Chapter 141: Cang Li’s Reverse Scale
Li Weiyi pressed his arm and lightly patted the back of his hand, laughing, “Fourth Uncle, just accept it. I still have some left here, enough for Bone Tempering.”
Li Songlin did not argue with him further and accepted the favor.
If he could rely on Golden Spring to restore his tendons and bones, even without legs, at least his cultivation and combat power would remain.
Half a time unit later.
Walking out of the camp tent, Li Weiyi’s mood was suppressed and heavy. Unfortunately, the gap in cultivation was too great; otherwise, he would surely have drawn his sword and rushed to Zangxian Town by now.
He asked, “Li Ling, is there really no exotic medicine in this world that can regrow severed legs?”
Li Ling said, “There are some thousand year elixirs that can regenerate severed legs, but the premise is that cultivation must first be abolished. Because a martial cultivator’s legs are different from a mortal’s; they involve the two springs at the soles of the feet and the veins throughout the body—it’s not simply a matter of flesh and blood structure. Do you think Fourth Uncle would be willing to abolish his cultivation?”
“Is there no other way?” Li Weiyi said.
Li Ling said, “There is—Longevity Pill! When a Dao Seed Realm martial cultivator steps into Longevity Realm, they can recast their physical body, equivalent to starting a new life journey.”
From inside the camp tent, Li Songlin’s voice rang out: “Fourth girl, don’t talk nonsense. Which of your eyes sees your Fourth Uncle as someone who could become a Longevity Realm existence? Never mind the Longevity Pill—we don’t even have the qualification to catch a whiff of its scent. Even if we could really obtain it, realms aren’t so easy to break through.”
Li Weiyi turned back to look at the camp tent, fully aware that Li Songlin had been feigning ease and open-mindedness from beginning to end. Falling from a high-spirited tribe leader to a cripple who could only sit in a chair must certainly be a painful and unbearable ordeal.
“Longevity Pill!”
Li Weiyi silently noted it down and asked, “Li Ling, where is your father? I want to pay respects to him!”
“My father? My father is guarding Jiu Li City and isn’t at Yao Guan. My mother is in the camp—do you want to pay respects to her?” Li Ling said.
Li Weiyi thought for a moment, then said, “In your family, is it really your mother who calls the shots?”
“My father just doesn’t like handling mundane affairs. He is a focused person who likes secluded cultivation to study various otherworld coffin ancient texts,” Li Ling said.
Li Weiyi asked, “Besides cultivating mind power, does he cultivate martial way?”
“Probably, but he doesn’t like cultivating martial arts, so his attainment isn’t high,” Li Ling said.
Li Weiyi asked again, “Is your brother in the camp?”
“You’re inquiring about my entire family—what exactly are you scheming?” Li Ling asked curiously.
Li Weiyi didn’t know how to explain, fell silent for a moment, and said in a low voice, “I’m leaving! Before I go… Qi Shanshan should be in the camp, right? I want to see her.”
“Not convenient!”
Li Ling refused directly, then said, “My brother isn’t in the camp, but he values her extremely highly and has dispatched two Five Seas Realm experts to guard her. Even I find it extremely difficult to see her. I advise you not to have any crooked ideas, or my brother will fight you to the death. By the way, where are you going?”
“Can’t you sense it? Try sensing this time!”
After Li Weiyi and Zhao Zhizhuo left the barracks, they mounted their horses.
“Rumble!”
Accompanied by deafening hoofbeats, the two charged into the dense forest of Mang Mountain Range.
Li Weiyi made a thoughtful expression and said, “Old Zhao, if I asked you to return to the Suspended Tower Army camp and silently capture a woman, could you do it?”
“The Suspended Tower Army is full of experts. Not to mention my current cultivation—even if my cultivation were fully restored, it would be impossible,” Zhao Zhizhuo said with repeated bitter smiles.
Mang Mountain Range was vast, with clusters of peaks, valleys, and streams densely distributed.
Under the immortal mist drifting over from the direction of Zangxian Town, it gave a sense of endless forest sea, boundless wilderness, deep and vast, as if it had no end.
After advancing ten li into the mountains, there were no more mountain trails.
Li Weiyi dismounted, observing the surrounding mountain terrain: “I can help you recover your cultivation, but you must help me capture that person. In this world, there is always a way. What seems impossibly difficult for you might be effortless for others—the key is finding the right person.”
“Who is the person Young Master is referring to?” Zhao Zhizhuo asked.
Li Weiyi said, “Cang Li and Li Ling’s mother—that supremely powerful matriarch of your Cang Li Tribe. A shrewd person like her wouldn’t fail to see through Qi Shanshan’s true nature. I hear she is the one who most opposes Cang Li and Qi Shanshan being together. Go find her and say I want to take Qi Shanshan away—she will surely help you.”
Over the next two days, Li Weiyi and Zhao Zhizhuo found a hidden valley and devoted all their energy to reopening his sea of qi.
During this process, Zhao Zhizhuo still wore a black cloth bag over his head, sealing his senses.
Though he had some guesses in his heart, he did not voice them, because Li Weiyi’s favor was simply too great—equivalent to remaking him.
On the evening of the second day, the sky turned dark cyan.
Zhao Zhizhuo, sitting cross-legged by the water, took a deep breath.
Immediately, qi flow surged within a three-li radius, as immortal mist and magic energy frantically poured into his body.
Draining this stretch of heaven and earth dry.
Divine light sprayed from his eyes, rosy clouds extended ten zhang around him, thunderous wind and lightning sounds emanated from his lung leaves, and star-frosted long hair at his temples bloomed with scorching brilliance.
“Splash!”
With his arms lifted virtually, over a hundred giant stones by the stream pool rose from the ground one after another, exploding into powder amid rumbling.
Zhao Zhizhuo looked at his arms overflowing with rosy clouds, felt the reopened Five Seas and the magic energy flowing through his entire body, and couldn’t help but weep with excitement, roaring, “I, Zhao Zhizhuo, am back! After fourteen years of hardship, the bitterness has finally turned sweet.”
Across the stream pool.
Li Weiyi, who was quenching qi, opened his eyes and smiled, asking, “With your current cultivation, can you be Yang Qingxi’s opponent?”
Zhao Zhizhuo hurriedly waved his hands: “Right now, I’ve only just reopened the Five Seas. Never mind that my flesh and blood vitality is far from its peak—even filling the Five Seas with magic energy will take quite some days. My current combat power is probably only slightly better than a Fourth Stage of Five Seas Realm martial cultivator.”
“Yang Qingxi is a second-tier figure among Li Zhou’s younger generation, with Nine Springs Pure Immortal Body. I’m an Eight Springs mortal with Fourth Realm strength—how could I fight her?”
Li Weiyi grew curious: “Old Zhao, why don’t you tell me about the top experts among Li Zhou’s younger generation—what levels are they at?”
With his cultivation restored, Zhao Zhizhuo was in high spirits and sat to expound: “The second tier I just mentioned refers to figures like Yang Qingxi and Chen Wenwu—Fifth Realm Nine Springs Pure Immortal Bodies or Nine Springs Supreme Persons. There are about six or seven at this level, all the public faces of their sects or already cultivating the Sixth Sea or Seventh Sea!”
“The first tier is, of course, Cang Li. He is a tier above all by himself. Though only at Fifth Realm of Five Seas Realm, he can fight even Dao Seed Realm experts.”
“The third tier has about twenty or thirty people—the top young talents from each tribe of Jiu Li, who have the qualification to enter the ranks.”
“Most of them are at Fifth Realm of Five Seas, some are Fourth Realm Pure Immortal Bodies or Supreme Persons.”
“The fourth tier has around a hundred people. As long as they stepped into Third Realm before age thirty, they count, including Heavenly Fire Realm great mind masters.”
Li Weiyi frowned in silence, then chuckled wryly: “Then doesn’t that mean I can’t even enter the top hundred?”
“Others have cultivated for twenty years—how long have you been cultivating?”
After spending so much time together, Zhao Zhizhuo wasn’t a fool—how could he not understand Li Weiyi’s cultivation speed?
He said, “This information of mine is from before the Zangxian Town anomaly. This anomaly has caused many young martial cultivators’ cultivations and physiques to undergo leaping qualitative changes.”
After finishing, Zhao Zhizhuo solemnly knelt on one knee before Li Weiyi: “Young Master, this favor is impossible to repay in a lifetime—please accept a bow from Old Zhao!”
After rising.
He mounted his horse, whipped it, and left: “I will surely bring Qi Shanshan to see you.”
“With Li Zhou’s younger generation where I still can’t stand out, the idea of seizing the Longevity Pill at the Hidden Dragon Lantern Festival can be dismissed!”
Li Weiyi shook his head and sighed, taking out a Radiant Flame Pill and swallowing it.
With only a little over three months until the Lantern Festival, no amount of martial way pursuit could catch up—it was better to first impact great mind master and go to Tanggu Sea to help Yao Yin gather Xihe Flowers, which was the urgent matter.
But only a few breaths had passed.
Li Weiyi’s eyes blazed with vigorous fighting spirit again. He took out Golden Spring and gulped a mouthful.
While absorbing light to nourish fire, he hammered and tempered his bones.
It was said that once hammered to minor accomplishment of golden bone, relying solely on physical body power, one could contend with ordinary Fifth Realm of Five Seas Realm martial cultivators. It was precisely with such terrifying power augmentation that the Heartless Golden Ape desperately sought Golden Spring, wanting to become the number one expert among Southern Territory’s younger generation.
At midnight.
Hoofbeats shattered the mountain’s tranquility.
Li Weiyi hurried forward to greet, only to see Zhao Zhizhuo returning alone.
Zhao Zhizhuo leaped off the horse and strode forward, his expression excited: “Mission accomplished! As Young Master predicted, the matriarch hates Qi Shanshan to the bone but, due to mother-son affection, dared not act personally.”
From his sleeve, he took out a white insect bag the size of a cloth bag and activated it with magic energy.
“Splash!”
The insect bag rapidly swelled.
Qi Shanshan, dressed in elegant light blue brocade robes, fell out from the bag.
An insect bag could hold living creatures, but most had small openings. The larger the opening, the harder to refine, making them extremely precious—they could hold people, even mounts.
Qi Shanshan, with Two Springs opened in martial way cultivation, quickly stood and observed her surroundings.
In the darkness, upon seeing Li Weiyi, the panic in her eyes instantly vanished. She gracefully twirled her hair tips and smiled, “So it’s you! Weiyi, long time no see. If you wanted to see sister Shanshan, why go to such lengths? I miss you too—you haven’t come to see me for so long.”
Li Weiyi observed her, surprised in his heart.
In just over half a year, there were no longer any traces of an Earth modern person on Qi Shanshan. Moreover, Cang Li had gathered Dyeing Cloud Exotic Medicine for her, transforming her into a Pure Immortal Body—her skin and appearance flawless, her figure and demeanor unmatched by few.
With such allure, plus Qi Shanshan’s outstanding mind and methods, it was no wonder Cang Li had fallen.
But was she really just Qi Shanshan?
Was Zen Sea Observing Mist within her?
Li Weiyi said, “I want to see Zen Sea Observing Mist!”
Qi Shanshan’s eyes darted, then she spread her arms: “I can’t make her come out to see you—you can try doing it yourself! No matter what you do, sister Shanshan won’t blame you.”
Li Weiyi wouldn’t fall for this. He secretly mobilized his body’s magic energy to guard against the Zen Sea Observing Mist that might appear at any moment, and cautiously walked toward her, raising his finger to touch her brow.
“Swish!”
A chilling night wind blew into the gorge, merely ten zhang wide between these two mountains.
Grass and trees swayed like yin soldiers.
“If your hand dares touch her body, don’t blame me for not remembering past favors and severing your arms. Li Weiyi, without a bottom line, even the greatest achievements can’t cover a filthy, sordid essence. She is your sister-in-law—this time you’ve touched my reverse scale!”
The voice transmitted into the valley one word at a time.
When the first word rang out, Cang Li was still three li away.
By the time “reverse scale” fell, he was already standing loftily on a mountain rock more than ten feet away, holding a zhang-long silver spear, eyes like lightning, exuding an aura of deep abyss and towering mountain, commanding the world.
