The second meeting between Shen Hao and Bai Mudan happened just as naturally as that.

After meeting again, the two practiced several sets of palm techniques in the forest clearing where they had first encountered each other. Most of the time, Shen Hao practiced while Bai Mudan pointed out his mistakes.

Previously, Shen Hao had been figuring things out and training on his own. He felt he was doing quite well, but in Bai Mudan’s eyes, there were actually quite a few errors. Since they had met this time, she corrected them one by one.

After fixing these mistakes, when Shen Hao performed the Eight Yin Palm again, it indeed felt much smoother. This smoothness was not only in the movements themselves, but also in the circulation of internal energy—there were no longer those stiff, awkward transitions.

By the time the revised Eight Yin Palm set was completed, the forest had grown noticeably darker. Checking the time, it was already a little past five. It was still early, but for Shen Hao, it was almost time to go to work.

Naturally, Shen Hao gathered his energy and looked toward Bai Mudan.

“You still need to go to work, right? Let’s stop here for today,” Bai Mudan said, clearly knowing quite a bit about Shen Hao. Seeing his reaction, she continued, “Actually, there isn’t much I can teach you. I just have more experience. If you don’t mind, you can come every afternoon. If you run into anything you don’t understand, you can ask me.”

“How could I mind? I’ll come every afternoon!” Shen Hao said excitedly. Just from her guidance earlier, he already felt he had gained a great deal—there was no way he would dislike it.

Bai Mudan smiled silently without saying much more and took the lead walking out of the woods. Shen Hao followed behind.

After leaving the forest, the sun was still hanging in the western sky, far from setting.

To be honest, leaving at such an early hour made Shen Hao a little reluctant, but since he still had to work, he could only hurry off.

While on the way, he suddenly remembered the matter of the punks looking for Bai Mudan and told her about it.

After hearing this, Bai Mudan frowned slightly, but quickly smoothed her brows. She didn’t say much, only smiled and thanked him.

Seeing this, Shen Hao felt that Bai Mudan probably hadn’t taken it to heart, so naturally he didn’t worry about it either.

Back at the residential complex, at the entrance to Bai Mudan’s house, Shen Hao said goodbye to her and clearly agreed to come again the next afternoon at three o’clock. Only then did he turn and leave.

After leaving, he didn’t go home but headed straight toward the Nightingale Bar.

On the way, Shen Hao’s mood gradually calmed down. The gains from that afternoon were huge. Being able to successfully meet Bai Mudan really was thanks to that punk who had been making a phone call in the restroom—otherwise, even though Bai Mudan lived so close, he would have had a hard time finding her on his own.

While thinking about how to learn more from Bai Mudan in the future, he snapped back to his senses and checked the time. Realizing that if he didn’t speed up, he would be late, he quickened his pace and finally arrived at the bar just in time. After greeting the colleagues he was already familiar with, he went to the back kitchen to eat. After finishing his meal and changing into his waiter’s uniform, he went up to the second floor to prepare.

The first task after starting work was inspection.

Before the guests arrived, he had to go around every private room to check them one by one—turning on the song system, microphones, and so on to make sure there were no problems, then turning them off again.

He also had to check cleanliness. If any area hadn’t been properly cleaned, he could call the cleaning staff to take care of it.

Finally, there was replenishing the beer stored at the bar.

From the first-floor warehouse to the second floor, he had to carry everything himself, trip after trip.

In the past, he could only carry one crate at a time. Later, as his strength improved, carrying two crates at once was still easy for him, but he didn’t dare to show anything too unusual. Besides, even if he could carry more at once, he wouldn’t be able to see the road, and the ceiling on the second floor wasn’t that high—walking while holding them up would likely cause them to scrape against the ceiling.

For these reasons, he still carried two crates at a time. Depending on consumption, it usually took only seven or eight trips.

In the past, this would definitely have exhausted him, but now—well, he still looked exhausted, though most of it was an act. After gaining internal energy, even without much physical training, the constant nourishment of internal energy had already made his raw physical strength far surpass that of ordinary people.

So, to avoid being discovered as someone special, after moving the beer, he would always support his waist, lean against the wall, and stand there panting for a while. Even if no one was watching, he still had to put on the act.

Just like now—while he was acting, Hong Jie suddenly appeared from who knows where. Seeing Shen Hao standing there with his hands on his hips, panting, she couldn’t help laughing. “Xiao Hao, why are you working so hard? It’s still early. There’s plenty of time before the guests arrive!”

Compared to the bar on the first floor, the KTV rooms on the second floor did indeed get guests much later, usually only starting to see people after seven in the evening. This gave Shen Hao plenty of time to prepare.

Because of this, the hostesses also started work relatively late. Although their official start time was five-thirty in the afternoon, they usually didn’t arrive until after six, close to seven.

Hearing Hong Jie’s words, Shen Hao smiled and said, “I just want to finish moving them quickly so I can rest more.”

“Young people really do have good stamina,” Hong Jie said with a smile, shaking her head. She then casually opened the bar door and walked inside.

Seeing this, Shen Hao felt a little puzzled and asked, “Hong Jie, do you need something?”

“Nope, nothing at all. I’m just sitting here for a bit,” Hong Jie said as she sat down inside. Then she looked at Shen Hao, blinked, and asked, “What? Am I not welcome?”

“No, no, that’s not it at all! You’re definitely welcome!” Shen Hao hurriedly explained.

He was telling the truth. Although he had already decided to stay single and his physical condition didn’t allow much else, that didn’t mean he didn’t like being around beautiful women—especially someone like Hong Jie, a stunning beauty with a great figure and mature charm. Naturally, he was happy to be close to her.

But at the same time, he was afraid that something might actually happen between them, given his own situation…

Thinking of this, he froze for a moment, then shook his head inwardly, feeling he was overthinking things. Like a toad dreaming of eating swan meat—given Hong Jie’s circumstances, there was no way she would be interested in him.

Although he didn’t know much about Hong Jie’s family background, a beauty like her couldn’t possibly be single, right? There were probably countless men pursuing her, eager to fall at her feet.

Putting these thoughts aside, Shen Hao calmed down and sat inside the bar chatting casually with Hong Jie.

He had been working here for nearly a month already. Hong Jie came to sit here from time to time, and the two of them were now quite familiar with each other, chatting without any pressure.

A waiter’s job was like this—no complicated plans to deal with, no headaches from unexpected incidents. Simple and boring.

But without those problems, Shen Hao would sometimes recall his time working at the company—endless trivial tasks, all kinds of unreasonable demands from clients who seemed mentally unstable. Now that those things were gone, he found himself strangely missing them.

The night passed without incident.

The next afternoon at three o’clock, Shen Hao appeared on time at Bai Mudan’s door, and she was already waiting for him at home.

After chatting for a while inside, they headed to the forest park to practice at the old spot.

The next few days went the same way.

Three days passed in the blink of an eye. Old Guai didn’t know whether he had gotten news of Bai Mudan from his brother or not.

As for Shen Hao, he had long forgotten about the matter, immersing himself daily in Bai Mudan’s guidance. Whether it was the Sunflower True Scripture or the Eight Yin Palm, his progress was astonishing. Sometimes he couldn’t help but marvel at the difference between having a teacher and not having one—it was like night and day.

During this period, he also sparred with Bai Mudan. The two of them stopped short of going all out.

At the time, Shen Hao was eager to try, thinking that sparring with an expert like Bai Mudan would surely be exciting and satisfying. However, to his surprise, halfway through the sparring, Bai Mudan suddenly felt unwell and was defeated.

“Teacher! Are you okay?” Seeing Bai Mudan suddenly lose strength in both hands and get struck by one of his palms, her back hitting a tree trunk, Shen Hao was shocked. He hurried forward to support her.

“I’m fine. Just an old problem,” Bai Mudan said, wiping the trace of blood from the corner of her mouth and shaking her head, clearly unconcerned.

Even so, Shen Hao still grabbed her wrist and sent his internal energy into her body to check her condition.

Bai Mudan originally wanted to pull away, but at this moment her strength was far inferior to Shen Hao’s. After struggling once and finding she couldn’t break free, she stopped resisting and let him hold her wrist to examine her condition.

But the moment he checked, Shen Hao was utterly shocked.

He had always thought that Bai Mudan must be a profoundly powerful expert, but only now did he discover that the meridians in her body were barely connected, and her qi sea was like a torn sack, unable to contain even a trace of internal energy.

In this state, she was actually worse off than an ordinary person. Ordinary people’s meridians and qi sea might be undeveloped, but at least they were intact—not like Bai Mudan’s, where the meridians were on the verge of breaking and the qi sea was like a broken bag.

“T-this… what’s going on?” Shen Hao asked in shock.

“Didn’t I tell you already? This is the price I paid for what happened in the past,” Bai Mudan said calmly. She showed no anger at having her secret discovered by Shen Hao, her tone utterly flat.

Shen Hao was left speechless.

She had indeed said this before, but without any details, so he hadn’t pursued it further. He never expected that this was what she meant.

“Alright, don’t dig into my matters,” Bai Mudan said as she withdrew her hand. “You’ll find out sooner or later.” Then a faint smile appeared at the corner of her lips as she added, “Besides, after two years of recuperation, although I can’t cultivate internal energy, I can still use some qigong.”

This was also why she had been able to exchange moves with Shen Hao.

Compared to the long, flowing internal energy like a river, qigong—this kind of short-term explosive power—was more suitable for Bai Mudan’s current condition.

Even so, she could only sustain it for a short while. Once the time limit was exceeded and her qigong was depleted, she would immediately revert to an ordinary person. To recover again would take about two days.

Of course, the main reason Bai Mudan could still manage this was that although her qi sea was destroyed, her meridians were not completely severed. Combined with two years of medicinal nourishment, those barely connected meridians had gradually recovered somewhat.

This undoubtedly meant that the person who had crippled Bai Mudan back then had shown mercy.

Otherwise, with meridians completely destroyed, how could she still be like this?