"What's... what's wrong?"

Seeing that Lu Li's expression was a bit off, Chen Zhong immediately felt a bit nervous.

"It's nothing. Since you've already beaten him, so be it." Now that it had already happened, Lu Li didn't know what else to say. In his opinion, beating Sun Zi'an was extremely unwise. As the saying goes, if you don't kill a snake, it will come back to bite you. If you were going to deal with someone, you should do it secretly and finish them off.

If you just beat the other person up, once they recovered, I'm afraid it would lead to even more severe retaliation.

"Did... did I do something wrong?" Chen Zhong scratched his head, looking a bit simple-minded.

Lu Li shook his head and changed the topic. "You didn't do anything wrong. I've wanted to beat him up for a long time. Come on, tell me how you beat him up..."

Although he was worried, he wouldn't show it in front of his brothers. Besides, he was also very curious about how Chen Zhong had managed to defeat Sun Zi'an, who was at the second level of Qi Refining.

You should know that at the second level of Qi Refining, one had already opened up a complete qi meridian and could cast spells.

Chen Zhong immediately started talking non-stop when he heard this and told Lu Li exactly what had happened before.

After listening, Lu Li quickly figured it out after some speculation. That is to say, Chen Zhong won the first move with his powerful physical body, which directly frightened Sun Zi'an. Later, when the other party hastily cast a spell, Chen Zhong smashed it with one punch, scaring him out of his wits. He didn't dare to fight Chen Zhong again at all.

In this way, Lu Li reached at least two conclusions.

First, not all cultivators had powerful physical strength. Their powerful physical bodies were completely an exception. If used in battles, it could have an unexpected effect.

Second, powerful physical strength was enough to withstand some low-level spells. Or perhaps as the physical body became stronger, it wouldn't be a problem to withstand high-level spells either.

The two chatted for a while longer, and then Chen Zhong left.

Qin Shouren hadn't come back yet. Lu Li didn't think too much about it. He closed the door and went back to his cultivation.

Up to now, he had already broken through the second, wood-attribute barrier of the second acupoint, and it was time for the third, water-attribute one. He didn't know if it was because body tempering had made his nerves numb. When he first started to break through the barriers, he always felt as uncomfortable as being pricked by needles, but now he just felt a bit numb.

The night passed quietly.

It wasn't until the next evening that Lu Li felt a bit hungry and finally snapped out of his cultivation state.

"I didn't expect that I had been cultivating for a whole day and night."

Lu Li finally understood what was meant by "time flies when you're cultivating". More than ten hours had passed in the outside world, which was equivalent to eight or nine days in the Time Hall. It seemed to pass in the blink of an eye.

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Walking out of the room, Lu Li was about to find something to eat when he noticed that Qin Shouren's door was ajar. He frowned and walked towards Qin Shouren's room.

He pushed the door open and saw that Qin Shouren wasn't inside. He couldn't help feeling a bit puzzled. "Why hasn't he come back yet? Could it be that he hasn't finished cleaning yet?"

Just then, Chen Zhong walked into the yard from outside. He was carrying a tray in his hand, with two plates of stir-fried dishes and a big basin of rice on it. When he saw that Lu Li had come out, he quickly walked over. "Monkey, I've brought you something to eat."

"Thank you." Lu Li turned around and asked, "Have you seen Qin Shouren?"

Chen Zhong thought for a moment and shook his head. "No, maybe he hasn't come back from work yet."

As he said that, he handed the tray to Lu Li. "Have something to eat first. It won't taste good when it gets cold."

"Okay." Lu Li was preoccupied with thoughts. He took the tray and went back to his own room.

Time passed like this for another two days.

During this period, Lu Li had also gone out to fetch water for a day and filled the seventh pool. And because Chen Zhong had already completed his tasks for this month, he spent every day practicing martial arts in the yard.

On this day, in the evening.

Finally, Lu Li felt that something was wrong. He rushed out of his room in a hurry and called Chen Zhong over. "Hasn't Qin Shouren come back yet?"

Chen Zhong frowned and thought back. "I've been in the yard during the day these two days. Unless he came back secretly at night..." At this point, his face changed. "Could something have happened to him!"

"Let's go out and look for him!" Lu Li's heart was pounding. It had been three or four days. Given Qin Shouren's character, if he had succeeded in body tempering, he would have come back to show off immediately. How could he hold back for so long just for work?

He took Chen Zhong and rushed towards the Green Cloud Peak.

"Where are you? Where are you? Qin Shouren, where are you!..."

"Qin Shouren—!"

"..."

On the peak, Lu Li and Chen Zhong were so anxious that they were running around in circles, shouting as they searched. To their disappointment, there was no response from the mountain, nor did they find any traces left by Qin Shouren.

"Fatty, go and check the square. I'll keep looking on the mountain," Lu Li had no choice but to hope that Qin Shouren was sweeping the square.

"Okay!" Chen Zhong replied and rushed down the mountain with a rumble.

Lu Li continued to search on the top of the mountain. In the grass, among the bushes, and in the thorn bushes, Lu Li rushed around and kept shouting.

The burning clouds in the sky began to fade away, and night gradually fell. Lu Li had almost searched from the top of the mountain to the mountainside in a carpet-like manner.

Plop!

Suddenly, Lu Li couldn't stop in time. Just as he rushed out of a cluster of leaves, he fell down the high ridge in front of him.

He was just about to get up when he felt that he had stepped on something soft. Looking down, his face instantly became distorted with pain. He saw a corpse lying limply at his feet. The body was in rags, covered with wounds all over, and there was a big hole as wide as a bowl on its chest.

"Qin Shouren—!"

Lu Li's pupils contracted, and his mouth opened wide.

Then, regardless of the fact that the body was almost decomposed, he threw himself beside Qin Shouren and pulled him into his arms.

"Wake up! Wake up! Brother...!" Lu Li's eyes were red. He shook Qin Shouren's corpse desperately, feeling a stabbing pain in his heart.

...

After an unknown amount of time.

Lu Li suddenly heard Chen Zhong's anxious shouts in the darkness. Only then did he come to his senses. He stood up and replied hoarsely, "I'm over here."

Immediately after that, he saw Chen Zhong running over with a torch in his hand with a rumble.

When Chen Zhong saw Lu Li and the corpse in front of him, his body trembled. The torch fell to the ground with a clatter, and he rushed over. "Qin Shouren—! No! It can't be, it can't be..."

Lu Li stared blankly, not disturbing Chen Zhong.

Until Chen Zhong sat down weakly on the side, Lu Li said, "Let's dig a hole together and bury him. We can't let him lie exposed in the wilderness like this."

Chen Zhong nodded numbly and stood up.

The two found an open place and started digging with their hands. Before long, they dug a three-foot-deep pit. They carried Qin Shouren's corpse into the pit, looked at it reluctantly for a while, and then buried it.

A small mound of earth just quietly overlooked the mountain below.

"Wait for me," Lu Li murmured and walked down the mountain with a lonely look.

Chen Zhong took a deep look at the mound and followed.

In the hazy night, the mound looked so lonely. The young man who had finally embarked on the path of cultivation didn't expect to sleep here forever.