I am a high-level martial arts master.

Chapter 146 The Jiang Family's Feast at Hongmen, Half-Step to the Third Realm

"Ha ha ha ha!"

Unrestrained laughter echoed in the study.

A fat man adorned with gold and jade was slamming his hands on the table, looking at the intelligence report in the letter: "Jiang Chengyu, you old scoundrel, you've really gone senile! A tremendous opportunity was delivered right to your doorstep, and you just kicked it away and even turned around and bit me! Hahahaha!"

Qi Yunji laughed so hard he almost fell over, his enormous body trembling in the large armchair: "Heaven blesses the Qi family! Heaven truly blesses the Qi family!"

The fat man's cultivation level was not very high.

Despite the infusion of countless elixirs, he only reached the early stage of the acquired realm.

However, none of the major powers in Kyoto dared to underestimate this person.

This is solely because of his identity: Qi Yunji, the head of the Qi family of the Hundred Treasures Pavilion.

As one of the four families who actually control the Hundred Treasures Pavilion, Qi Yunji is exceptionally talented, but he does not focus on martial arts.

In his view, since both the Body Tempering Realm and the Acquired Realm only allow one to live for a hundred years, and no matter how hard he tries in this life, he will never reach the Innate Realm.

Why bother improving your cultivation level? That's enough.

Baibaoge is a shop. As long as you have enough money to hire enough experts to do things for you, you don't need to be a perfected or half-step innate master yourself.

Under this philosophy, he devoted all his time and energy to running the family business, and spent more than 20 years building Qijia into the strongest of the four families.

Qi Yunji stared at the letter in his hand, his surprise mixed with lingering fear.

The Qi family and the Jiang family are both giants in the Baibaoge (Hundred Treasures Pavilion), and have been engaged in constant open and covert struggles for many years.

Now, the position of head of the Hundred Treasures Pavilion is about to be rotated again, and the Qi family, with their substantial wealth and connections accumulated over the years, is the biggest competitor.

The only variable is that if Jiang Chengyu successfully marries into the Zhou family and forms the Jiang-Zhou alliance, he will be able to overpower the Qi family.

Fortunately, Jiang Chengyu lost his mind and did something so stupid that he squandered his great advantage in one fell swoop.

"Hehehe, now the problem lies with the Jiang family and the Zhou family."

Qi Yunji sneered, "According to intelligence, this kid is not easy to deal with; he'll give them a real headache."

However—too much rigidity leads to breakage, and extreme strength leads to humiliation—

He muttered to himself, his fingers unconsciously tapping the table: "This young man is too sharp, decisive and ruthless. The capital is not what it was a hundred years ago; it's a mixed bag, with undercurrents surging. While his actions may be satisfying, they also attract unwanted attention."

"Although Jiang Chengyu is stupid, if he is really driven to a dead end, he may very well resort to some underhanded means—the other families, and even the royal family, may very well have the idea of ​​using someone else to do their dirty work."

"This child cannot die, at least not now."

Qi Yunji suddenly frowned, looking at the intelligence report in his hand: "Bring me my purple-gold paper and cedar ink, and I will write a letter and have someone send it to Ye Li."

The steward immediately responded and quickly prepared the writing implements.

Qi Yunji picked up his brush, dipped it in ink, concentrated for a moment, and then wrote with great flourish on the purple-gold paper that exuded a faint scent of pine.

At this moment, the heads of various factions who were watching the show, like Qi Yunji, all shared the same mentality.

They were all adopting a mocking attitude, preparing to watch the Jiang family make a fool of themselves.

Meanwhile, Jiang Chengyu stared at the intelligence report in front of him with a livid face, then tore the letter in his hand to shreds.

Deep within the inner courtyard of the Jiang residence.

Inside an elegantly decorated but tightly closed embroidered building, the entrance was blocked by two maids at the Acquired Realm.

A magnificent embroidered building with carved beams and painted rafters now resembles a splendid cage.

The doors and windows were tightly shut, as if even the sunlight was shut out, leaving only dim light and a depressing atmosphere.

At the entrance, two expressionless, composed female servants at the Acquired Realm stood like statues, cutting off all contact between the inside and outside.

Jiang Xiyue curled up in the corner of the bed covered with soft brocade, constantly circulating her true energy to impact the bone acupoints in her hands. Her once lively and cheerful eyes were now filled with a calm indifference that seemed to have seen through everything.

She has been under house arrest here for several days, with her movements restricted and her communications cut off.

After the initial panic and anger, it became clear that sorrow and grief were nothing more than a matter of course, and the only thing to do was to cultivate oneself.

She was angry at her own weakness.

Cultivate your skills, then wait for the guest to come and pick you up, or gain enough power to escape on your own.

The tightly closed door was pushed open, and Jiang Chengyu walked in with a livid face.

Before he could even contain his aura, the oppressive aura of his perfected Acquired Realm cultivation uncontrollably dissipated, causing the air in the entire room to swell with a "bang!"

It seemed to have frozen.

"father?"

Jiang Xiyue slowly finished her exercise, raised her eyelids, looked at her father's ashen face, and said with a glint in her eye, "Let me guess, the reason why Pavilion Master Jiang is so angry and came to find me immediately must be that the guest has already gone to the capital, and then Father suffered a loss at the guest's hands, right?"

Jiang Chengyu's breath hitched, and his face turned even more pale. That moment of stiffness undoubtedly confirmed Jiang Xiyue's guess.

The young girl smiled and got off the bed, looking Jiang Chengyu up and down. It was the first time she had smiled since returning to the capital.

"Since Father didn't deny it, then Xiyue is right. I didn't expect that the guest would arrive in the capital even faster than I thought."

Jiang Chengyu's face darkened as he looked at Jiang Xiyue and said, "You knew all along, why didn't you say so?"

"Why didn't Father say so sooner?"

Jiang Xiyue still smiled, but there was no warmth in her eyes: "Xiyue was wondering why you agreed to go to Guangming so easily. It turns out you negotiated the price with the Zhou family in advance while I was away from Beijing."

"You came back and immediately placed your daughter under house arrest, not even giving her a chance to see you. What are you expecting her to say?"

Jiang Xiyue sneered, "Do you want your daughter to say that you, Father, are not good at business and that you sold Xiyue to the Zhou family too cheaply? I have a better buyer here. Marrying Xiyue to Ye Li will definitely help you rise to prominence."

"presumptuous!"

Jiang Chengyu raised his hand high, but ultimately did not bring it down, though his overwhelming rage almost blew the roof off.

Jiang Xiyue looked coldly at Jiang Chengyu: "This isn't about how you treat your daughter, but about your thoughts on the goods. The one who came up with the idea was probably my good older brother."

Seeing his daughter's stubborn expression, Jiang Chengyu sneered, "Fine, fine, fine. That kid's talent is indeed rare. At such a young age, he can barely rival the Acquired Perfection realm. But does he really think that talent and potential are enough to get by in this capital?"

"To tell you the truth, Ye Li is now in a precarious position. Forget about participating in the next National Fortune Competition, he won't even survive for ten years."

"If you had honestly told me what happened, I could have kept the matter quiet. But now there's no going back. Your marriage to the Zhou family will continue. As for Ye Li, you can wait for news of his death."

After saying that, he abruptly flicked his sleeves and strode away without looking back, his anger blazing.

The heavy door was slammed shut again.

After a brief moment of panic, Jiang Xiyue quickly regained her composure, quietly curled up in a corner, lowered her eyes, and focused on her cultivation.

Meanwhile, Jiang Chengyu stepped out of the embroidered tower and returned to his study.

A trusted guard approached and respectfully presented a visiting card: "Sect Master, Dean Su Xingcheng of the Imperial Academy of Martial Arts personally left this visiting card, stating that it concerns Ye Li's matter and he wishes to mediate and negotiate. He hopes that Sect Master will grant him this favor."

"Su Xingcheng?!"

Jiang Chengyu stopped abruptly, took the visiting card that exuded a faint fragrance of ink and bore the unique emblem of the Martial Academy, and felt the cool touch of the paper on his fingertips.

His eyes were filled with surprise and uncertainty, and his expression changed.

In all of Kyoto, who doesn't know the importance of Su Xingcheng?

The dean of the Imperial Academy of Martial Arts, a towering figure in the martial arts world of the entire Xia Kingdom, took three steps beyond the half-step innate realm to reach the condensation of meridians.

Gather Qi, transform it into Qi, and condense it into Qi!

This is the insurmountable barrier that must be overcome to reach the innate realm from the acquired realm of perfection.

Every step is incredibly difficult, and every improvement signifies a leap in strength.

Gathering Qi: The abundant true qi in the body is compressed from a gaseous state to a liquid state, and the total amount and purity of internal force surge. With every move, the true qi flows like a river.

Transformation into Qi: Liquid true qi is further condensed to form an incomparably tough and substantial armor of transformed qi on the body surface, capable of withstanding divine weapons, achieving perfection in both defense and offense.

Condensing Meridians: Refining and reconstructing the body's meridians with internal force, making them more resilient and expansive, capable of withstanding even more violent outputs of true energy.

The above three steps should have been completed in one step, naturally and effortlessly, overcoming the limitations of innate abilities.

Only the final step remains: recreating flesh and blood, drawing in the spiritual energy of heaven and earth to circulate within the body, after which one can be completely reborn and achieve innate status!

Unfortunately, breaking through to the Innate Realm is extremely difficult; only the legendary geniuses, one in a billion, can achieve it in one step.

Therefore, ordinary people further break down the methods for overcoming innate limitations.

During this period, every step achieved blocked countless heroes and great men, and each step was roughly equivalent to a small realm difference in the Acquired Realm.

The most difficult part is that all of this must be done before the age of 50.

Su Xingcheng back then was a prodigy of the Xia Kingdom, attracting widespread attention.

He reached the "Condensing Meridians" stage at the age of forty-five, but unfortunately, his blood and energy began to decline at the last moment, and he failed to achieve his goal, remaining stuck there for the rest of his life.

Otherwise, the Xia Kingdom would now have five Innate Realm experts in charge!

At this moment, Su Xingcheng's invitation is not only Su Xingcheng's personal attitude, but also represents the Imperial Academy of Martial Arts.

He personally intervened to plead for a young man who had just arrived in the capital, even though Jiang Chengyu had already decided to refuse, he couldn't refuse him this favor.

"In that case, let's meet at my residence."

Jiang Chengyu said coldly, "Let's meet here and put an end to that boy's infatuation and my wretched daughter's delusions."

"That kid is extremely bloodthirsty. He killed two of my retainers in a short time. He has already fallen into the demonic path."

"If I make a sarcastic remark at his residence, he will surely not tolerate it. If he dares to cause trouble at Zhongjiang Mansion, even if Elder Su intervenes, he will be taught a severe lesson."

"Don't even mention a mere Perfected Acquired Realm cultivator; my Jiang family has plenty of those, even those on the verge of Innate Realm!"

"I've already sent out the invitation; let's see if he dares to come!"

After saying this, Jiang Chengyu waved his hand and wrote a reply in his study, then invited him to join him.