Chapter 1079

Pan Hong sighed and said, "Her soul left her body completely; her body lost all breath at once, and Xiaohei panicked and alerted Seeing Miao Zhen."

In truth, Xiaohei wasn't frightened at all—soul departure was nothing new to her, as she was already at the Third Marquis stage; occasional spirit wandering was permissible, just not for too long, lest it harm her soul or body. But in the next instant, Xiaohei sensed Pan Yun's vital signs had vanished, and she leapt up like a startled cat.

In panic, she leapt onto the table, swept everything off with one tail, then crashed through the window in pursuit of the soul.

Seeing Miao Zhen, startled from the next room, immediately rose to her feet, and Xiaohei's voice rang in her ear: "Save her body!"

The next moment, she vanished after three leaps and two bounds atop the roof.

When Seeing Miao Zhen rushed into the room, Pan Yun had no breath left. Fortunately, Miao He and Tao Yan Bai also lived in the Imperial Astronomical Bureau; Seeing Miao Zhen quickly fetched them.

The three laid Pan Yun flat. Tao Yan Bai immediately inserted needles into her. Miao He and Seeing Miao Zhen each seized one of her arms, rolled up her sleeves, and struck her elbow creases.

A person can live without a soul, but not without a heartbeat.

Losing the soul makes one a living corpse; losing the heartbeat makes one a corpse outright.

So the three worked as swiftly as possible to restore Pan Yun's heartbeat.

Though the soul was gone, the body's instincts remained—the silver needles pierced her, stimulating the heart.

The rhythmic strikes on both elbows soon triggered the heart to beat again.

Miao He pressed his ear to Pan Yun's chest, listened, then exhaled: "It's beating."

Tao Yan Bai finally collapsed onto the floor, feeling his back soaked and cold—he had broken into a cold sweat.

Only then did Miao He remember to ask: "What happened? Did some demon dare enter the palace to harm someone?"

Tao Yan Bai also turned to Seeing Miao Zhen: "How powerful a demon could have harmed Little Master Shu so silently?"

After thinking, Seeing Miao Zhen said: "It must be that Little Master Shu deliberately detached her spirit."

Miao He and Tao Yan Bai fell silent.

Because of this, the three dared not make a sound and closed the door.

Fortunately, Pan Yun disliked having servants nearby, so the entire courtyard housed only their four junior disciples—no one else had been alarmed yet.

Once Pan Yun's heartbeat stabilized, the three lifted her onto the bed and waited for her spirit to return.

But by dawn, not only was Little Master Shu's spirit nowhere to be found, even Xiaohei had vanished.

Meanwhile, Miao He and Tao Yan Bai were still serving as translators for the Third Prince; they were supposed to leave the palace early that morning for the guesthouse to receive orders.

Seeing Miao Zhen's expression grew darker. She ordered Miao He and Tao Yan Bai to stay at the Imperial Astronomical Bureau to care for Pan Yun, while she left the palace to request leave for them and took out her compass to search for Pan Yun and Xiaohei's whereabouts.

Unfortunately, she found nothing.

Seeing Miao Zhen quietly sought out Pan Hong, quietly plucked two hairs from his head, and expended considerable effort to divine Pan Yun's location.

Unfortunately, Pan Yun was too powerful—she could only determine a rough direction.

South.

Seeing Miao Zhen's heart stirred; she vaguely felt it was the direction of Mount Sanqing.

Seeing Miao Zhen wasted no time. She immediately rented a fine horse and rode south, changing mounts without regard to cost, and reached Jinan Prefecture in three days.

She carried a scroll of yellow talismans, capable of contacting Miao He.

Pan Yun had given them this during their time on the grasslands, to summon help if they encountered danger.

Over three days, they communicated through the yellow talismans. As the talismans dwindled, Seeing Miao Zhen still had not found any trace of Pan Yun's spirit, and Miao He reported that Pan Yun's vital signs were growing weaker.

Staying at an inn outside Jinan Prefecture, Seeing Miao Zhen stared blankly for a long while, then finally took out from her space the statue of the Mountain God, talismans, and incense candles, and prayed to her Ancestor and Senior Brother for aid.

She only hoped her Senior Brother was currently at the Mountain God Temple—or in the Three Pure Ones Pavilion atop Mount Sanqing.

The yellow talisman burned to ash before her eyes. Seeing Miao Zhen turned, mounted her horse, and rode back to Jingcheng through the night.

Three days to go, but on the return trip she saved the time spent using the compass to locate the soul, and rode day and night—she returned to Jingcheng in two days.

When she dismounted, her legs buckled, nearly collapsing to the ground.

The palace guards saw her and greeted her warmly: "Master Seeing Miao Zhen has returned."

Seeing Miao Zhen paused, then asked: "Has anything happened in the palace recently?"

"Nothing. Everyone's preparing birthday gifts for the State Preceptor. Oh, your Senior Brother just entered the palace."

Hearing this, Seeing Miao Zhen perked up and hurried into the palace.

Wang Feiyin had only just emerged from the mountains this morning to forage for food when he received the message.

He had been in seclusion deep in the mountains, naturally fasting, until he grew so hungry he ventured out to eat a bowl of rice noodles.

He finished as the morning sun first shone—it was the best time of day.

On such a bright morning, he thought he hadn't visited the temple in a long while, and decided to open the door for his free medical clinic.

But when he opened the door, he saw tears glinting in the eyes of the Mountain God statue. He rushed forward and found an old yellow talisman beneath its feet, bearing messy handwriting.

Others might not recognize it, but he instantly knew it was Seeing Miao Zhen's script.

The moment he read its message, Wang Feiyin did not hesitate—he flew straight toward Jingcheng.

The once-bright sky instantly darkened with clouds.

Villagers living at the foot of Mount Sanqing were used to this; they looked up, then called to their families: "Go home and gather the soybeans—rain's coming."

"July weather—like a child's mood. This damn sky's too fickle."

They grumbled as they hurried back to collect their drying soybeans, wheat, and other crops.

In the palace, Pan Yun's soul-loss could no longer be hidden from the Emperor.

The Emperor arrived with the Director of the Imperial Medical Bureau to examine her, but the Director said Pan Yun's body was perfectly healthy—she should live another hundred years or more. As for this condition, he had no solution.

Soul-loss was beyond his diagnostic scope.

The Emperor agreed—special matters required specialists. He summoned the five Chief Officials of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau.

The five Chief Officials each examined Pan Yun, confirmed her spirit had departed, then simply set up an altar in the courtyard and joined forces to call her soul back. But instead of retrieving her soul, they were violently repelled, spitting blood and nearly fainting.

Wang Feiyin arrived just as the five collapsed—right at noon.

The five, still spitting blood, summarized their failure to the Emperor: "Soul-calling is usually done at dusk. But since the State Preceptor is supremely yang, we chose noon. Now it seems we should have chosen dusk."

"That's right, Your Majesty. Let us rest for half a day, and we'll try again at dusk when the sun is about to set."

The Emperor looked at them with a face full of doubt: "You— can you really do it?"

He felt the five officials were utterly useless, but since they had been injured for the National Preceptor's sake, he could not bring himself to say anything hurtful.