Chapter 107: How Can the Flesh and Blood of Demons Be Eaten!

[Heavenly Dao rewards the diligent. Your Persistence and effort have brought you tangible progress.]

[In your daily morning punches, you feel the scorching heat of the sun.]

[In your daily dusk punches, you feel the alternation of the sun and the moon.]

[Ordinary fists evolve through repeated stances; your understanding of the Martial Dao and fist techniques has deepened.]

[Seven consecutive years of uninterrupted punching have caused the "Qi-Blood Long Fist" to undergo a transformation. Congratulations, you have comprehended the "Qi-Blood Overlord Fist."]

[Your fist techniques roar like the great sun.]

[Your Qi and blood are as overbearing as a furnace.]

[Having successfully advanced to the Blood Exchange Realm, your strength has seen an astonishing increase. From now on, you will have no fear of demons below the Innate realm.]

[The young girl saw you shatter a Blue Steel Stone with a single punch; her face went blank, stunned into silence.]

[She seemed to have misunderstood something, thinking you were hiding your true strength, even though you repeatedly explained it was just an ordinary punch.]

[The young girl's attitude toward you has changed.]

[She earnestly and sincerely asked how you could achieve such astonishing punches without the prerequisite of profound Martial Skills or supreme Cultivation Techniques.]

[The young girl no longer calls you "the one named Xu," but instead addresses you as Mr. Xu.]

[The accomplished are teachers. You are already older than the sixteen-year-old Wu Yingxue, and your Martial Dao skills are far beyond her comprehension; therefore, Wu Yingxue directly asked you for guidance in the Martial Dao.]

[You felt slightly awkward; all your strength came from your own Persistence, and you didn't know how to teach that.]

[Wu Yingxue handed over a bottle of true qi pills.]

[The effect of the Medicinal Pill is to significantly increase the success rate for a Blood Exchange Realm Martial Artist to reverse from the Acquired to the Innate realm.]

[Suddenly, you felt that you were quite fond of playing the teacher.]

[You began to teach and guide Wu Yingxue based on your own experience, not for any other reason but because of your kindness.]

The days of recuperation passed slowly.

As the saying goes, it takes a hundred days to recover from a broken bone or torn tendon.

To ensure her strength returned to its peak so she could return to the capital in her best state to investigate the truth behind her attack, Wu Yingxue remained hidden in Xu Xi's home to rest.

Mountains overlapped, and forests cast deep shadows.

Located on the border of Great Qian, Qingniu Town offered a clear view of the majestic ridges of the Hundred Thousand Mountains, which loomed like a heavy shadow, making it hard to breathe.

For Wu Yingxue, who had grown up in the Imperial Capital…

…such scenery was novel, yet also chilling.

The Hundred Thousand Mountains.

Also known as the Hundred Thousand Demon Caves.

Within them resided tens of thousands of different types of demons—truly existing, supremely evil beings that chewed on human bones and drank human blood.

Previously, Wu Yingxue had only read about them in storybooks, but now, seeing the Hundred Thousand Mountains with her own eyes, she realized that demons were infinitely more terrifying than in the stories.

Furthermore, life on the border of Great Qian was harder than imagined.

If she hadn't been attacked and then wanted by the government, the young girl would likely have returned to the capital long ago, unwilling to endure this grueling life.

"Sir…"

"Are we eating this again today…?"

Qingniu Town.

Warm sunlight spilled across the land, quiet and silent.

Wu Yingxue's words were like a stone thrown into a lake, breaking the summer silence and sounding incredibly troubled.

An uneven wooden dining table.

On it sat two bowls of rice paste and a bowl of seemingly enticing meat.

However, the young girl's gaze toward the rice paste was merely one of disdain.

Her gaze toward the meat, however, had completely turned into terror and shrinking back; had Xu Xi not been sitting opposite her, she might have flipped the table.

It was difficult!

"How can the flesh and blood of demons be eaten!"

"Of course it can."

Xu Xi replied flatly.

Wu Yingxue didn't believe him; she had experienced it once in the previous days, and the texture was beyond words.

But Xu Xi's performance of chewing the meat in large gulps made the girl doubt her own judgment.

Perhaps it really was delicious?

Perhaps last time was an accident?

Should she try again?

The sixteen-year-old girl wavered; her stomach was growling, and she couldn't help but pick up a piece of braised demon meat with her chopsticks, tossing it into her mouth to tentatively chew.

So sour!

So hard!

"Pah, pah, pah!" Wu Yingxue spat it out with a bitter face.

She couldn't imagine how Xu Xi managed to swallow the demon meat so calmly without his expression changing.

Or how the other people in Qingniu Town would look so incredibly happy after receiving demon flesh gifted by Xu Xi.

"Sir, why don't you and the others in town eat better?"

"From what I know, Great Qian has had favorable weather in recent years; life shouldn't be this frugal."

Facing the girl's confusion…

…Xu Xi unhurriedly swallowed the black, unknown substance in his mouth.

When his eyelids opened, they revealed clear eyes.

"There's no particular reason, and it's not as complicated as you think. It's simply that we can't afford to eat anything else."

"Qingniu Town is located at the border between the Hundred Thousand Mountains and Great Qian."

"Nominally, Qingniu Town is a part of Great Qian, but it's too dangerous here; no merchant caravans are willing to come."

"And the Demon Tides every spring and winter further devastate the town's crops and livestock. In the end, it becomes what you see now."

Was demon meat unpalatable?

Indeed.

Xu Xi didn't deny it.

The flesh and blood of most demons are either toxic or carry Devilish Qi; the few that are edible are also hard to swallow.

But it was precisely these few types of demon meat that allowed countless border towns like Qingniu Town to continue surviving on the harsh frontier.

Wu Yingxue was stunned for a long time.

Sixteen years old, having grown up in the Imperial Capital…

…she couldn't understand why such suffering existed.

She asked once more, "Since life here is so hard, why doesn't everyone… move to a safer county?"

"You don't know?" Xu Xi glanced at the heroic and free-spirited yet naive young girl.

At this moment, Wu Yingxue had already reclaimed her spear.

The spear tip was sharp, the shaft held a hidden luster, and paired with her red-and-white robes and light armor, she looked so spirited and handsome, yet so detached from the mundane world.

"Then again, you probably haven't encountered this before."

Xu Xi paused, then uttered a shocking statement the girl had never heard.

"The reason is simple: the Imperial Court does not allow it."

"Regarding household registration and the common people, Great Qian has a set of very strict rules."

"Especially towns like Qingniu Town that border the Hundred Thousand Mountains; they belong to the category where changing one's registration is absolutely forbidden."

"Violators commit a serious crime."

The flat words brought a powerful shock.

Wu Yingxue's pupils contracted, and her whole being trembled violently because of this: "This… isn't this just forcing the people here to…"

The young girl didn't say that cruel word.

That word was too terrifying.

So terrifying that the girl did not dare to speak it directly.

This formed an extremely distorted conflict with the common knowledge she had known since childhood—that the Human Race lived in extreme stability and happiness under the protection of Great Qian.

Holding onto a final, inexplicable hope, she asked:

"Has the Imperial Court not sent anyone to take care of things?"

Xu Xi replied calmly, "They have. Every year, they send people to collect taxes."