Chapter 85

Li Miao looked Yun Zelin up and down, did not rush to act, walked to the side and sat down, leaning against the armrest, looking at Yun Zelin.

He really wanted to hear what Yun Zelin wanted to say.

Although Yun Zelin looked like he was on the verge of death, as if he would fall apart if kicked, Li Miao could feel the incomparably thick true energy surging within him.

Stronger than Lan Lechuan.

It could be said that the current Yun Zelin was the strongest person Li Miao had heard of or seen since arriving in the Great Ming.

Yun Zelin sat down, covered his mouth and coughed a few times, and looked at Li Miao.

"Lord Li, let's start with you."

"If I am not mistaken, you are actually very similar to my current situation."

"Oh?" Li Miao replied noncommittally.

Yun Zelin continued: "I took a shortcut by relying on the achievements of Sect Leader Ji."

"I was born with superior comprehension, and mastering 'Jiezi' was a matter of course."

"But 'Jin Gang' and 'Sumeru' both require aptitude. I was born incomplete; others have the Eight Extraordinary Meridians plus the Twelve Regular Meridians. I only have three regular meridians that are connected."

"If we really talk about it, even a human stick would be more suitable for martial arts than me."

Yun Zelin laughed at himself.

"Although the Ming Sect made up for my aptitude, I still couldn't reach the level of Left Envoy Lan. So, I could only try the evil path."

Yun Zelin raised his hand to stroke his chest and said slowly.

"Sect Leader Ji was a man of heaven-sent talent who blazed a new trail, combining it with Miao frontier Gu techniques to find this path that no one had ever walked before."

"The five internal organs are where the spirit, blood, energy, and soul are stored."

"The heart is the root of life; the Gu insects cultivated with the essence and blood of Left Envoy Zuo allowed me to obtain 'Jin Gang'."

"The kidneys govern the intake of energy; the Gu insects cultivated with the essence and blood of Left Envoy Lan allowed me to obtain 'Sumeru'."

"At this moment, I already possess three paths beyond the peak."

Li Miao smiled: "And then you turned yourself into this half-dead state."

Yun Zelin was not annoyed, but nodded in agreement.

"Yes, naturally I cannot be mentioned in the same breath as you."

"With my shallow knowledge, the people in this world who think they are heaven's pride are as numerous as ox hair. Yet they are all just mediocre people sitting in a well and looking at the sky, peeking at the sun through a window."

"Including Sect Leader Ji, including me, we are all mediocre people taking shortcuts."

"The only one truly walking on the right path is you, Lord Li."

"I can only barely see clearly now that you, Lord Li, have also mastered 'Jin Gang', 'Sumeru', and 'Jiezi' at the same time, right?"

"It's just that, unlike a mediocre talent like me who is eager for success, you reached the end, and when you were only one step away, you stopped yourself."

"Your three paths were all deliberately not cultivated to perfection."

Li Miao sneered: "Nonsense, if I had cultivated them to perfection, I would have turned into your ghostly state."

The person who could see Li Miao's Wu Gong Realm had finally appeared.

That's right, the reason Li Miao called himself "half a Wu Lin myth" was because he had already gathered "Jin Gang", "Sumeru", and "Jiezi" in one body, and was only one step away from the realm of Zhang Sanfeng.

Moreover, it wasn't that he couldn't take that step.

If he wanted to, he could perfect all three at the same time right now.

He had stopped himself voluntarily.

Because he faintly felt that there was still something missing that he hadn't found.

Rashly taking that step would lead to the same fate as the heaven's pride talents who had tried to cross the chasm before—the Five Decays of Heaven and Man.

Precisely because of this, none of his three paths had been cultivated to perfection. He had deliberately left one step untaken.

Therefore, Lan Lechuan's palm strike had been able to leave a mark on him.

"Enough about me, let's talk about you."

"I'm quite curious to hear what you are plotting by going to such lengths, leaving the Ming Sect half-crippled and yourself half-dead?"

Li Miao said.

Yun Zelin smiled and didn't speak for a moment.

He raised his withered, stick-like hand and tapped his chest several times.

In an instant, a thick, fishy stench emanated from his body, accompanied by wisps of white smoke rising from his seven orifices, enveloping his entire person.

Whoosh—

Li Miao raised his hand and struck with a palm.

True energy swept out, dispersing the white smoke.

Looking at Yun Zelin again, Li Miao let out a surprised hum.

"Interesting."

The current Yun Zelin was no longer as old as before, and the wrinkles on his face had faded quite a bit. His skin and flesh were no longer as loose as before.

Even the wound on his forehead that Li Miao had struck, which had originally revealed the white skull, was now bright red; although there was no skin, a thin layer of flesh had already grown out.

"I did all this just to catch up to you."

Yun Zelin had no intention of explaining the strange state of his body, continuing the previous topic as if nothing had happened.

"I still need some time; is Lord Li willing to listen to me say a few more words?"

Li Miao was noncommittal, so Yun Zelin continued on his own.

"My father was a direct disciple in a major sect."

"I had superior comprehension since I was young. When I was four, I only watched him dance a few moves in the courtyard, and I supplemented this set of sword techniques myself, only slightly worse than the one passed down by the sect."

"That day, I took a branch and showed my father this set of sword techniques I had realized. At that time, the expression of shock and ecstasy on his face is still vivid in my memory."

"From that day on, all the elders in the sect appeared before me frequently. The sect leader celebrated my birthday, and the elders congratulated me. My father's status also rose with the tide, and everyone thought he was the father of the next sect leader."

"But, when I reached the age of ten, the sect finally began to prepare to lay a foundation for me. They discovered my root bone: I was born incomplete."

Li Miao smiled disdainfully: "What a tacky routine, didn't the sect leader's daughter come to break off the engagement?"

Yun Zelin, of course, couldn't understand what he meant.

Li Miao twisted his fingers and said to Yun Zelin indifferently: "I'm not interested in your childhood trauma."

"In this world, unlucky people and stories are everywhere; I'm tired of hearing them. Speak faster."

Yun Zelin laughed: "Good, good."

"In short, some things happened in between. So when I was eighteen, I poisoned my father to death and secretly betrayed the sect."

"At first, I wasn't convinced."

"There are plenty of martial arts in this world, and outside the Great Ming territory, there are paths that are completely different from the Central Plains Wu Lin."

"So I began to wander, stealing the martial arts of various families while trying to create a cultivation method that I could practice with my root bone."

"I achieved some results, and when I was twenty-eight, I finally reached the second-rate level in the Jianghu."

"It was also this year that I joined the Ming Sect and saw you in Shuntian Prefecture."

As he spoke, Yun Zelin tapped his chest a few more times.

In an instant, his face seemed to have grown a few years younger, looking like a middle-aged, feminine man.

An almost pious expression appeared on his face.

"So-called comprehension is actually, to put it plainly, vision and mental strength."

"Others can't see through it and just think your root bone is excellent. Only I, who have studied for more than ten years on how to improve root bones, can see clearly that your root bone is unprecedented."

"That sword strike of yours woke me up from this boring world full of mediocre people."

(End of chapter)