Chapter 28

Qiao Ranran pressed her lips together. She had successfully isolated the toxins in Pei Ling's divine sense from those in his body. The former were beyond her ability to treat; now she only needed to follow her original plan and deal with the toxins in his body. As for the other abnormalities she had discovered in his divine sense, professional ethics dictated that she not pry.

Nor did she dare to.

But judging by Pei Ling's expression, he clearly knew she had discovered his secret. After all, he had been fully conscious while she was working on his divine sense.

Quick-witted as ever, Qiao Ranran immediately declared, "I won't tell anyone."

Pei Ling's lips curved, lending the handsome boy's smile a brooding, dangerous edge. "Senior sister, what would you tell them?"

Qiao Ranran sucked in a breath and assessed her current combat strength. Even if Pei Ling was the one receiving treatment, either his apparent strength or his hidden strength would let him crush her with a single finger.

When Qiao Ranran failed to answer, Pei Ling pressed on. "So, what secret did you discover, senior sister?"

"If it's a secret, just pretend I don't know!" Stubborn to the bitter end, Qiao Ranran spoke before she could stop herself.

Pei Ling's smile deepened. "Why not tell me, senior sister? What if you guessed wrong?"

To Qiao Ranran, Pei Ling's smile was becoming increasingly twisted. It was as though she had accidentally peeled back a psychopath's outer shell and glimpsed his hidden secret. Now her life seemed to hang on that psychopath's whim.

"Body snatching." Qiao Ranran pressed her lips together. Aside from the glaring discrepancy in the strength of his divine soul, his soul fit this body perfectly, leaving no flaw anyone could easily discover. Thus, the "well-informed" Qiao Ranran had another explanation for his condition, one exceedingly familiar to someone like her: rebirth.

She reasonably suspected that the boy before her might have been reborn, just like her. And judging by the strength of his divine soul, he had definitely been a terrifying powerhouse before his rebirth.

Of course, speculation was one thing; saying it aloud was another. Even guessing "body snatching" was shocking enough. If she blurted out "rebirth," someone as clever as Pei Ling would surely realize she had considerable "experience."

Pei Ling was now even more certain that Qiao Ranran was interesting. She had only just joined the Profound Heart Sect, and he had never heard of her there in his previous life. She was currently only at the third level of the Qi Refining Stage, yet neither her spell arts nor her alchemy, nor even her acupuncture technique, belonged to the sect's heritage.

"Then you'll have to keep this secret safe, won't you, senior sister?"

Qiao Ranran smiled, her eyes narrowing with perfect, natural innocence. "Secret? What secret? I don't know anything." She could not outplay him at being clever, but she had never lost at playing dumb.

After that brief rest, her meager spiritual power had fully recovered. Thinking of all the additional resources she had unexpectedly used, Qiao Ranran stubbornly told Pei Ling, "Little junior brother, the treatment fee might be rather high this time."

Pei Ling answered with a question. "Since you already know my secret, senior sister, how can you still bring yourself to call me your little. Junior. Brother?"

He really wasn't going to let that go, was he?

"How are you feeling, Junior Brother Pei?" Qiao Ranran promptly took the opening to move on. "I have to remind you that I can probably only remove half of this poison." She could only remove the original half. The remaining, unusual half was beyond her abilities.

"I've never felt better." Pei Ling spoke the truth. Whether it was the churning poison, the scorching medicinal liquid, or even the pain coming from his body and divine sense, all of it gave him a genuine sense of reassurance.

It felt as though he had crawled out of the Abyss once more, a raw intensity that pierced his heart and saturated his very flesh and bones.

Should I set up the Ten Thousand Bones Soul-Revival Formation again?

As Pei Ling pondered this seriously, a pill appeared before him, and a medicinal fragrance distinct from the smell of the liquid filling this

space

suddenly reached his nose. He knew this was Qiao Ranran's scent, a medicinal fragrance clearer and richer than that of ordinary spirit plants and pills.

Qiao Ranran stood beside him, offering him a freshly refined pill.

This woman was rather quick to adjust her mindset.

As before, Pei Ling did not reach out. But the instant he opened his mouth, Qiao Ranran deftly tossed the pill inside—she would not accidentally touch his lips again.

Some distance was best maintained.

If he truly were a young junior brother, a little closeness would not matter. But clearly, some old monster from an unknown era occupied the shell before her, and she had no idea what he had been through. At least one thing was certain: from the first time she saw him, she had known he must have endured no shortage of suffering.

Someone like that was anything but simple.

Qiao Ranran tossed a few more medicinal ingredients into the wooden tub, then walked aside to continue refining pills, as though everything that had just happened was perfectly normal, as though she were nothing more than an emotionless treatment machine.

Because of Pei Ling's unusual condition, the treatment took a little longer than Qiao Ranran had anticipated, but it was nearing its end by the evening of the third day.

The medicinal liquid in the wooden tub was now almost clear and colorless, all its medicinal potency pushed to the limit. Meanwhile, hideous black channels covered Pei Ling's body, writhing and twisting as though they might burst through his skin and flesh at any moment.

It should have hurt terribly, yet his face remained expressionless, his gaze calm.

Qiao Ranran had no attention to spare for that. She was administering the final round of acupuncture, also the most difficult. Every needle drained her spiritual power. Only by relying on the Spirit-Gathering Formation beneath her feet to draw in spiritual qi at a frantic rate, and swallowing one Essence-Recovery Pill after another, could she barely keep going. Each needle pushed her meridians to their limits. Being emptied and replenished over and over was a difficult, painful process, but it worked: her meridians were gradually expanding.

Given her appallingly poor aptitude, this slight change was merely better than nothing. But this was what she had always persisted in doing. Small gains accumulated, grains of sand built a tower, and given enough time, the results would show.

As she continued placing the needles, one pill after another went into the wooden tub. The previously clear liquid once again took on layer upon layer of vivid color, far faster than before. Pei Ling watched her fingers fly, one hand holding a silver needle steady while the other tossed pills into the tub in an orderly sequence between forming spell seals.