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The seawater was also home to all manner of bizarre sea beasts, creatures far more savage and vicious than the Demon Beasts on land.

Pei Ling plunged into the sea and watched the sea beasts ignore him entirely. Some dark-aspected sea beasts were even keen enough to sense the threat his divine soul posed and dared not approach him even from far away.

He searched the seabed bit by bit for traces of the Blood Jade Ray, while keeping a sliver of his attention on his body. He had left a wisp of spiritual awareness there specifically to see how Qiao Ranran would react.

Qiao Ranran's reaction was perfectly normal. She first reached out to check Pei Ling's pulse, and after finding nothing wrong with him, she left him alone. Then she continued strolling along the beach, even taking out a bucket and happily collecting the little bits of seafood that had washed ashore.

Pei Ling: "..." This leisurely sightseeing did seem rather pleasant.

Once Qiao Ranran had collected a bucket of seafood and found a spot to build a fire, she looked at Pei Ling, whose legs were submerged in seawater from the calves down, and suddenly remembered something. Putting down what she was holding, she walked around him and set up a simple Protective Formation. She also added a water-repelling formation so the tide would no longer bother him.

The formation was so crude it was painful to look at, nowhere near the standard of the one she had set up in the wooden cabin. Knowing Qiao Ranran's true capabilities, Pei Ling could tell at a glance that this woman was just doing a slapdash job for him!

Meanwhile, Qiao Ranran had already lit her fire. With limited ingredients on hand, she simply washed the seafood and boiled it in water. Seafood tasted delicious boiled anyway.

Before long, the aroma of seafood filled that stretch of beach. Qiao Ranran sniffed, then looked up to find an unidentified dark lump on the sand some distance away.

She turned to glance at Pei Ling, who was still standing perfectly fine inside her formation, and instinctively sighed in relief. For a moment, she had thought something had happened to him and he had suddenly collapsed over there!

As a cultivator, even one only at the Qi Refining Stage, Qiao Ranran had good eyesight. Although it was a little far away, she still could not make out just what that dark lump was.

Qiao Ranran scooped out the cooked seafood, intending to let it cool a little before eating. Then she saw the unidentified lump suddenly twitch. Her brows rose. Oh! It's actually alive!

Qiao Ranran looked at the seafood in the pot, then back at the thing that had moved once before falling still again. She figured she still had a little time to go over and take a look.

Saving one life was worth more than building a seven-story pagoda, after all. Even if it was not human, that did not matter. She had saved plenty of Demon Beasts too.

And so, when Pei Ling returned, he found Qiao Ranran crouching in the tide, her expression solemn as she administered acupuncture to someone. The seafood in the pot beside her had gone completely cold and gave off an indescribably fishy smell.

This was not the first time Pei Ling had seen Qiao Ranran treating someone, but it was his first time seeing her from this angle. She was just as focused and absorbed, her gaze steady and resolute. Even with the tide washing in and out around her feet, her hands did not tremble in the slightest.

She looked almost as though she were glowing, radiating a brilliance that drew the eye.

Sooner or later, this woman will shine with astonishing brilliance. Strange, though. I don't think I ever heard of anyone like her in my previous life.

With a single step, Pei Ling shattered the formation Qiao Ranran had set up. The tide had already receded, leaving the sand damp. Each step pressed a wet footprint into the beach, forming a trail behind him as he made his way to her side.

Sensing Pei Ling's approach, Qiao Ranran did not even lift her eyes. She merely said softly, "You're back." Her tone was so natural that it was as though he had only stepped away for a little while.

Pei Ling's gaze passed over the crown of Qiao Ranran's head, moved along her fingers, and settled on the mass of mangled flesh on the ground.

His first impression was that this person looked even worse than he had back then.

When he had met Qiao Ranran, he had been bedraggled, battered, and gravely injured, but at least he had still looked human. The lump before him was little more than mangled flesh, its bones shattered into tiny pieces. Here and there, stark white bone fragments showed amid the black-and-red flesh and blood, making for a shocking sight.

Most astonishing of all, even with the person in this state, Qiao Ranran could still insert her needles. Pei Ling suddenly realized that she had been serious when she said acupuncture did not require removing one's clothes. With her technique and perceptive abilities, clothing truly posed no obstacle.

"You're going to save even this?" Only a single breath separated this person from death. Once that breath was gone, he would not even count as a corpse, just a heap of mangled flesh.

Qiao Ranran murmured in agreement. "Because he wants to live."

Just as when she had first met Pei Ling, what had moved her most was his desire not to die, and his stubborn determination to crawl toward his destination inch by inch even in despair.

Qiao Ranran felt she had the ability, and she did not mind giving someone who wanted to live a chance. After all, it was little trouble for her. Besides, with her current capabilities, sometimes even if she wanted to help, she might not achieve the desired result.

Do what you can and leave the rest to fate, Qiao Ranran thought with easygoing acceptance.

Then Pei Ling said, "I don't think he has the money to pay your treatment fee." At least he had still had some clothing on him before, enough to show that he had some means. But this person did not even have a scrap of rag on him. If he turned out to be penniless, Qiao Ranran would not get a single coin for treating him.

Qiao Ranran was perfectly unconcerned. "That's all right. It's his first time, so he can owe me for now." As she spoke, she glanced at Pei Ling. "If I had to worry about that, I wasn't certain you could afford the treatment fee when I first met you either, Junior Brother Pei."

Pei Ling's eyes flickered slightly. It seemed that whenever treatment and fees came up, Qiao Ranran became especially bold. Right now, for instance, she had not only forgotten to be afraid of him, but even dared to poke fun at him.

"Besides," Qiao Ranran said calmly, carefully inserting another needle and sensing the feedback from his meridians, "if he can't afford the treatment fee, he can work off the debt." The world was so vast, and there were plenty of things it was inconvenient for her to do herself. There was nothing wrong with having these debtors do some manual labor or run errands for her.

Rankings

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Transmigration into a book

Sweet romance

Transmigration and rebirth romance

Big Black Loves Fish

Dual rebirth

Immortal cultivation fiction