Chapter 1482 - 696: Appetite and Digestion

Chapter 1482: Chapter 696: Appetite and Digestion

As soon as there was word that food was being served, Your Majesty and the king’s assistant stopped squabbling, went back to their seats, and waited for things to eat.

The chief mansion historian clapped his hands, and the eunuchs scurried out from all the nooks and crannies like rats, flipping up the carpets, setting out tables, bringing out fruit platters and dishes, and inviting the ministers and guards to sit.

Of course, guests from afar—especially ones you personally invited—aren’t someone you just send away without at least tea and a meal. So seats were prepared for the two Reverend Nuns as well.

"Please."

The chief mansion historian bowed and performed the Ritual.

"Many thanks for the hospitality."

Tie Dan smiled, eyes crinkling, nodded her thanks, and led her Junior Sister to sit.

"It’s rare someone treats us to a proper banquet—Junior Sister, you should eat more."

"Senior Sister, this..."

Xun Lingrui looked at the wine and meat being set down one dish after another in front of her and was struck speechless.

What was being served was actually huge basins of meat—fat, greasy, dripping with oil—and the fruit and vegetables on the side turned out to be all pungent stuff like onions, garlic, chili peppers. They even had basins of thick pastes: big bowls of soybean paste, fried sauce, mixed rice sauce. The moment the lids were opened, a fierce stench hit the nose.

As for the precious grape wine poured from the pots—Jade Liquid, fine nectar—although it had been chilled with ice, it was all mixed with additives and blood, no one knew what else had been thrown in, so that when it was poured out it came down as a sticky clump, thicker than sesame paste. It was clearly medicated liquor that relied on a violent alcoholic reek to barely cover the fishy stink.

Mystic Sect Mountain People usually dine on mist and sip dew, take Elixirs and practice Fasting; everything is for pure Dao Breath. Even "all-natural organic" food is considered sullied with impurities and must be steamed and refined before ingestion; their flavors are as light as can be. How could they possibly be used to such heavy seasoning?

However, Tie Dan pointed at Your Majesty, the king’s assistant, the guards and ministers at the side all wolfing down food, eating like stray dogs at a trash heap, mouths smeared with oil, and explained with a laugh,

"This is the Eight Vassal Immortal Army’s rations—the Righteous Method of Gang Fist training.

If you want to temper tendons and bones, build the finest top-notch muscles, and forge the very best Gang Fist, daily iron-pumping training is only one part of it; the rest and nutrition must keep up as well. Every night you sleep four hours—can’t cut even a quarter-hour. In the daytime, you have to eat every single hour: eight meals a day, and you must be full at every meal.

Even if you can’t eat anymore, you still have to force it down; if you skip feeding the muscles for even one meal, they’ll shrink. With that kind of grind, your bones, blood, and flesh are flooded with concentrated nutrients; every inch of meat is brimming with Gang Qi, and only then can each punch explode with hundreds or thousands of times the force.

I’ve already cultivated the White Bone Form, so I don’t need to indulge this appetite anymore. But your flesh body hasn’t been refined yet—you can eat more to nourish your Qi Blood."

Right, muscles can’t grow out of thin air; if you don’t eat, how can you have strength? So while it’s true that Gang Fist training doesn’t require much Comprehension—apparently you just need to faithfully keep up the iron-pumping every day—there’s a hidden cultivation condition: the eight-meals-a-day, overflowing nutritional supply. That part is absolutely indispensable.

Which is why poor folk actually can’t practice proper Gang Fist. Even if you’ve got the resolve and grit, can your household afford enough eunuchs to cook you eight meals every single day so you can just focus on pumping iron?

Keep that up long-term and look at the difference: they’re eating eight meals a day of rare delicacies, while you’re stuck with three meals, relying on eggs to scrape together some protein—you eat three jin and still shit out one jin, only the remainder goes into muscle. With what are you supposed to trade punches with them?

That’s why Gang Fist is truly a method that has nothing to do with natural talent or willpower; it’s purely fueled by piled-up resources steamrolling everything, and only then does it qualify as an Immortal Palace True Inheritor art—a class-monopoly Immortal Cultivation Method...

The chief mansion historian nodded.

"What Master Yuetan says is very true. How is it that your honorable sect also researches Gang Fist?"

Tie Dan smiled and said,

"Kongxing Monk and Nun, Five Elements Disciples—of course we’ve done quite a bit of research on the bodies of Gang Fist Warriors."

Your Majesty let out a sigh at those words; who knows what he thought of, but suddenly the meat in his mouth lost all flavor, turning to wax between his teeth...

"Thank you for the guidance, Senior Sister."

Xun Lingrui did indeed have remarkable Comprehension. Although anything she hasn’t seen before feels bizarre at first glance, once Tie Dan gives her a slight pointer, she can immediately make the connection to what she learned in class. She understands that while the plating of this meal is certainly unappealing, even if the impurities are heavy, the flavors strong, and it takes extra work to digest, you can’t deny that they’re serving what Your Majesty usually uses to harden his body—this is genuine Heavenly and Earthly Treasures, the finest stuff you can’t find in the Mortal World.

Faced with such a serious Immortal Fate, a Mountain Man can of course make the wise choice, and she stopped playing the literary, polite guest. She rolled up her sleeves, picked up her chopsticks, grabbed a chunk of fatty meat, and started eating. Even though every bite made her frown and waves of nausea rolled through her, she still clenched her teeth and forced it down her throat and into her stomach.

And when she noticed that everyone else was eating like their lives depended on it, and the moment a basin emptied the eunuchs would rush up to refill it, clearly it was "eat as much as you possibly can," Xun Lingrui tossed aside all decorum too—she flung down her chopsticks, hugged those sauced legs and trotters, and went at them, wolfing and gnawing.

Tie Dan, all bones and Jia, naturally didn’t fight her for the food. Besides, she saw there were no sweets, so she handed her own share over too, then raised her cup in a toast,

"My insight is shallow; these past few days I’ve only been traveling the mountains and waters with my Junior Sister, and didn’t know why Your Majesty personally came here?"

The chief mansion historian wasn’t doing Body Refinement, so there’s no way he could eat eight meals a day. He took the cue and answered,

"An edict came down from Heavenly Mountain, strictly ordering Kunlun Mountain Road closed. No unauthorized persons are allowed in or out.

Your Majesty is the ruler of Dui Country and concurrently president of the Dui State Divine Alliance, so naturally he must personally come to sit in command and supervise the army."

Supervise the army, my ass—he’s clearly been hollowed out and used as a lapdog.

Tie Dan could see it too: although Your Majesty still had Divinity Transformation Boxing Power and was still seated on the throne of Dui Country, he was in fact just a Puppet. The Divine Sect was using him to borrow the authority of the Royal Decree to maintain the Great Array of the Twelve Central Plains Countries. Parking him here was just to sponge off his aura and fortune.