Thirteen Taibao Horizontal Training

After night fell and dinner was finished, Wen Qingkong instructed Li Lan'er to stay safely on the second floor with Sun Shuang'er.

Then Wen Qingkong went down to the first floor to see whether there would be any work tonight.

At the entrance to Corpse Seamstress Workshop Street, two yamen runners in black uniforms struggled to load seven corpses onto a cart.

Zhang Quan stood nearby with a grim expression, his eyes filled with hatred.

These seven corpses had been delivered from above today.

Zhang Quan planned to assign one to each workshop. When the bodies were collected tomorrow morning, he wanted to see who had the nerve to help that surnamed Cai stitch corpses!

"Go."

The two yamen runners nodded and pushed the cart forward, distributing the corpses one by one.

Wen Qingkong was delighted when he saw a corpse arrive.

He could gain another harvest.

Every day without becoming stronger made him feel as if ants were crawling all over his body, leaving him restless and unable to sit still.

First, he carefully checked the corpse for any missing parts. Once he confirmed it was intact, he carried it onto the cold bed, cleaned it thoroughly, and paid particular attention to its face.

The corpse stood a full eight feet tall, its muscles seeming forged from steel. It was clear that he had been a formidable man.

The cut across its neck was smooth as a mirror. It had clearly been a fatal beheading by an executioner.

This was the easiest kind of wound to stitch.

As usual, Wen Qingkong lit Three Incense Sticks in the incense burner before the corpse's head. After waiting quietly for a moment, he found that nothing was amiss.

Wen Qingkong began stitching.

Before long, the stitching was complete. The seams around the neck were so fine they were nearly invisible.

Wen Qingkong was very satisfied.

Corpse Seamstress, Life's Flashback, witness the mortal world, obtain treasured rewards

Host has stitched one corpse. Life's Flashback appears.

As the mechanical voice rang out, a Life's Flashback appeared in his mind, and the life of the man before him unfolded before Wen Qingkong's eyes.

This man was named Zhou Wu. He had been born into a minor landowning family, disliked studying from childhood, and only loved practicing with spears and staffs.

When he was ten, his father hired a down-and-out martial artist to be his master.

This impoverished martial artist had once worked as an escort, practicing Thirteen Taibao Horizontal Training. His hard martial arts were fairly decent.

At first, the martial artist had only treated teaching Zhou Wu as a means of making a living. He had never expected Zhou Wu to train with such earnest dedication.

Gradually, the martial artist began teaching him as though he were his sole disciple.

Zhou Wu was quite gifted in martial arts, and his family was reasonably wealthy. With the help of medicinal baths and nourishing food, his Thirteen Taibao Horizontal Training progressed rapidly.

He gradually earned a reputation within a hundred-mile radius through his hard martial arts.

When he was fifteen, the martial artist died of illness, and Zhou Wu left his hometown to roam the martial world.

Though Thirteen Taibao Horizontal Training was not considered a profound martial art, once cultivated to an extremely high level, it could rival an Innate martial artist.

Zhou Wu improved rapidly through real combat. Before long, his name became known throughout the region, and he was considered one of the martial world's promising young talents.

For the next few years, Zhou Wu roamed the martial world, upheld justice, lived freely and boldly, practiced martial arts, seized treasures, and fought over women.

His fame grew greater and greater, but so did the number of his enemies.

Zhou Wu's father urged him several times to withdraw from the martial world, but Zhou Wu was young and hot-blooded, already famous besides. How could he possibly be willing to leave?

Besides, since ancient times, once someone entered the martial world, who had ever truly been able to leave it?

Until a month ago, while Zhou Wu was enjoying himself with women at Hundred Flowers Tower, he suddenly learned that his entire family had been slaughtered. All seventy-two members were dead.

Zhou Wu could not believe it.

Matters of the martial world were settled within the martial world; one must never implicate family.

This was an unwritten rule of the martial world. No one had ever broken it, because everyone had family.

Zhou Wu had never imagined that his own family would be slaughtered so completely.

He returned to his hometown and saw his estate burned into a barren stretch of ash. His eyes reddened with grief and fury as he swore to avenge them!

He used every connection he had to search for the culprit, and in the end, he found him.

The murderer was Mo Chou, the Wind and Rain Sword, who had only gained some renown in the martial world over the past three years.

Zhou Wu quickly went to find him.

When he arrived at Mo Chou's home, he was momentarily stunned.

Mo Chou turned out to be the son of a swordsman who had died beneath Zhou Wu's fists years ago.

Zhou Wu furiously demanded to know why Mo Chou had killed his entire family.

Was he not afraid that Zhou Wu would slaughter his family in return?

Mo Chou laughed madly then, like a lunatic, laughing until tears spilled from his eyes.

Pointing at Zhou Wu, he cried exaggeratedly, "Slaughter my family? Come on, then! My whole family is just me. Kill me if you like!"

Only then did Zhou Wu learn that after Mo Chou's father had died beneath his fists, Mo Chou's mother had died from grief and anger. The Mo Family had been destroyed from that day onward. At its peak, the Mo Family had more than fifty members, but only Mo Chou remained.

"Do you know what Mo Chou means?"

Mo Chou stared at Zhou Wu. That gaze was something Zhou Wu could never forget. It was like two sharp swords stabbing into his heart, making him afraid to meet it.

"My original name was Mo Shengyu. Before my mother died, she changed my name to Mo Chou."

"It means do not hate, so that I could marry, have a family, and live on properly."

"But I couldn't do it. I wanted to kill you and leave your family shattered and dead!"

"I don't care whether I can survive."

"After Father and Mother died, I was already dead."

"Zhou Wu, hand over your life!"

Mo Chou thrust forth with his sword. Under the burden of hatred, he had cultivated his swordsmanship to an astonishing level.

With a sweep of the Wind and Rain Sword, it was like a fierce storm, incomparably swift.

Unfortunately, after years of roaming the martial world, Zhou Wu had cultivated Thirteen Taibao Horizontal Training to an extremely profound level. He used only twelve punches to break the Wind and Rain Sword and beat Mo Chou to death.

Before dying, Mo Chou's eyes held mockery.

Zhou Wu knew that Mo Chou was telling him that the one who had caused Zhou Wu's family to perish was Zhou Wu himself.

After avenging his family, Zhou Wu lost all heart and turned himself in.

Yesterday, he had been publicly beheaded at Caishikou Execution Grounds.

When the Life's Flashback ended, Wen Qingkong sighed with emotion.

Host has obtained Thirteen Taibao Horizontal Training

The mechanical voice sounded in his mind again, and Wen Qingkong's body changed as well.

The Thirteen Taibao Horizontal Training Zhou Wu had painstakingly cultivated throughout his life completely merged into Wen Qingkong's body, granting him another formidable external martial art on top of the Shaolin Golden Bell Shield.

Wen Qingkong took a kitchen knife from the side room and viciously chopped it down on his own arm.

Crack!

The kitchen knife shattered, while not even a mark was left on his arm.

With the Golden Bell Shield and Thirteen Taibao Horizontal Training stacked together, his physical body had become unimaginably powerful.

"Martial world men grow old in the martial world."

"Once you enter the martial world, you remain a martial world man for life, until death brings rest."

Wen Qingkong gave Zhou Wu's corpse one final touch-up, considering it thanks for bringing him Thirteen Taibao Horizontal Training.

With the hard martial arts of the monk and Zhou Wu supporting him, along with the Taizu Long Fist of the Mount Xiong Guang bandits and the Ground-Lying Fist of Zhao Liu from the Black Dragon Gang, Wen Qingkong believed that even among Innate martial artists, he would be one of the strongest.

Carried away by the moment, Wen Qingkong stepped forward and threw punches that howled through the air. He practiced for a full hour before returning to the second floor to rest.

The night passed without incident. At the fifth quarter of the Hour of the Rabbit, Zhang Quan personally brought yamen runners to collect the corpses, going from House Number One to House Number Nine.

When he opened the doors to Corpse Seamstress House Number Nine, Wen Qingkong clearly sensed the hostility Zhang Quan had concealed in his eyes.

Wen Qingkong secretly wondered whether Zhang Quan had discovered that he had stolen Zhang Quan's silver.

Zhang Quan slowly walked to the cold bed. Looking at the nearly invisible stitches on Zhou Wu's neck, he cast Wen Qingkong a sinister glance. "Little Wen, that is truly fine craftsmanship. I never knew you possessed such skill with a needle."