shuhaige
Chapter 16
Chapter 16
Chapter 16: Connate Grandmaster
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
The next day.
Sky Prison.
Zhou Yi carried his last meal and arrived at Prison C9.
Dressed in white, the four sons and three daughters lay neatly on the ground, no longer breathing. The
woman in mourning clothes lay on the ground, her eyes blank.
Li Xiong stood in the cell and looked coldly at Zhou Yi. “Remember, I’m waiting here with my wife and Nôvel(D)rama.Org's content.
children. Tell Li Wu when he comes in!”
Zhou Yi frowned when he saw the tragedy of the father killing his children in the cell. He looked around
the cell and realized that there were no prison guards on duty. The imperial court did not intend to carry
out a public execution. It signaled for Li Xiong to commit suicide in the Sky Prison.
“The Grand Marshal is incorruptible and has made outstanding contributions. In the future, he will be
worthy of being recorded in the history of the Imperial Ancestral Temple.” Zhou Yi had spoken to Li
Xiong yesterday and had already gone slightly overboard out of indignation at slaughtering the
common people.
How could they speak ill of Li Wu and the imperial court today? Even if the officials wanted to kill the
entire Li family, they had to praise the loyal monarch on the surface.
“He will come. I will wait for him!”
After Li Xiong finished speaking, he slapped the woman’s forehead and then slapped his head. The
couple died with their skulls shattered.
“If you knew this would happen, why did you do it!”
Zhou Yi pretended to panic and went out to call the prison guards to carry Li Xiong and his family out of
the cell. Naturally, the Li family members would come to collect their corpses. As for whether they could
be buried in the ancestral grave, no one knew.
“I’m in a bad mood today, so I’ll choose an unlucky person to use my Demonic Technique!”
Zhou Yi carried the good wine and dishes and swayed to Prison A-12.
The prisoner was as strong as a bear and was half a head taller than the torture rack. There were a few
scars on his shiny bald head. He’s the type of man that commoners would report when he walked on
the streets.
The prisoner glanced at the wine and meat and licked his lips. “Is it my turn today?”
“You sure know your stuff.”
Zhou Yi set up the dishes and brought the meat to the prisoner’s mouth.
The prisoner did not stand on ceremony and ate the meat and drank the wine happily. In the end, he
burped. “I’ve heard outside that there’s a prison guard in the Sky Prison who likes to torture experts in
the martial world. No one can survive his torture.”
“Do I actually have a reputation in the martial world?”
This was the first time Zhou Yi had heard of this matter. His life was simple, and he did not care about
the martial world or the imperial court.
The prisoner said, “The martial world calls you Old Demon of Blood Prison. It’s rumored that your entire
family died at the hands of martial arts experts. That’s why you’re so ruthless.”
“Old Demon?” Zhou Yi looked at his white hair and nodded slightly. “This nickname is not bad. It’s quite
imposing. The fellow daoists in martial arts had flattered me!”
The prisoner said coldly, “You’re like a turtle, hiding in the Divine Capital and not going out. Otherwise,
you would have been beaten to death!”
“Maybe they came to the Divine Capital, but no one knows.”
It had been very lively for the past two years in Zhou Yi’s small courtyard in the Divine Capital. The date
trees in the courtyard grew vigorously, and his colleagues praised the sweetness and deliciousness of
the dates. Perhaps it was because the experts of the martial world had achieved Body Tempering, and
their flesh and blood contained special energy that the dates planted were not ordinary.
Zhou Yi planned to plant grape vines and invite his colleagues to try it.
“I don’t believe it. I’ll try your torture today.” The prisoner said proudly, “Back then, I committed a murder
in the temple and I survived when 18 monks beat me till their punishment sticks were broken.”
“So you’re a Buddhist disciple. Pardon me.”
Zhou Yi cleaned up the dishes and placed his palm on the prisoner’s dantian, circulating the Heaven
Devouring Demonic Technique. Thick inner Qi flowed out of the prisoner’s body like a floodgate being
opened. In just a moment, the inner Qi in the prisoner’s dantian was completely devoured.
“What is this—” The veins on the prisoner’s bald head throbbed, and his eyes widened in disbelief.
“Heaven Devouring… Demonic Technique?”
“You actually know?” Without waiting for the prisoner to speak, Zhou Yi slapped his head. Inner Qi
seeped out of his body and turned his brain into tofu. “The more you know, the more curious you are,
and the more dangerous you are!”
…
At the beginning of the twelfth year of Hongchang.
Grand Marshal Li Wu had defeated the enemy’s main force at Snake Mountain and killed 200,000
people, capturing the Third Prince of Great Yong alive. Then, he chased the defeated soldiers for 1,200
kilometers and completely reclaimed the old territory of the Fengyang Kingdom.
When the news reached the Divine Capital, the citizens cheered. The court officials were silent.
That same autumn.
Li Wu led his army into Great Yong and broke through twelve cities in a row, reaching Great Yong’s
southern border, the Heavenly Barrier Soul Suppression Fortress. The commander of the Soul
Suppression Fortress allowed Li Wu’s shouts for challenge and refused to come out. Great Yong sent
an envoy to seek peace.
…
The changes in the outside world had nothing to do with Zhou Yi.
In the courtyard.
Zhou Yi sat cross-legged under the grape trellis and silently circulated the Heaven Devouring Demon
Technique. Inner Qi that surged like a river flowed through his meridians, faintly emitting the sound of
raging waves hitting the shore.
“In seven years, I’ve devoured the inner Qi of more than 90 martial arts experts… Now, I’ve finally
reached the 500-year limit!”
Zhou Yi applied for leave from the prison and focused on seclusion at home until he broke through to
the Connate realm.
“According to the description of the Demonic Technique, my inner Qi has reached 500 years. As long
as I keep circulating it until I can use the power of Heaven and Earth, I can naturally comprehend the
Connate Grandmaster realm!”
His inner Qi followed his meridians and circulated for more than ten heavenly cycles.
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Zhou Yi only felt that his meridians had reached their limit. Some of his minor meridians had already
cracked, but he still could not sense the Connate realm.
“Hmph!” Zhou Yi could not help but groan in pain. The pain of the cracks in his meridians was not
inferior to the torture of being dismembered.
At this moment, if he continued to circulate his Demonic Technique, he might break through to the
Connate realm, or his meridians might be broken and he would become a cripple. In the worst case, he
would die.
“Ordinary people might grit their teeth and persevere to break through to the Connate Realm. I… I will
try again tomorrow!”
And so, Zhou Yi stopped circulating his energy, stood up, brewed a pot of good tea, and recited the
Dao Scripture. He concentrated on calming the restlessness.
The next day.
Zhou Yi circulated his Demonic Technique again. He had circulated a few more times than yesterday
and reached the limit of his meridians.
“It seems that my talent is really a little poor. Ordinary people with low talent will either become
disheartened and disappear into the crowd or risk their lives to break through. After all, life waits for no
man.
“Fortunately, I have the Dao Fruit of Eternal Life. No bottleneck or shackles can withstand the
tempering of time. Only I am still the same even though the world has changed!”
Zhou Yi stopped circulating his energy and took out a Buddhist scripture to read. He agreed with the
other explanations such as retribution and karma, but he did not agree with philosophies such as
enduring pain.
Time passed, autumn went and spring came. In the blink of an eye, half a year had passed.
At first, someone asked why Old Zhou wasn’t back yet, but they got used to it.
Another day rolled around.
Zhou Yi was burning incense and chanting scriptures when he suddenly had a mysterious thought. He
circulated the Heaven Devouring Demon Technique in his body. After circulating it for dozens of
heavenly cycles, his meridians still did not feel any pain.
At this moment, wisps of cool air gathered into Zhou Yi’s body from the outside world, like ice threads
and drizzle, moistening everything silently.
“Is this the spiritual energy of heaven and earth?” Zhou Yi closed his eyes and sensed. There was a
mysterious aura in the world that was faintly divided into five colors, and it was extremely thin.
As the majestic inner Qi circulated, it drove the five-colored spiritual energy into his body and fused into
his inner Qi. As the spiritual energy gathered, the loose inner Qi gradually condensed into substance.
500 years of compressed inner Qi had become a trickle.
“This is Connate True Essence? The quantity is ten times less, but the quality has increased by a
hundred times!”
Zhou Yi circulated his true essence and released it from his fingertips, condensing it into a visible
energy sword. He waved it at the stone slab on the ground.
Swish! Silently, the energy sword sliced the stone slab in half.
“If I use my inner Qi to injure someone, its power will be greatly reduced in three to four feet. If I’m ten
feet away, my inner Qi will dissipate on its own. However, my true essence is different. Even if I’m
twenty to thirty feet away, it can still condense and not dissipate. Such methods of killing are like
immortals in the eyes of mortals! No wonder the legends say that everyone below the Connate realm
are ants!”
Zhou Yi circulated his Connate True Essence. After a heavenly cycle, the spiritual energy gathered in
his body was almost undetectable.
“With such a cultivation speed, does it take hundreds of years to reach the perfected Connate Realm?
The reason why it’s so slow is definitely not just because of my poor aptitude. Whether it’s the Heaven
Devouring Demon Technique or the Origin Returning Mantra, there’s no cultivation method after the
Connate realm.
“Secondly, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth in the mortal world is extremely thin, so it naturally
takes a long time to absorb it. Thirdly, it purely relies on one’s own cultivation, where there are
medicinal pills or other supplementary items or not…”
Zhou Yi thought about it carefully and listed several reasons why cultivation was slow.
“However, I still have to cultivate in the mortal world. Even if I spend hundreds of years until I really
make no progress one day, it won’t be too late to go to the cultivation world. The cultivation world is
different from the mortal world. It’s too difficult to hide. There are too many ways to harm people. It’s
very difficult to cultivate in peace like now.”
Instead, Zhou Yi felt that the mortal spiritual energy was extremely thin and was a form of protection for
him.
“Moreover, it doesn’t seem like there are no immortal cultivation techniques…”
Zhou Yi suddenly recalled that the Nameless Mantra taught by Wei Chang back then was to sense the
aura of heaven and earth and refine his body through cultivation techniques. Back then, he could not
enter the elementary level no matter what. Now that Zhou Yi had advanced to the Connate realm, he
could already sense the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.
“…calm your heart, breathe slowly, gather the divine light, reach the heavens…” Zhou Yi recited the
incantation silently. The True Essence in his body circulated on its own, and the spiritual energy of
heaven and earth gathered at a speed several times faster than before.
The spiritual energy refined by the Nameless Mantra did not increase his innate true essence, but
fused into his tendons, bones, internal organs, and limbs. His Body Tempering, which had just entered
the Internal Organs Realm, advanced visibly.
“This chant is not a cultivation technique. It should be the legendary body tempering technique! In that
case, can I cultivate another Connate Body Tempering?”
Zhou Yi smiled. Whether it was martial arts or immortal cultivation, it was all to protect the Dao Fruit of
Longevity. As long as it could increase his strength, he would not hesitate to spend time cultivating it.
There was no difference for hundreds or thousands of years.
“I should be on duty tomorrow!”
…
Sky Prison.
Zhou Yi greeted the guard on duty. “Old Feng, long time no see.”
“Aye?” Feng Qiao was reminiscing about Lady Lianxiang of Spring Breeze Tower. Eight years ago, she
was the top courtesan. The wealthy merchants could not get her no matter how much money they
spent. Now, she only needed five taels of silver. “You’re not dead, Old Zhou?”
…
Zhou Yi asked, “Who said I was dead?”
“That’s what they say in the prison. They say that you always like to torture the experts of the martial
world and kill so many people. You have many enemies outside, and they attack you in revenge,
leaving not even a complete corpse!” Feng Qiao explained, “Lieutenant Zhu even sent someone to
your house. When no one answered the door, everyone believed him.”
“I hid outside for a while. I’m fine now.”
Before Zhou Yi went into seclusion, he prepared a large amount of food and locked the door. Every
day, he would drink tea, read books, and comprehend his state of mind. No matter who knocked on the
door, he could not be bothered.
During this period, there were indeed thieves who barged into his courtyard. Perhaps they were
enemies or thieves. But no one could withstand a single blow from Zhou Yi.
Who could withstand a punch with five hundred years of strength!