The black-clothed burly man froze for a moment upon receiving the medicine bottle. When Wei Yunshan approached, he involuntarily took half a step back.
"Hand over the medicine." Wei Yunshan gritted his teeth in hatred toward Chu Dingjiang.
"Elder Wei, the medicine will still be delivered to our master if it remains with us. There's no need to trouble you," the leader of the black-clothed men spoke up.
Wei Yunshan's mind raced with suspicion—could the bottle be a trap? But what if it was genuine? Whether the medicine was secretly hoarded by these petty thieves or delivered into the hands of that person from Liao, retrieving it would become nearly impossible!
Even if there was only a ten percent chance it was real, Wei Yunshan couldn't let it slip away. Fighting one against twenty was difficult, but far easier than snatching it back from that man.
"That brat is cunning. I must verify the medicine's authenticity," Wei Yunshan insisted stubbornly.
The black-clothed leader extended his hand. The burly man holding the bottle hesitated imperceptibly before reluctantly handing it over.
The leader pulled out the stopper. Before even looking inside, he was hit by an overwhelming medicinal aroma—far richer than the single pill from earlier. Peering into the narrow bottle mouth, he spotted the pills. Mixed with heart blood, they carried a unique fragrance and hue. Just the scent could clear one's Spiritual Apertures—hard to counterfeit.
With covetous eyes on the miracle drug, the leader immediately tucked the bottle into his robes after confirming its contents.
Wei Yunshan's gaze sharpened. His mental strength erupted instantly, like invisible hands seizing control of the weapons at the waists of over twenty men.
...
Meanwhile, Chu Dingjiang and his group calmly returned to camp.
Before even catching his breath, Mo Sigui urgently pressed Chu Dingjiang and An Jiu, "Did you really hand it over?!"
An Jiu glanced at Chu Dingjiang. Though reluctant to admit her oversight, she confessed, "I didn't even notice when he took the bottle."
As she spoke, she patted her pocket and pulled out the small vial Mo Sigui had first given her. She paused—the bottle felt unexpectedly heavy, not empty as she remembered, with only a few pills left.
Opening it immediately, she found it completely full!
"I poured all the pills into this bottle. The other one had a strong medicinal scent—easier to fool people with," Chu Dingjiang explained.
"Whether Wei Yunshan or those twenty martial arts masters win their standoff, the victor will still come for the medicine, won't they?" Mo Sigui said irritably. "If you're playing mind games, why leave loose ends?!"
"There is one loose end," Chu Dingjiang calculated the timing mentally. "I'll go back to tidy it up."
"I'm coming with you." An Jiu gripped his arm. "Wei Yunshan can manipulate external objects with his mental strength—he's a thousand times stronger than Wei Yuzhi."
Back at Misty Villa, An Jiu had casually tossed an arrow to Wei Yunshan, partly believing that mental strength was about explosive power rather than endurance—even with a blade, he couldn't have sawed through the cage. But the old man had far exceeded her expectations.
Her own mental strength couldn't yet manipulate objects, yet it allowed her to hold her own against eighth or ninth-order martial masters. Wei Yunshan's power could only be described as terrifying.
Chu Dingjiang patted her hand, initially intending to refuse but changing his mind at her determined gaze. "Alright."
An Jiu tossed the medicine bottle to Mo Sigui. "You keep it."
Watching the two leave, Mo Sigui pondered briefly before tucking the bottle into his robes.
Chu Dingjiang departed with An Jiu in tow.Over there. The battle had just reached its conclusion. Wei Yunshan had single-handedly slain twenty Martial Arts Masters ranging from fifth to ninth rank, but he himself was severely wounded.
His white beard was stained with blood as he trembled, clutching a Medicine Bottle and collapsing into the grass, looking as though he had aged over a decade in mere moments.
After catching his breath for a while, he pulled out the stopper and poured out a reddish-brown Medicine pill. He sniffed it carefully, a faint smile appearing on his face before he popped one into his mouth.
The Medicine melted instantly upon contact, flowing down his throat and into his body.
Wei Yunshan sat cross-legged and circulated his True Energy. After just one cycle, he felt that seventy to eighty percent of his injuries had healed, filling him with immense joy.
"This is no place to linger," Wei Yunshan muttered as he got up and headed southeast.
After traveling for some time, he sensed someone following him. He turned to look but saw only a thin mist veiling the moonlight, the wilderness stretching endlessly in all directions.
After pausing briefly, he resumed his journey.
Chu Dingjiang and An Jiu followed behind, but when they realized they were gradually losing track of Wei Yunshan's presence, they abruptly quickened their pace.
Excessive use of Mental Strength was exhausting—akin to staying awake for several nights straight, lost in thought. Wei Yunshan was currently in such a state. Having fought beyond his limits and constantly wary of being pursued, he was utterly drained. It wasn’t until Chu Dingjiang and An Jiu closed within thirty zhang that he finally noticed them.
Having dominated the martial world for so many years, even when betrayed by his adopted son, he had never been as disgraced as he was today.
Wei Yunshan knew that Chu Dingjiang was a Transformation Realm Master. Though his foundation wasn’t particularly solid, he was still not someone Wei Yunshan could easily handle in his current state—he had to find a way to evade him.
Unfortunately, fate had other plans.
Chu Dingjiang’s lightness skill far exceeded his expectations.
In the blink of an eye, he had closed within ten zhang. At such a short distance, turning his back again would likely lead to a swift and fatal end.
Wei Yunshan was forced to stop.
Chu Dingjiang gave him no time to recover. After setting An Jiu down, he lunged forward with his sword.
The moment An Jiu steadied herself, she immediately drew the Dragon Subduing Bow and released a Mental Strength-infused Startling String shot without an arrow.
The invisible arrow was even faster than Chu Dingjiang’s attack.
Wei Yunshan was highly skilled in Mental Strength, and when An Jiu’s Startling String closed within three chi, he sensed an immense threat.
The dual assault unexpectedly awakened a deeper potential within him. His figure vanished from his original position in an instant, reappearing ten zhang away—so fast that even An Jiu’s sharp eyes could only catch an afterimage.
Chu Dingjiang did not press the attack further.
"So it’s you, you little brat!" Wei Yunshan recognized An Jiu’s bow, recalling how he had spent over a month exhausting his Mental Strength to manipulate arrowheads to break free from imprisonment, nearly dying from the strain.
"I wasn’t wrong about you," An Jiu said.
Wei Yunshan assumed she was praising him for escaping with just a tiny arrowhead and snorted coldly in pride.
But then she continued, "You really are a piece of work."
The tension in the air shifted subtly for a moment.
"Killing me won’t be easy for the two of you," Wei Yunshan said. "I can share half the Medicine with you."
Chu Dingjiang replied, "If I can take all of it, why settle for half?"
"So you’re determined to make an enemy of this old man?" Wei Yunshan’s tone was calm, but inwardly, he was both shocked and furious. If Chu Dingjiang truly fought to the death for the Medicine, his chances of winning were slim.
What to do? Abandoning the Medicine was worse than death to him.
Wei Yunshan sighed deeply. "To think that after a lifetime of triumphing over countless masters, I’ve now been humbled twice in a row."The first time was at the hands of Wei Yuzhi, the second time was today.
Chu Dingjiang's brilliance lay in the fact that his schemes were laid out openly, yet you had no choice but to walk right into them.
"At least let this old man die with clarity," Wei Yunshan said unwillingly. "I didn't even verify the authenticity of the entire bottle of medicine—how did you know I would definitely fall for the trap?"
"You were willing to sell your life to the Liao people, so you must have been desperate to obtain this medicine." Chu Dingjiang spoke unhurriedly. Unlike Inner Force, the depletion of Mental Strength wasn't something that could be recovered in a short time. "I saw a desire in your eyes that shouldn't belong to someone in the Transformation Realm."
Generally, those whose Mental Strength had reached the Transformation Realm were not easily swayed by emotions.
Mental Strength differed from Inner Force. While Martial Arts cultivated through Inner Force might become disordered due to intense emotional fluctuations—leading to qi deviation—they wouldn't necessarily weaken. Mental Strength, however, would rise and fall with emotional turbulence.
This was why martial artists had to cultivate their minds before their skills.
"Why did you want this? To restore your Inner Force?" Chu Dingjiang asked.
Wei Yunshan replied, "I overused my Mental Strength and passed out. When I woke, my body had already been enhanced by drugs." He raised his arm, his sleeve sliding down to reveal a thick, powerful limb under the moonlight, its vitality far surpassing what should be possible for a man his age. "I know medicine. I knew that if this continued, I would explode from within within three months."
Chu Dingjiang's brow furrowed slightly.
His knowledge of Wei Yunshan came from Crane Control Army records and Jianghu legends. Both sources agreed that Wei Yunshan was a man of indifference. Yet the old man before him clung fiercely to life, a man of overwhelming desires.
Chu Dingjiang considered many things in that moment, then steeled his resolve. A killing intent surged around him as his figure blurred into a shadow, streaks of cold light flashing toward Wei Yunshan.
Wei Yunshan had seemed relaxed while speaking, but in truth, he had been on guard the entire time. When the attack came, instead of fleeing, he raised his sword and met it head-on. (To be continued...)
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