Chapter 8

Wei Shizhe had a dream. In the dream, he returned to the past, hiding in the attic study, quietly reading books. Outside the window was a terrace, covered with wisteria and luffa vines, shielding the scorching sun, making everything look cool and refreshing. The wind blew through the gauze window, flipping the pages of the book, rustling. Reading book after book, time seemed to stand still at this moment, and only by immersing himself in others' worlds could he forget himself.

Then, he woke up and found himself still in someone else's world.

His body had completely recovered, the pain vanished without a trace. Wei Shizhe took off his tattered outer clothes, bared his upper body, and used a curved knife to examine his back. There were only some minor abrasions and superficial injuries, nothing serious.

Wei Shizhe calmed himself and carefully recalled, vaguely feeling that he had embarked on the right path of cultivation. For some reason, he could not directly absorb the moon's essence, but the bear's body, long refined by the moon's essence, was rich in primordial energy. Although the amount was not much, it was enough for him to take a crucial step.

Cultivating the method on the fragment of the beast skin was extremely exhausting. His stomach was empty, and waves of intense hunger came one after another. Wei Shizhe felt his eyes were almost turning green. Should he continue eating bear meat? He hesitated, the painful experience of last night still haunting him. He picked up the hunting spear and bow, planning to catch some mountain chickens or rabbits to satisfy his hunger. After taking a few steps, he turned back. If he missed this opportunity, the bear meat might be taken away by fierce beasts or rot before he finished it, and he would surely regret it bitterly.

Wei Shizhe cut branches and built a simple high rack, a common practice among hunters in the mountains. He chopped the bear meat into pieces, placed them on the rack, and covered them with branches to keep out the dust. After a while of busy work, his stomach growled even more. He poked at the smoldering ashes, reignited the campfire, and roasted and ate about five or six pieces of bear meat. With a sense of tragic determination and a masochistic pleasure, he relived the pain that made life unbearable.

After fifteen collisions, he heard a faint "click," like a heavenly sound, rescuing him from hell.

Day after day, he repeated the same training, and the pain gradually became a habit, tolerable. The changes in his body were very noticeable. Wei Shizhe felt stronger, his muscles and bones more resilient, and his appetite increased dramatically. He could devour over ten pounds of bear meat in one meal. The primordial energy in his body surged like a wild sea, and the number of collisions against the tree trunks increased, becoming more powerful. Even a tree trunk as thick as a bowl could not withstand his forceful collision.

The old bear was large, almost the size of two adult black bears. After removing the skin, bones, and internal organs, there were still three to five hundred pounds of meat. Despite Wei Shizhe's astonishing appetite, it took him more than half a month to eat half of the meat.

Finally, one day, a trickle of water turned into a river. After continuous collisions, the spirit platform acupoint on his back silently burst open, and the primordial energy surged in like a whirlpool, settling within him, becoming his own.

Wei Shizhe couldn't help but spread his arms and let out a long howl to the sky. The primordial energy overflowed from the spirit platform acupoint, refining his muscles, bones, and flesh, generating vibrant vitality. Using the tree trunk as a hammer and the primordial energy as a drill, he chiseled open the first acupoint in his body, feeling as if he had been reborn. This feeling was truly wonderful!

After waiting for the clouds to part and the moon to shine, Wei Shizhe decided to take a day off, walk around, look at the sky, the clouds, and the wind, and think about his thoughts. He wouldn't go too far; the remaining bear meat was his treasure. He decided to continue cultivating and quickly open the second acupoint.

He wanted to know what it would feel like if the two acupoints were connected.

Cultivation was addictive, but the greater the hope, the greater the disappointment. Wei Shizhe spent less than ten days finishing the remaining bear meat, but the second acupoint showed no signs of loosening. The only consolation was that the spirit platform acupoint could accommodate more primordial energy. As his muscles, bones, and flesh were continuously refined, he became leaner, stronger, and more solid.

The brain was in the skull, and the marrow was in the bones, but the bones were the most refined by the moon's essence. They could neither be split nor broken. If he used too much force, a fine cow horn curved knife would break into two pieces, leaving only a faint white mark on the bear bone. Wei Shizhe had to give up and bury the bear bone and skin in the soil, marking the spot for future use.

The mountain forest roared, and sunlight fell on his face. Wei Shizhe brushed off the dust, stretched his body, and set off for Black Pine Valley. His chest, abdomen, and limbs were full of strength, and he crossed the mountains as if they were flat ground. He quickened his pace, rushing into Black Pine Valley like a whirlwind, filled with anticipation.

He found the old bear's den, held his breath, and slowly walked in with a torch. It was a stone cave about ten feet deep, with the flickering firelight casting countless dancing shadows on the walls. Everywhere were the remains of bones left from meals, just like any ordinary bear den, nothing special. He kicked aside the scattered bones and searched inch by inch. In the deepest part of the cave, he found a set of incomplete human bones. A white, eerie skull, a spine broken into three pieces, a few arm and leg bones, carefully stored in a stone hollow.

Although he found nothing of value, the human bones gave him a hint—sometime in the past, the old bear had killed a human cultivator, drank its blood, and eaten its flesh, obtaining a fragment of beast skin. The bear had somehow started cultivating and became a spirit.

The beast skin clearly depicted a human form, and even a beast could cultivate it, but he could only eat bear meat. It was truly unjust!

His good luck seemed to have run out. Wei Shizhe searched one last time and backed out of the bear den. Away from the stench, he returned to the blue sky, deeply inhaling the fresh air, feeling it was a luxury.

He wandered alone in Black Pine Valley, like the old bear patrolling its territory. When night fell and the moon rose from the east, its clear light illuminated the forest. Wei Shizhe jumped onto a large green rock, looked up at the moon, and tried to swallow the moon's essence.

After a night of effort, his jaw almost dislocated, but nothing happened. This confirmed Wei Shizhe's suspicion: he belonged to the "vast majority of postnatal impurities" mentioned by Deng Shouyi, unable to directly absorb the essence of the sun and moon. The old bear, which had become his food, was truly a rare innate body.

To continue cultivating the method on the fragment of the beast skin, he could only rely on eating those spirit creatures. A thought suddenly flashed through his mind: "Eating a spirit bear can absorb primordial energy; if it were a cultivator..." Wei Shizhe shivered and shook his head, feeling that eating humans was too low.

As the east turned white again, a new day arrived. Wei Shizhe was somewhat concerned about the blue wolf. If it hadn't stolen the fragment of the beast skin, he wouldn't have come this far.

"Let's go see the old buddy, I wonder how it's doing with the tree collisions!" Wei Shizhe looked down at the dirt on his body, feeling itchy all over. He decided to find a pond and take a good bath before that.