Chapter 81: Favor

"So the 'wooden bead' referred to this bead, but what does this bead represent?" the black cat muttered. "Seeing Pei Ye, Seeing Pei Ye? What are you thinking about?"

Seeing Pei Ye came back to his senses and said in a low voice, "I'm thinking that this is something that truly happened."

The black cat was stunned for a moment: "Right, at the very least, the bead truly exists."

"No," Seeing Pei Ye raised his head to look at it and said softly, "I mean, it is all real. Xi Wu Chou is also real."

"..."

The focus of the human and the cat was clearly not the same, but it did not affect their conversation. Hearing this, a flash of inspiration struck the black cat's mind: "Right... Xi Wu Chou is also real. It was he who brought the bead here, and the bead... the bead... is the divine art he was searching for!"

The black cat's train of thought suddenly cleared: "Do you remember? In the second chapter, when Xi Wu Chou and the scholar first met, there was the phrase 'Ghost Cart descends north.' Ghost Cart Mountain is the ancient name; the later dynasty mistakenly passed it down as Kuiju Mountain, which is the mountain south of where the scholar lived. It was precisely in the fields north of that mountain that the scholar dug up this bead!"

Seeing Pei Ye's thoughts were also pulled back to this, and he nodded slowly.

"And this divine art is likely 'The Bestowal of Emolument'."

Seeing Pei Ye said, "That should be correct. But, how could 'The Bestowal of Emolument' be a bead?"

"I don't know," the black cat said quickly. "Don't dwell on that. The urgent matter now is to find it... It is in Xi Wu Chou's hands, but where is Xi Wu Chou?"

Its body suddenly stiffened as it thought of something, and its pair of emerald eyes looked at the youth in astonishment.

Seeing Pei Ye looked back at it and said in a low voice, "Let's go."

The County Magistrate's Office.

The sky had turned completely dark, and the wind had picked up. A whistling sound began to echo through the corridors in the courtyard.

Yue Muzhou suspected that there really was a ledger in Heaven. A person's luck in a lifetime is limited; if you overdraw too much in the first half of your life, Heaven will take it back to the last cent in the second half, never making a loss-making deal.

In the past twenty-some years, he had survived too many perilous realms and created too many miracles. Aside from some scars—which weren't even on his face—he hadn't been left with any disabilities. It was truly incredible.

And he had even thought that this was the norm that would accompany him for a lifetime.

Later, of course, he knew it wasn't.

But he also hadn't expected that this debt, collected for over twenty years, still hadn't been fully paid. Only today did Heaven intend to tick off the final entry in that ledger.

Yue Muzhou cast a glance with his non-existent eyes at the imagined sky.

It was only fifteen days away.

It was so similar to eighteen years ago.

The difference was that eighteen years ago, he at least still had the opportunity to choose. The first time, he could have chosen not to enter that mansion; the second time, he could have chosen not to care about that young girl.

Now, he wasn't even given the opportunity to choose. After struggling for nearly eighteen years, before the final fifteen days, death descended directly upon him.

Yue Muzhou couldn't help but mock himself: did it know that even if given the opportunity, he would still seek death, so it simply skipped the steps?

But I have already turned over a new leaf.

Eighteen years have already passed, how do you know I haven't become smarter?

Only by first preserving oneself can one better punish the wicked and eliminate evil. I have long since understood this principle.

Please, give me one more chance to try, Yue Muzhou thought lazily.

This would be his final thought.

Because that chill had already approached.

To pierce his body, or to cut off his head?

Or—would nothing happen at all?

The cold blade pressed against his abdomen, but it did not continue forward. Instead, he actually felt a kind of hunger.

This hunger grew increasingly intense, and the creature in front of him just stood there quietly, simply... waiting almost obediently.

About ten breaths of time passed in silence.

Yue Muzhou attempted to follow the craving in his abdomen. He reached out his hand tremblingly, and when his arm was halfway extended, his fingertips touched something hard and cold.

It was like a suit of iron armor—no, iron armor also has gaps, and the human body inside is soft, which would press down a bit upon touch.

But the creature in front of him was not so. With fine, tight scales, iron-like muscles, steel-like bones, and a cold body temperature, it was like an iron wall cast upon the ground.

But the moment he touched this hardness, it suddenly softened, and then that softened substance climbed onto his fingertips, subsequently surging violently into his body.

But it was still just as cold, like cold iron being poured into his body. Yue Muzhou's body shivered violently, but soon a powerful suction came from his abdomen, drawing all these liquids in completely.

And Chang Zhiyuan, standing to the side, was once again shocked by what he saw.

In his field of vision, the monster that had drawn its sword and thrown the guard into the house in one move, originally intending to take the lives of the two of them, had suddenly stopped in front of this elderly man surnamed Yue.

Then, the old man reached out his hand and actually sucked the monster directly into himself!

But it wasn't a complete consumption. The monster was originally going to be sucked in entirely, but at the moment the consumption occurred, this body showed two different tendencies.

—A portion of the flesh and blood tended to return to its original state, while a portion was pulled by the old man, forced to leave this body, like birds of a feather scattering when disaster strikes.

The entire process was completed within two breaths. The old man lowered his hand, while the monster "spat out" a fair-skinned human form backward.

There was no need to have seen him before; Chang Zhiyuan also knew this was that Zhu Gaoyang.

And there was still a portion of deep blue that detached from the old man's consumption, scurrying back into this body like a fugitive, shrinking into the heart.

Chang Zhiyuan didn't know how to handle this situation. He subconsciously turned his head to look at the old man surnamed Yue, but was so shocked he took a step back.

The old man had actually stood up slowly!

Yue Muzhou had not felt this sensation for a long, long, long time.

The sensation of Qi being generated from the dantian and then flowing to the four limbs and hundreds of bones.

"The Bestowal of Emolument," it is said that it can allow a cripple who has lost their dantian seed to regrow a dantian seed. Of course, because it itself is a dantian seed.

A dantian seed passed down from ancient times.

The moment his bloody hand touched it that night, this secret that no one knew was unveiled.

Before entering the body, it was an unactivated "egg." After entering the body, it began to slowly absorb the Mystic Qi of Heaven and Earth to nourish its own development.

And this process would take eighteen years.

Nothing could shorten this time; food wouldn't work, Qi wouldn't work, and miraculous pills wouldn't work. Yue Muzhou once thought it could only absorb Mystic Qi at a uniform rate.

Only today did he finally find the "food" it was willing to ingest.

It was actually this monster.

Why was it this monster?

And why did this monster deliver itself to his front to be devoured?

Yue Muzhou didn't know, but the seed in his abdomen had truly begun to sprout, and two small buds had popped out.

Thus, supported by Qi, after eighteen years, Yue Muzhou stood up once again.

The distance of fifteen days was smoothed over, and fate had truly favored him once again. ===== CHAPTER 82 =====