123: Cultivation through side effects?

The peach pit entered her mouth and was swallowed.

In an instant—

"Boom—!"

Liu Qingluo felt a vast, cool surge of vitality suddenly inject into the excruciating pain that felt like flowing lava and steel files scraping her bones!

Wherever that vitality passed, the violent, raging pain was like a pacified beast, gradually dissipating.

She could even clearly feel... her fractured meridians being forcibly pulled together and reconnected by a miraculous power under the shroud of that cool vitality!

And the hideous, twisted burn scars on her body also began to twitch slightly at this moment!

The next second.

The hard scabs actually turned gray-white at a speed visible to the naked eye, then fine cracks appeared, and then piece by piece, block by block, they began to peel off her body like old tree bark!

Where they peeled off, a layer of slightly pink, smooth, and flat skin was revealed!

Repairing inside?

Scars falling off?

Liu Qingluo was completely stunned.

She turned her neck in disbelief, looking at her arms and shoulders... everywhere she looked, the scars were truly curling up, peeling away, and falling off in large patches!

Like a cicada shedding its heavy shackles!

This... how is this possible?!

Could such medical skills actually exist in this world???

However, what happened next almost made her scream out loud!

Just as the meridians were being forcibly reconnected and the scars were strangely peeling off—

Deep within her dantian, a wisp of 'Qi' thinner than a strand of hair quietly emerged from the core wreckage of her dantian like a breath of spring breeze!

The moment this wisp of Qi appeared, it automatically began to run slowly upward along the newly reconnected and still extremely fragile Ren Meridian!

Wherever it passed, the newborn meridians greedily absorbed this wisp of Qi like seedlings meeting sweet rain after a long drought.

To the point that.

Visibly to the naked eye, they became more flexible and wider!

Power... is returning?!

Liu Qingluo froze on the sofa, her pupils dilated to the extreme, her breathing completely stopped.

Shock!

Unparalleled shock!

It swept through all her thoughts like a tsunami!

Hope.

She really seemed to have hope!

Tears burst from her eyes without warning.

Mixing with the dirt on her face and the fragments of the shed scabs, they rolled down.

But she didn't make a sound, only biting her lower lip hard, letting her body tremble violently amidst the intense pain and rebirth. In those eyes that once held only dead silence and hatred, a terrifying light erupted, like the first ignition of a star!

Before long.

Ye Chen withdrew the needles and let out a long breath of turbid air, his face very pale.

Performing the eighth needle 'Life Extension' and guiding the medicinal power of the peach pit consumed far more than he had estimated... he was almost drained dry!

It was nearly the death of him... but looking at the body on the sofa radiating new life, a faint curve still formed at the corner of his mouth.

"It's done."

He murmured softly, pulling a thin blanket from the side and covering Liu Qingluo with it.

"Get some sleep."

"When you wake up tomorrow..."

"You will be a new Liu Qingluo."

As soon as he finished speaking.

Ye Chen sat cross-legged on the opposite sofa, eyes slightly closed, preparing to recover his consumed essence, energy, and spirit... Suddenly!

"Buzz, buzz, buzz—"

The phone on the coffee table suddenly lit up.

Ye Chen only glanced at it before answering directly.

As a result... "Ye Chen! You bastard!!!"

Night Owl's roar, which almost pierced his eardrums, exploded from the receiver like a lit powder keg!

"What's wrong with you now?" Ye Chen held the phone further away and asked speechlessly.

"What's wrong with me?! You tell me what's wrong with me?!"

Night Owl's voice became several degrees shriller, like a cat that had its tail stepped on.

"Why have I started having that feeling again?!"

"Just now! Without any warning! It's even more... more... than the previous two times!"

She found it hard to say!

Simply damnable!!!

"More what?"

Ye Chen raised an eyebrow and spoke nonchalantly, "In the dead of night, it's inevitable to feel lonely. Fluctuations in blood and Qi are normal."

"Normal my ass!!!"

Night Owl completely exploded.

"I am not lonely! And I am not... not thinking about those messy things!"

"It's you! It must be your doing again!"

"What kind of wicked thing did you put on me?!"

"Immediately! Right now! Get rid of this feeling for me, or else I'll... I'll..."

"Or else what?" Ye Chen sighed and asked helplessly in return, "Kill me? Or kill Yi Yue and the others? Give it a rest. If you really were going to act, you would have done it long ago. Why call me just to vent your impotent rage?"

"You—!"

Night Owl was so choked up she almost couldn't catch her breath.

This guy... he really makes one's teeth itch with hatred!

"Ye Chen, I'm warning you, don't go too far!"

She gritted her teeth, saying each word deliberately, "Tell me the solution or mitigation method right now, otherwise... even if it means we both go down together, I will..."

"Sigh..."

Ye Chen interrupted her, letting out a long, feigned sigh, "You don't like hearing the truth, so what can I do?"

"Don't give me that!" Night Owl didn't buy it at all, her voice cold as ice, "I'm asking you for the last time, how do I get rid of it?"

Ye Chen had a strange look on his face, then spoke solemnly.

"Sink your Qi into your dantian, keep your mind at the Lingtai, place your Five Points Toward Heaven, and try meditating to regulate your breathing for a while."

Night Owl was stunned, her anger subsiding slightly as she asked suspiciously, "Is it useful?"

"No."

Ye Chen answered cleanly and simply.

There was a full three or four seconds of silence on Night Owl's end, and then she exploded with rage, "Ye Chen! Are you playing with me?!!"

"I'm not playing with you." Ye Chen took a deep breath. "I'm just letting you use this 'feeling' to cultivate a bit."

"Cultivate?"

Night Owl's voice was full of disbelief, "You want me to... cultivate with this kind of feeling? Do you take me for an idiot?!"

"Whether you're an idiot or not, you'll only know after you try."

Ye Chen raised an eyebrow.

"This heat stems from an imbalance of Yin and Yang. In essence, it's a 'False Fire' that has been stirred up but has nowhere to vent. Ordinary martial artists avoid it like the plague."

"But if your will is strong enough to maintain a shred of clarity at the extreme edge where this 'False Fire' burns your mind, and you instead guide it to temper your meridians and flush your apertures..."

"Perhaps, there could be unexpected benefits."

He paused and added, "Of course, the process will be a hundred times more painful than normal cultivation. One slip-up and you might really suffer from qi deviation and die from the fire of desire. That's why I said, let you try... whether you dare or not is your business."

He wasn't just talking nonsense.

He had thought of this method while treating Liu Qingluo.

There was a concept called 'destruction followed by rebirth'.

Ordinary people couldn't withstand this fire of desire and would only be ruthlessly consumed.

But... as a top assassin of the Black Prison, Night Owl should theoretically be able to.

The other end of the phone fell silent again.

Ye Chen didn't rush her either; he closed his eyes again and continued his own breath regulation.

He knew that Night Owl was a person proud to her bones, but she was also a top assassin whose thirst for power would never be weak.

This seemingly absurd suggestion was both an insult and potentially... an irresistible temptation for her.

Sure enough, after a long time, Night Owl spoke coldly.

"Ye Chen, you'd better not be lying to me."

"If I find out this is just another trick of yours to tease me..."

"I'll let you know what 'Night Owl' of the Black Prison looks like when she goes crazy."

"Beep— beep— beep—"

The call was disconnected.

Ye Chen put down his phone, opened his eyes, and gently shook his head.

"Whether it's a trick or not... won't you know once you practice?"

He murmured to himself, closed his eyes again, and sank his mind into his dantian... Inside the guest room of Yi Yue's house.

Night Owl sat cross-legged on the cold floor.

Her face was flushed, fine beads of sweat seeped from her forehead, and her amber eyes were tightly closed.

Ye Chen's words, sounding both true and false, echoed in her ears.

She bit her lower lip hard, tasting the metallic tang of blood.

In her mind, however, Ye Chen's hateful face flashed inappropriately once again!

"Bastard...!"

She cursed under her breath, a flash of ruthlessness crossing her eyes.

Cultivate?

Fine!

I'll cultivate it just for you to see!

If I can't... Ye Chen, you just wait to be buried with me when I 'deviate'!

Thinking of this.

She then gritted her teeth, enduring the burning pain in her meridians and that strange craving.

Then.

Following what Ye Chen said, she sank her entire mind into her dantian and tried to guide that out-of-control 'False Fire'.

At first, the violent heat flow was like a runaway horse, crashing through her fragile meridians and bringing tearing pain.

Sweat poured off her like pulp, her skin took on an abnormal flush, and her consciousness swayed repeatedly on the edge between pain and a certain empty craving, nearly failing completely several times.

But she was, after all, a top assassin of the Black Prison, and her tenacity of will far exceeded that of ordinary people.

At the critical point of nearly fainting, she suddenly stimulated her Lingtai with intense pain, grasped a shred of clarity, and exerted all her strength to use her own cultivated cold internal energy technique as a guide, leading the burning airflow to circulate slowly according to a specific route.

"Sizzle—"

Like cold water dripping into boiling oil!

The heat flow clashed violently with her cold internal energy, and her meridians felt as if they were about to explode.

A sweetness rose in Night Owl's throat, but she forced the blood back down. The ruthlessness in her eyes deepened; instead of stopping, she drove the technique even more frantically, forcibly refining it!

The pain reached its peak!

However, just at the moment she thought her meridians were about to snap and her body would explode—

"Buzz!"

It was as if some barrier within her body was boldly broken through!

The raging 'False Fire' and her cold internal energy did not perish together. Instead, they reached a strange and violent balance, then suddenly fused, transforming into a majestic power.

The next second, like a bursting flood, it instantly cleared several of her secret apertures that had been unreachable in the past and washed through every inch of her meridians!

The aura of the peak of a Grandmaster erupted from her without reservation!

The air in the guest room condensed, and the water glass on the table 'cracked' with fine fissures.

Night Owl snapped her eyes open, a black light flashing in her pupils before slowly retracting.

She looked down at her hands in disbelief.

She... broke through?

She really broke through?!

From the middle stage of Grandmaster, she had leaped to the peak in one step?!

That bastard... didn't lie to me?