Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Bam!
A clear and crisp sound was heard—that bead had tried to escape but ended up getting stopped by the barrier Chu Liuyue had cast over it.
It fell to the ground and into the puddle of black blood once more. If one didn’t look carefully, it would’ve been hard to spot it.
Chu Liuyue waved her fingers, and scorching flames instantly appeared and formed a fist-sized ball to trap the bead within it. The fireball then floated back to her palm.
She examined the bean-sized bead carefully, although she wasn’t able to see exactly what it looked like as it was covered with blood. Still, she could clearly sense that it contained a startling amount of force and that it was this very thing that caused Lin Zhifei to be seriously ill.
“Cough! Cough! Cough!” Lin Zhifei started coughing violently.
Chu Liuyue turned her head to look at him. “How do you feel, Fourth Young Master?”
It was only after coughing for a while longer that Lin Zhifei straightened his body. Although his flushed face instantly became pale and the bloodstains on the corners of his lips and chin made him appear even more haggard, his eyes looked even more energetic than before.
“I-I’m fine…” Lin Zhifei waved his hand while looking at her palm. His complexion regained a little of its color when he noticed the strange bead that was trapped inside the fireball. “What… is that?”
“You should be very familiar with this thing, Fourth Young Master. After all, it’s been inside your body for decades.”
Lin Zhifei widened his eyes in shock. “Are you saying that…”
“That’s right. This is what caused the bizarre changes in your Yuan meridian.” Chu Liuyue then glanced at the bead and narrowed her eyes dangerously as she laughed. “This thing seems to be able to devour Yuan meridians and cause one to become weak. It’s a good thing that you have a superior Dijing Yuan meridian. Otherwise… You wouldn’t have been able to survive this long.”
Lin Zhifei frowned. “W-what exactly is it?”
Chu Liuyue shook her head. “I don’t know either, but I managed to guess that something was inside your body when I was taking your pulse previously. I wanted to get rid of it there and then at the time, but unfortunately, it’s very strange and agile. It split into countless replications of itself in your Yuan meridian, so I couldn’t catch it in that short frame of time. Hence—”
“So the most important thing that you added in the pill you refined for me is actually… your own force, right?”
Chu Liuyue smiled and very frankly admitted it. “You sure are wise, Fourth Young Master!”
She had indeed injected a flame of hers into the pill when refining it, and the main effect of the herbs added was to buffer the force of her flame. If an eighth-grade pill could cure Lin Zhifei of his illness, the Lin family’s heavenly doctors would’ve done that long ago and wouldn’t have needed her help. Asking Lin Tianfeng to gather the herbs and making him stand guard was just a pretense that she had put up.
Nobody knew that it wasn’t the pill that saved Lin Zhifei’s life but the flame driving the bead out of his body. This was also why Chu Liuyue had been urging him to circulate his force. Only with the combined forces could she cut all the bead’s escape paths.
A look of understanding flashed across Lin Zhifei’s eyes, as did a hint of puzzlement. His voice still sounded a little weak, but the question he was about to pose was very important to him. “Did you already know that you could use this method to help me when you came knocking on our door, Ms. Dugu?”
Chu Liuyue blinked. “Are you suspecting me of something?”
“Of course not.” Lin Zhifei denied it right away. “I-I’m just a little curious…” About how she knows that she can do this when she hadn’t even taken my pulse at the time.
Chu Liuyue merely smiled in response, for she couldn’t possibly say that her confidence stemmed from the power of the water droplet in her body.
“Of course, if it’s not convenient for you to say, I won’t ever bring it up again,” Lin Zhifei immediately said after seeing her reaction. He could faintly guess that the woman in front of him possessed an extraordinary force inside her body. Well, it’s understandable that she’s unwilling to tell me anything.
Chu Liuyue appreciated Lin Zhifei’s tact as it was much easier to deal with smart people. “Since we’ve gotten rid of this thing from your body, the rest are all just small problems now. There’s still a portion of the bead remaining in your Yuan meridian, but we can slowly deal with that afterward. As long as you recuperate properly, you’ll be able to recover soon.”
Lin Zhifei was in a bit of a trance as he looked at Chu Liuyue’s relaxed and breezy expression and heard what she said. He couldn’t help squeezing his hands. “T-that’s it?”
“Yeah!” Chu Liuyue studied his expression; it was rare for him to reveal such a bewildered and vulnerable expression that one could even see through his thoughts. “Although it sounds easy, a lot of effort is still needed. I’ll be staying by your side for the time being, so don’t worry and just focus on recovering.”
Lin Zhifei nodded unconsciously. “Thank you… It’s just that… Everything seems to have happened so suddenly…”
I’ve always thought that I wouldn’t live long, so I’ve never taken anything seriously before. In fact, I came back this time fully prepared to wait for my death. But who knew that… As he stared at the bead, something suddenly occurred to him. He quietly whispered, “Does that mean I wasn’t born with the illness?”
Chu Liuyue fell silent for a moment. “If my guess is correct, the bead probably entered your body not long after you were born. It stayed in your body for many years, which was how you ended up in this state. But…”
She paused and looked up. “This isn’t something that you were born with.”
Lin Zhifei lowered his head slightly, his pale and skinny face looking extraordinarily haggard and lonely at the moment. After some time, he finally let out a long sigh. “I see…”
I’ve always thought that I was the cause of my mother’s death. I didn’t know that… He felt relaxed as if a heavy stone that had weighed down on him for years was suddenly lifted. This must’ve been premeditated!
His face, however, soon sank once again. But if I’m not the cause, then someone must’ve plotted everything—be it my mother’s death or my illness!
He looked up and asked, “Are you able to tell where this bead came from, Ms. Dugu?”
Chu Liuyue stared at the bead once more. By now, the flame had burned the bloodstains clean.
This is just a black and heavy bead, and nothing seems special about it… All of a sudden, her eyes focused. “There seems to be a drawing on it—no! I think it’s a totem!”
