Rotting in the Heart

Beside the waterfall, upon the grassy field, Fu Yuanqing sat in a daze.

At the entrance at the far end of the corridor, the Myriad Swords Heart-Refining Array had been shattered, leaving scattered foliage and utter devastation in its wake.

Not long after, Duan Feiyu emerged from the wooden cabin and said, "There is nothing inside."

Fu Yuanqing snapped out of his trance and let out a long sigh.

Neither of them spoke for a moment, their brows tightly furrowed with worry.

After quite a while, Duan Feiyu suggested, "Senior Brother Yuan, why don't you leave right away, and I will report this to the Sword Lord!"

"No, you mustn't!" Fu Yuanqing blurted out. The next moment, calming himself under Duan Feiyu's puzzled gaze, he said, "Junior Brother Duan, trust me. If we report this to the Sword Lord, we will definitely come to a bad end!"

"How could I not know that?" Duan Feiyu lowered his head and sighed helplessly. "But what choice do we have? If this drags on any longer, I'm afraid Senior Brother Xu's life will be in peril. Will we still keep our heads then?"

"You think we'll keep our heads just by speaking up?" Fu Yuanqing said coldly, before softening his expression and turning his gaze to Duan Feiyu. "Junior Brother Duan, I'm not just thinking of myself—I'm looking out for you, too."

Duan Feiyu raised his head and looked at him steadily.

Fu Yuanqing looked away first, his tone flat. "Sometimes I find it really strange. When I arrived at Purple Sword Peak, I was already older and mostly shouldered the duty of guarding the place. Yet you guys—you're around the same age as Senior Brother Xu and spent every waking moment with him—why was I the first one to sense that something was wrong?"

Duan Feiyu watched him, his gaze deepening.

The corner of Fu Yuanqing's mouth curled into a smile. "Or could it be... that you all actually knew, but simply played dumb one by one?"

Though the words were spoken like riddles, Duan Feiyu seemed to understand. He stared at him without blinking, remaining silently mute.

"Hahaha..." Fu Yuanqing suddenly burst into laughter and clapped a hand onto Duan Feiyu's shoulder. "I just find it strange. I could understand the others, but you, Junior Brother Duan—you were inseparable from Senior Brother Xu, how could you not know?"

Duan Feiyu kept his silence throughout. Only when Fu Yuanqing had finished laughing did he offer a leisurely smile and say, "Since we've laid it all out, Senior Brother Yuan, there's a matter I wonder if you might be interested in..."

***

In the end, aside from the transcribed records, neither of them took the original texts. Xu Zheng had put it this way: "Let's consider it leaving a legacy for the Medicine King."

Lingyu nodded in agreement. Just like Xu Zheng, she used jade slips to duplicate the contents.

As for the other items, Xu Zheng had taken a liking to the pill furnace. The objects on the stone table, along with the remaining medicinal pills, were all left to Lingyu.

A thousand years of time made preserving elixirs difficult, and very few remained. However, the Medicine King was, after all, the Medicine King; whatever had survived were rare medicinal pills unseen in the mortal world, primarily geared toward the Golden Core stage.

Once the spoils were divided between them, another bout of silent awkwardness descended.

After lingering in the oppressive quiet for a moment, Lingyu broke the silence. "Young Master Xu... Oh, wait. Not that, Daoist Xu. Since we've finished dividing everything, are we just going to keep standing around in a daze?"

Xu Zheng was squatting before a small puddle at that moment. "Are you sure we're finished?"

"What else could there be?" Lingyu looked around. Aside from that entire wall of books, the entire grotto was completely empty. "There's nothing left, right?"

"Since you think there's nothing left, then it belongs to me."

Lingyu paused for a fraction of a second before sudden realization dawned. She pointed at the puddle with extreme astonishment. "This?"

Xu Zheng remained silent for a moment before saying, "Did you really not realize that this is not water at all?"

To be honest, she truly hadn't noticed. Because the grotto itself had been equipped with a Spirit-Gathering Array, the ambient spiritual energy was exceptionally dense. She had made the biased assumption beforehand that it was simply water...

"This must be the Longevity Water the Medicine King spoke of," Xu Zheng said, lifting his head to gaze at the stalactites continuously dripping liquid from above. "Legend has it that stalactites located at the spiritual eyes can yield Longevity Water after gathering for ten thousand years. I always thought it was just a myth... I suppose the Medicine King built his secondary residence here precisely because of this Longevity Water, didn't he?"

"What are the effects of this Longevity Water?"

Xu Zheng glanced sideways at her. "Didn't you drink some already?"

"When on earth did I..." Halfway through her sentence, Lingyu stopped in her tracks, recalling what Xu Zheng had given her to drink when she had first regained consciousness. "You mean that was it?"

Xu Zheng's lips curved upward in what seemed to be a faint smile. Without saying anything more, he produced a gourd from his bosom and tipped it slightly; the Longevity Water in the small puddle automatically poured itself inside.

"Leave some for me!" Lingyu cried out. The healing properties of this stuff were genuinely astonishing; none of the pills in her possession could compare to it.

After scooping away the greater part of it, Xu Zheng stopped, plugged the gourd, and tossed it back into his cosmos sack.

Lingyu took out her waterskin and salvaged the remaining drops. Then, she stared up at the stalactites overhead. "This is Longevity Water?"

"Stop daydreaming," Xu Zheng said calmly when he saw her shining eyes. "Not everything that drips down is called Longevity Water. It has to accumulate for at least ten thousand years to possess medicinal efficacy."

With that, he eyed her with a half-smile. "In the marketplace, Longevity Water is usually sold by the drop, with a single drop costing a hundred spirit stones. You should be content!"

A hundred spirit stones per drop? Wasn't the mouthful of water she had drank when she woke up worth several thousand spirit stones?

Lingyu was left gaping, utterly dumbstruck. Though she had a Golden Core master and received a generous monthly allowance, making her far less impoverished than before, after deducting what was needed for cultivation, she only had about a thousand spirit stones to her name. Yet she had just swallowed several thousand spirit stones in a single gulp?!

Trembling, she raised her waterskin. "Does this thing here... amount to hundreds of thousands of spirit stones?"

"By market value, yes," Xu Zheng said placidly, watching as she let out an "Awooo" cry of dismay, clutching her chest while spinning in circles. "I drank away several thousand spirit stones? I actually drank away several thousand spirit stones?! I'm such a prodigal! Is there any way I can throw it back up?!"

He finally burst into loud laughter. "Do you think you can throw it back up?"

Lingyu covered her face, despairing. She couldn't throw it up! The medicinal effect of this Longevity Water was simply too potent; the moment she drank it, it had dispersed directly into all her limbs and bones.

"So, you owe me several thousand spirit stones. Remember to pay me back."

Lingyu snapped to a halt. "How on earth do I owe you several thousand spirit stones?"

"That mouthful of Longevity Water, of course!" Xu Zheng replied as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "When you woke up, I was the one who gave it to you to drink, right?"

Lingyu's face darkened. "Don't try to trap me into this! At that time, we hadn't split the loot yet, and that Longevity Water wasn't yours!"

"It wasn't yours either."

"... "

The two glared at each other for a while until Xu Zheng was the first to lose interest. "Forget it, let's not bicker over such trivial matters. We'd better figure out how to get out of here!"

At the mention of this problem, both of them fell silent.

A bunch of sword cultivators truly had no bright future ahead of them! Lingyu pondered whether she should find a companion versed in miscellaneous arts in the future—just like senior immortal Xingtuan and the senior Medicine King. Even if they weren't romantic partners, a travel companion would do!

***

With a splash, Fu Yuanqing broke the surface of the pool.

"How is it?" Duan Feiyu asked anxiously.

Fu Yuanqing wiped the water from his face and nodded. "Junior Brother Duan's guess was indeed correct. There is a mystery at the bottom of the pool."

Hearing this, Duan Feiyu was overjoyed. "Senior Brother Xu must be down there!"

Fu Yuanqing regulated his breathing and asked, "Junior Brother Duan, are you certain Senior Brother Xu is still alive?"

"Of course," Duan Feiyu replied without the slightest hesitation.

"Very well, I'll trust you this once." Fu Yuanqing retrieved a pill from his tunic and tossed it into his mouth. "Wait here!"

His figure vanished into the deep pool once more.

Duan Feiyu waited anxiously by the water's edge for a long time, watching as time ticked away second by second...

Splash—

Whoosh—

A series of consecutive sounds rang out. Duan Feiyu hurriedly raised his head and saw several pillars of water erupting from the deep pool. They reached three or four zhang high with ferocious force, in no way inferior to the impact of the waterfall plunging from above.

"Senior Brother Yuan!" Duan Feiyu cried out in alarm, shouting toward the water's surface.

His only response was even more columns of water, which churned up violent surges of air.

"Yuan..." Before the words could leave his mouth, an object was hurled out, landing heavily upon the ground.

"Cough, cough!" Drenched from head to toe, Fu Yuanqing spat out a large mouthful of water, but he had no time to speak. He immediately sprang to his feet and cast out a jade disk.

The jade disk drifted leisurely through the air until it hovered above the pool, coming to a halt before bursting with a loud bang. Following that, a muffled explosion resounded from the depths of the pool, kicking up monstrous waves that seemed to hurl the entire body of water high into the air.

The explosive shockwave overturned both men, sending them tumbling backward.

Down in the grotto, Lingyu and Xu Zheng suddenly felt the mountain shaking violently as stone fragments rained down from above.

"What's happening?" Before Lingyu could finish her sentence, the wall against the pool suddenly shattered, and a roaring torrent of water surged inward.

The two of them widened their eyes in shock. They had previously considered using brute force to break through, but they hadn't even put the plan into action yet!

"Senior Brother Xu! Senior Brother Xu!" An anxious voice echoed from outside.

Xu Zheng was overjoyed. "It's Junior Brother Duan! Let's go, we're getting out of here!" With that, he braved the rushing current and plunged outward.

Just as Lingyu was about to follow, she paused, turned back, pointed a finger, and tossed out a talisman paper, sticking it firmly over the wall of books to block the incoming water. Although these thousand-year-old texts were naturally treated to be pest- and water-resistant, it was better to have an extra layer of insurance. After all, these were the Medicine King's legacy.

Emerging from the fractured grotto and swimming to the surface, they saw Fu Yuanqing and Duan Feiyu anxiously crowding the edge of the pool. Upon seeing them surface, both men were overwhelmed with joy!

"Senior Brother Xu!"

"Senior Brother Xu!"

Lingyu clutched Fu Yuanqing's arm as she crawled ashore, just in time to see Duan Feiyu seize Xu Zheng's hand in ecstatic relief. "That's wonderful, Senior Brother Xu! Are you all unharmed?"

"I'm fine, don't worry," Xu Zheng let out a long breath.

Duan Feiyu, still uneasy, pulled Xu Zheng around to inspect him up and down, looking as though he intended to examine every single pore. "No injuries at all?"

Watching this scene sent a shiver of goosebumps down Lingyu's spine. She tugged at Fu Yuanqing's sleeve and asked in a low whisper, "Tell me, Daoist Fu, is there something wrong with this Junior Brother Duan of yours?"

Fu Yuanqing was baffled. "What could be wrong?"

Lingyu murmured, "Well... does he perhaps suffer from some hidden affliction? Like... a distaste for women, or something similar..."

Fu Yuanqing's formidable frame gave a start. He followed her line of sight, remained wordless, and stared blankly.

Lingyu brushed the goosebumps off her arms and sighed, "No wonder your Purple Empyrean Sword Sect doesn't take female disciples..."

"... " Fu Yuanqing maintained a wooden expression. "Daoist Cheng, you can wander with your food, but you shouldn't wander with your words."

"Oh? Is that not it?" Lingyu cast a few skeptical glances at his face before nodding with a beaming smile. "Ah, I see! So that's why Daoist Yuan wanted to leave the sect! Rest assured, Daoist Yuan, I'll take this secret to my grave."

Veins throbbed visibly on Fu Yuanqing's temples until he finally lost control and let out a low roar, "I am not a practitioner of the sleeve! And I didn't defect from the sect because of that either!"

As his words fell, Xu Zheng and Duan Feiyu turned their heads in unison to stare squarely at Fu Yuanqing.

Fu Yuanqing covered his face and let out a groan. *Damn it, I've lost all face to show in public from now on!*