Chapter 15: Bountiful Harvest!

Inside the room, the thick stench of blood rapidly spread.

Jiang Ye slowly retracted his fist.

His finger bones were smeared with warm, sticky fluid; he glanced down, his expression calm and unreadable, as if he’d merely brushed against some ordinary dirt during labor, not just crushed a living man’s skull.

Perhaps because he’d seen too much blood in this chaotic world, Jiang Ye, who had just killed for the first time, felt an unnerving inner stillness.

He shook his hand, and a few still-warm droplets of blood flew off under the force, silently splattering onto the floor, blooming into tiny blood-red blossoms.

His gaze then turned to the room, calmly scanning for his target: money.

He bent down and searched the body of the once-muscular man now decapitated.

Jiang Ye’s movements were practiced and precise, avoiding the bloodstains, and soon he pulled from the man’s waist pouch and hidden inner pocket a heavy gray cloth money bag and a palm-sized blue porcelain medicine bottle.

The bag was heavy, clinking as he held it—silver coins.

Jiang Ye set it aside without a second thought, his attention immediately drawn to the porcelain bottle.

The bottle felt smooth and warm in his hand; its surface bore three simple carved characters—

Blood-Replenishing Pill!

Jiang Ye’s brow twitched, a flash of sharp light crossing his eyes.

He had never used this elixir, but he’d heard of it in the Martial Academy.

The favored disciples of the inner court—especially those like Zhang Xu and Su Yan, born into wealth—used such pills daily to aid their cultivation and rapidly restore lost qi and blood.

Their effect far surpassed the meager, watered-down “Blood-Strengthening Decoction” he received each day.

He pulled the soft wooden stopper from the bottle’s mouth.

Instantly, a medicinal aroma far richer than the decoction, faintly sweet and bitter, wafted out; merely inhaling a trace made his chest and abdomen stir with renewed vitality, his spirit lifting sharply.

“So this is the real thing.”

Jiang Ye’s eyes brightened.

For him, starved for primal energy, this elixir was like coal delivered in deep snow.

He tilted the bottle, peering by the dim lamplight: four pills the size of dragon’s eyes, dark red in hue, faintly lustrous on their surfaces, lay inside.

“Pity, only four left.”

Jiang Ye muttered softly, quickly resealing the cap and tucking the bottle safely into his inner robe.

Next, he picked up the gray cloth money bag, untied the cord, and peered inside: dozens of silver coins.

Jiang Ye frowned slightly.

The Changxing Street gambling den brought in gold daily; how could Xiang Jiang, the hall master stationed here, carry only this much?

He must have hidden most of his wealth elsewhere.

He cast a cold glance at the headless corpse on the floor, then turned and began searching the room.

Jiang Ye’s gaze swept like a hawk’s—over walls, floor tiles, every seam of furniture; his fingers occasionally tapped or pressed suspicious spots.

As a man who had lived seventy years, he knew too well where such shadowy figures hid their valuables.

Moments later,

his fingers brushed an almost imperceptible anomaly along the edge of the thick bedboard against the wall—one plank sounded hollow, and the dust along its seam was unevenly distributed.

“Hmm? There’s a hidden compartment here.”

Jiang Ye applied slight pressure with his five fingers.

Click.

A soft sound.

The compartment burst open.

He reached in, fingertips touching cool, smooth paper; he pulled out everything and spread it in his palm.

Five high-quality banknotes, finely printed; by the flickering lamplight, he clearly saw the crimson official seal and the black characters: “One Thousand Liang.”

“Fifty thousand liang!”

Even Jiang Ye, whose nature was as still as a mountain, could not suppress a flicker of wild joy on his aged face as he held the light yet weighty stack of silver notes.

For an ordinary family, one liang of silver sufficed for a month’s food, clothing, and essentials.

Fifty thousand liang would let him buy vast quantities of elixirs like the Blood-Replenishing Pill—or even better—fueling his breakthrough to Dark Force, and laying a solid resource foundation for his future attempt at the elusive Transformation Force realm.

The resource bottleneck that had plagued him for days had, in this bloody night, been violently pried open.

Indeed, killing and arson bring gold belts.

Jiang Ye drew a deep breath, forcibly quelling the surging tide within.

This place was no place to linger.

He carefully folded the banknotes, tucked them alongside the four Blood-Replenishing Pills, and secured them against his body.

Before leaving, Jiang Ye swiftly scanned the room once more, confirming no valuable item was left behind and no trace that might expose his identity remained.

As silently as he had come, he melted into the deep night beyond the door, as if he had never been there.

The night wind howled, sweeping away the last faint trace of his presence.

Jiang Ye returned to the Martial Academy’s gatehouse, but did not sleep.

He took out one Blood-Replenishing Pill and slowly swallowed it.

Boom!

As soon as the pill entered his belly, a searing warmth spread through Jiang Ye’s abdomen—this medicinal force arrived faster and fiercer than the decoction.

As the pill’s energy circulated within him, Jiang Ye began his fist form.

This time, he first assumed the Monkey Posture.

Because during his fight with Xiang Jiang tonight, he had effortlessly dodged Xiang Jiang’s lethal strike using the Monkey form’s agility.

This deepened his understanding of the Monkey form within the Five Animal Fist.

As his mind flowed, he no longer felt confined in the cramped gatehouse—he seemed to step into a dark, damp ancient forest.

Vines hung like curtains; the canopy blotted out sun and sky, plunging the place into dimness.

Deep within this mental forest, he “saw” a troop of monkeys.

They were not playing or fighting—they were engaged in a nearly mystical exchange and imitation.

An old monkey squatted on a high branch, its body shifting between the relaxed posture of an elder and the compact stillness of a stone.

Its facial muscles and bones subtly writhed and adjusted with emotion and environment, its expression flowing between dignity, gentleness, innocence, and alertness—elusive, unfathomable.

Younger monkeys nearby strained to mimic these changes, twisting their necks, contracting cheekbones, stretching their jaws—as if their flesh and bone were not rigid, but pliable dough.

Ancient words said: The monkey penetrates a hundred orifices; form follows thought!

A revelation, as if from primordial wilderness, slithered into his mind like a spirit snake:

The Monkey is not merely clever in climbing and leaping—it is the pinnacle of spiritual awareness, connecting all body orifices and mastering every micro-movement of muscle and bone!

【When intent moves, form shifts; when thought arises, appearance changes. Though lacking the power of rebirth, it holds the wondrous art of transformation!】

【What seems like playful mimicry is, in truth, the most exquisite insight and control over one’s own body—every inch of muscle, every joint of bone, can be guided by intent, adjusted by qi and blood, subtly altering appearance to confuse the eye!】

【Your insight is extraordinary. From form to spirit, you have awakened the true meaning of the Monkey form—Spirit Monkey’s Thousand Transformations!】

Name: Jiang Ye

Lifespan: 80

Destiny: Ascending the Divine Staircase【Effect 1: Extraordinary Insight】

Mastered Wu Gong: Five Animal Fist【Minor Mastery, 187/500】

Mastered True Meaning: Tiger Walks Like Illness, Spirit Monkey’s Thousand Transformations

The system’s voice was cold and clear, yet carried the dampness and vitality of the deep forest.

“Hmm...”

Jiang Ye grunted softly; within his still-seated body, a faint, rapid patter—like rain on banana leaves—began to echo.

It was not bones breaking, but all two hundred and six bones, along with countless tendons and fascia, simultaneously awakened and gently stirred by some mysterious intent and force.

He clearly felt his control over this body had deepened into a micro-level never before reached.

A strange sense of looseness and controllability spread through him.

He felt his face, even his entire figure, had become a clay sculpture not yet fully shaped, slowly sculpted by inner intent.

No disguise mask, no bone-shrinking demonic art needed—merely a flicker of will, guiding subtle adjustments of qi, blood, bone, and muscle, and his appearance could naturally shift to another temperament, even another facial structure.

Jiang Ye focused his intent on his cheeks, slightly drawing in his jawbone, relaxing his masseter muscles, and slowly lifting the flesh atop his cheekbones.

He clearly felt the minute shifts and wrinkles in his facial skin.

“Is this still me...”

Jiang Ye stepped before the bronze mirror and froze.

His face had visibly changed from moments before—less aged and rigid, more strangely unfamiliar.

Even Liu Qingshi, who knew him best, would not recognize him.

“Spirit Monkey’s Thousand Transformations—exists within the mind! Alter appearance, confuse the eye!”

A faint, deeply enigmatic smile slowly curved Jiang Ye’s lips.

Though the Monkey form’s true meaning—Spirit Monkey’s Thousand Transformations—had no offensive power, in Jiang Ye’s eyes, its practicality might surpass even the Tiger form’s true meaning.

It meant he now had countless unknown identities.

Tonight’s harvest was immense.