Chapter Thirty-Five: Waiting for Rebellion

“Hurry, open the door!”
Outside, Xu Wenshan stood guard, eyes gleaming with predatory intent, while Li Qing’s frail body continued to endure the onslaught of her own instincts.
This was the greatest crisis the young girl had ever faced in her life!
Why did nothing good ever happen when she ran into this person? Tears began to well up in her eyes.
Suddenly, the knocking stopped.
A long sigh escaped from Xu Wenshan.
“Has he finally left?” Li Qing sat up.
“Pitiful, truly lamentable,” Xu Wenshan muttered to himself. “My poetry collections—seems they’re fated never to be published.”
Ever since his last time at Scholar Li’s house, when he had recited that masterpiece, ‘The Yellow River stretches far away, such feelings await their time,’ Xu Wenshan had been composing new verses one after another. Lines like, ‘After the rain in the empty mountains, the weather turns autumnal as evening falls,’ and, ‘I stop my carriage, moved by the maple woods at dusk, their frosted leaves redder than spring flowers in February.’
Ninety-nine percent of the people in Deer-Crane Ravine could not understand these lines, but the Li family did. These verses often reached Scholar Li’s ears, and he would recite them at home—so naturally, Li Qing knew Xu Wenshan was a prodigy in poetry.
Regarding this lifelong rival, Li Qing said little, but in her heart, she admired him.
“To publish a poetry collection requires craftsmen, engraved printing blocks. With the little grain my family has stored up, it’s simply impossible. If I went to one of the outside printing shops, I’d be fleeced at every turn... If I tried to start a little business to earn something, I’d have no capable people to rely on. Even when I invite talented folk to join me, they turn me down. It seems my twenty-odd volumes of poetry, born of blood and sweat, are doomed never to see the light of day...”
At the mention of “twenty-odd volumes,” Li Qing rolled out of bed and flung the door open with a bang.
“Fine, I’ll help you,” she said quickly. “I’ll come by tomorrow—just stop blocking my door.”
Xu Wenshan stepped aside, and Li Qing walked away without looking back.
“Where are you going?”
“Don’t ask!” Li Qing snapped angrily.

…

That night, Xu Wenshan finally found a moment’s peace. He found himself missing those old evenings after work, idly watching live streams to pass the time...
“Snap out of it, Xu Wenshan,” Lu Ze spoke up. “Hurry up and start training.”
Xu Wenshan patted his face and said, “Recently, I’ve felt the demon power in my body flowing more smoothly. I think I’m on the verge of a breakthrough.”
Lu Ze laid a palm over his lower abdomen and nodded. “You’re almost at the middle stage of Level 1 now.”
Xu Wenshan found terms like ‘Body Tempering Phase’ and ‘Yin Refinement Phase’ too complicated, so he simply called them Level 1, Level 2, or ‘lv.1,’ ‘lv.2.’ As a result, Lu Ze picked up the same odd habit.
“Your meridians have adapted to the demonic force; the yin channel is open. The energy can now circulate throughout your body, refining your flesh and bones to be stronger,” Lu Ze explained.
Then, they began their cultivation. Just as Xu Wenshan predicted, this session allowed him to break through to the middle stage of Body Tempering as a demon cultivator.
He exhaled deeply, releasing the demonic energy coursing through him. His breath swept across the room like an autumn wind, sending papers fluttering and curtains billowing.
By the moonlight, he could see that his breath carried a swirling black mist, instantly filling the room with darkness. Xu Wenshan got up and opened the window to let the black air disperse.
Fortunately, they trained at night—otherwise, any passerby would have noticed something strange.
Also, it was a blessing he lived in Deer-Crane Ravine, far from Daoist priests. With this level of demonic energy, he would surely attract trouble if any were nearby.
Xu Wenshan watched the dissipating energy with anxiety. “Just a mid-level breakthrough, and it’s already this dramatic. What if every future advancement is so earth-shaking?”
Still, even if his next breakthrough risked alerting Daoists, he couldn’t let fear halt his progress. He tucked the worry away for now, determined to find a solution in the future.
Once they finished cultivating, Lu Ze asked, “Xu Wenshan, do you want to leave this valley?”
“I do,” he replied.
“Then what are you waiting for?”
Xu Wenshan squinted. “I’m waiting for a rebellion.”

...

“What’s going on here? Why is it nothing but vegetables again today?” Guo Xin slammed the table. “Bring the cook up here!”
The cook was brought in, trembling, to the Guo family’s main hall, where more than a dozen men, arranged by age, sat in a circle around the table.
As the head of the revitalized Guo family, Guo Xin’s greatest pride was his thirteen sons.
He pointed at the cook. “I told you yesterday, my boys are still growing—they need meat! Look at my fourth son, he’s so hungry he’s turned green! Where’s the meat I want?”
The cook stammered, “Master, it’s not that I won’t cook meat—there’s just no meat to cook! Our pigs aren’t fat enough to slaughter yet, and the hunters won’t sell us any game.”
“Why not? Why won’t they sell to us?” Guo Xin raged.
“Because Young Master Xu started some... ‘Deer-Crane Archery Club’, and the hunters are selling all their game to him.”
“Young Master Xu? You mean Xu Wenshan?!”
Guo Xin remembered all too well that arrow at the archery range, the one that landed by his third son’s foot. His teeth clenched with anger, his fists so tight he almost snapped his chopsticks.
“What is the Xu family up to now? Every few days they stir up some big commotion—how are we supposed to live in peace?”
“That’s it! Tomorrow we’ll make a scene! If that doesn’t work, we’ll smash up his Grain and Oil Shop!”