Chapter 23: Taking a bath

"Let us meet again… if fate allows it…" I raised my hand as a sign of goodbye.

As I walked out of the courtyard I could feel a familiar Qi signature from the sky.

Yes, above me in the air, there was my grandpa looking at me while floating in the sky.

Grandpa long was looking at me while hovering and the look on his face was one of contempt.

"Did you really have to act like you are going toward your death when we are just going to train?" Li Long asked me with a little frown on his face.

I looked at him with dead eyes.

"We are going to 'just train'? Do you even believe your own words, old man? How about you train elder Zhong to get more answers from him? I bet this will be more effective than whatever sort of torture you are doing on him." I couldn't hide my anger and shouted at him. sure the training is effective, but no one would like to get beaten constantly.

Grandpa Long just shook his head.

"*tsk* do you know how many peoples would die to get a training session under me? But I understand that you are young and rebellious so I won't take it to heart and won't take you accountable for it. When you grow up you would be thankful for my care and training." He nodded to his own words as if he was really a caring grandparent.

This old man knows how to make one angry. I should be grateful? For getting the shit kicked out of me for days?

The level of ego in that statement is something that I don't know if I can achieve in this lifetime.

I couldn't stop myself from answering him back.

"Old man, just tell me that I don't have a choice, why do you have to give me some kind of reasoning that results in you doing whatever you wanted to do in the first place? Just tell me I have no choice." I snapped at him.

Grandpa Long squinted his eyes at my response and then laughed wholeheartedly.

"HAHAHA, that reminded me of your father. It is true that they say, an apple doesn't fall far from the tree trunk." He laughed while getting to the ground and patting my shoulder.

Well, If you could call it 'patting' that is.

Seeing no point in further talking, I just grumbled and mumbled along the way and that damn old man only laughed while saying that my reactions are the same as my father's.

'I can feel you father. But fuck you for leaving me with this devil of grandfather.' I send my silent prayers. I hope it can reach him.

…

You could see Li Huang panting while he was on the floor sweaty and bloody. It has been four hours after the start of his training.

The fact that he could go on for four hours in this hellhole of a training ground was a new record for him. Even in the past best record that Li Huang had was three hours and twenty minutes.

You might ask wow, how did you improve this much? It was easy in fact. I just cursed that old man on my mind and imagined him getting the shit kicked out of him by multiple things and people that I refrain from telling just to keep it PG-13.

This small step helped me to calm my mind and don't feel my muscles getting torn each second and my bones aching with a deep and penetrating pain.

Yes, I could go on for four hours but at the fourth hour, it was like I was a puppet who has his strings cut. I dropped to the ground and couldn't do anything.

And you know what was the worst part?

"If you give this kind of opening in a real fight, you might die." The 'kind' grandpa Long told me as if he was pointing to something hard to figure out.

I mean no shit sherlock. How the fuck could I even do anything if a sadistic and crazy old man in the second river of Taoist Palace decided to beat me senseless? If you ask anyone with the smallest sign of intelligence they would concur that the only way out is death but this shitty old man has the audacity to remind me that I am showing a fucking opening?

I could hardly breathe so I couldn't answer him, else I would tell him to go fuck himself with a sword technique or something…

I miss earth. I could at least report child abuse or put a lumped-out image of myself on social media. That ought to work, right?

Oh! And also don't think that I am resting or anything. No, the old man is making a medicinal bath for me so that i can get back in shape... for more abuse.

This is my fucking life and I miss how they could use time skips in novels.

There is no fucking time skip in real life.

You are in a shitty time of your life? Do you want it to pass? Well, tough luck. You have to let it pass naturally, there is no alternative that can fast forward this shit…

All I can do is to think of the next week, when this old man would let me be if I can get past this hurdle. Well, that is a big if, if I say so myself.

Just as I was giving myself a motivational speech, grandpa Long picked me up from the ground and carried me like a sack of potatoes.

"Before I couldn't use a bath this strong for you, but now that you have a basic enough Qi cultivation, you can use this bath that is more beneficial." Grandpa Long told me and you could see that he was proud of himself for making this bath in a short time.

I couldn't speak so I just looked at him with dead fish eyes.

'Old man, you don't have an inner demon, you are the demon itself.' I thought.

Unfortunately for me, he got a different meaning from my look. Well, not that he would care, even if he knows what I meant anyway.

"Don't worry. For the next few days, I would make these medicinal mixes beforehand so you don't have to waste time waiting for me to finish the preparations." He told me with a kind smile that was very comforting if you were deaf and didn't know what sinister words he said just now.

'give me a break you god damn psychopath!' i narrowed my eyes at him.

As he finished talking he put me down in the basin of water and the medicinal mix. He put me down gently to avoid the possibility of me drowning.

'Maybe he is not as shitty as I thin—' I couldn't finish my thoughts as a pain like no other assaulted my whole body.

'FUCK!' I shouted on my mind as I was In excruciating pain.