Chapter 345

“Young Master, it’s time to rest.”

In the blink of an eye, night fell, stars and moon shifting across the sky.

Ji You, who had been in meditation at the tea table, heard Ding Yao’s call and slowly opened his eyes.

He had just internally surveyed his body and found it utterly chaotic; the injured areas still bore terrifying traces.

This was after three months of care—he couldn’t imagine what his body had looked like at the start.

That wife-replacement array must be used with caution in the future.

Ji You exhaled softly, then leaned against the wall and sat down on the bed.

Ding Yao and Zhuo Wanqiu, barefoot and with snow-white soles, stepped down from the prepared bed and helped him onto it.

“Clothes should be properly stored.”

“?”

Ding Yao paused, then spotted a pink belly band beneath the pillow; she immediately snatched it up and, cheeks flushed, shoved it into Zhuo Wanqiu’s hands.

They strictly followed the Master’s orders, attending to him day and night, fearing someone from the Heavenly Book Academy might harm him—so for these three months, they had taken turns guarding his bed, sometimes changing clothes right there for convenience.

Zhuo Wanqiu took the belly band, glanced at it, and thought: My sister’s being excessive—mine was already put away.

Seeing this, Ji You narrowed his eyes without expression, thinking: These two girls must’ve done something intimate while I was unconscious—this reminded him of the one part of him that had been fully alive when he first awoke.

He had been unconscious then; it couldn’t have been his own desire—it must have been external force.

When morning came, Ji You slowly woke at dawn, and Dan Yangzi’s first batch of pills arrived, handed to him to swallow, with the pill’s radiance used to catalyze its effect.

The medicine’s power sank deep through his meridians, and Ji You gradually felt a warm current flowing steadily within him, his body slowly relaxing.

It took half an hour to activate the medicine; Dan Yangzi gently retracted the pill’s radiance into his palm: “Your original body was too weak to withstand the potency, absorbing slowly—but now that you’ve awakened and can eat on your own, your recovery time will shorten significantly, and your pace will gradually accelerate.”

Ji You clenched his fists, feeling pain in his arms: “But I still can’t grip anything—I struggle to even stand on my legs.”

“This has nothing to do with your injuries—it’s because you’ve been depleted for too long, your essence severely drained. This can only be slowly replenished. Until then, I advise you use a wheelchair.”

“A wheelchair?”

Dan Yangzi stroked his long beard: “I’ve already instructed the Administration Hall disciples to buy one—they’ll bring it shortly. With your current condition, every expenditure of energy must be minimized.”

Ji You shrugged, thinking: Fine, a wheelchair then.

He had always presented himself as a brute since cultivating his body; appearing like a muscle-bound simpleton. A wheelchair might make him seem more mysterious.

After giving further instructions, Dan Yangzi rose and left Jixiang Hall.

Ding Yao, who had accompanied the visit, stood and began combing Ji You’s hair and changing his clothes.

“Where’s Wanqiu?”

“She went to fetch breakfast. I’ll wash you first.”

Ding Yao fetched water, adjusted the temperature, then stood aside with a silk cloth.

Soon after, Zhuo Wanqiu returned with the meal: “How is the Young Master feeling?”

“I’ll remain an invalid for a while longer—you’ll have to keep tending to me for a few more days.”

“It’s no trouble. Our duty is to care for the Young Master.”

Ji You took the silk cloth from Ding Yao and wiped his face, thinking: Their answers sound almost cheerful.

The three then ate breakfast together; at that moment, the Administration Hall disciples arrived with the wheelchair and delivered a verbal order from Zuoyang: Ji You was to report to Zizai Hall.

The disaster had passed. Ji You had nearly lost his life trying to sever the final Heavenly Sacrifice—he needed to know the full story.

Yesterday, upon waking, he had asked about it, but You Yingqiu said his spirit was too weak, told him to rest tonight, and speak tomorrow. Now, Lord Zuoyang’s summons was surely about this.

After breakfast, Ji You sat in the wheelchair, and Ding Yao pushed him out of the great hall toward Zizai Peak.

The wooden wheelchair moved slowly, jolting over potholes, and getting stuck in deeper ones.

“The Heavenly Book Academy’s roads are terrible—not nearly as good as our Spirit Sword Mountain.”

Though Ding Yao was a cultivator and found it effortless, she couldn’t help muttering complaints.

“These roads haven’t been repaired in a hundred years—since disciples here ascend and descend by flying, the need is low. But they really should be fixed.”

Ji You murmured, then saw the current Patriarch, You Yingqiu, approaching from the right cliff; he bowed his fists in greeting.

Seeing this, You Yingqiu nodded slightly.

The wheelchair continued rumbling over the rough path until it halted before the gates of Zizai Hall.

Zuoyang was already seated inside, waiting; he rose as Ji You arrived: “How is your condition?”

“Thanks to your grace, my recovery is progressing well. Elder Dan Yangzi says my injuries are no longer critical—only some essence depletion remains to be replenished.”

“Good.”

Zuoyang led them into the hall and sat with them in the tea pavilion: “Sister said you asked about the investigation into the disaster yesterday?”

Ji You nodded: “Everything before was speculation. Now that I’m awake, I can’t help wondering—did you capture any live captives?”

“We did. We interrogated them. Their testimony differs slightly from what we said at the Cloud Mist Cliff—but not by much. You can see the details in the case files.”

As he spoke, Zuoyang pulled out a thick stack of documents.

Ding Yao took them and placed them before Ji You; the ink-scented pages slowly turned as his fingers moved.

The first half consisted of testimonies from the captured captives, detailing their planning from the outset to the outbreak of the corpse tide.

“The timeline isn’t the same?”

“Correct. According to their testimonies, apart from the Chu, Li, Zhu, and Zhuang families, the other clans involved joined at different times.”

Ji You returned his gaze to the documents, reading carefully.

Families like Du, Bai, and Liu—all centuries-old clans—were gradually invited by the Chu, Li, Zhuang, and Zhu families to join the grand scheme.

They were invited because they already had strong personal ties and shared grievances against the Immortal Sects—or long-standing ambitions.

Their activities centered primarily on Qiling; the first ruin they opened was that one.

But as suspected, they soon discovered the relics’ contents were incompatible with Heaven’s Dao.

They paid a heavy price—numerous young heirs perished—and began a long series of attempts to deceive Heaven’s Dao and extract the immortal fortune.

According to them, the immortal fortune within the ruin had high compatibility with all things—the fruits saturated with Heaven’s power were proof.

Thus, the key to extracting the immortal fortune lay in the container.

They tested every material available in Qingyun, and by accident discovered infants were the best containers.

At this point, Ji You’s fingers tightened slightly, crumpling the page.

Zuoyang glanced at the passage he was reading: “Infants are pure new life, entirely untainted. I asked Sister—you confirmed that, according to Heavenly Destiny techniques, Heaven’s Dao, though supreme, has no right to destroy newborns. That’s why they could extract the immortal fortune.”

“Using infant bodies to shield against Heaven’s punishment.”

“Precisely.”

Ji You fell silent and continued reading.

After discovering infants could serve as containers, these monsters prepared batch after batch of infants, using them to absorb the immortal fortune and extract it as pills to swallow.

But they hadn’t anticipated that even after such elaborate efforts, the cultivators who swallowed the pills still turned into monstrous, demonic seeds—and even at certain realms, faced annihilation again.

So they began seeking alternative absorption methods, experimenting on cultivators with low visibility to circumvent this flaw.

This section wasn’t overly detailed, but it answered one of Ji You’s lingering questions: the differences among demonic seeds.

Li Ruilin, Tan Chen, and others sought by Huang Yuenniang had no consciousness, like ordinary demonic seeds.

But the monsters within the ruin—including the Bu family—retained their awareness.

There were also differences in combat strength and ferocity.

Clearly, these were the results of different absorption experiments.

The later content matched what Chu Xian had described.