Chapter 33
At this moment, Gu Zuo suddenly felt that it was quite laughable.
Qi Feng persistently clung to Bai Wenjun. Besides Wenjun being a “genius,” perhaps his family background was a large contributing factor as well. And now the fawned-over Bai Wenjun had rushed to Cangyun City to find a benefactor. The question was which member of the Five Great Clans he was hoping to ally with — Rather than the patron who cooperated with Gu Zuo, Wenjun would have to spare no effort with those unapproachable people.
For a moment, Gu Zuo even thought about what kind of expression Qi Feng and Bai Wenjun would expose if he revealed this face to them.
However, he quickly repressed this minor thought.
Even if those two were insignificant to his patron, it would still be troublesome in the end. Since Gu Zuo decided to be on good terms with his patron and to take care of him, he shouldn't flaunt for the sake of gratification. It was too ostentatious and domineering.
Gu Zuo was very clear about his patron's intent.
His patron did all those things in order to tell Gu Zuo that however he wanted to deal with those two, his patron would accomplish it.
But, how was he going to handle them?
Almost subconsciously, Gu Zuo thought about saying: Just kill them!
However, he still didn't speak up.
It wasn't because he was from the modern era and was unwilling to stain his hands with blood — In reality, he knew that even if he wasn't used to it, there'd come a day sooner or later. Also, it absolutely wasn't due to some ridiculous pang of pity in his heart — The original Qi Feng and Bai Wenjun didn't take pity on Qi Tianyou.
Despite Qi Feng being the real cause of Qi Tianyou's death, Bai Wenjun was only worse [1]. He was too cold-blooded. Indeed, in his eyes, they were the chief culprits. According to this continent's worldview, they were Qi Tianyou's personal enemies. Killing them was justifiable.
Only, Gu Zuo suddenly realized that he just wasn't Qi Tianyou.
Even though Qi Tianyou was at death's door, he didn't hate anyone for it. Furthermore, he didn't have the slightest intention of taking revenge against Qi Feng, the Qi Family, or even Bai Wenjun. If he relied on his patron's hand to kill those two, then in the future, if anyone knew about this, they could only determine that Tianyou did it for the sake of vengeance.
Indeed, he was making use of Qi Tianyou's ident.i.ty, but could he truly disregard Tianyou's intent and use that ident.i.ty to relieve his frustrations? He wanted to get revenge for Tianyou, but what qualifications did he have to do so? Gu Zuo merely appeared beside his corpse and had not choice but to obtain Tianyou's memories and borrow his ident.i.ty.
However, if Gu Zuo didn't get revenge, then he felt unwilling to let things be.
For what reason would the people who harmed Qi Tianyou live on well while that fifteen year old youth died in despair? For what reason would a person with a virtuous heart suffer a terrible end, while an evil [2] person had a boundless future?
If he didn't know, then he'd let it go. If it wasn't someone he recognized, then he'd let it go. But he definitely knew, and he definitely sympathized. How could he be willing to turn a blind eye, and let them get away with it at this point?!
Gu Zuo felt that he might never be able to have Qi Tianyou's broad mindset.
As a result, he felt somewhat awkward.
Gu Zuo wanted to do something, but he didn't want to damage the image other people had of Qi Tianyou.
So, he was afraid of doing anything rash like seizing the lives of those two people.
After hesitating for a short moment, Gu Zuo finally made up his mind: “Young master Tianheng, I want Qi Feng's medical beads destroyed due to an accident, and Bai Wenjun's goal of striking a deal to never be accomplished.”
Since he couldn't kill them, he didn't want those two to have it easy. He'd appoint someone to hara.s.s Qi Feng into sharing a similar fate as Qi Tianyou had he not killed himself; he'd leave that selfish Bai Wenjun without any hopes of fulfilling his ambitions all his life.
Gongyi Tianheng watched Gu Zuo's reaction. After hearing this speech, he faintly smiled: “Okay, just as Ah Zuo says.”
Gu Zuo felt a little uncomfortable meeting his patron's gaze, but he steadied his expression quickly: “We'll do this secretly. Don't let others know.”
Tianheng broke into laughter: “Okay, we'll do it secretly.”
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After making that request to this patron, Gu Zuo once again sought refuge within the ocean called medicine refinement. Reborn as a workaholic, his life was bustling and enriched. He didn't go to ask when his patron would take care of those two sc.u.mbags — Because he believed that his patron would definitely arrange it. He was sure that Tianheng would tell him at that time.
Through this matter, Gu Zuo's relationship with his patron grew closer.
Afterwards, Gu Zuo threw the matter of those two sc.u.mbags to the side. He was completely ecstatic over something else.
That is, merely a few days later, his patron successfully condensed a bone pearl!
Of course, this matter wasn't odd at all.
The Tiandu Body suffered the envy of heaven. That completely illogical IQ was one aspect, and another was that the flesh was Xiantian at birth — Simply said, their flesh from birth and onwards was the same as the flesh of a successful Xiantian martial artist, filled with great amounts of Xiantian qi — This also was the cause of the blockages within the meridians.
As everyone knew, even though it was said that an infant's physical body was at its purest while within its mother's womb, containing a mouthful of Xiantian qi, once born, the Xiantian qi would overflow and the body would be perfused with impure Houtian qi. Cultivating from Houtian to Xiantian, besides a martial artist's comprehension, it was a transformation of the physical body.
Refining the blood, forging the bones, and condensing the meridians — it was precisely like this.
In addition, the Tiandu Body's hundred openings [3] were naturally unimpeded. When a Houtian martial artist cultivated, they needed to open seventy two earthly fiend acupoints. At Xiantian, they needed to open thirty six heavenly spirit acupoints. The previously mentioned hundred openings were precisely these hundred openings.
Therefore, so long as Gongyi Tianheng's meridians were un.o.bstructed and a pharmacist used meticulous methods for nursing his health, when he practiced martial arts, his acupoints wouldn't need to be opened from the very beginning. He could directly refine the Xiantian qi within his meridians to clean up his meridians and to strengthen as he advanced. Condensing bone pearls and what not were also at an incredible speed.
And as for Gu Zuo, after he discovered that his patron was taking such a huge step in raising his strength, he had two matters that demanded his attention.
The first was undoubtedly the time spent focused on his patron's health. Every time his patron condensed a bone pearl, his patron's body underwent huge changes. The degree of the medicine used all required fine-tuning or a huge adjustment! Regarding pharmacists, it really was a matter of meticulous attention. Too much or too little would lead to imperfections!
For this reason, Gu Zuo was deeply worried because he didn't see any problems at the moment. However, his patron was a martial artist. In the future, the changes within would be even greater and the medicine used would be even more complicated. He could only do simple things like taking his pulse or observing his qi. If by any chance afterwards he couldn't find a means of thoroughly understanding his patron's health, it would be detrimental to his patron.
But this wasn't so urgent. Under his patron's appeas.e.m.e.nt, Gu Zuo could only slowly seek a method.
The second was that Gu Zuo was somewhat envious of the Tiandu Body's swift and fierce development [4]. His practice with the divine medicine cultivation method was very good, which continuously removed impurities from his body. It was reasonable to say that it was much more powerful compared to a great majority of others. However, compared to his patron after his illness was managed, there wasn't any impurities from the start. Gu Zuo was slightly inferior.
Gu Zuo thought that he still needed to studiously cultivate, and clean out all the impurities. Not to say that he wanted to become even more powerful than his patron, but only that he couldn't fall behind too far. Otherwise, his patron would feel that he was useless. What was to be done then?
It was a pity that neither of these two things met his innermost expectations.
For example, for the first matter? He didn't have get any insights at all. And as for the second, he quickly condensed sixteen bone pearls, smoothly breaking through to Blood Refining second stage. He'd soon be able to advance to third stage. However, his patron Gongyi Tianheng had shot through the Blood Refining realm at great speeds, and was already a Bone Forging second stage martial artist.
Tianheng was an entire realm higher compared to Gu Zuo's small three stages!
— Having this much talent to directly advance through two major realms after officially practicing martial arts in two months? How could ordinary people still live?
After wallowing in his sorrows for a bit, Gu Zuo turned his head to continue refining medicine.
Only in this respect could he find the value of his own existence.
Besides the limitations of the Xiantian prerequisites, his patron couldn't refine medicine. It didn't seem improbable… Maybe he didn't want to be regarded as a child?
In fact, if his patron told Gu Zuo on a particular day that he'd already broken through the boundary between boys and men, then Gu Zuo thought that it wouldn't feel very strange.
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More than three months later.
Gongyi Tianheng had already practiced martial arts for half a year. The time left before the annual cycle of the Azure Dragon Pool's opening was only six months.
On this morning, Gu Zuo discovered that after he got out of bed, his patron, who was normally right across from him, was gone — That's right. Ever since his patron could practice martial arts, he was practically too diligent. Gu Zuo couldn't see that hazy, attractive, and sleepy face anymore.
Because he and his boss were so hardworking, Gu Zuo also didn't have any thoughts of goofing off. He quickly bounded up, got dressed, and went to the garden to find his patron. Yup, his patron was still under that huge tree…practicing his martial skills.
Gu Zuo quickly arrived under the eaves of the door, facing towards that place, looking out.
Today's Gongyi Tianheng was punching with incredible might. Each strike created the sound of the air breaking, and when the fighting spirit was aroused, there were crackling sounds. It was extremely sharp.
Tianheng still only wore tight-fitting clothing. The color of his skin was a l.u.s.trous white like jade, and his limbs were slender. The punches were no longer like before when they were soft and all over the place. Instead, they were full of strength and looked great.
After a round of punches, Gongyi Tianheng's fingers unclenched and his fists revealed his palms. His feet started pacing, and for a brief time, his figure seemed like a swimming dragon. He wielded the wind like a blade, and possessed a kind of agile and heroic bearing.
Each style was being integrated. The longer he practiced, the faster he could perform the move sets. Afterwards, Gu Zuo unexpectedly felt that he somewhat couldn't discern what he was seeing. He could only hear the sound of the whistling wind and see countless dead leaves being split in two by the wind in Tianheng's palms. It was a scene where the pieces scattered to either side.
Soon after, Tianheng changed move sets again. Unconsciously, he switched between seven to eight martial skills, at the very least.
Gu Zuo watched on with a foolish look.
Right now, one had to say that Tianheng's appearance was leagues better than when Gu Zuo first started treating his skinny patron. If before, he was only wrapped with a single layer of skin, now he was covered with a bit of muscle. A single meager layer, and already one didn't feel that the flexing muscles [5] were unsightly or uneven. Instead, they were flexible and powerful, utterly beautiful.
Before, Gongyi Tianheng's face was good looking, his build undetermined. Now, his flushed cheeks were even more handsome, and his stature was very satisfactory.
One wouldn't say that the degree of his overall appearance doubled. At the very least, it rose by fifty percent.
However, Gu Zuo wasn't here to see his patron just because he was handsome.
Rather, he had a fixed regiment in place.
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[1] The Chinese characters are unreadable here. It's just a guess.
[2] The entire phrase is 骄纵狠毒自私无情 - jiao zong (arrogant) hen du (malicious) zi si (selfish) wu qing (ruthless).
[3] 百窍 - Bai qiao, direct translation, referring to one's senses, but can also mean actual holes.
[4] 剽悍之处 - Piao han (swift and fierce) zhi chu (position, situation).
[5] 虬结 - Qiu jie, phrased together it can mean a closely-linked a.s.sociation. However, in this context, it seems to refer to a burgeoning result. In this case, Tianheng's muscles.
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T/N: I got sick last week, so I fell behind on translating. Sorry, everyone!
Okay, so it's been several months now and Qi Tianyou's corpse hasn't been mentioned since then. I'm translating by the chapter and I don't read ahead. Can someone give me a spoiler down below in the comments if Gu Zuo still has the corpse in his storage s.p.a.ce and if it serves a purpose? No need to go into detail.
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