Only I am Venerable-Chapter 48: Changes

Gouts of fresh blood spewed from Qin Shisan’s mouth as his body convulsed violently. He was on the verge of death.

Qin Li stood there, taking several deep breaths. As the cold night wind blew, a chill washed over him, and only then did he realize he was soaked to the bone. Although the exhilarating battle had left him with some injuries, he felt utterly euphoric!

"Did... did you use... the ’Only I am Venerable’ Com... bat Skill?" Qin Shisan sputtered, struggling to speak.

Qin Li nodded. "That’s right!"

"It really is... a Divine-level Technique. It really is a Divine-level Technique!" Qin Shisan’s body flipped over to face the sky. He suddenly cackled like a terrifying night owl. "How ridiculous... how pathetic! I was just... a... blind fool..."

Before Qin Shisan could finish, he drew his last breath, his eyes wide open in an eternal, unwilling stare.

The night sky was brilliant, the stars twinkling. With a soft sigh, Qin Li reached out and blasted a pit in the ground. He buried Qin Shisan inside. With death, all hatreds are erased; everything is over.

Qin Xue stood by silently, watching Qin Li calmly go about his work. Her initial shock had slowly given way to a sense of numbness. Ever since waking from his trauma-induced coma, Qin Li was like a completely different person. If not for his familiar face, no one would believe the man before the incident and the man after were one and the same.

To Qin Xue, the current Qin Li was shrouded in mystery, like a collection of countless whirlpools, each one capable of drawing in a person’s very heart and soul.

Suddenly, Qin Xue felt her face flush. She mentally chided herself. Her bright eyes, gazing at Qin Li under the moonlight, grew ever more gentle.

After finishing, Qin Li dusted off his hands and whispered to Qin Xue, "Let’s go. When we get back, don’t tell Mother. Just say a thief broke in and I chased him off."

Qin Xue nodded, knowing Qin Li was just trying to keep their mother from worrying. At that moment, her approval of him was absolute. Unconsciously, she even started to feel that Qin Li shouldn’t be her little brother, but her big brother instead!

The days that followed gradually grew peaceful.

The ten thousand taels of silver they had earned was enough for Qin Li, his mother, and his sister to live on for a long time. Hu and the others had once again set off on a treasure-hunting journey; they were true Adventurers, true Hunters. In comparison, Qin Li was merely a dabbler who just wanted to earn some money to support his family. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Watermelon came to check in every day. He would learn the One-element Heart Method from Qin Xue, and then the ’Only I am Venerable’ Combat Skill from Qin Li. His strength improved rapidly. In less than a month, Watermelon had gone from an unranked child to his current strength of Yellow Level, Tier Five! He had made a big name for himself in the northern district of the city. Under Qin Li’s deliberate tutelage, Watermelon was gradually transforming from a youth who thought with his fists into a true gang leader who thought with his head.

And this force would play a crucial role in helping Qin Li establish a foothold in Yellow Sand City in the future.

The might of a Divine-level Combat Skill was truly extraordinary. Qin Li had explained to Watermelon that cultivating the ’Only I am Venerable’ Combat Skill came with a price: every six months, one would experience a ’Nirvana’ process where their Power would regress until it vanished completely. This process would also damage the soul. If they couldn’t find the formula for the Celestial Profound Pill and successfully concoct it, his very life would be in danger.

Qin Li had expected Watermelon to be terrified, but surprisingly, the boy just shook his head nonchalantly. He said something about how a real man should live a spectacular life, and that death was nothing to fear...

This made Qin Xue glare at Qin Li several times, because those were the exact words Qin Li himself had used when teaching Watermelon Martial Skills a few days prior.

Still, it was good that Watermelon had such a mentality. So far, no one had ever been able to withstand the backlash from the ’Only I am Venerable’ Combat Skill—except for Qin Li. But even Qin Li himself couldn’t be one hundred percent certain that he would be fine in six months’ time.

The death of Qin Shisan didn’t cause the slightest stir in the Qin Family. Not a single member of the Qin family came to the northern slums to monitor Qin Li. In their minds, Qin Li was still the same old Basic Master. So what if he was leaning on the Shangguan Family? He was just a freeloader. What was there to fear?

Thus, even Qin Yongzhi simply assumed Qin Shisan had been called away on some urgent business. He never imagined that Qin Shisan—a mighty Earth Level expert, a seasoned veteran of the Martial World, a cold-blooded killer—had already died a silent, humiliating death.

Shangguan Shiyu would occasionally visit. She was still a woman of few words. Each time, she would sit quietly reading a book beside Qin Li while he cultivated. They would often go a whole day without exchanging more than a few sentences, but a subtle, unspoken understanding was slowly blossoming between them.

Every time Shangguan Shiyu visited, she was accompanied by a large retinue of guards. Though the Shangguan Family’s name was renowned in Yellow Sand City, they also had numerous enemies. In particular, many people were deeply hostile toward the Shangguan Family’s "monster daughter," believing her to be a woman of ill omen who had no right to live.

In truth, many things in this world are inexplicable. The saying, "There is no love without reason, nor hate without reason," is not entirely accurate. Some people fall in love at first sight; the more they look at someone, the more they like them. That is baseless love. Other people are naturally at odds, even hostile, as if their very fates are in conflict. That is senseless hate.

Shangguan Shiyu was not happy about having so many guards and had protested several times. However, her doting grandfather, who usually indulged her, put his foot down this time. The outside world was not the Shangguan Mansion, after all, and the northern district in particular made Shangguan Tie uneasy. He even grumbled that Qin Li was a bit too stubbornly principled. At such a young age, why was he so aloof? Besides, he already had ten thousand taels of silver, so why insist on living in a place like that and making his granddaughter suffer for it? For all of Shangguan Tie’s shrewdness, he never imagined that this thirteen-year-old boy, Qin Li, was treating the northern slums as the foundation for his future empire.

「In the blink of an eye, autumn gave way to winter.」 Though Yellow Sand City was in the south, the weather still grew a little chilly this time of year.

By his count, Qin Li had been in this world for nearly six months. The closer he got to the date mentioned in that esoteric warning, the more uneasy he became.

’The known isn’t frightening; the truly terrifying things are the mysterious and unknown.’ Qin Li could clearly feel that when he cultivated ’Only I am Venerable’, his soul wasn’t being damaged. It was a far cry from the occasional stabbing pain in the head that Watermelon had described. Qin Li felt nothing at all. But that didn’t mean nothing was going to happen to him.

Shangguan Shiyu had read the warning in the ’Only I am Venerable’ Combat Skill manual and knew what worried Qin Li. She hesitated, wondering if she should tell him about the changes happening to her own body. He was, after all, the only man besides her grandfather who had ever been kind to her.

’For some reason, she suddenly missed her parents. So many years had passed with no word from them, and many people said they were dead. But Shangguan Shiyu refused to believe it. She couldn’t believe that her mother and father, who had traveled far and wide searching for a way to save her, could have met with such a tragic fate.’

’They have to be alive, and living well! The day I see them again will be the happiest day of their lives!’

Shangguan Shiyu thought to herself.

"Qin Li, don’t worry. I believe you’ll be fine," Shangguan Shiyu, who so rarely spoke, said suddenly. She gave a small smile to Qin Li as he turned his head toward her. "Do you want to see how I’ve changed?"