The Legend of the Condor Heroes: From Being Expelled from Peach Blossom Island

Chapter 163 Heading North by Boat
In August, the Yangtze River is clear for thousands of miles, with a thousand sails sailing lightly in the breeze.

The Jiangnan region has numerous waterways. The Qiantang River in Zhejiang connects to the Grand Canal. A section of the Jiangnan Canal runs north and meets the Yangtze River in Yangzhou, Jiangsu. If you board a boat in Yangzhou and travel upstream along the Yangtze River, passing through Anhui, you can reach Hubei.

At this moment, a large, three-story merchant ship was passing through the shallows on the Yangtze River. The boat trackers on both sides were shirtless, carrying thick ropes on their shoulders, their shoulders already covered with thick calluses. They were pulling the merchant ship forward with difficulty, chanting melodious work songs.

There is a single room on the second floor of the merchant ship. On such a large merchant ship, traveling from Jiangsu to Hubei, even a small single room would usually cost ten taels of silver. The only advantage is that food is included on board and can be delivered directly to the room.

A boatman carefully carried a tray with two steamed buns, a plate of vegetables, and a steamed river fish. There was no wine, and meat was definitely out of the question, but fish were plentiful on the Yangtze River, so the dishes were passable.

He knocked gently on the door a few times, listening carefully to the sounds inside. At first, no one answered, and the waiter's heart tightened.

He had a very deep impression of the guest in the private room. He was tall but skin and bones. He could never stand up straight, his eyes were lifeless, he was weak and listless, and his face was terribly yellow. Such a person must have some serious illness, and who knows when he will collapse and die.

If this man hadn't paid double the fare and if the doctor hadn't confirmed that he didn't have the plague, the ship's steward would never have let him board. Even so, the steward repeatedly instructed that when delivering food, they must confirm whether the man was still alive.

If someone dies before disembarking, they should be sunk into the river at night. Deaths on the boat are a major taboo, so it is crucial to keep quiet about it.

The boatman quickly knocked a few more times, and was about to ask a question when he finally heard movement from inside the room.

The footsteps inside were heavy, but the movements were slow. After a few breaths, the door opened. The boatman carefully looked the man over, making sure his condition hadn't worsened, before handing him the tray. Without a word, he turned and left as if avoiding a plague.

The person inside was Wu Chengyu. He was already used to the boatmen's attitude, so he mechanically accepted the tray and then closed the door tightly.

The room was pitifully small, with only a bed and a small table. If Wu Chengyu had been the same size as before, he would have had difficulty even turning around.

After days of traveling by boat, Wu Chengyu's physical condition was no longer able to withstand it. He had no appetite and simply placed the tray on the table before struggling to climb back into bed.

After falling into the water that day, apart from exhausting Guhua, he managed to maintain his life in time before losing consciousness by following the techniques given in the bamboo slips.

The silkworm spins silk until its death; the true name of this practice is the Silkworm Transformation.

It's actually a miraculous healing method, somewhat like the Heavenly Silkworm Divine Skill in the martial arts drama "The Legend of the Heavenly Silkworm". As long as the practitioner has a breath left, practicing this skill will allow them to break through and rebuild, reversing their foundation. This skill can be described as a creation, and can even reshape the human body.

Wu Chengyu also had the method of rebuilding his foundation by breaking down the old, and Aku cultivated the Bear Appearance skill. Unfortunately, the Bear Appearance skill did not have the effect of healing injuries. Given Wu Chengyu's condition at the time, the first thing to do was to save his life before he could talk about anything else.

After Wu Chengyu fell into a coma, he cultivated the Silkworm Transformation entirely on his own subconscious.

He fell into the Qiantang River, where the current was rapid and there were many undercurrents. Wu Chengyu sank to the bottom of the river and was completely unconscious. He slowly entered a state of fetal breathing. As the silkworm transformation continued, many white lines gradually appeared on his body, just like silkworm silk.

The white lines gradually increased and intertwined, forming a white cocoon in the shape of a human, enveloping Wu Chengyu inside.

As time passed, the cocoon gradually swelled, carrying Wu Chengyu little by little as he rose from the riverbed and drifted with the current. Slowly, people on both banks of the Qiantang River often saw a white, unidentified object appearing on the river surface from time to time. When they rowed their boats closer to see what it was, the white object would sink back into the river and disappear without a trace.

The white silkworm cocoons drifted up and down in the Qiantang River, eventually entering the Grand Canal, then turning onto some tributary and drifting further and further away, eventually leaving Zhejiang Province altogether.

When Wu Chengyu gradually regained consciousness, all he could see was white, and his body was swaying wildly, completely out of his control.

In his confusion, he gradually came to understand his own condition and gained a clear understanding of the silkworm transformation through the bamboo slips.

Through cultivating the Silkworm Transformation, the severe injuries he suffered before are no longer life-threatening. His meridians were severely damaged, but fortunately they were not completely broken, just like a beautiful piece of porcelain with cracks. All the internal energy he had painstakingly cultivated over the past few years was invested in the Silkworm Transformation cultivation, and now there is not a trace left in his dantian.

Furthermore, the muscles, bones, and internal organs throughout the body, due to the influence of that pill, unleashed unprecedented power in the final stage, and the consequences were naturally shocking: multiple tendons and bones were torn, the internal organs were severely damaged, and the whole body was riddled with holes.

As expected of the elixir version of the Heavenly Demon Disintegration Technique, its effects are powerful enough, but the consequences are also terrifying enough.

Under normal circumstances, Wu Chengyu could only close his eyes and wait for death, but the effect of the silkworm transformation was too unimaginable. It actually brought him back to life, at least he could keep breathing. But now Wu Chengyu is no less than a cripple.

The effects of the silkworm transformation are far more than just saving lives, but after maintaining Wu Chengyu's life force, the cultivation of the silkworm transformation could no longer be continued.

It is different from the Heavenly Silkworm Divine Skill. There is no Heavenly Silkworm Nine Transformations, where each transformation greatly increases one's power, and after the nine transformations one becomes invincible.

The effect of the silkworm transformation is one-time. It can rebuild the world after the foundation is damaged, but there is a prerequisite: one must continuously consume rare and precious herbs or powerful tonics such as century-old ginseng to provide energy. Otherwise, it is like water without a source or a tree without roots.

During its time at the bottom of the river, the silkworm absorbed Wu Chengyu's internal energy, along with the essence and blood that had accumulated in its body over a long period of time, which sustained Wu Chengyu's vitality. However, if it were to further restore its foundation, it would need a new source of energy.

Therefore, the process of silkworm transformation had to be interrupted, and Wu Chengyu finally woke up.

After Wu Chengyu struggled to tear through the cocoon and grabbed a piece of driftwood to slowly swim to the shore, he had no idea how much time had passed or where he was.

After landing, he finally found a village and was taken in and treated by kind people. Only then did he realize that more than a month had passed since he killed Shi Miyuan, and that he had actually come to Yangzhou, Jiangsu.

After analyzing his own condition, Wu Chengyu, who was barely able to move, chose to board a ship in Yangzhou and head to Xiangyang, Hubei.

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(End of this chapter)