It was all for her?
Suppressing the strange feeling in her heart, Gu Jinghong left Xiao Chengyan's residence seemingly calmly.
The lingering slight pain in her wrist, along with a surge of cold anger and melancholy in her heart, made her just want to find a quiet place to calm down.
However, she hadn't gone far, and before she could even sort out her chaotic thoughts, a clear, urgent voice rang out from behind her: "Ah Hong, come with me quickly!"
Gu Jinghong paused, turned around, and saw Xuan Ru walking quickly toward her with an anxious expression on her face.
"Aru, what's the matter that you're in such a hurry?" Gu Jinghong frowned, a sense of foreboding creeping into her heart at Xuanru's expression.
"There's no time to explain!" Xuan Ru grabbed her arm and ran towards Xie Yan's bamboo hut.
"The Cold Marrow within Xie Yan's body suddenly erupted, more violently and rapidly than expected. This may be the only chance to remove it! I need you to protect him."
Xuan Ru spoke very quickly, “That chilling power is frantically devouring his life force. Ordinary internal energy can’t even get close, let alone protect his heart meridian. Only the extremely soft yet resilient internal energy you cultivate can penetrate the cold energy and form a barrier within his body to protect his heart meridian and dantian. Only then can I be confident in using acupuncture to remove the source of the cold!”
"The Cold Marrow has erupted?" Gu Jinghong's heart tightened, and he immediately realized the seriousness of the situation. He turned around and followed Xuan Ru's footsteps. The two of them rushed towards Xie Yan's bamboo hut at almost the fastest speed.
As soon as Gu Jinghong pushed open the door, she smelled a strong medicinal odor permeating the room, and felt her body enveloped by a strange, chilling aura.
Xie Yan lay on his back on the couch, his upper body naked, his face a strange bluish-gray, with tiny frost crystals condensing on his skin.
His jaw clenched, and his body convulsed uncontrollably. Each spasm pulled on the bandages on his chest, causing dark red bloodstains to seep out.
A beastly growl escaped his throat, and veins bulged on his forehead, clearly indicating that he was enduring inhuman pain.
Xuanru quickly opened the medicine box, took out several special long needles that were as thin as cow hair but shimmered with a dark golden luster, and laid out an ancient leather scroll to the side. The scroll was covered with complex human meridian diagrams and obscure runes.
Her voice was cold and urgent as she looked at the two young apprentices, "You two, help me hold him down, especially his arms and head!"
Then, she looked at Gu Jinghong, "Ah Hong, protect his heart meridian and dantian. Make sure these two core areas are not instantly frozen by the cold air when I insert the needles. Your internal energy is both gentle and resilient; it's the only force that can penetrate the cold air and form a barrier at this moment!"
Gu Jinghong hummed in response, quickly stepped forward, and swiftly placed her hands on Xie Yan's icy chest and lower abdomen.
A pure and dense internal force, like countless resilient spider silks, slowly seeped in, painstakingly constructing two shaky defensive lines amidst the raging cold current.
"Begin," Xuan Ru said in a low voice, her eyes focused.
She moved with lightning speed, her golden needles piercing Xie Yan's major acupoints—Baihui, Shenting, Tanzhong, Qihai, Yongquan… Each needle strike was accompanied by an even more shrill scream and a more violent struggle from Xie Yan.
Gu Jinghong could clearly feel that as the golden needles pierced through, waves of extremely violent and cold power, like enraged poisonous dragons, were frantically attacking the internal energy barrier she had constructed.
The chill crept up her arm, almost freezing her meridians!
She gritted her teeth and endured it, her face quickly turning pale. She had never felt such a pure and terrifying chilling power before.
As Xuanru applied the acupuncture needles, Xie Yan's facial expression became increasingly distorted, and his body became increasingly out of control.
Xuanru remained focused on inserting needles into various acupoints on Xie Yan's body, using needles of varying lengths and thicknesses.
"Ugh—" After an unknown amount of time, Xie Yan's scream suddenly rose in pitch and became inhuman.
Just as Xuan Ru pierced his back into the Zhiyangxue acupoint, a sudden change occurred!
A thick, dark, chilling aura suddenly erupted from Xie Yan's seven orifices, causing the temperature in the entire room to plummet.
Xie Yan's deeply buried nightmares surged forth like demons breaking free of their shackles.
"No, don't come any closer! Let her go! Let Ah Hong go!" Xie Yan's eyes were wide open, but his pupils were unfocused and lifeless, filled with a childlike fear and despair.
He stopped struggling with his body and instead waved his hands wildly in the air, as if trying to push away an unseen demon.
"I...I'll do it, I'll kill! I'll kill, okay?! Please...save her...save Ah Hong!" His voice was hoarse and broken, filled with a broken sob, and a deep-seated humiliation and pleading!
"Blood, so much blood... It smells so bad, I can't wash it off..."
"Sugar...give me sugar...sweet, I want sweet..." He pleaded helplessly, like a drowning man seeking driftwood.
Gu Jinghong was struck dumb, and the hand that was channeling internal energy trembled violently, almost having its defenses breached by the violent cold air.
But only for a moment, she forced herself to calm down again, and her inner strength entangled her once more.
Xie Yan's fragmented murmurs seemed to piece together a cruel and distant scene in her mind.
She finally remembered that when she first met Xie Yan at Zhuoyue Tower, he was just a warm-smiling young man. However, after Gu Jinghong fell seriously ill, she found that Xie Yan had changed drastically after waking up. From then on, he embarked on a sinister and twisted path, never to return.
—Could it be that Xie Yan became increasingly sinister because she was coerced into planting the Cold Follower? Was all of this for the "Ah Hong" he mentioned earlier, who is... herself, whom he has always treated like a toy?
The immense shock and indescribable guilt overwhelmed Gu Jinghong instantly.
Just then, Xie Yan's body arched upwards suddenly. His unfocused pupils seemed to catch Gu Jinghong's figure so close at hand. His hand, which was not completely controlled by the Xuanru Golden Needle, instinctively grabbed Gu Jinghong's wrist, which was covering his chest and transmitting internal energy.
The force was so great, it was like a drowning person desperately grabbing onto the last piece of driftwood.
"Ugh!" Gu Jinghong felt a sharp pain in his wrist, and the flow of internal energy was almost interrupted.
“Ah Hong…” Xie Yan’s eyes were fixed on Gu Jinghong’s direction, but his gaze was terrifyingly empty, filled only with endless pain and a deep-seated dependence.
His lips moved, his broken voice, tinged with sobs and pleading, piercing the cold air: "Ah Hong...it hurts...it's so cold...don't go..."
That call, like a heavy shackle, instantly locked Gu Jinghong's soul.
Xuan Ru was startled by the sudden change and the delirious murmur, but she quickly regained her composure and said sternly, "Gu Jinghong, calm yourself! Protect your heart! He's crying for help! Subconsciously, he only accepts your power!"
Gu Jinghong took a deep breath, suppressing his turbulent emotions, and firmly grasped Xie Yan's cold, trembling hand with his other hand. With even more stability and focus, he continuously channeled his dense and resilient internal energy to Xie Yan, protecting his heart meridian.
"Xie Yan, hold on!" Her voice wasn't loud, but it pierced through Xie Yan's chaotic consciousness.
Seizing this fleeting moment of stability, Xuan Ru's eyes sharpened, and she thrust the last, thickest, and longest dark gold needle in her hand deep into Xie Yan's Baihui acupoint on the top of his head!
"Pfft—!" Xie Yan's body shuddered violently, and he spat out a mouthful of black blood mixed with ice shards.
At the same time, a chilling black aura was forcibly drawn out from the Baihui acupoint on the top of his head by the golden needles. The black aura twisted and swirled in the air, emitting a faint but teeth-grinding shriek, and was finally absorbed and sealed by a jade bottle engraved with runes by Xuan Ru.
As this core essence was stripped away, Xie Yan's spasms visibly lessened, the frost on his body began to melt, and the bluish-gray color quickly faded, leaving only extreme paleness and weakness from his severe injuries.
He grabbed Gu Jinghong's hand, but the grip gradually loosened, and he finally slipped down. It was as if all his bones had been removed, and he slumped softly onto the bed, falling into a deep, relatively stable coma.
However, the deep pain and fear between his brows had not completely dissipated.
Inside the room, the suffocating chill slowly dissipated, leaving only the heavy smell of blood and medicine, and a profound silence of relief after a catastrophe.
Xuan Ru let out a long sigh, her face turning somewhat pale.
She quickly checked Xie Yan's condition and confirmed that his pulse was stable and that the devastating cold had been removed from a critical part, so it would not be fatal for the time being.
Gu Jinghong slowly withdrew her hand, revealing several purplish-blue finger marks on her wrist.
She looked at Xie Yan, who was still unconscious and looked extremely fragile, with a complex expression in her eyes.
Shock, guilt, heaviness, a sense of bewilderment... and the soul-shaking tremor brought by those cries of "Ah Hong" and "Save me" lingered for a long time.
Xuan Ru tidied up the gold needles, her gaze sweeping over Gu Jinghong's distraught appearance and the bruises on her wrists, then looking at the unconscious Xie Yan, and sighed softly.
"The core of the Cold Marrow Inducing Technique has been partially removed. Although the remaining parts in his body are still troublesome, at least they will not be as fatal as they are now, and there is a possibility of a complete cure. However... this technique is too deeply entangled with his mind and spirit. The process of removing it is equivalent to tearing open his deepest mental defenses."
Gu Jinghong looked at Xuan Ru, her lips moved, but she couldn't utter a single word.
Xuan Ru, with her clear eyes, sat beside Gu Jinghong by Xie Yan's bedside and handed him a bottle of ointment, saying, "It's for promoting blood circulation and removing blood stasis."
Gu Jinghong silently took the ointment, looking down at it, but her gaze seemed to be looking at something else beyond the ointment. Then, she gave a very tired smile.
With Xie Yan's pained expression still fresh in her mind, Gu Jinghong couldn't believe that Xie Yan had become so sinister and ruthless... all to protect her?
Judging from his fragmented words, he was probably begging for help to save her, but the other party demanded that Xie Yan kill someone in order to save her. He was afraid of blood, but he was even more afraid that she would die in front of him, so he had no choice but to commit his first murder...
What about the "Cold Marrow Inducing Technique"? Was it planted in Xie Yan because the person controlling him disliked the warmth emanating from him?
A person's image flashed through Gu Jinghong's mind, and her hand gripping the medicine bottle suddenly tightened.
Seeing this, Xuan Ru silently put her arm around Gu Jinghong's shoulder, and the two of them sat close together.
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