Chapter 29: Becoming an Apprentice

  "Master Bai Le, I, Qin Feng, come from a clean background. If I join your sect, wouldn't that be like pouring dirty water on myself?"

  Seeing Zai Yi being anxious, Qin Feng instead put on an air, having collected junk for over half a year. He deeply understood the benefits of haggling; some things wouldn't be given by others if he didn't fight for them himself.

  "Are you still innocent?"

  Zai was infuriated by Qin Feng's words and laughed, "Really didn't expect that you would play tricks with such a set of skills. You little brat, just based on your murderous behavior, everything pure is tainted, no need to splash water on you, you're already drenched in dirty water."

  "Besides, the position of the Outer Eight Ministers has been held by renowned scholars or imperial relatives since the Ming dynasty. You think it's a cabbage on the side of the road that anyone can pick?"

  The person who unified the eight outer gates that year has an extremely high status in Taoism. The people who passed it down later were either local tyrants or courtiers, with noble identities. But when it came out of Qin Feng's mouth, it became a insult to his integrity, which made Zai Yi feel like crying and laughing at the same time.

  "That's different."

  Qin Feng had forgotten about that for a moment, and now he rolled his eyes in annoyance, retorting: "Those people who died weren't anything good anyway, besides, I was just defending myself..."

  "Never mind these useless things, kid. I'll give you a choice: either kneel down and kowtow three times to pay respects as my apprentice, or roll back to your cell to serve your sentence. Do I look like I'm eager to take on an apprentice?"

  Zai has been wandering in the Jianghu for a lifetime, and can't see Qin Feng's little thoughts. After hearing Qin Feng's words, he poured himself a cup of tea and sat on the Taishi chair to taste it steadily.

  "I'm telling you, Ba Ye, I'll be leaving then."

  Qin Feng's eyes rolled, and he turned to walk out the door. However, just as one foot had stepped out of the doorway, without hearing the old man speak up, he could only turn his body around, open his mouth and say: "Bowing to you as a teacher isn't impossible, but what you said earlier, can it be trusted?"

  "What did I say?" Zai Yi was stunned for a moment, and it seemed that he hadn't made any promises to this kid.

  "Hey, don't deny it!" Qin Feng immediately became anxious and said: "You once promised me that within a year, you would give me a month's time to find my sister!"

  "I've said it before."

  The old man narrowed his eyes and said meaningfully, "However... wanting to get out still depends on your own ability. If you can learn the five things I teach you within a year, you'll be able to come and go from this prison as if it were flat ground!"

  "Go ahead and blow it off..." Qin Feng wasn't someone who could be easily fooled, "If you had the ability to do that, wouldn't you have escaped from this prison after several decades?"

  "You don't understand anything, it's me who wants to stay here myself, otherwise where can I go in this world?"

  It's not bragging to say this, but in the years he was imprisoned, the world outside was very chaotic and there was no longer a clean place under heaven. Rather than drifting around in the jianghu, it's actually more comfortable in prison.

  And after serving his sentence, he was already nearly ninety years old and did not want to go through the rivers and lakes again, only wanting to stay here to spend his old age. If it weren't for meeting Qin Feng, perhaps he would have really buried this skill in the ground.

  "Didn't you fool me?"

  Qin Feng looked at the old man with some disbelief, seeing that Zai was about to get angry, and hastily said: "I promised, isn't that enough? Master is above, receiving a bow from his disciple!"

  Qin Feng may be young in age, but when it comes to assessing the situation and making decisions, he is no worse than an adult. In fact, after Zai Yi explained the origin of the outer eight gates, Qin Feng had already thought about becoming a disciple, but just now he was thinking of getting more benefits for himself.

  But everything must be done in moderation, and the old man's patience was almost worn out. Qin Feng didn't dare to provoke him anymore, fearing that if he went too far, it would end in disaster. So, with a softening of his knees, he knelt down in front of Zai Yi.

  "Wait, although no one is watching, this ceremony can't be too casual!" Zai Ye's right foot kicked out, hooking Qin Feng's bent knee and pulling it back up. "To enter my sect, you must first pay respects to our ancestors, wait a moment!"

  Zai Ye said, got up and walked into the inner room to rummage for a while. He came out with a scroll in his hand, took down the "幽兰竹石图" on the case table, unfolded the picture in his hand and hung it up.

  "Master, who is this person? Why is he a Taoist?"

  After hanging the painting, Qin Feng found that there was only a person wearing a Taoist robe and tying his hair with a Taoist hairpin on the painting. The Taoist held a duster in his hand, carried a precious sword on his back, surrounded by clouds and mist, like an immortal.

  Unlike Western realistic techniques, ancient Chinese painting often only talked about the brushwork of spring and autumn, only discussed the artistic conception, and the face of a Taoist looked like one nose and two eyes, without any unusual features.

  "Except for the ancestors, in the early Ming dynasty, who could stop Zhu Yuanzhang and his son from massacring wildly?"

  After hanging the portrait, Zai Yi stood respectfully in front of it and bowed, saying: "The Third Master is above, now the 20th generation descendant of the Outer Eight Gates, Zai Yi, accepts a disciple, specially inviting the Master to witness!"

  After bowing, Cai Zhe sat back in his taishi chair and said: "Qin Feng, kneel down!"

  Although there were many doubts before, seeing Zai Yan's serious look, Qin Feng still honestly knelt down in front of the portrait.

  "After three bows, offer three incense sticks to the ancestors!"

  "Yes, Master!" Qin Feng bowed respectfully in front of the portrait and knocked his head three times. He took three incense sticks from the desk, lit them, and inserted them into the incense burner that Zai had just prepared.

  "Master, please accept your disciple's three bows!" After finishing the incense, Qin Feng bowed down to Zai Ye again. This time, Zai Ye did not stop him and accepted Qin Feng's three kowtows.

  "Qin Feng, our school has only three rules, you must remember them!"

  After the ceremony, Zai Ye didn't ask Qin Feng to stand up, but instead said seriously: "The first rule of our sect is that you must not betray your master or ancestors. Can you do that?"

  "Right!"

  Qin Feng's mouth answered quickly, but in his heart, he couldn't help but feel a little amused. The main gate of the outer eight gates was left with only two people, the old man and himself. In the future, it would probably be just him alone, so what's the point of deceiving the master and destroying the ancestors?

  But upon further reflection, Qin Feng suddenly understood that his master was still haunted by the events of that year, and had not forgotten what happened with that ungrateful disciple.

  "Secondly, no women!"

  "Thirdly, thou shalt not kill the innocent. Can you all do that?" Zai Yi didn't know what Qin Feng was thinking in his heart and directly stated the other two door rules.

  "Master, I can do it!" Qin Feng nodded heavily, although he had five lives on his hands, but Qin Feng thought that those people were all guilty of death, and this naturally couldn't be considered as killing the innocent.

  "Right, Master, I haven't been told about our ancestor's name yet."

  As for the person in the painting, Qin Feng was indeed curious about him. The outside eight sects were all deceitful and treacherous people, not a single one was a good thing, yet the ancestor could integrate them together, that difficulty wasn't ordinary.

  "His surname was Zhang, his name Sanfeng, and he lived during the late Song to early Ming dynasty." Zai Yao heard this and smiled, saying: "Everyone knows that he founded the Wudang sect, but few people know that he is also the master of the Outer Eight Gates..."

  After Zhu Yuanzhang founded the country, he massacred Jianghu people, but only revered Taoism and regarded Zhang Sanfeng as a living immortal. In Wudang Mountain, he built a Taoist temple for him, but the original reason has been impossible to investigate until today.

  However, according to Zhang Sanfeng's words, when he wandered the jianghu in those years, he actually brought together the scattered Outer Eight Gates, and it is unknown whether the Zhu family emperor reduced his slaughter of jianghu figures for this reason.

  "So the ancestor was Zhang Sanfeng? No wonder he's so powerful!"

  Qin Feng stuck out his tongue, he had stolen the skills of the Liu family for many years and naturally knew that Tai Chi was created by Zhang Sanfeng, a famous figure in the martial arts world.

  After hearing Qin Feng's words, Zai Ye smiled and waved his hand, saying: "Alright, you get up and come over, Master wants to give you a gift!"

  "A gift? Master, what other treasures are you hiding in this house?"

  After hearing Zai's words, Qin Feng couldn't help but look around the house. This set of Huang Huali table and chairs was indeed a treasure, but even if it were given to him, he wouldn't be able to move it away.

  "It's right in my hands!"

  When he saw Qin Feng walking up to him, Zai Ye stretched out one fist, but when he opened his palm, it was empty.

  "Master, you..." Just as Qin Feng was about to ask a question, Zai Yi's palm, which had been raised to Qin Feng's chest, suddenly shot forward and landed squarely on his chest.

  "Wow..."

  The force of this palm was not small, and Qin Feng retreated three steps in a row, sitting on the ground with a thud. He only felt a suffocating feeling in his chest, and as soon as he opened his mouth to speak, a mouthful of blood spurted out.

  "Master, what are you doing?"

  After this mouthful of blood was spat out, Qin Feng's breathing finally became smooth, and he looked at the old man with an incredulous face. Who has a custom of beating up their disciples as a greeting gift when meeting for the first time?

  "Qin Feng, I know that you've experienced a lot of changes in your family since childhood and have been relying on your sister for support. Even if you're broad-minded, it's hard to avoid feeling resentful and indignant..."

  He walked up to Qin Feng's side, took a look at the black and purple bloodstain on his chest, and said: "If you don't get rid of the stagnant blood in your body, within three years, you'll end up with hemiplegia!"

  As Cai Wei said, Qin Feng had a very generous personality since he was young, but when something happened at home, he was still a child after all. The distress in his heart had no one to tell, and over time, the energy and blood were squeezed into his body.

  Recently, he killed five people in a row. Although it was also a kind of venting, it only treated the symptoms but not the root cause. The fear and unease after killing made Qin Feng's hidden illness even more severe.

  Zai Yi's practice was the Taoist Qigong method, which was even more intense than the internal martial arts' breathing techniques. He had long seen the hidden illness in Qin Feng's body and this time he completely cured it.

  "Is it that serious?" Qin Feng looked down at the black bloodstain on his chest, and a pungent smell wafted up to his nostrils, making him involuntarily believe the old man's words.