45: Furnace feeder's backbite

"Impressive tactics."

Su Chen laughed in extreme anger, his voice as raspy as a grinding wheel against rust.

He suddenly straightened up, his fingers like hooks as he tore apart his already tattered shirt.

The faint Yin-Yang fish pattern on his chest now seemed like a living venomous snake, crawling hideously up to his collarbone.

The red and white energies strangled each other, stretching his skin until it was nearly transparent.

"Since you're raising a pig, you'd better see if the pig is willing!"

The moment his fingertips touched the needle, a bone-chilling cold pierced his nerves.

Instead of retreating, he advanced, turning the needle point and aiming it directly at the center of his own brow.

"You want to use me to refine a pill as a sacrifice to some damn ruins god? Fine, I'll destroy this cauldron right now! Let's see what you'll use for your sacrifice then!"

Even if he had to destroy his own foundation, he would never let others reap the benefits. This was the ruthlessness in Su Chen's bones.

"Don't—!"

Lin Mengyao let out a shrill scream.

Just as the needle point pierced the skin of Su Chen's brow and a drop of blood seeped out, she lunged forward.

She didn't try to grab the silver needle; instead, she bit down hard on the tip of her own tongue!

“Pfft!”

A mouthful of warm essence blood, mixed with the tears from the corners of her eyes, sprayed unerringly onto the silver needle.

The silver needle, which had been emitting a cold green light, instantly erupted with a blinding red glow upon being stained by the essence blood.

That extremely cold aura of the Lin Family was forcibly wiped away.

In its place was a familiar warmth that felt connected to Su Chen's own bloodline.

With a mouth full of blood, Lin Mengyao stared frantically into the void and roared, "Transferring ownership by blood! From this day forward, this needle recognizes only Su Chen as its master! Ancestors of the Lin Family, this furnace... I will no longer tend to it!"

“Rumble—”

There was no thunder outside, but the entire survival bus felt as if it were being gripped by an invisible giant hand, letting out a tooth-gritting groan of metal.

"Oh no! This is the backlash for violating the Ancestral Covenant!"

In the rearview mirror, Zhao Wanting's illusory ghost shadow instantly became as thin as paper.

She shrieked, "The Lin Family Ancestral Hall is extracting her soul from across the void! She's seeking death!"

Before Su Chen could react, he saw ink-black, spiderweb-like patterns emerge out of thin air on the back of Lin Mengyao's fair neck.

Those patterns were like living parasites, spreading frantically toward the back of her head.

With every inch they advanced, Lin Mengyao's complexion grew more ashen. Her entire body seemed to have its bones removed, and she slumped downward limply.

"Damn it!"

Su Chen cursed under his breath, wanting to reach out and pull her.

However, he found that the two forces within his body had completely spiraled out of control due to this sudden turn of events, pinning him in place.

Just then, a golden afterimage flashed past.

Qin Ya, who had been curled up in the back seat, rushed to the front with an unknown source of strength.

She tightly gripped the pearl hairpin that was originally used to 'suppress' Su Chen's Yang Fire, her face carrying a nearly holy determination.

“Pfft!”

Without the slightest hesitation, she plunged the hairpin deep into the left side of her chest—the heart's meridian center, where the so-called 'Gold Fate' was most abundant.

"Teacher Qin!"

Su Chen's pupils constricted.

"I don't understand anything about covenants..." Qin Ya's body convulsed with pain, yet she bit her lip hard to keep from crying out.

She grasped the end of the hairpin with both hands and pulled it out with force.

A stream of pure golden blood gushed out, but it didn't spill onto the floor.

Instead, she caught it in her palm and slammed it onto the bronze pedestal beneath the driver's seat.

"I only know that she is my student, and you are my... my hope. Use my life to buy her a little time!"

As the golden blood entered the furnace, the originally violent engine roar of the bus instantly lowered.

A soft yet resilient golden halo spread along the pedestal, forcibly blocking the black patterns on the back of Lin Mengyao's neck and suppressing them.

"Two crazy women..."

Su Chen felt as if a lump of cotton were stuck in his throat, both sour and bitter.

One betrayed her family to suffer the pain of ten thousand ants devouring her soul, while the other mutilated her heart's meridian to cut off her own life force.

If he still lost after all this, he, Su Chen, would never be able to hold his head up again for the rest of his life!

"All of you, shut up! Since none of us want to die, then gamble big with me!"

Su Chen roared, and his palms, which he had intended to use for self-destruction, slammed onto the floor.

He no longer tried to vent the two explosive energies within him; instead, he reversed the circulation path of the Sacred Yang Script.

At his dantian, a terrifying suction force suddenly erupted.

"Yang-Devouring Array, reverse!"

This wasn't purging poison; this was an invitation to explode.

He forcibly sucked all the overflowing Yin Qi of the Lin Family in the cabin, Qin Ya's golden blood vitality, and his own violent Sacred Yang True Qi into his dantian all at once.

It was like throwing two hand grenades into a pressure cooker that was about to blow, and then trying to flatten it with your bare hands.

"Condense... for me!!!"

The veins all over Su Chen's body bulged, his skin cracked inch by inch, and blood instantly stained the floor red.

He was gambling—gambling that since this 'Sacred Yang Divine Body' was born for alchemy, it could withstand this level of compression.

If he could suppress it, this furnace core would be his from now on.

If not, they would all blow up like fireworks together, and no one would have it easy!

Pain.

Pain that surpassed human limits flooded Su Chen's consciousness.

He felt as if a sun were being gestated in his dantian, oscillating between destruction and rebirth every second.

An unknown amount of time passed.

The torrential rain outside stopped.

The first ray of dawn light filtered through the shattered bus window, spilling onto the messy floor of the cabin.

Lin Mengyao's eyelashes fluttered, and she slowly opened her eyes amidst a wave of sharp pain.

She subconsciously raised her wrist; the bright red palace maiden mark was gone, replaced by a golden vine tattoo.

The vine was lifelike, extending downward like some invisible thread connecting toward the driver's seat.

Following the thread, she saw Su Chen slumped in the driver's seat, his breathing weak but steady.

His pinky finger was also wrapped in the same golden vine pattern.

"Is this... the Mutual Defense Covenant?"

Zhao Wanting's extremely weak whisper echoed in the air, her figure so faint she was almost invisible.

"Congratulations. In this damned apocalypse, you've truly become grasshoppers on the same string. However..."

Zhao Wanting's hollow eyes pointed strangely at the dashboard.

The fuel gauge, which had been on the verge of alarming, now eerily pointed to 'Full'.

And beneath the gaps in the torn leather of the driver's seat, two long strands of hair were faintly visible.

One black and one brown, they had somehow quietly intertwined, tied into a concentric knot that could never be undone.

Those were the colors of Lin Mengyao's and Qin Ya's hair.

"The primary position was saved, but the 'appetite' of this bus seems to have changed."

There was a trace of inexplicable fear in Zhao Wanting's voice.

Su Chen's eyes remained tightly closed, as if he had fallen into a deep coma.

But deep within his body, where no one could see, a grain-sized bead emitting a faint purple-gold light was slowly rotating inside his originally empty dantian.

With every rotation, a stream of unprecedentedly pure power silently nourished his shattered meridians.

This was no mere stone.

This was clearly an... Inner Elixir in the process of forming.