Chapter 9: A New Way to Solve Problems

What’s going on?

How could that count as “perfect”?

Listening to the system happily celebrating, Chu Li couldn’t help but feel speechless.

He already knew the system was basically giving him a free ride, but he didn’t expect it to go this far.

If he remembered correctly, weren’t there supposed to be three pig demons at Baiyang Dian?

How did killing just one suddenly complete the quest?

And even that one only got taken down because it was distracted—otherwise, even with Chu Li’s Exorcising Sword Technique reaching the “Minor Achievement” level, it wouldn’t have been so easy to take it out in one strike.

And that still got rated “perfect”?

A huge question mark practically appeared in Chu Li’s eyes—but clearly, the system had no such doubts; it only wanted to speed up the ride.

【Hold on tight, I’m about to step on the gas!】

“Huh?”

Before Chu Li could ask anything, a series of system prompts rang out:

【Congratulations to the host for completing the quest】

【Your cultivation realm has increased】

【You have reached Late Stage Houtian Realm!】

As the prompts fell, Chu Li suddenly felt a wave of heat wash over his body, like countless fireballs roasting him from the inside out.

Every single pore on his body felt like a vortex at that moment, madly absorbing all the surrounding spiritual energy of heaven and earth and sending it surging into his body.

This was a sign that his skin tempering had reached its peak at the Early Stage of the Houtian Realm.

For ordinary Houtian Realm martial artists, their skin might open up a little over a hundred such energy vortices—but for those who perfected skin tempering, every patch of skin could breathe and circulate energy, dramatically boosting the nourishment of the body.

But clearly, this was not the end.

As massive amounts of spiritual energy poured in, Chu Li’s originally thin and frail flesh began to swell, like a sponge desperately soaking up nutrients, forcing open and refining his meridians.

Impurities in his blood vessels and bloodstream were expelled; muscle fibers kept condensing and tightening, old injuries healed, and his body’s toughness steadily climbed.

The initially swollen muscles that had stretched his clothes eventually contracted back to their former size through repeated cycles of tightening—but by then, they had undergone a fundamental transformation.

If one looked inside, Chu Li’s muscles were no longer the dull red of before; instead, they shone brilliantly like glazed glass, brimming with the power of inner energy—yet on the outside, his skin appeared even fairer and smoother than before.

This transformation kept spreading inside Chu Li’s body until it finally slowed and stopped at his bones.

“So this is the Late Stage of the Houtian Realm?”

“After tempering my muscles, my strength is more than twice what it was before!”

Feeling the changes within his body, Chu Li couldn’t help but be amazed. Just then, several figures emerged from the inn not far away.

“Young Miss! The pig demon inside is dead. Are you all right?”

“Wait—who are you!?”

These people… were they the human martial artists who came to slay the demons?

Turning his head to look at the group of Qi-Gathering Realm martial artists who had clearly just been through a fierce battle, Chu Li finally understood why the system had marked the quest as complete.

The other two pig demons had probably already been killed by them.

But as fellow demon slayers, these people might not necessarily be allies—they could very well be enemies instead.

Turning to the side, Chu Li finally got a good look at the female martial artist who had caught the pig demon’s attention earlier. In the next instant, he couldn’t help but be slightly stunned.

Standing by the roadside was a beautiful young woman in martial attire, staring at him with bright, clear eyes.

Bathed in the cold moonlight, her face looked a bit pale, and there was still blood at the corner of her mouth. Yet this disheveled appearance didn’t diminish her beauty; instead, it lent her an air of unyielding determination.

“What a lovely girl… such stunning beauty is on par with even a few of my older sisters.”

“But… why is she looking at me like that?”

Sensing the faint hostility in Nangong Shi’s gaze, Chu Li was completely puzzled—but he soon got his answer.

“A member of the Chu family?”

“Hmm?”

“You don’t have to say it—I can tell. Although your swordsmanship is impressive, I still recognize the Chu family’s Exorcising Sword Technique.”

Saying this, Nangong Shi forced herself to step forward, a rare hint of anger appearing on her pretty face.

“The Chu family’s methods are truly something… first spreading the rumor that a Chu family young master would soon enter Shengwu Academy.”

“Then using the demons in this inn as bait to lure me into a trap, and finally sending someone to ‘rescue’ me.”

“With such meticulous scheming… what exactly are you trying to achieve?”

Hearing the young woman say all this, Chu Li’s mind was full of question marks.

But before he could argue back, he was silenced by Nangong Shi’s next words.

“Could it be just because I, Nangong Shi, refused to marry into the Chu family? Refused to marry that Chu Li of the Chu family?”

“???”

Glaring at the mysterious figure before her, wearing a bamboo hat, Nangong Shi’s heart was filled with anger.

What happened today was undoubtedly a trap, and among all the major powers in the Imperial Capital, the most suspicious was, without question, the Chu family.

As the Martial God clan of Great Xia, the Chu family had held high positions for generations: the clan heads always served as senior members of the Martial God Hall, helping to oversee the nation’s martial artists. Their power and influence were immense.

But there was one place where their reach could not extend: the Demon-Slaying Division.

The Nangong family, which stood behind the Demon-Slaying Division, had always had tense relations with the Chu family. It wasn’t until more than a decade ago, when the Chu family proposed a marriage alliance between the two clans’ current generation, that relations began to ease.

Yet no one could have foreseen that while the idea itself seemed good, its execution ran into a major problem.

That problem was Nangong Shi’s fierce refusal.

As the eldest daughter of a great clan, Nangong Shi had long resigned herself to a political marriage, though unwillingly. But marrying Chu Li was absolutely out of the question.

Why? Because of what she had discovered in her private investigation: although Chu Li was indeed a member of the Chu family, he was rejected and isolated, utterly out of favor.

In fact, even his name was barely mentioned in the household. Newly hired servants didn’t even know there was such a young master—they only knew of Chu Ming, the adopted son.

For someone to be treated with such disdain by his own father and older sister, Nangong Shi believed his character must be truly vile.

It was exactly because of this that she resolutely refused to marry Chu Li, even threatening to take her own life, which ultimately forced a halt to the marriage negotiations between the two clans.

Then, upon hearing that the Chu family’s young master would soon enter the Academy, she worked desperately to earn more points, determined not to fall below Chu Li in ranking, so her family wouldn’t bring up the marriage again.

But she never imagined this was actually a trap.

Facing the mysterious man before her, Nangong Shi’s heart burned with unwillingness. Meanwhile, Chu Li finally understood what was going on.

“So that’s how it is—she’s the intended bride in the marriage alliance, Nangong Shi of the Nangong family.”

In Legend of Martial Dao, Chu Li was the protagonist, but there were also several heroines, and Nangong Shi was one of them.

According to the original storyline, Chu Li shouldn’t have been wandering the world like this; instead, he should have soon entered Great Xia’s Shengwu Academy to study.

At that time, he would have encountered many rivals, one of whom was the Nangong clan’s pride and his nominal fiancée, Nangong Shi.

In the original plot, Nangong Shi represented the hardline faction of her family, advocating competition rather than cooperation with the Chu clan. After Chu Li entered the Academy, they fiercely competed over the Tianjiao Ranking.

During this period, the demon clan also got involved, hoping to use the chaos to eliminate Nangong Shi, thereby weakening the Nangong family and its control of the Demon-Slaying Division.

But unfortunately for them, this conspiracy was discovered by Chu Li.

After many twists and turns, the two eventually reconciled and joined forces against their enemies. And during their battles together, Chu Li helped Nangong Shi overcome the knot in her heart, and she finally fell in love with him.

Of course, all of that was what happened in the novel; in reality, everything had changed drastically ever since Chu Ming appeared.

Now, far from entering Shengwu Academy, Chu Li had even severed ties with the Chu family.

Yet unexpectedly, by a twist of fate, he had ended up running into this heroine.

“Saving her life isn’t really a problem… but the issue is… how am I supposed to explain myself?”

“At this point, she should still harbor a lot of hostility toward the Chu family.”

Looking at the guarded look in Nangong Shi’s eyes, Chu Li sighed softly, suddenly realizing how complicated the situation had become.

Still, it wasn’t as though there was no solution.

“I’m also about to reach my limit anyway… Fine, let’s do it this way.”

With this thought, Chu Li turned to face Nangong Shi.

“I…”

Before he could finish, under the young woman’s anxious gaze, his vision went black and he collapsed to the ground.

I’m logging off first—goodbye!

“Huh?!”

The next second, Nangong Shi’s startled cry rang out, but Chu Li couldn’t care about that anymore.

He closed his eyes and drifted into sweet, deep sleep.