On that day, two youths could be seen roaming around the streets of Azure Spring city.
It was a couple with extraordinary looks and bearing.
The male had a head full of ashen-white hair with two ice-blue horns sticking out. His handsome tanned face and tall physique could only be described with one word – demonic.
His female companion didn't possess such eye-catching features. While her figure and beauty were all top-notch, her face still possessed an air of innocence.
With her pure smile and crystal-clear eyes, she was like a fresh breath of air. If her companion wasn't constantly giving out a murderous aura, she would've been flocked by a group of youngsters long ago.
The two of them were naturally Yun Tianlong and Long Qingxue.
Having already returned to their city, they saw no reason to keep themselves under disguise. This naturally caught the attention of the people.
"Huh… we are finally back." Looking at the clan's gate before them, Qingxue smiled excitedly.
She rushed towards the clan's gate with hurried steps.
When the gatekeepers noticed her, they couldn't help but smile warmly.
"Little lass, how was your trip?" One of them called out.
Due to her cheerful personality, she had good relationships with many in the clan.
Qingxue stopped and grinned at the old man. "Grandpa Wu, see for yourself!" Her body faintly rippled as she revealed her aura of the sixth level of Qi condensation.
The old man named Wude was stunned. He clearly remembered that before leaving the clan, she was just at the peak of the second level.
Not giving the man the chance to ask a question, she already ran inside while giggling. Tianlong followed suit. Otherwise, he would be the one answering all of them.
The old man could only shake his head and sigh. "Hai! One should truly fear the younger generation!"
Back inside the clan, they were greeted by the familiar sights.
The air, the earth, the trees, the houses, the recitations of children from the classrooms all seemed to welcome them.
Before long, the two of them were in front of their residences which were separated by only a small distance.
"I wonder what mother will think once she sees my cultivation!" Qingxue gleamed with joy as she thought about her mother's reaction.
"Don't bother." Tianlong lightly spoke. "The higher-ups of the clan should be already aware of the Spirit Water. Didn't you notice how many of the Qi Condensation realm cultivators have suddenly increased their cultivation by a few layers?"
Qingxue's expression stiffened. In her rush, she hadn't paid much attention to others.
After she spread her spirit senses outwards, her expression stiffened. There were too many Qi Condensation realm cultivators at the 3rd and 4th layers.
"Well, whatever." Qingxue lightly shrugged. Although her excitement died down, she wasn't much affected. "I've stopped comparing myself to others long ago. Especially, since I'm always around a monster like yourself."
Looking at Tianlong with a weird gaze, she continued "Before entering the mountains, you had just become a cultivator. And just within six months, your cultivation base is already higher than mine. Not to mention you are refining both your essence and Qi. If the news of this were to spread out …Tsk …Tsk …Tsk." With a hand on her forehead, she revealed a defeated expression.
"No need to be jealous. The higher my cultivation, the faster you'll progress too. Did you forget last night?"
"Hmph! Shameless rouge!"
After waking up from her slumber, she was shocked to find that her cultivation had broken through the sixth level of the Qi Condensation stage. According to her estimation, there was still at least two weeks before she reached that level.
She accredited it to their furious lovemaking that occupied a greater part of their evening.
Now that he was mentioning it, she lost her playful mood.
No longer paying attention to him, she ran towards her residence. Just as she was about to enter her house, she sent him a mental message to meet her at seven.
Once he was back, he quickly freshened up.
Back in his room, he took out a bunch of papers and lots of surgical instruments which he had used in his trip.
After once again going through his research work, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
"It's time."
…
The place was filled with different types of trees. Under their shade, the place was slightly cooler than the rest of the residence.
There were a few stone chairs and tables. A small pond filled with clean water. The small fishes which caused ripples in it were clearly visible.
It was his parent's courtyard.
"Mom, Dad, it's me. May I come in?" He wasn't going to make the same mistake and enter their room unannounced.
"Come in, it's been so long since I properly looked at you." His mother's slightly aged voice sounded from inside. Although he had heard this voice since his childhood, the more he grew up, the more it caused him to feel heartache.
Due to the presence of spiritual energy in their bodies, all cultivators aged extremely slowly. Unless one was at the end of their lifespan or intentionally wanted to look old, they would possess young looks.
Seeing the slight wrinkles on her face and the white hair, he could only imagine the condition she was in.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Long Qianmei felt puzzled when she saw his expression.
Tianlong lightly coughed and regained his composure.
"Tianlong greets mother …Mum, how have you been these days?"
"What's up with you only greeting her?" Yun Dingxing snorted in displeasure. "I take you across tens of countries, give you an unimaginable amount of wealth, show you a domain and here you are ignoring me!"
Tianlong had planned the entire conversation on how he would approach her treatment. Being disrupted in such a manner, he became angry. "Hmph, do you think I don't understand? Giving me gifts was just a pretence to meet your old lovers, wasn't it?!"
"Oh?" Long Qianmei looked at Yun Dingxing with a smile that was not a smile. Her eyes made the old demon's skin crawl.
Yun Dingxing's face darkened as he looked at Tianlong. Never in his dream would he have imagined that his son would betray him in such a manner.
However, he was an old fox who had seen too many things in his life. This kind of thing was nothing for him.
He immediately retaliated and started to argue. The room lost all its quiet. The two of them looked less like a father and son pair but more of a pair of friends.
Soon their conversations went towards Tianlong's little adventure in the mountains and everything that happened after that.
"I have already consulted with late Nascent Soul realm medical practitioners and none of them was able to cure her. How can someone who hasn't even passed his teenage compare with them?"
Although he was arguing, there was a dispirited tone to his voice.
It didn't matter if Tianlong had read medical theories of rank 5 or rank 6 medical sects since a young age, in the end, he was too inexperienced.
"All things in nature exist in harmony. For a disease to exist, there's naturally a cure to it. If it seems uncurable, then it just means that no one has found the right cure!" Tianlong's eyes were filled with conviction as he continued, "I believe that with your cautiousness, none of you would've visited any powerful medical sect. Those who were summoned to treat her must've been kept in the dark and only knew a few symptoms. How can they compare with me who has fused with the very cause of the problem?"
Tianlong's reply silenced Yun Dingxing. He was correct.
None of the medical experts managed to see through the extraordinariness of the lotus bud inside of her.
The few who noticed its unusualness were all dead or had their memory wiped out.
"Mom, do you mind letting me look at your illness?" More words were unnecessary if anything, he needed to see her condition with his own eyes.
Long Qianmei was a woman of few words. She didn't voice her opinions when Tianlong was recounting everything but now, she chose to speak.
"Go ahead. It doesn't matter even if you fail. We'll be going to Suzaku's Nine Lotus Sect which has the best healing facility in our world. Without the presence of the lotus, there's no need for us to fear…
Tianlong wasn't paying attention to her words. Walking behind his mother, he pressed his palm on her back.
When his spirit sense tried to invade her body, he felt a sharp pain in his mind. It was as if thousands of swords were stabbing him at the same time.
He was slightly shocked because ever since he condensed his lightning sense, his spirit sense had become incomparably powerful. Even Jade Core cultivators would find it difficult to injure his sea of consciousness.
"Is it possible that her sea of consciousness is special just like mine?"
This thought was soon wiped out, it wasn't the time to think about such things. No longer thinking about it, his spirit sense started to check her condition.
His expression soon turned ugly.
He had guessed that his mother's condition would be bad but he never knew it would be bad to this extent.
To speak of power, there was nothing that had given Tianlong this sort of feeling. Despite not being a Body Refiner, every inch of her flesh seemed to have seeped with monstrous killing intent.
However, her powerful physique was falling apart. Her blood barely contained energy. All her meridians were in a half-destroyed state. None of her internal organs seemed to be whole. Even her bones were corroded.
It was like a majestic tree in its dying years.
What disturbed him most was the blood-red Jade Core in her dantian. It wasn't solid and had almost completely melted.
The tiny figure of a person could be seen on it from time to time. However, that tiny being's face was clenched in pain.
A black tar-like substance was filling her entire body and had seeped inside her flesh, blood, bones and core.
Unsurprisingly, the substance had the same aura as the lotus around his heart.
When his spirit sense went in those black tar-like substances, his body involuntarily trembled.
"I've lived with it for decades. I'm more knowledgeable about my condition than anyone else …You shouldn't bother anymore."
Long Qianmei softly spoke. The only reason she let Tianlong inspect her condition was that he had almost burned his soul to help her.
Although she didn't say anything discouraging like her husband, she held the same view as him.
Tianlong didn't respond to any of her statements. He took out a beast parchment that depicted his own meridian network and started to draw the meridian network of his mother beside it.
His brows knitted as he tried to find the connection between the two systems.
Taking out a small vial of blood using a syringe he then compared their blood.
Next, he inserted 108 small silver needles in her acupoints and started to send his spirit sense inside them.
"No need to tire yourself so much. It isn't that your medical skills are lacking, but that the disease is too ingrained within me. It's already getting late. If you want, you can come tomorrow."
Just as she was about to move away from his hands, her expression changed.
In front of their dumbfounded eyes, Tianlong's body released a seven-coloured light. While his blood veins all swelled up and turned a deep shade of black. It gave him the appearance of being covered in tree roots.
Under their induction, the wriggling black tissues in her body which were dormant for decades suddenly started to change their position.
Turning into small black tendrils, they left her body and started to dig inside Tianlong's skin.
She felt a sharp pain. It was like when one was trying to take out an arrow that's been embedded in the body for too long. Taking it out was even more painful than when the arrow had just pierced the skin.
Yun Dingxing immediately teleported behind Tianlong and severed their connection.
That black substance wriggled under his skin for over an hour during which a thick aura of death surrounded his body. The piece of skin near his hand looked aged by a few years.
"You…" Yun Dingxing was going to scold him but his words got stuck in his mouth when he saw Tianlong's laughter.
"It's like a puzzle!" Tianlong exclaimed.
"Huh?"
"You see, I found long ago that the vine and the lotus seemed to be of different origin. It's like two different plants being grafted together!
"The former gives off a life aura while the latter corresponds to death. After being separated into parts, they formed two different frameworks for taking over their host."
He excitedly showed the diagram to his father and pointed towards one of the marked points.
"From the acupoints and energy pathways that I pointed out in my diagram, I can deduce how the lotus forms an energy matrix in my body!
"The ninety-nine points that each correspond to Extreme Yang, Bright Yang or Lesser Yang and the Greater Yin, Lesser Yin and Faint Yin are the elements of the matrix. By simple permutation…
"Stop!" Yun Dingxing clasped his son's shoulder. "I don't understand all this medical terminology. Just tell if me she can be cured or not?"
Tianlong took a deep breath and calmed himself. "Yes. I just need to conduct experiments while taking about 198 different scenarios into account. …in fact, I already extracted a small portion of the roots from her body using the first method…"
His eyes got groggy and he couldn't finish his sentence before the world around him spun and he fell unconscious due to exhaustion.