Chapter 7: Burn, My Flesh
Carrying a heavy sense of frustration, Xiao Yichen slowly walked out of the Scripture Pavilion. Seeing him emerge empty-handed, a senior sister at the entrance asked with some confusion, "Did you fail to find the manual Senior Sister Yun wanted?"
Hearing this, he could only offer an awkward nod and say, "I'd better let Senior Sister come look for it herself. I haven't been in the sect long, and I'm not very familiar with these manuals. I looked for a long time and couldn't find it."
Without lingering in conversation for long, Xiao Yichen wandered aimlessly around the sect grounds, his mind pondering where to find the Body Tempering energy he needed. Before he knew it, he had walked all the way to the Back Mountain.
As luck would have it, he ran right into Dahuang in the middle of a hunt. At that moment, its jaws were stained with fresh blood as it clamped down on a goat's neck, and the creature in its mouth had already completely lost its breath.
When Dahuang saw Xiao Yichen walking toward it from afar, it instinctively turned tail to run. But after only a few steps, it remembered that this plague god seemed to have turned over a new leaf and would no longer beat it up. Dropping the goat carcass aside, it trotted over to Xiao Yichen's location, a ingratiating smile on its face, looking just like a massive Husky.
Seeing this, Xiao Yichen couldn't help but chuckle. He gently patted Dahuang's head and followed it slowly toward the cave.
Along the way, with the keen intuition of a spiritual beast, Dahuang sensed that Xiao Yichen was in low spirits. It ran around in front of him and dropped to the ground, signaling for Xiao Yichen to mount up. Seeing this, he didn't stand on ceremony; he grabbed Dahuang's two ears and climbed right onto its back.
Soon, the man and the beast returned to the cave. Xiao Yichen helped Dahuang clean up the goat carcass, plucking the fur and removing the internal organs. Just as Dahuang was about to sink its teeth into the meat, he stopped it. Faced with Dahuang's puzzled gaze, he merely offered a faint smile.
"Let's take a day off today. I'll let you guys taste this lord's cooking; consider it payment for beating you up these past few months." With that, he led Dahuang out of the cave, picked up some dead tree trunks from the nearby woods, and before long, the two of them dragged a huge pile of firewood back into the cave.
Drawing on memories from his previous world, Xiao Yichen began to build a barbecue rack. In a short while, a rather shaky makeshift frame appeared before their eyes.
"Sigh... My skills have gotten rusty. This will have to do."
He pulled a flint from his pouch to start a fire underneath, then found a relatively straight tree trunk, skewered the goat's carcass, and placed it over the fire to roast slowly.
Soon, an enticing aroma of meat drifted through the cave, causing Dahuang to drool uncontrollably, pooling all over the floor. If Xiao Yichen hadn't forcefully clamped its doggy jaws shut, that whole roasted goat probably would have been ruined right then and there.
At that moment, a strange sound came from outside the cave. Xiao Yichen looked over and saw that Xiaobai and Xiaohua had returned. Right now, they were staring at the steadily fragrant roast goat, and just like Dahuang, tears of pure bliss ungracefully streamed from their mouths.
The two fierce beasts trotted quickly side by side to Xiao Yichen's-side, rubbing their heads against him continuously. The meaning couldn't have been clearer. After settling the three beasts, he turned his attention back to the almost-done roast goat in his hands.
Shortly after, he tore off a piece of meat, popped it into his mouth, and chewed.
"Mmm... It's done. But without seasonings, it doesn't taste great. Still, it'll have to do for now."
He pulled off the four legs of the roast goat and shoved one into the mouth of each of the three beasts. Watching the three fellows wolfing down their food, he curled his lips in utter disdain and muttered, "A bunch of hicks, this is enough to satisfy you?" Then he contentedly sat down at the cave entrance and slowly began to eat the sheep's leg in his hand.
Before he could even finish his sheep's leg, the entire goat had already been completely devoured by the three of them, leaving only bare bones scattered on the ground.
Then, as if they had colluded in advance, the three beasts slowly padded over to Xiao Yichen and squatted right there on the ground, staring with puppy-dog eyes at him as he continued to eat his sheep's leg, occasionally glancing sideways at the two remaining carcasses on the ground.
How could Xiao Yichen not understand what they meant? He tapped each of their three heads, helplessly placed the sheep's leg on a clean stone, rolled up his sleeves, and set to work on the other two animal carcasses.
Two hours later, the three fierce beasts were once again happily enjoying a meal. When Xiao Yichen finished gnawing clean the half-meter-long sheep's leg in his hand, he let out a resounding burp. He looked at the three fellows lying lazily on the ground to digest their meal and smiled slightly. His gaze inadvertently drifted to the firewood still burning nearby, and his heart gave a sudden start.
*Fire? That seems to be a form of natural energy as well. Could I use it to temper my physical body?*
Thinking of this, he wasted no time. No sooner thought than done; he piled all the firewood together, and the temperature inside the cave began to rise steadily. Dahuang and the others were startled awake by the change.
A new, much larger roasting rack had been set up inside the cave by Xiao Yichen. At this moment, he was gripping the wooden pole, enduring the wave after wave of scorching heat radiating from below.
Dahuang and the other two stared dumbfounded at Xiao Yichen hanging on the rack. In their minds, they were probably thinking: *This big brother must have gone crazy from roasting meat, and worrying that we wouldn't get enough to eat, he's planning to roast himself so we can have an extra course.*
The three fierce beasts rushed headlong toward the bonfire. Xiao Yichen didn't even have time to stop them before they crashed into the flames that had taken so much effort to ignite, putting them right out. He lost his grip and landed squarely on his backside right in the middle of the smoldering firewood, yelping in pain.
"You three are more hindrance than help! Can't you see I'm busy? Why do you have to come and make trouble?" A thorough scolding left Dahuang and the others completely bewildered. They were surely thinking: *Why are humans so strange? We saved him, and yet he turns around and yells at us. Is this some kind of way they express gratitude?*
Looking at the nearly extinguished firewood, Xiao Yichen could only sigh. He knew Dahuang and the others had only tried to save him, but after all this commotion, his efforts were completely wasted.
Back when he was being scorched by the big fire on the wooden rack, besides the intense pain, he could clearly feel that his body was indeed being tempered. This proved that this path was viable; as long as he kept going like this, he would break through to the Body Tempering Realm sooner or later.
Chasing Dahuang and the others out of the cave, he tidied up the firewood again, ready to continue. The faster his strength increased, the greater the shock he would give the others.
Two days later, a pitch-black, soot-covered Xiao Yichen staggered back into the sect and headed straight for the Alchemical Hall. When he found Liu Qingqing, he gave her quite a fright.
"Junior Brother, where on earth did you go to mine coal? How did you manage to get yourself into this state?" she asked, grabbing Xiao Yichen's arm and gently leading him into the Alchemical Hall to start treating his wounds. For injuries like these, the sect didn't manage things too strictly; they were just superficial skin wounds that simply required a few bandages.
Before long, a mummy-like Xiao Yichen appeared before Liu Qingqing's eyes. Struggling to suppress the urge to laugh, she looked her masterpiece up and down, but finally, she couldn't hold it in anymore and burst into loud laughter.
"Haha, Junior Brother, where on earth did you go these past few days? Don't tell me you did something wicked and got struck by lightning? Hahaha, you're killing me." Ignoring Liu Qingqing's belly laughs, Xiao Yichen caught a crucial piece of word from her remark: *Lightning...*
His mind raced: *Lightning? Lightning? Lightning... What a great idea! Instead of getting baked by fire every day, why not make a bigger gamble?* In his excitement, he tugged at his wounds, causing him to hiss through his teeth in sharp pain.
"Senior Sister Liu, do you have any of those pills that can rapidly heal wounds? I'll buy them at a high price." Xiao Yichen turned his head toward Liu Qingqing with great difficulty, his eyes twinkling brightly.
Liu Qingqing felt creeped out by that gaze, breaking out in goosebumps all over her body. She rubbed her arms and asked, "What? Did you run into some enemies? Did you forget the sect rules again?"
Hearing this, Xiao Yichen had already prepared his rhetoric. He cajoled, "The sect rules? That's not hard to deal with. As long as you don't get caught, right? Besides, the injuries I have now will heal by tonight. By the time I'm healed, you can just quietly hand them over to me. Who would ever know? I'm not coming to you for treatment while injured; you can just consider it temporary storage with me. Wouldn't that solve it?"
Listening to Xiao Yichen's far-fetched sophistry, Liu Qingqing wanted to refute him, but she couldn't find a single flaw in his logic. It seemed it really could work this way. After all, the sect only stipulated that one could not help injured disciples with treatment, but it didn't say pills couldn't be kept by others for safekeeping. Xiao Yichen had genuinely found a loophole, though Liu Qingqing still felt like she was being scammed. She continued to ask, "Fine, let's leave the sect rules aside for a moment. Do you even have money? You're a penniless bum."
Hearing this, Xiao Yichen looked rather embarrassed. It seemed he really couldn't afford them; he couldn't scrape together a single penny to his name. He hadn't even paid the reward for having Liu Qingqing refine medicine for him last time, and now asking for more was indeed a bit unreasonable.
The man and the mummy stared at each other in mutual dismay. Xiao Yichen felt extremely awkward inside, screaming impotently in his heart:
*A penny really does beat a hero, and I owe a lot more than just a penny.*