Chapter 118: The Quivering Instrument Startles Change, the Cauldron Boils with Profound Secrets

It wasn't just a simple energy fluctuation; it felt more like a summons, a pull, urging him forward.

He stepped forward and gently pushed aside the two flustered Qin family guards blocking his path.

"Let me try."

His voice was calm, not loud, yet like a stone dropped into a dead pond, it rang clearly in everyone's ears.

Everyone in the room froze.

Surprise, scrutiny, curiosity—various silent emotions intertwined and fell upon him.

Zhou Qian, who had been curled in the corner shadow, also slowly turned around.

Although he made no move, the feeling emanating from that direction sent a chill down people's backs.

Qin Yueyao turned and saw it was Zhang Jun, blinking slightly.

She raised her hand, signaling the family retainer behind her who still wanted to force his way in to step back.

"Doctor Zhang is willing to give it a try," she said, her voice returning to its usual cool calm, with little emotion detectable, "Perhaps this is the opportunity to unlock the cauldron's secret. Please."

She stepped aside, clearing the path to the bronze cauldron, and made a gesturing invitation.

Zhang Jun hesitated not, walking toward the three-legged bronze cauldron still humming and trembling.

The closer he got, the more overpowering the smell rising from the cauldron became—mixing medicinal fragrance, iron rust, and an indistinct earthy stench that shot straight to his head, making his viscera twist uncomfortably.

The pure yang energy within his body went completely out of control, surging chaotically through his meridians, heating him to the point where it felt like his skin was about to catch fire.

His steps were steady, yet with each footfall he felt as if something clenched his heart.

He was less than three feet from the cauldron's mouth.

"Hum—!"

A tremendous suction burst from the cauldron's mouth, with no reason, simply yanking his internal energy out of his dantian by force.

The black liquid boiling inside the cauldron exploded, the runic green light surged, and it was so bright it hurt to look.

Zhang Jun felt a sweetness in his throat and almost lost his footing.

That force directly latched onto his internal energy, forcibly dragging it into the cauldron; his meridians felt like needles and fire, his bones ached, and his whole body was torn and crushed by immense power.

"Damn it!" someone from the Qin family blurted out.

Qin Xiaotian's usually steady face also changed color, his hand unconsciously gripping the chair armrest tighter.

Zhang Jun felt as if the force were about to drain him dry, his vision going dark in waves.

Just then, an extreme cold touched his back.

Lin Xue!

She hadn't noticed when she had gotten behind him; a palm covered in a faint white frost pressed against a vital point on his back.

That chill did not harm; instead, it bore a strange soothing power that instantly seeped into Zhang Jun's meridians, which were about to ignite.

It was her Profound Yin Internal Force.

Extreme yin and freezing, yet remarkably supple.

One cold, one hot—two utterly opposite energies clashed violently within Zhang Jun, then oddly entwined and merged.

The originally violent pure yang energy, guided by this cold, found an outlet; it was no longer mere destruction but became restrained, forming a subtle circulation.

Zhang Jun's tensed muscles relaxed, and the severe pain lessened considerably.

Then something even stranger happened.

As their internal energies mingled, the bronze cauldron's vibration frequency shifted; the runic light on its body was no longer blinding, becoming gentle and profound.

"Hum…"

Another low hum sounded, this time lacking the earlier frenzy, instead exuding an ancient, enduring quality.

Zhang Jun and Lin Xue's bodies both trembled slightly.

Fragmented, indistinct formulas, with no source, poured directly into both of their minds.

The wording was obscure, yet the meaning pointed straight to the core—the part of their respective yin-yang heart methods they had never reached.

These formulas seemed to carry their own navigation, guiding the newly fused yin and yang energies within their bodies along a specific trajectory, then slowly probing into the cauldron's internal churning energy core.

Consciousness, as if it had left the body.

Zhang Jun "saw".

Within the depths of the churning black medicinal liquid, it was not empty.

Light and shadow twisted, gradually coalescing into a human silhouette.

Clad in ancient robes, standing before the cauldron. Though the face was indistinct, the focus, the mastery over flame and medicinal properties, crossed who-knows-how-many years and came rushing forth.

The silhouette seemed to hold a strangely shaped pestle, slowly stirring something.

Medicinal vapors rose around it, shifting into various incomprehensible scenes.

This is… an ancestor of the Medicine Sect? Refining medicine?

Countless information fragments, mixed with those formulas, were crammed into Zhang Jun and Lin Xue's minds—about medicinal properties and their interactions, about yin-yang harmony, about using qi to drive silver needles, and more… about the true purpose of this cauldron.

Time seemed to have stopped.

In the hall, everyone else saw only Zhang Jun and Lin Xue standing front and back, palms pressed together, motionless before the bronze cauldron.

The green light on the cauldron's body gradually withdrew, the liquid at its mouth calmed, no longer boiling, its color seeming a shade darker. The strange odor dissipated, leaving only a faint agarwood scent.

The earth-shaking scene just now had vanished.

Zhang Jun slowly opened his eyes and withdrew his hand.

Lin Xue also lowered the hand she had pressed against his back; the white frost on her fingertips vanished.

Their gazes briefly met; each saw the other's undisguised shock, along with a tacit understanding.

"This…" Hu Lao opened his mouth but no sound came out, his throat parched.

Qin Xiaotian slowly rose to his feet, glanced at the now-calm bronze cauldron, then at Zhang Jun and Lin Xue—whose breaths were inwardly gathered and expressions complex—and for a moment said nothing.

In the corner, Zhou Qian's gloomy eyes showed solemnity for the first time, and there was a fleeting… greed.

Qin Yueyao stepped forward, her voice carrying a fluctuation she herself hadn't noticed: "Doctor Zhang, Miss Lin, just now that was——"

Qin Yueyao's voice quickened by half a beat, revealing a urgency she herself hadn't noticed.

"The cauldron is a good cauldron, with a bit of temper." Zhang Jun's response was light and casual; his fingertips seemed to retain a strange cool-warm sensation, the lingering echo of his brief mingling of inner strength with Lin Xue's.

He didn't say more.

What surged into his mind was too chaotic, too much, and merely fragments, but the core it pointed to was obvious—"Medicine Sect." This matter is too profound to be explained in a few sentences, and unsuitable to be discussed in this setting.

Lin Xue stood half a step behind him, her hand hanging down, her finger joints moving imperceptibly. The dark yin chill stirred by the cauldron inside her had gradually subsided, but the strange sensation of colliding and merging with Zhang Jun's pure yang strength left an indelible mark on her meridians, faint but present.

In the hall, after a brief silence, came an irrepressible agitation.

That bronze cauldron moved on its own just now, its runes flaring, the medicinal liquid boiling over—a sight beyond most people's comprehension. Especially that strange force alternating cold and hot, tugging at the inner breath, made the faces of several old fellows secretly practicing internal martial arts change several times.