First-Year Internship—And You Went to Site 749 to Contain Monsters?!
Chapter 112: Yeah, It Hurt—You Really Pinched Me Hard

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Ye Chengfeng burned with frustration but had nowhere to let it out. All he could do was take hit after hit—no strength left to fight back.

Why?

Obviously, because he was missing half his body on the left!

He never even imagined Lu Ding would actually attack Daheshan.

Shouldn’t he be the one seeking revenge?

Instead, Lu Ding showed up first.

And worse—he had Shi Lei go head-on while he hid off to the side.

Ye Chengfeng had originally come out planning to kill Shi Lei, then hold the others off so Ye Li could escape. As for himself—there was no way he’d make it out alive.

He’d lived his whole life on Daheshan. Might as well die here too.

Only... his grandsons hadn’t been avenged yet.

He’d been ready for this, but things were way off from what he expected. Lu Ding showing up, saying nothing, just landing a full-power Slash Attack and cutting him in half?

Almost sent him straight to hell.

Thankfully, he had a secret method to transfer injuries.

But still—he lost half his body.

His combat power was more than halved. If he could put some distance between them and use long-range spells, he might still have a chance, being in the Si Ming Realm.

But Lu Ding didn’t give him any room. Clung to him like a piece of gum stuck to your shoe.

Can’t run, can’t retreat.

And the guy could fly!

His close-combat skills were all over the place—knew a bit of everything, and the more he fought, the nastier and sharper he got.

Every punch and every strike was brutal, relying on a body tough as steel. It was pure suffering.

Ye Chengfeng was pissed.

Lu Ding clearly had powerful techniques—so why the hell was he fighting like this, up close and personal?

Fury flared.

Ye Chengfeng dropped his defense and tanked one of Lu Ding’s punches, lifted his hand into a claw, and slid it along Lu Ding’s arm—grabbing for his clavicle, aiming at the Futu Acupoint.

Clearly, the old man had the same plan: trade injuries and use his technique to shift the damage.

Lu Ding’s lips curled into a smirk.

Just a bit of torn flesh?

You want it? You can have it.

His punch slammed into Ye Chengfeng’s chest, breaking ribs on impact. Meanwhile, a chunk of Lu Ding’s shoulder was ripped out.

Ye Chengfeng staggered back, blood spraying from his mouth.

“Hitting the Futu Acupoint that hard—hurts, doesn’t it?”

Even as he spoke, Ye Chengfeng activated a spell, shifting the injury to another part of his body. A large section of his flesh lost all color again—but it wasn’t as bad as before.

Lu Ding looked at his own wounded shoulder.

“Yeah, it did hurt. You really pinched me hard.”

He reached up, grabbed the bloodied flesh, and ripped it off like shedding dead skin—tossed it aside casually. The injury beneath was already healed, skin smooth and fresh.

Only the chunk of bloody flesh still in Ye Chengfeng’s hand, and the old layer of skin on the ground, proved Lu Ding had even been hurt.

The old man’s face went dark.

“Hahahaha—great, great! ‘Pinched you hard,’ huh?! Why the h*ll didn’t I pinch you to death!?”

Ye Chengfeng was both shocked and furious. Shocked that Lu Ding also had this kind of recovery method—and his seemed even more absurd.

Furious that he had traded serious damage—shattered ribs and a massive chunk of blood loss—and the guy brushed it off like it was a damn mosquito bite.

Lu Ding blinked. That sounded familiar.

Then it hit him. Back when Yuan Baifeng used the Great Vajra Palm, he’d said something similar too.

Back into the fray.

Lu Ding pressed the advantage. Ye Chengfeng, already weakened, now looked downright pathetic. Not a single one of his strengths could be brought to bear.

Psychological warfare—it was in the words, the expressions, the methods.

Ye Chengfeng’s thoughts were all over the place, his anger boiling. Lu Ding’s mental pressure tactics worked like a charm.

As soon as he lost formation, Lu Ding deliberately exposed a weak spot.

Sure enough—the old man reached to grab his throat.

Lu Ding turned his arm, caught his wrist, and snapped Ye Chengfeng’s arm clean.

“AHHH!!”

A scream echoed.

Lu Ding didn’t let up. He drove an elbow into Ye Chengfeng’s jaw. The moment it landed, the old man’s mind blurred—teeth flew everywhere.

His head snapped sideways from the impact, vision spinning as he looked at the ground.

Then came a knee straight to the face.

CRACK!!!

Another devastating blow. His head flung back, blood spraying. Lu Ding’s raw power was so great, the hit practically caved in Ye Chengfeng’s entire face.

Then—

Lu Ding’s hand grabbed his head, fingers digging into his hair, and slammed it down hard.

He raised his fist.

Brought it down like a hammer, wind howling behind it. In the shadows behind him, a spectral bear roared.

Veins bulged on his forehead.

He threw everything he had into this strike.

BOOM!!!!

A shockwave burst out in a perfect ring, sweeping leaves into a frenzy a hundred meters wide.

And right in front of Lu Ding—

Ye Chengfeng’s spine bent backwards into a grotesque arc. He lay sprawled on the cracked ground.

He made a few raspy “hhhhh” sounds, like he had something final to say.

But couldn’t get the words out.

The wind picked up.

Lu Ding finished him off with one last strike.

And that was it.

Ye Chengfeng, the infamous bandit king of Daheshan—was dead.

Lu Ding lifted his hand in front of him and gave a sharp exhale. Silver hair flared in the breeze.

“Done.”

Before the fight, he’d thought Ye Chengfeng would be a real nightmare—bandit chief, king of outlaws, Daheshan’s top dog.

But...

He only used Living Shedding, Living Corpse once.

And even then—it was a light injury.

If Ye Chengfeng had known what Lu Ding was thinking, he’d probably rise from the dead just to scream in his face:

“You started with a sneak-attack Slash, then stuck to me like glue for a close-range brawl.

Used your tanky body to bully my old, weak, injured self.

Every move was lightning-fast, no wasted breath—punches like thunder, kicks like rain on banana leaves.

I couldn’t get a single opening!

HOW THE H*LL WAS I SUPPOSED TO FIGHT YOU!?

YOU TELL ME!!!?”

Off to the side, Shi Lei’s battle was wrapping up as well.

Once Ye Chengfeng started losing, Shi Lei had gone all out on the other Daheshan Cultivators.

They weren’t strong enough to beat him to begin with—and seeing their leader fall only crushed their morale further.

No chance of survival.

With this side dealt with—

Lu Ding turned and made his way toward Heifeng Cave.

That cave? Used to be the hideout of Heishan Village’s bandit gang.

It sat about two kilometers behind the village.

The inside was thick with cobwebs, and the outside overgrown with weeds.

Lu Ding walked in. After a few dozen steps, the path opened up into a wide space.

A familiar scent lingered at the tip of his nose—it was the same one from that night when he helped Li Xuanlong finish off Shi Gandang.

Following the scent, Lu Ding made his way to the stone chair where the bandit chief had once sat. He glanced down—and there it was.

An iron box, stuck beneath the seat.

He reached out, pried it off, and opened it.

Inside was a slip of paper, stained with traces of Shi Gandang’s Qi and stamped multiple times with 749 Bureau’s official seal:

“With this item, one may exchange it at any 749 sub-bureau for a copy of any True Interpretation.”

“Looks like I’ve got a cultivation technique now.”

He had originally planned to find something decent once he got to the advanced training facility.

But now? Freebie.

This would save him a huge chunk of Contribution Points—he could now use those on cultivation resources instead.

True Interpretation, also known as Secret Transmission of the True Path, comes from the phrase discarding falsehoods to return to truth; dismantling the body to ascend as an immortal.

Of course, "dismantling the body" wasn’t about dismemberment—but about unraveling the secrets of the human form in order to cultivate immortality.

It meant finding the constants among countless variables—gradually advancing on the safest, most rewarding path.

Things like Corpse-Shedding Immortals, Sealed Jar Method, or the Living Shedding, Living Corpse technique all belonged to the category of True Interpretation Secret Arts.

Lu Ding hadn’t seen most of those methods before, but Living Shedding, Living Corpse?

He’d seen that one firsthand.

And while it was definitely at the bottom tier of True Interpretation techniques—

Even the worst of them...

Could give people from hundreds of years ago—even longer—a chance to live again.

Sure, the person who came back might no longer be the original “you,” but wasn’t that, in a way, a method to escape the ravages of time and achieve a form of immortality?

That’s the thing about True Interpretation Secret Arts—their niche was awkward.

If you didn’t practice them, you’d die of old age, sickness, or injuries anyway.

But if you did practice them—congrats, your life was probably already over.

They were basically: If you don’t use it, your life ends. If you do use it... your life still ends.

A sliver of hope dangled in front of you. But because it hung just high enough, there were always people who hesitated... then tried it.

And trying meant dying.

Back on Lu Ding’s side, with the exchange slip in hand—

Elsewhere...