Chapter 696: 696 bloodline gradually awakens
The slap was brutally hard, and within moments, several finger marks had swollen prominently on Jiang Yuzhe’s face, like several large worms crawling across it, making even him wince in pain.
"Why won’t I give up? How did she even discover me? It doesn’t make sense." Jiang Yuzhe, clutching his cheek, said indignantly. Besides Mu Hanyan, even Hua Yuezi hadn’t been able to detect his lingering shadows. He couldn’t fathom how Mu Yuying, who was far less powerful than them, managed to spot him and slap him accurately every time. Once or twice might be luck, but this consistency baffled him.
"Why not just ask her?" Mu Hanyan retorted with an annoyed glare, cursing inwardly: Serves you right, if you weren’t always so eager to take advantage, this wouldn’t have happened.
"Yuying, come here," Mu Hanyan called out.
"What is it, Brother Hanyan?" One could tell she had enjoyed that slap immensely; the little tigress still had an excited expression on her face.
"How did you discover this guy?" Once Mu Yuying approached, Mu Hanyan immediately asked.
"It’s the scent. Ever since I was little, I’ve enjoyed messing around with flowers and mixing fragrances, so I’m very familiar with scents. This guy, a grown man, smeared himself with perfume. How shameful." Mu Yuying didn’t beat around the bush, speaking with disdain.
Upon hearing this, Hua Yue and Zirong quickly moved back. A grown man wearing perfume? Jiang Yu Zhe... could he have some kind of strange addiction?
"I didn’t wear any, really, it’s natural," Jiang Yuzhe suddenly realized why, blushing profusely as he quickly explained.
A natural body fragrance... on a grown man! Hua Yue and Zirong quickly moved back again, finding this even more frightening than a strange addiction.
Uh... Mu Hanyan hadn’t expected such a simple reason. She had never considered that a man could naturally smell good. Imagining how Jiang Yuzhe had been cradled pathetically in Zirong’s arms a few days ago, she felt a chill and moved back too.
"Ah, I wish I didn’t, but it only happens when I use the Shadow Shifting," Jiang Yuzhe hurriedly explained, noticing their strange looks.
"Shadow Shifting?" Mu Hanyan was always curious about his peculiar movement technique but hadn’t had the chance to ask. Upon hearing him bring it up, she swiftly discarded her weird thoughts and asked with curiosity.
"Yes, I came up with it myself after learning the Shadowless Sword Technique. Do you want to learn it?" Jiang Yuzhe boasted.
"Would you really teach us?" Zirong asked in surprise. Such unimaginable martial arts skills were seldom shared freely, and Jiang Yuzhe’s offer surprised him.
"What’s the big deal? It’s just a set of techniques, and we are brothers in life and death," Jiang Yuzhe said generously.
"Then thank you very much," Zirong responded straightforwardly.
"This Shadow Shifting technique is quite different from ordinary techniques and involves some hand formations. Listen carefully," Jiang Yuzhe wasn’t just talking; he immediately started detailing the techniques.
"Alright, it’s not too mysterious, you both should have memorized it by now," Jiang Yuzhe said after explaining several times.
"Alright, let me try," said Hua Yue and Zirong, beginning to execute the technique while forming hand formations.
With their current cultivation and perspectives, they could certainly tell that Jiang Yuzhe was not merely humoring them, but had truly laid out the Cultivation Technique openly.
"Be careful, this technique sounds simple, but it has some risks," Jiang Yuzhe warned.
Huayue and Zirong nodded, but didn’t take his words seriously. They hadn’t sensed any danger from the technique.
Jiang Yuzhe spoke with concentration, and Huayue and Zirong listened intently, not noticing the shock in Mu Hanyan’s eyes.
"This isn’t some Martial Arts Skills, it’s clearly a Barrier Technique." Mu Hanyan had never eaten pork but had seen pigs run, having seen Ye Yanran deploy the Barrier more than once, she was certain that what Jiang Yuzhe was demonstrating wasn’t a Martial Arts Skills, but a Barrier Technique.
The only difference was the absence of chanting that sounded both like spells and verbal commands.
So, all previous speculations were wrong.
Mu Hanyan also quietly followed Jiang Yuzhe’s instructions to circulate her Qi while forming the Hand Formations, curious about the Barrier, and although Jiang Yuzhe’s Barrier Technique wasn’t complete, it was enough to satisfy her curiosity.
"Pfft!" Huayue and Zirong, trying to circulate the "Cultivation Technique" and forming a few Hand Formations, spat out several mouthfuls of fresh blood.
"Ha ha ha ha, I told you to be careful, now you know what it’s capable of, don’t you?" Jiang Yuzhe laughed loudly with a look of vindictive pleasure in his eyes: Hmph, dare to suspect me of foul play, and even dare to despise me, now let you suffer.
"Jiang Yuzhe, did you set us up on purpose?" Seeing his revengeful expression, Huayue and Zirong thought he had intentionally used a fake technique to harm them and furiously stood up to beat him.
"No, he didn’t set you up on purpose, the technique is real," Mu Hanyan said calmly just then.
As the last Hand Formation left her hands, Mu Hanyan’s figure lightly shimmered and disappeared from sight.
"No, impossible, how could he possibly learn it?" Jiang Yuzhe was astounded.
Since he first grasped the Shifting Shadow Technique at the age of twelve, he had suffered immensely without success, always ending up with reversed blood flow spitting fresh blood, and even suffered from ruptured meridians and displaced internal organs, until he had an epiphany one night after arriving at the Mu Family.
How could Mu Hanyan learn it so quickly?
Huayue and Zirong were equally shocked, having felt from their single attempt that the technique was not as simple as it seemed on the surface, significantly different from normal techniques, even seeming like a haphazard and deadly mess, but unexpectedly, Mu Hanyan had mastered it in just one attempt.
All three were extremely surprised, yet they didn’t see Mu Hanyan, who had already disappeared, looking even more astonished than them.
As she followed Jiang Yuzhe’s teaching to circulate her Qi, Mu Hanyan also felt her blood flow reversing and her internal organs shaking, a surge of blood bursting in her chest nearly made her spit blood.
But suddenly, a dim and ethereal voice resounded in her mind, as if traversing millennia from a long-vanished time, or as though it came from the deepest memory, deeply imprinted in her veins and bones, awakened only now.
The tone was so mysterious and arcane, seemingly beyond human ability to produce, yet to Mu Hanyan, it was incredibly familiar.
Instinctively, Mu Hanyan started to softly chant it in her mind.