Chapter 21: Is There Hope?

Chapter 21: Is There Still Hope?

After going through all this trouble, he nearly lost his life, and now he's reduced to the point of having to accompany someone in Dual Cultivation—and now he's told he's going back to that deadly place?!

What was the point of all this running around?!

"I'm not going! Kill me now, I'll jump off right here—I'd rather die from falling than go there!" Shang Yunduo clutched his head and was about to leap down, but Pei Jie froze him in place with a binding spell.

"You can use Sword Flight, so you won't die from falling, and don't think about escaping either. You have my mark on you; I could find you even if you ran to the ends of the earth."

"..."

Pei Jie released the binding spell. "Sit down. Sit properly. Whether you go or not isn't up to you."

Shang Yunduo couldn't sit still, but with Pei Jie staring at him, he reluctantly plopped down onto the floor, sitting face to face with Pei Jie as he tried to reason with him. "Senior, if I go into the Ancient Plains Secret Realm, I'll die! If I die, who will accompany you in... cultivation!"

"Who said you'd die?"

"I... I did a prophetic divination!"

Pei Jie glanced at him. "You can do planchette writing?"

"..." No.

Even if he said he could, Pei Jie wouldn't believe it.

Shang Yunduo blurted out, "I dreamed it—a prophetic dream."

Pei Jie closed his eyes, not wanting to listen anymore.

Shang Yunduo insisted, "Really! I dreamed I would die in the Ancient Plains Secret Realm, and I dreamed there was a lot of water there, with Fish Demons in it, and the Fish Demons could create illusions."

Pei Jie said, "You can find all that out with just a little effort."

Shang Yunduo thought to himself, *You're lying. If it were that easy to find out, how could so many people have died trapped in there?* He scooted forward a bit, speaking earnestly, his face sincere. "Senior, are you looking for Floating Cloud Flowers to refine a Foundation Building Pill?"

Pei Jie neither confirmed nor denied.

Shang Yunduo continued, "You can't refine it with just Floating Cloud Flowers. I have spirit stones—we can just buy them directly!"

With that, he pulled out his storage pouch stuffed with spirit stones.

The spirit stones from the cave had been split into four portions, and now they were all with him. Plus what he'd taken from the others' storage pouches, he had over twenty thousand spirit stones. On the black market, a Foundation Building Pill cost two to three thousand spirit stones—he could buy about a dozen of them.

Shang Yunduo looked at Pei Jie with expectation, but Pei Jie said, "Not enough."

Shang Yunduo: "..."

He continued pulling things out.

There were weapons, artifacts, spirit herbs, pills, and talismans—all of it. Although a Qi Refining stage rogue cultivator's possessions weren't worth much, if there was enough quantity, he could trade them for a considerable number of spirit stones.

Pei Jie glanced at the pile of junk scattered around him, paused for a moment, then said again, "Not enough."

Shang Yunduo had no choice left. He added Tang Huan's Giant Sword to the pile, then pushed his own sword and Zhang Yan's Wood Fire Pearl forward as well. "Senior, what cultivation level are you exactly?"

He suspected Pei Jie was just messing with him.

Pei Jie said, "Can't you tell?"

Shang Yunduo: "...Qi Refining, third layer."

Pei Jie: "Mm-hmm."

Shang Yunduo: "..."

*Like hell I believe you!*

What kind of Qi Refining third layer can kill a Foundation Establishment cultivator with two sword strikes?

Shang Yunduo said, "We're pretty close now, and I do have some common sense. Mortal, Spirit, Mystic, Immortal, Dao—a Qi Refining cultivator can't use a Mystic-grade weapon, nor can they kill a Foundation Establishment cultivator despite the realm gap..."

Pei Jie retorted, "Then don't you know Dual Cultivation requires the same cultivation level?"

Shang Yunduo: "..."

Pei Jie continued, "If I were already at Foundation Establishment or Core Formation stage, why would I still Dual Cultivate with you?"

Shang Yunduo blinked in disbelief. Strictly speaking, it's better to be at the same level, or rather, the one with lower cultivation needs someone at the same level; otherwise, it could easily lead to Qi Deviation. In the novel, Su Ziyuan had waited for Xiao Chi for a while before they started Dual Cultivation...

Shang Yunduo's eyes went wide in shock. "Are you really at Qi Refining, third layer?"

Pei Jie couldn't be bothered to repeat himself.

"Then we definitely can't go to the Ancient Plains Secret Realm, Senior!" Shang Yunduo jumped up in a panic. "You're at Qi Refining, third layer, and my real strength probably isn't even at the eighth layer of Qi Refining. I only managed to kill two people and barely escape with my life by cheating using artifacts. The people entering the Ancient Plains Secret Realm aren't just a ragtag group of rogue cultivators from the valley—if the two of us go in, we're just begging to die! Senior, how about we go back? I can gather more spirit herbs to sell, maybe we can scrape together enough spirit stones to buy a Foundation Building Pill. I don't need any—you can have them all!"

Pei Jie could see that Shang Yunduo was genuinely terrified, but he couldn't understand what Shang Yunduo was so afraid of.

"I never said you had to kill them all. I just need to find something."

"..." Shang Yunduo felt stifled. *Easy for you to say—are the demon beasts near the Floating Cloud Flowers just lounging around?*

According to rumors, the illusions there kill nine out of ten who enter—people die left and right.

Besides, Xiao Chi and the others were there too, along with other disciples from the Taiyuan Sect. Each squad had ten members, and the Taiyuan Sect had sent four or five squads. What if they ran into them and Pei Jie decided to kill them?

What if his identity got exposed?

Shang Yunduo couldn't help but wonder if Pei Jie planned to cause trouble for the Taiyuan Sect, to kill its disciples, and that's why he wanted to enter the secret realm.

The more he thought about it, the more worried he became.

He even wondered if he couldn't escape the fate written in the novel—to die in the Ancient Plains Secret Realm.

Just as he was about to say more to convince Pei Jie, Shang Yunduo suddenly felt a sharp pain in his chest, right where the Golden Scale Beast had hit him earlier.

"Huh?" He staggered, then felt dizzy and nauseous. He tried to grab hold of something, but before he could, everything went black, and he lost consciousness, collapsing into Pei Jie's arms.

Pei Jie: "..."

Calmly, he took Shang Yunduo's wrist and checked his pulse. After a moment, he sighed, pondering the possibility of reaching Core Formation within five years without Dual Cultivation.

Shang Yunduo drifted in and out of consciousness, feeling like he had a fever—thirsty, his whole body burning, his chest congested with a trapped breath that couldn't go up or down.

After a while longer, someone fed him medicine. It was so bitter he groaned, but he still couldn't wake up. Cool spiritual energy flowed along his meridians, soothing his burning, chaotic Qi, guiding the settled Qi toward his dantian and circulating it through his body. The congestion eased, the pain lessened, and his breathing became smoother. Shang Yunduo gradually relaxed and fell into a deep sleep.

An unknown amount of time later, he grew thirsty. He opened his eyes to find himself in a dark, dense forest, completely alone.

He could clearly tell this was a dream, yet he couldn't wake up.

There was the sound of water around him, but he couldn't see the river. In the dream he had no sword and no spiritual energy. He could only walk on foot to find the river. As he walked, the resistance under his feet grew stronger, with a splashing, gurgling sound. He looked down and found himself standing in the middle of the river, his feet in red water—no, it was blood, more and more of it, like a raging flood threatening to engulf him.

He ran desperately, but no matter how hard he ran, he couldn't get to the shore. He slipped and fell into the blood, his entire body stained with thick, sticky blood—his clothes, his hands, his hair. The smell of rust and stench filled his mouth and nose, choking him and making it hard to breathe. He tried to stand up, but his hands felt slippery, as if pressing down on a pile of writhing loaches. Shang Yunduo looked down and saw that the riverbed was full of eyes.

Blinking, staring wide at him, glaring angrily.

His hands and body were also covered with eyes.

"Ah!!! Ah! Aah!!!"

Shang Yunduo suddenly opened his eyes, shot up like a carp leaping, and frantically slapped himself, trying to brush off those eyes.

"What are you doing?"

"Ghost!"

"Am I a ghost?"

"?"

Panting, Shang Yunduo took a moment to realize he was safely inside the carriage. It was daylight, and there were no eyes on his body or hands.

Still trembling, he shuffled over to sit next to Pei Jie. Sunlight streamed through the window, warming his back, and only then did he start to feel a bit safer.

Shang Yunduo, still in shock and dying to vent, said, "Senior, I had a nightmare. I dreamed of so much blood, all blood, and in the blood there were many eyes, all staring at me..."

Pei Jie remained unruffled: "It's just a dream. You have a Pure Yang Body and a Fire Spirit Root. Ghost cultivators at your same rank would be terrified of you."

Shang Yunduo: "What if they're not the same rank?"

Pei Jie turned to look at him and said, "A walking nutritional supplement."

"..." Without thinking, he blurted out, "Sucking my yang energy?"

Pei Jie: "Refine your soul into a pill, and refine your body into a puppet."

"..."

"That's worse than just sucking my yang energy!"

Just thinking about it gave him goosebumps. In comparison, Pei Jie only wanted to dual cultivate with him, which made him a saint in comparison.

Shang Yunduo squeezed closer to Pei Jie again. Remembering the cool feeling in his dantian earlier, he asked, "Senior, did you treat my injuries just now?"

Pei Jie: "If not me, then who? A ghost?"

Shang Yunduo gave an awkward laugh. He was about to circulate his spiritual energy to check his body when Pei Jie stopped him: "I've sealed your spiritual energy. Don't use any spiritual energy until your meridians have healed."

Shang Yunduo let out an instinctive "Huh?" but then figured he was lucky to be alive, so fine, he'd go without it.

Thanks to his armor, he rubbed his chest—still sore—then loosened his collar and looked inside. There was a huge bruise. "Are my bones broken?"

Pei Jie: "No."

"Oh, that's good." But wouldn't it heal faster if he circulated his spiritual energy to clear the bruising? Shang Yunduo muttered to himself, "So the Golden Scale Beast can even damage meridians." No wonder it's a demon beast!

Pei Jie looked at him oddly. "Did you hit your head?"

Shang Yunduo pursed his lips, unable to hold back. "Senior, I was just thinking you're a nice guy. What's that supposed to mean? I don't get it."

Pei Jie: "Which part don't you understand? The injury to your meridians is because the technique you practice conflicts with your innate spiritual energy flow. You didn't adapt, just practiced recklessly."

Shang Yunduo: "...Ah?"

Pei Jie: "Don't you feel blockages and pain when you absorb spiritual energy?"

Shang Yunduo: "...It hurts." So I stopped meditating.

Pei Jie: "At least you know it hurts, so you're not a complete idiot."

Shang Yunduo looked panicked and embarrassed, too stunned to bicker with Pei Jie.

So that's why meditating hurt!

Could this injury be from half a year of hard training? Then he'd not only wasted his effort, but made things worse?

Shang Yunduo felt like the world had collapsed.

Is the Taiyuan Sect even reliable? How could they teach it wrong?

And where had he started going wrong?

Shang Yunduo was completely flustered and spoke incoherently: "But I can fly a sword and use Flame Control! Are those also wrong? Even meditation? I only get pain during meditation. How about I show you? Maybe my posture is off?"

Pei Jie: "All cultivators have different postures, but breathing and drawing in spiritual energy are the same. As long as you can smoothly draw in spiritual energy, there's no right or wrong. Your problem is the circulation in your meridians. The energy you draw goes to the wrong places, colliding with your internal energy, causing blockages and pain."

"..."

He had thought only the painful meditation was wrong.

Turns out only the painful meditation was right, and the painless ones were all wrong.

Unable to accept it, Shang Yunduo mumbled in a daze, "But I can fly! I've already trained Flame Control to the third level..."

Pei Jie was silent for a moment, then said, "If it weren't for your special physique and tough meridians, anyone else who practiced like this would have already snapped their meridians and lost any chance of cultivation."

"..."

In his mind, a sound effect played: crack! His heart shattered.

"Can it be fixed?"

Author's note:

Yun Duo: The skills I worked so hard to cultivate! [Sobbing]