Life Was Actually Pretty Good

Autumn had deepened, and a month had passed in the blink of an eye.

Wang Qi dug two "beggar's chickens" out from beneath the fire and handed them to the others, then took a blissful sip of mushroom soup himself.

Beside him, Xu Sanlang and the others rubbed their hands together and began fighting over the two chickens, clearly well practiced by now... The five men had visibly "put on some padding" and looked very happy indeed.

"Here. You're still growing, so eat more meat." After a round of scrambling, Xu Sanlang tore off a drumstick and handed it to Wang Qi.

Wang Qi frowned on the spot.

Xu Sanlang hastily assured him, "I washed my hands. Don't worry!"

Only then did Wang Qi's brow ease a little, and he accepted the glistening, fragrant drumstick.

It was a golden pheasant he had hunted that day, a rare delicacy in the mountains.

The others merely grinned at this, without the slightest objection. One Military Marquis from the Sword and Shield Company even passed Wang Qi a wine gourd and said, "Little Qi, have some wine. The weather's turned cold; a drink will warm you up."

In just one month, the weather had changed dramatically.

Of course, this regular five-man hunting team had also grown much closer... Mainly, Wang Qi's relationship with them had improved considerably. They now called him by affectionate nicknames like "Little Qi," a clear sign of their familiarity.

Wang Qi, however, glanced at the wine gourd the Military Marquis offered and once again wore a look of distaste...

Seeing this, the Military Marquis said helplessly, "Don't worry. I bought this gourd new, especially for you, when I went down to the county town to buy wine. Stop looking at me like that."

After a month together, they had thoroughly figured out this little brat's temperament... He was terribly fussy and always turning his nose up at people.

Only after hearing that did Wang Qi feel a little better. He accepted the wine gourd, but still wiped its mouth with the hem of his clothes before taking a sip...

How should he put it? This cheap swill tasted as though it had been watered down, and its flavor was truly hard to describe.

Yet it gave Wang Qi a new idea. He wanted to see whether the Water-Cleansing Spell could purify wine as well!

No sooner thought than done.

He assumed his stance and gently shook the wine gourd in his hand...

But in the next instant, his internal qi flowed from his fingertips into the gourd. His mental energy rippled along with it, and he cast the Water-Cleansing Spell just like that!

Now, a month later, he could cast the Water-Cleansing Spell without chanting, and had even dispensed with every unnecessary movement.

He had discovered the true keys to the Water-Cleansing Spell: the frequency of internal qi that stirred Heaven and Earth Origin Energy into Spiritual Force, and the way mental energy acted upon it.

It all fell into place as naturally as water flowing into a channel once practice had made perfect. He could truly cast it with a casual motion, leaving no trace.

The wine inside the gourd also began separating into distinct layers...

First came the bottom of the gourd, where all the particles of impurities in the wine had been pressed down.

The lower layer of liquid was water with a faint scent of wine. Even he could not completely separate the alcohol from the water.

But the small amount at the very top was pure alcohol!

This was effectively distilled liquor...

He considered it for a moment, then shook the gourd again and abruptly turned it upside down. A stream of water immediately poured out...

By shaking it, he had brought the water and impurities from the lower layers to the top, then poured them out.

Even so, the process inevitably caused the alcohol in the upper layer to start mixing with the water.

Seeing this, Wang Qi stopped pouring, ended the Water-Cleansing Spell, then put the stopper back in and gave the wine gourd another shake.

The others watched in puzzlement, thinking Little Qi was turning his nose up at the wine again and about to pour it away... Yet when Wang Qi opened the gourd once more, they caught a rich, mellow aroma of liquor, a fragrance beyond anything they had imagined.

"Little Qi, what did you..." Xu Sanlang asked, swallowing hard.

"Try it and you'll know." Wang Qi handed them the wine gourd, not particularly interested in drinking it himself.

He felt this liquor "had no soul," and its flavor held no appeal for him.

But the Military Marquises were nowhere near so fussy. They passed it around, taking swigs until they had polished off the entire gourd.

Watching the men beside him boast away with liquor on their breath, Wang Qi resigned himself to his fate, got up, and scrubbed the pot and washed the bowls at the nearby mountain stream. Then he carefully stacked them together and put them into a large carrying basket.

By then, the Military Marquises reckoned it was about time to leave. The two from the Sword and Shield Company each shouldered a carrying basket, then hoisted a long wooden pole with two milu deer hanging from it. One in front and one behind, they rose together and headed back.

Their trip into the mountains had yielded a good haul that day. Those two deer would provide every soldier in the camp with a proper piece of meat.

They made their way down the mountain. Even with so much game, their pace did not slow, and they returned to camp in just under an hour.

After handing everything over to the cooks, they each went back to rest.

Wang Qi did not even enter the tent. He went straight to a corner beside it and sat down cross-legged.

The veteran officers would not be assigned to take the new recruits on night patrol until three months had passed, so for now, the officers still handled the patrols... They had grown used to this fussy recruit being unable to sleep in the communal sleeping quarters every night.

After a month, the weather had gradually turned cold, and at last fewer mosquitoes came to harass him.

Wang Qi circulated his qi as part of his daily practice, accumulating some internal qi before stopping. He only practiced a little to keep his feel for it; otherwise, he would start to regress.

Then he leaned back against the tent and sank into a deep sleep... He had hardly slept properly for a month. Now that the changing weather had reduced the mosquitoes, he could finally get a good night's sleep.

He had originally wondered whether he could make the internal qi in his body automatically transform into Inner Force and repel the mosquitoes... But he had failed. He realized that as long as he refrained from fully transforming his internal qi into Inner Force, he could not achieve this sort of automatic bodily protection. His conscious guidance was necessary.

Clearly, he had already taken the training of his internal qi to its limit without transforming it into Inner Force...

Perhaps because he had not slept properly for so long, his body also wanted to seize the chance to make some adjustments. Almost the instant he lay down, he sank into a deep sleep...

More precisely, his body fell asleep, while his consciousness remained awake.

It was a strange sensation. He seemed to hear his own heavy breathing, and could feel his weary body growing heavier and heavier, until it seemed bound layer upon layer in weighty shackles, utterly "unable to move."

Then Wang Qi began to "move."

He struggled to rise and escape those heavy "shackles"... Slowly, he sat up, then stood in a single motion.

Neither sorrow nor joy, nor could he allow himself emotions such as sorrow or joy.

He looked around, only to find everything before him dim and hazy. Only the braziers in front of the two nearest tents burned with dark green flames...

He could not make out anything in the distance, but there was something he remembered he needed to do, so he walked outward, step by step...

At first, he could still feel the pull of his physical body, as though it might drag him back at any moment. But the farther he walked, the lighter he gradually felt... The lightness of having cast off every restraint.