A master of both medicine and martial arts, he picked up a beautiful CEO as his wife.

The first strike came from the Third Master.

He didn't move, didn't strike, and didn't even move the ground. He simply raised his hand and made a light, perceptible press towards Ye Feng's direction.

The bluestone ground beneath Ye Feng's feet collapsed with a "crack." It didn't shatter.

It collapsed—the stones looked as if something had been emptied from them, instantly turning into a pile of black powder and sinking half a foot down.

Just before the stone surface collapsed, Ye Feng had already sprung to his feet. He didn't retreat. He lunged forward. His Peak Yang True Qi exploded forth, and his fist slammed into the Third Master's chest—

It missed.

It wasn't that he dodged. It was that the spot where his fist struck felt like a wisp of dispersed mist. Ye Feng's fist passed right through it, and the Third Master's figure swayed before reforming.

"Death Qi Condensation." Ye Feng landed, took three steps back, and his expression finally changed.

"Now you know why the employer could wait twenty years," Mr. San said calmly, "because we don't care much about time."

Ye Feng stared at him, his mind racing. Unbreakable. These three words were, for the first time since he came down the mountain, so clearly before him.

The Li family's offerings could be swayed. Tianheng's assassins could be swayed. Cheng Jiuyuan's skill was such that he could withstand the pressure even if he tried. Shang Zhi was even stronger, but Shang Zhi was still just a human being—humans have meridians, blood and qi, and vital points. As long as someone was human, Ye Feng had a hundred ways to bring him down.

This isn't it. This thing has no weakness. If you smash a piece of it, it will patch it up with something else; if you scatter a section of it, it will reassemble itself three feet away.

When that punch passed through, Ye Feng even felt that the death energy within his body greeted the thing opposite him through his fist.

similar.

The thought of the word "kindred spirits" sent a sudden chill down Ye Feng's spine. But it was at that very moment that a chord in his heart was struck.

--similar.

Since they are of the same kind, we shouldn't use the word "fight".

—The word "cure" should be used.

The second blow came from Ye Feng.

This time, he didn't use his fist. He reached into his robes with his right hand and flung something out. It wasn't a hidden weapon. It was medicinal powder.

A cloud of grayish-white powder exploded in the night wind, covering the entire area around Mr. San, a distance of three zhang (approximately 10 meters).

"A trivial skill."

With a flick of his sleeve, the third gentleman scattered the powder, which fell to the ground. The instant it hit the ground—

With a loud "boom".

The entire ground burst into flames. Not fire. But a bright, white light, exploding from every point where the powder landed, like someone had lit a whole row of magnesium strips in front of a mountain gate.

The light was so bright that everyone instinctively closed their eyes. And within this white light, the Third Master's body, which was "encased in deathly energy," spoke for the first time.

"laugh--"

It was like a branding iron being pressed into water.

"Wake up in three days." Ye Feng's voice rang out in the light. "This is a prescription my master made thirty-four years ago. Back then, during the plague in the south, twenty-one thousand people died under the succumbing to the deathly aura. He brewed the medicine for forty days and saved three thousand. This prescription can't save anyone."

"It can only force out the last bit of death energy attached to a person from between the bones."

In the white light, the Third Master's figure twisted violently.

On that bluish-gray body, there was an extremely thin layer that was being peeled off—like a plaster that had been applied for too long being lifted from the corner, tearing away the skin and flesh along with it.

"Thirty-four years ago, when your master was refining this batch of pills," the Third Master's voice trembled slightly for the first time, "the owner was in the south. He knew someone was testing this formula. He waited thirty-four years, but no one ever used this batch of pills. Today, it's being used."

Ye Feng grinned: "Then I have to thank you for being willing to come and test the medicine on me."

The third gentleman took half a step back.

Just half a step.

Ye Feng had been waiting for this half-step. He pressed himself against the Third Master's chest, his palms overlapping, the half-bright, half-dark vortex of yin and yang energy in his palms pressing down hard.

The yin energy is nurtured, and the yang energy is unleashed. That was something he and Lin Yuqing practiced for twelve cycles in the quiet room.

"boom!"

A muffled thunderclap exploded in front of the gate of Baicao Mountain. The Third Master was sent flying by the blow, crashing through three cypress trees and carving a twenty-zhang-long furrow in the ground.

At the foot of the mountain gate, more than twenty disciples of Medicine King Valley were all dumbfounded.

"It's done?" someone asked in a trembling voice.

"It didn't work." Ye Feng stood there, a mouthful of blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.

He raised his sleeve and wiped it away sharply. The mental ledger jumped a page. Three became two. At the end of the ditch, in the dust, a figure slowly rose.

The Third Master's black robe was torn in half, revealing the skin beneath—not human skin. It was bluish-gray, without blood, and the edges of the wound were very slowly closing inwards.

He looked up. For the first time, something flickered across his expressionless face.

"This palm strike," he said, "was a fusion of Yin and Yang. The master's records only mentioned it in three lines. I saw it today."

He took a step forward.

"very good."

"The master said that once you see this thing, you don't need to hold back anymore."

In that instant, the air on the entire Hundred Herbs Mountain seemed to sink. Ye Feng's back was instantly soaked with sweat. He finally understood that everything that had just happened was a test.

This person was never serious from beginning to end.

"Ye Feng!"

Shen Yu's furious shout came from behind. Ye Feng turned around and his heart sank to the bottom—the inner courtyard was ablaze with flames.

Zhao Hui had vanished. Meanwhile, within the flickering firelight of the alchemy room, a dozen or so figures could be faintly seen, rapidly moving towards the medicine hut.

That was the place Lin Yuqing went to.

"Lure the tiger away from the mountain," Ye Feng gritted his teeth.

He turned to leave—but a chilling aura of death blocked his way. The Third Master stood there, watching him silently.

"You have too much to protect," he said. "That's where you lose."

Ye Feng stood rooted to the spot, his chest heaving violently. In his mental ledger, only two squares remained. Two squares.

When he first joined the Qi Meridian, he still had about ten slots in the account book, which he squandered like a spendthrift. Half a year ago in the warehouse in Dongyang, he could punch through two walls, and back then, he didn't even have an account book.

Now he's splitting his life in two, using one half for fighting and the other for planning. Ye Feng then recalled a sentence from his master's letter—"If you want to unravel 'the whole story,' first protect that Miss Lin and get through 'that hurdle.'"

He didn't understand then. Now he does: this battle was never meant for him to win. It was meant for him to live and take her away.

He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the look in his eyes had changed.

"You're right," he said. "I have too many things to protect. So I'm not fighting you today."

The third gentleman paused slightly: "You're trying to escape?"

"Why are you running away?" Ye Feng raised his head, facing the inner courtyard, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Yuqing—Release!"