Behind the haystack, Chen Xuan listened to the crunch of a rat gnawing on a rotten wooden trough thirty paces away, then sniffed the faintly sour scent of fodder on the bay horse's breath in the neighboring stall. His gaze was cold as shards of ice:
"I can hear your bullshit clearly from thirty paces away. A Ming Jin martial artist's five senses really are no joke! Want to grab someone from the stables to take the fall so you can report back? Fine. No hurry. I'll keep score for now. Tomorrow, we'll see who ends up taking the fall for whom!"
"Dong! Dong! Dong! Dong-! Fourth watch, the cold dew lies heavy-"
[Boulder Art: beginner (420/500)] [Boulder Art: beginner (450/500)] [Boulder Art: beginner (480/500)]
As the progress bar approached the five-hundred-point threshold, the signs of a qualitative transformation came crashing down!
The black grime on Chen Xuan's skin had accumulated into an ever-thicker layer. Once dry, it was like an airtight shell of black iron encasing him. Meanwhile, the blood and Qi inside him had turned into boiling, scalding magma, rampaging through every blood vessel and meridian!
Pain!
If the first watch had brought the aching numbness of scraping away rust, this was a red-hot iron spike thrust into his marrow and stirred back and forth!
His originally fragile periosteum cracked inch by inch under the pressure of his raging blood and Qi, then swiftly healed and reformed under the nourishment of his fate's golden light; every inch of muscle underwent extreme tearing and reshaping, and even his internal organs spasmed violently!
"Ugh... hiss..."
Veins bulged on Chen Xuan's forehead, and bean-sized beads of sweat streaked with blood splattered down. To keep from making the slightest sound and attracting the night patrol, he grabbed a clump of hay beside him and stuffed it firmly into his mouth. His back teeth chewed the hay to shreds, and blood seeping from his gums stained his lips:
"Hold on! Just twenty more points! I endured dozens of lashes from Xiao Yuxuan's barbed whip yesterday. This lousy pain isn't worth a damn! Break through!"
In the neighboring stall, the bay horse seemed to sense the heart-pounding heat of the blood and Qi emanating from Chen Xuan. It paced restlessly, pawing the dirt and repeatedly looking back into the shadows.
"Dong! Dong! Dong! Dong! Dong-! Fifth watch, dawn breaks, a hundred birds leave the woods-"
At the far edge of the sky, a wan streak of fish-belly white finally appeared.
[Boulder Art: beginner (495/500)] [Boulder Art: beginner (498/500)]
"It's here! Now!"
Chen Xuan spat out the bloody, chewed-up hay, squeezed his eyes shut, and brought all the focus and will he had gathered over the entire night crashing like an iron hammer against the last sliver of a barrier deep within his dantian!
[Boulder Art: beginner (499/500)]
Rumble-!
Deep within his dantian, it was as though a volcano suppressed for three years had been fully ignited. A burst of pure-yang blood and Qi, scorching to the utmost, exploded outward and instantly swept through every bone in his body!
Crack! Crack! Crack!
All two hundred and six bones in Chen Xuan's body let out crisp cracks at once, as densely packed as firecrackers going off on New Year's Eve!
Immediately afterward, the thick layer of black grime on his skin shattered under the force of his surging blood and Qi and peeled away in a rattling cascade. A thick stench like dead fish and rotting shrimp instantly filled the corner.
"Neigh-!"
Assailed by the sudden stench and martial artist's pressure, the bay horse next door tossed its large head wildly, snorting as it backed away four or five steps until its rump pressed hard against the stall's wooden posts.
At the same time, golden light blazed in Chen Xuan's mind, and two lines of large text settled at the very top:
[Boulder Art: beginner (500/500)-perfection!] [Current cultivation breakthrough: Early-stage Bright Force!]
"Huff... huff... huff..."
Chen Xuan knelt in the haystack, both palms sunk deep into the damp earth, his broad shoulders heaving and trembling violently.
It was not from exhaustion.
Rather, the humiliation and despair his body's original owner had bottled up in his marrow for three whole years, together with all the fear of death Chen Xuan had endured in the two days since transmigrating, had finally found an outlet!
He clenched his teeth, his eyes red, and gouged ten deep furrows into the earth with his fingers. His voice was hoarse, as though scraped over sandpaper:
"I did it... Early-stage Bright Force! For three whole years, they called me worthless mud, called me trash beneath pigs and dogs. Even the little servant boys newly arrived in the rear courtyard could spit in my bowl... From today onward, I, Chen Xuan, am finally no longer trash anyone can beat or kill at will!"
Only after panting for a full dozen breaths did Chen Xuan abruptly raise a hand to wipe the black muck off his face and brace himself on his knees to stand.
His nostrils twitched twice. As he smelled the nauseating stench of marrow cleansing on his body, the excitement in his eyes instantly receded, replaced by his usual shrewdness and ruthlessness:
"No, being happy is one thing, but this stink from purging impurities is far too strange. If Liu San or that lookout under Zhao De smells it after daybreak, they're bound to get suspicious!"
He deftly stripped off his ragged outer robe, already soaked through with sweat and black grime, and bundled it together with the filth that had flaked onto the ground. Pulling aside the very bottom of the haystack, he dug a hole a foot deep and buried the bundle firmly inside, then shoveled two spadefuls of fresh horse manure over it before spreading the hay back into place.
"With horse manure covering the marrow-cleansing smell, even an immortal wouldn't sniff out anything wrong."
Once he had finished, while it was still the darkest hour before dawn outside, Chen Xuan bared his sturdy upper body and crept, stooping, to the watering trough outside the stable. He scooped up a ladleful of bone-piercingly cold well water and poured it over his head with a splash.
It was a late-autumn morning, and the well water was cold enough to freeze a person's ears off. Yet when it poured over Chen Xuan's firm skin, he did not shiver even once. Wisps of white vapor could even be seen rising from his skin.
"Tsk, this Ming Jin blood and Qi inside me is like a little furnace. Pouring well water this cold over myself feels like taking a warm bath."
Chen Xuan quickly scrubbed himself clean, poured the dirty water into the nearby manure pit, then changed into a spare set of old gray-cloth work clothes.
He lowered his head and examined his hands in the hazy morning light.
His once rough, sallow skin had become much finer and firmer after the marrow cleansing, like high-quality cowhide; with a light clench of his fingers, the muscles along his forearms instantly bulged, and explosive strength filled the spaces between his bones and fascia.
"Let's see just how much weight a punch at Early-stage Bright Force carries!"
Chen Xuan returned to the rammed-earth wall at the innermost corner of the stable and listened carefully for a while, confirming there was not so much as a ghost of a figure within fifty paces.
He grabbed a burlap sack and wrapped it around his right fist a full five or six times. Then he staggered his feet slightly and roused the mass of Early-stage Bright Force blood and Qi in his dantian with a thunderous surge. It coursed along the great dragon of his spine and into his right arm and knuckles. Facing the yellow-earth wall he had punched the day before yesterday, he mercilessly hurled a punch-
Thud!
With a low, muffled impact, the entire rammed-earth wall trembled slightly, and crumbs of earth showered from its surface.
Chen Xuan slowly withdrew his fist, unwrapped the burlap sack, and lowered his gaze to the wall.
Beside the original shallow knuckle marks, less than half an inch deep, there was now a distinct, bowl-sized fist crater sunk more than three full inches into the wall!
Three inches!
It was more than six times deeper than that pitiful shallow mark from the night before last!
Chen Xuan measured the crater's depth with his fingers, then casually grabbed a handful of earth and plastered it over the hole to smooth away the traces. Drawing a deep breath of the chilly air, he murmured:
"In just two days and two nights, I've gone from a lowly slave bound by a lifetime contract, liable to be beaten to death with clubs at any moment, to crossing the threshold of Early-stage Bright Force in a single step. Those old servants in the rear courtyard who've toiled for eight or ten years, and those young masters and misses in the front courtyard who eat pills like meals... when it comes to breaking through realms, I'm already more than ten times faster than you!"
He turned and looked through the stable's wooden rails toward the inner courtyard's splendid rooftops, with their carved beams, painted rafters, and upturned eaves. His voice was as soft as a wisp of morning breeze that might scatter at any moment:
"Xiao Yuxuan, and every master in this marquis's estate who tramples me like livestock, sleep well beneath your warm brocade quilts."
"No hurry. I'll keep score for now. One day, I'll use these fists to smash your doors apart one by one and make your noble knees sink, inch by inch, into this mud filled with horse manure!"
Clang-!
From the far end of the distant street came the night watchman's final gong as he finished his rounds.
Day had broken.