Master

In the fourteenth year of Qingying in Great Yu, a bleak autumn wind swept through the Buddhist gates and halls of Silver Terrace Temple. The Xiang Prince Consort had given birth to Yin Tingxue then. Nearly seventeen years later, Chen Yi faced that same autumn wind.

Fragments of flame drifted through the Buddhist gates on the wind, like the fleeting flowers in Buddhist Sutras. The bodhisattva's face had become indistinct.

Yin Tingxue gasped for breath. Watching her, Chen Yi felt conflicted, both hating and pitying her.

A trace of disgust flashed through the girl's eyes.

This was the man who had appeared in her dream. This time, he had not severed her Longevity Bridge, but was forcing her to become his concubine.

At the thought, Yin Tingxue gritted her teeth.

If I ever get the chance... I'll repay every bit of this!

After a long while, she actually spoke first.

"You... didn't you want a wedding night? Then come on."

Her expression was resolute.

Chen Yi came back to his senses and sneered, clearly paying no heed to her resolve.

If anything, the more resolute she was, the better.

That made it more exciting.

"Little Holy Maiden, what makes you think I'm so desperate for a wedding night?"

Chen Yi countered,

"Would a Hundred Household of the Western Depot lack women?"

Hearing this, Yin Tingxue instantly felt a little unnerved.

Chen Yi reached out and twirled the ends of the hair hanging beside her cheek.

"Why should I be in such a hurry to enjoy you? You're already my concubine anyway."

Yin Tingxue shuddered. Only then did she finally understand that the man before her wanted more than her beauty.

He wanted... to humiliate her...

"No, you can't do this! ...I'm Prince Xiang's daughter, of Emperor Xiaozong's line, whose posthumous title is the Sacred, Divine, Civil, Martial, Reverent, Enlightened, Fortune-Inaugurating, Eminently Virtuous, Filial Emperor..."

As though she had finally caught hold of a lifeline, Yin Tingxue invoked the Previous Emperor's name as a threat.

A smile appeared on Chen Yi's face.

Yin Tingxue felt a flicker of unease.

"Then go beat the grievance drum and see whether it's my head that falls, or the heads of everyone in the Xiang Prince's Residence."

Chen Yi took her hand and egged her on.

"Go on, go on, Pure Saintess. Go on. Don't tell me you don't know the way. Shall I take you there?"

Yin Tingxue's pupils contracted in shock and fear. Once again, Chen Yi had exposed the cruel truth: she had no choice at all.

No matter how Chen Yi tugged, she dared neither walk nor move. Cold sweat covered her neck.

[Negative emotions: 70]

Yin Tingxue looked at Chen Yi, deeply afraid inside. She could not say a word.

Smiling, Chen Yi patted his enemy's cheek.

How could Yin Tingxue fail to feel the humiliation in that? Yet she could only stand still.

Chen Yi took something out of his robe.

There was some seal paste and an eight-year maidservant contract.

Chen Yi surveyed the girl's terrified, despairing face.

"You know what to do."

She was a stubborn woman.

When he had told her she had no choice, she had promptly pressed his hand against her chest.

But beneath that stubborn exterior lay weakness.

Trembling slightly, Yin Tingxue raised her hand, pressed it into the seal paste, and finally pressed it down on the yellowed contract paper.

"I... am yours..."

Compared with her earlier resolve, her voice sounded somewhat despairing.

"And?"

The corners of Chen Yi's mouth lifted as he looked toward a certain spot.

"That's not enough. Surely you don't intend to keep calling me by name?"

[Negative emotions: 75]

"And..."

Yin Tingxue's eyes instantly reddened, and her ears burned. Yet she could only lower her head. Struggling, she forced herself to utter the word.

"Master..."

[Negative emotions: 80]

[Conditions met. Grudge Yin-Yang Art triggered.]

[You met with your enemy. During this encounter, your heart stirred repeatedly, feeling both hatred and pity for her. Together with her negative emotions toward you, this increased your cultivation.]

[First circulation of the art: gained seven years of True Qi. Reward for Yin Tingxue's negative emotions: three years of True Qi.]

[Lifespan: three years. Afflicted with an unusual poison.]

[True Qi remaining: twenty years.]

[Excess True Qi can be condensed into True Essence.]

Reading this, Chen Yi felt a comfortable warmth in his dantian, as though something were flowing through his meridians. His limbs felt more nimble and stronger than before.

Looking at the trembling Yin Tingxue, Chen Yi smiled.

Then he reached out and jabbed her hard in the hollow of her waist.

That's for severing my meridians.

I'll jab you in the waist!

Yin Tingxue trembled. Her legs went weak, and she toppled forward into Chen Yi's arms.

Chen Yi felt the girl trembling.

Then something occurred to him, and he looked at the panel.

[Jiao-Slaying Saber Technique (not yet learned).]

This was an important combat technique in the early stages, but he had too little True Qi at present. Looking at the True Qi on the panel, Chen Yi hesitated. Should he pour all of it in?

Apart from the Yin-Yang Art, were there any techniques that could increase True Qi...?

Then Chen Yi's gaze slowly shifted downward.

Looking at this Holy Maiden of the Demonic Cult, Chen Yi thought of a technique belonging to the Bright-Dark Divine Sect.

Noticing his gaze, Yin Tingxue trembled. She clenched her pearly teeth and asked, her face pale,

"What do you want?"

"The Great Star-Absorbing Art."

Looking at her negative emotion rating of seventy to eighty, Chen Yi kissed her forehead.

"Hand it over."

Yin Tingxue wiped her forehead, clearly disliking it.

Still shaken, she said,

"I've memorized it, word for word."

"Mm."

Chen Yi looked at her with some delighted surprise.

He had not expected Yin Tingxue's memory to be so exceptional that she had committed it directly to memory.

He remembered that in Beyond the Heavens, she had burst onto the scene at the orthodox factions' sword conference as the Demonic Cult's Holy Maiden, defeating more than a dozen experts in succession. At the time, she had seemed familiar with every faction's internal cultivation methods and had countered them one by one, overcoming stronger opponents despite being weaker herself.

She was practically the Demonic Cult's Wang Yuyan!

Apart from the Demonic Cult's support, the main reason she could accomplish this was her photographic memory.

"Cosmic Shift, Heaven and Earth Void and Bright, Realms of Light and Darkness, Two Sects and Three Intervals..."

After Yin Tingxue finished reciting, another technique appeared on Chen Yi's panel:

[Fragment of the Star-Absorbing Great Method (not yet learned)]

Yin Tingxue said awkwardly,

"This internal cultivation technique was a gift from the Bright-Dark Divine Sect, left for me to practice in the future."

Chen Yi nodded slightly, then poured ten years of True Qi into the Great Star-Absorbing Art.

[In the first year, you began reading the Great Star-Absorbing Art and learned that it required tranquil cultivation, without scattered thoughts. You worked hard to restrain your mind, but failed to grasp the key.]

[In the third year, after three years of quiet cultivation, you learned to restrain your mind. You vaguely grasped the art's true meaning, but because you only possessed a fragment, the circulation of True Qi broke off halfway through, leaving you without any progress. With no alternative, you began scrutinizing the fragment's contents.]

[You began consulting the classics. Combined with your scrutiny, this barely allowed you to restore one-tenth of the fragment's missing content. After years of study, in the fifth year, you finally got on the right track and could absorb others' True Qi.]

Progress was slow.

Looking at these words, Chen Yi kept frowning, but did not stop. He continued pouring in True Qi. Perhaps something would change.

[In the eighth year, you gradually comprehended Cosmic Shift and the intersection of light and darkness. Your Great Star-Absorbing Art made progress.]

[In the tenth year, after years of cultivation, you gained an initial grasp of the Great Star-Absorbing Art. Unfortunately, you failed to complete the fragment. Perhaps after many more years of cultivation, you could advance further and complete the entire technique yourself.]

[Fragment of the Star-Absorbing Great Method (beginner)]

With all ten years of True Qi poured in, Chen Yi felt a pleasant warmth in both hands, which kept growing hotter.

Looking at the Great Star-Absorbing Art, then at the Grudge Yin-Yang Art, Chen Yi remembered something, and his eyes lit up.

The Great Star-Absorbing Art was an exceptionally powerful early-stage internal cultivation technique. It relied on absorbing others' True Qi, then refining it into one's own over time.

Simply put, once a player killed someone who had painstakingly cultivated ten years of True Qi, all the True Qi in that person's body would flow into the player's meridians.

Of course, such power also meant that this technique came with enormous side effects.

Once too much foreign True Qi accumulated in one's body without being converted, one's body would explode, killing them.

And when fighting an expert, once that expert discovered the Great Star-Absorbing Art, they would tamper with their own True Qi, causing the True Qi inside their opponent to clash, weakening them or even rupturing their meridians. Scenes like this appeared in many martial arts novels and games.

As it happened, however, he had chosen the Grudge Yin-Yang Art as his starting technique when beginning the game.

With the Grudge Yin-Yang Art, he could convert the foreign True Qi inside his body into his own innate True Qi.

The only problem was that, since his Grudge Yin-Yang Art was merely at the beginner level, converting True Qi would entail tremendous losses. Of the original amount, perhaps only twenty or thirty percent would remain.

Even so, the gains would still be astonishing!

As for the remaining ten years of True Qi...

Chen Yi decided he should keep it for now.

Before long, Chen Yi led Yin Tingxue through a side hall, her face covered with a cloth.

Sobbing still filled the place. The women of the household had once been phoenixes perched high on branches. Who could have imagined it? A grand mansion rose, guests were feasted, and then, one day, the mansion collapsed.

Several women recognized Yin Tingxue by her figure. Seeing that a man in official robes was taking her away, they could not help showing envy. Then, thinking of themselves, they cried even harder.

In this era, status was defined by the four classes of scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants. Being condemned to the Jiaofang Bureau undoubtedly meant expulsion from those four classes, with one's descendants relegated to debased status for generations. That alone offered a glimpse of the misery ahead.

Yin Tingxue passed through the side hall. She had already cried, and feeling the others' gazes, she silently hung her head.

To her, even being relegated to debased status without ever being able to buy her freedom was better than becoming her enemy's concubine.

But she had no choice.

The only choice she had been able to make was to burn those three thousand taels in banknotes to ashes.

"I'm taking this maidservant to the depot for interrogation."

At the gates of the Xiang Prince's Residence, Chen Yi cupped his hands.

He was a Hundred Household of the Western Depot. How would the Embroidered Uniform Guards dare stop him to his face? They simply made way. The only person qualified to stop him was Min Ning, a Western Depot Thousand Household ranked one level above him. But the handsome latter merely frowned without saying anything, clearly unwilling to get involved.

Among the crowd,

Only a few Embroidered Uniform Guards standing at the outermost edge seemed to guess Yin Tingxue's identity when they saw her. With fervent gazes, they exchanged glances.

Nearly all of them were newcomers, except for one named Song Shengbao. Chen Yi swept a glance over them, then narrowed his eyes and lightly rested his hand on the Embroidered Spring Saber.

Please keep reading, please keep reading. Without continued readership, there are no recommendations. I just want to make it onto Sanjiang once.