Chapter 162: The Origin of the Medical Heart

That cross-legged corpse sitting on the mat—who knows how many years of dried remains it had been—suddenly flashed in its hollow eye sockets.

It flashed by, like ghost fire, very strange.

"Heartbeat?"

Zhang Jun caught that sound with his ears; more accurately, he felt it.

That "thud… thud…" vibration was steady and powerful, traveling up from the ground beneath his feet straight into the gaps of his bones.

Damn, it felt like the heart of some huge beast was beating right beneath this stone chamber.

The two exchanged a glance, didn't stop, and carefully felt their way toward the light and the direction the vibration came from.

The passage ended.

Suddenly, the view opened up.

A fairly large circular stone chamber, about as spacious as a basketball court.

The walls were slick, not ordinary stone but some kind of bluish-black jade that couldn't be named, polished to a shine.

The walls were also covered in dense, intricate runes, far more complex and profound than those on the passage stone walls outside, their lines winding and twisting, but now these runes were dark, devoid of any light, lifeless and gloomy.

All the light in the stone chamber came from the center.

About two meters above the ground, a fist-sized light ball floated in midair.

That light ball had no fixed shape; it kept shifting and flowing.

The light it emitted wasn't blinding but soft and vague, its color indescribable, carrying within it the chaotic yet pure feeling of life just beginning.

An extreme purity of life force, together with the unfathomable aura of the medical Dao's origin, continuously emanated from the light ball, filling the entire stone chamber.

The "living" energy source we'd felt earlier, plus that "thud-thud" heartbeat—turns out its root is right here!

This thing is probably the Medicine Sect's most deeply hidden treasure!

Directly beneath the light ball on the floor, three mats were neatly arranged.

They looked quite old, made of some unknown woven grass or wood, exuding an old air settled by time.

Two of the mats were empty, covered in a thick layer of dust.

Only the mat facing the light ball had a figure sitting on it!

No, it couldn't be called a person.

It was a desiccated corpse!

It had long been completely dried out, with no moisture left, utterly devoid of any sign of life, wind‑dried by the ages into a specimen.

He wore an old‑style robe, the distinctive long garment of the Medicine Sect, its color faded to gray, the fabric brittle as paper left for centuries, but its style could still be recognized.

The corpse sat cross‑legged, hands placed properly on its knees, head slightly bowed.

The flesh on his face had shriveled into old bark, wrinkled and clinging to the bone, yet from the outline one could still barely tell that, when alive, he must have been a steady‑looking, kind‑faced old man.

He just sat there motionless, as if time itself had forgotten him.

Using his last vestige of existence, he guarded the throbbing light ball above him until his oil ran out and his lamp went dry.

"Hum…"

Zhang Jun and Lin Xue's Yin Yang Jade Pendants, upon sensing the corpse and the light ball, vibrated violently all at once!

The light on the pendants flickered softly, no longer the guiding sort, but conveying a rather complex feeling—a touch of sorrow, a hint of nostalgia, and above all a respect that rose from the very core.

Their steps unconsciously slowed and lightened, for fear of making any disturbance that would break the silence here and disturb this nameless Medicine Sect elder.

When they drew nearer, the Yin Yang Jade Pendants in their hands gave another slight tremor.

Some of the information was clearer than before, but still fragmentary images and thoughts, like a stream, flowed slowly through the pendants' connection into their minds.

"Medicine Sect… seventy‑second generation sect leader… Shouyi Zhenren…"

"To protect… the Medical Heart Origin… exhausting one's heart‑blood… sitting‑transformed here…"

"The Medical Heart Origin… is the root of the medical Dao, the source of life… must absolutely not… fall into… the hands of demons…"

Fragmentary thoughts bubbled up; though not fully coherent, they were enough for Zhang Jun and Lin Xue to understand what this shocking scene before them was about.

This corpse turned out to be a sect leader from who knows how many generations ago in the Medicine Sect's history, his Daoist name being Shouyi Zhenren!

And the light ball he guarded with his life is called the Medical Heart Origin.

From what we heard, this thing seems to be the most fundamental core of the Medicine Sect's inheritance, even the root of the entire medical Dao, the wellspring of life force!

Shouyi Zhenren, to protect the Medical Heart Origin, exhausted all his heart‑blood, and finally sat‑transformed right here.

An indescribable sense of weight and solemnity welled up in their hearts, and they felt genuine reverence for this Medicine Sect forefather who gave his life for righteousness.

Gazing at the desiccated corpse whose sitting posture remained upright and proper, the two simultaneously stopped, bowed deeply toward the remains.

Just as they straightened up.

The Medical Heart Origin light ball in the chamber's center seemed to sense the pure Medicine Sect aura on them, as well as the origin fluctuations emanating from the Yin Yang Jade Pendants in their hands.

The light ball trembled slightly.

Immediately, two exceptionally fine strands of light split off from the ball, as thin as hair.

These two beams looked weak, yet within them flowed an indescribable pure force, utterly free of impurity, shooting straight toward Zhang Jun and Lin Xue's foreheads.

Their hearts stirred; they did not dodge, just stood there and let the two light threads enter their bodies.

Once the light threads entered, they felt no sudden surge of inner strength, nor did their bodies feel noticeably stronger.

They were like two clear, pure streams flowing directly into the deepest part of consciousness, acting on the level of spirit and soul.

An extreme gentleness yet boundless, vast power began to gently and thoroughly cleanse their consciousness and souls!

The originally vast, complex, and at times convoluted Medicine Sect inheritance knowledge in their minds, now as if wiped clean of dust on a mirror, instantly became especially clear and penetrating; many previously incomprehensible crucial points suddenly opened up.

Their grasp of the profoundly subtle principles of the medical Dao, their intuition of how yin and yang qi flow and transform, and their understanding of life's origin and heavenly‑earthly rules, at this moment surged upward like a rocket.

This feeling was as if countless predecessors' lifetimes of cultivation insights were forcibly stuffed into their brains and merged.

Their state of mind instantly became clear; many cultivation bottlenecks that once felt as hard to overcome as climbing to heaven quietly dissolved without them noticing.