Cultivation

"Take off my clothes?" Xu Yuan asked instinctively.

Ran Qingmo's expression remained devoid of ripples as she said softly:

"My injuries are severe, and my control over Qi has diminished significantly. If you keep your clothes on, I might hurt you."

Hearing these words from the woman before him, devoid of any affectation, Xu Yuan directly stripped off his fine robes.

Taking them off for the first time, and aided by the faint light of the night-luminescent pearl on the stone wall, Xu Yuan finally realized that this body of his was incredibly thin.

Standing over 1.8 meters tall, his weight was likely less than 110 jin; he was so gaunt that even his ribs were clearly visible.

Years of indulgence in wine and women had completely hollowed out this body.

Xu Yuan withdrew his gaze, looked at Ran Qingmo with a calm expression, and asked:

"Do I need to take off my undergarments?"

"..."

Ran Qingmo looked up at him, her cold, clear gaze simply resting on him in silence.

Fine, it seemed that was unnecessary.

Xu Yuan sat cross-legged opposite Ran Qingmo, just about to speak.

"Lie down," she instructed softly.

Xu Yuan silently adjusted his posture and lay flat before the woman.

Ran Qingmo raised a slender, jade-like finger, and a faint blue light appeared at its tip:

"My Qi will enter your body."

Xu Yuan glanced sideways:

"Won't something go wrong?"

He remembered Ran Qingmo saying that if her Qi entered his body, it would directly rupture his narrow meridians.

"..."

Ran Qingmo was becoming accustomed to this expert who had reached the "Origin Beginning" of Qi asking her such idiotic questions regarding cultivation.

After a pause, she shook her head to explain:

"The Qi will only remain on the surface; it will not enter your meridians."

Xu Yuan nodded, signaling for her to continue.

In the dim cave dwelling, the woman's slender fingers moved slightly, and the faint blue light at her fingertip instantly dispersed into hundreds or thousands of light spots, drifting down like fireflies to land gently all over the surface of Xu Yuan's body.

The sensation was somewhat icy.

And the next moment, These light spots vanished like clay oxen entering the sea, passing directly through his skin and into his body.

In an instant, Within Xu Yuan's field of vision, his own body transformed into a transparent anatomical diagram.

Those light spots connected into a single expanse, and clear pathways and acupoints were suddenly presented before his eyes.

Soon, Xu Yuan felt his body gradually sinking into a state of paralysis as these light spots entered.

However, this numbness was accompanied by waves of tingling; her Qi was icy and cool, feeling quite comfortable.

"Ah~"

Ran Qingmo's gaze swept over.

Xu Yuan muted himself.

Ran Qingmo withdrew her gaze and said clearly:

"I will first teach you to identify the acupoints."

"Acupoints?"

"Acupoints are the vital nodes between the meridians," she explained.

"Oh, right." Xu Yuan nodded.

"The next part might be a little painful."

As she spoke, Ran Qingmo extended a slender finger and tapped it lightly against the base of Xu Yuan's neck.

Her fingertip was not warm; on the contrary, it was somewhat icy.

"This is the Huiyuan Acupoint."

As her words fell and her fingertip made contact, a sharp pain instantly pierced through the comfortable tingling from before.

The pain on the right side of his neck caused Xu Yuan's body to tremble uncontrollably.

However, this level of pain was barely tolerable.

Ran Qingmo's finger did not stop, continuing to tap rhythmically across Xu Yuan's supine body at a pace of once every five seconds.

With every tap, Ran Qingmo would call out the corresponding acupoint, and a sharp sting would ripple from somewhere beneath the skin where her fingertip had lightly pressed.

Time slipped away bit by bit.

Two quarters of an hour later, every one of the hundreds of acupoints on the human body had been tapped.

Ran Qingmo slowly withdrew her hand, looked at Xu Yuan, and said in a clear voice:

"Have you remembered all of these?"

Xu Yuan opened his eyes.

He met her gaze for a second, opened his mouth, and said:

"Huh?"

She couldn't possibly think he'd memorized them all in one go, could she?

"..." Ran Qingmo.

Without another word, Ran Qingmo silently extended her finger once more and continued to tap:

"This is the Huiyuan Acupoint."

"..."

"..."

It was unclear how much time had passed, or how many times the tutorial on identifying acupoints had been repeated; perhaps it had been an entire morning, perhaps an entire afternoon.

Ran Qingmo withdrew her hand again and looked at the man lying flat before her:

"This time, have you remembered?"

Xu Yuan closed his eyes to carefully sense the remnants of the qi Ran Qingmo had left inside his body, then nodded slightly:

"I've mostly got it."

"Mostly?"

"Seventy to eighty percent."

"..."

Ran Qingmo looked at him with a strange expression, her eyes filled with utter incomprehension.

So stupid.

She could not understand why the man before her was so slow-witted.

"..."

Xu Yuan roughly understood the meaning behind the gaze of this ice block and opened his mouth to explain.

In his past life, as a "study god" in the eyes of others, he had considered his speed in memorizing these acupoints to be quite fast.

But in the end, Xu Yuan swallowed the words that had reached his lips.

Compared to her, perhaps his "study god" status from his past life was truly that of an ordinary person.

He remembered that at this point in the plot, the woman in black before him was only seventeen years old.

And at seventeen, her cultivation had already reached the Grandmaster realm, just one step away from the Origin Beginning of qi.

The gap between people was truly greater than the gap between a human and a dog.

Ran Qingmo didn't say anything more; she silently raised her finger and said:

"Let's continue."

"Mm."

Xu Yuan nodded and focused his attention once again.

Time slipped away bit by bit once more.

Inside the cave dwelling, there was no view of the sky, making it impossible to tell how much time had passed.

When another session ended, Xu Yuan felt as though his entire body was about to turn into the same deep blue Origin Qi as Ran Qingmo's.

At this moment, Ran Qingmo spoke up:

"If we continue any further, your body will be injured."

"..."

Xu Yuan slowly opened his eyes, hesitated for a moment, and then nodded in agreement with Ran Qingmo's suggestion.

Although Ran Qingmo's qi was gentle, it was ultimately a foreign substance, and allowing it to remain in his body for long periods would inevitably cause a burden.

At this very moment, he was already feeling a hint of nausea and dizziness.

Furthermore, the prolonged mental concentration had left his body feeling an unprecedented level of exhaustion.

A person's willpower is indeed important, but physical limitations are a reality that no amount of willpower can overcome.

After the day's lessons concluded, Ran Qingmo did not rest, continuing to sit cross-legged to regulate her breath and heal her injuries.

As for Xu Yuan, he climbed onto the only jade bed in the cave dwelling, and the moment his head touched the pillow, his consciousness drifted into a deep slumber.

In his dreams, it was still the scene of her teaching him how to identify acupuncture points.

Ran Qingmo seemed to have no need for rest.

When Xu Yuan was awake, she taught him the fundamental knowledge of cultivation.

When Xu Yuan was resting, she sat silently in the corner, regulating her breath and healing her wounds.

There was no food in the cave, but that pool of water seemed to be formed from some kind of heavenly treasure; a single sip was enough to provide Xu Yuan with energy for an entire day.

Life here seemed to exist outside of time, and the days passed by one after another.

And in these days where he could not distinguish between day and night, Xu Yuan gradually mastered those obscure and difficult-to-understand concepts of cultivation.