Could it be that I am the cruel villain?
Chapter 44 Candid Treatment

Chapter 44: Chapter 44 Candid Treatment

Not knowing how much time had passed, the young man soaking in the bathtub slowly opened his eyes.

He tried to move his body.

Soreness and weakness overcame him, and even standing up from the bathtub proved to be quite difficult. His legs were soft, trembling as he barely climbed out.

Then he plopped down on the ground.

"Hu—"

"Hu—"

It felt as if his body had been hollowed out.

Now he finally understood the feeling that Xue Wuwei had every day after leaving the brothel.

Glancing at the bathtub that had tortured him to the brink of death, the water inside was now clear, showing that his body had absorbed the medicinal effects quite thoroughly. However, he discovered a thick layer of sediment settled at the bottom of the tub.

"Didn’t I absorb it completely?"

Out of curiosity, he stretched out his hand to scoop some up. It was at this moment Jiang Feng realized that his skin had become a few shades fairer and more elastic than before.

He really had become a pretty boy.

However, his expression of curiosity instantly turned to disgust as Jiang Feng touched the sediment at the bottom of the tub.

It was all impurities and dead skin sloughed off his own body...

Looking around, he estimated it was now afternoon. If he remembered correctly, he began the Body Refining process around the fifth hour of the day, roughly five o’clock in the morning. He couldn’t quite recall how long it took to absorb the Body Tempering Liquid in the tub.

Including the time he was unconscious, a total of five hours had passed.

With a somewhat unsettled expression on his face, he did not rush to dry off or get dressed. Right now, he felt as if walking, let alone crawling a few steps, would make his entire body fall apart.

Barely pulling himself up onto a chair, he lay on the armchair in an utterly listless pose, closed his eyes and slowly sensed the changes in his body, trying to circulate the Spiritual Energy within. An undeniable surprise slowly spread across his face.

Because when he circulated the Spiritual Energy, his body did not experience the explosive, swelling sensation it had before, but instead only started to feel discomfort after about a quarter of an hour of continuous absorption.

According to Su Yi, letting this Spiritual Energy travel through a prescribed path within the body to expel any remaining impurities was the "exhalation" part of breathing, and then incorporating this Spiritual Energy, stripped of impurities, into the Dantian was the "inhalation."

However, the joy on his face did not last long. After a while, the young man’s expression began to turn odd, as though he had stumbled upon something unbelievable.

"Why is there a strand of Spiritual Energy inside me?"

Astonishment.

Thinking hard, he remembered that after absorbing all the medicines in the morning, he did indeed draw in a strand of Spiritual Energy into his body, as Sister Su Yi had instructed, letting it travel through each and every meridian before finally returning it to the Dantian.

He fell into deep thought.

Because he realized that he seemed a bit different from the Cultivators that Sister Su Yi had talked about.

Last night during the lesson, Sister Su Yi had clearly explained to him how to differentiate the realm of Cultivators. Like now, he was still in the Body Refining stage, so naturally, the realm was determined by the number of times one had undergone Body Refining.

Each Body Refining session would enhance one’s physique further, and although his body now was weak and as pliable as putty, this was merely a side effect of the intense Body Refining session. By tomorrow morning, he would be as vigorous as a dragon.

He could feel that his physique had not just improved a little.

For example, earlier when he absorbed Spiritual Energy during breathing exercises, it felt unbearable, as if his body was about to explode. But now, when Spiritual Energy traveled within him, he felt no pressure until about a quarter of an hour later when the painful swelling sensation would emerge.

The flexibility and capacity of his meridians had improved as well, which was undoubtedly an actual change that brought genuine joy to Jiang Feng, as he could now consider himself to have officially entered the threshold of cultivation training.

He could now proudly declare himself a master in the realm of Body Tempering...

But then!

"Didn’t Sister Su Yi say that those in the Body Tempering Realm couldn’t sense nature’s spiritual energy?"

"To sense nature’s spiritual energy, successfully draw it into one’s body, smoothly circulate it, and store it in the Dantian for future use, that seems to be the realm of Qi Refinement, right?"

"What exactly am I? Could it be related to my constitution?"

For a moment, he was also confused. It felt like a primary school student who had not quite grasped Chinese and mathematics suddenly picked up a physics book one day and flipped through it out of curiosity.

Initially, this should have been middle school knowledge; logically, it should have been a subject only middle schoolers could learn. But, a primary school student somehow understood it, pondering over it occasionally, and even conducting some physics experiments.

Now, Jiang Feng was like that. He was clearly still in the Body Refining phase, no, he hadn’t even experienced Body Refining, yet he had transcended his scope and started to touch upon knowledge only learners in the Qi Refinement Realm and even Foundation Establishment Realm would start to learn, and what’s more, he was digesting this information quite rapidly.

Shaking his head, he continued to lie on the grandfather chair, contemplating the Spiritual Energy within his body. Although Jiang Feng was grateful to Lu Luo and Su Yi, the two sisters willing to impart their cultivation techniques to him, some things were better kept to himself.

Now he was in the Body Tempering Realm.

He continued to be immersed in the mystery and joy of probing his body. As Sister Su Yi mentioned, each subsequent Body Refining required double the previous amount of medicinal materials, and the prescription would be slightly adjusted. With a physique getting stronger, the stimulants in the medicines would likewise grow stronger.

Wang Qi was an expert at the ninth level of Body Refining. In other words, the pain and torment Jiang Feng had just experienced, Wang Qi had gone through at least nine times.

The mere thought of eight more Body Refinings sent a shiver down Jiang Feng’s spine.

"No wonder he risked it all upon hearing the news of the Body Tempering Pill and fell out with Xue Wuwei."

"Lu Luo said that the effects of ingesting that thing are several times stronger than directly using medicinal materials for Body Refining. It seems that no matter what, I’ll have to devise some crooked plans..."

Both parties harbored their own schemes.

Xue Ming’s mind was filled with thoughts of how to take Jiang Feng’s head to vent his grief over the loss of his son, but wasn’t Jiang Feng equally fixated on his family’s Body Tempering Pill?

Having narrowly escaped death at the hands of the Xue family several times, Xue Wuwei’s arrogant and rampant nature took primary blame, but Mr. Xue, who overly doted and protected his progeny, was also an accomplice.

Now, his only worry was whether Xue Ming, the old dog, would become desperate and utilize all his resources and assets to crack down hard on him.

For example, if the opponent used the Body Tempering Pill as bait and attracted a bunch of experts like Wang Qi stuck at the ninth level of Body Refining wishing to advance further to deal with him, by then, he would likely be besieged from all sides and chopped into mincemeat.

The thought processes of the two men were strikingly similar.

However, the person who lay limp on the grandfather chair like a dead fish hadn’t noticed the distant footsteps, and he had also forgotten something.

That was, he wasn’t the only one with keys to the house.

Creak—

"Does Jiang Lang indeed prefer those mature sisters from the Ethereal Violet Pavilion?"

"In the past several days, Jiang Lang didn’t seek me out actively, even though our wedding is less than two months away. Today, Yu Rou has come to discuss the matrimonial matters with Jiang Lang in two months’ time."

"I’m afraid you’ve already forgotten all about this..."

A faint voice carried from behind.

Jolting, he instinctively turned his head, and at that moment, Yan Yurou also finally set eyes on the fiancé she had longed for, her pitiful appearance truly tugging at the heartstrings. But the young girl quickly noticed something amiss with her betrothed.

Following the smooth, fair, yet powerful muscles downward.

Eventually, her gaze turned to the young man’s bewildered face.

Their eyes met.

"..."

Time seemed to halt at this moment.

The young lady stood motionless like a wooden chicken, her neck suddenly flashing a conspicuous red that swiftly spread to her cheeks!

Jiang Feng immediately realized what was going on. What if this little ancestor screamed and he ended up in utter disgrace? Just as he was about to leap over and cover the girl’s mouth, his legs gave out following the Body Refining he had just undergone.

Bang—

He tumbled to the ground, lifeless as a corpse.

"Ah!!!"