Chapter 67: Farewell, Fatty Sun

Fatty Sun returned.

Early the next morning, Li Yuan learned of this news and couldn't help but feel a jolt in his heart.

Others might think Fatty Sun went to visit relatives with the Second Shopkeeper, but he naturally knew that wasn't the case.

Especially upon learning that Fatty Sun had returned alone last night and was immediately taken away by Cao Yan, he became even more certain.

"Something has happened!"

Putting down the forging hammer, Li Yuan said not another word and rushed back to the central courtyard, where he saw Fatty Sun, who looked soulless and had grown so thin he was unrecognizable.

"You..."

Before Li Yuan could finish asking, Sun Hao had lunged forward, embracing him and wailing in tears, his face streaming with snot and tears.

"..."

Li Yuan held his arms out, and only after the crying subsided did he ask:

"What happened on the road? Why did you return alone? Where is the Second Shopkeeper?"

"S-something has happened."

Fatty Sun's face was ashen, muttering back and forth.

Li Yuan felt pity in his heart, raised his hand, and 'slapped him across the face:

"What exactly has happened?"

Fatty Sun stumbled from the blow and fell into a chair, tears streaming uncontrollably down his face:

"My brother-in-law, my brother-in-law he... was captured?"

"... Captured by whom?"

Li Yuan breathed a sigh of relief; he had almost started mourning.

"By... people from the Viper Gang."

Fatty Sun seemed to have just regained his senses, his face full of bitterness and worry: "He, his injuries were so severe, what do we do? What do we do..."

The Viper Gang?

Li Yuan was skeptical.

The Viper Gang was a band of mountain bandits entrenched outside Bishui Lake; it was said they numbered over a thousand, their power was quite considerable, but they had never disturbed towns and were said to have close ties with several families in the city.

At the very least, they shouldn't have actively provoked the Weapon Forge.

The Weapon Forge's influence radiated across various counties and townships, even able to sell goods to Zhelong Prefecture; its power was no less than that of the Viper Gang.

The inner courtyard's assessment happens once every three years; before Yue Yue Yunjin and the others, there were at least seven or eight batches of apprentices...

"How did you return?"

Li Yuan frowned slightly.

Although Fatty Sun was crying in a daze, having spent day and night with this fat man for many days, Li Yuan felt in his heart that the fat man's words didn't quite match his heart.

Was he coerced?

"I took advantage of the night, knocked out the night-watch bandits, and escaped!"

He was indeed coerced!

Li Yuan understood in his heart and asked: "If you say this, will the Head Shopkeeper believe it?"

"He..."

Fatty Sun slumped, his face full of urgency that didn't seem fake: "He doesn't believe it either, but, but this is the truth!"

Seeing his behavior, Li Yuan wavered a bit; he didn't remember this fat man being such a good actor:

"How many of you traveled together?"

"Twenty-three of us traveled together, thirteen of whom were from Changyuan Escort Agency..."

"Then why were you the only one who escaped?"

Li Yuan felt he had figured it out; this fat man was definitely sent back on purpose.

Changyuan Escort Agency also ran martial arts halls; it was one of the three major martial arts halls in the inner city, with at least five or six Inner Strength martial artists, years of experience in escorting, and had previously gone to Fuchou Mountain completely unscathed.

They were defeated, and only a cook escaped; who could believe that?

"I, I don't know!"

Fatty Sun grew a bit anxious.

Cao Yan said the same thing; why did no one believe him?

Li Yuan knew something was likely going on here but didn't ask further; he patted his shoulder: "Rest first, I'll go cook; look how thin you've gotten."

Fatty Sun 'sniffled back his snot:

"Put in lots of fatty meat!"

Li Yuan went to the kitchen to cook a table full of dishes for Fatty Sun and borrowed a pot of wine from the kitchen staff.

But even drunk, Fatty Sun stuck to the same story, speaking incoherently, as if he truly wasn't lying.

"Sleep well."

After helping Sun Hao onto the bed and covering him with a blanket, Li Yuan stepped out, only to see that Cao Yan had arrived at the door at some unknown time.

"Head Shopkeeper?"

Li Yuan truly hadn't noticed and couldn't help but feel a jolt in his heart.

This was his first time seeing Cao Yan up close; he felt the man's breathing was long and faint, almost non-existent; though he was neither tall nor burly, he gave Li Yuan the feeling of facing a fierce tiger.

No, he could kill a fierce tiger now; this must be a demonic beast...

"Li Yuan?"

Cao Yan glanced at the inner room where snoring had already begun: "Old Zhang said your forging art has reached mastery? Do you have the confidence to craft superior grade sharp blades?"

"Reporting to the Shopkeeper, this disciple is also forging for the first time, I truly don't have much confidence…"

Li Yuan lowered his head slightly.

"Don't be afraid. If it works, it works; if it doesn't, treat it as practice. You're still young, there'll be plenty of chances in the future."

Cao Yan reached out and patted his shoulder, his tone gentle:

"If you truly can forge a superior blade, I have a separate reward for you privately!"

Having said that, he turned and left.

"Reward?"

Patting the dust that didn't exist on his shoulder, Li Yuan narrowed his eyes slightly. For a brief moment, every hair on his body stood on end.

This Shopkeeper's Wu Gong was at least two floors higher than Qin Xiong's!

"What do you mean, plenty of chances in the future?"

……

"Hoo!"

After a day of smithing, as the sky gradually darkened, Li Yuan finally set down his forging hammer, banked the fire, and headed home.

There were still few pedestrians in the city. From time to time one could see patrolling city guards and government office Runners; few stall-keepers were still hawking at this hour.

Li Yuan's expression was as usual. He bought some rice and flour and carried them along. government office Runners passed by now and then, but none stopped to question him. The serial killer Nian Jiu had resurfaced—

what did that have to do with a well-behaved inner-court apprentice at a weapons forge like him?

Passing through Chai Yu District, he caught sight of Liang Liang Ashui.

Liang Liang Ashui, who had vanished for several months, drew a wave of attention the moment he appeared. But this time he hadn't come to sell spirit fish; he was in a great hurry,

threading through the crowd and heading straight for the Four Seasons Medicine Hall.

"I heard his qi and blood already reached Great Completion long ago. Is he going to buy medicine to break through to Internal Force?"

Li Yuan glanced at him, paid no mind, and carried his rice and flour to his second brother's house.

He was too busy every day to cook. He'd grab a bite on the road for breakfast, eat the communal pot at the inner court for lunch, and only have dinner at his second brother's place.

From time to time he'd also bring chicken, duck, fish, meat, rice, flour, and the like, worried that the couple had grown too frugal to bear spending on themselves.

A pregnant woman needed nourishing even more.

In his past life, although he hadn't mastered scripture chanting or talisman drawing, his skills in assisting childbirth and inducing labor were top-notch. Whenever a household had a difficult labor, he'd go without delay, and even with his eyes covered in black cloth the whole way, he could guarantee mother and child safe.

For a time, that was how he made his living.

Until later when everyone went to the big hospitals to give birth, the Daoist priest was forced to step down and went home to open a little supermarket.

"My appetite is getting bigger and bigger. What my second brother and sister-in-law eat in a day isn't even as much as I eat in one meal. I'll have to buy more from now on…"

After eating until he was eighty percent full, Li Yuan took his leave of his brother and sister-in-law and went home.

He closed the courtyard gate, then the room door, before finally taking out a Blood Qi Pill.

"The medicinal power needed to alter one's root bone is really too much. I'm afraid the pills I have on me might not even be enough."

Glancing at the squeaking fat field mouse, Li Yuan tilted his head back and swallowed the pill. As the medicinal power rose in his belly, that familiar sensation came again.

Blood qi churned, circulated rapidly, consuming the medicinal power…

Then came that deep-in-the-bone, unbearable itch-tingle and burning.

"The spirit of man loves clarity, yet the mind disturbs it; the heart of man loves stillness, yet desire drags it. If one can always dispel desire, the heart will be still of itself; clarify the heart, and the spirit is clear of itself. Naturally the six desires do not arise, and the three poisons are destroyed…

Damn, it's useless!"

Li Yuan tried silently reciting the Clarity Scripture in his mind, but after only a few lines he couldn't help pounding the ground,

got up, rushed out the door, and jumped into the big water vat.

As the water churned, Daoist Li felt some regret that he'd been too lax in his past life and hadn't learned the Daoist school of stillness cultivation.

But he suspected that even the Patriarch himself would have to scratch a few times against this kind of itch-tingle…

After enduring he didn't know how long, Li Yuan, nearly drained of strength, crawled out of the big vat and once again lay on the ground, powerless all over. After the itch-tingle came a sense of comfort throughout his body.

The alteration of root bone wasn't something achieved in a day, but after every time he took a pill, Li Yuan could feel the change in himself.

His fingers had grown slender and long; the somewhat obvious muscles from hammering and standing-stance training had become firmer, more fluid, less conspicuous.

His stature, too, seemed to have grown a bit taller.

"At most once every three days, otherwise my body can't take it… Mm, the suffering wasn't for nothing. The horizontal-training Wu Gong should be close to entry-level, shouldn't it?"

Gazing at the bright moon, Li Yuan felt the changes in his body—or rather, the fruits of self-torture.

On the very day he obtained the Seven Star Horizontal-Training Body, he'd tried it. He'd suffered plenty, but the progress was maddeningly slow. It was only during the root-bone alteration that the horizontal training's progress picked up.

Li Yuan figured that horizontal training itself was the process of tempering the body to make sinews and bones strong and sturdy. With the root bone being altered, horizontal training naturally advanced.

"One or two more times to reach entry-level. To master it, I'm afraid even after finishing all the medicine it might not be enough… Still, I should have skipped the wooden-stick striking stage.

The second level should be iron-sand body-grinding?"

The moment Li Yuan moved, his whole body ached and trembled, feeling as if his joints were colliding and fighting each other.

An injury to sinew or bone requires a hundred days of rest, let alone such a violent transformation. More importantly, he didn't have many pills…

"Use the medicine sparingly. Sooner or later, what's more important is to focus on advancing the Weapon Register."

Lying sprawled out, Li Yuan turned things over in his mind.

These past two days, he'd obliquely probed Zhang Ben about red gold, but red gold wasn't circulating currency at all. Zhang Ben had once had some, but only for forging weapons.

In Gao Liu County, quite a few people had red gold, but the only one he could confirm was Cao Yan.

"He said there'd be a reward after forging a superior blade…"

Li Yuan yawned, feeling quite drowsy, but still mulling things over.

With the boost from the Great Craftsman's Hammer, he'd had the confidence to forge a superior blade several days ago. The reason he'd slowed down was worry that his forging talent was too good and Cao Yan wouldn't let him leave.

He hadn't experienced this kind of thing himself, but he'd heard plenty of such stories in his past life.

But he hadn't expected that before he had even forged a superior-grade sharp blade, something like this might happen...

"Or maybe, I'm overthinking it?"

After resting for quite a while, Li Yuan braced his trembling hands and feet to stand, washed the mud off his body, went back inside, and lay down.

But in his heart, he had already made a decision.

He would only forge this one piece of soft armor, try to obtain Crimson Gold from Cao Yan, and after that, naturally he would have to "fail" a few more times...

"Inner armor can also be forged slowly. The first time forging a Craft superior grade sharp blade, shouldn't one be careful and cautious, take it slow?"

Muttering to himself, Li Yuan fell into a deep sleep.

Li Yuan took a day off, didn't dare to look at Old Zhang who was blowing his beard and glaring, and scurried home.

"Third Brother, didn't you go to work?"

Seeing him come back, Li Lin was a little surprised, almost thinking he was sick.

"I took a day off, planning to go with you all to stroll around the inner city."

Li Yuan replied.

Yesterday Cao Yan's words had given him some concerns, but they were indeed the truth. In these past eight-plus months, aside from forging and practicing martial arts, he had been reading, and his spirit had truly been wound too tight.

Now that Qin Xiong's threat had been swept away, he was also preparing to ease up a bit.

"That's fine too. Seeing you go to work every day, your second brother doesn't know how much it pains him!"

Wang Juan's expression softened considerably. Her belly was slightly swollen, but not obviously.

"Alright, let's go stroll around, buy some cloth, get some pregnancy-stabilizing medicine, then drop by the Bodhisattva temple..."