Chapter 283: Lurking and Night-Roaming

The identity of Lu Zhigang is a trump card in Zhou You's hand.

This trip back to Gongliang City, besides planting the Blood Qi Gu, also allowed him to uncover the secret of Bao Tiefeng being a mid-level martial master.

It can be said to be a fruitful harvest! To make use of this clone, he cannot let Lu Zhigang be exposed to the public eye.

Zhou You's plan is to choose a secret base for "Lu Zhigang" to hide in, and incidentally practice his palm techniques to raise his realm.

The place must be large, secluded, and rich in resources, allowing him to refine his palm poison and test his palm power.

There is one place that perfectly meets all the conditions... Ink Cloud Stronghold.

After the stronghold was breached, the entire mountain was abandoned; ever since the main army withdrew, no hunters or woodcutters who entered the mountain thereafter ever returned alive.

Outsiders do not know the inside story and all say the evil energy in the stronghold is too heavy, making it no longer suitable for human activity.

Consequently, a taboo formed locally: one must not step even half a step into the mountain.

Zhou You has been inside and knows the real reason is that there are too many bewitching creatures; ordinary people who go in are just serving themselves up as food.

Choosing this place as a secret base is simply the most appropriate thing.

The clone will take the Ten Thousand Poison Heart-Attacking Pill and various daily necessities to hide and cultivate at the stronghold ruins; once he breaks through to Qi and Blood 9th Stage, he can begin to work on breaking through to the martial master level.

During this period, no one will enter the mountain to gather wood or disturb his focused palm practice.

Even the poisonous insects and snakes produced in the mountain can enhance the power of his Poison Palm, and encountering large beasts can also verify the lethality of his palm techniques, without needing to kill people to practice.

The main body quickly handed over the supplies to the clone and arranged everything for after he moved into Ink Cloud Stronghold.

The Ten Thousand Poison Heart-Attacking Pill, snake venom for practicing palm techniques, as well as daily necessities like firewood, rice, oil, salt, and spare clothing.

For this, Zhou You specially allocated 3 Hunger Pouches to him for transporting and storing supplies.

It was also a coincidence that during the time "Lu Zhigang" caused a scene in Fucheng, Jiang Hua sent over half of the tanned human skin; after Zhou You worked through the night, he finally processed 7 Hunger Pouches.

The clone "Lu Zhigang" then left Gongliang City with the supplies and Hunger Pouches, heading to Ink Cloud Stronghold to settle down.

Zhou You's main body remained in the Inner City, practicing his fists with peace of mind, and incidentally providing Instruction to Zuo Shier and Tie Niu on learning the Double Body Tiger Form Fist.

Zuo Shier has a very stable foundation and, given time, is expected to dash toward the mid-stage of Qi and Blood; he is a capable hand.

Although Tie Niu is not quick-witted, he gained a blessing in disguise; he is single-minded in his work and is also wholehearted when learning to box.

"Tie Niu, take this bottle of pills and ration them; do not exceed one per day. If your limbs feel bloated, stop for a day."

"Once you finish this bottle of pills, you will be about at the Qi and Blood barrier."

Tie Niu's eyes were clear; although he did not know what the Qi and Blood barrier was, his grandfather told him that he must listen to the Young Master in everything.

He did not yet know that the opportunity he encountered was enough to make his grandfather, Zhou Laiwei, jealous.

Zhou Laiwei is over sixty and is only at Qi and Blood 1st Stage; although Zhou You later gave him some help, making it possible to break through to 2nd Stage, he will at most reach Qi and Blood 3rd Stage in this lifetime, with no hope for the mid-stage of Qi and Blood.

Tie Niu is young, and with Zhou You's abundant supply of Secret Medicine and personal Instruction in the Double Body Tiger Form Fist, he is already expected to break through in Qi and Blood.

In the future, when Tie Niu becomes a Qi and Blood warrior and learns the Double Body Tiger Form Fist, even Zhou Laiwei will not be his match.

Whenever the night is deep and quiet, Zhou You secretly observes Bao Tiefeng's movements through the Bewitching Blood Qi Gu.

He is afraid of alerting the other party, so he specifically ordered the Gu Insect to act in secret and not cause too much of a stir.

A mid-level martial master has a higher level of control over his physical body; one careless move and he would discover clues, leading to all previous efforts being wasted.

Being so cautious, he finally managed to lurk successfully.

Through observation, Bao Tiefeng is simply a martial arts fanatic; besides managing the martial arts school, he is devoted to practicing his fists and tempering his body. On the surface, there is indeed no abnormal situation.

The only harvest is that the Blood Qi Gu has merged into a part of his body, allowing Zhou You to intuitively experience the physical structure of a mid-level martial master.

The so-called "softness" is not just that the skin and flesh become supple and the joints have a greater range of motion; the changes at the microscopic level can be described as earth-shattering.

The extensibility of muscles, skin, blood vessels, and bones has already exceeded the limits of a human.

The flesh and blood body of an ordinary person would tear and dismember if stretched to the limit, but a mid-level martial master has broken through this bottleneck.

Just as Zhou You saw with his own eyes, Bao Tiefeng is like a rubber man; even if beaten flat, he can recover.

The only flaw is weapons; Qi and Blood Divine Weapons can cut him, and a Close-Range Treasure Tool hitting a vital point is also certain death.

That dagger of Zhou You's is precisely the nemesis of mid-level martial masters!

Since he has the means to break his physical body, Zhou You is much more confident! One day, he had a sudden whim: what if he used Bao Tiefeng to study the Zang Tian Yang Yuan Gong? This technique from the Zang Tian Gate can be called a stable point-farming machine; from the beginning until now, it has provided Experience Points steadily, but it just hasn't seen any improvement. The panel has been refreshed countless times, yet the Zang Tian Yang Yuan Gong is still Lv1—a proper "nail house" (stubborn holdout).

Since he can't see any dawn of hope, he might as well let Bao Tiefeng try; he is a mid-level martial master, so his starting point is high.

The worst-case scenario is that he gets lucky and practices something out of it; Zhou You can also use the Bewitching Blood Qi Gu to wipe away the traces, which is nothing more than the risk of exposure.

Bao Tiefeng suddenly developed a habit of sleepwalking.

This matter was something he figured out himself; after all, he sleeps alone at night, and his Disciples dare not pry.

It is specifically manifested in that he is not in the same place after waking up as he was before falling asleep, as if he had moved during the night.

If someone were really sneaking into the room to move his body, the matter would be serious and must be thoroughly investigated.

That is not the case; Bao Tiefeng is a mid-level martial master. Whenever an outsider approaches, he doesn't even need to touch his body; he can immediately sense it and wake up from his sleep.

There is only one explanation: he sleepwalks at night, getting out of bed and walking around on his own, changing his position.

This matter is a hidden trouble that is hard to speak of, and it is not convenient to find a physician for it; fortunately, there is no harm, so he ignores it for now.

Hmm, the cold treatment was indeed effective; after a period of time, the sleepwalking problem was solved.

Bao Tiefeng sleeps even better now, feeling that it is great to be old and have no ailments.

The truth is that Zhou You saw him notice the abnormality and adjusted the Bewitching Blood Qi Gu in time, trying his best to let Bao Tiefeng return to his original position.

The so-called sleepwalking is actually him using the Bewitching Blood Qi Gu to bewitch the other party into practicing the Zang Tian Yang Yuan Gong after he falls asleep.

This health-preserving technique was previously practiced by Li Chonghe, but he didn't practice anything out of it either.

Zhou You couldn't practice it either, so he simply treated a dead horse as a living one and used Bao Tiefeng to help him break through the barrier.

It is a pity that Bao Tiefeng "sleepwalked" for one or two months in a row, but there was still no progress.

It seems that the Zang Tian Yang Yuan Gong is destined to be a tool for farming Experience Points.

Until one night at midnight, while Zhou You was studying the movement of the fist techniques in the Hungry Tiger diagram, his heart suddenly trembled.

The Heart-Bewitching Blood Qi Gu sent a message; Bao Tiefeng was making a move.

Under his efforts of working continuous night shifts, the progress of the Heaven-Reaching Yuan-Nurturing Art loosened slightly, successfully upgrading from Lv1 to Lv2.

(End of this chapter)