Chapter 9 Peerless Heavenly Materials
In the thick of the night, a red Divine Dragon stretched its body, spiraling in the void and humming softly. Its crimson firelight flowed across the sky, illuminating the darkness. Inside Guan Yi City, the trusted nobles of the Emperor of Chen Country stared at the night sky, their faces pale beneath the flames.
They were motionless, like lifeless puppets.
The scales of the red Scale Armor scattered, like maple leaves falling under the autumn sunset, trailing fire in the sky.
Yue Qianfeng patted Li Guanyi on the head and laughed:
"There you go, this is what they call 'destroying the corpse and erasing the traces'."
"It's the favorite scenario of the Think Tank Zhuge Yinggong. Killing, plundering, destroying the corpse, and erasing traces, not a single step omitted. He's most skilled at piling Corpse Piles with the heads of enemies using a shovel. There are too many Elixir Pills in the Martial World that can fake death. You can survive even a stab to the heart. Burning is more reliable."
"By the way, these things are for you."
Yue Qianfeng took off a pouch and threw it to Li Guanyi.
When Li Guanyi opened the pouch, inside were gold and silver orbs.
Yue Qianfeng said proudly, "The Night Rider Cavalry doesn't carry gold and silver on missions, but to avoid certain special circumstances, the hilt can be disassembled to reveal a tael of gold, and the silver decorations on the scabbard are made of silver."
"This is your share, accomplice."
Li Guanyi said, "But I did nothing."
Yue Qianfeng looked at him, grinned, and replied:
"It's not about doing or not doing. In my view, being an accomplice means we share the same risks. Therefore, we should divide the profits evenly. It wouldn't be fair to shoulder the risks together and let all the gold belong to me, would it? Hahaha."
"However, this gold is mixed with Red Essence, so it fetches a higher price; the silver is too pure as well. Without a suitable identity, it's troublesome to spend it. Since there was trouble with the Night Rider Cavalry tonight, you better find a place to dig a hole and bury it. After a few years, when you dig it up, it will be enough for you."
"This wrist guard can only be fired once, so throw it away too, to avoid bringing disaster."
"All remaining Qi Mechanism here has been wiped clean. I'm going to lead those Secret Agents to another place. You should leave quickly as well."
Yue Qianfeng turned around and waved his hand, striding away.
As the words fell, Li Guanyi no longer saw any trace of Yue Qianfeng.
The place that was once noisy and lively suddenly fell into dead silence.
Li Guanyi retracted his gaze and looked at the gold in the pouch.
Five taels of gold, turned into orbs by Yue Qianfeng's Inner Strength. The exchange rate of gold was not fixed, fluctuating from time to time. At its lowest, one tael of gold was worth eight taels of silver. At its highest, it was twenty taels of silver, but it generally stayed between ten and thirteen taels of silver.
Besides gold, there were also more than thirty taels of heavy silver.
They could probably be exchanged for more than sixty guan. It would take Li Guanyi about six years of working without eating or drinking to save up that amount.
A flicker of eagerness flashed across the youth's eyes, followed by a sense of inexplicable pain.
Six years of salary, received in one night!
"Suddenly wealthy, yet sad I cannot use it."
Li Guanyi rolled the orbs in the mud until they were coated in dirt, then nonchalantly tossed them into the dry well next to the Mountain God Temple. Among the broken stones, these orbs were inconspicuous. Li Guanyi remembered Yue Qianfeng saying that the qi here had been dispersed, which made it a safe hiding place.
If he brought them home and the city was searched, wouldn't that be asking for trouble?
He'd come back for them once the commotion had died down.
He could then afford a better house, and meat in meals could go from once every ten days to three times.
The rain had stopped, and in the sky hung a silver moon, casting an eerie brightness on the ground. Looking up, one could see wisps of clouds drifting past the moon, the dark clouds churning like large beasts. Li Guanyi withdrew his gaze and started walking, taking off his muddy, rain-soaked shoes. Holding a branch in his hand, he walked backward, sweeping his footprints flat as he went, making them indistinguishable from the surrounding mud.
After working hard to erase his tracks, he finally relaxed when he reached the main road.
Moving quickly through the nighttime alleys, taking a few turns, and looking up to see a faint yellow light in the distance, the small courtyard he rented still had a light on. The wooden door was ajar, and for some reason, Li Guanyi, who had been tense all the way, suddenly felt at peace upon seeing the light in the darkness.
Li Guanyi pushed the door open cautiously. A light was still on in Aunt's room, but Li Guanyi did not disturb her; he merely made a little more noise with his steps to let her know he had returned.
Then he went to his own little room, where he saw a black iron pot on the table, keeping some ginger tea warm. Clean clothes were folded on the bed.
Li Guanyi cracked a smile, quickly stripping off his clothes that were soaked from the rain, bloodstained, and muddy. He washed his body with water from a basin beside him, changed into clean clothes, then picked up the iron pot and drained the warm ginger tea inside.
A rush of warmth swept through him, causing Li Guanyi to shiver.
The tension from killing in the rainy night and practicing martial arts, then quietly returning, was dispelled at once.
Comfort!
He balled up the dirty clothes and threw them into the stove to burn. Watching them being consumed by the fire and turned into warmth, Li Guanyi sighed with relief. Lying in bed, he felt fortunate that he had worn his most worn-out clothes that day.
It didn't hurt to burn them.
I'm wealthy now!
It didn't hurt, not one bit! Just a hundred or so wen!
He had spent quite a bit of the money he had saved up while apprenticing at Huichun Hall to curry favor with Yue Qianfeng, leaving him with just a few hundred wen left. By being frugal, he could barely get by for half a month. The burnt clothes, though frayed, could still have been exchanged for some money.
He touched the bronze tripod at his chest and saw a red light circulating on it, as if it was beginning to nurture something. Yet, he did not immediately activate the tripod but moved his hand away and closed his eyes, replaying the events of the day in his mind.
```
Breaking Army Eight Sabers, Break Formation Song.
Personally killed two Night Rider Cavalry.
Bronze Tripod...
Everything seemed like a dream.
He clenched his fists and sat down again to meditate, feeling a stream of heat coursing through his body. The young man's mind slowly calmed down, and after a little more than two circuits, he could distinctly feel a slight resistance; then, the flow of Inner Qi began to slow down and eventually nearly stopped.
This meant that even if he practiced all day without sleep, the effect would be very limited.
Li Guanyi opened his eyes.
He could be sure that his root bone was probably bad to a certain extent.
Yue Qianfeng was rough and ruthless, but obviously not good at comforting others. His face a moment ago held no difference from that of a teacher who says a child could still do well with hard work; however, Li Guanyi, who had been reading medical books for years, also knew his current root bone condition.
Aristocratic families' sons were always nourished with medicine since birth, and their nutrition kept up, not unlike the robust build of kids from after the 2000s in his previous life. But he had been plagued by deadly poison since childhood, occasionally breaking out, which left him three to four parts worse than a normal person, not to mention compared to a martial aristocratic family.
However...
There was this.
Li Guanyi's eyes slightly lowered, looking at the bronze tripod at his heart, gently caressing with his palm. At this moment, his consciousness focused on the bronze tripod. No matter how many times he had tried in the past, he could only feel a trace of coldness, but this time, the tripod responded differently.
The bronze tripod seemed to pour out.
The red Jade Liquid inside spilled out, flowing directly into Li Guanyi.
Boom!!!
It was as fierce as fire, extremely painful!
It felt like suddenly jumping into lava, an endless stream of heat threatening to drown Li Guanyi, but the violent poison outbreaks over the past ten years had given him great resilience to this intense pain, and he forcibly maintained his sanity. A gentle breath caught in his eyes, and though his eyes were closed, he could feel a crystal-clear red.
Li Guanyi subconsciously slowly opened his eyes, and the sight before him froze his consciousness for a moment.
A Red Dragon!
An Azure Dragon the color of crimson was in this small, rundown house.
Scale Armor like jade, Dragon Horns extending outward, Dragon Claws stepping on the void, and the tail spreading like a river, all the way up to the Jade Liquid pouring out from the bronze tripod. In this house, a young man in simple brown clothes was sitting on a stone bed, one leg bent, the other down. His chest clothing slowly burning, the red dragon almost breaking through the house, coiling and looking down, the void filled with a bright red aura.
"This, this is..."
"Is it the dragon behind Yue Qianfeng?"
Li Guanyi murmured, then suddenly remembered the activation requirement for the bronze tripod. His mind had an epiphany, and the next moment, the red dragon let out a silent, long chant, shaking its head and rushing directly toward Li Guanyi, who's pupils abruptly shrank.
The red dragon had already penetrated his body, and he was hit as if flying, falling into the vast ocean.
In an instant, a magnificent stream of heat flowed into Li Guanyi.
He seemed to see a series of scenes unfold before his eyes.
Battlefields crisscrossed with sand, countless fights, people staking their lives on swords and rushing into battle, killing or being killed, suddenly a long chant of an Azure Dragon, a Fierce General in dark heavy armor with one hand on a horse like a dragon, the other holding a long-hilted saber, suddenly sweeping across.
Sleeves rolling like tide waves, heads surging into the sky.
This War General, charging left and right with the long-hilted saber in his hand cleaving, clearly performing the Breaking Army Eight Sabers.
In a trance, Li Guanyi almost felt as if he were the unstoppable War General on the battlefield, wielding the Breaking Army Eight Sabers; whereas the hot flow in his body went berserk, extremely complex, but he could only recognize the patterns of the Break Formation Song.
As it was with him, so it was with me.
At this moment, Li Guanyi fortuitously maintained clarity on his Spirit Platform.
His body, too, sat cross-legged, operating the Cultivation Technique following the memories carried by the red dragon.
Before, it took Li Guanyi the time of an incense stick to rotate the Three Circuits. Now, like a raging meteor, hundreds of turns in one breath. The first layer of the Break Formation Song, instantly broke through!
The second layer of the Break Formation Song, breakthrough!
The third layer of the Break Formation Song, breakthrough!
The Break Formation Song...
As the Jade Liquid in the tripod was exhausted, just like that dream-like fierce battle, the red Divine Dragon slowly vanished. When Li Guanyi opened his eyes, the dawn light was faint in the sky, and the Qi Mechanism within his body flowed, now quite mighty.
The twelfth layer of the Break Formation Song.
Upper Martial Arts of the Military School.
Heavenly Materials could achieve Great Success in three years; those with decent root bone, even in eight years, could gain something.
Li Guanyi.
In one night, Great Success!
```