Heart-Devouring Sickness, You've Already Explained It All With Your Imagination

Su Qinghan nodded. She seemed to want to say something, but after some thought, she remained silently at the side without speaking.

Jiang Lan glanced at her and smiled faintly. "Is there something Miss Su wishes to say? I'm grateful for your care these past few days. If there's anything, just say it."

"Forgive Qinghan for speaking out of turn."

After hesitating, Su Qinghan still said softly, "But I would like to know, Young Master Jiang, is the illness in your body Heart-Devouring Sickness?"

While at Qingshan Academy, aside from her daily cultivation, she had also enjoyed reading all manner of scriptures and ancient texts, dabbling in many fields.

Among them, she remembered an incurable disease recorded in a volume of the Medical Classics.

Those whose hearts were devoured would fall into madness—their heart's blood consumed, their limbs wracked by spasms, their vital essence flowing backward.

When the madness struck, they would climb high places and sing, cast off their clothes and run, beat and curse, smash things, showing no distinction between kin and stranger—such behavior was too numerous to list.

Though she had only skimmed through it at the time, this strange and sinister terminal illness had left a deep impression on her.

That night, when Jiang Lan had suddenly suffered an attack in the pavilion, his symptoms had matched the description of Heart Devouring Sickness one by one.

Moreover, the pain Jiang Lan had displayed then had made her face turn pale and her heart tremble.

Merely witnessing it had made her own limbs ache faintly in sympathy.

If it had happened to her personally, she did not know how much agony she would have been in.

An ordinary person would likely have long since wailed aloud, wishing they were dead, yet Jiang Lan had merely let out a muffled groan and shown no further reaction.

From beginning to end, he had endured it with an almost terrifying willpower.

At that moment, Su Qinghan could not help but feel a sincere and genuine admiration rise within her.

Only by enduring what ordinary people could not endure could one accomplish what ordinary people could not accomplish.

"Heart-Devouring Sickness?"

Jiang Lan looked somewhat surprised. He smiled, neither confirming nor denying it. "And where did Miss Su learn of it?"

"I happened to see it in a volume of the Medical Classics."

Su Qinghan said softly, "Heart-Devouring Sickness is a terminal illness, but it is not without a cure. At least, the volume of the Medical Classics I read had methods to resolve it."

Seeing Jiang Lan appear even more surprised, she continued softly, "The first is to mend the heart with a heart: swallow three bowls of heart-tip blood from someone overflowing with vital essence every day, and it can be completely cured after several years."

"The second is to drain all the essence and blood from the body, emptying the kidneys and reducing the body to a state of hollow weakness. With no essence or blood left to devour, the symptoms will naturally ease. But this method cannot cure it completely. Once enough time passes and the essence and blood are replenished, the symptoms will flare up again."

From Jiang Lan's current physical condition, Su Qinghan could tell that he had likely chosen the second method.

No wonder he always looked pale, thin, and frail, as though he had only just recovered from a serious illness.

Those who did not know better would probably truly believe he had drowned himself in female charms, unable to pull free, toiling day and night until his essence and kidneys had been drained dry.

Even she had thought so before...

With the authority and power of the Prime Minister's Manor, he could have consumed heart-tip blood and easily cured himself, yet he had instead chosen the second method, which could only relieve the symptoms.

Was it because every bowl of heart-tip blood taken would cost the lives of several innocent people?

Whenever Su Qinghan thought of this over the past few days, her feelings became incomparably complicated.

After Jiang Lan heard her out, he did not speak again.

He merely gazed at the drooping willows outside the window lattice, as though they had been blown down by a light breeze, seemingly lost in thought.

Sunlight fell across his pale, peerlessly handsome face, as though countless emotions lay within it.

"Young Master Jiang, please continue resting. Qinghan will take her leave first..."

Su Qinghan spoke softly. Then, no longer wishing to disturb Jiang Lan's rest, she rose, picked up the basin of water, and left.

"You've already imagined and explained everything for me. What else can I say..."

Only after Su Qinghan left did Jiang Lan slowly withdraw his gaze, smiling with some surprise.

Jiang Lan could naturally guess Su Qinghan's thoughts, and he vaguely understood why her attitude toward him had grown so much closer.

But naturally, he could not explain such a matter.

His condition was indeed very similar to Heart-Devouring Sickness. In some respects, it was practically identical, yet in essence, it was completely different.

Because this was entirely a rejection reaction after a heart transplant—or, more accurately, the symptoms that came after replacing his heart with the Seven-Orifice Exquisite Immortal Heart.

Twenty years ago, the Kunlun Immortal Ruins of the Nine Provinces Continent had suddenly emerged, with strange phenomena stretching for tens of thousands of miles.

Immortal sects, dynasties, clans, and aristocratic families from all sides had dispatched people to investigate, vying for immortal opportunities and great fortune.

Jiang Lan's parents had been among them. As supreme figures of their age, they broke through countless restrictions and Formation Patterns, defeated a host of formidable enemies, ventured deep into the Kunlun Immortal Ruins, and finally brought back an immortal fetus sealed within Dao Source.

The immortal fetus brimmed with interwoven spiritual rhythms, its Dao patterns formed by heaven itself, covered in all manner of innate immortal marks. It was teeming with life and unfathomably mysterious.

Three months later, the immortal fetus cracked open, and a delicate little girl, carved from pink jade, stepped out. That little girl was Jiang Lan's adoptive elder sister, Jiang Ruxian.

Another half year passed before Jiang Lan was born.

Although Jiang Ruxian had only come into the world three months before him, she looked at least three or four years older than he did.

Despite her tender age, her mind was mature. Gentle and considerate, she cared for Jiang Lan as if he were her own younger brother, attending to him in every possible detail.

Unfortunately, while Jiang Lan was still in the womb, he had suffered erosion from the aura of the Kunlun Immortal Ruins, damaging his innate foundation.

From the moment he was born, he had been frail beyond measure, plagued by countless illnesses.

Even with all manner of heavenly treasures nourishing him, he only gradually improved around the age of three.

And when Jiang Lan was three and had only just begun to cultivate, Jiang Ruxian had already displayed an invincible bearing. Even her rate of cultivation progress left their parents amazed.

The two declared that, within a few years, perhaps the entire younger generation of the Nine Provinces Continent would live beneath Jiang Ruxian's shadow.

She was indeed worthy of being an immortal fetus from the Kunlun Immortal Ruins—possessing an immortal bearing and Dao bones, a crystal-clear immortal heart, and peerless natural talent.

Although Jiang Lan had inherited the talents of both his parents, because his innate foundation had been damaged, there was still an enormous gap between him and his sister.

No matter how diligently he cultivated, he could never catch up to his sister.

He cultivated while eating, cultivated while sleeping, cultivated during morning study, and cultivated when he rose in the night.

Out of the twelve double-hours in a day, the time he truly spent resting was vanishingly small.

Yet even though he cultivated every moment without pause, he still could not catch up to his sister. He gradually could not even see her receding silhouette.

To the outside world's favored geniuses, he might have been an undeniable prodigy.

But before that elder sister of his, what difference was there truly between him and an ordinary mortal?

A sense of inferiority had taken root in his young heart from childhood.

Though his father comforted him in time, every word he spoke was no different from a sharp thorn to the young boy, so eager to surpass others.

"The Jiang Lan in my memories is quite different from what I learned from the plot..."

"As a child, he was clever and well-behaved, obedient and kind, gentle and courteous. Every maid liked him. Because he could not catch up to his dazzling, radiant sister, he secretly cultivated even more diligently, day and night, neglecting food and sleep. Yet the gap only grew wider, and because of that, he gradually withdrew into himself and became taciturn..."