, the circulation of the technique becomes part of one's subconscious instincts. That allows uninterrupted training for all twenty-four hours of the day, even during sleep.

"Of course, my junior martial sister is still a long way from that level.

"At the same time, constantly circulating and consuming internal energy to resist external heat and cold is itself a form of tempering that energy. With the nourishment from the Eight-Treasure Precious Soup on top of that, my junior martial sister was able to break through ahead of schedule."

Tian Hao presented the fruits of his research as though angling for praise. In truth, he had long since set his sights on his beautiful master's wife.

After all, she had become one of his cheats as well. If she could reach the innate realm and improve her innate qi attribute, those gains would feed back into him too.

Moreover, Ning Zhongze had long since broken through to the Houtian Realm. If she truly set about making a breakthrough, she would progress faster than Yue Lingshan.

Unfortunately, his master's wife was rather strong. He could not beat her, so he had no way to forcibly help her train.

That left him with no choice but to take a roundabout route to his goal and patiently coax her along.

"You can train like that?"

Ning Zhongze was dumbfounded. She had truly never imagined such a way of training, yet on closer consideration, it seemed quite reasonable.

"Instinctive circulation probably isn't as efficient as focused circulation, but the gains would still be considerable as the days and months accumulate. You would just need sufficient medicinal nourishment, or your body would inevitably be depleted."

After some serious consideration, Ning Zhongze drew on her own cultivation and quickly worked out most of the implications of this training method.

Even if instinctive cultivation was less efficient, keeping it running without interruption for twenty-four hours a day would at least double one's training speed.

The only thing to watch out for was ensuring sufficient medicinal nourishment. After all, the energy required for internal cultivation did not appear out of thin air; it was extracted from the body. Ordinary grains alone could not sustain that kind of expenditure. Medicinal ingredients would have to make up the difference, and the expense would certainly be considerable.

"It's only a few medicinal ingredients. As long as Master successfully brings back the treasure from Guan Family Fort, our Mount Hua Sect could afford to drink one bowl of medicinal cuisine and pour another away."

Tian Hao seized the opportunity to speak. He had planned this long ago.

He had never intended to monopolize all that treasure. For one thing, there was only so much he could use himself.

The level of consumption in this world was only so high. With too much money, he would have nowhere to spend it. Besides, he was interested only in martial arts and cared little for other worldly possessions.

For another, he knew of two enormous treasures, both within the neighboring Qing Kingdom: Chuang Wang's Treasure and the Hui Tribe's White Jade Mountain.

In the original story, Chuang Wang had stormed the Great Ming capital and confiscated the property of nearly half its officials. The silver alone amounted to seventy million taels, with countless gold pieces and jewels besides, not to mention all those precious antiques.

Compared with Chuang Wang's Treasure, Guan Family Fort's wealth was the little brother of little brothers.

Even more outrageous was the Hui Tribe's White Jade Mountain. Jade was already precious, and white jade was among the finest kinds, worth far more than gold.

Just imagine how much an entire White Jade Mountain could sell for!

The figure would definitely be measured in hundreds of millions!

As long as he secured those two great treasures in the future, he would never have to worry about having money to spend.

Of course, obtaining those treasures and transporting them back to the Mount Hua Sect would be difficult. At the very least, he would need sufficient strength and influence. He would have to lie low and build himself up first.

And Mount Hua was his foundation!

"Madam, these are the new undergarments I designed for my junior martial sister. They'll expose as much skin as possible for her Horizontal Crab Iron Shirt training. Sorry for the trouble, but please make them tonight so she can wear them and continue training tomorrow.

"I still have things to do, so I'll head back first."

Taking out the drawing and handing it to his beautiful master's wife, Tian Hao rose and headed outside.

Time was gold. How could he waste it?

Besides, he had just drunk an entire basin of Eight-Treasure Precious Soup. This was the perfect time to push hard with his training.

As Ning Zhongze looked at the simple sketch in her hands, even she, an experienced married woman, felt her lovely face flush with embarrassment.

"What on earth goes through that boy's head?"

She inwardly spat out the remark, yet the new undergarments in the drawing refused to leave her mind.

They seemed... genuinely much better than a bellyband.

"Stop pretending to sleep. Get up and drink your soup."

Putting away the drawing, she shot an irritated look at her daughter, who was lying in bed feigning sleep. The girl might fool Tian Hao, but how could she fool her own mother, a Houtian Realm expert?

"Mother, I don't want to train Iron Shirt with that damned rat anymore."

Seeing that she had been exposed, Yue Lingshan swiftly hopped out of bed and ran over, clinging to her mother's arm as she protested.

If this went on, that damned rat would torment her to death.

"Indeed, I can't let you keep practicing orthodox Iron Shirt with him. Men and women must observe proper boundaries, after all. From now on, I'll personally help you train Iron Shirt."

Ning Zhongze wholeheartedly agreed with her daughter. Though women of the Jianghu were less concerned about such matters, they were not women of the Miao frontier, after all. They could not dress so boldly in front of outsiders.

"Mother, you don't love me anymore!"

The first half of her mother's words had delighted the girl, but the second half left her mind utterly blank. She looked as aggrieved as an abandoned puppy.