I froze for a moment, and, without worrying about the propriety between men and women at a time like this, immediately shook Lingzhao. "Lingzhao? Are you all right?"
"..." Lingzhao's face was deathly pale, and her pupils showed signs of dilating. The juling within her had fallen into a state of mental chaos. Regret suddenly welled up in me—I shouldn't have rejected her so bluntly just now, causing her to form a knot in her heart. She might have been suffering alone in the depths of her meditation, completely unaware that her body had already fallen into a state of unstable inner demons and disorder.
But there was no use saying any of that now. I immediately tried to take control of her body and once again attempted to rouse her spirit. "Lingzhao, wake up! You've gone berserk!"
Yet Lingzhao remained completely oblivious. Her whole body promptly fell into convulsions as the three different energies within her descended into chaos. I cursed my own rashness inwardly. If only I had agreed to cultivate together with her, everything would have been fine. After all, dual cultivation meant opening up every barrier between us, but it was only a merging on the level of spiritual power and the mind. Even if the body did not intervene, there would not have been any problem.
Thinking back, Lingzhao must have made an enormous decision, which was why she had repeatedly hinted at it to me. Her current reaction already showed the consequences of that decision being shattered.
I turned her around, then immediately did everything I could to use the water-element Spirit Veins behind me to gently soothe the acupoints throughout her body. After a frantic struggle, the Spirit Veins within her stabilized, but the inner demon remained unresolved, leaving me utterly at a