Old Grandpa
Realising his screams only widen Sha Xiao’s smile, young Thieving Heaven bites down and goes quiet. Sha Xiao takes this for defiance and stomps the youth’s chest, fracturing his ribs into his heart and lungs and leaving him on the verge of death, yet still he makes no sound. He grits his teeth in silent, intense fury instead. Sha Xiao then uses a method that assaults him with itch, pain and numbness in turns, and young Thieving Heaven finally screams and thrashes on the ground, tearing at his own skin. Still he vows inwardly never to beg for mercy, even if it kills him. Unable to endure any longer, he tries to kill himself by smashing his head into the well wall, but Sha Xiao stops him, treats him until the heavy injuries are only light ones, and admits admiration for his backbone. ch. 1494
Sha Xiao then presses him about his family and the girl he loves, and young Thieving Heaven fixes again on living and finding a way out of this world to the parents and fiancee waiting in his original one. He demands to know what Sha Xiao wants from him. Sha Xiao praises his guts, then just as abruptly turns furious, smashing his nose with a kick and striking him with a method that rots his hands, face and body until his eyes corrode and he loses his sight. Sha Xiao warns that in a dozen or so breaths his whole body will rot down to the skeleton unless he kneels, calls him grandpa and obeys his orders. ch. 1494
Torn between his pride as Ben Jie Sun, a noble army general in his old life, and the loved ones he fears leaving to wait in vain, young Thieving Heaven kneels and calls Sha Xiao grandpa. Satisfied, Sha Xiao ends the torment. Young Thieving Heaven collapses unconscious from exhaustion, and Fang Yuan’s soul endures the dream realm’s corrosion again as darkness falls. This dream realm’s demand on a soul foundation is extremely high, and Fang Yuan’s ten million man soul falls all the way to million man soul level. ch. 1494
When the darkness clears, young Thieving Heaven is dragging his extremely weakened body across the desert, the terrible injuries Sha Xiao left him gone without trace, replaced by fresh cuts that look like the work of beast fangs and claws. Sha Xiao’s voice orders him to probe the clan on his return and warns him not to speak carelessly, since his rotting killer move still lies ready inside the youth’s body. Sha Xiao adds that he is sending a few desert wolves to make the show convincing and will give no help if the youth cannot escape them. Desert wolves then rush him. Fang Yuan regains control and finds only a sandpit Gu, a chimney smoke Gu and a clear water Gu in the aperture, with a little over ten percent of his green copper primeval essence. The cool wind Gu and everything else he gathered are gone, and he guesses Sha Xiao destroyed the evidence to keep the oasis and the well hidden. ch. 1494
He dodges the first wolf, traps a second in a sandpit Gu pit, and takes a shoulder wound rather than a fatal one from the silent third. Spending every drop of his primeval essence on chimney smoke Gu, he fills the air with dense smoke that blocks all three wolves’ eyes and noses long enough to pull ahead, only for them to break through and catch up. Clansmen suddenly arrive and kill all three wolves with an electric strike. Young Thieving Heaven faints from exhaustion, and Fang Yuan’s soul rises out of the dream realm on its own, since he has cleared the first stage of Thieving Heaven’s dream realm. His theft path attainment soars straight to grandmaster level, a huge harvest despite the great loss to his soul foundation. ch. 1494
