Chapter 61: Curse

The scene switched back to the Xishan Sect.

Ding Nan didn’t know how they had made it back to the Xishan Sect.

But Ji Lanruo and her two junior sisters were there.

Obviously, they were safe.

The first thing Ji Yang did after returning to the Xishan Sect was go to his thatched cottage’s medicine room to prepare drugs.

Ji Lanruo’s face was full of worry, but she couldn’t help.

She had been lazy about alchemy before, and now she regretted it deeply.

The two junior sisters were even less help.

They were still young and barely understood the cultivation techniques.

Ji Yang fiddled with bottles and jars, mixing more than a dozen herbs in a way that made Ding Nan’s head spin.

Ding Nan had never studied pill knowledge, so he had no idea what Ji Yang was doing.

His understanding of medicine was simple: take the right medicine for the right illness.

But at that moment, Ding Nan could feel Ji Yang’s tension and desperation.

Connected to Ji Yang’s senses, he had already lost feeling in his hands and feet.

The injured half of his body was going numb, and the effect was starting to affect his breathing.

Ding Nan remembered that a Nascent Soul Stage cultivator’s spirit body couldn’t be fully independent.

Either they couldn’t leave their physical body, or they needed to inhabit a pure yin-attributed object, like the famous Sinking Wood.

After selecting two batches of herbs with different formulas, Ji Yang handed them to Ji Lanruo to boil.

Half an hour later, Ji Yang orally took one portion of the decoction and poured the other into a bathtub.

He changed into a bathrobe and entered the tub.

As soon as he stepped in, Ding Nan felt a burning sensation, as if his whole body had been soaked in abnormally spicy chili water.

The pain almost made him scream.

“Little Fire, keep the water hot. Don’t let it stop,” Ji Yang said.

“Make sure the water doesn’t splash into your eyes.”

“Okay, Master!” Ji Lanruo replied, adding firewood to the makeshift stove.

They worked like this for a day and a night.

Only then did Ji Yang’s body gradually regain warmth and sensation.

However, he became extremely weak.

He left the medicinal bath, washed off all the medicine, went back to his room, and collapsed into sleep.

Then came another brutal cut.

It was unknown when—the sun was high in the sky. Ji Yang woke up.

By the bedside, Ji Lanruo stretched out her healthy, full legs.

Her clothes formed a distinct curve at her waist and hips.

Her hair was dyed purple, her waist as slender as a willow, but her chest was unusually full, like a branch laden with persimmons.

“Lanruo?” Ji Yang sat up.

Ding Nan could feel the pain in all his joints.

“Master, you’re awake!” Ji Lanruo put down her book happily, stood up, and bent over to help Ji Yang sit up.

Today, Ji Lanruo was wearing a pure white outfit.

It was so bright that it made Ding Nan’s eyes blur and his vision dizzy.

But this was just a small interlude, even a daily occurrence.

Long before Ji Lanruo dyed her hair purple, she had already been doing this.

It happened often, almost every time she hovered around Ji Yang.

She seized every opportunity, making no attempt to hide her desire for him.

Because of the jade tablet’s terrible and brutal editing, Ding Nan didn’t know when Ji Lanruo had become like this, or exactly why she had changed.

It seemed to have started when she became a young girl.

The hair dye began during a period when Ji Yang ignored her—it was her rebellious phase.

“How long have I slept?” Ji Yang asked.

“Three days and three nights,” Ji Lanruo answered briefly.

“And that Shadow? Did any of its subordinates come?”

“They didn’t follow us.”

“Phew—”

Ji Yang took a deep breath.

“That’s good.”

Ji Yang leaned back against the headboard with Ji Lanruo’s support.

“Master, what’s your condition now?” Ji Lanruo looked Ji Yang up and down.

“Your aura is very weak.”

Right now, Ji Yang’s strength was roughly at the Foundation Building Stage.

“The illness is stabilized, but not cured,” Ji Yang said.

“The ‘poison’ on me is at the Soul Transformation Stage. Without understanding the principle of the curse, I would need a Tribulation Transcendence Stage cultivator to fully heal it.”

“Ah… aren’t we going to find a doctor?”

“The highest cultivation in the sect is only Nascent Soul. How could we have the connections or resources to invite a Tribulation Transcendence Stage cultivator?”

Ji Lanruo paused and lowered her head.

“I’m sorry, Master. If I had worked harder…”

“It’s not something you can achieve just by working hard,” Ji Yang said slowly.

“You don’t have enough time. Even if your cultivation is sufficient, can your combat experience keep up? I need most of my spiritual qi to suppress the curse inside me. That Shadow truly is at the Soul Transformation Stage.”

“Then… is there any way?”

“First, I’ll start researching,” Ji Yang shrugged.

“But, Master, you… are a Nascent Soul Stage cultivator over sixty years old.”

“My situation is special.”

“Special?”

“I could read at three, write poetry at five, and compose prose at seven. If you can do that, then so can you.”

Ding Nan knew this was the basic benefit for all transmigrators from the new era of the Zhong Kingdom—the ability to read and write earned from nine years of compulsory education beatings.

The script in this cultivation world was also pictographic.

Though not as simple and convenient as simplified Chinese, it had similar origins.

So a transmigrator only needed a few months to get familiar with it.

Perhaps it seemed trivial to be able to read and write.

But one had to know that without literacy, you couldn’t understand cultivation techniques.

You had to apprentice with a master and learn from them, which drastically increased the cost of learning.

Usually, an ordinary person could barely understand cultivation techniques after starting at age four and reaching twelve or thirteen.

This showed the importance of literacy—at least you weren’t illiterate.

Ding Nan had used this advantage in his early years, becoming the genius of the Ding Clan.

If not for the jade tablet absorbing spiritual qi, he might have been the second Ji Yang.

“Uh…”

Ji Lanruo had nothing to say.

At three, she had no self-awareness.

At five, she was playing in mud and chasing dragonflies.

At seven, she was following her parents up the mountain to gather firewood and cook.

Before following Ji Yang, she knew only about a hundred characters, not even all the common ones, let alone reading texts.

To surpass Ji Yang, she would have to know all this in her mother’s womb.

“So, Master, what do we do now?” Ji Lanruo asked.

Ji Yang spread his hands.

“There’s no choice. We’ll just stay as we are.”

“Stay as we are?”

Ji Yang was silent for a moment, then spoke slowly.

“If two Foundation Building Stage cultivators go outside without joining another faction, they’ll become prey.”

Ji Yang was a Nascent Soul Stage cultivator after all.

He had spiritual qi, just couldn’t use it at full power.

“The Xishan Sect may not be fully built, but we have half a large protective formation. The surrounding factions are still wary of my residual power.”

Ji Lanruo listened quietly, her beautiful eyes shimmering with sorrow.

“Master, is your body okay?”

“As long as I don’t move my spiritual qi, the curse inside won’t be triggered,” Ji Yang sighed.

“If the curse is triggered again, I’ll have to suppress it with medicine like before.”

This meant Ji Yang couldn’t act casually.

He looked at Ji Lanruo and said solemnly, “From now on, the Xishan Sect will depend on you for a long time.”

It was a warning.

Moved by Ji Yang’s expression, Ji Lanruo raised her eyebrows, stood up seriously, bowed to Ji Yang, and said, “Disciple will follow Master’s decree.”

Ding Nan rarely saw Ji Lanruo act seriously.

Ji Yang nodded.

“Then, for now, go make me a wheelchair…”