“The Crane Control Army has been quite unlucky lately,” Sui Yunzhu muttered.
It was more than just unlucky – they were hitting walls everywhere, facing obstacles in almost every mission. While there had been deliberate targeting before, this time it was truly just bad luck.
“When a person hits a streak of bad luck, even the heavens won’t let them catch a break,” someone chimed in unexpectedly.
Silence fell over the group.
They waited at the edge of the forest, some squatting, some standing. Their silhouettes in the night resembled tombstones of varying heights.
Chu Dingjiang returned after about an hour, his body emanating unrestrained killing intent mixed with the smell of blood. He looked like the Black Impermanence emerging from the underworld.
The outcome was obvious.
All seven remaining assassins at the Misty Mountain Villa’s hidden point had been eliminated. Wei Yuzhi’s whereabouts were unknown. This confirmed one piece of information about Wei Yuzhi for Chu Dingjiang – his spirit power had surpassed the third rank of the transformation realm.
Without anyone controlling it, the formation essentially lost its life. The Crane Control Army quickly escaped.
In this operation, the Crane Control Army sacrificed four shadows and killed fourteen enemies. But this ratio still angered the leaders of the Crane Control Bureau: How could there be casualties with a transformation realm expert and the Crane Control Army’s most skilled assassin present?! It was unforgivable!
So upon returning to the capital, Chu Dingjiang was demoted again. Some people couldn’t even tolerate his honorary position as Divine Martial Guard Captain. Meanwhile, Gu Jinghou, having gained the Emperor’s trust, was only fined one year’s salary.
Many people felt this was unfair to both of them. This was a trial, and according to the rules, the leaders Chu Dingjiang and Gu Jinghou couldn’t intervene. Even in a normal trial, it was virtually impossible to avoid any losses!
In the Crane Control Courtyard.
An Jiu was practicing punches in a small training room, her body drenched in sweat, accentuating her curves.
Chu Dingjiang sat cross-legged by the wall, cracking open five-spice peanuts. Seeing her stop, he asked while chewing, “The Mei family is famous for their plum blossom fist. Why are you practicing this cat-scratch-style punch?”
An Jiu retightened the bandages on her hands and glanced at him. “Eating peanuts can easily choke you, especially with your recent bad luck. You’d better be careful.”
“You’re deliberately trying to annoy me.” Chu Dingjiang slightly increased the pressure of his fingers, crushing a peanut to powder before putting it in his mouth. “Now I won’t choke.”
An Jiu continued practicing. After returning, she had gone to the Crane Control Courtyard’s library to look through many martial arts manuals. She found that almost every technique required a strong physique as a foundation, so she decided to temporarily set them aside and focus on training her body according to her methods.
“You’ve been practicing for two hours already.” Even Chu Dingjiang couldn’t stand her cruelty to herself and couldn’t help but remind her.
An Jiu didn’t respond. Each punch became more powerful than the last, her leaking killing intent making the back of one’s neck cold.
Two-quarters of an hour later, she finally stopped.
“Chu Dingjiang.” An Jiu crouched in front of him, her dark eyes staring directly into his. “Which army is my mother in now?”
Chu Dingjiang avoided her gaze. “I don’t know.”
“You do know.” An Jiu sensed his momentary hesitation. “Is she in the Feathered Forest Army?”
“No, but it’s similar.” Chu Dingjiang had originally feared that if he revealed the truth, she would also throw herself into danger to search for her mother. But since she seemed mentally prepared, he no longer concealed it. “The Dragon Martial Guard. They have similar responsibilities to the Feathered Forest Army.”
Finally, he asked worriedly, “You’re not planning to join too, are you?”
An Jiu clenched her fists tightly, veins bulging on the back of her hands. “I want to save people. I’m not trying to sell my body, so why would I throw myself into that?! Does Gu Jinghou also know my mother was slept with by the Emperor?”
“Cough cough cough!” Chu Dingjiang choked on a peanut and coughed a few times. “You’re a woman.”
An Jiu persisted in asking, “Does he or doesn’t he?”
“He’s the one who chose her. What do you think?” Chu Dingjiang said.
An Jiu thought of Gu Jinghou’s clear eyes and couldn’t understand how such a person could do something so disgusting. A mother and daughter serving the same man? And this Emperor had no restraint, not even sparing widows!
“So my mother has already been slept with by the Emperor?” An Jiu asked.
“I don’t know about that.” Chu Dingjiang wasn’t a close attendant to the Emperor, so how would he know which woman the Emperor slept with on any given day?
An Jiu slowly stood up and walked to the clothes rack to put on a cloak.
Mei Yanran’s gentle and beautiful face appeared in her mind. Her blood suddenly began to boil, and an inexpressible killing intent rushed to her brain. That long-disappeared madness suddenly returned. She grabbed a sword from the weapon rack and viciously slashed the clothes rack to pieces.
But it wasn’t enough! She wanted to destroy everything!
“Fourteen!” Chu Dingjiang saw her eyes turn blood-red and felt a shock in his heart. This spiritual power clearly showed signs of demonic possession.
An overwhelming killing intent instantly covered the entire Crane Control Courtyard. Everyone felt it.
Boom!
A huge sound erupted as a large section of the Crane Control Courtyard’s training room collapsed. Billowing dust rose to the sky.
Several instructors rushed over at the sound.
“What happened?” The Earth Instructor squeaked.
The massive killing intent disappeared, and everyone relaxed, starting to chatter among themselves.
A figure emerged from the dust cloud, and everyone fell silent, trying to discern who it was.
As the person descended the stairs, they saw it was Chu Dingjiang carrying a blood-covered woman.
“Commander Chu, what happened?” the Sky Instructor asked.
“The training hall was old and in disrepair,” Chu Dingjiang said flatly before striding away with An Jiu in his arms.
Chu Dingjiang couldn’t think of any way to conceal the truth. This flimsy excuse was merely to avoid publicly disrespecting the Sky Instructor.
That afternoon, Chu Dingjiang was summoned back to the Crane Control Bureau. The reason: is suspicion of showing signs of demonic possession.
The Crane Control Army didn’t reject the demonic path, but the personalities of those who practiced demonic cultivation inevitably became extreme in some aspects. Thus, they needed to be closely monitored to prevent them from losing control during missions.
Someone in the Divine Martial Army immediately proposed that even someone with excellent talent like Gu Jinghou had never reached the transformation realm, so Chu Dingjiang’s cultivation level was highly suspicious. To avoid disaster, his martial arts should be crippled as soon as possible.
This echoed the saying: When a person hits a streak of bad luck, even the heavens won’t let them catch a break.
Chu Dingjiang hadn’t choked on the peanuts, but he silently took the blame. Not only was he demoted, but he was also to be confined in the Supervisory Court for a month.
An Jiu slept deeply and woke as dawn was breaking.
Her head throbbed with pain as she recalled the previous events. Anger immediately surged up again.
The door creaked open and closed as Lou Mingyue slipped in. “Mei Fourteen.”
Perhaps out of sympathy for their shared circumstances, she always took extra care of An Jiu. “Whatever happened, don’t reveal your spiritual power. Commander Chu said he would handle it. Don’t waste his good intentions.”
“What’s going on?” An Jiu propped herself up.
Sensing someone approaching, Lou Mingyue said, “I’ll tell you later. When people ask you about it, try to push the blame for the building collapse onto Commander Chu. These are his instructions, passed through me.”
An Jiu’s heart sank. Although she didn’t know exactly what had happened, her instinct told her that her loss of control over her spiritual power had caused trouble, and Chu Dingjiang was covering for her.
Knock knock!
“Come in,” Lou Mingyue answered on An Jiu’s behalf.
Several black-clad men entered. The one in front wore a ghost mask, followed by the four instructors and Storehouse Keeper Sheng.
“Xuan Ren.” The masked man sat down and began questioning. “The training hall collapsed the day before yesterday. Only you and Chu Dingjiang were inside. Do you know what happened?”
An Jiu didn’t want to expose herself, but she also didn’t want to push everything onto Chu Dingjiang without knowing the full situation. “I don’t know.”
The masked man’s gaze fell on her injured hands. “Where did these injuries come from?”
An Jiu remained silent.
Lou Mingyue interjected, “Mei Fourteen’s internal power was destroyed when the Mei family was attacked. Now she can only train externally. To have a chance at revenge someday, she can only train harder. She’s often like this.”
It was understandable that she wouldn’t want to talk about what was essentially the annihilation of her family.
The masked man reached out and grasped An Jiu’s wrist.
The touch was cold. An Jiu resisted the urge to pull away.
The man probed for a moment, then nodded, seemingly accepting Lou Mingyue’s explanation. A person without internal power couldn’t possibly cause such massive destruction, so it must have been Chu Dingjiang…
Having obtained a satisfactory result, the masked man didn’t linger and immediately left to report back.
“Well, well, little shorty, your backer has fallen!” the Earth Instructor laughed maliciously.
An Jiu silently retorted: Being short might change with time, but a cut-off little JJ won’t grow back!
Among girls her age, An Jiu wasn’t considered short. However, most people in the Crane Control Courtyard were men, and the only two women were older and slightly taller than her. So when they lined up, she was the shortest.
The Dark Instructor said coldly, “You think I’m dead?”
Teaching his subordinate a lesson right in front of him was disrespectful!
The Earth Instructor rolled his eyes, swaying his hips as he left while saying, “She’s young and strong. No matter how much you try to please her, old man, a young girl won’t go for you.”
Having his intentions so misinterpreted, the Dark Instructor’s beard quivered with anger. He spat, “Eunuch!”
An Jiu had no interest in listening to their bickering. Once everyone had left, she immediately asked Lou Mingyue, “What happened to Chu Dingjiang?”
Lou Mingyue explained the day’s events, concluding with a sneer, “These Crane Control Bureau people – you never see them this efficient during missions, but they’re experts at suppressing their own!”
An Jiu felt quite uneasy.
Her spiritual power had gone out of control again. She couldn’t remember everything clearly, but she knew that Chu Dingjiang had held her tightly, whispering something in her ear. His internal power had exploded, destroying the entire room, and she had been knocked unconscious.
He must have done this to hide her spiritual power, which showed signs of demonic possession!
An Jiu pressed her lips together, lowering her eyes to stare at her hands wrapped in thick white bandages.
Chu Dingjiang would turn back for her. When she felt troubled about killing, he didn’t curse or fear her like ordinary people, nor did he constantly instigate her to continue killing like some others. Instead, he smiled and said, “It’s a good sign, it shows you still have feelings.”
An Jiu didn’t know what purpose Chu Dingjiang had in protecting her like this, but it evoked complex emotions in her.
Seeing her pale face, Lou Mingyue said, “You should rest a bit more.”
An Jiu nodded.
She thought she wouldn’t be able to sleep, but after lying down, she unexpectedly fell into a deep slumber again.
Her dreams were chaotic. At times she was in mountains of corpses and seas of blood, with the Mei family head stuffing a jade pendant into her hand, saying “Loyal and Righteous Building”; sometimes it was Mei Yanran smiling and saying “Don’t be afraid, mother is here”; then it was Mei Jiu crying on his deathbed saying “Live well”; finally, there was rolling dust, deafening sounds all around, accompanied by Chu Dingjiang’s deep voice saying “Fourteen, calm down. No matter what, aren’t I still here with you?”
Right, Chu Dingjiang had said – aren’t I still here with you?
“Chu Dingjiang!” An Jiu suddenly sat up, her forehead covered in sweat.
Never before had she felt such an urgent need to improve her strength.
An Jiu got up to drink a glass of water, tidied up a bit, and went to the library despite her injuries. She didn’t reject Chu Dingjiang’s protection, but she refused to become a weak woman who always relied on others for protection! She couldn’t become a burden to Chu Dingjiang.
The library was built in the center of the Crane Control Courtyard, right where An Jiu had reported on her first day. It housed tens of thousands of books, also under the management of Storehouse Keeper Sheng.
The books were arranged in different rooms according to their level. Because the children in the Crane Control Courtyard who studied the basics had specialized teachers to instruct them in martial arts, almost no one entered the room with basic martial arts manuals.
An Jiu was looking for interesting techniques to practice in the external cultivation basics section.
She was so engrossed in her search that when she sensed someone enter, she assumed it was Storehouse Keeper Sheng and didn’t remain on guard.
“Practice this one.” The voice was as clear as a mountain stream flowing over stones.
An Jiu looked up to see a clean, slender hand, unlike Chu Dingjiang’s, which was always gloved.
“Gu Jinghou.” An Jiu looked coldly at the clear eyes behind the ghost mask.
Gu Jinghou noticed her hostility but didn’t take it to heart. “According to the original rules, I would be the master of the Mei family disciples. No matter what, I won’t harm you in martial arts training.”
“So you’ll harm me in other ways,” An Jiu said.
“Perhaps. Over the years, I’ve done many harmful things.” Gu Jinghou placed the book on the table, smiled enigmatically, and turned to leave.
An Jiu glanced at the table. It was a thin, tattered yellow book with “Meridian-Breaking Palm” written on the cover.
Opening the cover, the title page had a line: “Meridian-breaking means breaking others’ meridians.”
An Jiu flipped through it briefly, unsure whether to trust Gu Jinghou.
She tucked the book into her pocket and looked up to see Storehouse Keeper Sheng working at his desk in the opposite room. She got up, left the room, crossed the courtyard through the corridor, and knocked on the door of the main hall.
“Come in,” Storehouse Keeper Sheng said.
An Jiu entered.
He looked her over for a moment. “Xuan Ren, what is it?”
“I have something to ask you,” An Jiu said.
“Please sit.” Storehouse Keeper Sheng put down his brush, the corner of his mouth lifting in an attentive expression.
“Do you know about the Meridian-Breaking Palm?” An Jiu asked.
Storehouse Keeper Sheng’s expression changed slightly. “Why do you suddenly ask about this?”
“I heard it’s an external martial art,” An Jiu said.
Storehouse Keeper Sheng nodded. “It’s a rather vicious external martial art. Its power makes even many experts with deep internal energy pale at its mention.”
“However, very few people have truly mastered it to this day, which is one reason this technique hasn’t been destroyed.”