Chapter 8: 8 Committing Murder

【You have spent a blissful night with Tong Jia and gained 6 spare points】.

At the first light of dawn, Song Cheng glanced at the information.

Beside him, the Young Mistress rubbed her hands, calling out "So cold, so cold," then took her undergarments from the wooden table by the bed and put them on under the quilt. A moment later, she got up, pulled on coarse cloth socks, dressed in her clothes and trousers, looked at herself in the bronze mirror, and while combing her long hair, said: "Today should be a good day. Brother Cheng, remember to take the medicine from the medicine rack out into the courtyard to dry."

"Alright."

Song Cheng's physical strength had clearly not yet recovered; his legs were a bit weak, especially the inner thighs.

His strength was weaker than the Young Mistress's; he had some drive at the beginning, but after these few days, he had actually been crushed by the Young Mistress of the house.

Tong Jia murmured: "I hope there will still be people coming to see the doctor today. The snow has just passed, and there are quite a few who have had cold evil enter their bodies."

Creak—the door opened.

The Young Mistress of the house ran out the door to cook breakfast.

The sound of the night watchman of the village returning home drifted across the muddy path outside the door. The thieves had not appeared in these two days, which caused the previous "shadow of the grain merchant being robbed" to fade slightly.

A while later, when Song Cheng also got up, the steaming hot soup noodles were already on the table.

There were two bowls of soup noodles.

The Young Mistress of the house pushed a bowl over and said: "You eat this bowl."

Song Cheng sniffed.

The bowl pushed over had the scent of meat; there were diced cured meat sprinkled in the noodle soup. But the Young Mistress's bowl did not have any.

"Just make do for now. When the grain merchant from the county town comes again, I will go and weigh some meat."

"Thank you, Mistress," Song Cheng said.

The Young Mistress of the house laughed softly and said: "You are too thin; you should have been nourishing yourself anyway."

In her view, Song Cheng was too weak, just a tiny bit better than someone who couldn't even truss a chicken. If there were truly bandits entering the village and they needed to flee, she feared she would be the one carrying Song Cheng and running wildly.

Song Cheng was still a little blind man; she feared he wouldn't have any skills in this life, so it was better to raise him to be sturdy.

During the Daytime, Tong Jia went to sit in the clinic.

Song Cheng dried herbs in the backyard, washed clothes using the accumulated snow water, and then chopped firewood. After a busy spell, he rested for a moment and scanned the "Pagoda Meditation Method (Yellow Grade, Ding Rank) (Small Accomplishment (6/8))" on his panel.

"Add Points."

6 points were invested.

The progress of the "Pagoda Meditation Method" quickly climbed past Small Accomplishment and became "Great Accomplishment (4/16)."

A mysterious feeling surged forth.

Through long-term night wandering, he had finally taken a step further; his control over his Soul leaving his body was more profound.

He was like a fisherman catching fish on an ocean with year-round storms, knowing what kind of weather allowed for "Soul leaving the body," and also knowing how to "return to the physical shell" safely without causing the shell to be injured.

Even though his physical fitness could not yet match this skill, he was already able to minimize physical wear and tear by compressing the time spent on night wandering.

"I can wander at night."

Song Cheng opened his eyes.

It was still bright out, but he was already starting to look forward to the night.

Night fell.

Tong Jia was exhausted after a busy day. She lay on the bed and did nothing with Song Cheng, just leaning against her man and talking for a while about things like "Four patients came today, all with cold evil entering their bodies just like Caihua Sao and Baojin Sao," and "If there are this many people coming to see the doctor tomorrow or the day after, I will have to go into the mountains to gather medicine."

As she spoke, she fell asleep.

Song Cheng moved slightly to the side, changing from leaning against the Young Mistress of the house to each sleeping on their own side.

This was not out of dislike, but because after the "Pagoda Meditation Method" reached Great Accomplishment, he knew very clearly that "once the Soul leaves the body, the physical shell enters a state similar to death," and the whole body would start to turn cold. If he were leaning against the Young Mistress of the house, he feared he would freeze her awake and then frighten her.

After sleeping separately, he waited a while, and once he was sure the Young Mistress of the house was fast asleep, he closed his eyes.

In his meditation, a nine-story high tower appeared in the void.

The young man's Soul climbed the steps step by step, and upon reaching the ninth level, leaped out.

The Soul broke through the body!

This was his first time in reality.

He saw himself, and that skin-bag was indeed as it was in his cultivation: delicate and thin.

He also saw the Young Mistress of the house sleeping beside him.

The Young Mistress of the house was only wrapped in a silk bodice, two moon-white silk ribbons hanging at her neck; that neck was snow-white and smooth, those cheeks were beautiful and quiet, and her ink-like black hair was spread out, as if she were a white plum blossom blooming in the night.

This was countless times more beautiful than the pale, sketched person in his blind man's vision.

Thinking that every day it was this little beauty who flirted with him, let him dote on her, and lived life with him, Song Cheng felt his heart melt. He was Chang Sheng Bu Lao, but he hadn't had the time to think about the matter of immortality.

Now, he just wanted to live life well with the Young Mistress of the house.

May no one die! Live on! The departed Soul began to drift away from the body, slipped out through a crack in the window on one side, and drifted into the wilderness; the cold wind surged in like the waves of a river of frost and snow.

Song Cheng sensed it for a moment and made a judgment.

"I must return within half an incense stick of time, otherwise... I will fall into a great illness tomorrow."

Since he had decided, Song Cheng drifted up quickly and began to patrol.

The Soul state was much faster than the physical body, like the wind.

And data observation could be completed entirely through "line of sight passing through walls."

Song Cheng passed by house after house, scanning the people inside.

He wanted to see first if there was anyone in this village who harbored ill will toward his home.

A short while later, he had already toured most of the village.

Among the villagers, those with strength of "1~1" were rare; most were "0~0."

This was not strange, as the able-bodied men had all been taken away.

As for the favorability, it mostly fluctuated between 50 and 70.

This range should be considered a normal value; 50 means not particularly fond, and 70 means the impression is alright.

Seeing that the time was nearly up, Song Cheng prepared to return; after all, today was just a trial run.

Suddenly, he froze; behind a wall, three sets of data caught his attention.

Two of them were very normal, with a strength of "0~0".

But the third one's strength was actually "3~4"!!

That is already invincible in Tanghe Village, okay? And what made Song Cheng even more horrified was that the existence with a strength of "3~4" had a favorability rating toward him of only 40!

He, Song Cheng, was basically like a woman, never stepping out of the house, almost never leaving Huichun Hall, and always being amiable to others; when could he have offended anyone? How could he have offended anyone?

No! It was not just aimed at him, but aimed at both him and the Young Mistress.

Song Cheng looked at that house with a serious expression.

It was Yun E's house.

His expression shifted, and he drifted to the back door of Yun E's house, slipping through the crack in the door like a transparent, flat sheet of paper, then quickly looked inside.

He saw a short youth straddling the bed, riding Yun E, and humiliating her frantically.

Yun E's face was full of tears, yet she covered her mouth, seemingly afraid of startling the mother-in-law next door.

And a dagger was being held against Yun E's neck.

That dagger must have been very sharp; even though only moonlight filtered in through the paper window, it still glinted with a cold light.

Song Cheng recognized the short youth.

This was the eldest of the three Ding brothers—Ding Siyu.

The one who came to his place a few days ago to ask if he had died from a fall was his second brother, Ding Siyan.

Suddenly, Ding Siyu, caught up in the excitement, pressed Yun E down completely and placed the dagger on the edge of the table.

His strength data instantly changed back to "1~2".

Watching this beastly scene, Song Cheng felt both hatred and lingering fear.

He knew that Yun E's mother-in-law had fallen gravely ill and was bedridden, and in these past few days, in order to treat her mother-in-law, Yun E had been spending money on medicine and buying food from other houses... This was certainly an act of filial piety, but it had also caught the eye of someone with malicious intent.

He suspected that Ding Siyan had likely come to Yun E's house as well to act as a scout, which was why this scene was happening now.

In the middle of the night, if there were two people in the house, Ding Siyu would not be able to gain the upper hand unless he truly committed murder.

If that day... if that day, he had really been severely injured and bedridden.

Then, would the one being humiliated by this Ding Siyu right now be the Young Mistress?! A Soul cannot touch physical objects.

Song Cheng only felt the airflow like a glacial river surging in from all directions; his Soul was almost frozen stiff.

He had been outside for too long; if he did not return now, at best he would catch a cold or get sick, and at worst, he would lose his life.

Song Cheng could not bear to watch any longer and had to turn around in a hurry, returning quickly until he dove into his physical shell, only then feeling a hint of warmth.

He shivered and burrowed into his quilt, as if he had just been fished out of an ice hole in the middle of winter.

(End of this chapter)