Seeking good fortune and avoiding misfortune: Starting with death row inmates

Training ground.

Shen Chen threw a punch at Zhuang Man opposite him. Zhuang Man raised his arm to block, and after a heavy thud, the two of them each took several steps back.

Zhuang Man felt the surging blood and qi within his body and couldn't help but exclaim, "That punch is powerful!"

After several rounds of fighting, Shen Chen lost to Zhuang Man by a single move.

The two were sparring purely in physical combat. Zhuang Man, who had been on the battlefield many times, was quite skilled in physical combat, while Shen Chen was still somewhat inferior to him.

"Brother Zhuang is impressive." Shen Chen nodded and clasped his hands in a fist salute to Zhuang Man.

Zhuang Man wiped the sweat from his forehead: "Shen Tou has improved far too fast. If it were another two or three months, I'm afraid I wouldn't even be a match for you in physical combat."

Zhuang Man spoke with admiration. Ever since his defeat to Shen Chen last time, he had been convinced of Shen Chen's superiority. In addition, his cousin Zhuang Fu had recently warned him to maintain a good relationship with Shen Chen, so he had no intention of challenging Shen Chen's position at all.

"How long until you reach the True Qi Realm?" Shen Chen asked Zhuang Man. In terms of realm, Zhuang Man was the strongest Visceral Realm cultivator he had ever encountered, without exception.

Zhuang Man smiled wryly: "If only it were that easy."

He said, "I have only sensed a wisp of energy so far. To cultivate true energy, three parts depend on hard work and seven parts on fate..."

Shen Chen nodded in deep agreement. Ever since he entered the Visceral Realm, his body's Qi and blood had been stagnant. Even with the help of the Luo Hou Mark to temper his Qi and blood, he could hardly see any significant progress.

The so-called "true qi" is always like a mirage, visible but intangible.

"Brother Qin's talent is truly outrageous." Shen Chen recalled Qin Pi's past experiences and was secretly shocked. At the age of seventeen, he was at the True Qi Realm. If it weren't for the unexpected events that happened back then, Qin Pi would have been the martial arts champion of the Great Yan Dynasty that year.

"Shen Tou."

At this moment, Zhao Qian and Wang Wu came over to greet Shen Chen, "Thanks to you, we have all entered the Internal Organs Realm. This is the money you lent us back then, and now we are repaying it double."

Shen Chen smiled and waved his hand: "I have plenty of money now. I'll ask you for more when I run out."

Knowing that Shen Chen had recently made a fortune from the salt trade, Zhao Qianwangwu immediately showered him with praise: "Master Shen is so generous! We've made the right choice in following him."

Zhang Xiaolong walked over with a notice in his hand: "Boss Shen, what do you think of this job?"

Shen Chen glanced at the notice: "Hunting black bears for the mountain stronghold."

He drew a fortune stick and nodded: "It's pretty good, much more reliable than last time."

When talking about what happened last time, Zhang Xiaolong's face darkened slightly: "I saw Liu Ming's wanted poster this morning. He has become a True Qi Martial Artist, and the price has risen to 20,000 coins."

Liu Ming was the bandit traitor that Zhang Xiaolong and Zhuang Man had jointly pursued last time. Shen Chen had deduced that Liu Ming was quite capable, but the two did not believe him and ended up failing.

Upon hearing this name, Zhuang Man's face darkened as he touched the scar left by Liu Ming: "I'll get my revenge on this traitor sooner or later."

Zhang Xiaolong looked at Shen Chen: "Boss Shen, if you reach the True Qi Realm, take me out of this job."

"Okay," Shen Chen readily agreed.

If he wanted to improve his status in the stronghold, he naturally needed to make contributions to the stronghold. Capturing a traitor like Liu Ming, who was at the True Qi Realm, would definitely be a significant achievement.

[Good fortune: You carefully gathered information about Liu Ming, devised a detailed plan, and successfully captured him. Auspicious!]

[Bad omen: Your operation to capture Liu Ming failed due to lack of preparation; ominous.]

Shen Chen stroked his chin: "Let me prepare first, and we'll go meet this Liu Ming another day."

"Yes." Everyone responded in unison, and no one questioned Shen Chen's words.

At night, Shen Chen, Qin Pi, and Wei Xiong got together for drinks. Ever since their salt business became successful, the three of them had to get together every night to calculate how much money they had made that day. Every time, Wei Xiong's eyes would light up like gold.

"We earned ten thousand this month, let's still split it three ways," Shen Chen said.

In fact, Shen Chen owned two of the four salt wells, and he was the one who took care of most of the business matters, so it was reasonable for him to take 50%. However, Shen Chen still only wanted one-third, which made Wei Xiong and Qin Pi admire him even more.

After the three of them drank for a while, Wei Xiong said, "Now I have recovered my principal and received my dividends. I am preparing to leave Dogtooth Mountain next month."

He was a man accustomed to wandering and traveling all over the country, so Shen Chen and Qin Pi were not surprised by the news: "Where is Brother Wei planning to go?"

"Let's go to Ningzhou and take a look," Wei Xiong said. "I plan to go there to sell some salt and iron."

With the northern barbarians invading from the south and war raging in Ningzhou, doing salt and iron business there would certainly not be a loss.

Shen Chen smiled and asked, "Are you doing business with the barbarians again?"

"Pah!" Wei Xiong spat. "I'd rather deal with wild boars than run into those savage dogs again, damn it."

He said, "I have an old acquaintance in the Northern Army of the Great Yan. This batch of salt and iron is being sold to the Great Yan army to defend against the barbarian dogs. The money earned is absolutely clean."

"Indeed." Shen Chen and Qin Pi both nodded. Although they, this group of "rebels," had no hope for the Great Yan Dynasty, they still hoped that the Yan Dynasty could win in the face of the Northern Barbarian invasion.

"I'll borrow some of the money from you two brothers to buy salt and iron, and then you can deduct it from the dividends from my salt wells," Wei Xiong said.

"Mm." Shen Chen and Qin Pi both nodded in agreement.

Then, Shen Chen recounted his predicament in cultivation: "I've hit a bottleneck in the internal organs realm, struggling to sense the Qi. Do you two brothers have any experience with this?"

Qin Pi thought for a moment and said, "Go kill someone. In my experience, killing someone is enough to break through to the True Qi Realm."

Shen Chen's lips twitched slightly, and he decisively turned his gaze to Wei Xiong: "I wonder how Brother Wei cultivated his true qi?"

Wei Xiong downed his glass of wine in one gulp. He squinted and asked slowly, "Have you noticed that no matter how much you refine your qi and blood, your physical strength isn't improving at all?"

"Not bad." Shen Chen nodded.

Wei Xiong said, "That's normal. I went through the same thing. I was stuck in the Visceral Realm for ten years and only managed to cultivate true qi at the age of twenty-six."

It took him ten years to advance to the True Qi Realm...

Shen Chen was secretly astonished. Was it really that difficult to enter the True Qi Realm?

Qin Pi: "I don't think it's difficult at all. I started learning martial arts at sixteen and reached the True Qi Realm at seventeen. Is that difficult?"

Wei Xiong suddenly spat out the wine in his mouth, glaring at Qin Pi with some resentment: "Shut the hell up!"

Shen Chen: "Brother Qin, your experience is of no use to me at all."

Qin Pi smiled and shut his mouth.

Brother Wei then slowly said to Shen Chen, "Actually, I think the key to cultivating true qi lies in your mental state."