"Hey, you lot, take a look! That brat Chen Xuan got beaten up like that, and he can still smile?"
"Hiss... yesterday he got the barbed whip, and today the young lord splashed boiling tea over his hand. Has it all shocked the little bastard clean out of his mind?"
"You're telling me! Look at him clutching the back of his hand and trembling, with the corners of his mouth still twitching. He's definitely gone mad! Stay away from him, quick. Don't get his rotten luck all over you!"
In the narrow passage outside the training grounds' side gate, several menial servants who had just come off their shift huddled together with their brooms, pointing at Chen Xuan's rapidly retreating back. Their jeering laughter carried far on the cool evening breeze.
Chen Xuan did not even turn his head.
He carried two large, empty wooden buckets on a shoulder pole, his head hanging so low it nearly disappeared into his crotch, his feet moving swiftly. To anyone watching, he looked exactly like a homeless dog whose master had broken its spine, desperate to find a hole to crawl into.
Only Chen Xuan knew the truth-he was not fleeing for his life at all. He was racing to seize every minute and second!
The instant he charged out through the training grounds' side gate, the golden text deep in his mind lit up again:
[Boulder Art: beginner (200/500)] [Eight Desolations Prison-Suppressing Yang Gang: beginner (11/500)]
Under the cover of raising his hand to wipe away sweat, Chen Xuan hid half his face behind his cuff. His scorching breath struck the coarse sleeve as he squeezed out an extremely low voice through his teeth. "Smile? Of course I want to smile! I've got two cultivation arts in hand: the Boulder Art to keep me alive and provide cover in public, and the Eight Desolations Prison-Suppressing Yang Gang for killing and plundering in secret! Oh, young lord, young lord, trading your Marquis of Zhenbei's Residence's most closely guarded direct-lineage art for a layer of blisters scalded onto the back of my hand-if word of this deal got out, every beggar in Qingzhou City would call you a great philanthropist!"
Bang!
Chen Xuan kicked open the loosely closed wooden gate to the rear courtyard's stables. The overpowering stench of horse manure mixed with the sour smell of rotting straw hit him in the face.
In his previous life, a smell on the level of a biological weapon like this would have made him vomit up last night's dinner on the spot. Yet now, smelling that foul odor, Chen Xuan's shoulders, tense all afternoon, instead relaxed completely.
"Phew... safe at last. This place stinks so badly even flies take a detour, but at least it's quiet. Those respectable guards and high-and-mighty stewards normally won't even go near the door."
Chen Xuan put down the buckets and shoulder pole, reached back to latch the wooden gate, and strode into the most secluded corner at the back of the stables. Old hay was piled more than waist-high there, the light was dim, and the smell was the most pungent in the entire stable.
Hearing the noise, the bay horse in the next stall poked out its large head and snorted at him, tilting its head to look at him with two great bronze-bell eyes.
"What are you looking at? Today's haul was big enough that I even swiped an extra couple of handfuls of black beans for your feed."
Chen Xuan took a small handful of roasted black beans from inside his robe, stolen in passing from beside the tea stove earlier, and stuffed them into the bay horse's mouth. Patting its nasal bridge, he instructed it in a low voice, "Chew slowly, and don't smack your lips. Same as last night, keep an eye on the entrance for me. If you smell the booze stink on Liu San or that old bastard Zhao De coming close, stamp your hoof twice beforehand. Hear me?"
The bay horse cheerfully chewed the black beans and docilely shook its head, as though agreeing.
Chen Xuan turned around and plopped down behind the haystack. Picking up a dry stalk at random, he drew circles in the damp dirt, calculating under his breath as he drew:
"I need to sort out the road ahead. The Boulder Art is only the common stuff the residence hands out to servants, and its ceiling is An Jin at the very most, but its advantage is that it comes from a legitimate source! Under the residence's and the authorities' rules, as long as I train this art to Ming Jin Perfection, I can legitimately take the outer courtyard military officer assessment, have my lifetime bondage contract canceled outright, and leave the lowly register. If I can grind all the way to An Jin Perfection, I'd be a renowned expert even across all of Qingzhou City."
At this point, the stalk in his hand abruptly stopped, gouging a deep hole in the dirt, and his voice sank:
"As for this Eight Desolations Prison-Suppressing Yang Gang I just secretly learned, that's the real lethal weapon! But the problem is, this thing is the lifeblood of the Marquis of Zhenbei's Residence, passed down to sons but not daughters, to legitimate heirs but not concubines' children! Never mind a groom like me bound by a lifetime contract-even a concubine-born young master of the residence who secretly learned it without the marquis's approval would have his hand and foot tendons severed and be cast out of the family!"
"If I recklessly revealed my Yang Gang Qi now, and someone spotted even the slightest hint, what would happen to me?"
Answering his own question with a sneer, Chen Xuan scooped up a handful of dry dirt mixed with scraps of straw and curled his fingers around it. He let the coarse grit scrape across the flesh on the back of his hand, where the swelling had only just subsided, until every bit of dirt trickled out between his fingers:
"Death! The kind where the whole family gets executed! Oh, wait, I'm an orphan now. I don't even have a 'whole family.' So the black-armored guards in the front courtyard would just hack me into mincemeat, save themselves even a straw mat, and shovel me straight into the mass grave to feed the wild dogs!"
The faint sting from his palm cooled his head, somewhat heated by obtaining a supreme art, until it was ice-cold.
"Xiao Yuxuan, today on the training grounds, you were like a peacock fanning its tail, showing me your family's supreme art over and over. You just wanted to flaunt your might and make that lofty young lord's consort think more highly of you."
Chen Xuan tipped back his head and gazed through the gaps in the broken roof tiles at the steadily darkening sky outside, murmuring softly, one word at a time, "But you never could have dreamed of this, could you? Every time you strutted your might on that platform, I grew a little stronger than you down below! That supreme art you've spent over a decade practicing and still only scratched the surface of is already a complete road to heaven in my mind!"
"No hurry. I'll keep the account for now. When the day comes that you discover a groom's Eight Desolations Prison-Suppressing Yang Gang is purer and more domineering than yours... your martial arts, your position as heir, everything you're proud of, and that young lord's consort who won't spare you so much as another glance-I'll trample every one of them underfoot, one by one, right before your eyes!"
Having vented the viciousness in his chest, Chen Xuan exhaled a turbid breath, his gaze once again as still as an ancient well:
"A meal has to be eaten one mouthful at a time, and a road walked one step at a time. The most important thing right now is still to grind away at the Boulder Art! Every one of the three hundred-odd menial slaves in the rear courtyard practices this art. Even if I achieve something with it, at most people will say I stumbled into dogshit luck and suddenly got the knack. It definitely won't bring a fatal disaster down on me. Once I grind the Boulder Art to beginner perfection tonight, formally enter early-stage Bright Force, and gain the ability to protect myself, I'll shut the door and secretly study the Eight Desolations Prison-Suppressing Yang Gang!"
His mind made up, Chen Xuan immediately sat cross-legged behind the haystack, closed his eyes, and began circulating the Boulder Art along the route calibrated by the golden light in his mind.