Chapter 3: The beginning of the movement of the dark world, tempering the body and concentrating the energy

The dead silence in the hut didn't last long, soon broken by the faint sound of commotion and footsteps in the distance. Ye Li forced herself to support her weakened body and listened. It was the cries of Wang Pozi and Li San, mixed with Night Wolf's characteristic, violent curses, coming from this direction.

Obviously, the evil slave called for help.

In her current state, she wouldn't stand a chance against Night Wolf, let alone two more strong servants. Her intimidating aura and trickery were no match for the sheer numerical superiority and disparity in strength.

Can't stay here!

The thought was crystal clear. A cold glint flashed in Ye Li's eyes, and without the slightest hesitation, she gritted her teeth, ignoring the excruciating pain that tore through her body as she suddenly rolled off the bed. Her body hit the cold ground, causing her vision to go black and nearly faint.

"Cough..." A fishy and sweet taste rose up in her throat, but she swallowed it hard.

She couldn't leave any traces. She glanced at the bloody wood stubble and scattered bloodstains on the floor. She wiped the bloodstains away with a corner of her worn quilt, laboriously and quickly, then kicked the wood stubble to the deepest part under the bed. By the time she was done, she was panting, her thin clothes soaked with sweat.

Must leave immediately!

She held onto the wall and stumbled to her feet. Every step she took was met with a piercing pain in her chest, the rubbing of broken bones almost making it impossible for her to move. She glanced around the shabby room; the original owner had nothing, nothing to bring with them.

The only way to survive is the vague impression of a remote place in the back mountain deep in the original owner's memory.

She took a deep breath, suppressed the surging blood and qi, and with the powerful power of her spirit and soul, she forcibly suppressed the pain in her body and staggered to the back window. The window was shabby, the latch long broken. With her last bit of strength, she pushed open a crack, and with difficulty, her thin body squeezed out, falling into the weeds behind the house.

Almost at the moment when her figure disappeared behind the window, the dilapidated wooden door of the cottage was kicked open fiercely and completely shattered!

Yelang rushed in with a face full of anger, followed by Wang Po, who was crying and had her hands bandaged, Li San, who was groaning with blood on his forehead, and a few collateral relatives who came to watch the fun or cheer after hearing the news.

"Ye Li! You piece of trash! Get out here!" Ye Lang roared, his eyes scanning the house like a poisonous snake.

However, the room was empty. There was only cold air, a faint trace of blood on the floor that hadn't been completely wiped clean, and a faint smell of blood that hadn't yet dissipated in the air.

"Where are the people?!" Yelang turned his head suddenly and glared at Wang Po and Li San fiercely.

The two were dumbfounded. They had just left for a while, so how could that severely injured loser disappear?

"Wolf...Master Wolf, she was clearly just..." Mrs. Wang stuttered.

"You useless piece of shit! You couldn't even keep a half-dead man under control!" Night Wolf slapped the other side of Wang Po's face, sending stars through her eyes, yet she dared not utter a single sound. His eyes darted sinisterly across the empty bed and the shabby, open back window, and he snorted coldly, "She must have gotten away! She can't have gotten far! Search her! Even if we have to turn this servants' quarters upside down, we'll find that little bitch! Anyone who dares to hurt me will be made to suffer a fate worse than death!"

A group of people rushed out of the hut and began to search the area. The shouting and rummaging sounds broke the silence in the area.

At this moment, Ye Li, relying on her keen sense of danger and the familiarity of the area from the original owner's memory, had already moved towards the back mountain with difficulty along the darkest and most inconspicuous corners and paths.

She moved very slowly, each step feeling like she was treading on the edge of a knife. Her body was extremely weak, her vision sometimes clear and sometimes blurry, and she was only supported by her willpower to not give up.

Dodging patrolling guards, avoiding working servants, and avoiding paths where people might be, she was like a silent shadow, moving through the desolate land on the edge of the Night Palace in the dim light of dusk.

The wound opened again as she moved, blood seeping out, staining her clothes red. Cold sweat trickled down her pale cheeks, dripping into the dust. Her lungs strained like bellows, and every breath brought a sharp pain in her chest.

But she always gritted her teeth, her eyes cold and determined, and moved closer and closer to the direction of her memory.

Finally, when the setting sun completely sank into the horizon, leaving only a dark red glow on the horizon, she walked through a thorn bush half a person's height, and the view before her suddenly opened up.

This place was deep in the mountains behind the Ye family, rarely visited. Ancient trees towered, vines tangled, and the air was filled with the damp scent of rotting vegetation and earth. And not far ahead of her, beneath a slippery, mossy rock wall, there lay a remarkably hidden recess.

If you don't look carefully, it's hard to find.

Ye Li pushed aside the hanging vines and stumbled in. The entrance was narrow, only wide enough for one person to pass through, but once inside, there was a different world inside, a small world only two or three meters square.

As soon as he entered here, Ye Li keenly felt that the temperature here was obviously much lower than outside, and the air was filled with a strange, refreshing coolness!

Her eyes were instantly drawn to it.

In the corner of the stone wall, a graceful, emerald green grass quietly grew. It had three oval leaves, its veins shimmering like shimmering light. In the center of each leaf, a drop of transparent liquid, like a dewdrop, was about to form. In the dim light, it emitted a faint, yet pure, glow.

"Dew Condensing Grass!" Ye Li's heart skipped a beat as she recognized this spiritual herb. Although it was only a low-grade, first-grade spiritual herb, the pure yin energy it contained was undoubtedly a timely help to her at this moment! This one was especially effective as it was about to mature.

What surprised her even more was that next to the dew-condensing grass, right at the base of the stone wall, there was a small pool of water, no bigger than a washbasin, with a clear bottom. Visible wisps of white cold air were curling up from the pool, coating the surrounding stone walls with a thin layer of white frost.

Cold spring!

Ye Li suppressed his excitement, squatted down, stretched out his fingers and gently touched the water.

The biting cold instantly spread up her fingertips, nearly freezing her! But at the same time, this extreme cold seemed to carry a strange vitality, stimulating her almost numb body.

There's no doubt about it! This cold spring is definitely not ordinary spring water. It must contain some kind of cold and yin spiritual essence!

This place is indeed her hope of survival!

She no longer hesitated. The dew-condensing grass wasn't fully ripe yet, and picking it hastily would greatly reduce its effectiveness. And this cold spring was exactly what she needed most right now.

She needed to use this extreme cold to stimulate this almost necrotic body and force the air into her body!

The process was destined to be extremely painful and even dangerous, but she had no choice.

Ye Li sat cross-legged beside the cold spring, taking a deep breath of the icy air, her eyes determined. She slowly closed her eyes, focused her mind, and began to follow the basic principles of the "Youhuan Emperor Sutra," trying to sense the extremely thin spiritual energy that existed in the world around her.

However, the first step is extremely difficult.

This body's aptitude was truly poor, its meridians severely clogged, like a river clogged with silt, preventing effective circulation. Her spiritual perception far surpassed that of ordinary people, allowing her to clearly "see" those faint points of light (spiritual particles) in the air, yet she struggled to activate them, much less absorb them into her body.

She tried several times, but each time failed. Her body remained lifeless, and only the pain from her wounds and broken bones continued to consume her spirit.

We can’t wait any longer!

Ye Li suddenly opened her eyes, a ruthless look flashing across them. She stretched out her hands and resolutely dipped them into the icy spring water!

"hiss--!"

The extreme coldness, like countless steel needles, instantly pierced her palms and spread wildly along her arms! Severe pain! Indescribable pain! It felt as if her blood and bones were being frozen apart! Her body trembled violently and uncontrollably, her face instantly turning purple, and her teeth chattered.

This is simply self-abuse!

But under the stimulation of this extreme cold, her body, on the verge of collapse, seemed to be forcibly activated by some kind of survival instinct! Qi and blood (albeit weak) began to flow faster, trying to resist the severe cold outside!

Now is the time!

Ye Li clings to the last shred of clarity in her spirit, frantically practicing the Qi-inducing techniques of the "Emperor's Scripture of the Netherworld"! Her powerful spiritual power, like the most precise chisel, guides the feeble Qi and blood that has been invigorated by the cold, while desperately pulling at the sparse spiritual light points in the surrounding air!

The pain was magnified tenfold, a hundredfold! The stinging pain from the cold, the throbbing pain from the meridians being forcibly impacted, the exhaustion from the soul pulling its energy... all these pains intertwined, nearly tearing her consciousness apart!

Her body trembled like a leaf in the wind, veins popping out on her forehead, and the cold sweat that just seeped out was frozen into ice crystals by the surrounding chill. Her lip was bitten, and blood flowed out, freezing instantly.

But she never pulled her hand out of the cold spring!

Willpower! Li Zun's unbreakable will, tempered through countless years, played a crucial role at this moment! She treated all the pain as a test, and transformed all the unwillingness into strength!

An unknown amount of time passed, but just when she felt her consciousness was about to be completely drowned by the cold and pain, and her spiritual power was about to be exhausted—

A faint, almost negligible, ice-blue energy spot was finally captured by her tenacious will, and slowly and arduously seeped into her body along her fingertips immersed in the cold spring!

Success!

Although there was only a trace of it, it was undoubtedly the true spiritual energy! Moreover, it seemed to be influenced by the cold spring, and this trace of spiritual energy carried a pure cold attribute!

Ye Li's spirit suddenly perked up, not daring to relax at all. He immediately guided this strand of icy spiritual energy that was thinner than a hair, and attacked the first blocked meridian according to the route of the "Youhuan Emperor Sutra"!

"boom!"

Like a blunt knife cutting flesh! Though the trace of spiritual energy was weak, it was like a flood and a beast to the completely blocked and fragile meridians! Every advance brought a sharp pain like scraping bones and tearing out the heart!

The blocked impurities were forcibly pushed aside and crushed bit by bit. The meridian walls were stretched and groaned under the heavy burden, as if they would burst at any moment.

Ye Li's body was tense, and every impact made her tremble violently, as if she were enduring the torture of slow slicing. Her consciousness was almost blurred, and she persevered solely by instinct and a fierce determination to not give up.

The "Emperor's Scripture of the Dark World" was too powerful, requiring extremely high quality and precise manipulation of spiritual energy. The little spiritual energy she absorbed was too little and too slow to smoothly support the operation of the technique. The powerful demands of the technique and the meager energy supply created a huge and despairing contradiction.

Progress is appallingly slow.

However, just when she felt she was about to run out of energy and was about to fail——

Deep in the soul, the fragment of the reincarnation mirror that had been silent for a long time trembled slightly again.

A stream of cool air, even clearer than before, poured down upon her soul like nectar. Her perception, previously dulled by extreme fatigue and pain, suddenly became sharper! The precision with which she controlled the faint spiritual energy within her body also suddenly increased to a higher level!

As if a nearsighted person had suddenly put on the right glasses, the previously blurry meridians and the trajectory of spiritual energy became much clearer. She could control the spiritual energy more precisely, avoiding the most vulnerable points and choosing the path of least resistance. She could even use this spiritual energy more efficiently to impact blockages!

Efficiency is instantly improved!

"puff!"

It was as if some kind of barrier was broken through, and accompanied by an indescribable pain and a sense of comfort, the icy spiritual energy finally, with difficulty, but successfully penetrated the most important section of the first meridian!

Although it was only a preliminary breakthrough, extremely narrow, and only a short distance had been completed, it meant that the spiritual energy could finally form a weak circulation in her body!

Drawing Qi into the body, success!

Almost at the same time, the sparse spiritual light spots between heaven and earth began to spontaneously and slowly converge towards her body. Although the speed was still pitifully slow, she was no longer completely isolated.

She officially entered the first realm of cultivation - the initial stage of the Spiritual Awakening Realm!

“Hu…Hu…”

Ye Li suddenly pulled her hands out of the cold spring and fell backwards as if she had collapsed. She collapsed on the cold ground and gasped for breath. Her hands were numb and blue with cold, and she had almost no feeling.

The dirty, fishy-smelling sweat that was expelled from her body was almost instantly frozen by the cold air here, making her look quite disheveled.

But her eyes were surprisingly bright!

Success! She finally found a way out of her desperate situation!

She carefully felt the changes in her body. Although she was still weak and her chest still ached, an unprecedented sense of relief began to spread from the meridian that had been initially opened, slowly spreading throughout her body. It was as if a heavy, invisible shackle had been lifted.

There seemed to be an imperceptible force flowing inside the body.

She struggled to sit up, her gaze once again fixed on the cold spring. After the recent consumption, the water seemed to have become a fraction shallower. And at the bottom, near a crack in the stone wall, she vaguely caught a fleeting glimpse of a faint, dark blue light, distinct from the light of the water itself.

"That's..." Ye Li's mind raced. Could it be that the source of this cold spring contained something else? Some kind of cold mineral? Or perhaps a tiny spiritual vein connecting to a deeper place?

This discovery warmed her heart. It meant that this place might be able to support her cultivation for a longer period of time.

She looked at the dew-condensing grass again. The dewdrops at its center seemed to have solidified a bit, and the glow it emitted was slightly brighter. She estimated that it would be fully mature in a day or two.

Hope is right in front of us.

Ye Li sat cross-legged, no longer relying on the cold spring's self-torturing stimulation. She began to actively practice the "Youhuan Emperor Sutra", absorbing the thin spiritual energy in the air, slowly nourishing and widening the meridians that had just been opened, and warming her severely damaged body.

With the occasional cool airflow emitted by the fragments of the Samsara Mirror to help stabilize her soul and enhance her perception, her control over spiritual energy, although still difficult, was far more accurate and efficient than that of an ordinary beginner.

The speed of cultivation was still despairingly slow, but in the end, it was no longer hopeless.

The night completely enveloped this hidden world. Only the dew-condensing grass emitted a faint glow, reflecting the girl's pale but resolute face.

She is like a dormant young animal, silently licking her wounds in silence and cold, accumulating strength, waiting for the moment to break out of the cocoon.

The hustle and bustle and searching in the distant Night Mansion seemed to have nothing to do with this world.

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