Seventeen frames

Besides protecting Pei Ling's meridians, the medicinal liquid primarily served to create an illusion for the poison inside him. Its ultimate purpose was to lure that poison out of his body.

Yes, she could not actually neutralize the poison. All she could do was expel it. The poison had already developed a sentience of its own, which was precisely what made it so terrifying. Ordinary methods were completely ineffective against it, but this medicinal liquid was the perfect bait.

Don't ask why. She just knew.

Qiao Ranran thought for a moment, then lit the fire jade crystal beside the wooden tub. The formation beside the tub instantly channeled the fire-aspected spiritual power released by the burning crystal into the tub, igniting and heating the medicinal liquid once more.

Her reasoning was simple. Since Pei Ling was so cold, a little more heat would not hurt.

Sensing the change in the liquid's temperature, Pei Ling raised his eyes and gave Qiao Ranran a chilly look.

Heat like this truly meant nothing to him. At this point in his previous life, those people had already locked him deep within the Abyss. Apart from endless darkness, there had been only the scorching of demonic fire and the bitter fury of astral wind, slowly licking away his bones and vital blood, slowly tearing his divine soul apart.

The pain of this scorching heat actually brought back a little of what he had felt in his previous life. Coupled with the poison inside him suddenly churning in response to some unknown stimulus, that familiar sensation gave him an unexpected sense of security. His heart, which had felt unmoored all this time, suddenly found solid ground.

Even the passage of time became less unbearable. Pei Ling's cool gaze settled on Qiao Ranran. She was sitting off to one side, holding a medicine cauldron in one hand and forming seals with the other, preparing to refine Elixirs.

Her technique was rather strange.

It was not as though Pei Ling had never watched anyone refine Elixirs. On the contrary, he had seen many people do it. Each had their own distinctive techniques and habits, but the underlying principles remained the same. Some also used spell arts and formations to prepare their medicine cauldrons beforehand, hoping to further improve the potency of the Elixirs during refinement.

But Pei Ling had never seen techniques like Qiao Ranran's. Forming seals with one hand was one thing; that merely demonstrated her understanding and mastery of spell arts. But he had truly never seen anyone apply and combine these spell arts in this order.

Although he had never specifically studied medicine cultivators or pill cultivators, he understood the fundamentals very well. Taking Qiao Ranran's uncanny acupuncture technique into account as well, Pei Ling felt that he had overlooked something, but he could not recall what it was just yet.

The medicinal liquid's temperature continued to rise steadily, and thin traces seeped through his skin into his meridians, beginning to scorch them little by little. The sensation was rather peculiar.

Then he felt the poison that Qiao Ranran had restrained, leaving it dormant inside him, begin to stir. Instinctively, Pei Ling wanted to suppress it, but at that moment he remembered everything Qiao Ranran had rambled on about at the beginning and immediately abandoned all resistance.

He let the seething poison run rampant through his meridians.

The scalding medicinal liquid had not affected Pei Ling in the slightest, but the seething poison brought fine beads of sweat to his forehead. Only then did he remember that the greatest difference now was this body's low cultivation. Even with his powerful divine sense, he could not change the fact that this body was only at the foundation establishment stage. His divine sense felt nothing at all, but his body had already begun to suffer from these stimuli.

He almost missed this feeling of pain.

Chapter 17: Seventeen frames

Unaware of all the scenarios playing out in Pei Ling's head, Qiao Ranran was absorbed in refining Elixirs and applying spell arts. In her previous life, when her cultivation had been low, she had not yet mastered these spell arts. Most of the time, she had stumbled through them, looking terribly clumsy. Only after devoting more thought and time to them had she gradually improved. She was not particularly clever, nor did she have much talent, but she was diligent and determined enough to achieve things most people had never even imagined.

Only when she began inserting the needles did she realize that her estimated four hours might not be enough. Treating Pei Ling with acupuncture had not been this troublesome before, and the poison's counterattack was fiercer than she had expected. According to her original plan, her spiritual power should barely have sustained three to five needles before she needed to meditate to recover. Now, however, even pouring out every last bit of her spiritual power seemed to leave her a little short for a single needle.

Qiao Ranran furrowed her brow and tossed an Essence-Recovery Pill into her mouth. At this rate, both the time and the cost would increase considerably. It looked like her treatment fee would have to go up too.

Her spiritual power at the third layer of qi refining was only enough to insert one needle at a time. That could be attributed to an error in her diagnosis and estimate, but what surprised her more was the poison's reaction inside Pei Ling. Based on her diagnosis, he should not have been poisoned for long. Besides, she had already treated him with acupuncture before. The poison should not have spread so quickly, and certainly should not have invaded his divine sense. Yet now it seemed that his divine sense had long since been corroded by the poison.

Stranger still, she had a feeling that the poison in Pei Ling's body was different from the poison in his divine sense. They shared the same nature and origin, yet seemed vastly different in how far they had grown and evolved. The poison in his body was newly formed, certainly, but the poison in his divine sense seemed to have taken root there and grown until it had become inseparable from him.

With her current strength, she still had a fighting chance against the simple poison in Pei Ling's body. But if she included the poison in his divine sense, even ten of her together could not manage it. Without hesitation, she bit into another Essence-Recovery Pill and changed her treatment approach.

Four hours later, Qiao Ranran was so exhausted that she looked as though she had been hauled out of the water, her face even paler than Pei Ling's. She bit into another Essence-Recovery Pill before dragging herself laboriously aside to sit down.

That nearly killed me. Qiao Ranran rubbed her wrist. She had not dared let her hand shake while inserting the needles, so now she shook enough to make up for it. Her meridians, depleted almost to the point of tearing, creaked as though in their death throes under the nourishment of the Essence-Recovery Pill. Only after slowly recovering did she languidly raise her eyes, meeting Pei Ling's fathomless gaze head-on.

That gaze was familiar, just like when she had first seen the young man open his eyes. His pupils had lost all their luster, leaving only endless darkness, like a vortex that could swallow a person whole—pitch-black, unfathomable, and unfocused.

Rankings

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Transmigration into a Book

Sweet Romance Novel

Transmigration and Rebirth Romance

Big Black loves eating fish

Dual Rebirth

Xianxia Novel