Achieving physical sainthood begins with the Iron Shirt technique!

late at night.

The muddy alley outside Xuanni City.

The torrential rain poured down. Dense raindrops lashed against the broken tiles, washing away the blood-red water that hadn't yet seeped into the soil from the bluestone pavement. The murky water became extremely viscous, flowing along the uneven terrain and converging into a deep, unfathomable ditch.

Several guards from the immortal city who remained behind kicked open the already dilapidated gate of the Zhang family's courtyard.

The rough footsteps shattered the puddles in the yard, splashing water half a foot high.

The guards barged into the main room and began ransacking the place. Coarse cloth clothes were torn to shreds, and old pottery jars were smashed against the wall, shattering into pieces.

The cabinet door was ripped off by force and slammed to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust and a musty smell.

In a corner of the yard, in an abandoned cellar covered with ashes and dry firewood.

Li Laosi was submerged in waist-deep, foul-smelling water. The area was perpetually dark, the water was bone-chillingly cold, and nauseating, rotting debris floated on the surface.

The prolonged soaking caused his skin to turn white and wrinkled. His entire body trembled violently and uncontrollably.

His molars were clenched tightly together, the skin and flesh on his cheeks were extremely stiff, and his upper and lower gums rubbed against each other, causing his gums to ooze salty blood.

Above his head was only a thin wooden board. The unrestrained laughter of the guards, mixed with the sounds of them rummaging through things, clearly reached his ears.

"That old man is still tough. He took such a heavy kick from the commander that his spine was broken, but he didn't even stop breathing."

"What's the use of using force? It was still dragged to the inner city like a dead dog to fill the array's core! Hurry up and search, that old man is usually stingy, who knows what kind of money he's hiding."

"Come lend a hand, there's a hidden compartment under this broken bed frame, we dug out a few pieces of silver!"

The crisp sound of broken silver pieces clinking against each other pierced through the cracks in the wooden planks.

These henchmen of cultivators, clad in black iron armor, were comfortably dividing up the old farmer's life savings.

Li Laosi lifted his right wrist out of the foul-smelling water.

The tendons in his wrist had been severed on the spot by the guard commander's wind blade. The flesh at the wound was turned outwards.

The fascia, now unrestrained, turned completely white and was directly exposed to the murky, damp air, covered with green moss and mud from the water.

He swallowed hard, feeling the stuffy air in the cellar.

His intact left hand reached out, and his rough fingers pressed directly onto the whitish fascia without any hesitation.

The moment my fingertip touched the fascia, a piercing pain shot through my nerves and into my brain. The veins on both sides of my neck bulged out.

He didn't utter a single groan of pain.

With forceful, brutal manipulation of his left hand, he slowly and forcefully pushed the exposed fascia back into the rolled-up flesh. The muscles around the wound twitched violently from the intense stimulation.

Li Laosi groped his way out of the stinking water and pulled out half a dirty cloth that smelled strongly of mold.

He lowered his head and bit down hard on one end of the strip of cloth with his teeth. He pulled on the other end with his left hand, wrapped it around his right wrist twice, and then pulled it outwards sharply.

Tightly secure.

The dirty cloth was instantly soaked with the seeping blood, barely managing to stop the blood from flowing out.

The excruciating pain brought my mind to its peak clarity.

The scene that happened in the yard not long ago kept replaying in my mind.

Old Zhang lay paralyzed in the mud, his lower body completely numb. But that withered old farmer clung tightly to the Xuan Tie spear of the Immortal City Guard with his broken palm bones.

Blood dripped down the gun barrel. The old farmer's blackened face, and the fierce determination he showed in protecting his grandson even after his spine was broken, shattered the last line of defense in Li Laosi's heart.

The cowardly butcher who usually only dared to slaughter pigs on the chopping board and would only kowtow when he met a celestial master has completely disappeared.

The fear in his eyes completely faded away.

Instead, an extreme ferocity arose within him. This ferocity burned the whites of his eyes red, making his breathing extremely heavy.

Li Laosi turned around and faced the abandoned dry well on the other side of the cellar that connected to the ground.

The well walls were covered with slippery moss, and the gaps between the bricks and stones were filled with greasy yellow mud.

He raised his left hand, fingers fully spread, and dug directly into the well wall. His fingernails dug deep into the cracks in the yellow mud, and the mud instantly filled the soft flesh beneath his fingernails.

With his feet planted on the protruding bricks below, and using the strength of his left arm, he climbed up the well wall little by little.

His coarse cloth shoes were slippery with moss, so he simply kicked them off and stepped barefoot onto the rough brick surface. He used his toes for leverage on the uneven wall.

Each upward thrust brought a sharp tearing sensation to the severed tendon in his right wrist. The cloth strips were soaked in blood, which dripped down his arm.

Without pausing at all, he silently approached the surface along the narrow, dry well.

On the ground, in the Zhang family courtyard.

A guard who remained behind, carrying a half-empty wine jug, hummed an unknown tune as he staggered to the corner of the courtyard wall.

In the corner stood a large water vat filled with rainwater.

The guard tucked the wine jug under his arm, unfastened the buckle on his leather armor with one hand, and loosened his belt, preparing to empty the water tank.

The sound of pattering water hit the surface of the water.

"These lowly commoners, they really don't know what's good for them." The guard let out a burp, his breath reeking of alcohol, and mocked the empty courtyard. "Mortals are just mortals. A single spell from the immortal sects could burn these mud-legged bastards to ashes. Do they really think their worthless bones can withstand the formations of cultivators?"

He shivered and pulled his pants back up.

The dry well opening is less than three steps away from the water tank.

Li Laosi had already climbed out most of his body, clinging tightly to the shadows on one side of the well.

He suppressed his breathing to the limit, his chest pressed against the cold stone slab, barely rising or falling.

In his left hand, he held a boning knife used for butchering pigs, held in a reverse grip.

The guards had just finished relieving themselves of the water and were in their most relaxed state.

Li Laosi's bare feet slammed hard against the bricks at the top edge of the well wall.

The stone bricks were kicked and rolled backwards.

He sprang up with incredible ferocity, lunging directly at the guard. Raindrops shattered upon impact with his body mid-air.

Having slaughtered pigs on the chopping board for years, he knows how to find cartilage and crevices even with his eyes closed.

He didn't even glance at the guard's heavy black iron armor. His left hand gripped the hilt of his sword, his arm flexing at full strength.

The butcher's knife precisely avoided the guard's neck armor plates and plunged deep into the guard's soft throat, which was unprotected by any armor, below the jawbone.

The blade slices through the skin, tears through the muscle, and punctures the trachea.

With a single strike, it went straight to the handle.

The bloodied tip of the knife even peeked out from the back of the guard's neck.

Even the most aloof cultivators, once they lose the protection of their protective true essence, reveal a physical body as fragile as any mortal.

The guard's eyes bulged out instantly, bloodshot eyes that looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets.

He instinctively raised his hands and gripped his neck tightly.

His throat was completely pierced, and he couldn't utter any words of help; he could only make unpleasant, leaky, sticky noises.

Scalding hot blood gushed out wildly from the scalpel groove, spraying directly onto Li Laosi's head and face.

Li Laosi neither retreated nor drew his knife.

Using the momentum of his forward lunge, he used his slender body to firmly pin down the burly guard.

The two men crashed heavily into the muddy ground, splashing mud and water everywhere.

As the guard lay dying, he unleashed an incredible will to survive, frantically scratching and tearing Li Laosi's coarse cloth clothes to shreds.

The fingernails carved several deep blood grooves into Li Laosi's chest.

Li Laosi let the other person struggle, but simply pressed all his weight on the other person, gripping the knife handle tightly with his left hand and pressing down hard.

The struggles beneath her gradually diminished.

A few breaths later, the guard breathed his last, his limbs limp in the mud, and he was no longer moving.

Li Laosi then released his grip on the knife and collapsed beside the corpse as if all his strength had left him.

He was breathing heavily, his chest heaving violently due to lack of oxygen.

Looking down at his trembling left hand, his palm was covered in sticky blood. On the ground, rainwater mixed with the guard's hot blood, flowing into a glaring dark red.

In the darkness, he suddenly parted his lips, letting out a low, suppressed, and agonizing laugh from deep within his throat. The laughter mingled with the sound of rain, carrying an air of madness.

The laughter stopped abruptly.

Li Laosi quickly moved his body and reached out to unfasten the clasp on the guard's corpse.

He roughly ripped off the still-warm black iron leather armor and put it on himself. The armor was a bit big, so he pulled the straps tight to secure it.

He bent down, picked up the black iron spear that the guard had dropped from the mud, and gripped it tightly in his left hand. The spear's heavy weight brought a real sense of killing intent.

Immediately afterwards, he grabbed a handful of black mud mixed with a fishy smell and smeared it directly on his face, completely covering his facial features.

After doing all this, Li Laosi stood up straight.

He raised his head, his bloodshot eyes piercing through the torrential rain, staring intently towards the inner city of Xuanni City.

That was the place where the guard commander had taken Old Man Zhang away.

Knowing full well that the lofty inner city was a perilous den for ordinary people, he still gripped his spear tightly. He was determined to bring back the old farmer with the broken spine.

The night wind, carrying a strong, fishy smell, blew past the entrance to the muddy alley.

In the dilapidated Zhang family courtyard, only the corpse of a lackey, stripped of his armor and with a butcher's knife stuck in his throat, remained, left to be washed away by the torrential rain.

Li Laosi's thin yet extremely fierce figure, stepping through the muddy ground, turned and disappeared into the even deeper darkness of the alley.