Chapter 53: An Unbelievable Advancement!

By noon that day, word had spread throughout the yamen that the Pacification Commissioner had flown into a towering rage and smashed a great many porcelain pieces from the State of Qian inside his hall.

Xu Wenzu’s secretary, however, knew perfectly well that his master was in an excellent mood today.

He had even specifically ordered the kitchen to prepare a pig’s head to go with his wine.

The hostility between the Zhenbei Army and the local officials representing the Yan court had long since ceased to be any kind of secret.

The residence of the Marquis of Zhenbei was like a blade laid across Beifeng Commandery.

One edge faced the barbarian tribes of the desert.

The other faced inward.

A hundred years ago, when the Yan ruler of that generation transferred the first Marquis of Zhenbei northward, there had been two reasons.

First, to guard against the barbarian Royal Court rising from the ashes.

Second, to suppress the countless large and small local powers scattered throughout Beifeng Commandery.

But everything changed thirty years ago.

At the time, the previous emperor was still only a prince competing for the throne.

In order to win the support of the residence of the Marquis of Zhenbei, he promised them far too much.

And so, too many of the restraints on that blade were removed.

A weapon that had once existed only to obey gradually developed thoughts of its own.

One could say that most of the current Emperor of Yan’s headaches over how to deal with the residence of the Marquis of Zhenbei were the result of his own father digging a pit for him.

What astonished the various powers of Tiger Head City and the fortified manors in the surrounding area was that the wild-pheasant Lieutenant Commander of Merchant Protection they had previously assumed merely possessed “a little background” and bore the stamp of the Marquis’s household was actually a genuine man of the Zhenbei Army.

Mei Clan Fort taken just like that.

And under such overbearing pressure, the Pacification Commissioner had even been forced to fabricate a charge of colluding with the barbarian tribes in order to cover the whole matter up.

Naturally, this further deepened the rift between the Zhenbei Army and the imperial court.

Against the larger background of weakening the feudal lords, the consequences could be called extremely far-reaching.

Zheng Fan, however, possessed absolutely no awareness of any of this.

Xu Wenzu had told him to keep his head down until the attention blew over.

So Zheng Fan accepted the advice with perfect sincerity.

He skipped work for days on end.

He did not even go to the yamen.

He simply stayed home the entire time.

The residence had artificial hills, ponds, flowers, and plants.

It also had more than ten young women who, under Feng Siniang’s influence and training, were becoming increasingly alluring by the day.

But Lieutenant Commander Zheng genuinely had neither the time nor the energy to tease or admire them.

Every day, he spent nearly all his time practicing martial arts with Ding Hao.

...

“Master, I’ve finished reading the letters.”

Feng Siniang set down the stack of letters in her hands.

Zheng Fan reached up, removed the towel covering his face, tossed it aside, and nodded.

Five grown men had left him letters.

Only the first few written by the Blind Man Bei contained any genuinely useful information.

That fellow had apparently wanted to imitate Zhuge Liang and play the whole “open the secret pouch afterward” routine.

Unfortunately, because Feng Siniang had been delayed, Zheng Fan had not been able to hear the letter that night.

In the letter, the Blind Man Bei had explained his plan to seize Mei Clan Fort.

According to him, he had sensed that the lord of Mei Clan Fort was a bad man who would definitely make a move against them.

Fine.

The excuse was flimsy... but understandable.

The Blind Man had also written out Zheng Fan’s response plan.

In short: borrow the tiger’s skin.

Use the Zhenbei Army’s name.

As long as Zheng Fan wrapped himself in that banner, his safety should be assured.

What the Blind Man Bei could never have calculated, even after exhausting all his schemes, was that Tiger Head City’s highest-ranking official was actually a “Deep Sea” sleeper on the side of the Marquis of Zhenbei.

As for the letters from the others, they contained essentially nothing.

Reading them was almost awkward.

Fan Li, for example, had asked him countless times whether breakfast, lunch, and dinner had tasted good, as though Zheng Fan were a pig that had to be fed at fixed intervals.

“Master, is cultivating every day tiring?”

Zheng Fan nodded.

Treating his body like the chassis of a car and the qi and blood inside him like the engine then spending the whole day constantly easing on and off the accelerator how could it not be exhausting?

“Master, when do you think you’ll be able to enter the grades?”

Feng Siniang had noticed something.

Quite a few days had already passed.

Forget genuinely entering the grades her Master had not even started glowing yet.

Now all the letters had been read.

If Master still did not enter the grades soon, the Blind Man’s group and Liang Cheng’s group, both working outside, might end up facing danger.

“Ding Hao says there’s no need to rush into glowing first.

“I should master complete control over the circulation of my qi and blood.

“Then, once I find the right opportunity, I can break directly into Ninth Grade in one push.”

“Is that so?”

“I believe him.

“Though there may be a bit of selfishness in it—he probably wants to remain my teacher a little longer.

“But everyone has selfish motives.

“You don’t need to go warn him about it.

“Most importantly, I can feel it myself.

“My control over the circulation of qi and blood is becoming more and more familiar.

“Who knows?

“Maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up, circulate it once, and directly enter the grades.”

Feng Siniang’s heart jolted.

She immediately nodded and said, “This servant understands.

“Master naturally has his own plans.”

“Forget it.

“I’m tired.

“I want to rest.

“Go brew me a pot of tea.”

“Yes, Master.”

Feng Siniang quickly brought the tea over.

Seeing Zheng Fan drying himself, she immediately stepped forward, took the towel, and began wiping his back.

As she worked, her gaze fell upon the stone still soaking in the bathing pool.

“Master, you can’t keep soaking the Demon Pill all the time.”

“Doesn’t matter.

“I’ll just treat it as bathing with my son.”

“Master, if this servant remembers correctly, the Demon Pill is a spirit body.

“He doesn’t possess physical flesh.

“And what a spirit body needs should be the spiritual qi of heaven and earth.

“This servant thinks that at night, we could place him outside in the courtyard and let him absorb the essence of the moon.

“That might help him recover and awaken faster.”

“Absorb the essence of the sun and moon?”

Zheng Fan instinctively found that somewhat unreliable.

Back when he had created the comic about the Demon Pill, he had never written anything like that.

“People change.

“If something isn’t even human, wouldn’t it change faster?

“Think about it, Master.

“After A’Ming came to this world, even he started eating blood pudding.

“Why can’t the Demon Pill go bask in the moonlight?”

“Would it really work?”

Zheng Fan felt Feng Siniang was talking nonsense.

Yet he could not think of any reason she would need to lie.

If Feng Siniang wanted to harm him, she had countless methods available.

There was no need to begin by moving a rock.

“Master, just listen to this servant once.

“Even if a thief sneaks in, who would bother stealing a broken stone?”

“Fine.

“Take it outside and leave it in the courtyard.”

“Master, you should do it yourself.

“This servant will go make your bed.”

Without waiting for Zheng Fan to reply, Feng Siniang twisted away, her full but supple waist moving like a water snake as she entered the inner room.

Zheng Fan looked at the stone.

He smiled.

Then bent down, lifted it out of the bathing pool, pushed open the door, and stepped into the courtyard.

He found an open patch beneath the sky, set the stone on the ground, then turned around, returned to his room, and shut the door.

At the exact instant the door closed the stone suddenly began trembling violently.

Threads of black mist seeped out from within.

Inside that mist, the shadow of a resentful infant flickered in and out of existence!

He was furious.

He was almost insane with rage.

At this moment, the sensation in his heart was probably the same as Sun Wukong being personally driven away by Tang Sanzang after the monk had been deceived by the White Bone Demon.

The black mist, thick with terrifying resentment, began pressing toward the room.

But just before it touched the door, the mist stopped.

The infant gritted his teeth as though desperately restraining himself.

His eyes, originally pale white, were now completely blood-red.

...

“Why does it sound like the wind picked up outside?”

Zheng Fan, sitting beside the bed, asked curiously.

Feng Siniang glanced toward the window with some worry.

Then she gritted her teeth.

She was gambling.

Gambling that the Demon Pill would not truly come inside.

Over these past few days, she had already discovered one fact:

Master himself did not know that the Demon Pill had awakened.

If the Demon Pill was already awake, why was he still hiding from Master?

Was he... afraid to face Master?

The man this old lady wants how could I possibly let him go?

So what if you want to kill your father?

Your father is still your father.

He neither ate your food nor drank your water.

And now you even want to control whether your father gets a woman?

Those were the thoughts running through Feng Siniang’s mind.

At the same time, she smiled seductively at Zheng Fan and said, “Perhaps the north wind has picked up.

“Winter is beginning.

“This place is always like that.

“No need to worry.

“Come, Master.

“This servant will help you undress.”

“All right.”

Zheng Fan sat there and allowed Feng Siniang to remove his clothes.

For the past several nights, she had attended him like this before he slept, then made herself a pallet on the floor beneath the bed.

“...”

...

...

...

The next morning, Zheng Fan opened his eyes.

He had slept exceptionally sweetly.

And for an unusually long time.

Outside, the sun was already high in the sky.

Feng Siniang’s pallet beneath the bed was empty.

She was the only one managing everything throughout the residence right now, so naturally she could not sleep late.

Zheng Fan did not pull the bell cord.

He got out of bed by himself.

Wearing only thin clothes, he pushed open the door, stepped outside, and entered the courtyard.

The winter sunlight fell across his body, bringing a pleasant warmth.

“Ah...”

He cleared his throat.

Zheng Fan spread both arms.

And while stretching, he began circulating his qi and blood according to his daily habit.

Suddenly, Zheng Fan felt heat surge through every limb and bone.

The speed at which his qi and blood moved and the sheer quantity of it far exceeded what he had expected.

From the moment the thought arose to the moment it settled, his qi and blood had naturally completed an entire circulation cycle by themselves.

And without Zheng Fan deliberately controlling it, they immediately began another.

At once a layer of black radiance began rising from Zheng Fan’s body.

At first, it flickered in and out.

But as Zheng Fan clenched both fists and focused entirely on circulating his qi and blood, the black radiance became steady.

Continuous.

Unbroken.

Even Zheng Fan himself found it difficult to believe.

He also felt... slightly embarrassed.

When the Blind Man and the others came back, how exactly was he supposed to explain this to them?

“So I just... advanced?”

---

(End of Chapter)