Chapter Fourteen: The Witch

  Da Xi Chang Ru is not a good talker, and on the way, Li Xian asks him ten questions, but Da Xi Chang Ru sometimes doesn't even answer one sentence. And Li Xian seems to be unaware of it, nor does he know whether he is talking nonsense with Da Xi Chang Ru or just talking to himself.

  After replenishing supplies in the Xi people's tribe, the Blood Riders didn't linger for long and set off again. Despite Li Xian repeatedly expressing his eagerness to reach their destination, Da Cai Zhang Ju continued to march according to plan. Li Xian actually knew why this was so and wasn't annoyed; when marching over long distances, even if the Blood Riders' people didn't care about themselves, they had to take care of their horses. If there were enough spare warhorses, he believed their speed would increase greatly. The reason he urged them on was simply because he really didn't want his mouth to be idle. Although he was called Li Xian, he actually liked making himself look very busy.

  The journey was boring, and if the companion was a dull person, it would be even more boring. If the companion was one hundred and five dull people, and Li Xian himself didn't say a few more words, he feared that he would also become as silent as Blood Rider. It's said that those who are near ink will turn black, Li Xian didn't know if he would be infected by those over a hundred pseudo-mutes and become mute too. But Li Xian believed that those who were near pigs would stink, so he had to try and see if he could make Da Xi Chang Ru more lively.

  Finally, when Da Xi Chang Ru could no longer tolerate Li Xian's nonsense, he took off the horizontal knife from his waist and handed it to Li Xian: "If you're really bored, practice drawing your sword."

  "Draw your sword?"

  Li Xian furrowed his brow and took the horizontal knife from Da Xi Chang Ru, weighing it in his hand. In his previous life, Li Xian was a collector of military equipment, especially fond of knives. He had once bought a Tang-style sword online, 102 cm long with a blade length of 75 cm and a handle length of 27 cm, but that sword was very light. The large horizontal knife made in the Sui style that Da Xi Chang Ru handed him was slightly shorter, but much heavier than the modern replica he had bought. The nearly one-meter-long horizontal knife looked somewhat out of proportion in Li Xian's hand compared to his stature. After all, he was just an eleven-year-old boy who barely reached 1.5 meters tall.

  He drew out his sword and asked, "Is this what you mean by 'drawing a sword'?"

  Da Xi Chang Ru couldn't help but smile, the smile on his cold face looked very comfortable, with a hint of warmth like a sunny spring day. But what he said next made Li Xian feel like he had fallen into an icy pit.

  "Alright, like this, from today on, draw your sword one thousand times every day?"

  "Why? For the thousandth time, don't you think it's a bit too much?"

  "One thousand two hundred times!"

  "Alright, for the thousandth time."

  "1,500 times!"

  Li Xian shouted: "I've accepted it a thousand times!"

  Da Xi Chang Ru shook his head: "You say one more word and you'll be drawing your sword two thousand times a day."

  The horizontal sword belongs to the double-handed sword, and it doesn't seem awkward to use on land. However, when sitting on a horseback, due to spatial constraints, the simple action of drawing the sword is actually quite difficult. Li Xian's arm is short, and the sword is long, so in order to pull out the horizontal sword, he must lean his body back as much as possible. In this way, even if he draws his sword a thousand times, not only will his arms suffer, but also his slender waist will be affected.

  From morning to noon, Li Xian completed six hundred draws of his sword. It doesn't sound like it's that difficult, but drawing a sword while riding a horse and leaning back six hundred times is enough to drive someone mad. His arms were getting heavier and heavier, and by the time Da Xi Chang Ru ordered them to rest and prepare for lunch, Li Xian's sword draws had slowed down by more than five times compared to when he first started.

  The Blood Riders split into several teams, with two small teams going in different directions to patrol and stand guard. The others dismounted to gather firewood and start a fire, then roasted the wild game they had hunted along the way.

  Li Xian gritted his teeth and sheathed his sword, then dismounted from the horse with great difficulty. The pain in his arm was almost unbearable, as if a million ants were attached to his bones, constantly gnawing away.

  Six hundred and one.

  Da Xi Chang Ru looked at Li Xian and said expressionlessly.

  Li Xian rubbed his arm while complaining: "It's already so intense from the start, isn't cultivation supposed to be gradual?"

  Daxi Changru's face was stern as he said: "My point is that you haven't finished yet, you're still short 899 times."

  He walked over to the fire pit and said, "If you can't finish, then don't eat lunch. If by evening you still haven't finished 1,500 draws of the sword, then don't eat dinner either. And if before going to sleep you still haven't finished...then you also don't need to sleep."

  Daxi Zhangru turned around and said to Li Xian: "But we won't wait for you, tomorrow morning we will still set out on the road."

  Li Xian clenched his teeth and swallowed the words of greeting to his ancestors back into his stomach. He endured the pain that felt like scraping bones, slowly pulling out the horizontal knife at his waist. The several-jin-heavy horizontal knife now felt like it weighed hundreds of jin, and his hand could hardly grasp it. Like this, Li Xian struggled to pull out the knife more than a dozen times, his body already drenched in sweat.

  Daxi Zhangru skillfully skinned a wild rabbit, then hung it on an iron hook over the fire. After finishing all this, he shouted to Li Xian: "I said to draw your sword, it was to draw your sword on horseback, not standing like this. So these thirteen times don't count."

  Li Xian's mouth corner had been bitten through by him, but he didn't say anything. He silently walked to the side of that black-colored hybrid Bostaurus, trembling as he laboriously climbed onto its back.

  The sunlight shone straight down, illuminating the back of a young man who could no longer stand up straight on his horse. It seemed that Li Xian had already forgotten how many times he had drawn his sword, and was simply mechanically repeating the action. When he felt himself becoming increasingly dizzy, someone suddenly touched his body, pulling him back from the brink of unconsciousness.

  Daxi Changru handed Li Xian a water bag: "You can't eat rice, but you must drink water. If you don't drink a single drop of water, I won't guarantee that you'll make it through today. I remember telling you to do 1,500 times every day, and that's what I meant."

  Li Xian wanted to reach out and take the water bag, but found that his arm was no longer listening to his brain's instructions. He tried several times, but couldn't even touch the water bag. It wasn't that his eyes were blurry, but rather that his hand had lost its sense of direction. Da Xi Chang Ru held up the water bag and handed it to Li Xian's mouth, Li Xian leaned forward and took a sip, and when a refreshing mouthful of sweet-tasting water entered his mouth, Li Xian even mistakenly thought it was the legendary JADE Spring wine.

  He gulped down half a bag of water, his greedy eyes gleaming like a starving little beast that had finally touched its mother's nipple, all his desires were to take.

  "How many more times?"

  "Seven hundred and ninety times."

  Da Xi Long Rong put away the water bag, then suddenly pulled out a roasted golden wild rabbit leg and waved it in front of Li Xian's nose. Li Xian's vision was blurry, his mind didn't know what he was thinking, or maybe he wasn't thinking anything at all, but when he smelled that enticing aroma, he subconsciously opened his mouth to take a bite.

  There was a loud click as his teeth came together.

  Da Xi Long Rong stuffed a piece of rabbit meat into his mouth and tore off a piece, chewing very comfortably: "Let you smell it, it's already an exception."

  Li Xianfei cracked a smile: "You dare... make an exception again?"

  "Let's get going again soon, we have to make it to a small unnamed lake forty miles away before sunset to set up camp. Good luck, hope you get some sleep tonight."

  Li Xian rolled his eyes: "I told you... those who live near vermilion become stained with it. You really have a lot to say today!"

  Da Xi stopped in his tracks, furrowed his brow and thought for a moment before walking away without saying a word.

  Li Xian, who looks like he's about to fall off the horse at any moment, is actually laughing loudly with his head held high, just like a proud rooster that has won a fight. His current appearance can be described in two words: complacent. If it had to be condensed into one word, it would be despicable.

  After the Blood Riders rested, they continued on their way. With the quality of the Blood Riders, it was not difficult to rush forty miles in half a day. But for Li Xian, this was an absolute torture. He had to mechanically draw his sword without stopping while trying to maintain his body's stability so as not to fall off the horseback. Although Li Xian had started riding horses without saddles since he was six years old and could control the direction of the fine horse with just his legs. But now, Li Xian could hardly feel his own legs, how could he guarantee that the black horse would not go astray?

  Fortunately, horses are very docile animals. His black horse followed behind the Blood Rider and didn't fall behind, but Li Xian had already fallen off four times.

  Da Xi Chang Ru once again picked up Li Xian like a small chicken and placed him on the back of the black horse, then inhumanly reminded him in his ear: "There are still 403 times."

  The team arrived at the unnamed lake before sunset to set up camp, and Li Xian was completely a mindless robot by then. His arms had long since lost all sensation, as if he wasn't the one wielding the knife in the first place. Li Xian even felt like he was watching a performance.

  Xue Ji's travel rate, Tie Lang arranged for the cavalry to camp after arriving at Da Xi Chang Ru's side, looking at the young man on the black horse who was swaying and might fall off for the ninth time, and exclaimed: "At his age, he has such perseverance, which is already very good."

  Daxi Changru glared at Tie Lang and said, "Is that all? Just these two words? Can you find another eleven-year-old kid who can persist to his level?"

  The iron wolf thought for a moment: "Can't."

  He said seriously: "If it were Chao Xiu Ge at this age, you would force him to practice like this, he would definitely think of ways to escape. If it were Dong Fang, he would definitely kneel on the ground and beg for mercy without stopping, then pretend to faint. If it were Du Gu Rui Zhi, he would definitely be willing to poison himself, poisoning himself until he foams at the mouth and loses consciousness. Among the Blood Riders' Four Tigers, no one at that age can compare to him."

  Daxi Zhangru didn't ask Tie Langlang why he didn't speak for himself, because Daxi Zhangru knew that if it were Tie Langlang's turn, he might not do better than Li Xian, but he would definitely persist. A child raised on wolf's milk will always be more ruthless than others. Ruthless to enemies, and also ruthless to oneself.

  Daxi Changru looked at Li Xian, and in his heart he sighed, even if you are not the reincarnation of a true dragon, you must be some kind of evil spirit reborn.

  What kind of monster is Li Xian?

  He's definitely not a transvestite, but... he might really be a freak.

  PS: The new book chart is a very annoying place, to be honest, unclean methods will definitely get on the chart faster than clean ones. When "Jiang Ming" suddenly rose to 7th place on the new book chart with 20,000 words, I couldn't believe it myself. Many people know what happened afterwards, so I won't mention it again, just that it was a very unpleasant chart. So Jiang Ming doesn't plan to rush up the charts, nor advertise, and has no other methods, the clicks are clean, and my heart is at ease. When "Di Zong" first started, there were only a few dozen clicks per day, slowly increasing to around 5,000 per day, all thanks to everyone's support. Di Zong's achievements are clean, so I want to keep it that way. The new book chart is annoying, so whether or not it gets on the chart doesn't matter. Jiang Ming is still very thin, so for now, there's no need to ask for red tickets or rewards, just leave them for your favorite authors. I only ask for one collection, if everyone's bookshelf still has an empty spot, please leave a position for Jiang Ming. Thank you everyone, sincere thanks.