Chapter 1303: Chi You

For the various states, if the Nine Saints wanted to demand the state-protecting divine artifacts, it would hardly be difficult. None of the states would dare refuse them. A single word would be enough.

The problem was whom to give them to. There were eight State-Protecting Divine Artifacts, but nine Saints. The "division of spoils" would be somewhat uneven.

For him at present, taking all eight artifacts into his own hands at once would be inappropriate. It would create too much commotion to conceal and would inevitably arouse suspicion. His current strength was not enough to withstand the other eight Saints joining forces, so he had to act carefully.

According to Li Ge's Handwritten Notes, there was no need for him to hold all eight artifacts anyway. What would he do with all eight in his hands—sever the Five Domains Stellar Grand Formation?

He was not about to lift a rock only to smash his own foot.

What he needed to do now was verify as quickly as possible whether what the notes described was true.

So first he had to obtain the Heaven-Swallowing Ring and the Mountains and Rivers Cauldron, then follow the notes to find the entrance to the Fifth Domain.

Judging from the notes, they should not be false. But if they were true, then he had all the more reason to act.

The State of Wei had already fallen, so the Heaven-Swallowing Ring could be quietly taken into his hands.

As for the Mountains and Rivers Cauldron, he could simply borrow it from the State of Han in secret. Han would hardly dare refuse. Once he had verified what he needed to know, he could return it.

If the functions of the Heaven-Swallowing Ring and the Mountains and Rivers Cauldron proved genuine, then the Stellar Command Token held by the fallen State of Zhao would become extremely important. As long as he controlled the Stellar Command Token, the means of opening the formation eyes in the other four domains would be in his hands.

With his rear secure, he could afford to wait and proceed gradually.

...

Deep in the night, there was finally no one left to disturb him.

Yuan Gang kicked away the quilt. Enduring the pain throughout his body, he tightened his abdomen, levered himself upright, and looked down at his palms and feet wrapped in white gauze.

White cloth was also wound around his body, binding his wounds.

He stared for a while, then raised one hand and used his teeth to worry loose the wrapping around his palm. He swung his hand to unwind the bandage layer by layer. When he reached the final layer, the gauze was stuck to the flesh of the wound, and the pain made his jaw tighten.

For a man like him, pain itself was nothing. He could endure it.

But the last layer of gauze had adhered to the raw flesh and could not be shaken free. He bit down on it again, drew a deep breath, and ripped it off in one violent motion.

This time, the pain truly made the muscles in his face twitch.

The instant the gauze came away, the clotted wound opened again and blood began dripping down.

Yuan Gang stared at the gruesome white-boned fingers with almost no flesh left on them. His Adam's apple bobbed several times before he raised his other hand and did the same.

Another violent rip, another welling of blood, another spasm of pain across his face.

The flesh and tendons of all ten fingers were damaged, leaving his fingers unusable. He could not use them to undo the wrappings around his feet.

He lifted his heavily bandaged feet and set them on the floor. Bracing both palms against the edge of the bed, leaving blood wherever he pressed, he slowly pushed himself upright.

The moment his feet bore weight, agony stabbed straight through him. His whole body swayed, nearly collapsing.

But he gritted his teeth and held on. He did not want to be a cripple, nor did he believe he would become one. After forcing himself to find his balance, he slowly took several painful steps.

Once he had adjusted his stance and regained his balance, he gradually lowered himself into a horse stance, both palms drawn in beside his waist.

Balance. Hold steady. Balance again. Hold steady again.

When the horse stance was stable, he closed his eyes. His breathing gradually lengthened. After several cycles, a hemispherical bulge slowly rose from his abdomen and began rolling up and down across it. As it moved, his breathing grew heavier and heavier, gradually becoming like the pumping of a bellows. A faint blood mist emerged with each exhalation, only to be drawn back in when he inhaled.

As the momentum gathered, vortices gradually appeared over the acupoints throughout his body, until he seemed to be crouching amid a current of wind.

Something seemed to surge outward from the surface of his body, while at the same time it seemed to summon something from the unseen, drawing it into him through his skin.

Seen through a cultivator's Dharma Eye, what continuously gathered from that unseen place and seeped into his body was none other than the spiritual qi of heaven and earth.

Yet it differed from the way ordinary cultivators absorbed spiritual qi. It did not come from the surrounding heaven and earth, but from somewhere unseen.

Nor did he absorb it at an even rate as ordinary cultivators did. Instead, the speed at which it poured into him grew faster and faster.

The blood mist cycled in and out with his breathing. No one knew how long passed before its color gradually deepened, becoming darker than it had ever been before.

Once the blood mist darkened, blood stopped dripping from his hands. Something else seemed to be seeping out instead.

It looked almost as though countless ants were crawling from inside his body and tangling together at the ragged edges of his wounds.

They were not ants. They were tiny buds of new flesh growing from the wounds. There were so many of them that they looked like a swarm of ants in motion.

The antlike buds of flesh continuously intertwined and crawled over one another, slowly spreading toward the exposed bone, as though dragging the surrounding flesh outward with them.

The sensation of that spreading growth seemed excruciating. Every muscle on Yuan Gang's body trembled from the pain.

He opened his eyes and looked. What he saw at the wounds was exactly what he had hoped to see.

He had suffered external injuries before, and when he practiced his hard qigong, those wounds had actually repaired themselves until not even scars remained.

This time, he had held on to that hope and decided to try.

And sure enough!

He immediately forced himself to endure the agony, slowly closed his eyes again, and devoted himself entirely to continuing the breathing cycle...

By dawn, Feng Guan'er pushed open the door carrying a tray. Seeing Yuan Gang crouched in a horse stance, she hurriedly said, "Why are you up?"

She strode toward him, then looked as if she had seen a ghost. "Ah!" With a shriek, the tray fell from her hands and struck the floor with a sharp clatter.

Yuan Gang, who had seemed sunk in stillness, instantly opened his eyes. He glanced at Feng Guan'er's reaction, then lowered his gaze to his own hands. His half-crouched posture did not change, but an excitement he could barely suppress had already lit his face.

A figure flashed into view outside the door. Zhao Xiongge darted into the stone chamber, drawn by Feng Guan'er's scream and the crash of the falling tray.

"What happened..." Seeing both of them there unharmed, Zhao Xiongge had barely spoken before his gaze fell on Yuan Gang's hands. He froze, eyes filled with disbelief. His gaze swept over Yuan Gang, then slowly lifted to his head.

Another person hurried over from outside after hearing the commotion. It was Nantian Wufang. Not knowing why the three of them were standing there in a daze, he came closer, saw nothing obviously wrong, and asked, "What happened?"

No one answered him. Then he noticed that everyone was staring at Yuan Gang's hands. He suddenly realized something, his mouth falling open as though he too had seen a ghost.

The near-skeletal hands whose ten fingers had been almost nothing but stark white bone were gone. Yuan Gang now had the hands of a normal man, with ten fingers that looked powerful at a glance.

How was that possible? Nantian Wufang could scarcely believe it. Even if the injuries could heal, how could they possibly return to normal in a single night?

He stared closely at the ten fingers and could not see the slightest trace of injury.

Could they be fake? Yet even under the scrutiny of his Dharma Eye, he could find no sign of deception. And if they truly were fake, then the imitation was far too convincing.

His gaze rose to Yuan Gang's head. The scalp that had been plucked completely bald had not yet returned to normal, but a layer of short stubble had already grown over it.

"This..." Nantian Wufang pointed at Yuan Gang's hands, at a loss for words.

Yuan Gang appeared cold and impassive, but inwardly he was intensely excited. He steadied his emotions and slowly extended both hands from beside his waist.

Then his hands abruptly clenched into fists. Crack! His finger joints popped sharply.

The three onlookers' eyelids twitched. They still found it difficult to believe. Was this real?

Yuan Gang looked over his strong hands again and again, then opened his fists and flexed all ten fingers repeatedly. His gaze dropped to his feet. Bending forward, he seized the gauze wrappings with both hands and tore them apart outright.

A pair of normal human feet emerged from the shredded cloth. His feet had recovered as well!

Under the stunned gazes of the other three, Yuan Gang walked back and forth, squatted, and jumped several times. Finally, he turned and stopped in front of the stone wall.

The three stared at him, unable to understand why he was facing the wall. At this point, they were all looking at Yuan Gang as though he were some kind of monster.

"Hah!" Yuan Gang suddenly expelled a shout and drove a fist straight into the stone wall. His punch tore through the air.

Bang! Broken stone burst outward. His fist came to a stop inside the hole it had punched through.

The hard stone wall had been blasted open by a single punch, revealing the furnishings of the room next door.

Every room in the Demon Palace had been carved directly into this rocky hill. Each room was, in truth, a stone chamber.

When the clatter of falling debris finally subsided, Nantian Wufang and Zhao Xiongge looked at one another. Yesterday, Yuan Gang had been so badly injured. This morning, one punch from him had smashed through a stone wall more than a foot thick. How did he look injured at all?

Both men could naturally see that he had not broken the wall with spiritual power. It had been shattered by the brute force of a fist of flesh and blood.

Feng Guan'er merely stared.

Yuan Gang drew back the fist that had been buried in the hole and inspected it himself. Nothing was wrong. Not only was nothing wrong, he even felt that his strength seemed greater than before!

Because of that punch, because of everything he had just endured, and because of what he felt in his body now, he suddenly experienced a strange sense of accord with the hard qigong he practiced.

No fear. No flinching. The stronger the foe, the stronger he became. Fight to the death, all the way to the end!

A surge of heroic spirit rose spontaneously from the depths of his heart. He could not help spreading both arms wide. Every joint in his body cracked in rapid succession like a volley of shots. The bandages wrapped around him split apart, exposing ridges of muscle across his back as hard and sharply defined as stone.

At the instant he spread his arms and exerted his strength, as emotion surged together with the power of his body, he seemed to see in his consciousness a powerfully built man standing between heaven and earth, looking at him. He could not make out the man's face. It was as though the figure stood amid a vanished antiquity, gazing across the ages at him.

Yuan Gang seemed to be looking directly back at him. Their minds seemed to resonate. He seemed able to feel the majesty that came from that remote antiquity.

At the sensation of that presence, Yuan Gang suddenly felt an urge to cry out two words at the top of his lungs: "Chi You!"

In the end, however, he did not shout them.

After suppressing the surge of emotion, he turned around and walked back toward the other three. Reaching them, he gave a slight nod in greeting.

Feng Guan'er was still staring blankly at him.

Nantian Wufang's eyes roamed up and down Yuan Gang, the expression on his face impossible to describe.

Zhao Xiongge's Adam's apple bobbed. He stepped forward and reached out. "Let me look at your injuries."

Yuan Gang lifted one hand and blocked Zhao Xiongge's arm with a slight shake of his head. "No need. I'm fine now!"

He said "I'm fine now" so casually that the expressions of all three listeners became rather remarkable. Yesterday he had been injured that badly. It had not only been his hands and feet—bones had been broken, and he had suffered severe internal injuries as well.

And now he was simply fine?

[End of Chapter 1303]