Even though Di Jiu wanted to pull himself together, when he thought of Yan Man’s beautiful face and the three words of sorry when he left, he no longer had any fighting spirit.
Without Qu Xiaoshu, perhaps Di Jiu would have remained in this state of decadence.
After becoming a wanderer in Pearl City, Qu Xiaoshu was Di Jiu’s only friend. Qu Xiaoshu had martial arts roots, but he did not like to practice martial arts, so he and Di Jiu, who had no martial arts roots, wandered around Pearl City all day. Although Di Jiu did not intend to become a bully, in fact, no one dared to mess with Di Jiu in Mingzhu City. Generally speaking, as long as they saw Di Jiu and Qu Xiaoshu coming, people would just get out of the way as soon as they could.
It was not until one day, two years later, when the eighteen-year-old Di Jiu and Qu Xiaoshu were drunk in a restaurant, that he saw Zhen Man, who had returned to Mingzhu City to visit her relatives, and beside her was a handsome young man wearing white clothes and carrying a long sword.
At the age of eighteen, Zhen Man was even more beautiful than she had been two years ago. Standing in the middle of the streets of Mingzhu City, her floating posture made the whole city lose its colour because of her. From her eyes, which were devoid of external objects, Di Jiu knew that there had long been no trace of him in Zhen Man’s heart.
She and the white-clothed youth stood together as if they were a pair of jellyfish. All this made Di Jiu’s heart a little sour and blocked, even though he knew that he and Zhen Man would never come together again, now that he saw this scene, he realised that he had never let go.
“Oh, what’s the big deal …… Ah Jiu …… If you have martial roots, a hundred Zhen Man can’t keep up with your heels …… Come on, let’s drink ……”
The drunken Qu Xiaoshu half-squinted his eyes, and said with his tongue twitching after he had picked up another glass of wine and drained it.
Di Jiu did not drink, he thought of the purpose of his study of medicine. When he first studied medicine it was because he was worried that at the age of sixteen he would test without martial roots and that he would start with the medical path to find them. Why had he instead forgotten all about his initial determination after testing without martial roots?
Not only that, he had spent two years wandering around Pearl City with nothing to do. Although his father had not said anything about him, how could he not know the disappointment in his father’s heart?
Since this was the case, what had he studied medicine for four years in the first place? Xiao Shu was right, if he had martial roots, he, Di Jiu, would not necessarily be inferior to her, Zhen Man.
Looking at Zhen Man, who was gradually walking away, Di Jiu stood up, drained the wine inside his cup and raised his hand to smash the cup in his hand against the wall.
From today onwards, that amorous young man would never be seen again.
“What is it?” Qu Xiaoshu, who was in a daze, raised his head and asked, as for the fellow outside the hotel, even if Di Jiu had torn the room apart, he wouldn’t have dared to come in and talk nonsense.
Di Jiu took a deep breath, “Xiaoshu, I won’t come out to drink anymore from now on, I’m going to continue doing my own thing.”
Qu Xiaoshu had already snored and didn’t even hear Di Jiu’s words clearly.
……
Di Jiu was true to his word, he once again started among his endless medical research.
In Ji Guo, there was no one else who could be his teacher, which didn’t matter to Di Jiu.
Another three years passed, and in those three years, Di Jiu tried countless herbs and tested countless remedies. Although he had not found the means to open his martial roots in these three years, he had obtained three medicinal recipes to help martial artists cultivate.
Each of these prescriptions was enough to drive martial practitioners crazy, but Di Jiu did not take any of them out.
In the past few days, Di Jiu even went crazy digging for medicine in Ridge North Mountain because he had found a new recipe that might open the martial root, and the main herb of the new recipe was Hidden Earth Hemp.
A stone block? Di Jiu bent down and picked up the grey, unpleasant stone from the mud he had turned over.
He had obviously dug along the root of the Tibetan ground hemp, but instead of digging up the Tibetan ground hemp, he had ended up with a stone lump.
He was about to throw the stone away, but the cold sensation in his hand made Di Jiu feel that the stone did not seem to be quite the same as an ordinary stone.
Maybe it was an ice jade stone. How much was an ice jade stone worth, Di Jiu didn’t really care. Although everyone in the whole Pearl City knew that he was worthless, at least he was not short of money.
His father, Di Shirt, was a founding minister of the Kingdom of Ji and was a brother to the King of Ji, King Ming Yi. He had five brothers, four of whom died for the country and one died protecting the third prince. Two of his sisters had married into the Ming Yi royal family, so it could be said that in the entire Ji Kingdom, his Di family was already wealthy to the extreme.
With such a birth, how could he, Di Jiu, lack money?
“If it’s really an ice jade stone, it’s worth the day ……” Di Jiu smiled to himself and wiped the mud from the stone in his hand. He didn’t care about the money, but at least he didn’t get nothing this day.
Before Di Jiu could put the stone into his pocket, a terrible cracking sound rang out in the sky above him.
A light golden bolt of lightning struck down from the black crack and blasted directly at his head.
It was as if a bucket of ice water with electricity was poured over his head, Di Jiu’s whole body was cold and carried a numbing sensation.
Is it alright? Di Jiu raised his head, and the black crack in the distant sky was still there. He subconsciously looked at the grey and unpleasant stone in his hand, and then he was shocked to find that there was an additional thin light golden filament in the middle of the original grey and unpleasant stone.
Wasn’t this the same pale golden lightning bolt he had just seen? The shape was exactly the same, so how had it shrunk and landed in the middle of this stone? He clearly remembered that when he had just obtained the stone, there was no golden filament in the middle of this stone. No, there was also his own hand ……
A trace of black dirt seeped out from his wrists and arms, and then he felt a change all over his body that he couldn’t even tell himself, and his brain seemed to become clear all of a sudden. Di Jiu had always known that he was very clever, and he was sure that before this, his brain had definitely not been as clear as it was now.
This grey stone was definitely something good, and that thin light golden filament inside this stone was not simple either. It looked like the golden colour just fell not on him either, but on this stone block and was collected by the stone block.
At this moment, Di Jiu had no desire to continue digging for medicinal herbs, he could not wait to bring this grey stone back to his father to see what it was. At the same time, he also had to tell King Ming Yi about the appearance of a black crack here. He couldn’t contribute to the battlefield like his several brothers, and being able to report back about the appearance of a void crack here was a bit of a contribution to the country.
Once King Ming Yi asked him to make a request, what should he ask for that would be good? Yes, he should leave the Ji Kingdom and go to the Luyuan Empire as well.
“Ah Jiu, run away ……” Di Jiu was still in the middle of his fantasy when an anxious voice came to his ears.
“Xiao Shu, what’s going on? Why do you want to run away quickly?” Di Jiu looked at his friend Qu Xiaoshu, who was rushing over at a fast pace, in astonishment and uncertainty, and asked in total confusion. His father, Di Shirt, was a general under one person and above all others in the Ji Kingdom, what was the matter that required him to run away, Di Jiu?