Chapter 16 The Reason for Hating Huang An_1

As they walked, Zhao Yan explained.

"When my father was injured and came back home, his condition was severe and he knew he didn't have much time. Our martial arts school is such a big enterprise, and over the years, we've made many enemies. My father was worried that after his death, there would be no Bronze Realm expert to entrust our martial arts school to. He planned to spend the remaining silver to support our martial arts training. As the eldest brother, Senior Brother Pang would also receive a share of the Returning Origin Soup."

Zhao Yan paused before continuing,

"So we bought three portions of the Returning Origin Soup from the City Lord's Mansion for litigation, each costing twenty taels of silver. The portion of the Returning Origin Soup that saved you was originally intended for Senior Brother Pang, but it ended up going to you."

Huang An was very insightful and quickly identified an inconsistency. He questioned,

"If it was given to me, why not buy another one? Why bear such hostility towards a junior brother?"

As for why his single tael of gold could be exchanged for a portion of Returning Origin Soup worth twenty taels of silver, Huang An didn't ask.

However, he had his suspicions. The gold he'd brought was 99.9% pure, which might be priced differently from the normal eighty percent pure gold.

Such pure gold could no longer be found in Daming.

If the Zhao sisters didn't ask, Huang An wouldn't voluntarily reveal it. He was cautious enough as it was.

Huang An's words made the sisters roll their eyes. Little Money-grubber patted Huang An's shoulder and grumbled,

"Who do you think is as wealthy as you, carrying around a tael of gold and ten taels of silver? Those twenty taels of silver are not a small sum, and our martial arts school can only afford to buy so much. Besides, Senior Brother Pang is not my father's initial disciple, so it wouldn't be worth it to invest so much in him. Who knows, he might leave our Zhao Martial Arts School one day."

After hearing Little Money-grubber's explanation, Huang An was genuinely surprised.

It turned out, Pang Han was so poor?

Can't even afford twenty taels?

What was he showing off a few days ago?

Huang An shook his head in disbelief. This Senior Brother didn't seem very smart.

"With five drugstores in your family, you don't even have twenty taels of silver. Tsk tsk."

No wonder his attitude towards him was so bad. It turned out that he was resentful because Huang An had drunk the Returning Origin Soup worth twenty taels of silver which he could have gotten for free.

However, the Returning Origin Soup was purchased by the school's master, and in the end, he gave it to Huang An. If he wanted to blame someone, he should blame the head of the school for breaking his promise. Why blame Huang An?

Was it because he was easy to bully?

And this little money-grubber was too greedy. Just a moment ago, her sister was talking about the vast scale of the Zhao martial arts school, but when it comes to spending money, she complains about how humble their martial arts school is.

Huang An shook his head, finally understanding the relationship between Pang Han and the martial arts school.

Their ties weren't as strong as he had imagined. Pang Han was not tied to the school, but instead, it was more like the relationship between students and their school during his elementary and high school years, only a bit more intimate.

Huang An also finally understood why Pang Han was not present when he went to visit the awakened master, as expected, he had gone home.

Now that the sisters were in a good mood, Huang An under the guise of casual conversation, was able to ask a few questions that had been on his mind, of course, all related to martial arts.

It was getting late and for safety reasons, Huang An gave up his intention to go to the eastern courtyard in the city, and stayed at the martial arts school.

The Zhao Martial Arts School was located in the west of the city, naturally, Huang An didn't want to walk in the middle of the night.

Having learned so much today, Huang An needed to take some time to sort his thoughts. Without paper and pen, Huang An didn't dare to travel back to the Garbage Dump of all Realms in the martial arts school. Who knows what means a Bronze Realm expert could have?

He lay in bed, hands behind his head, his mind racing.

According to Sister Zhao Yan, before entering the realm of martial arts, one needs to drink the Returning Origin Soup, which allows a person's originally fragile internal organs to withstand the power of the Bronze Realm expert's Qi and Blood, in order to open the door of the Dantian, and step into the martial arts path.

This Returning Origin Soup, not only is it used before entering the martial arts path, but it is also a rare treasure in the Five Organs Realm and the Six Viscera Realm that can accelerate martial arts cultivation.

According to Sister Zhao, Pang Han could only consume such a pot of precious medicine once a year, and consumed three pots on average every two years, while she and her sister can drink one pot every season.

The more Returning Origin Soup you drink, the better.

Aside from the Returning Origin Soup, the path of martial arts cultivation also requires a large number of supplemental medicinal materials.

The initial realm of martial arts path - the Five Organs Realm, requires the assistance of five kinds of medicinal soups. The value of these is also considerable.

Fortunately, these five kinds of medicinal soups are available in the martial arts school. Apart from the main ingredients that need to be bought, the rest of the auxiliary ingredients can all be gathered from the fields owned by the Zhao family.

Only at this moment did Huang An realize that the Zhao Martial Arts School not only had such a large martial arts school in the city, but also owned a large amount of property outside the city.

They owned three thousand mu of fertile land, nearly a thousand tenant farmers, and seventeen or eighteen mountains.

Huang An was taken aback. It turned out that the Zhao family were not the poor folks he had thought they were. They were truly a wealthy family.

Three thousand mu of fertile land was nothing. It was the nearly thousand tenant farmers that truly shocked Huang An. This was the sign of a large landlord.

Such a large family was built up by a Bronze Realm master in just over twenty years.

Only at this moment did Huang An truly realize what it meant to be a Bronze Realm martial arts expert in the Daming Dynasty.

What about the ruling Zhu family of the Daming Dynasty?

How much wealth they had control over, and how many experts were there within?

Huang An could feel the terror of this world. He knew that he needed to be cautious, even more cautious.

However, there was also good news. According to Sister Zhao Yan, martial arts cultivation was directly related to silver. As long as he had silver, his martial arts path would be much smoother.

Huang An didn't have much else, but he was confident about earning silver.

He decided to make good use of the Garbage Dump of all Realms, earn wealth on Earth, exchange it for relatively cheap silver, and walk the path of gold cultivation in this world.

However, there was one problem left, and that was the master's injury.

If the master's injury was not healed, he could not quickly step onto the martial arts path.

According to Sister Zhao, it would take at least half a month at the quickest, which Huang An thought was too long to wait.

He wasn't sure how long the Returning Origin Soup he had drunk a few days ago would last. If its effect wore off, the unique pain of pancreatic cancer would strike again.

Excluding the first day of the month, Huang An had already gone thirty-six days without experiencing any pain.

Having grown accustomed to a luxurious life, he was now overwhelmed with intense fear towards pain.

He needed more Guiyuan Soup to help his body recover, even if it cost him every last silver coin.

Besides, practicing martial arts would undoubtedly require more of the soup.

Therefore, Huang An planned to take Senior Sister Zhao to the City Lord's Mansion to purchase more Guiyuan Soup the following day.

As for returning to Earth, Huang An harbored such thoughts, albeit intending to proceed after drinking the Guiyuan Soup the next day.

He needed to find something that would speed up his master's recovery while finding ways to earn more silver.

Thanks to a good night's sleep, Huang An lay on his bed, contemplating how to effectively utilise the junkyard of the ten thousand realms to earn silver.

At six-thirty the next morning, Huang An was woken by the martial practitioners' shouts.

Marveling at the challenging of the martial arts path, Huang An also got out of bed. After washing up, he followed the noise to the martial arts practice field.

Dozens of disciples were each practicing different routines that appeared to be under the same school of martial arts. Some resembled monkeys while others resembled blind bears.

As for why Huang An recognized the techniques, it was because he was a normal person.

Although he didn't understand everything, the disciples' characteristics when practicing martial arts—the way they mimicked the movements and sounds of monkeys and blind bears—were obvious.

These disciples varied in age, ranging from seven to eight years old to over twenty.

Compared to their dispirited state the previous day, they were much calmer today, which was clear to even an outsider like Huang An.

It seemed that the Master's position in everyone's hearts was even higher than he had imagined.

Huang An then saw the Zhao Sisters practicing martial arts on one side. Looking at the sweat on their foreheads, they had likely been practicing for a while.

He couldn't understand their technique, however.

As for Pang Han, he hadn't seen him yet.

Probably hasn't arrived yet.

In reality, Pang Han was already kneeling at the entrance of the martial arts school, being spectators' laughingstock.

In the front yard of the martial arts school, Huang An simply leaned against the railing, watching from afar.

After a round of Changquan, Zhao Yan came over.

She had noticed Huang An's arrival immediately.

As the Master's injury healed, Zhao Yan's expression improved, with beads of sweat dotting her clear, white forehead like dewdrops on a white lotus.

Her features were delicate, and her long, strong legs followed one after the other. The curve of her waist was fully outlined by her sash.

Such grace momentarily stunned Huang An.

"Junior Brother!"

As she approached, Huang An managed to suppress the excitement in his heart.

Everyone loves beauty.

He, Huang An, had always steered clear of women. Now that he had barely recovered, he felt guilty for his wandering thoughts.

"Senior Sister! I plan to go to the City Lord's Mansion to buy some Guiyuan Soup today, do you have time?"

With a slight smile, Zhao Yan responded:

"I knew you couldn't wait. Why don't you wait a bit longer? The City Lord's Mansion hasn't opened yet. After we finish breakfast, it won't be too late to go."

Huang An smiled. He wasn't embarrassed at all.

"Senior Sister, please carry on."

Huang An gestured for her to continue, watching as she returned to the training field to practice Changquan again, and found a comfortable position to sit down.

To buy Guiyuan Soup, he had to ask Senior Sister Zhao for help.

Not because he couldn't ask anyone else, or he worried about being robbed on the way. It was because in Feng'an County, only four forces were eligible to buy Guiyuan Soup from the City Lord's Mansion.

They were the Zhao and Yang Families' Martial Art Schools in the west and east of the city respectively, the Yushan Chamber of Commerce in the north of the city, and the Li Family who were represented by the City Lord's Mansion.

Beyond these four powers, no one could buy a pot of Guiyuan Soup from the City Lord's Mansion.

This wasn't unique to Feng'an County, but the entire Zhu Family's Daming Dynasty.

The Daming Dynasty's control and oppression of martial artists was suffocating for Huang An.

If he wanted to buy Guiyuan Soup, he could only do so in the name of Zhao Family's Martial Art School. He couldn't even find the door by himself, and there was even a chance he might end up risking his life.

The temperature was relatively cool on an autumn morning, and Huang An, with his weak body, even got a runny nose from the cold even though he had crossed his arms.

Despite this, he was engrossed in the scene before him, his eyes glowing with excitement.

All these disciples seemed to have entered the Five Viscera Realm. Even though they didn't often practice together, Huang An could still notice the tremendous power in their each and every movement.

If he were to take a hit, he feared he would be sent straight to the hospital.

If he wasn't sent flying two to three meters from a collision, Huang An would think they were taking it easy on him.

Thinking that he might be able to make these complicated movements not long from now, Huang An was excited.

After all, this longing for power is ingrained in every man, despite his current poor health condition.

"I'll pick up some anti-inflammatory medication when I return. Given the Master's enormous stamina, even ten times the normal dosage shouldn't be a problem. He should recover nicely within a week."

Huang An crossed his arms, looking forward to returning home.