Soaking in the medicinal soup, enduring agony to transform his sinews and cleanse his marrow

"Once immersed in the medicinal soup, you must use breathing techniques to activate its medicinal power."

After adjusting to the temperature of the medicinal soup, Xu Taiping began breathing as taught by the Setting Sun Glow Art. Before long, he felt a burning heat build in the dantian in his lower abdomen.

True Lord Ziyang had taught all the steps of this breathing method during his lectures. Xu Taiping had tried them many times over the past few days. Though he had never managed to refine spiritual energy into his body, he already knew the steps by heart.

"Hiss..."

Just as Xu Taiping was wondering why the medicine had yet to take effect, a piercing pain suddenly struck the center of his back, as though someone were hammering a nail into it, little by little.

"If this is all the pain, I think I can still... argh!"

Xu Taiping had just been about to say he could endure it when an identical pain struck his chest, leaving him unable to speak at all.

More terrifying still, this was only the beginning.

After pain arose in those two places, dense bursts of agony began erupting at acupoints all over his body, giving him no chance to catch his breath.

Normally, pain like this would make a person pass out. Yet for some reason, no matter how much pain Xu Taiping felt while immersed in the medicinal soup, he simply would not lose consciousness. He could only endure it.

The pain lasted a full two hours.

Countless times, Xu Taiping wanted to climb out of the tub. Each time that thought arose, the scene of his grandfather's final moments appeared in his mind. He saw his grandfather staring at him with wide-open eyes, saying:

"Make us proud, Taiping. You must make us proud-for yourself, and for all the mortal bones under heaven!"

"Hah, hah, hah..."

Panting heavily, Xu Taiping leaned against the tub, utterly exhausted. Only after his breathing steadied did he lift the corners of his mouth slightly and murmur with pride:

"Grandpa, your grandson didn't disgrace you, did he?"

Though the worst of the pain had left his body, lesser aches remained.

His body now felt as though countless wounds had split open across it. Even the slightest movement seemed to tear those wounds apart, bringing pain that pierced his heart.

"One cycle takes seven days. I still have to soak in this Bone-Washing Marrow-Cleansing Soup six more times, without missing a single day, or all my efforts will come to nothing."

At the thought of enduring pain of this magnitude six more times in succession, even someone as steadfast as him could not help wondering whether he could hold out until the end.

Six days later.

"The last time."

Looking at the steaming medicinal soup before him, Xu Taiping suddenly felt as though a lifetime had passed.

The past six days had felt longer than the ten years he had lived.

After soaking in the Bone-Washing Marrow-Cleansing Soup for six consecutive days, both his mind and his body had reached their limits.

On the first day, he had not uttered so much as a grunt. He could never have imagined that over the following days, the pain would make him scream, sob, and call endlessly for his father, mother, and grandfather.

Xu Taiping had never imagined he could be so fragile.

That alone showed how terrible the pain brought by the Bone-Washing Marrow-Cleansing Soup was.

Yet even so, even through his cries and screams, Xu Taiping had finally endured until the seventh day.

During those seven days, he had even turned over all three mu of medicinal fields and planted every seed of nine-leaf white perilla.

"Make them proud, Xu Taiping. You must make them proud."

Xu Taiping hesitated before the tub for a long time, repeating those words of admonition to himself.

His face was deathly pale, without a trace of color, and his body was as thin as firewood. In just six days, he had lost at least ten jin. He was already on the verge of collapse.

Splash!

In the end, Xu Taiping stepped into the tub, and the white liquid swiftly swallowed his body.

"Aaargh!..."

Despite his desire to endure it, the violent pain still made him scream. Had the land within a hundred li not been deserted, he would surely have drawn curious onlookers long ago.

Of course, his screams did not go entirely unheard.

Fairy Lingyue, for instance, was drifting outside Xu Taiping's window at that very moment in the form of a wisp of blue smoke.

"Little Taiping, it's the final day. Hold on. Whether you set foot on the path to heaven or spend the rest of your life muddling along like drifting duckweed rests on a single thought."

Listening to the agonized groans inside, Fairy Lingyue finally could not help murmuring those words to herself.

"Easy for you to say. The pain of cleansing the essence and marrow grows worse each day. By the seventh day, it is exactly seven times worse than on the first. Without the other medicinal prescription, who could endure it?"

But as soon as she said that, she gave a bitter smile and mocked herself. She also felt guilty for having so rashly handed that prescription to Xu Taiping.

Two hours later.

"He actually... made it through?"

When she saw strands of pure spiritual energy from heaven and earth gathering toward the little courtyard like a tide, Fairy Lingyue's face filled with disbelief.

This was precisely the sign that the bone-washing and marrow-cleansing had succeeded.

Until then, she had not dared look inside. Now, she could not resist peering through a crack in the window.

Inside the bedroom, Xu Taiping had already lost consciousness and lay half-reclined in the tub. The medicinal soup surrounding him had long since turned from jade-white to pitch-black, dyed by the impurities continually seeping from his body.

Meanwhile, the streams of spiritual energy from heaven and earth, visible only to Fairy Lingyue, brushed over Xu Taiping like a gentle hand before slipping into his body.

Fairy Lingyue looked at Xu Taiping inside, then at the freshly tended Medicine Garden behind the courtyard, and a smile touched her lips.

"I only meant to take a gamble because I had little time left. Now it seems my judgment was sound."

With those words, her form dissipated where she stood, leaving only one sentence echoing softly through the little courtyard:

"Little fellow, I must now concentrate on refining the Spirit Crystals to add a few more years to my life. We'll meet again after some time."

Early the next morning.

As the first ray of morning sunlight shone through the window, Xu Taiping opened his eyes, his body still immersed in the tub.

He had enjoyed the sweetest sleep of his life.

"Did I... succeed?"

When he noticed the black liquid in the tub and its thick, foul stench, Xu Taiping was not frightened. Instead, delight spread across his face.

According to the instructions for the Marrow-Cleansing Soup, this was precisely the sign that the sinew-washing and marrow-cleansing had succeeded. It meant the impurities within a cultivator's body had been forced out, granting him a true aptitude for cultivation.

"Splash..."

In his excitement, Xu Taiping sprang up from the tub, then ran naked to the well in the back courtyard without putting on any clothes.

First, he drew a bucket of water and rinsed every trace of filth from his body. Then he sat cross-legged right there and immediately began circulating the Qi Refining method of the Setting Sun Glow Art.