Mo Qian left the alley where Sun Huang lived, said goodbye to Luo Fanglong at the entrance, and made his way back to Liulu at the bureau.He walked into the courtyard, locked the gate, went to the kitchen entrance, scooped half a bucket of cold water and poured it into his dry throat, then washed his face with cold water and walked to the main room door. He was about to unlock it when a clang came from the inner room, as though something had hit the floor.Is someone in there?Mo Qian's eyes sharpened instantly. He focused his mind and released his divine consciousness.Though the room was pitch black, under the cover of divine consciousness everything was visible.Mo Qian found the source of the problem immediately. In the corner of the inner room, the wooden basin he used to practice the Taizang Scripture was upside down on the ground, rocking left and right.Mo Qian focused his attention, and his divine consciousness penetrated the wooden basin.There was a little hedgehog trapped

The two came together in an instant, the crisp sound of crossing blades rising in rapid layers.Ximen Kankan was surprised. This was unlike the previous times, where Mo Qian could improve simply by thinking something through. This time, Mo Qian's swordsmanship had not improved slightly. It had jumped significantly.They had only been apart a few days. How was this possible?Ximen Kankan's competitive spirit rose. His swordsmanship grew fiercer and his eyes grew brighter and sharper.Mo Qian was equally shocked.Only now that he had reached the great success realm did he truly understand how terrifying and strange Ximen Kankan's Thunder Smoke Blade was. He had only been playing around before.With nowhere left to hold back, he showed his full ability.Using the great success realm Five Tigers and Sheep Knife combined with Xiao Zongting's three incomplete forms, Mo Qian found he could match Ximen Kankan to a draw.The two fought for nearly half an hour, blades flashing like moving water

Mo Qian touched his nose and looked at Ximen Kankan with private amusement. This person's range of entertainments is genuinely impressive."Are you coming?" Ximen Kankan said. "Weiyangfang is the largest and finest gambling house in Xiangu County."Mo Qian had been about to decline. He needed to get back to practice. But a thought struck him.He had achieved the second level of the Taizang Scripture and could release his divine consciousness.Was that not a tool that could be used in a gambling house?And he needed money. The registration fee for the Tai Yi Sect selection was sixty thousand taels.Painting for Ximen Kankan brought in some income, but every time he thought about trading those paintings for money, he felt a crawling sense of self-degradation that he could not quite shake.That feeling was unpleasant in a way that was hard to ignore.If a new source of income could be opened up at the gambling house, why not try?Before long, Ximen Kankan had brought Mo Qian to the entra

The muscles in Jiang Qingyu's face tightened. He looked at Mo Qian with a trace of helplessness.Ximen Kankan stood behind Jiang Qingyu and said quietly, "Qingyu, listen to Mo Qian."Before today he would have thought that was absurd. They had just walked in, had not even seen the cards, and Jiang Qingyu had already committed so much. Telling him to fold after all of that would sound like nonsense.But now he had complete faith in Mo Qian's read at the table.Jiang Qingyu turned his head and glanced at Ximen Kankan. He gambled regularly with Ximen Kankan and generally did not come out ahead. At the table, his trust in Ximen Kankan's judgment was real. And in truth, he had been feeling uneasy for a while. He had pressed on partly because things had seemed close enough to go either way.Having the two of them arrive and say the same thing helped some of his rationality return. The sunk cost was already heavy, but he could not make his decision based on what was already lost. He put down

The next day, just after dawn, Mo Qian got up and continued his stance practice in the courtyard.The key to cultivation is steady daily progress, never giving up.Mo Qian stood until the sky was fully light, then dispersed his energy. A solid white breath sprayed from his mouth and dissolved in the morning breeze.It was no longer the chill of early spring. It was late May, with the beginning of summer approaching. In such weather, Mo Qian was still producing white breath from his mouth, which spoke to how vigorously the blood and qi were moving through his body. The temperature of the air held in his lungs was considerably higher than his body temperature.His body, running on inner breath, was like a combustion furnace, and his lungs were like a boiler full of steam, absorbing the heat generated within.Mo Qian wiped his sweat and went to the large water tank at the kitchen entrance to wash his face.He looked up at the bright sky and felt a small stir of thought. He had not visite