Dugong

Chapter 125 Innate Inheritance
Snake Coil Mountain.

A valley splits open on the eastern slope, through which the official road winds and twists for more than ten miles, with the narrowest part being only a few feet wide.

The cliffs on both sides are towering and sheer.

“Lord Gao is not skilled in martial arts, so there is no need for him to come and watch over things personally.” Xiao Ying looked at the pale-faced Magistrate Gao and took out a dark pill from his sleeve.

"The Mind-Calming Pill can calm the mind and spirit after taking it."

"I want to kill someone with my own hands!"

Magistrate Gao took the pill and put it in his mouth. It tasted fragrant and sweet, and a refreshing feeling rushed to his head. When he looked down at the cliff, the fear and dizziness he had felt earlier were gone.

"Thank you, Swordsman Xiao. I never knew you knew alchemy."

Li Yun, who was standing nearby with his hand outstretched and looking out, chimed in: "This fellow is just a roughneck. He doesn't know anything about alchemy or medicine. He was only given this by Eunuch An."

Xiao Ying and Li Yun both practiced swordsmanship and were already good friends. Now that they were both serving under Eunuch An, they naturally didn't mind each other's teasing.

"Master Li, we've heard that your son is taking pills and practicing martial arts every day!"

Second-rate sects in the martial arts world, such as the Heavenly Sword Sect and the Hidden Sword Manor, have only been passed down for two or three generations. Their martial arts techniques are inferior to those of famous sects, and their pills for increasing true qi are even less effective.

Since becoming a disciple of Eunuch An, as long as one is willing to spend money, one can buy pills such as the Lesser Rejuvenation Pill and the Yellow Dragon Pill.

The price is a bit high, but the supply can't meet the demand.

At this moment.

The chirping of birds echoed through the mountains, a continuous sound that grew louder as it approached.

"coming!"

Having been used to intercepting and annihilating entire families, Li Yun carefully discerned the message conveyed by the birdsong and said, "Five hundred strongmen from the Garrison Command, one thousand escorts, and one thousand five hundred prisoners."

Xiao Ying took out a black cloth to cover her face and drew a crimson sword: "It's a good thing we chose this place, otherwise we might have crashed."

The escorting constables were alright, but the guards of the Zhenfu Division were all skilled in martial arts and had a basic understanding of military formations, so they were not to be trifled with.

Li Yun asked, "Lord Gao, which one do you want to kill?"

Magistrate Gao replied, "The head of the Li family."

"it is good."

Li Yun agreed and flew down the cliff with Xiao Ying, arriving at the halfway point where the disciples of the two sects were lying in ambush.

Before long, hundreds of prison carts came along the official road, stretching for two or three miles.

As the prison van drew near, Li Yun waved to signal it.

The archers, who were already prepared, quickly drew their bows and fired dozens or even hundreds of arrows, aiming directly at the officials escorting the prison cart.

As soon as Li Yun made his move, the gang members who were lying in ambush in the middle and behind the mountain stream also unleashed a barrage of arrows.

With nowhere to hide in the narrow mountain stream, screams filled the air.

The leader, Commander Zheng, circulated his inner energy and shouted loudly, "I am Commander Zheng of Songjiang Prefecture! What traitor has come from here? Are you not afraid of the Zhenfu Division exterminating your entire clan?"

"Jie Jie Jie..."

Li Yun chuckled a few times and replied, "I am a protector of the Fragrance Sect. Not to mention the commander of the Garrison Command, even your commander would die if he came!"

As they spoke, more than ten volleys of arrows rained down, causing heavy casualties among the strongmen and officials. Then, hundreds or even thousands of masked swordsmen and knivesmen rushed out of the mountains and forests.

Each of them was proficient in martial arts techniques, and ordinary constables could not withstand them at all.

The strongmen of the Zhenfu Division could hold their own for a few rounds, but most of them were wounded by arrows and soon collapsed from exhaustion.

Several centurions were martial arts experts; with flashing blades, they killed several masked men, but were then entangled and surrounded by gang members.

Xiao Ying and Li Yun fought against Commander Zheng, thinking they could join forces to suppress him, but they did not expect the opponent to be so strong that they were defeated one after another.

Commander Zheng wielded a gilded spear, his moves were wide and sweeping, his true energy fluctuating at the spear tip, and the sounds of clashing swords and galloping horses could be heard wherever he went.

"Good marksmanship!"

Xiao Ying and Li Yun exchanged a glance, then stepped back to Zheng Qianhu's sides, waving their hands to unleash a cloud of hidden weapons and poisonous smoke.

The two men climbed their way up from the bottom of the martial arts world, building their fortune from scratch. Their success wasn't solely based on martial arts prowess; they were also adept at underhanded tactics like sneak attacks, hidden weapons, traps, and poison. "Despicable and shameless, cough cough..."

Zheng Qianhu accidentally inhaled two mouthfuls of the poisonous sand, and felt dizzy. He immediately shook his wrist, and the tip of his spear turned into dozens of cold stars, scattering the hidden weapons and poisonous sand.

Then the gun, swift as a dragon, pointed directly at Xiao Ying's heart.

Xiao Ying quickly used her lightness skill to retreat, but unexpectedly, the tip of the spear suddenly extended a foot-long green light, tearing through her chest clothes and revealing the crimson cloud-patterned lining underneath.

Imperial Guard standard!

Zheng Qianhu recognized the origin of the clothes at a glance. After a thousand thoughts raced through his mind, he brandished his spear to force Xiao Ying and the other man back, and then used his lightness skill to escape in a few leaps.

Upon seeing this, the officers immediately used their most secret skills to escape.

The masked man did not pursue or stop them, letting them scatter and flee, and then turned to kill the remaining strongmen and officials.

The fighting soon subsided, and the Li family members in the prison cart had nowhere to escape and could only wait to die.

No matter how much she cried and begged for mercy, the masked man remained unmoved, decisively slashing her neck once and her chest twice.

Li Yun carried Magistrate Gao down the cliff and landed on the front prison cart, pointing at the barely breathing Li Guangjun.

"Lord Gao, this old fellow is left for you."

The old man had been hanging from the flagpole for several days, his body covered in whip marks and wounded by two arrows; he was barely breathing.

Magistrate Gao picked up a knife from the ground and stabbed it into Li Guangjun's chest with a thud. As if one stab wasn't enough, he stabbed him several more times.

Li Yun asked curiously, "Does Lord Gao have a deep-seated hatred for him?"

"No."

Magistrate Gao wiped the blood splattered on his face, his originally square and resolute face now bearing a few sinister crimson hues.

"Since we're all going to pledge our loyalty anyway, let's make a big one and get a high-ranking official in return!"

……

at the same time.

Li Ping'an saw off the elders of the Wang family. The two men put their arms around each other like brothers, and they were still reluctant to part when they saw each other off at the gate of the government office.

Back to the back office.

He eagerly opened the Wang Family Secret Manual, but it did not record any martial arts techniques or moves. Instead, it contained records of hundreds of years of searching for the innate.

The nine volumes, varying in thickness, were originally written by Wang Ruosu, the fifth-generation ancestor of the Wang family.

This person was from the Wang family, a family that valued poetry and literature, and was not known for martial arts.

Wang Ruosu was obsessed with martial arts from a young age and had exceptional talent. At the age of thirty-five, she broke through the twelve meridians and reached the pinnacle of martial arts. She then traveled the world in search of a way to break through to the innate level.

At the age of forty-six, he entered the cave of a sage and obtained several volumes of superior cultivation techniques, including a secret manual on innate secrets.

Li Ping'an read it carefully several times. The secret mentioned the word "inheritance" several times, and the author stated with certainty that "those without inheritance cannot enter the innate realm."

"Inheritance..."

Starting with Wang Ruosu, the Wang family pursued both academic studies and martial arts training simultaneously, becoming involved in both the imperial court and the martial arts world, as well as both the legitimate and illegitimate sectors, rapidly expanding into a renowned family in Jiangnan.

For more than a dozen generations afterward, people continued to explore the secrets of the innate.

For example, the thirteenth generation Wang Wangji first entered the Sanqing Temple, then shaved his head and entered the Jingang Temple, and even traveled to foreign lands and tribes, a journey of more than ten thousand miles.

Li Ping'an learned from the records that among the foreign countries, there were people with snow-white hair as white as cream and slaves with skin as black as charcoal.

Wang Wangji never broke through to the Innate Realm before his death, but he confirmed one thing.

"Inheritance is not about words, but about objects!"

Li Ping'an frowned, but his doubts suddenly cleared up. No wonder many old eunuchs in the palace had reached the pinnacle of martial arts, but only Eunuch Wei was a Xiantian (innate level).

This is because breaking through innate abilities does not rely on techniques, comprehension, or talent, but rather on the inheritance of a certain "object".

(End of this chapter)