Upon opening the two jade bottles, a scent mingled with blood and elixir fragrance instantly permeated the cramped cave dwelling.
He spread two elixir pills across his palm, their surfaces marked with ancient, intricate patterns.
Xu Yuan glanced sideways one last time at Ran Qingmo beside him, and half-jokingly said,
"Mr. Ran, you should hope for my success, otherwise, this cave will be our final resting place."
"....."
Ran Qingmo stared at him without speaking.
She was still as reticent as when he first met her.
Seeing this, Xu Yuan shook his head, somewhat disinterested, and without another word, he tossed back the two elixir pills in one gulp.
The pills dissolved upon entering his mouth, transforming into two smooth currents of warmth that entered his body.
It wasn't painful.
On the contrary, the spreading warmth within his body was actually somewhat comforting.
But just as this thought crossed Xu Yuan's mind, a sudden change occurred!
One of the currents of warmth turned violent, transforming into a torrent of Origin Qi that surged along Xu Yuan's meridians, rushing through his body!
The sudden onslaught of intense pain caused Xu Yuan's entire body to uncontrollably curl up like a shrimp.
His narrow and clogged meridians could not withstand such a massive impact from the Origin Qi.
As the Origin Qi passed through each inch, Xu Yuan's meridians cracked inch by inch, the pain of his shattered meridians reaching deep into his heart, nearly driving him to the brink of losing his mind.
Pain... it was too painful!
The deep pain that penetrated to the marrow made it impossible to breathe, and his vision began to blacken in waves.
However, fortunately, numerous brushes with death had made it so that Xu Yuan could still forcibly stabilize his will-spirit, avoiding being overwhelmed by the pain and falling into unconsciousness.
For the duration of a quarter of an hour,
the violent medicinal power of the Calamity Falling Pill made a full circuit through the 127 meridians in Xu Yuan's body.
Accompanied by the bone-deep pain, Xu Yuan could feel that his 127 meridians were in a state of being shattered to pieces.
And his external body was already too weak to maintain the seated meditation posture, collapsing limply onto the jade bed.
A sense of despair, truly belonging to death, began to slowly spread within his heart...
However, at this moment, the second current of warmth from the Blood Spirit Fusion Pill also began to spread into his fractured meridians.
This current of warmth was warm and sticky; with each inch it passed, it brought a tingling warmth.
Xu Yuan, sensing this condition, knew the time had come and immediately began to guide the medicinal power of the Blood Spirit Fusion Pill to circulate according to the route of the Heart Calamity Transference Method.
As the medicinal power of the Blood Spirit Fusion Pill flowed and spread, the broken meridians within Xu Yuan's body began to be repaired bit by bit.
Yet this was merely the beginning.
The powers of the Calamity Falling Pill and the Blood Spirit Fusion Pill, one after the other, began to constantly circulate through the meridians inside Xu Yuan's body.
The Calamity Falling Pill was responsible for breaking down everything in its path, while the Blood Spirit Fusion Pill followed behind, mending as it went.
Pain and comfort intertwined incessantly, driving a person to madness.
The meridians were broken and then repaired, repaired and then broken again.
Over and over, round and round.
Cultivation knows no time.
As time passed,
Xu Yuan found that his consciousness, rather than blurring with the constant brushes with death and intense pain, was becoming more solid and clear.
After an unknown amount of time,
Xu Yuan even managed to spare a portion of his will-spirit to sense the qi that was drifting freely between heaven and earth.
He could initially only sense a mere few weak "qi clusters" in the cave dwelling, which now were continuously increasing as the Heart Calamity Transference Method circulated without end.
His pale face gradually regained a healthy color, and his breath, as thin as a thread, slowly stabilized, with everything moving towards a steady state.
Besides that,
there were some strange images that flowed into Xu Yuan's mind like a gentle stream.
It was like watching a movie made of consciousness streams.
Fragments, intricate, yet somehow forming a coherent whole.
Upon careful sensing,
Xu Yuan quickly realized something was amiss.
Were these images memories belonging to Xu Changtian?
As the integration of will-spirit and body became perfect, these residual memories buried within the body began to surface slowly in Xu Yuan's mind.
There were trivial moments of washing and bathing in daily life,
instances of bullying men and dominating women in the streets, relying on his family's power,
also scenes of horseback riding and hunting excursions,
and even the outrageous event of the Third Young Master forcefully indulging in the company of five ladies at the Zuixian Pavilion after consuming an elixir...
From vague to clear, numerous memories emerged.
However, contrary to Xu Yuan's expectations, these memories of Xu Changtian related to his father were few and far between.
Most of the time, the man was merely a silhouette that instilled fear, a silhouette that made him tremble.
Fear?
Xu Yuan noticed that when the silhouette flashed across his mind just now, he too felt a hint of fear.
He was being influenced by these memories.
With this thought in mind, Xu Yuan hastily reined in his will-spirit to stop thinking about the Prime Minister.
But the next moment, those memories uncontrolledly surged back into his mind.
Compared to the father, who loomed large over him, the memory that had the deepest impact on Xu Changtian was of his elder brother.
As the memories poured in, Xu Yuan found that the body's sense of fear towards Xu Changge was even greater than the fear of his own father.
It was almost a terror ingrained in his marrow.
Just the thought of that person made Xu Yuan's body tremble slightly even now.
What level of fear could cause such a reaction...?
It didn't take long for Xu Yuan to find the answer in the flashes of memory.
Scenes from the fragments of memory appeared before his eyes.
"Worthless! You can't even handle such a simple task!"
"If I see you disgrace yourself in public again, I will beat you to death on behalf of our father."
"Foolish thing, look at the disgraceful acts you've committed in the Imperial Capital!"
"Cultivation, you fail. Civil examination, you fail. Xu Changtian, can't you learn from your second brother and fourth sister?!"