Essence Blood

"Wh-where am I?" When Huang Xiao opened his eyes, he discovered that he was actually lying in a bed. He remembered the unbearable pain inside his body after swallowing the giant python's poisonous blood. Afterward, the Golden-Winged Roc seemed to have fed him a strange red fruit. Then two currents, one cold and one hot, had flooded his body, finally causing him to pass out.

"You're awake. This is Green Ox Temple."

Hearing the voice, Huang Xiao turned his head and saw an elderly Taoist sitting beside the bed. He struggled to get up and said, "Thank you for saving my life, Reverend."

Although Huang Xiao did not know how he had ended up here or what Green Ox Temple was, he knew that he must have survived because of this elderly Taoist.

"Don't move. Your life is no longer in danger, but your injuries are still serious. You need to rest." The elderly Taoist stopped Huang Xiao.

"My name is Huang Xiao. I am a scholar who has passed the county examination. May I ask your Taoist name, Reverend?" Huang Xiao discovered that he truly could not get up. The movement sent unbearable pain through his entire body. However, he also noticed that the two currents were gone from inside him, which set his mind considerably at ease. As the Taoist had said, his life should no longer be in danger.

"My Taoist name is Xuanzhenzi," Xuanzhenzi replied.

"My respects, Reverend Xuanzhen," Huang Xiao hurriedly said.

"I truly hadn't expected you to be a qualified scholar, young friend. There is something puzzling me, but I don't know whether I should ask." Xuanzhenzi was indeed deeply puzzled.

"Please ask whatever you wish, Reverend," Huang Xiao said.

"A Golden-Winged Roc brought you to me this time, young friend. How did you come to know this roc? Such an extraordinary beast is rarely seen in this world. You are truly blessed with good fortune!" Xuanzhenzi asked.

When Xuanzhenzi asked about this, Huang Xiao did not conceal anything and recounted how he had fallen off the cliff and encountered the Golden-Winged Roc. However, he left out the two strange fruits. If others learned about such fruits, they would probably stir greed in many hearts. Of course, this man was a Taoist and had saved his life, so he believed he was not that sort of person. Still, it was naturally better to keep such things secret.

After hearing Huang Xiao's account, Xuanzhenzi sighed inwardly. He thought that Huang Xiao had gone through nearly two situations of certain death in such a short time, yet had managed to endure them both. It truly was rather unbelievable.

"Young friend, did you say that giant python had a scarlet fleshy crest on its head?" Apart from marveling at Huang Xiao's tenacious hold on life, he was also extraordinarily curious about the giant python.

"That's right." Huang Xiao nodded. "If it hadn't been for that fleshy crest, I wouldn't have been poisoned. That blood was terribly poisonous. It nearly killed me."

Hearing Huang Xiao's words, Xuanzhenzi suddenly burst out laughing.

This left Huang Xiao rather puzzled. He did not know why Xuanzhenzi was laughing.

"Young friend Huang, you truly are surrounded by blessings without knowing how blessed you are!" Xuanzhenzi said with a laugh.

Seeing Huang Xiao's puzzled expression, Xuanzhenzi stopped keeping him in suspense and explained, "Now that you've told me this, I have some understanding of the injuries inside your body at the time. You think that snake blood was poisonous?"

"Wasn't it? That fierce burning sensation spread throughout my body in an instant, as though my entire body were being roasted in a raging fire. Wasn't that poisoning?" Huang Xiao asked.

"Of course not. From your description, that snake should have been a Black-and-White Refining Snake, which is extraordinarily venomous. It is said that a single bite from it would kill not just a person, but even an ox within a few breaths. An ordinary Black-and-White Refining Snake over ten feet long would already count as a king among snakes, while the one you encountered, nearly a hundred feet long, could probably be considered an extraordinary beast. It must have lived for at least several hundred years, perhaps even a thousand or more. Moreover, it had a fleshy crest on its head. That is quite something. Ancient books recorded that after a thousand years of cultivation, a snake could shed its snake form and transform into a Jiaolong. This Black-and-White Refining Snake was probably on the verge of that transformation."

"A Jiaolong?!" Huang Xiao was shocked. Dragons were divine beasts of legend. Even a Jiaolong, a rank below them, possessed boundless magical power.

"Yes. If the ancient records are correct, the fleshy crest atop this Black-and-White Refining Snake's head would 'split its crown and sprout horns.' At that point, it would become a Jiaolong, a dragon soaring through the nine heavens. Thus, that fleshy crest was where the Black-and-White Refining Snake's essence blood was concentrated. When you bit through the crest, what you swallowed was its essence blood. Although the Black-and-White Refining Snake is extremely venomous, its blood itself is not poisonous, much less its essence blood," Xuanzhenzi said.

"Essence blood?" Huang Xiao understood what essence blood meant. It was the concentrated essence of all the blood in the body. Moreover, this Black-and-White Refining Snake had nearly transformed into a Jiaolong. How precious such essence blood must have been! Yet he had actually mistaken it for poisonous blood. He truly was woefully ignorant.

In truth, Huang Xiao could hardly be blamed for not knowing. Although he had read some accounts of such things in books, they were all nebulous myths, and he certainly would not have taken them to heart. Had he not experienced something like this himself, he would never have believed that such extraordinary beasts truly existed in the world.

"Precisely. It was essence blood. Snake blood belongs to yin, so by rights it should have been incomparably cold," Xuanzhenzi said.

"But after I swallowed the essence blood, it felt as though I were being burned by a raging fire," Huang Xiao asked.

"Indeed. The transformation into a Jiaolong is also the time when yin is shed and transformed into yang. Moreover, this Black-and-White Refining Snake was inherently of extreme yin, and at yin's utmost limit lies yang. Thus, its blood had already become like a Jiaolong's. After all, this Black-and-White Refining Snake was already half a step from becoming a Jiaolong," Xuanzhenzi said. "That you swallowed its essence blood and survived was your good fortune. Never mind an ordinary person-even a martial arts expert would have found the impact of such tremendous essence blood difficult to withstand, and would probably have ended up exploding and dying. I once detected another current inside your body. It seemed incomparably cold, belonging to yin-extreme yin. Could it be that this Black-and-White Refining Snake had only converted half its blood into essence blood?"

Huang Xiao thought for quite some time before saying, "Reverend, actually, when I was about to pass out after swallowing the essence blood, I vaguely felt myself swallow a fiery-red fruit the size of a grape. The moment it entered my mouth, it turned into an intensely cold current that flooded my entire body. That other current must have come from the fruit. Also, I forgot to mention earlier that the Golden-Winged Roc and the giant python were fighting over this fruit."

"A strange red fruit the size of a grape? Two great extraordinary beasts fighting over it? Did this fruit give off an enticing fragrance when it ripened?" Xuanzhenzi asked.

"Yes. It gave off a fragrance even before it ripened, but once it was ripe, that fragrance became incomparably enticing, refreshing the mind and lifting the spirits of anyone who smelled it. It truly was wondrous. I have no idea what kind of fruit it was. Do you happen to know, Reverend?" Huang Xiao could tell that the elderly Taoist before him knew a great deal-at least far more than he did.

"If I'm not mistaken, it should be the Blazing Sun Fruit, a wondrous fruit that takes three hundred years to flower, three hundred years to bear fruit, and another four hundred years to ripen. So that was it. I was just wondering why you had survived swallowing the essence blood. It turns out it was all thanks to this Blazing Sun Fruit," Xuanzhenzi said with a smile.

"May I ask what this Blazing Sun Fruit is, Reverend?" Hearing that the Blazing Sun Fruit actually took a thousand years to develop, and that he had swallowed one, Huang Xiao felt he truly was extraordinarily fortunate.