Chapter 91: Child Bride

From Gusu City to Wu Family Slope, with Wu Chengyu's current Lightness Skill it only takes Three Incense Sticks Time; Crane Shadow Flowing Light is indeed the technique Cloud Crane used to escape with his life — purely in terms of long-distance rapid advance, the Lightness Skill in the Nine Yin Manual falls far short of it.

However, the Lower Volume of the Manual contains only two Lightness Skills: Spiral Nine Shadows and Snake Walk Civet Roll; each has its own marvelous uses.

Especially Snake Walk Civet Roll — it shares the same exquisite principle as Wu Chengyu's Cat Step and Eel Skill; a civet cat is a cat, and the eel's body shape is also very similar to a snake's — sometimes Wu Chengyu even suspects the Bamboo Slips' Martial Arts were directly plagiarized.

But Cat Step and Eel Skill count as Body Tempering Techniques: Cat Step improves leg muscle fibers, Eel Skill makes the whole body's muscles automatically flow and dodge upon encountering an attack — protective force is merely an added bonus.

These two are equivalent to directly added passive skills, raising agility and flexibility, increasing dodge effect; whereas Snake Walk Civet Roll is a Body Movement Technique used when facing an enemy, belonging to active skills, purely technique-based.

Wu Chengyu tried to automatically fuse Cat Step and Eel Skill while using Snake Walk Civet Roll; when exchanging moves with others, it truly achieved the effect of passing through ten thousand flowers without a speck of pollen sticking to the body.

And his Cat Step, under the bonus of the Achilles tendons lengthened through Ox-Horse Stance training, possesses astonishing explosive power — he can move fast enough to create two or three afterimages, somewhat similar to the effect of Afterimage Fist; after learning Spiral Nine Shadows, it is equivalent to having theory and technique as support — now, at full power, Wu Chengyu's phantoms are not merely nine.

Back then, single-mindedly seeking revenge and incidentally exhausting every scheme to obtain the Lower Volume of the Nine Yin Manual, the magnitude of help it gave Wu Chengyu exceeded even his own expectations; he originally thought that with the Murong Family's Martial Arts Skill, the Nine Yin Manual would be a chicken rib — at least he wouldn't have much time to cultivate it.

Not to mention anything else — at the very least it has brought Wu Chengyu's Lightness Skill and Body Movement Technique to an unfathomable level; if he became a flower-picking thief, there would be very few under heaven who could catch up to him — the current him certainly cannot beat the Five Absolutes, but he absolutely can escape.

By the time Wu Chengyu returned to Wu Family Slope, the sky had already darkened; the small market town inside Wu Family Slope, seen from afar, was nothing but scattered candlelights and cooking smoke that had not yet dissipated after the evening meal — five years of worldly hearth-fires had already given Wu Chengyu the feeling of home.

Wu Chengyu's Small Courtyard lies on the west side of Wu Family Slope; the courtyard occupies a modest area, a hundred-odd square meters, with four rooms plus a kitchen.

At this moment A Ku was sitting at the Eight Immortals Table, left hand propping up her head, eyes watching the flame in the oil lamp, unknown what she was thinking.

Only, under the lamplight, the shadow on the wall behind her seemed somewhat gigantic.

A Ku, full name Mo Ku, would turn twelve in a few days; height 1.75 meters, weight she won't say — the Young Miss has grown up and knows to be shy.

The reason Wu Chengyu decided to control his height to grow to at least 1.95 meters was mainly because, according to the Bamboo Slips' speculation, A Ku's final height should be around 1.85 meters; out of a man's self-respect, he had no choice but to change his plan and raise the target.

A year ago A Ku's Xiong Chu Mo could be considered thoroughly mastered — finally no longer needing to hibernate intermittently every winter; her appetite also sharply decreased, now only equivalent to two adult men's portions plus a little more.

As A Ku's height surged, her figure also gradually slimmed down as the Bamboo Slips said, no longer so bloated; yet A Ku's weight did not drop much.

The fatty flesh accumulated all over her body from eating and drinking in great quantities quickly transformed into firm muscle — unlike gym muscle enhanced with technology and ruthless effort, not bloated, but absolutely possessing a visually shocking sense of power.

The function of Xiong Chu Mo is to rebuild Luck/Fate by breaking and then standing on the premise that the body's Foundation is damaged; someone like Wu Chengyu, merely of mediocre aptitude but with good physical condition, cannot cultivate it.

And the side effect of Xiong Chu Mo is to make the cultivator's body become powerfully built; now A Ku's arm strength is already no less than Wu Chengyu's, and visually there still seems room for future increase.

According to the Bamboo Slips, Xiong Chu Mo's effect of increasing strength is not that remarkable; the strength A Ku now possesses is the result of her superhuman aptitude after her Foundation was completed — simply that unreasonable.

In short, the current A Ku, even without using Martial Arts, seven or eight ordinary strong men could not approach her.

Just a very tall girl who looks somewhat sturdy or rather athletic — the combination of strength and beauty, absolutely not ugly; but paired with A Ku's face it feels slightly discordant.

A Ku is a natural baby-face; judging by her face alone she is absolutely pure and sweet — big eyes that curve into crescents when she smiles — seven parts similar to Mao Xiaotong as Wu Chengyu saw on TV in his Previous Life; but can you imagine Mao Xiaotong wrestling with someone and casually throwing them five meters away?

Ever since A Ku mastered Xiong Chu Mo, Wu Chengyu has frequently had the same dream: he dreams of Mao Xiaotong wearing ancient costume, one moment foolishly acting spoiled, occasionally wronged and secretly shedding tears alone, then turning around and slapping a Tiao Qing Bai E Hu to death with one palm.

Then Wu Chengyu would wake in fright, his quilt full of cold sweat.

From that time on, Wu Chengyu began to worry for A Ku's future husband; he often looked at the Wu Family little young masters who usually played together with A Ku, pondering in his heart which one would become the future unlucky fellow.

But who could have imagined, World Affairs are just this melodramatic plus unreasonable.

A few days ago several uncles gathered at Wu Chengyu's home, eating meat and drinking wine while discussing which industry to let Wu Chengyu take over to try his hand — Wu Chengyu had long been regarded by the uncles as the future pillar of the Third House.

But as they chatted, Wu Zhenghui went off on a tangent: "Look at Xiao Ershiyi's head — no difference from a grown young man; he'll be sixteen soon, and although he still cannot perform the capping ceremony, he can already consider betrothal.

Ordinary farming families might already have married off their sons.

His parents are both gone; we uncles still have to plan early for him."

Once these words were spoken, the others chimed in one after another, enumerating all the good-looking, age-similar girls among the Outside Surname families in the Wu Family, then slowly the talk turned to which families in Gusu City had suitable marriage-alliance candidates.

Wu Chengyu actually had no strong feelings either way — marrying now would certainly be too early; but since this is a feudal society these things are all very common — finding a good wife early, even playing a few years of raising-her-first isn't bad.

But the premise must be someone gentle and soft, not affected or pretentious, virtuous and worthy, knowing how to take care of her own man, and also pleasing to the eye — since it's a feudal society and he himself is a rich young master, Wu Chengyu refuses to wrong himself.

Just then, A Ku, who had been sitting to the side busily gnawing bones and too occupied to speak, suddenly raised her head; the grease on her mouth not yet wiped clean, her eyes somewhat bewildered, yet the words she spoke nearly made Wu Chengyu jump up.

"Big Brother doesn't need to find someone to betroth — I am Big Brother's Child Bride."

At these words, the several uncles all burst into laughter; A Ku's personality is such that anyone who has interacted with her would like her — the little girl, though also an Outside Surname, is very much doted on in Wu Family Slope.

Wu Zhengliang observed A Ku, then looked at Wu Chengyu who was sitting restlessly at the moment, and nodded, saying:

"Little A Ku is right — the two of you really look very well-matched."

(Chapter End)