Chapter 348: A Journey of Soul and Body Unity

"The first stop of the Body-Soul Unity Journey has been generated."

"This simulation environment has been generated based on the Body-Soul Unity breakthrough big data model, combined with massive historical data and user data. It has extremely high realism. Those with a Dao Heart level below 13 and the following diseases should consult your doctor before starting..."

"Please confirm that you have read and agreed to the User Agreement."

"All generated data in this scenario belongs to Hammer Heart Residence. Do not use it for any commercial purpose."

"Do you want to begin your Body-Soul Unity Journey?"

…

Zhang Yu opened his eyes, a flash of confusion passing through his mind.

"I am…"

Gradually, he remembered: his name was Zhang Yu, an employee of a Dharmic Corpse factory in Tianya City.

The factory provided room and board; work started at 8 a.m. every day, ended at 5 p.m., with a one-hour lunch break in between.

The cafeteria offered three meals a day: eggs and milk for breakfast, two or three meat dishes for lunch and dinner, and afternoon snacks.

Zhang Yu was used to going to bed at exactly nine every night, listening to light music from the jukebox in his dormitory as he fell asleep, then sleeping straight until seven in the morning, greeting each new day refreshed and full of energy.

After every five days of work, there were two days of rest.

On those two days, Zhang Yu sometimes went hiking in the nearby mountains or went swimming—both activities brought him inner peace.

Besides that, he had recently picked up a trendy new hobby: surfing the internet in the factory library.

But since many workers in the factory were interested in this new thing, Zhang Yu couldn't always get the chance.

Thus his mundane life passed day by day, and his greatest wish was to live like this until the year he retired, then spend the rest of his life peacefully on his pension, just like his father.

And then came the day of the annual medical checkup.

Zhang Yu lay on the operating table, silently circulating the Remnant Ox Body-Sacrifice Heart Technique in his mind, and felt the scalpel slice across his abdomen as the factory doctors removed the "impurities" inside.

It was something like a tangled mass of roots covered in strange tendrils.

Zhang Yu had once overheard the doctors talking; they seemed to call this thing a Spirit Root.

In any case, it wasn't a good thing. Every year after the checkup, Zhang Yu and his coworkers had to undergo surgery to cut off the Spirit Roots on their bodies.

But whether because the thing was too stubborn or the surgery didn't cut cleanly, the Spirit Roots grew back every year.

Zhang Yu was grateful that the factory covered their medical expenses, providing free checkups, treatment, and surgery every year.

Just then, he overheard the doctors talking again.

"Did you hear? The Netherworld Palace's artificial Spirit Root technology has hit the market."

"Yeah, I heard. Looks like our factory won't last many more years. Sigh... how can farming compare to their kind of industrial production?"

"Do we need to shave this one?"

"Go ahead and shave him. It's been hot lately, and the boss wants to save on air conditioning."

Watching the fur from his own body fall away continuously, Zhang Yu couldn't help struggling.

"Why is he awake?"

"Increase the dosage."

In a hazy daze, Zhang Yu only felt waves of pain from the wound on his body.

He instinctively circulated the Remnant Ox Body-Sacrifice Heart Technique to endure the pain.

But over the years, his illness seemed to grow worse. The factory doctors cut off more and more parts, leaving him in so much pain every night that he couldn't sleep.

In order to get a good sleep, he constantly circulated the Remnant Ox Body-Sacrifice Heart Technique, constantly running the mental method.

Finally, one day, when even in his sleep Zhang Yu was silently circulating the mental method, he was able to temporarily forget the pain and get a good night's sleep.

…

"Damn it…"

Zhang Yu pulled off the spirit interface mask, recalling what he had just experienced, a strange look in his eyes.

It turned out that as a yao descendant, I was constantly harvested in a spirit root farm. Because I feared pain, I circulated the Remnant Ox Sacrifice Body Mind Technique day and night, and in the end, the pain itself forced me to achieve unity of spirit and flesh.

Zhang Yu temporarily suppressed the various emotions in his heart, and tried to recall the feeling of gradually making the Remnant Ox Sacrifice Body Mind Technique an instinct amid that day-and-night pain.

“I seem to have a bit of a feeling.”

“But it doesn’t seem like there’s any progress?”

Fuji looked at Zhang Yu and said, “Mind techniques like this often give a very vague and fuzzy feeling.”

“Don’t overthink it. The more you think, the more confused you get. Just practice this thing step by step, and success will come naturally.”

Zhang Yu had heard similar words from his Dao Heart teacher, so he naturally understood the reasoning, but as he recalled his experience in the spirit realm, he couldn't help but have some thoughts.

“That factory… seems to be the old Kunxu? Kunxu, where the internet wasn’t even widespread and spirit roots still needed to be farmed.”

“The company must have collected data on the farmed yao descendants breaking through to the realm of unity of spirit and flesh in the factory, then used that data as one of the references to generate the simulated environment.”

“But the problem is…” Zhang Yu frowned slightly. “The Remnant Ox Sacrifice Body Mind Technique that broke through in the simulated environment is not the complete version in my mind.”

“Could it be that I won’t succeed?”

“Forget it. Anyway, Chui Xin Ju said if I can’t succeed, I can apply for a refund. I’ll just keep trying.”

Next, Zhang Yu composed himself and went to Floor 667 to start today's part-time job.

On the construction site, the Formless Laborers flickered back and forth, twisting, cutting, and setting up steel bars one by one.

Of course, Zhang Yu was not using the Qi Vein Eternal Flow at this moment; instead, he chose the Grand Sage Body and continued cultivating the ninth breathing method.

But even so, Ying Xin, who was inspecting nearby, was startled as she watched. “I haven’t seen him in over two months—has Zhang Yu’s work efficiency improved this much?”

“Using astral form to maintain a human shape while working means his astral conductivity, total mana capacity, and recovery have all greatly improved compared to before.”

“Could he really become first in the class?”

Thinking of this, Ying Xin shook her head subconsciously. “Impossible. Ji Yuanshu is too rich. No one in our class can surpass him.”

…

Inside a 100-square-meter suite on Floor 450.

In Ji Yuanshu's eye skeleton, a notification for fate monitoring popped up.

Fate had changed again; Zhang Yu’s win rate had increased slightly over this period.

Ji Yuanshu checked the source of the fate change and immediately saw Zhang Yu’s recent work performance.

“Not a bad improvement.”

“For a traditional civil engineering student, you’ve done well.”

“But unfortunately, if a civil engineer only seeks progress on the construction site, they will never break out.”

“The gap between us… is a difference in dimension.”

…

After school the next day, Zhang Yu began another journey to unite spirit and flesh.

When he opened his eyes, he recalled his identity.

He was Zhang Yu from Jingshui County, and together with four others in the county, they monopolized the businesses of seeds, water, agricultural machinery, and money exchanges, collectively known as the Four Young Masters of Jingshui.

Zhang Yu owned the largest medicinal fields in the county, with over a hundred yao descendant slaves under him.

His greatest daily pleasure was watching his many yao descendant slaves toiling diligently in the vast medicinal fields.

His second pleasure was going hunting in the mountains.

One day, he was surpassed by another rich young master during a hunt and then endured ridicule.

In a bad mood, Zhang Yu returned to the county and bought a magic treasure produced by a big city company from a traveling merchant.

It was said that carrying it year-round could prolong life, sharpen hearing and eyesight, and make one agile—the most popular health magic treasure in the city.

Whether by coincidence or luck, in the next hunt he came out first, defeating all his opponents.

From then on, he firmly believed in this health magic treasure and later bought large quantities, filling his room with them.

Several years passed, and Zhang Yu felt his body growing worse and worse. During a medical checkup, a doctor discovered that his internal organs had been completely infiltrated by earthly sha energy.

Over the next few months, his body rapidly wasted away, and to stop the corrosive energy from spreading, his organs, eyes, and limbs were amputated one by one.

To endure the physical and mental agony, he cultivated the Crippled Ox Body-Mind Abandonment Art, running the mental method day and night, hoping only to forget the pain wracking his body.

And whenever he felt he could no longer hold on, the calls of his family always sustained him, helping him endure.

"Zhang Yu! Open your eyes and look—this is Dad's bank transfer info. Everyone is sending you money for treatment. You have to hold on!"

"Son, can you feel it? All our family's savings are pouring toward you without end! Don't underestimate our family bond!"

"Hang in there, little brother! You've spent so much on treatment—are you really willing to die like this and watch all that money go to waste?"

Watching the deposits rise and fall, Zhang Yu only felt the large hands of his family members pushing him from behind, trying to pull him back from the face of King Yan.

Besides his family, a pair of hands belonging to the doctors were also dragging at him, as if trying to haul him back to the world of the living.

But the pain was too great.

Zhang Yu felt as if all his flesh, blood, and bones had turned to mud, and gradually only one thought remained: better to just die.

"How is the patient doing?"

"No hope."

"Keep him alive as long as possible. His family is paying too much—the whole hospital depends on his revenue. Stretch it out as long as you can."

"This case of earthly sha corrosion is also quite rare. So after being corroded by earthly sha, it causes this much damage to the body?"

"Record his data as thoroughly as possible until death. Then we can sell it to the company..."

In the boundless pain, Zhang Yu gradually could no longer hear or see the outside world.

In the total darkness, he could only run the Crippled Ox Body-Mind Abandonment Art over and over, hoping to forget the pain and never be jolted awake by it again.

"I fucking..."

Zhang Yu pulled off the spirit-interface mask once more, feeling a phantom pain all over his body.

"Pain... it fucking hurts."

"Is it because I cultivate the Crippled Ox Body-Mind Abandonment Art that they've arranged this kind of simulation for me?"

"This upcoming journey of spirit-flesh unity—are they all going to be like this?"

"Is there no normal way to break through to spirit-flesh unity with the Crippled Ox Body-Mind Abandonment Art?"

Though his mind was swarming with distractions, Zhang Yu forcefully suppressed them one by one, then tried to recall the feeling of breaking through to spirit-flesh unity in the spirit realm.

He sensed that the white ox in his mind seemed more lively than before, but still showed no sign of spirit-flesh unity.

Just then, Zhang Yu received a message from Tuli Mountain.

Tuli Mountain: Ji Hengshu joined the team, and then Ma Xuan made you a substitute?

Zhang Yu: Yes.

Zhang Yu knew that it was Tuli Mountain who had recommended him to join Ma Xuan's team. The other party had just received news from the competition team, clearly coming to ask about the situation.

However, Tuli Mountain wasn't there to stand up for Zhang Yu or anything—he was just confirming the news.

Seeing Zhang Yu's reply, he thought to himself: "Ma Xuan is from Old Director's faction. The Old Director has never supported or opposed either side before. Now this move... is Ma Xuan just doing it for the competition results, or does the Old Director have something in mind?"

In the dormitory on the other side, moments later, a figure quickly crossed the dormitory door and arrived beside Zhang Yu.

"Zhang Yu, let's make good use of our time."

Le Mulan rushed in and plopped down in front of Zhang Yu.