Chapter 349: The Crippled Elder

Cao Meng, drenched from head to toe by the death-curse torrent of black water, felt his blood surge. The muscle memory forged by years of martial training made him instinctively slap out a palm toward the front.

Yet before the strike could land on Li Cheng, the light before Cao Meng's eyes abruptly dimmed. The whole man seemed to plunge into a boundless night, so silent that all he could hear was his own violent heartbeat.

"Ungrateful wretch!"

A shrill, terrible howl came from afar. His master and mistress, who had treated him like livestock since childhood, beaten and tormented in every way, slowly walked toward him, their skin and clothing still bearing the charred-black appearance from when he had burned them to death back then.

"Bandit!"

A merchant with venomous eyes stared fixedly at him, a bloody gash surfacing on his neck.

"Biting the hand that feeds you!"

The first sworn brother he had known since his debut spoke in a ghostly voice, filthy blood gushing from the knife wound that had pierced straight through his chest from behind.

"Heartless bastard!" That was the mistress he had cast aside.

"Ugh—ugh!" That was the creditor whose tongue he had cut out.

One after another, figures emerged from the boundless darkness, their deaths gruesome, their gazes full of grievance.

No matter how Cao Meng struck and killed them with fists, kicks, and inner force, these vengeful spirits kept streaming forth endlessly, tearing open his skin, ripping apart his muscles, and wrenching out his innards.

The towering waves of that sea of consciousness had lasted only a few short seconds in the real world.

From the perspective of the others in the tea shed, Cao Meng's eyeballs were trembling violently as they rolled upward. The whole man foamed at the mouth and, beyond his own control, dropped to his knees on the ground.

"."

"."

The tea shed fell into an eerie silence, with only the sound of rain and wind against the bamboo curtain. Every single person there was thinking the exact same thing.

What the hell kind of martial art is that?

If Li Cheng had somehow gathered the tea water out of thin air, one could still explain it away as his inner energy having reached the point of perfection and transcendence,

but casually spitting out a massive amount of water—and water reeking of ghostly yin energy at that—completely exceeded anything the martial world folk could comprehend.

Even if you sprayed out all your stomach acid, it wouldn't be that fierce, would it?

Could it be that your guts lead straight to an ink pool?

Su Konghu buried his head in thought for a long while, then suddenly his eyes lit up. He jerked his head up and said, "I get it now—it's Condensing Qi into Dew!"

Facing his puzzled female companion, he explained excitedly, "An elder in my family once told me that some martial artists with extremely profound inner energy can use their true qi to vibrate the air and directly transform the moisture in the air into dew.

They use it to maintain seated meditation, or to survive in extreme environments like deserts or the open sea.

I always thought it was just a story my seniors had made up off the top of their heads. I never expected to witness it with my own eyes today!

This young master, at such a young age, has already reached such profound heights in the martial path. Even if he isn't a Grandmaster, he's at the very least at the peak of the Primordial Realm."

Upon hearing Su Konghu's words, the atmosphere in the tea shed shifted subtly once more. The members of the River-Turning Gang who had been about to draw their blades and rush over showed a slight change in expression, their movements unconsciously slowing by half a beat, looking caught between advance and retreat.

Su Konghu hailed from the Ten Thousand Miasma Valley, the latter being one of the foremost pharmaceutical sects in the martial world. Its flagship products included, but were not limited to, Golden Wound Medicine, Bruise and Injury Ointment, Sinew-Soothing and Blood-Activating Tablets, and Tianzhu Divine Oil. Some of its specialty medicines had even been listed as tribute medicines by the imperial court, reserved exclusively for the imperial palace.

Raised with a silver spoon from birth, Su Konghu had never seriously practiced martial arts. His Primordial Realm cultivation had been entirely piled up by gorging on pills like the Yellow Dragon Pill, Return Dragon Pill, and Ascending Dragon Pill,

but his breadth of knowledge and experience was by no means something ordinary martial world folk could match.

The moment he spoke, the people present believed him seventy or eighty percent.

It's the same logic as when Wang Sicong says online that some female celebrity has a loose private life—netizens will mostly believe him. After all, the lavish parties he's attended probably outnumber the bottles of Haitian-brand soy sauce the netizens have ever eaten their way through.

Taking a deep breath, Su Konghu cupped his fist toward Li Cheng and asked, "I am Su Konghu of the Ten Thousand Miasma Valley. May I ask which sect and which school this young master hails from, and which family and surname you belong to?"

*Slurp. *

Li Cheng casually wiped the black water from the corner of his mouth and calmly returned the courtesy: "My surname is Pi, given name Fu. I am a person from the Crippled Elders Village overseas, raised from childhood by nine elders of unfathomable origins. The move I just used is called 【Water Gun】, modeled after the attacks of the deep-sea leviathan Jenny Turtle. My apologies for the poor showing."

The people in the tea shed didn't quite get it but felt it must be impressive, still muttering that he was from overseas, no wonder they had never heard of him before. Hui Yu, however, nearly couldn't hold it together. Freaking Jenny Turtle, freaking Crippled Elders Village—is he putting on a performance of *Records of the Shepherd God* here?

During the conversation, Cao Meng, who had been kneeling on the ground looking like he was having a seizure, finally relied on his martial artist's mental fortitude to break free from the hallucination and wake up. His eyes slowly regained clarity.

Soaked through, he gasped for breath in great gulps. Seeing that Li Cheng was still sitting calmly in his original seat, and that his own subordinates were hesitating with their cleavers, he immediately guessed what had happened.

Silently getting to his feet, he bowed deeply to Li Cheng and said deferentially, "I truly have failed to recognize the mountain before me, and brought this humiliation upon myself. I thank the young master for the great kindness of sparing my life. These banknotes, please consider them your tea money, young master."

Having said that, he kept his bowing posture, quickly retreated to the corner of the wall, and silently swapped his soaked clothes and trousers with his subordinates.

This was absolutely not cowardice.

Only ruffians and scoundrels treat brawling and bloodlust as virtues. Being able to bow and to stretch, that is what makes a real man.

After this little interlude, the tea shed gradually returned to its lively appearance on the surface, but underneath, everyone was muttering to themselves.

Crippled Elders Village—what kind of sect is that? Never heard of it. Could it be that they're all former heavyweights of the martial world who, after being wounded and crippled, retired into seclusion?

Well, it's just that Li Cheng didn't mention anything about Konoha Village, otherwise this group of martial world folk would have guessed he lived in some deep, remote mountain forest.

!

Clang—clang—

A long, drawn-out gong sounded from outside. The people's expressions sharpened, and they hurriedly packed their belongings and stepped out of the tea shed.

The ferry sent to pick them up had arrived.

Li Cheng opened his oil-paper umbrella and followed the crowd into the curtain of rain. Before leaving, Hui Yu took the three thousand taels in banknotes from the table. He had originally planned to casually pull one out and, with great panache, leave behind the line "Keep the change,"

but upon looking more closely, he found the banknotes were all five-hundred-tael and three-hundred-tael notes, and even the smallest denomination was fifty taels.

One tael of silver buys one shi of rice; one shi is 125 jin; one jin of rice is 3.16 yuan. Fifty taels is roughly equivalent to 19,750 modern yuan—enough to buy a high-end graphics card!

Sure enough, the brain upgrade made Hui Yu smarter. The moment electronics got involved, the concept of prudent household management instantly took the high ground. He hurriedly said to the shopkeeper, "Ahem, here's fifty taels. You'd better give me change."

The shopkeeper was caught between laughter and tears. "Honored guest, this is a small business of mine. I can't even make change for fifty taels. Consider this tea my treat to you."

"That won't do. How can I take it for free?"

Hui Yu thought for a moment, tossed down a fifty-tael banknote, then took the entire drawer of loose copper coins from the counter.

"What are you carrying so many copper coins for?"

Li Cheng's eye twitched. There were outsiders nearby, so he couldn't directly use his inventory bar. He had no choice but to slip his hand into his robe, pretend to pull out a square cloth from his three-dimensionalized warehouse, wrap the copper coins up in it, and then turn with Hui Yu to look toward the ferry dock.

The Great Ming of this magic-revised version possessed far greater national strength than the real-world historical one; even civilian ferries had a tonnage approaching that of Zheng He's treasure ships.

It had nine masts, twelve sails spread, a towering hull, and over twenty cast-iron cannons and harpoon guns mounted aft of the portholes.

Firepower like this would be more than enough to serve as a naval vessel even in the era of the First Opium War.

Sailors reeking of salt and fish expertly lowered the gangway. Besides the crew, dozens of jianghu figures stood on deck — they had boarded at a northern ferry crossing earlier.

At a single glance, they were all Postnatal and Innate, and several others whose information even the integrated-lens glasses couldn't read.

"Let's go."

Li Cheng, holding an oil-paper umbrella, boarded the gangway with the grey rain.

(End of chapter)