Martial Arts: Starting from a Seemingly Real System

Qiao Rui's seemingly calm smile made Tian Jing feel distressed. She hurriedly held Qiao Rui's hand that was about to retract and explained, "The Sky Guards naturally have a way, but the price is too high. Lord Hong said that you are not qualified yet. Their rules are strict and cannot be crossed. Even the Resurrection Soup you drank these days was given to you by someone else in private. It does not count as something from the Sky Guards."

"Resurrection Soup? What effect does it have?" Qiao Rui thought of the red medicinal juice that looked like Tian Jing's cherry lips. He licked his lips unconsciously, wondering if it was sent by Chen Lao to Hong Gang. He should thank him someday.

Tian Jing saw Qiao Rui licking his lips and her face turned red again. She continued, "There are twelve doses of the Rejuvenating Soup. You have already drunk seven doses. When you finish all of them, you will be able to return to normal and even recover all your martial arts skills!"

Qiao Rui raised his eyebrows but said nothing, knowing that things were not that simple.

As expected, Tian Jing continued sadly, "This medicine only treats the symptoms, not the root cause. Once you use martial arts in the future, your meridians will be severely damaged again. Although it won't kill you, you will be even less than half of an ordinary person. If you dare to use your internal energy again, you will die immediately and become a living dead!"

"That is to say, at the critical moment, I can use my martial arts to save my life once, and then I can survive if I don't use martial arts again in the future?" Qiao Rui analyzed with a frown.

The words "lingering on" that Qiao Rui accidentally said made Tian Jing's heart tremble. She held Qiao Rui's hand tightly and said hurriedly: "It's not like that, Brother Qiao, Lord Hong said that if you are willing to be ordinary, run the inn well in this city, and be a rich and idle person, he will take care of you. If you don't want to..."

"What if I don't want to?" Qiao Rui's eyes lit up with anticipation.

"There is a Medicine King Valley in northern Sichuan. The valley owner, Shuang Jue, is an unrivaled medical practitioner, but he has a strange personality and kills and saves people based on his likes and dislikes. In addition, the journey is thousands of miles away, with high mountains and long roads. The martial arts world is in turmoil right now, so I'm afraid it will be very dangerous..."

“I’m going to try!”

Before Tian Jing could finish, Qiao Rui responded immediately, "If you have never lost something, you will not know how important it is to you. This is true for everything in the world, such as martial arts, Jiang Xueyun, and... Liu Xinyue!"

Tian Jing nodded. She also guessed that Qiao Rui would probably choose this path, and said with a smile: "Okay, I'll go with you in a few days when you feel better!"

"What are you going to do? What about the inns? By the way, has Lu Batian admitted that he lost the gambling battle to my three inns?" Qiao Rui had a goal and his mind became active.

Tian Jing knew that Qiao Rui didn't want her to take risks with him, and she was touched. She didn't argue and smiled lightly, "The inn has been handed over, and we have hired a shopkeeper from the pawnshop, but the waiters are bought. I plan to train some people ourselves, so that they are loyal and reliable, and we can rest assured that they can do the work!" After a pause, she continued, "Anyway, everything about the inn has been arranged, so you don't have to worry about it. Take good care of your injuries, and then we will go west together!"

"You'd better not go..."

Tian Jing didn't wait for Qiao Rui to finish his words and suddenly interrupted him forcefully, saying, "Brother Qiao, don't look down on me. I'm also very good at martial arts. This time, let me protect you!"

She pretended to be angry and glared at Qiao Rui with a coquettish look, but she was a beauty with deep feelings, and there was no anger on her pretty face. Instead, there was a look of coquettishness.

Qiao Rui sighed in his heart. How could he bear the great kindness of his beloved?

A few days later, Qiao Rui got out of bed and walked. Except for his pale face, he looked no different from ordinary people. He had nothing to do, so he went to Changyun Coach Company to thank Lao Chen.

That day, he put the Qingtianwei token in a brocade bag and gave it to his clerk Xiaoliu, asking him to go to Changyun Coach and Horse Company to find the owner Lao Chen for help. Unexpectedly, Lao Chen directly asked Hong Gang to rescue him, and later gave him the revival soup. This kind of kindness was no different from saving his life.

After hearing Qiao Rui's thanks, Old Chen accepted it calmly. However, when it came to the Rejuvenating Soup, he waved his hands and denied it, saying that it was not his doing. This surprised Qiao Rui. Who else but Old Chen could give him such a precious life-saving medicine and also know Hong Gang?

Old Chen just smiled and said he didn't know, and Qiao Rui was also helpless.

After saying goodbye to Old Chen, Qiao Rui ran to the Qingtianwei Longxingcheng Office to find Hong Gang to thank him for saving his life.

Hong Gang said casually that you're welcome, and added that he was busy with official duties that day and the rescue was a little late, so he asked him to forgive him.

Qiao Rui said he dared not and would never forget the life-saving grace. Then he asked who gave the medicine. Hong Gang looked rough on the surface, but was actually smart and capable. When he heard Qiao Rui talking about the resurrection soup, he avoided the question. Finally, he could not refuse anymore, so he said, "Go ask her yourself later," and drove Qiao Rui out on the grounds that he was busy with work.

I don't know who it is, who can I ask? Qiao Rui smiled bitterly, but he was even more puzzled. Who helped him but didn't want to tell him? Mysterious......

Qiao Rui found Chen Nian who had just left the government office. As usual, he thanked him and asked him about the Resurrection Soup. Chen Nian was clueless about anything.

He didn't even know that Hong Gang had given him the Resurrection Soup afterwards. He only said that he had taken people to the western suburbs of the city to investigate a missing child case that day. He happened to pass by and saw that Qiao Rui seemed to be defeated, so he stepped forward, hoping that his identity as a public official would make the other party hesitate.

Who knew that the other party would not buy it at all. Fortunately, Lord Hong arrived in time. Later, he carried Qiao Rui to the inn and hurried to deal with the case. He didn't know that Qiao Rui was infected with the Yin Sha Zhang corpse poison. He thought it was just an ordinary internal injury. Anyway, since Lord Hong was here, everything would be fine.

Seeing that Chen Nian knew nothing, Qiao Rui did not tell him about his situation in order to avoid him worrying. He sincerely thanked Chen Nian for his altruism, which made Chen Nian laugh and scold him for not considering him as a brother. The two joked a few more times, and then Qiao Rui said goodbye and left.

If he couldn't find the answer he wanted, then he wouldn't look for it anymore. Since the man didn't want to tell him, it must be because the time was not right. Qiao Rui returned to the inn and began to prepare for the journey to the west.

Tian Jing insisted on accompanying Qiao Rui to Yaowang Valley. Once you enter the world of martial arts, strength is the most important thing. Qiao Rui couldn't refuse, so he had to find a way to improve her strength.

Tian Jing also had the top third-rate level, and the martial arts she learned were a set of low-level common swordsmanship and a set of high-level "Yue Girl Sword" that she had acquired by chance.

This "Sword of the Yue Girl" was passed down by the Yue girl Ah Qing in the past. Although many sword moves are missing and it has fallen from the category of peerless martial arts to the category of advanced martial arts, it is still much better than the "Sword of the Yue Girl" of Han Xiaoying, one of the Seven Heroes of Jiangnan, which is severely incomplete and only reaches the category of intermediate martial arts.

However, the internal skills that Tian Jing learned were ordinary, which were the Hengshan basic skills. When she exchanged them, she didn't have many exchange points. In order to quickly improve her strength and protect herself, she used all the exchange points to increase her internal strength. The extra points were used to barely improve her aptitude.

Qiao Rui taught Tian Jing the "Emei Nine Yang Gong" that he had discovered by chance, and bought some tranquilizing pills from Lao Chen for her to use in practicing neutral internal energy, to help her quickly improve her internal strength so that she could reach the second-rate level as soon as possible.

The healing medicines "Da Huan Dan" and "Tian Wang Bao Ming Dan" that he had exchanged for in the "Treasure Pavilion" had already been used up, so he bought some of the best elixirs for treating internal injuries and medicines for external injuries that he could buy within his authority.

Although he also has "Nine-Turn Bear Snake Pills" and "Black Jade Fracture Ointment" as external injury medicines, he can't just use these top-level external injury holy medicines for ordinary sword wounds.

There were still a few detoxification pills left, so there was no need to prepare any more. Qiao Rui also bought Tian Jing a precious sword made of fine steel, the Autumn Water Sword. Finally, he was penniless again.

Looking at the last balance on hand, Qiao Rui sighed secretly: "Money is never enough!"

The three inns had to hire managers and waiters, and also prepare funds to maintain daily operations, and had long spent all the profits of Yunlai Inn and the winery.

After Qiao Rui woke up, he used the money he had on hand to subsidize the renovation of the three inns. For example, he changed all the inn signs to Yunlai Inn, and only marked the East City, South City, and North City branches in the bottom corners. The one on Zhoushan Road was naturally the head office.

Now he went on a shopping spree at Old Chen's place and finally spent all his savings. Apart from four inns and a house, he only had one hundred taels of silver left, which he left as travel expenses. Otherwise, he would have spent it all.

Money, it's always so damn hard to spend...