105: Chapter 105: Blocking is not as effective as dredging, but the pipes for dredging must be specially made.

Shen Xiao wiped away the cold sweat seeping from his forehead. His fingertips were icy cold, but his palms were searing hot from over-exerting his Silver Pattern.

"This won't clear it all."

His voice was as hoarse as sandpaper grinding against rusted iron, each word carrying the scent of blood. "They are 'feeding' each other. The bit you suppress is instantly filled in by the surrounding ones."

Xia Lengbai did not turn back, but her movements paused slightly; she was clearly listening.

The frequency-clearing fluctuations were still outputting, but the light spots at the entrance that had faded were like cockroaches that couldn't be killed—as soon as he pressed one side down, another popped up. Moreover, Shen Xiao narrowed his eyes; the residual perception from his Silver Pattern allowed him to "see" more clearly that they were truly converging.

It wasn't a simple accumulation, but rather as if some invisible vortex was attracting them. All the light spots were flowing extremely slowly and persistently toward a certain point deep within the ice layer.

What would form there?

An emotional aggregate?

A "nodule" of consciousness residue?

Or some even more disgusting "thing" that specifically gnawed on the darkest corners of the human heart?

Shen Xiao did not know.

"We need to give them a… 'flood discharge outlet'."

As he spoke, he struggled to move his body so that his line of sight could look over Xia Lengbai's shoulder to see the full picture of the entrance.

"But it cannot be your body; it has already been proven that they will backlash along the energy connection.

It also cannot be my Silver Pattern; in my current state, three overloads of the Silver Pattern and I'll be ascending to heaven right on the spot."

His gaze fell upon Xia Lengbai's other hand.

There, a cluster of ice-blue energy hovered silently, as transparent as the purest ice crystal, yet dormant within it was a trace of a tiny mental imprint belonging to the depths of Xia Lengbai's Soul.

A bargaining chip for the transaction.

A lure for testing.

A shackle, and also a key.

"Use it."

Shen Xiao's voice was low and clear, each word seemingly squeezed out from between his teeth.

"Your pure energy, carrying your imprint, is 'delicious' to them. They will instinctively be attracted to the homologous emotional imprint.

At the same time, it is also a 'trap'; your Power of the Ice Soul naturally restrains this kind of chaotic emotional residue."

He paused, organizing his phrasing, ensuring every word was as precise as a knife:

"You control it to form a controllable attraction channel at the entrance, guiding those residues toward it.

I will use the Silver Pattern to establish a 'filtration-blocking' layer between the channel and your energy cluster, preventing the pollution from directly backlashing into your core, and at the same time…"

His eyes narrowed, flashing with the dangerous light that only a hunter has when setting a trap: "Record their 'flow pattern'."

Xia Lengbai finally turned her head.

In those ice-blue eyes, the dim light of the stone chamber was reflected, as was Shen Xiao's face, which was pale as paper due to blood loss and exhaustion, yet still carried a kind of near-pathological excitement.

She did not answer immediately, but simply scrutinized. She scrutinized the risks and benefits of this proposal, as well as the credibility of the person who proposed it.

"You want to use my energy as bait and your 'thread' as a sieve and recorder."

Her voice remained cold, like an undercurrent beneath a winter lake, devoid of joy or anger,

"If it succeeds, you get the data and figure out the laws of the pollution; if it fails, my energy gets polluted, and perhaps I myself might suffer a worsened backlash.

You certainly have a guaranteed win without any risk."

"A guaranteed win?"

Shen Xiao let out a short, breathy sound that was almost a scoff,

"In my current state, I am the biggest losing asset.

You provide the energy, I provide my life; my Silver Pattern overload will backlash into my heart Meridians, which might be worse than your energy being polluted."

He raised his hand, the faint silver light at his fingertips flickering slightly, like a candle flame ready to extinguish in the wind: "This is called risk-sharing, Young Miss Xia.

Neither of us can afford to lose."

Xia Lengbai was silent for three breaths.

After three breaths, the cluster of ice-blue energy in her palm began to change.

There were no extra words, no confirming actions, only the most direct action. Under her control, the energy cluster, like clay being kneaded by an invisible hand, began to stretch, deform, and elongate extremely slowly…

Finally, it transformed into a thin, crystal-clear ice tube.

The tube walls were as thin as cicada wings, but inside flowed the Power of the Ice Soul, pure to the extreme, carrying Xia Lengbai's unique, cold, and sharp Soul imprint.

The front end of the thin tube was as sharp as a needle, aimed at the area on the ice layer at the entrance where the light spots were densest and the agitation was most intense.

"Begin."

Xia Lengbai spat out the two words, her tone as flat as if she were ordering a servant to serve tea.

But Shen Xiao saw it: her fingers gripping that "tube" had knuckles that were slightly white.

It was not nervousness.

It was the suppression of a complex emotion, an instinctive intertwining of disgust and excitement.

The ice crystal tube probed forward.

The movement was slow and precise, like a surgeon's scalpel or a fisherman's line, carrying the bait, extending toward that boiling, malicious expanse of water.

The moment of contact, a sudden change occurred!

Those emotional residues that had originally sunk into the ice layer, fading and slowing down, suddenly "came alive" like sharks that had smelled blood!

The scarlet light spots reacted first, transforming into countless tiny, pulsating blood-colored tentacles, frantically climbing up the ice crystal tube walls;

The deep blue light spots followed closely behind, generating a powerful suction force, attempting to drag the entire tube into the depths of the ice layer;

Even those pale green light spots, which had originally been suppressed to near transparency by the frequency clearing, twisted and writhed like maggots that had smelled rotting flesh, spreading toward the tube!

"Hiss…"

Shen Xiao gasped. It was not because of the madness of those light spots, but because, the moment they touched the ice crystal tube wall, he violently activated that wisp of Silver Pattern deep within his Dantian!

This time, he did not shoot the Silver Pattern toward the pollution source, but instead let them run wildly along his Meridians, condensing and intertwining in his palm, ultimately transforming into an extremely complex, shimmering grid almost impossible to capture with the naked eye!

The edge of the grid landed precisely on the distance of less than half a foot between the ice crystal tube and Xia Lengbai's palm, forming a "filtration-blocking" layer that was precise to the extreme.

"Hum…"

The moment the Silver Pattern grid touched the emotional residue, Shen Xiao felt as if he had been struck by lightning!

A massive, chaotic, and fragmented amount of information, unsystematic and disjointed, poured into his Sea of Consciousness along the connection of the Silver Pattern like a breached flood!

Cold, restless, gloomy, fearful, angry, desperate… Countless types of extreme emotional residue, each wisp carrying the strongest emotional imprint of its former owner before death, washed over Shen Xiao's consciousness, attempting to drag him into that abyss woven from pain and madness.

What was even more terrifying was that when those residues touched the Silver Pattern grid, they seemed to have found a new "host," frantically attempting to cling, erode, and take root!

The Silver Pattern vibrated violently, each vibration feeling as if someone were stabbing red-hot iron needles into his bone marrow.

Shen Xiao gritted his teeth, the taste of rust spreading in his mouth. He stared fixedly at that Silver Pattern grid, not letting his consciousness be scattered, because that was his only "eye."

Through the Silver Pattern, he "saw" it.

Those emotional residues, after pouring into the ice crystal tube, did not directly pollute Xia Lengbai's core energy as expected.

The structure of the ice crystal, the pure Power of the Ice Soul, and that mental imprint dormant deep within the tube walls, the three formed a certain subtle "regularization" mechanism.

Those originally manic and disordered residues, in the process of passing through the tube, were squeezed and combed as if by an invisible mold, their flow pattern gradually transforming from boiling turbulence into relatively orderly, cold turbulent flow.

More critically.

Shen Xiao's pupils shrank violently. He "saw" the reaction of that crack at the core of Xia Lengbai.

That crack in consciousness, which had previously been torn apart due to loss of control over power, at this moment, upon contacting those "regularized" cold energy flows carrying Xia Lengbai's own imprint, actually produced a certain… instinctive reaction.

Not repulsion.

Not fear.

But… closeness.

Just like an injured beast that would instinctively approach when smelling the scent of a companion; just like a parched piece of land that would greedily suckle when feeling the rain.

That crack was attempting to "absorb" those regularized energy flows at an extremely slow, almost imperceptible speed.

Not being polluted, but, domesticated.

A crazy thought flashed through Shen Xiao's mind like lightning. Her yandere personality, that twisted, pathological ability to convert all extreme emotions into her own nutrients…

Perhaps it could not only contain chaos, but also…

"Continue."

Xia Lengbai's voice suddenly sounded, cold as ever, but carrying a tiny, almost imperceptible tremor.

Shen Xiao raised his head, meeting her ice-blue eyes.

In those eyes, a certain light he had never seen before was surging, like hunger, like greed, and also like someone who had been groping in the dark for too long, finally touching something familiar and warm.

The ice crystal tube in her palm probed deeper.

Those frantically clinging emotional residues were being continuously drawn into it, then regularized, combed, and… absorbed.

And the Silver Pattern grid was flashing frantically in his palm; on the verge of overload, a tiny crack quietly appeared.

A wisp of blood seeped from the corner of Shen Xiao's mouth, but he smiled.

"Young Miss Xia."

His voice was so hoarse it was almost broken, yet it carried a kind of unspeakable excitement,

"Your illness… seems to be even more promising than I imagined."