Chapter Five: Believe it or not, I could crush you to death.

After stuffing himself in a frenzy, Chen Xuan finished off the grain he had stored away.

Even so, he still could not make himself full; a faint hunger still gnawed at him.

He glanced at the night outside. It was still pitch-black, and he began to waver.

Should he slip back to the kitchen under cover of darkness and look around again?

But what if that baby came back?

His heart pounded as he wrestled with the thought for a long while before finally forcing himself to endure it.

He could not go courting death at a time like this.

The hunger he felt now was nowhere near as fierce as it had been a few days ago. He could absolutely bear it. There was no need to take such a risk.

He could simply go eat again at daybreak.

With that settled, Chen Xuan forced himself to lie down on the ground and go back to sleep.

"I'm not hungry. I'm not hungry at all. I'm so damn full..."

He kept giving himself mental suggestions over and over.

He had never imagined a single night could feel so long. Every passing second was torture.

When hunger set in, the movement of the stomach and intestines brought on a strong wave of nausea, unbearably miserable.

Fortunately, Chen Xuan's willpower was not bad, and he held on by sheer force.

The night passed quickly.

The disciples assigned to patrol the mountain all had dark circles under their eyes and looked utterly exhausted.

They had guarded the place in full vigilance all night and had not encountered so much as a hair.

Each of them was worn out, hungry and tired, as they made their way toward the kitchen.

Chen Xuan finally crawled out from beneath the bed as well. His belly was empty and growling, and he followed the others toward the kitchen.

The moment he emerged, many of the disciples recognized him at once, their faces changing in shock.

"Hey, hey, look, isn't that Chen Xuan?"

"Damn, where did he come from? It's been four days in a row—where the hell was he hiding?"

"I thought he was dead."

"Quick, go tell Senior Brother Fang Dao!"

...

Chen Xuan paid no attention to the commotion. Right now, all he wanted was food.

Once he had eaten his fill, it would not be too late to crush Fang Dao to death!

"Good Samaritan Liu, bring me twenty steamed buns!"

Chen Xuan said as he reached the kitchen.

Liu Dashan, who was in charge of the kitchen, looked displeased. He gave Chen Xuan a sideways glance and said in a阴阳怪气 sort of way, "Twenty steamed buns? You've got quite the appetite. In my opinion, you'd be lucky to manage five."

Liu Dashan was the nickname the martial world had given him. His real name was something no one could even remember anymore.

Though he was called Good Samaritan Liu, what he actually did had nothing whatsoever to do with doing good. He despised women to an extreme degree; whenever he came across a beautiful one, he would find every possible way to kill her, then mince her into meat filling, make soup or steamed buns out of her, and hand them out as charity to the poor.

So the ignorant all regarded him as a kind-hearted benefactor.

Only the people of the Five Venoms Sect knew that what this man did had nothing to do with benevolence.

"Cut the nonsense. Bring twenty first," Chen Xuan said.

"Brat, if you can't finish them later, don't blame this old man for showing no mercy with the blade and cutting a few jin of meat off you!"

Liu Dashan set down the twenty buns with their bamboo steamer in front of Chen Xuan with a heavy thud, then drew a butcher's cleaver and began scraping it against his thigh, glaring at Chen Xuan with obvious malice.

Chen Xuan gave Liu Dashan an irritated look as well.

Damn it, if I say I can eat it, then I can eat it. Bite me?

He began wolfing the food down in a frenzy.

The buns were about the size of a fist, and he could finish one in just two or three bites. His speed was astonishing, like that of a hungry wolf.

A group of Five Venoms Sect disciples had originally wanted to watch the show, thinking Chen Xuan must have had his head kicked in to dare provoke Liu Dashan. They had not expected him to truly have such a huge appetite.

Watching one bun after another vanish into his stomach, many of them were stunned speechless.

"Damn, did he hide for four days and go hungry for four days?"

"Possible. Otherwise, how could he be eating like that?"

...

Just then!

A sharp roar suddenly rang out from afar.

"Dammit, Chen Xuan, you finally crawled out to die! I thought you could hide forever. Let's see where you run today!"

Everyone turned around, each wearing a trace of gleeful schadenfreude.

"Fang Dao's people are here."

"Now this is going to be interesting."

Liu Dashan on the side also let out a sinister chuckle. Stroking the black mole on his face with his hand, he said, "Brat, let's see what you do now. Even if you finish those buns, that group won't let you off!"

Chen Xuan had already eaten more than a dozen of the twenty buns in one go, and Liu Dashan felt quite displeased. He had the sense of being challenged, and the more he looked at Chen Xuan, the less pleased he became.

Chen Xuan could not be bothered with him and kept eating.

While eating, he also drank the soup.

Fang Dao, with a dark expression and seven or eight disciples behind him, finally came walking over from afar. Seeing that Chen Xuan was still sitting there stuffing his face, his heart grew even colder.

A lackey named Wang Fang was the first to fly into a rage. He jumped out and barked, "Chen Xuan, when Senior Brother Fang Dao comes over, and you still don't come to greet him?"

He lunged forward and kicked over Chen Xuan's table, sending the remaining three buns bouncing to the ground.

Chen Xuan flew into a rage. He shot up from the stool, exuding a wild and indescribable aura.

Wang Fang was startled. At that moment, Chen Xuan seemed like a completely different person, like a tiger descending from the mountains, even seeming taller than before.

Before Wang Fang could speak, Chen Xuan's large hand shot out, clamping down on his head and slamming it hard into the ground.

Bang!

With a dull thud, Wang Fang screamed in agony as Chen Xuan pinned him to the ground. His head was crushed as if by a door, most of it driven into the dirt.

"Ah, spare me!"

Wang Fang cried miserably.

"You damn bastard, I'm eating here, and you're running your mouth? You even kicked over my table? Today I'll crush you to death myself. Let's see who can stand up for you!"

Chen Xuan looked savage as he held Wang Fang's forehead in an iron grip, treating him as though he were not even human, as if he were only pressing down a straw man.

Though Iron Cloth Robe was only a low-level technique, once mastered to a certain degree, it could become brutally ferocious.

That was exactly Chen Xuan's current state.

Even he did not know that he was at least three centimeters taller than before, and the muscles in his arms and thighs were nearly half a circle thicker than they had been. Not only was his defense astonishingly strong, but his explosive power was terrifying as well.

The lackeys around Fang Dao all changed expression.

"How dare you, Chen Xuan! Stop at once!"

"Quick, stop!"

They all rushed forward together, unleashing palm strikes, kicks, and pressure-point attacks on Chen Xuan.

At first Chen Xuan was startled, but he quickly discovered that these palm strikes, kicks, and pressure-point techniques felt no different from itching when they landed on him.

Although his acupoints could not be shifted, Iron Cloth Robe had thickened his skin considerably, sealing off more than ninety percent of his points. Ordinary pressure-point strikes could not affect him at all, unless they were infused with profound inner force.

Bang, bang, bang!

The group flailed at Chen Xuan as if they were children.

Chen Xuan felt nothing whatsoever and could not help but laugh aloud.

"Hahaha, wonderful, absolutely wonderful! You bunch of idiots, did none of you eat breakfast? Is that all the strength you've got? Hahaha..."

The people attacking him all went pale with shock. Their fingers, arms, and soles were left aching and sore, as though they were pounding iron and stone.

The other disciples also changed color, incredulous.

Chen Xuan... when had Chen Xuan's strength become so terrifying?

And he practiced body-hardening techniques?

"Iron Cloth Robe, minor mastery..."

Liu Dashan on the side narrowed his eyes, revealing a hint of shock.

How could this be? The boy was so young, and he had already cultivated Iron Cloth Robe to minor mastery?

Where had he gotten the resources for that?

Compared with internal techniques, external techniques had severe drawbacks in every respect. Even more frightening was the difficulty. Even for something as basic as Iron Cloth Robe, reaching minor mastery was very hard without pouring in vast quantities of medicinal materials.

And it also required time and immersion.

Without seven or eight years of bitter cultivation, minor mastery was simply impossible.

That was why there were so few in the martial world who truly cultivated body-hardening arts.