Chapter 73: Chapter 72: Five Aggregates Profound Slaughter Technique
The night was black as ink, the cold dew turning to frost.
Fu Juemin silently opened the door and entered. He moved quickly to the window and, by the moonlight, peered down below. He saw Li Tong, who had followed him back, now strolling onto the back lawn, chatting with two guards on the late-night patrol as they walked.
His eyes flickered as he retreated to the center of the room, where he casually sat cross-legged on the floor.
Recalling his conversation with Li Tong earlier that night, Fu Juemin still felt as if he were in a daze, like it had all been a dream.
He gazed at the dense, dancing shadows of the phoenix trees outside his window. Slowly, he reached into his robes and pulled out a piece of cloth covered in minuscule, fly-speck characters.
By the moonlight, he looked down at the characters on the cloth scrap. It was a strange prescription. At first, the ingredients seemed normal enough—a list of common herbs and roots. But the further he read, the more sinister and bizarre it became.
His eyes narrowed, especially when his gaze fell upon phrases like "take one live snake, one live scorpion, one live spider..."
"The... *Five Aggregates... Profound Slaughter Technique*."
Fu Juemin murmured, his expression a mixture of excitement and apprehension.
Just as Li Tong had said, this particular Qimen Martial Art—one that supposedly granted a Blood Refining Realm practitioner the power to shatter a Tongxuan Qi Membrane—was, without a doubt, an Evil Technique. A Demon Technique.
The *Five Aggregates Profound Slaughter Technique*. ’The Five Aggregates were also the Five Poisonous Creatures, the Five Evils, the Five Perils, the Five Calamities, the Five Sicknesses...’
To cultivate it, one had to draw the malignant essence of the Five Poisonous Creatures into the body, tempering one’s sinews and forging one’s meridians. This process would form a current of Poisonous Killing Qi within, similar to the Vitality wielded by Martial Artists of the Tongxuan Realm. This Qi had the power to corrode and penetrate a Tongxuan Qi Membrane.
According to Li Tong, an ordinary person attempting to cultivate the *Five Aggregates Profound Slaughter Technique* would need a corresponding Healing and Nourishing Holy Medicine during every session to protect their heart meridian. This was to prevent the Poison Force from attacking the heart and causing instant, violent death.
Furthermore, after every period of training, they would have to cease their practice for three months to expel the residual poison using medicinal soups, massages, acupuncture, and other methods.
Only by proceeding with such caution, step by careful step, was there any hope of mastering it.
Yet even then, if one cultivated this technique to an advanced level, they could not escape their teeth rotting and falling out, their flesh festering with sores, their internal organs being consumed by ulcers... all leading to the inevitable end: death by a hundred poisons overwhelming the body.
To put it bluntly, this was a purely masochistic and suicidal Cultivation Technique!
To practice it was to die. Throughout history, there had been no exceptions.
Unless...
’Unless one has already mastered the *Pharmacist Buddha’s Glazed Body*!’
Fu Juemin’s eyes glinted as he meticulously replayed every word, every sentence Li Tong had spoken to him.
According to Li Tong, while the four great Iron Body Strange Skills of the former dynasty’s Martial Arts world all shared the "Iron Body" moniker, each had a different focus in practice. The core focus of the *Pharmacist Buddha’s Glazed Body* was nourishing and purifying the body—the Purification Body.
A Martial Artist who cultivated the Pharmacist Skill was naturally gifted with the ability to dispel miasmas and neutralize poisons. At the level of Great Success Pharmacist Skill, one was said to be impervious to all poisons and immune to all evils.
This made it the perfect, supreme constitution for cultivating the *Five Aggregates Profound Slaughter Technique*.
Hence the saying: "A Pharmacist is the Master of Five Beasts and has Immunity to Five Poisonous Creatures."
’According to Li Tong, with my current progress in the Pharmacist Skill, if I’m only trying to cultivate a current of Poisonous Killing Qi to break through the Tongxuan Qi Membrane, I wouldn’t even need supplementary medicinal stones or detoxification methods. My body would naturally expel the residual poisons on its own...’
Fu Juemin sat on the floor, deep in thought.
’Should I practice this Poison Technique, or not?’
Truth be told, he was tempted.
A large part of his temptation was how beautifully Li Tong had painted the prospects of practicing the *Five Aggregates Profound Slaughter Technique*. Although Li Tong never explicitly stated what effects the technique would have at the level of Great Success, the casual way he listed its horrifying side effects spoke volumes. Fu Juemin could sense that this Evil Technique was likely a top-tier one.
Otherwise, why would so many people, knowing it meant certain death, still throw themselves into practicing it one after another, heedless of the consequences?
Fu Juemin wasn’t actually opposed to practicing an Evil Technique or Demon Technique. His main concern was whether Li Tong was telling the truth.
Li Tong’s identity remained a mystery.
Tonight had been something of a ’truth session’ for the two of them, but neither had been completely honest.
Fu Juemin hadn’t mentioned the so-called "Elder Ji" to Li Tong by the end of their talk. He figured Li Tong probably wouldn’t have said anything anyway, and it might have created a new rift between them.
’The death of this body’s previous owner must be connected to Li Tong, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he was the one who did it...’
The logic was simple. Li Tong had always been indifferent toward him, but with his level of skill, there were a thousand ways he could have killed him. Why would he bother hiring a group of people to put a bullet in his heart?
That was true then, and it was true now.
If Li Tong truly wished him harm, given the power he’d shown by taking Fu Juemin’s full-force saber strike without a scratch, he could have just killed him with a casual slap. Why go to all the trouble of tricking him into practicing some Evil Technique?
’The *Pharmacist Master Purifying Light Saber* encompasses both the orthodox and the unorthodox; it is righteous and majestic, yet also unpredictable and strange. By that logic, the idea of pairing the Pharmacist Skill with the Five Poisonous Creatures and the Five Beasts does make a certain kind of sense.’
The "Five Poisonous Creatures" referred to the *Five Aggregates Profound Slaughter Technique*. As for the "Five Beasts", Li Tong had mentioned it briefly. It was the signature art of the former dynasty’s Five Beasts Sect. Since the dynasty’s fall, the Sect’s teachings had been fragmented and scattered. Finding them wouldn’t be impossible, but it would require some effort.
’Worst case, I’ll just start learning it. If anything seems wrong, I can stop and Disperse the Technique at any time...’
As Fu Juemin pondered, the roosters crowed for the third time, and dawn broke in the east.
He rose from the cold floor and slowly walked to the window.
Gazing out at the dawn light as the world began to stir, he made his decision.
Ever since reaching the Blood Refining realm, Fu Juemin’s stamina had far surpassed that of an ordinary person, and it was even greater now.
He hadn’t slept all night but felt no fatigue. He went downstairs for breakfast and gave orders for the ingredients on Li Tong’s prescription to be gathered as quickly as possible.
For the Entry Level tempering formula of the *Five Aggregates Profound Slaughter Technique*, the other ingredients were easy enough to acquire. Only the few types of live poisonous creatures would take some effort to collect.
After breakfast, Fu Juemin changed his clothes and had his butler, Uncle Chen, prepare a carriage before heading out.
......
「Luan River Bank.」
Fu Juemin stood on the bank, squinting as he gazed at the distant river.
The early morning river wind blew against his face, carrying the chill of late autumn turning to winter and the thick, briny scent of the water.
A light mist shrouded the river, and the sunlight scattered across its surface, casting a vast, golden-red reflection.
In the distance, fishing boats that had been out all night were returning to port. Closer by, a group of women with wooden basins washed clothes and cleaned vegetables at the water’s edge. The constant THWACK of their laundry mallets reached Fu Juemin’s ears.
’How can I lure Song Lin away from the shore and onto a boat? As long as he’s on the water, killing him will be much, much simpler,’ Fu Juemin mused.
Luring out the water monkey hidden at the bottom of the river was, ironically, the easiest part of the plan for Fu Juemin.
He just needed to release a slight pulse of his own aura, one belonging to a Demon Species. If all went as expected, the water monkey would be drawn to it like a shark to blood.
His trip to the docks a few days ago had confirmed as much. He had merely activated [Yao Ling] to probe the area, and the ’hibernating’ water monkey at the bottom of the river had immediately stirred from its slumber.
Fu Juemin wanted to kill with a borrowed knife, breaking the Fu Family’s current stalemate. There were two main difficulties before him: first, how to lure his target into the trap, and second, how to escape safely after using himself as bait.
As he was lost in thought, a man hurried over to him and reported in a low voice.
"Young Master, someone is looking for you."
The man was Steward Liu, who managed the Fu Family’s business at the docks. He was the same person who had told Fu Juemin about the Water Demon during his first visit.
"Bring him here," Fu Juemin ordered, his eyes flickering.
A short while later, Steward Liu returned with another man.
Fu Juemin looked and was surprised to see it was Qian Fei, whom he hadn’t seen in a long time.
Qian Fei hadn’t visited the Fu Family for over half a month, ever since he returned to the Civil Affairs Bureau. Seeing him now, Fu Juemin noticed he looked completely dejected. His clothes were wrinkled and smelled sour, and his hair was so greasy and matted it looked like he hadn’t bathed in weeks.
He was a shadow of his former self—the cheerful, high-spirited man who had always been by his side.
The moment Qian Fei saw Fu Juemin, he grew agitated. He rushed forward but then hesitated, struggling to speak. Finally, he just said in a low voice, "Young Master, Second Master asks that you... if you’re not busy... please come at once."
