Imperial Cultivation Chapter 1609 - 1605: The Harvest

The Elephant Beast’s eyes narrowed into golden slits.

Chu Zhiyuan’s gaze was also clear and deep like an ancient pool.

Neither of them moved, just quietly watched the two corpses.

Chu Zhiyuan shook his head and said, "Secret techniques really have all kinds of tricks. Hold on."

A moment later, he reappeared, with Zhou Qingyu following at his side, her face full of puzzlement.

Chu Zhiyuan said, "Take a look at them."

Zhou Qingyu glanced them over and laughed. "Master, are you worried I haven’t seen corpses before? I’ve seen plenty."

Her father being a doctor and herself his assistant, how could she not have seen corpses?

Many times, by the time they were carried in, they had already breathed their last.

Chu Zhiyuan said, "Then can you see anything from them?"

Zhou Qingyu took a few steps forward, came to the two corpses and examined them.

She bent down, reached out, lightly touched the two corpses, then straightened up and looked at Chu Zhiyuan in confusion.

Chu Zhiyuan said, "You didn’t see anything wrong?"

"Wrong..."

Zhou Qingyu squatted down again, carefully feeling and pressing, checking one area after another, frowning in thought.

She found nothing wrong.

But she knew that since Chu Zhiyuan had said so, there had to be something wrong.

She checked again and again, and in the end she shook her head.

Not only using her medical skills, but also stimulating True Qi to assist, she still found no abnormality.

"Master..."

"They’re in a state of false death."

"...I couldn’t see it." Zhou Qingyu shook her head. "Their hearts have stopped, their breath is cut off, they’re gradually turning cold, their vitality already completely severed."

"That’s exactly what a secret technique is." Chu Zhiyuan said.

Zhou Qingyu looked the two middle-aged men over again.

A greenish aura covered their faces as if they wore iron masks; the sight was quite dreadful, she didn’t dare look too long.

She forced herself to look calmly without fear, stirred her True Qi and checked them once more, inch by inch.

In the end she still shook her head.

Once her True Qi entered their bodies, it was like entering wood, not stirring up any reaction of Qi at all.

Chu Zhiyuan said, "Watch carefully."

He shot a thread of white light from the tip of each index finger, precisely striking Yongquan under their left feet.

"Bang!"

The two of them sat bolt upright, then leapt into the air, trying to flee.

Zhou Qingyu’s bright eyes widened in shock as she watched them become shrouded again in a dense rain of falling arcs of Golden Light.

"Bang bang bang bang..."

Heavy thuds sounded one after another.

A faint purple glow rose from their bodies to form a shield, but it was quickly annihilated by the Golden Light arcs.

"Bang! Bang!"

The two spewed Blood Arrows in midair, then crashed down to the ground once more.

Chu Zhiyuan said, "In the future, when you travel the world, whenever you intend to kill someone, you must be wary they might have a false-death secret technique, especially people from other realms of Heaven and Earth."

"Mm, mm." Zhou Qingyu nodded hard.

If Chu Zhiyuan had just said this in passing at some other time, the impression on her might not be so deep.

But now that it had happened right before her eyes, she would never be able to forget.

She sighed inwardly; to think there was such a false-death secret technique, truly without the slightest flaw—if not for Master’s move, she absolutely wouldn’t have been able to see through it.

So to truly kill someone, you can’t just beat them to death, you have to destroy the body as well?

Chu Zhiyuan said, "As long as you destroy his head, it’s basically very hard for him to come back to life."

Zhou Qingyu mused, "Master, I’d like to cultivate a Hand Skill that can damage the interior of the brain."

She didn’t want to directly take a sword and cut off the head; she wanted something more elegant. A hand technique was best.

With one strike the brain would be shattered, turning to brain pulp flowing out from the seven orifices.

This palm needed to bypass the hard skull instead of smashing the skull along with it.

The skull was extremely hard, no weaker than sword or blade. No matter how powerful the Palm Force, once blocked by the skull, eight or nine parts of it would be dispersed.

But a subtle Hand Skill could bypass the skull and hit through the mountain to strike the cow.

Chu Zhiyuan nodded, brought his fingers together like a sword, and lightly tapped her between the brows.

She closed her eyes and stayed utterly still.

After more than ten breaths, she opened her eyes and sent out a light, floating palm.

"Pop!"

A resonant sound came from the air, like a small pebble dropping into a deep well.

Zhou Qingyu’s face blossomed with a smile.

Her mind now held only this one palm technique.

How to generate force with this palm, what key points needed attention—everything was crystal clear, as if she had painstakingly studied it and imprinted it in her memory.

The crux of this palm lay in the way force was issued—subtle and profound; an error of a hair’s breadth would miss by a thousand miles.

Even if one learned it, to truly master it would not be achieved in a short time.

With this unique method of transmission, she could brand it in her mind in an instant, and with her exceptionally high Martial Arts Talent, once she learned it she could train it to success.

"Pop!"

"Pop!"

"Pop..."

She sent out several palms in succession.

The sound made by each palm’s force in the air changed ever so slightly.

First it was clear and bright, then gradually grew duller, more and more muffled.

Yet the sound itself grew fainter and fainter.

In the end, when she sent out a palm, there was no sound to be heard, only the feeling of the air trembling.

Chu Zhiyuan showed a satisfied smile.

Zhou Qingyu’s aptitude truly was beyond question; what she conceived, she could achieve—heart and hand as one.

In just this short time, she had completely entered the door of Shuiyu Palm; the level of refinement was already enough for use.

If she kept practicing, it would gradually meld with her own being—subtlety upon subtlety—and its power would increase by another large measure.

This was the issue of refinement; it required time to slowly ponder and hone, not something achieved in a single day.

He jerked his chin.

Zhou Qingyu floated over to the two corpses and struck each of them once between the brows.

"Bang bang!"

It sounded like a ripe watermelon splitting open.

Zhou Qingyu took out a snow-white handkerchief, wiped her pale little hands, then tucked it back into her sleeve and looked up with a smile. "Master, they’re completely dead now."

Chu Zhiyuan said, "See what they’ve got on them."

"Alright!" Zhou Qingyu said excitedly.

This was the most thrilling moment—the moment of harvest.

With two fellows this formidable, there were bound to be plenty of good things on them.

Her snow-white little hands started searching over their bodies, one item after another coming out.

Several silver notes: two of Hundred taels, three of Ten taels, and two of thousand taels.

A few Short Swords, dagger-sized, their blades thin and sharp, suited for ambushes.

A silver plate carved with Cloud Pattern, with the two characters "Guangsheng" engraved on it.

She looked up at Chu Zhiyuan. "Master, what sect is this Guangsheng?"

Chu Zhiyuan said, "Guangsheng... never heard of it."

Zhou Qingyu shook her head, tossed the Silver Waist Token aside, and her little hand continued searching.

She then found two Small Jade Bottles, one green and one white, warm and lustrous.

She directly put them aside, knowing they were dangerous and not to be opened rashly.

Many people kept poison on their person; open it and you fall prey to a hidden trick.

After that she fished out a letter, which she also set aside.

He pulled that small copper bell from the hand of one of the middle-aged men.

And from the other middle-aged man’s hand he pulled out a copper mirror.

In the end he also found a broken sword; only one foot of the Sword remained, its fracture slanting across, clearly cut off.

She examined these three items with great interest.

Chu Zhiyuan said, "Qingyu, which do you think are valuable?"

"These three, Master?" Zhou Qingyu said. "Are they all Spiritual Artifacts?"

Chu Zhiyuan said, "How did you judge that?"

"These two things are very small, like toys. They can’t still be clinging to childhood fun, right?" Zhou Qingyu pointed at the small copper bell and the little mirror, then pointed at the broken sword. "And this sword is already broken. They didn’t throw it away but carried it with them, so it must be extraordinary."

"What if they’re just sentimentally attached after carrying it for so many years and can’t bear to discard it?" Chu Zhiyuan said.

"That’s possible too, but I don’t think that’s it," Zhou Qingyu said. "It absolutely isn’t an ordinary sword."

Chu Zhiyuan nodded. "This is a sword carried by the Divine Race."

Zhou Qingyu immediately lifted the broken sword and studied it carefully, then shook her head in the end. "I can’t see anything impressive about it."

Chu Zhiyuan smiled. "Try using True Qi to examine it."

Zhou Qingyu stirred her True Qi; a faint clear light surfaced along the Sword, but only vaguely, not distinctly.

She immediately understood it was because her own Cultivation was too weak.